by JJ Partridge
I thanked Gianmarco profusely for his efforts. To Benno who had turned to listen to Gianmarco, I mouthed Protect?
His expression said, Don’t ask.
After fifteen minutes of driving through the humble outskirts of Bari, we came to a regional highway identified as the S96, with a signpost that pointed us west toward Basilicata. After Gianmarco’s lecture, we were silent for the most part, looking out at an arid, sun-parched land with thickets of scrub trees and clusters of cypresses. Gray clouds crowned the looming, foreboding fortress like mountains of the southern Appennines as the sun ate through a high haze that followed us from Bari. Soon, I heard, and felt, Gianmarco’s snore, something like that of a bull elephant. The driver eventually said “Basilicata,” and pointed to a rusty stanchion holding a metal shield with four blue wavy lines, the provincial seal of Basilicata. The shield was punctured with multiple bullet holes. Not a good omen.
Nor was I braced with confidence when we pulled over to the side of the road just past the stanchion and our driver retrieved a double barreled, sawed off shotgun with a taped stock from the BMW’s trunk and lodged it in a slot in the driver’s door. Gianmarco, who had awoken with a start when the car stopped, grumbled something I understood to be about a precaution.
S96, a strada importante, well paved up to the border, became two narrow, ill-maintained lanes, a strada con difficolta, that clung to the sides of steep ravines and dipped into valleys with rock filled gullies and dry, cracked, creek beds. We encountered little traffic as the country became even more barren, a stark, chalky, denuded moonscape. I recalled that Gianmarco or the driver at lunch remarking that no one went to Basilicata without a reason, that under Mussolini, the province was known as Lucania, home of the wolf. That made perfect sense.
Noticing the withered vegetation for want of water and soil, Benno muttered, “What do they grow here, stones?”
Gianmarco replied, with his hands emphasizing his words, that in a few days, the autumn rains would begin, thunder, hail, gales of wind, rain that would smack against the hillsides. Water would flood through the valleys further eroding the parched, barren earth, setting the stage for spring landslides; the area’s population survived until the next rainy season only because of dry farming, reservoirs, deep wells and on remittances from sons and daughters working in the North and the efforts of a male population that spent months away from home.
We continued up and down ridges, and for the first time in Italy, I saw old men driving donkeys at the sides of the road. Stray goats stood on rocky grades so steep they appeared to have upgrade legs shorter than downgrade legs. Cacti and growths of prickly pears were common wherever water might puddle long enough to let life sprout. The purplish mountains, seemingly higher and craggier, were now closer and scarred by ravines. Red-winged hawks circled slowly in updrafts of air.
The distant whitewashed villages on the hillsides were picturesque but were likely as dusty and decrepit and dilapidated as those through which S96 passed. As best I could, I followed my tourist map and identified Rocca Lauria, Marlina Colle, and Montescagliuso. Each appeared more wretched, more poverty stricken than the one just passed.
About this time, Benno, probably making conversation, told Gianmarco that Italo Palagi, the father of Vittorio Ruggieri, was the author of Caesare Forza novels. Gianmarco became animated. “Caesare Forza?” His eyes opened wide in his appreciation of Benno and me; our quest was instantaneously heightened in importance. He lit a cigarette and rambled on to Benno about Forza and being a teenager in his image. “Sono forzaissmo,” he said, flashing his crooked smile at me. I smiled back, braving his secondhand smoke with my own forzaissmo.
The BMW stopped at a crossing and a weathered signpost with a sheaf of arrows pointed to tracks toward various villages including Gianosa d’Acri. Gianmarco remarked that our destination, five kilometers towards a line of hills, was near a tributary of the far larger Agri River that flowed into the Gulfo di Taranto south of Bari. The car turned into a via blanca, an unpaved, single lane, chalky road, through acres of tilled land filled with stubbles of brown stalks, leaving a plume of dust giving fair notice of our arrival.
Gianosa d’Acri looked like it had been through its share of earthquakes and refused, stubbornly, to fall down, a place where, for some unknown historical reason, generations lived and died perched in tiers of houses above a dry, rocky valley. In the glare of the afternoon sun, its buildings were a blur of pale, scruffy, yellow with maroon tile roofs, their cracked walls showed interior bricks where stucco had fallen away. Some appeared vacant or abandoned and most had closed shutters; the only splashes of color came from brilliant flowers on second floor balconies, advertising signs of tabacchi with racks of newspapers, a neon green cross in the window of a famacia, and the lights of other tiny, shabby shops.
In the shadows of a dilapidated church, a silent crowd of plain-faced old men and black-shawled women and mangy dogs had gathered around a stone basin in the center of a cobblestone piazza with a modest, newer building identified by Italian and provincial flags as the comune. Where were the children playing kickball, the young adults? The only other car in the piazza, a dusty blue and white Fiat, was that of the polizia. We parked and instructed by Gianmarco, our driver entered the comune, soon returning with four old men dressed in black trousers, unpressed white shirts, and black jackets, followed by a portly cop in wrinkled police uniform.
We got out, the afternoon heat immediately pressing us, opening our skin pores, and shook hands all around. One elderly gent with a wide, tri-color sash across his chest, whom I assumed was the mayor, addressed us in a dialect that even Gianmarco seemed to have trouble understanding, but it made little difference as Gianmarco’s thanks were accepted and we were invited inside the comune for glasses of the grappa. After a short speech in a municipal chamber of some sort, Gianmarco learned that Camilla Ruggieri would meet us at a friend’s home outside of the village. At least that is what I got from Gianmarco. The grappa—it was a white lightning—was passed around again, our driver delivered plastic-wrapped baskets to the mayor and the policeman, and we got back into the BMW and followed a police escort around the piazza and back down the hill to another via blanca and into a cemetery.
“A cemetery?” I asked Benno.
“Yeah. Pay our respects to the Ruggieri family.”
And we did, slowly, following the polizia, our vehicles sending up white dust to isolated cypresses and statues of the Madonna, past family plots all in perfect rectangles, separated from each other by rocks and whitewashed masonry. Fresh red carnations filled vases attached to headstones and held photographs of loved ones behind thick glass frames. Benno whispered, “In the winter, they use artificial flowers. And they always make sure the photographs are clean.”
“Why us and now,” I said as we momentarily stopped in front of a large plot with numerous monuments and flowers.
“So, you’ll get a show of family and death,” he said.
My mouth opened for more explanation but he shook his head signaling silence. I thought, not exactly Swan Point.
We returned to the via blanca for five minutes along crumbling walls and washed-out gullies to a valley dotted with dusty scrub along the dry river bed of the “small” Acri and arrived at an oasis, an ochre palazzo right out of a tourist guide, except for the razor wire atop stone walls six feet high.
“What’s this?” I asked Benno, who asked Gianmarco, who said it was “Okay.”
At a grilled gate, the driver touched the car’s horn and a lean-faced, scrawny guy in a cloth cap, a vest over a long sleeve shirt, and black trousers, cigarette dangling from his lips, left the shadows and came to the car. Maybe he had shaved three or four days ago. He didn’t bother to hide the rifle slung over his shoulder. After he spoke to our driver, he opened the gate, and we drove inside the walls. Flower gardens flanked either side of the drive, mostly dusty roses, vegetables were further back under sheets of flimsy cloth, and rows of nodding sunflowers were planted along the interior wall
s. A small grove of olive trees was on one side of the shuttered palazzo; on the other side was a loggia by a brownish pool. In its shade, sat a man; a woman in a black skirt, white blouse, and black shawl stood behind him. So, the ‘friend’ of the cousin was truly a ‘friend,’ the local don. Which meant the ‘Ndrangheta.
I exhaled. To Benno, I muttered, “You’re kidding!”
“Welcome to the real Basilicata,” he replied.
Gianmarco waved his hand to quiet us.
Our driver got out, placed the shotgun on his seat, opened the trunk, and delivered the two remaining baskets to the hired help and returned to lean against the front fender of the BMW appearing to be prepared to jump back in for a hasty retreat. Gianmarco stepped forward on a gravel path and greeted the seated old man with a kiss on his offered hand; he nodded to the woman, while Benno and I remained in the car. Gianmarco spoke to the old man for several minutes before he gestured to us to come forward to be introduced. “Don Primo Briguglia,” he said.
My eyes adjusted slowly to the stark shade of the loggia. It took several seconds before I realized the Don Primo was in a wheelchair. His yellow shirt with vertical black stripes was unstarched and baggy, a straw hat covered what had to be a bald head and shadowed a wrinkled forehead and pockmarked cheeks. Tufts of white hair sprouted from his ears. His lips barely moved when he repeated our names slowly and gestured to us to sit in wicker chairs before him. An elderly stooped woman in black, wearing a black kerchief even in the heat, appeared with a tray of dark red, almost black, wine, small bottles of mineral water, sliced cheese, and a crusty loaf of bread. When she left, the don introduced the woman standing behind him as Camilla Ruggieri.
At her name being spoken, she seemed startled. She was tiny, no more than five feet tall, with parchment skin, white hair pulled back in a bun, a fog of fear on her bird-like face when she raised her worried eyes to us.
We drank the heavy tannic wine as Gianmarco, with obvious deference, informed Don Primo of our mission. This had to be more protocol because we would never have gotten this far without detailed information and bona fides given. The don didn’t respond; all the while his sharp eyes inspected Benno and me, these Americanos of interest. By now, sweat beaded on my forehead, my back was clammy, the wine went through my body like a drug. When Gianmarco finished, the old man spoke in dialect, Gianmarco answered him, and they went back and forth, both somber. I heard what I thought were paternita, patrigno, patrimonio from the old man, all words denoting duty, protection, obligations. Eventually, the old man raised his hands, seemingly granting Gianmarco’s request, and said something to Camilla Ruggieri. She sat next to the don to face us.
It was obvious she had been prepared because she began to speak before hearing Gianmarco’s questions. Gianmarco translated her dialect, breaking up her narrative. Maria Ruggieri, she said sternly, grew up too smart and too wild for country life, was testata—stubborn—and her family scraped up enough money to send her to Rome to be a nurse. While there, she became pregnant, had her baby, left him with a Catholic orphanage, and returned to work in the provincial dispensary. Didn’t tell anybody about the baby but later, somehow, the birth became known. This was a family disgrace, worse when she refused her family’s demand to name the father.
Don Briguglia interrupted her to emphasize this was an infamia. Gianmarco made the point to explain to us that to the Ruggieris, her silence meant she was unsure of the father, that there was more than one lover. She was vilified a punta, a tramp, and worse, a liability who had wasted family money with her education, a cardinal sin in the poor countryside. She was destined to be a spinster when someone born in the area returned from New York looking for a full-time nurse for his ailing mother who spoke only the local dialect. The family volunteered Maria who carried her disgrace to America.
Benno asked, through Gianmarco, “Did Maria Ruggieri ever return here?”
She responded that Maria returned only once, about a year ago. She came for an afternoon with a driver from Bari, like the “Signori.” Camilla Ruggieri was the only close family member still living in the village. When she asked about Maria’s son, Maria became angry, said that she should have gotten an abortion for all the trouble the baby had caused her, that the baby ruined her life. Saying that, Camilla Ruggieri made the sign of the Cross. Within months thereafter, the cousin heard that Maria had died in New York. Again, the sign of the Cross.
Gianmarco referenced Italo Palagi in a context I did not understand. Her eyes flickered in the direction of the don before she shook her head as though she did not recognize the name. A raised eyebrow indicated that the don was better informed.
I whispered to Benno to ask if Vittorio Ruggieri had ever visited the village and Gianmarco did so. She again looked to the don before she shook her head and said no.
The don raised his right hand from the wheelchair’s arm indicating the interview was over and began speaking in paragraphs to us, with ‘paternita and patrimoni’ coupled with Palagi. Gianmarco shook his head several times and shrugged toward me, and the old man then directed his spiel at me with negoziare—to negotiate—repeated. Gianmarco nodded sympathetically and responded in dialect. The don finished his speech by saying something to me very directly that was unintelligible and then gave me a flinty smile. He picked up his glass, looked at each of us in turn, nodded to us, and we finished our wine.
Three thousand miles, a dusty two hours from Bari, for a forty-five minute interview, and now, as it was clearly time to depart, I didn’t understand exactly what had happened.
We stood, and following Gianmarco’s lead, nodded in respect to Don Briguglia who offered his hand, which we each shook once. I thought my shake was longer than that of the others as he gave me that same smile. We then nodded our thanks to Camilla Ruggieri and returned to the BMW. Gianmarco tendered some euros to the guard “per Signora.” Our driver backed out the BMW slowly, and the gates opened and closed behind us.
44
IN THE COMFORT OF the car’s air conditioning, with bottled water from the cooler all around, Gianmarco fleshed out Camilla Ruggieri’s story. During her visit, Maria had not identified her lover because, according to the cousin, in her stubbornness, she insisted it was not the family’s business. The baby was her mistake; the father, a student, didn’t know she was pregnant when she left him. Why should he be harmed after all these years?
I asked, “Did Maria know he had become rich? Famous?”
“Yes, she boasted that he was but still wouldn’t reveal his name.”
Benno mused, “I bet the vendetta was forgotten until Camilla told people, like she would in a place like that where nothing happens and nothing is unknown, that Maria’s lover was rich. It was too good a story not to tell, one that got back to whomever, and the vendetta was on again. Anyone who collects for the family is entitled to a cut. Maria, back in New York, must have been pressured to reveal Palagi’s name before she died. That set things in motion.”
“So, you think the cousin was telling the truth?”
“Yeah. Except for the part about Vittorio. They knew all about him. You could see it in their faces.”
Gianmarco interrupted. The Ruggieri family was mostly in that cemetery, he said, the rest desperately poor, and they craved the debt of honor owed by Palagi but remained unpaid. Don Primo was now responsible to collect the debt. When Gianmarco told him Palagi was dead, which Gianmarco said surprised the old man, it was agreed that there could be some lessening of the amount due the family, so long as it was ‘giusto’—fair.
Gianmarco then spoke so rapidly in Italian to Benno that I couldn’t follow. Benno’s eyes widened and he shrugged as he translated for me. “Gianmarco promised that you would consider the situation.”
“What?”
“What should he have said? Forget it? Did you want to leave there with all your fingers and toes?”
Slow-moving trucks along the narrow road back to the border caused a series of hair-raising maneuvers in the face of oncomi
ng cars. Our driver seemed to have an innate sense to know when the car in the facing lane bearing down on us would slow to allow passage. Benno and Gianmarco began a long conversation in which I didn’t participate, hesitant that Gianmarco would ask me directly for some rendering to Caesar. For my part, I considered that in Basilicata, nothing was as simple as it might appear. While we had confirmed Palagi’s story of the vendetta and that his payment to the ‘Ndrangheta in New York never reached Basilicata, I became aware that ascertainment of the facts led to even more uncertainty.
As we approached Bari and thunderclouds squatting over the city, Benno told me it would be impolite, and impolitic, for him to leave for Rome tonight, that he should accept Gianmarco’s offer of hospitality for the evening, and that he would join me tomorrow in Rome. He would use the time to delve into Vittorio’s connection to the extortion through the family, the amount of payment that had been expected from Palagi, and flesh out family connections with the Giambazzis of New York. Also, that Gianmarco had found a seat for me on the seven-thirty Alitalia flight to Rome.
Had I missed something? Was I getting the bum’s rush out of town?
It was after midnight, six o’clock Providence time, when I arrived at the hotel. A few minutes later in my fifth floor suite, I logged on and attacked a cascade of e-mails. A few were easy deletes, others required short messages of excuse, and I was gratified that one from the Provost confirmed a meeting at Banco di San Paolo at three tomorrow afternoon; another was from Father Pietro for espresso Wednesday morning. As to Columbus Day, the Provost e-mail said:
“National news is on to other things, but locally, of course, different story. On campus, tonight, a new ad hoc group, the Campus Collective Against Racism, is planning a demonstration on The Green “to support the decision of the faculty senate of Carter University to no longer honor a destroyer of native civilizations and the rights of indigenous people.” We go on!