by Peter Watson
Bastiano still said nothing.
“The olive-oil business is okay as far as it goes. But the men get lazy, doing the same thing all the time, dealing with the same people. Like donkeys grazing in a field. Ultimately, they grow careless. Something new can help sharpen them up.” He handed back the bottle.
Bastiano swallowed more grappa. “Okay. Tell me your plan.”
Silvio plunged in. “You know Caltabellotta?”
“The village just beyond Burgio?”
Silvio nodded. “And the home of Frederico di Biondi.”
“Yes, I know that So what?”
Silvio tapped his temple. “Think. There are two very important facts about di Biondi that can work to our advantage. In the first place, he’s one of the cruelest landlords in Sicily. He pays the people who work for him less than half what they earn anywhere else. So he’s very unpopular—”
“But he gets away with it! And that’s because he’s protected by the Carcilupo family. We can’t go head-to-head with them.”
“I’m not suggesting that. But hear me out. Di Biondi also has a collection of very rare, and valuable, paintings—Tintoretto, the Carracci, Luca Giordano.” Before he’d read the doctor’s books in Ucciardone Prison, Silvio would not have had the faintest idea what these names meant.
Bastiano was silent now.
“Say we were to steal those paintings—”
“How on earth …?”
“Listen! I’ll come to that. Say we were to steal those paintings. Say we were then to get word to di Biondi that he would only have his paintings returned if he paid his farmworkers a proper wage. Say we gave him a deadline, and if he didn’t play ball, we returned one picture to him, but torn into strips. I’ve thought a lot about this and Nino’s kidnap of that English priest was the biggest mistake he made. Ottuso. But kidnapping paintings—things—is different. No one’s going to send any troops anywhere to recover paintings. Paintings won’t cause a diplomatic incident. The paintings only mean something to di Biondi. We give him a deadline. If he still doesn’t improve the workers’ wages, we send him another picture, a Tintoretto perhaps, but this time just the ashes.
“And, of course, we let the farmworkers know what’s happening. Word will spread all over Sicily. The newspapers will write about us, about you, Bastiano. You’ll be a hero.”
“Maybe, but what’s in it for us? I don’t care about the farm-workers of Caltabellotta.”
“Then you are wrong, Bastiano. That’s what Nino taught me—that how other people see what we do is as important as what we do. When you rescued me from that quarry, it was a spectacular coup. It made the authorities respect and fear you, but it did nothing for us, in the sense that no one earned any money for it. Now, let the profit be me, or at least my ideas. And hear me out on di Biondi.”
Bastiano didn’t move or say anything.
“He has about eighty-six paintings in all. So I was told by Father Ignazio when he was here the other day. He knows a local priest who has seen them. Di Biondi won’t miss two or three. We’ll ask him what his least favorite pictures are—and we’ll hang on to those. There are dealers in Palermo or Messina who will pay us for them. They’ll take them to Paris or London or New York and make a fine profit, but that’s their affair. So long as they give us a good price, we shall be happy.
“But the most important thing, Bastiano, is that we make a splash. If this works—and it will work—we shall become more famous, and more popular. More people will join us, and it will get easier for the family to hold on to the olive oil. You know I’m right.”
Bastiano looked quizzical, but his eyes shone. He was more excited by Silvio’s plan than he had let on. “How did you find out about di Biondi?”
“Annunziata told me. Gino’s relatives came from Caltabellotta. Some of them still work for di Biondi.”
“I never knew you were an expert on art.”
“I’m not an expert. I just read some books in prison.”
“You like reading?”
“It has its place.”
“How will we get in? To di Biondi’s castle, I mean.”
“I don’t know yet, but some of us need to visit Caltabellotta and talk to Annunziata’s in-laws. They’ll be able to help.”
“Do you feel fit enough to go?”
“I don’t see why I shouldn’t try it. I don’t have much pain from my shoulder these days. But in any case I could see the doctor in Bivona. It’s on the way.”
“Okay. We’ll do as you suggest. Only one thing. I’m not passing off this plan of yours as mine. It’s your idea and your show. And you’re the man with a reward on his head. If you’re right, and we need to make a splash, it will be much bigger if the whole thing is masterminded by the man who made such a spectacular escape from Ucciardone.”
1888
16
As Silvio’s shoulder improved, he ventured further afield in his morning walks with Annunziata. Eventually, he said one day, “Follow me.” He set off not along the river but through the olive groves. After a little while, however, she skipped ahead of him. “I know where you’re going,” she called back.
Forty minutes later they scrambled onto the mossy ledge they had called, as children, their giardino segreto. Silvio, tired from the hike through the trees, lay on his back and looked at the sky. “I haven’t been here since—”
“Neither have I,” Annunziata replied softly. “It was your birthday.”
“And I never received the gift you planned.” He grinned and pulled her to him. They kissed and then she moved back and began to unbutton her dress. She stepped out of it exactly as she had done on that morning all those years ago.
He feasted his eyes on her body—the blond down on her thighs that caught the sunlight, the mound of hair below her flat brown belly, the soft patches around her nipples that were the color of almond shells. He took off his own clothes and stretched them on the moss for her to lie on. He maneuvered himself alongside her.
He kissed her and placed the palm of his hand on her stomach. He began to speak. “Close your eyes.” She did so. “Now think forward to a year from now. We are married and on our honeymoon in America.” Gently, he massaged her stomach. “We are taking a steamboat up the Mississippi from New Orleans to Memphis. You can hear the slapping of the water against the bottom of the boat. Occasionally the boat rocks as we sail through the wake of other boats going in the opposite direction.” He moved his hand down her thigh. “It is evening, the daylight is beginning to fade and the lights of the boat are being lit. Long shadows are cast down the deck. In the distance the band strikes up.” Silvio’s hand settled over the mound of hair beneath her belly. She opened her legs and his fingers probed farther. “Tonight we are having dinner with the captain. There will be wine, ice cream, chocolate, dancing.” He kissed Zata’s ear as his fingers moved deep inside her. “You will be wearing a long dress, which shows your shoulders and the tops of your breasts. There may be singing. After dinner the captain, who will have fallen for you just as I fell for you all those years ago, will take us onto the bridge. Ahead of us is the huge river, black in the night.” Silvio’s fingers moved gently up and down as she moved her hips against his hand and a tiny moan gurgled in her throat. “From the bridge you can see other steamboats coming toward you, their lights sparkling like stars, reflected in the river. On the banks, wooden churches—black as coal—slip by, silent, guarding their secrets. The rumble of the engines of the steamboat shudders through the whole structure, sending waves that collide with the bank of the Mississippi.”
Annunziata bit her lip and he stopped. He knew her well enough now to realize she was not far away. Her hand clenched and closed over some moss. Her moans grew louder, more frequent. His hand moved more swiftly up and down, pressed against her more firmly.
She opened her eyes and looked at him. Her lips parted. Then her eyes closed again, she called out, and her back arched. She screamed as she could never scream in the bivio, again and again and
again, subsiding into a series of choking sobs. There was a fine line of sweat on her upper lip.
They lay, motionless, for several minutes.
At length she murmured, “If we’d done this all those years ago, when we were children, would it have been as good?”
“It would have been different.”
“Do you make love outside, in America?”
“There’s nowhere like this, Zata. I met no one like you.”
She sat up and kissed him. “When can we go?”
“Not yet, maybe not ever.”
“But I’d like to. These stories you tell me … When you read, from that man—Mark Twain? It’s a lovely way to learn.” She took his hand from between her legs and kissed his fingers. “Sicily’s so small!”
“It’s big enough, Zata.” He lay down on the moss. “This is good enough for me.”
“That’s because you’ve seen America.”
“I didn’t see Sicily, until I came back from America. The figs, the rivers, all these hills I know so well. So few people. Those eagles up there—” He pointed. “I’d be worried that in America … you’d change. I don’t want you to change.”
Now he kissed her.
“Why should I change?” she murmured. She lay back down on the moss and pulled him to her. “You haven’t.”
Silvio’s plan to steal the paintings proved popular when it was first outlined to the other men. Several had already realized that if they didn’t represent a threat to their rivals, their rivals would come after them. Two men with relatives in Caltabellotta—Giacomo and Benedetto—accompanied Silvio, to observe discreetly the routine of di Biondi’s household, to obtain any other information regarding the strength of the local sbirri, and to try to pinpoint the exact whereabouts of the paintings within the household.
After a day or two in the village, Silvio left Giacomo and Benedetto behind to make a more detailed reconnaissance. They had been specifically asked to reconnoiter the castle and the bars, picking up gossip, and they came back to report that in two weeks’ time di Biondi was leaving for Rome. He would be gone for a month, and the castle would be closed, with just a skeleton staff in occupation. At the same time they had discovered that part of the castle was connected by a door to a small church in the village. If they could get the key to the church and let themselves in at night, they could use the hours of darkness to break down the door that led from the church to the castle.
“Okay,” Silvio said. “But what about the pictures themselves? Do we know where they are?”
Benedetto, who was the brighter of the two men, replied, “Di Biondi has a galleria, a room on the second floor that overlooks the valley. His most important pictures are there. Others are in his study, which leads off the galleria, and in the dining hall, which leads off the galleria at the other end. He must have one or two in his bedroom, and other places around the castle. But the main paintings are in those three rooms—the galleria, the dining hall, and the study.”
“How reliable is your information?”
Benedetto nodded toward the other man. “Giacomo has a nephew who used to work in the castle, but was fired a month ago—for breaking a valuable glass pitcher. I think he’d be willing to act as our guide.”
“Any ideas how we get into the church?”
No one spoke for a moment. Then Annunziata said, “What about Father Ignazio?”
“I don’t follow you,” said Silvio.
“He could pay the priest of Caltabellotta a visit. Stay with him. With luck he could take an impression of the key to the church and we could get old Cavero to make us a new one.”
Silvio smiled. “Good idea.” Cavero had been assisted by Nino in the past. He could be trusted to help. “Well done, Zata,” he said.
The evening after Silvio returned from Caltabellotta, he was lying in bed with Annunziata when she said, “Alesso Alcamo attacked me today.”
“What do you mean ‘attacked’?”
“Just that. I was down by the river, washing clothes. He came up to me and called me a whore. He said I was dishonoring his brother’s memory, sharing a bed with my cousin.”
Silvio, remaining calm, blew smoke into the room. “He did, did he? What did you say?”
“I slapped his face.”
“Good. He’s just jealous.”
“He said something else before he left. He said all the women in the bivio—Smeralda especially—think that what we are doing is wrong. They’re too frightened to say anything but … they say we’re … unnatural.”
Silvio continued smoking.
“Can’t you do something to stop them talking, Silvio? I don’t like it. Smeralda’s your mother, or as good as. You’ve got brains—everyone says so. Think of something.”
Again, Silvio pulled on his cigarette and they lay in silence for a while. Then he said, “Zata, there’s something I’ve never told you.” He recounted the incident when his parents had been killed. “Ever since then I’ve been worried about not thinking quickly enough. But I realized in prison—after what happened to me in New Orleans—that what matters is not speed, or not only speed, but doing the right thing, making the move that is appropriate to the situation.” He put his arm round her. “I had a lot of women in America and with none of them did it feel the way it feels with you. I’m not giving that up. And I’m not saying anything to the women. They can stew. They may feel differently after this Caltabellotta business, when they see how successful it is, what a difference it makes.”
“Am I really different than all those women in America, Toto?”
He tightened his arm around her and kissed her hair.
She was silent for a moment. “I’ve only been with you and Gino and … Gino was … selfish. I never wanted sex with him like I want it with you.”
She reached across his body, took his hand, and placed it between her legs.
It took a day to alert the abbot about the Caltabellotta plan. It took another day for him to send word to the priest in the town that he was planning a visit, and two more days before he arrived. He stayed three days with the priest, and it was two days before he learned which key to copy. On the fifth day, the impression reached Cavero and it was two more days before the new key reached Silvio. Nine days in all.
Silvio then waited another five days before making his move. He sent one man ahead to Caltabellotta to follow di Biondi on his journey. The landlord was going to Rome via Palermo, where he would put to sea directly for Ostia, the port of Rome. The man who was following di Biondi would shadow him until he set sail. If, at any point before Palermo, di Biondi changed his mind and turned back, Silvio’s man would know it, and hurry back ahead of the landlord, to raise the alarm. If the shadow hadn’t returned within forty-eight hours, they would know di Biondi was at sea and could not return with any speed.
The shadow did not return.
Silvio set out with twelve men. This was a difficult calculation. The number of paintings they planned to take was bulky, and they needed enough muscle to cope with any resistance. At the same time they didn’t want to draw attention to themselves, alert the Carcilupos, or put at risk more people than necessary. The twelve would be supplemented by one or two from within Caltabellotta—including Giacomo’s nephew, Primo, who was to act as their guide inside the castle. But that was enough.
As usual they rode at night. Silvio’s shoulder gave little trouble now and he managed easily enough. Their first stop left them overlooking the tiny hamlet of Cannalicchio and on the second night they reached Il Pavone, the mountain overlooking Caltabellotta itself. During the day, while everyone else rested, Bastiano went on to the village on foot, to ensure that all was as it should be. He came back to report that everything appeared normal. “As quiet as a fox’s smile” was how he put it. Even the bar was empty.
At dusk they began to move out, in ones and twos, leaving the mules with a guard. It took them two hours to skirt the mountain and reach the outskirts of the village, by which time it was nearly eight
o’clock. They waited for another two hours in the tiny valley carved by the river Bellapietra. Most of the villagers would be asleep by eleven and Bastiano’s men would have all night.
At ten-thirty they set off, one at a time, with instructions to rendezvous at the church. Silvio went last.
Caltabellotta consisted of three streets shaped like a capital “A,” and there were just two churches. The village lay on the side of a hill overlooking the road from Burgio to Sciacca, on the south coast. As Silvio made his way up the hill he could see that the village was completely dead. There were dim candles in one or two of the houses, but otherwise the only signs of life came from the occasional bleatings of the sheep, or a mule sneezing.
The first church he came to stood by itself on a rocky promontory, overlooking the road he had just left. But ahead was the castle and, adjoining it, the other church.
Silvio kept to the shadows and stood still for a while. There was always the possibility of ambush. He waited for ten minutes. There was no movement in any part of the square in front of the church. At ten past eleven he walked round the edge of the square and approached the church. He took the key from his pocket, inserted it in the hole, and turned. It grated in the lock and sent a screech skidding across the square.
Silvio froze.
But the sound died in the night. Silvio quickly gripped the handle and turned. Another grating sound shot across the square. Again he froze. Someone must surely have heard this time.
A minute passed. Two. Five. Then he pushed at the door and he was inside. He found the pew nearest to the door that led to the castle and sat down. He had left the door to the church open, but only by the amount that would allow a man to squeeze through.
After a few moments someone else sat down on the pew beside him. Then another, then another. No one spoke. They had all been watching Silvio from the shadows. Bastiano came and stood in front of Silvio. He was to be the last man into the church. “The door is locked again,” he whispered.