by Peter Watson
The roar had begun again. Suddenly it stopped as Fazio came to and began to climb up the lamppost to the crossbar. He was aiming to free himself. This scene went on for several seconds as people watched in an appalled silence. Then a fusillade of shots rang out as men pulled their personal weapons from their pockets. Fazio’s body slumped and he hung down dead from the crossbar of the street lamp.
When Annunziata and Silvio reached Quisquina it was dusk. Throughout the journey he had tried to convince her to come away with him—after all, the police must be mounting a major search party by now. But Annunziata wouldn’t listen. She was determined to go to the abbey.
Their route took them over much of the same ground as they had taken years earlier, after Nino had been raided in the bivio, when he had been captured by the Lazio Brigade. The slopes of Mount Catera, the gully of the Magozzolo River. But their mood was very different now.
When they reached the abbey, Annunziata didn’t knock or pull the bell rope. She had her own key. She led the way across the courtyard to an inner door. Just as they were about to enter, a monk came out. He was tall and stringy looking: Luigi Garofali.
“Annunziata!” he cried in a soft whisper. “I was praying you would come.” He turned. “Come with me, please. Father Ignazio’s condition has deteriorated. I fear he doesn’t have long.”
“Oh no!” Annunziata stifled a sob and hurried after Garofali.
Silvio followed them at a distance as they walked swiftly along the corridor that lined the courtyard, the same corridor where Zata and he had waited all those years before with their grim message for the abbot. But this time the corridor was dark. Candles glowed at either end but the shadows were deep.
Garofali and Annunziata stopped at the far end. The monk gently opened the door. “I have given him the last rites,” he whispered to Annunziata.
She went in. Unless Silvio was mistaken, this was Ignazio Serravalle’s study. Silvio reached the end of the corridor himself. The door to the study had been left open and inside he could see Garofali and Annunziata standing over a figure lying in a bed. Father Ignazio’s illness surely explained why Annunziata spent all her time here now. She had been nursing him. Was this what she wanted to show him? Was this why she wouldn’t leave Sicily?
Silvio stepped into the room. The huge desk had been moved, to make room for the bed, but otherwise the study hadn’t changed. The blue-green tapestry still covered one wall, the candelabra still stood on the mantel, dripping wax. The tsk-tsk of insects could still be heard through the open window. What had changed, however, was the smell of the room. It was no longer dominated by incense, or the mustiness of the abbey itself, and the abbot’s books, but by hospital-like smells of medicine, disinfectant, body odors.
As he stepped into the room Silvio heard Father Ignazio speak. His voice was higher-pitched than Silvio remembered it, and he was clearly very weak. But it was still the voice of a forceful character.
“My child, is the rehearsal over?”
Annunziata murmured, “It is.”
“Good.” Father Ignazio paused. “Will you forgive me if I do not marry you tomorrow? I fear I am too weak.”
Annunziata’s eyes had filled with tears. She nodded, and murmured again.
The abbot’s head turned toward Silvio. “But let me bless you both. Let that be my last act.”
With a jolt, Silvio realized that the abbot had confused him with Alesso. Annunziata’s hand went to her mouth. She, too, realized that the abbot was growing confused. His end must be very near.
Serravalle continued to look in Silvio’s direction, beckoning him. He stepped forward and stood next to Annunziata.
The abbot looked at the couple with tired eyes. Garofali was speechless.
Father Ignazio began to speak in Latin. Weakly he raised his hand and made the sign of the cross.
This was too much for Silvio. “No!” he cried as softly as he could. “Father, I am not Alesso. I am Silvio. Silvio Randazzo.”
The abbot stopped speaking. His hand fell back onto the bedclothes. His eyes focused on Silvio. Suddenly he was lucid and strong again. “You! Why have you come?” He looked to Annunziata. “Where is Alesso?”
When no one answered, he put his hand to his forehead and said, “No! Please God, no!” He looked at Annunziata, tears filling his own eyes. “Does he know about—?” Then his head fell to one side.
Garofali moved forward, closed the abbot’s eyelids, and placed his hands over his chest, mumbling in Latin.
Annunziata turned to Silvio. In the gloom it was difficult to tell whether her eyes were sad or hard. “You should have let him think you were Alesso,” she whispered. “Bruto! How could you be so cruel? He died crying, Silvio. He died crying.”
Parker had fought his way out of the Parish Prison. Along St. Ann Street there was a streetcar that had been overturned by the crush of the crowd. Parker reached it and climbed on top of it.
“Friends,” he yelled. “Listen to me!” He raised his hands for the noise to quiet down. People began to turn away from the corpse of Fazio hanging on the lamppost.
“Friends, our work is done. I will read to you the list of those who have died here today, the men who have, quite rightly, been executed by the concerned citizens of New Orleans.”
He paused. “Antonino Siculo!”
A cheer went up.
“Girolamo Regalmici!”
More cheers.
“Biagio Gela!” Still the people found their voices.
One by one, Parker read out the names of the Sicilians who had been shot in Parish Prison. The people cheered after each name, until he concluded, “You see before you the body of Gino Fazio, which brings to eight the number of criminals we have … executed. And that only leaves one name, the biggest name of all, the leader of the Mafia society in New Orleans, the evil leader who has brought this fine city to the crisis we are now seeking to eradicate.” Parker raised his hand and shouted, “Vittorio Liotta!”
The loudest cheer of all greeted these words. Men threw their hats into the air and one or two fired their handguns.
But Parker bade them be quiet. As the noise subsided he spoke again. “Friends, I called you together for a duty. You have performed that duty. Mob violence is the most terrible thing on the face of the earth. Now go to your homes, and if I need you I will call you. Go home, and God bless you.”
“God bless you, Mr. Parker!” shouted several in the crowd as he got down from the streetcar and began to walk back to Canal Street. Slowly the crowds dispersed. No one took down the body of Gino Fazio. It hung there as flies began to feed on the congealed blood of his wounds.
Annunziata stood in the courtyard of Quisquina, sobbing gently. She had not cried when the abbot had died, but now her grief had caught up with her. Silvio stood close by. Each time he tried to embrace her she shook him off.
Silvio was confused. She had saved his life by killing Alesso. But she seemed in no hurry to come away with him, now that she had the chance. He realized that she had been fond of the abbot and that he, Silvio, had made a mistake in Father Ignazio’s study. But wasn’t honesty the best policy? And didn’t she realize the danger he was in, the urgent need to move swiftly?
He tried again. This time she sagged into his embrace and he put his arm around her. He smelled her hair, kissed it. He kissed her on the cheek, then on the lips. This is what he had come to Sicily for.
For a moment she returned his kiss. Then she pushed him away violently. “No,” she cried. “No!”
She escaped, and ran across the courtyard, pushing against a door and disappearing through it. He ran after her. Through the doorway was another corridor, dark and shadowy. He heard her crying again.
He moved down the corridor until he came to an open door. Annunziata was sitting on a bed, hunched up, nursing her knees. A solitary candle burned beside her. He stepped inside and stood over her.
This time he waited until she quieted down. Then he said, gently, “Zata, I’m sorry for
what I did in Father Ignazio’s study. But he knew there was cholera in Palermo, the time you sent little Nino. He didn’t warn you. There has been so much deception, I had to be honest. That once.” He paused. “I must be honest now. The police know I am here … in Sicily. I must leave. I can’t go back to prison now—I would be lynched. I want you to come with me to America. We are free now. Smeralda says you won’t come, but I don’t believe her. Father Ignazio is dead. You saved my life. You must believe me, that I didn’t kill those children in the orphanage. Come with me now. Please.”
Annunziata looked at him and her tears began again. She shook her head. “I have deceived you, Toto.”
He looked shocked but she quickly added, “Not in the way that you think.” She sniffed and wiped her eyes with the ball of her hand. “I know that I was not loving during our last days together when … when you were here before … before Bagheria. Remember the day I left the church during that wedding ceremony? How could you forget? You know I had been upset by Father Ignazio’s actions, his threat to excommunicate us. But I was deceiving you all. What you didn’t know, what he didn’t know, what only I knew at the time was that I … I was pregnant.”
Silvio swayed on his feet. Was this true? Sono sognatore? Am I dreaming? he asked himself. Of course it was true. Annunziata wouldn’t joke about something like that. He felt elated. He had settled things with Alesso. Now this.
“You have a daughter, Toto,” whispered Annunziata. “I call her Sylvana. But …” She hesitated, and looked down. Was she crying again?
“Zata? What is it? Zata! But … what?”
“But you will never see her.”
The voice came from behind Silvio. He turned quickly, but he knew who it was, even before his eyes picked out the figure in the gloom.
He was lying on a bed, one arm bandaged in a sling. The other held a gun, a lupara. It was pointed at Silvio.
“Nino!”
There was silence in the room as the two men regarded each other. Nino looked older, much older. The color had gone from his skin. He was gray all over, as if he were made of stone.
Silvio broke the silence. “What happened to your arm?”
“I fell from a mule on my way here.”
“I know about bones. Maybe I can fix it.”
“Stay where you are.”
“Nino, what—?”
“Shut up! I told you to stay away from my daughter. That’s why you were sent to America in the first place, for God’s sake. That’s why she married Gino. You were warned—by Father Ignazio, by me, by Smeralda, by everyone. But did you listen?”
“Nino, listen to my side—”
“No!”
“But Annunziata loves me!” Silvio would not be silenced. “It wouldn’t matter in America.”
“Fuck America!” shouted Nino. “Fotta! Fotta! Fotta! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! This is Sicily. Now listen,” he yelled before Silvio could say anything else. “I’m going to tell you something I should have told you before. I tried to protect you; I felt it was for the best. I was wrong.”
Silvio was silent. What was coming?
“Your father’s death—”
“Yes?” hissed Silvio. “What about it?” What did Nino know? Did he know about Silvio’s slow reactions? Please God, no.
“Your father was shot because he was with Aldo.”
“Yes, I know. You told me yourself. Aldo had been interfering with Carcilupo business—”
“Wrong! That’s what I told you to protect you from the truth. Aldo was shot by his cousins, the Bisacquino brothers. Shot because he had made their sister, his cousin, pregnant, and she had given birth to an idiot. She felt so guilty, so ashamed, that she drowned the child. Then she killed herself.” Nino shifted his body on the bed. He pressed his lips together. Silvio remembered suddenly how, years ago, Nino had drummed his fingers on his mouth while he was thinking. “Now do you understand? You are repeating a pattern—”
“You mean …?” Silvio looked from Nino to Annunziata. “You mean our daughter is …?”
“No,” said Nino. “She’s fine. But no thanks to you. Thanks to you and your selfish obsession with Annunziata, three orphans are dead in Bagheria—”
“But that wasn’t me. That was—”
“Who cares, now? You were part of it.” Nino shifted his body again. “But we’re wasting time. I’m giving you two choices, Silvio. Either you promise to leave Sicily immediately, and never return—”
“Or?”
“Or I shall shoot you, right here. Now. In this monastery. I’ll finish it, where it all began. Aldo was never given that choice. I’m doing this for your father. He was a good man.”
Silence.
Then Nino said, “Silvio, in case it makes it easier for you … I’m dying. I picked up something in prison. I escaped to spend a few weeks with Annunziata and … my granddaughter. It took all I had to bribe my way out of jail. I fell off the mule because I was already weak. So if I kill you, it doesn’t change much for me.”
Silvio looked at Annunziata. She looked sad but had stopped crying.
“You killed Alesso for me.”
Now she did cry.
“Let that be your last memory.” Nino was forcing the pace.
Silvio suddenly grew angry. “Can I not see my daughter, at least? Sono orco? Am I an ogre?”
Nino rested the gun on his knee. “No, Silvio. Believe me, it’s better this way. I wouldn’t have told you about Sylvana. If you see her you’ll only miss her more.”
“How can you be so inhuman?”
“Don’t lecture me about being inhuman. You brought all this on yourself. But enough talk. Which is it to be? Are you going to leave Sicily, or do I shoot you?”
“You’d kill me, in cold blood? You used to say, be soft on the outside.”
Silence. Then, “I’m not cock’s-blooding, Silvio. I used to say that, too.”
“How do you know I won’t come back here, after you’re dead?”
“Annunziata won’t have you, if you break your oath to me.”
“Zata … is this what you want?”
She had her hand to her mouth. Her fingers were wet with tears. She nodded.
He moved toward her, but Nino called out, “Keep away! I’ll shoot.”
Silvio stopped. He held up a ring. “I was going to give her this, for our daughter.”
“No!” Nino glared at him. “The child will never know about you.”
Silvio looked at Annunziata. Her arms now hung by her sides. Her eyes were closed.
He walked past her. As he reached the door he turned. “Goodbye, Silvio,” said Nino.
Silvio looked at Annunziata. She was still crying.
Was this to be his last glimpse of her, tears streaming down her face? It would be an image that would haunt him for years.
He couldn’t speak. He turned and walked across the darkened courtyard. He approached the door they had entered by, years before, when Annunziata and he had arrived to tell Father Ignazio that Nino—the Quarryman, Don Bivona—had been captured by the Lazio Brigade. He held open the door and paused a moment, smelling the familiar odors of the monastery, listening to the tsk-tsk of the crickets. He would never be here, in this peaceful place, again. He was just about to move on when he noticed a sound he had never heard before in a monastery. It was an infant crying.
PART FIVE
Capo
26
After the lynching of Vittorio Liotta and his men, all hell broke loose across America. The Liotta case had been reported right across the country, in Italy, in Britain, where the Times took a particular interest, and throughout Europe. Anti-Italian riots broke out in several U.S. cities, the Italians withdrew their ambassador to Washington as a form of protest, and there was even talk of mobilizing the Italian fleet against the Americans. In New Orleans, a grand jury was installed to investigate the lynchings, but it concluded that the lynchers had been justified in their actions, pointing out that they had been led by the mayor, which m
eant that they were not just any mob but had included many of the most law-abiding citizens of New Orleans. The jury refused to hand down any new indictments.
Silvio made it back safely to New Orleans, but for a time, a long time, his heart was still in Sicily. He could not hear a child crying without coming close to tears himself. But he never heard from Annunziata again, or from his daughter, Sylvana.
Angelo reigned as the undisputed Capo of New Orleans for six months only, rather less than he had hoped. During the last six weeks his liver failure made him very frail. But he managed the transfer of power to Silvio with all his old dignity.
After the lynching, the Liotta family fragmented, at least in North America. One section remained in New Orleans, accepting a secondary role. Others, including the four defendants who had survived in the Parish Prison siege, fled north, to Memphis, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and New York, where they founded families of their own. Years later Guido di Passo successfully prosecuted the Pittsburgh Mafia.
Silvio attended Angelo’s funeral in Metairie Cemetery, where the Cataldos were interred, but two days afterward he received a visit from Anna-Maria. Angelo had often said to Silvio, in that final terrible year, that he half hoped Silvio and Anna-Maria could now get married, and Silvio would not have objected. But Anna-Maria had changed, and now, with her husband and father gone, she was taking her mother and children on a European cruise and tour, to forget New Orleans and maybe start again, somewhere else. She was strictly businesslike in her dealings with Silvio.
“You were mentioned in Papa’s will,” she said. “He left you his cigars.” She held out the box.
Silvio was touched. He took hold of the box, but Anna-Maria didn’t let go.
“I’ll miss you, Silvio.”
“Then don’t leave. We could get married.”
She smiled and shook her head. “Remember that night on the Syracusa? When I saw that gun you had? Remember how excited I was? More than you, I think. I used to love that sort of thrill. Not anymore. I don’t blame you for Dick’s death. If anyone’s to blame, I’m up there at the top. But I’ve seen what his absence has done to the children. And I’ve seen what living with my father has done to my mother.”