by Peter Watson
Silvio had thought hard about how to crack the door to the castle. At first he had envisaged using a mule to pull it off its hinges, but taking a mule through the streets of the village late at night was tricky. Explosives were obviously no good on this occasion. They had to get through the door without waking either the entire village or the skeleton staff in the castle itself.
But the door was wooden, not sturdy—and there was a small gap between it and the floor. Silvio had had a very thin saw made up, with a blade small enough to fit between the door and the floor. His men now took turns to saw up one edge of the door, then across, then down the other side. It was noisy, but according to Primo, who was to be their guide inside the castle, none of di Biondi’s staff slept anywhere near the door to the church.
It took half an hour before there was a hole big enough for a man to crawl through. Then the men began to disappear through it one by one. On the other side there was a small hall that led to a stone spiral staircase. Their first task was to find the castle staff and round them up.
Primo led the way. There were eight staff in all, he had said, in five bedrooms. Silvio’s approach was simple. They were all locked in their rooms save for one, whom Primo identified as di Biondi’s butler. Silvio told the others that if they made any attempt to escape, to shout or scream or to cry for help, then the one servant he took with him would be garroted.
Two men were left to guard the servants’ quarters. Then Primo led the way to the galleria.
Even in the moonlight, it was a magnificent room. There were four large windows down one side, and painted wooden beams on the ceiling. The floor was marble, patterned in black and white, and the walls were lined in pale oak paneling to about the height of a man. Silvio reflected that despite its many attractions, the new world held nothing to equal the best of the old world.
They set to work, taking down the paintings and cutting them from their frames. Silvio had decided it would be easier to transport them, and get them under the hole in the door to the church, if the paintings were removed from their frames and rolled up. He ordered the cutting to be done carefully so as to spoil the paintings as little as possible. He had no idea which one was the Tintoretto, or the Carracci, but he instructed his men to treat all the paintings as if they were immensely valuable.
It was a time-consuming business. They needed a flat piece of floor to be able to cut the canvases. Then the frames had to be stowed away—otherwise they would get in the way of the work. Every so often a number of rolls were taken out of the gallery and back downstairs to the church. The rolls gradually began to accumulate in the nave.
Midnight came and went.
They were done around five. Sixty-two canvases were piled up in rolls in the nave of the church. They withdrew quietly from the castle, leaving the castle staff locked inside the bedrooms not knowing whether Silvio and his men were still in the building or not.
One by one they climbed under the door linking castle and church. One by one they left the church in the manner in which they had arrived, each of them carrying about half a dozen rolls of canvas, depending on size. Bastiano went first, Silvio last, locking the church door behind him, for effect as much as anything. He knew that the more mystery attaching to this crime the better.
Leaving Caltabellotta, Silvio kept to the shadows and made it to the upper reaches of Il Pavone just as dawn was breaking. They took turns sleeping and keeping guard all that day, then rode back at night to Casteluzzo, where they spent another day. In the small hours, two nights after they had left Caltabellotta, Silvio climbed into bed alongside Annunziata. He was exhausted and wanted to sleep; but she didn’t.
When news of the Caltabellotta theft was made public, it caused a sensation. All the Sicilian and most of the Roman and Neapolitan newspapers carried the story. The chief of police in Palermo was quoted as saying that every Sicilian port would be closely monitored so there was no chance the paintings would leave the island. The Archbishop of Palermo condemned the desecration of church property in the break-in. Di Biondi, when he was contacted, promised a reward for information leading to the recovery of the paintings and the arrest of the culprits. He had cut short his time on the mainland and was returning immediately to Caltabellotta, he said.
Silvio’s first move was to send one of the younger mafiosi to Messina, where they had a contact who was an art dealer. He was brought back—blindfolded, for security’s sake—to inspect the paintings and advise. Silvio then sent an anonymous note to the editors of the Palermo and Messina newspapers. His letter drew attention to the wages of the farm laborers in Caltabellotta and compared them unfavorably with those in nearby Menfi and Chiusa, where the workers received twice as much for the same work. Silvio made it clear that the paintings would be returned as soon as di Biondi agreed to pay his workers the same as people were paid elsewhere.
The newspapers loved this. A MASTERPIECE OF CRIME, said the Corriere di Palermo. OILS CREATE TROUBLED WATERS wrote Il Mattino di Messina. The reports also demonstrated that Silvio had judged right, in that ordinary people interviewed by the newspapers agreed with the robbers that di Biondi should increase the wages he paid to his workers. Everyone seemed to believe that Silvio would keep his word.
Meanwhile, the art dealer from Messina arrived at Bivio Indisi. Fabio Ganzirri was a small, sweaty man but he knew his trade. Silvio explained that if events went according to plan he would be sending back all but two or three of the paintings now unrolled in front of Ganzirri. He then asked the man to place the paintings in order of value. Ganzirri was delighted to oblige. He began with the Carracci, saying their work would fetch high prices in Britain. Then came the Tintoretto, the Luca Giordano, two Canalettos, a Bellotto, a Palma Giovane, and so on and so on. Ganzirri then attached approximate values to the twenty-five most valuable paintings.
Silvio sent Ganzirri back to Messina, blindfolded until he was well away from the bivio, but told him they would be in touch shortly. He then contacted the newspapers again. Since di Biondi had not responded to his earlier request, he said, he was giving notice that, unless the wages of the workers at Caltabellotta were increased by the weekend, the painting by Palma Giovane would be returned to di Biondi, torn into strips.
When the newspapers contacted di Biondi, to pass on this information, he told the reporters that he thought Silvio was bluffing. He pointed out that Silvio had once been close to the Quarryman and knew that kidnapping was a crime abhorred by everyone and often backfired.
Silvio was ready. The correct tactic, he knew, was to raise the stakes. That weekend he sent not one but two paintings to the editor of the Corriere di Palermo. Both paintings were torn into shreds. With them was a note saying that two more pictures would be returned in the same state the next week, if di Biondi made no attempt to negotiate. At this rate they could be returning paintings for thirty weeks.
On the following Friday, faced with the inability of the police to do anything about the robbery, and with the newspapers following the dispute daily, di Biondi caved in. He announced that he was henceforth increasing the wages he paid to his farmworkers to bring them in line with other workers doing similar jobs in nearby villages. BANDITS BEAT DI BIONDI trumpeted the headline in the Corriere di Palermo.
Silvio’s next move was to announce that once the people of Caltabellotta had been receiving their new wages for a month, he would return the pictures. He was as good as his word, leaving them in a cave near Sicula, then once more contacting the Palermo newspaper. What he didn’t tell the Corriere was that he had retained two, a Tiepolo and a Guido Reni, which were quietly sent to Messina. He was quite sure that Ganzirri cheated him, but even so the price was good, easily doubling the band’s income for that year.
With Annunziata the sex was better than ever.
Within a month of di Biondi’s capitulation, five of the sixteen men who had left Bastiano’s “family” asked to come back. Bastiano would have turned them down out of pique but Silvio reminded him that these men knew wher
e they lived and, for a reward, could always lead the police or the army in a surprise attack. There was no point in alienating good men for a silly reason. Bastiano allowed himself to be overruled.
Over the next three months, aided by several simple robberies of olive-oil shipments, the band’s reputation grew. More men joined, swelling their numbers to nearly a hundred. Nighttime deliveries of olive oil to needy families were partly responsible. So, too, was an incident in Palermo, when a precious gold cross was stolen from a convent in the Aquasanta area. A little pressure judiciously applied in the right quarters and Silvio was able to send another note to the editor of the Corriere di Palermo, telling him where his reporters could find the cross. The paper returned the cross to the convent, boosting its own role in the affair but not neglecting Silvio’s. Then, with the strength of Bastiano’s band still increasing, the neighboring families took fright. The next-door band, led by the Imbriaci family, which controlled the olive oil in the Cangioloso area, proposed an alliance. Bastiano and Silvio accepted.
This brought their strength to more than one hundred and fifty men. The area they controlled had doubled, and they were now one of the biggest outfits in Sicily.
The merger with the Imbriaci, however, did pose one unusual problem. Cesare Imbriaci naturally did not expect to be Capo of the new family. He had proposed the merger from a position of weakness, and therefore sacrificed the overall leadership. He was also prepared to accept that Bastiano would keep his own consigliere—Alesso. But he did expect that he would be sottocapo, the operational head of the various regimes, and Alesso agreed. He thought it showed the proper respect for Imbriaci. Unfortunately, neither Bastiano nor Silvio saw it that way. Both felt strongly that the leaders—Capo, consigliere, sottocapo—should be members of Bastiano’s family. Accordingly, Imbriaci became merely a caporegime, in effect head of his own family, as he had always been, but now merely one part of a bigger outfit. Bastiano, as Capo, made Silvio his sottocapo.
Imbriaci was irate, but since he had been the supplicant, he had to accept the situation. Alesso, however, was annoyed that Bastiano had neglected his advice. His jealousy of Silvio, and Silvio’s relationship with Annunziata, accounted for part of his reaction, but there was more to it than that. Alesso had always assumed that when Bastiano went, he would take over as Capo. Now he could see Silvio coming up behind him. “Jealousy is like a toothache,” according to the Sicilian proverb. “It spoils the taste of everything.”
About three months after the di Biondi affair, Father Ignazio sent word that he wished to see Silvio. Silvio’s shoulder was completely healed by this point and he rode all the way from Bivio Indisi to Quisquina. For security he took two men with him.
The abbot received him courteously. Silvio was given dinner, allowed a bath, and spent a comfortable night in the monastery’s best guest room. After breakfast the next day Father Ignazio asked Silvio to walk with him in the monastery’s olive and almond groves. This, Silvio hoped, was when the business the abbot wanted to discuss would be broached. Was it a new venture? Or did the abbot need his advice on something? Was it news of Angelo Priola, or Nino?
They had reached a place in the terraces where a large tree below the high stone wall provided deep shade, and it was cooler than anywhere else. Here the abbot stopped.
“Silvio, I wish to speak to you about Annunziata.”
Silvio was astonished. What business of the abbot’s was Annunziata?
“There is a great deal of feeling, mainly among the women in—”
“I don’t care. People shouldn’t interfere.”
“Silvio, it is not a matter of interference. What you are doing with Annunziata is wrong.”
Silvio thought of his nights with Annunziata. He said, more gently, “How can it be wrong, Father? It is so comfortable.”
Father Ignazio modified his voice to match Silvio’s. “Come, my son, you know in your heart that what is happening is wrong. You and Annunziata are cousins. Such a liaison is against nature, against God. You and she are mocking him.”
Silvio was quiet for a moment, thinking. Sono peccatore? Am I a sinner? he asked himself. No. The abbot had clearly been influenced by the women in the bivio. They had never liked Annunziata and him being together, but they had never had the guts to do anything—until now. That made him angry—but only with the women. He didn’t dare get angry with the abbot. Father Ignazio was too powerful and too useful to antagonize.
He tried a different tack. He had to be soft on the outside while remaining hard within, as Nino had always said. “Father, let me talk to you as a man.” He stood directly in front of the abbot. “I cannot give up Annunziata. My need is physical. She has an effect on me quite unlike any other woman I have known. I know every part of her body, every part of her soul. I won’t give her up. I can’t.”
“Silvio! You are an intelligent man. You have the brains of a bishop, but on this matter you are not facing facts. You and Annunziata are cousins. The church says that you may never be married. Which means that any child you may have will be a bastard. Is that what you want? Is that what Annunziata wants? Don’t be a fool. You cannot go against nature.”
Silvio was miserable. Until now he had been perfectly happy with Annunziata. They were so strong together that the glowerings from the women in the band could be ignored. But Father Ignazio was a more formidable force than all the women put together, so far as Silvio was concerned. Even so, he was not about to abandon Zata.
“Father, you appeal to my head but you ignore my heart. I’ve seen the world—can you say the same? My heart tells me Annunziata is the woman for me. Doesn’t that mean anything in the church? Surely the church is more interested in a man’s heart, and the happiness he can bring to a woman.”
“Of course the church is interested in the heart, Silvio, but in the true workings of the heart. You, I fear, have been misled by yours. Annunziata can never be yours entirely and there is no point in pretending she can. You must give her up, Silvio, and you must do so now.”
The abbot was as implacable as Silvio himself. He stared at the older man, suddenly angry. “What do you know, Father? You’ve never been with a woman, have you? How can you know what’s in my heart? How can you know the joy, the love, the goodness that Annunziata brings out in me? How can you understand the joy I bring to her heart? Lovemaking is … unlike anything else and … if you have never experienced it, then you don’t … you can’t judge others.” His anger was dissipating as he realized what he was saying, and to a priest. He found he was close to tears.
He sat down, under the tree. He shook his head. “I love Annunziata. I won’t give her up.”
Father Ignazio did not sit down but instead turned away from Silvio and stood for a long while looking down the valley, toward Catera. Eventually the abbot turned back. Birds rode the thermal current, high in the air.
Silvio looked up.
“My son, I understand more than you think. I’m a great deal older than you and this is not the first time that I’ve seen men—good men—led astray by their hearts. So don’t lecture me. And don’t take it out on me either. The problem is yours and I’m trying to help. From what you say, you face a desperate situation. Annunziata and you may never be married—never! Get that simple fact into your head—into your heart. I will not let you ignore me on this matter, Silvio.” He gestured to the almond trees. “We prune plants that go rotten. I’m doing the same with you. To make you strong again, inside. And you have to face what’s happening to you now, before it gets worse, as it certainly will. What you are doing is a mortal sin.”
He paused, selecting his words. “My first duty is to God—”
“Bah!” shouted Silvio. “Is it your duty to God that enables you to help us? Is it because you do God’s work that you harbor intusi and mezzatacce and malandrini in your abbey? Is it part of the Almighty’s grand design that you help us break into churches so we can steal great works of art, many of them religious works? You are the man who kept secret t
he news about the cholera outbreak in Palermo—which killed Annunziata’s son! Were you doing your sacred duty then, Father!” He spat out the last word.
The abbot waited for Silvio to finish and then breathed out loudly. “Would you say I’m a bad man, Silvio?”
Silvio shook his head.
“We live in an imperfect world. One has to meet life as one finds it, and there are so many injustices around us that there are very few clear-cut issues of right and wrong. One has to construct one’s own morality as one goes along, guided by God. I say this not to excuse myself but to explain. I must say, however, that of the very few clear-cut moral situations there are in the world, the one you face is perhaps clearest of all. I repeat: what you are doing with Annunziata is wrong. It is against nature and must be brought to an end Now.”
Silvio could think of nothing to say. Neither of them would give way.
“I am not prepared to compromise on this, Silvio. Unless you do as I say, I shall be forced to approach the archbishop.”
Silvio glanced sharply at the abbot. “What do you mean? What can you do?”
“I can do more than you think, my son. The teachings of the church are quite clear on this. I shall ask the archbishop to have both Annunziata and you excommunicated.”
Silvio stared hard at the priest. This was catastrophic. He was not an especially religious man, but for him, like all Sicilians, like all Italians, the church was part of his life, a form of solace, comfort, companionship. Hated and loved in equal measure. There was more, of course. The minute Father Ignazio applied to the archbishop, the whole world would know. Even before the inquiry into his misdemeanors took place, Silvio would be condemned as godless, a misfortune in most people’s eyes that was far worse than anything a mafioso could do. Support for him, for Bastiano’s family, would collapse. The authorities would know, roughly, where he was.