I went back to the paper. I reported to my news editor, who still had time to do a new layout of the front page. Filippo handed over the photograph, still wet with developer and stop bath. A photograph perfectly poised between the Middle Ages and the late twentieth century, worthy of a latter-day Bosch: a man’s head, perfectly bloodless, sitting on a black-and-white checkered car seat, surrounded by dashboard, stick shift, steering wheel; the interior of an automobile, the exterior of a nightmare. Above the full-page photograph, a banner headline screamed: “The Mystery of the Severed Head.”
Half an hour later, the newsies invaded the city waving copies of the paper, fresh from the press, as they shouted the lullaby of Palermo: “How many died, how many died.”
At the medical examiner’s office, the two parts of the body were temporarily reassembled. Dr. Filiberto Quasazza, head of the office, authorized an autopsy and a series of photographs of the head. They were able to ascertain that the man had been strangled to death and then decapitated. The tool used to remove the head had been as sharp as a guillotine, whatever it was. Dr. Quasazza’s assistants joked as they stood around the marble autopsy table, the most educated of the group making references to the Terror and wondering if “terrorists” were therefore followers of the French revolutionaries. The pictures taken in the morgue were then sent immediately to police headquarters.
After looking through a thousand or so mug shots, at six that evening, Gualtieri’s mobile squad ascertained that the head had once belonged to Giovanni Neglia, born in Porticello on March 5, 1934, with previous convictions for theft.
“Dottore, we’ve got a name,” said Inspector Zoller, setting down a typed sheet of paper on the desk of the chief of the mobile squad.
I had just walked into the office a few minutes earlier.
“Buona sera, Inspector,” I said, getting to my feet.
“Good work, boys: you were quick,” Gualtieri commented.
“It’s all written down here, you only need to read it,” Zoller added, pointing to the sheet of paper. With every word, his salt-and-pepper mustache rose and fell, as if in a children’s cartoon.
Gualtieri waved him out with a smile.
“Antonio, who does that head belong to?” I asked.
“Let me see … Neglia. Giovanni Neglia. A two-bit thief.”
“Do you know what neglia, or really negghia, means in the Palermo dialect?”
“No.”
“A good-for-nothing, an incompetent,” I explained.
“Too bad for him.”
“What else does it say?”
“Previous convictions, born in Porticello in 1934, married, father of two daughters.”
“Would you give me the address?”
“Via Perpignano 36. His wife is named Cosima.”
At the door on my way out, Gualtieri made the sign of the horns with his fingers to ward off bad luck, slapped me on the back, and practically shoved me out of his office.
Tomorrow I’d start work on the severed head of Signor Good-for-Nothing.
“Venditti is whiny,” said Serena.
“No, he’s romantic,” Lilli replied.
“All romantics are whiny.”
“Oh, you’re horrible.”
“And you’re a romantic.”
As I walked into the apartment, I happened to pick up this fragment of conversation. Serena hated anything that smacked of sugar, while Lilli was as sweet as, say, Antonello Venditti’s hit “Le tue mani su di me.” Perhaps I was starting to fall in love with her. I loved her blonde hair, the look in her eyes that reminded me of the Sicilian sea. Her soft, yielding hips. The simple love that she had for being in love: she’d cuddle next to me at night and watch the stupidest programs on TV; she’d lavish me with compliments, whatever I cooked for her; she wanted me to read poems aloud. And she was completely unrestrained in her lovemaking. Lilli was twenty-two years old and was enrolled in college majoring in literature, but she’d never even taken a final exam, much less flunked one. Her father, a very well-to-do commercial accountant, heir to a Palermitan family with only onequarter nobility—and of Bourbon descent, to make things worse—had set her up with her own little toy store to run. We’d met at a New Year’s party thrown by my sister. She’d shown up with her boyfriend, a tall guy with a mélange wool turtleneck. I decided that one thing you should never do is welcome in the New Year with an indecisive color: it shows a lack of respect for the future. I ignored him and went over to my sister, who was greeting the blonde girl who had come to the party with the mélange turtleneck.
“This is Lilli.”
She was wearing a skintight dress that allowed me to admire her curves, which were described in great detail by the charcoal-gray fabric of her dress. She had a warm beauty that occupied a perfect middle ground between Sicily’s Norman DNA and its Phoenician ancestry. She turned to look at me and immersed her blue eyes in mine, scalding them until they were fully cooked, a couple of pan-fried eggs, over easy. I took her left hand delicately and held it in mine, without a word. The strangeness of that gesture forced her to take another look at me. I returned her gaze without flinching, and with a smile I told her who I was and what I did, without ever releasing her hand, which I could feel growing warmer. Her hand didn’t shake mine off; it curled up in my palm, or at least that’s what I thought. I found out I’d been right at three that morning, when I suggested we abandon the mélange turtleneck to its fate. She accepted. Later, at the apartment, we’d talk about our lives, kneading them together like so much dough.
“Okay, girls. Just don’t fight over the music, please.”
“I never fight,” said Serena, glaring daggers at me.
“Ciao, amore mio.” Lilli kissed me softly on the lips.
“Where’s Fabrizio?” I asked.
“He’s on his way, he had a lesson,” Serena replied.
I looked at the clock. It was eight.
“Shall we go out when he gets here?”
The two young women exchanged a glance filled with questions. Cold out? Tired? How to get there? Take Fabri’s Renault 4? And what would they eat?
Lilli said: “You decide.”
Serena corrected her: “No. I couldn’t say, let’s wait for Fabrizio.”
Cicova had listened to the conversation curled up on the sofa. Now and then he opened an eye. He stretched out and enjoyed the first few notes of “In a Sentimental Mood.” He arched his back and yawned. Then he came toward me, with a rolling gait.
“I’ll cook dinner for everyone: for you girls, for Fabri when he gets home, for Cicova. Come on, kitties, come with me to the kitchen,” I said, addressing Lilli and Serena. Serena showed me her middle finger, with a verbal garnish: “Go fuck yourself, journalist.”
I explored the refrigerator and the pantry. What I came up with was an eggplant, two zucchinis, a carrot, some onions, a head of garlic, some dried red peppers, a bunch of withered basil, and two pounds of D’Amato spaghetti, from Porticello.
Porticello. Giovanni Neglia. The decapitated thief.
I suppressed the thought and went in search of a cutting board: the ingredients would have to be diced and then sautéed in a pan, garlic and onions first, until the whole thing had cooked down to a wonderful vegetable-and-herb topping. I called it “spaghetti alla everything.”
Fabrizio came in as I was draining the pasta. He said: “Ciao.” Then he asked: “Who the fuck put Coltrane on the stereo? I’m in a bad mood, and tonight I just want to listen to Venditti.” Serena rolled her eyes. Lilli stifled a laugh. I took the blame for Coltrane, without explaining that it had been put on as a peacemaking gesture. I decided to gloss over the details.
The spaghetti was excellent. Lilli suggested we go to Villa Sperlinga and get a round of spongati. Fabri offered to drive. We were all in our twenties: a gelato with your friends, with your lovers, in your favorite café, was still the best thing imaginable. And a metal cup of spongato at Villa Sperlinga was the best gelato this world offered.
; A few months earlier, a Carabinieri captain I was about to make friends with was murdered. The Cosa Nostra killers who did him in shot him in his squad car. While they were at it, they killed the other two carabinieri who were riding with him. His name was Mario D’Aleo, he was from Rome, and he was twenty-nine years old. We’d met frequently, at the scenes of other murders, and we’d talked about everything imaginable. He looked like a typical carabiniere, with a mustache that made him look like the actor Maurizio Merli, only dark-haired. He was a handsome young man, with the interests and curiosities of our generation. He’d replaced another captain of the Carabinieri murdered by the Mafia a few years before that.
I remember that, as usual, a preliminary, fragmentary report had come in to the newspaper: a triple murder on Via Scobar. I went with a photographer and a television cameraman, and along the way we’d discussed whether the victims were more likely to be from “their side” or “our side.” The furious rage that surrounded us when we got there answered our question. Clearly, they’d killed someone from “our side.” I remember standing there, tears streaming from my eyes, as I looked at that car with CARABINIERI written on the sides: I recognized Mario D’Aleo and all the marks of injustice.
There was nothing remarkable about it: those were times when people died. We had no other form of defense than to find a snug little corner somewhere to hide from reality. My sheltering burrow was the apartment I shared with Fabrizio, the sweet gaze in Lilli’s eyes, stupid games, good music, a bowl of spaghetti. We had no self-awareness, no idea that we were fighting a war: we counted our dead; we felt Death’s talons plunging a little deeper every day into our lives. I was in Palermo’s relentless clutches; I was getting ready to start experimenting with psychopharmaceuticals in an attempt to treat the insomnia that was tormenting me at age twenty-five.
“Have you spoken to the family?”
“I’d like to go see them this morning.”
“Then why are you still standing here?”
The news editor was scrutinizing me with the eyes of an entomologist. He was making me feel like an insect: not a very good feeling at 7:09 in the morning.
“I’m still here because I wanted you to tell me that I ought to go see the family.”
“If you don’t go see the family instantly, I swear I’ll step on you and crush you.”
There: an insect.
I grabbed my navy-blue blazer and a notepad and, as I was heading downstairs, tried to think of the shortest route to Via Perpignano. When I got to number 36, I found a wooden door and an intercom panel with six surnames written in ballpoint ink: “Neglia” was between “Adelfio” and “Pipitone.” I rang the bell. Nothing happened. After a few seconds, a fat woman dressed in black wearing a checkered apron stuck her head out a third-story window. She was careful as she leaned out: it was more a French door than a window, and it opened onto thin air; there was no balcony railing.
“The doorbell is broken. But who is vossia looking for?”
“The Neglia family.”
“And just who would you be?”
“A journal—”
She slammed the French door before I could finish. I rang the bell again. The fat woman appeared again.
“Now what are you doing? Do you want me to call the police?”
“The police told me to come here in the first place.”
The woman didn’t know what to say. She understood that she needed to be careful: she probably started wondering just who I really was. A customary question in Sicily.
“All right. Third floor.”
The whole place smelled of sparacelli, a particular type of broccoli, tender, bright green. You have to boil sparacelli from morning to night to get the proper consistency.
The woman took off her apron and waved me to a chair. The table was covered by a flowered plastic tablecloth. The scent of sparacelli came wafting powerfully out of the nearby kitchen.
“Are you Signora Cosima?”
Silence rang out, providing all the answer I needed.
“Please accept my condolences.”
She was squeezed into mourning black, a flannel dress. I heard sounds coming from another room nearby.
She murmured, “Grazie,” then added: “They’re going to let us see him today.”
I certainly hoped they wouldn’t.
“Signora Cosima, what kind of a person was your husband?”
“He was a good man, a good father, a wonderful husband.”
“Would you happen to have a photograph?”
“ ’Nca cierto. Rosalia!”
The noise stopped. A girl appeared in the doorway. She looked like a young Claudia Cardinale, and she wore an unadorned black dress. Her hair was dark, her eyes were the color of pitch, and her face was oval, with a small nose and a full mouth with rosy lips and a pout on it that probably had nothing to do with her family’s state of mourning. That mouth said: “What is it, matri?”
“Go get the photographs they took of your father for your grandparents’ golden anniversary.”
Her Italian was riddled with terms in dialect.
Then, with a glance in my direction, she added: “That’s Rosalia, la grande: my elder daughter. We have the nica at home, too.” The younger girl.
Rosalia came back with three color photographs in her hand. Her eyes were glistening. In the first picture that she held out to me, Giovanni Neglia was dressed in the same dark-brown suit he’d been wearing when he was murdered. The same tie. His wardrobe, I decided, was minimalist.
A good-looking man, without a doubt. A face that he’d left as an inheritance for his daughter, “la grande.” The elder. Perfect proportions, bright eyes.
Rosalia gave her mother the second and third photographs as well. Just like the first, but here Neglia was lifting a glass under the affectionate eyes of his buxom spouse.
“Your husband …”
“He was good as gold.”
“Sure he was. But he was a thief.”
“Yes, but he was an honest thief.”
I looked at her closely. This woman was the embodiment of the Sicilian spirit.
“What do you mean by that?”
“That he was careful not to hurt people.”
But he must have hurt someone—he must have done some kind of danno, broken some fundamental rule, I mused, if they’d decided to separate his head from his body. I kept the thought to myself.
“Signora Cosima, you are certainly right. But in the recent past, by any chance …”
“Nothing. Nothing’s happened ‘in the recent past,’ as vossia likes to say.”
Rosalia was standing, listening. She went back into the other room, where her sister awaited her.
“Could you please tell me who your husband’s friends are—excuse me, were?”
“Giovannuzzo grew up in Porticello. His father was a fisherman, they had a muzzareddu, you know, a small motorboat. They went out for squid. Or else saltwater sunfish. He grew up down at the harbor with his brother, Castrenze, who’s older than him.”
“Where is Castrenze now?”
“Here in Palermo. He works at the Vucciria market, he’s still working in seafood: he sells tuna roe.”
“But where, exactly?”
“On Piazzetta Caracciolo. He has a stand.”
He worked at the Vucciria market, and he was still working in seafood. The man who sold me tuna roe. A middle-aged man who had told me all the details about how to salt and press the roe. He made it himself, in a small warehouse behind the Vucciria: “Hundreds of kilos of salt, it takes, and you have to make sure you turn the balate,” the big stones used as weights in the roe press. I was a regular customer of Castrenze Neglia, the brother of Giovanni, whom I’d started to think of as Giovanni Decollato—St. John Beheaded—and I was discovering that fact at his widow’s apartment.
“I may know your brother-in-law.”
The woman shrugged. I don’t think she cared if I knew him.
“The real problem now is for my
daughters. Concetta! Rosalia! Come here, darling girls.”
The two sisters entered the room slowly. The little one took her big sister’s hand; she had pigtails. The two girls’ eyes were filled with tears. In Rosalia’s gaze I glimpsed the ferocity of a big cat, wounded. The little one, Concetta, reminded me of a lost puppy. They walked over to their mother, who tried to hold them both close without standing up. Her fat belly made that hard to do.
For an instant, I locked eyes with the big cat.
“Rosalia, forgive me. I didn’t mean to bother you,” I said.
She glared at me angrily. She turned around and took her little sister away with her: the show was over.
I thanked Signora Cosima. I promised her I’d keep her informed of any new developments in the investigation.
As I was leaving, I asked her what had happened to the French door.
“Oh, nothing; a truck came through a year ago. The street is narrow, and it took the balcony with it. Now we have to be careful when we open it.”
I went back out onto Via Perpignano: the Vespa was still there; no trucks had come through.
“No question that it turned out beautifully: it looks fake.”
Filippo Lombardo held out his arm to get a better view of the eight-by-ten-inch print. He took in the photograph of the head on the car seat with a pleased expression. “It’s really a beautiful shot,” he said, driving home the point. The aesthetics of death have never been in short supply in Palermo.
“What I don’t understand is why there isn’t so much as a drop of blood,” he added.
I was in his workroom. I’d told him about my conversation with the three women of the Neglia family. I hadn’t been especially generous with details about Rosalia. I’d just described her as a “typical Sicilian girl, in her late teens.”
The Four Corners of Palermo Page 15