The Good Mothers

by Alex Perry

  Concetta called her mother back a few minutes later. She sounded broken.

  ‘Wait, Mum, just let me talk, and then you talk,’ she said. After her mother assented, Concetta continued.

  ‘I get it,’ she said. ‘I get it already. Already I can’t do anything else. I just couldn’t talk right then because I was near those people who want to arrest you. Understand?’

  Concetta’s mother moved quickly to reinforce her position. ‘I don’t care about them,’ she replied. ‘O cu nui, o cu iddi.’ (You’re with us, or you’re with them.)

  ‘Yes, I know,’ answered Concetta.

  ‘You have to do this, ’Cetta! Tonight, I spoke with the lawyer. You understand? Tomorrow you go to the same lawyer. We’ve already paid him.’

  ‘I know, I know.’

  ‘Tomorrow! The same lawyer. Vittorio Pisani.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Swear to me, ’Cetta! You’ll do this tomorrow!’

  ‘Yes, I’ll call him. I’ll call him tomorrow.’

  ‘If you don’t call him tomorrow, you can forget about me, ’Cetta. I’m destroyed here.’

  ‘Stop it, Mother. Enough. Leave me alone.’

  ‘Swear to me! Tomorrow morning! You don’t understand, ’Cetta. The ones you are with. You’re making the men crazy! You call the lawyer tomorrow morning!’

  ‘All right, Mum. All right. Please stop.’

  ‘If you do everything the lawyer says, then the children will be with you again. You don’t want to come home? Fine. You go to your Aunt Angela’s or your Aunt Santina’s or wherever you want. But you make the choice. Us, or them. And you shut up!’

  Three days later, on 6 August, Concetta called her friend Emanuela Gentile. To the surveillance team, the change in Concetta’s tone was dramatic. A few days earlier, she had sounded free and confident. Now she was in pieces. ‘You know, Emanuela, the one mistake I made was to call home that one time,’ she said. ‘If I hadn’t called, I would have continued on the same path. But I called, and I weakened.’

  Concetta told Emanuela about her talk with her mother and father. ‘They know everything I’ve been doing,’ she said. ‘They even have printouts of my phone calls.’

  Emanuela said she’d heard that Concetta’s father and brother had visited Pasquale Improta at his home in Reggio. ‘Your brother’s sick in the head,’ she said. ‘He’s relentless.’

  ‘My father told me he wouldn’t let Giuseppe lay a finger on me,’ replied Concetta. ‘He even started to cry. He told me: “I forgive you.” But I’m afraid, Emanuela, I tell you. I’m scared. Even if they’re telling me, “Come back, daughter, come back,” you know how these families are, especially my family, especially the men. They don’t forgive. They don’t forgive injuries to their honour. My father has two hearts. One for his daughter and one for his honour.’

  Something was sure to happen to her if she went home, Concetta said. It had to, though probably not immediately, she thought. ‘They’ll wait,’ she said. ‘If they already have you there, in their place, they don’t need to hurry. But does it make sense for me to go home and live just a year, maybe a year and a half?’ She couldn’t make up her mind. ‘In one way, I’m thinking I should just do it, you know? Go home. Take the risk. Because I have to go back, Emanuela. I have to. They won’t send my children to me.’

  ‘Mama mia!’ exclaimed Emanuela. ‘They’re keeping your children from you?’

  ‘I asked for them but they haven’t sent them. And they won’t. Because they know that if they send my children to me, their daughter is lost to them for ever.’

  In another call, to Pasquale Improta, Concetta tried to prepare her boyfriend for what lay ahead. ‘If I go home, I’m finished,’ she said. ‘I understand that. I know how it will end. They don’t forgive offences to honour or dignity – and I injured both.’

  ‘Concetta,’ Pasquale replied, ‘can I tell you something? You’re too good. Too good.’

  ‘Too stupid,’ joked Concetta.

  ‘Too good. They broke your ribs. Other women wouldn’t even call them.’

  ‘It scares me to go home, I tell you.’

  ‘If it scares you, Concetta, then don’t go. If you go, you’ll pay.’

  ‘Well, that’s for sure.’

  Maybe because he wasn’t ’Ndrangheta himself, or maybe because he wasn’t a father, Pasquale didn’t seem to get it. He imagined Concetta still had choices. Concetta couldn’t make him understand. Before she hung up, however, she made sure to take time over her goodbyes. ‘Pa,’ she said, ‘until my last breath, I will love you. Goodnight, my love. Goodnight. I love you.’

  On 8 August, Concetta wrote a note to her protection officers, saying that she had spoken to her mother, who was on her way to Genoa with her uncle Gregorio and her eldest daughter Tania. Concetta explained that she couldn’t bear not to see Tania.

  In fact, Concetta had initially tried to resist. Her surveillance officers heard her on the phone trying to stall Lazzaro, saying she needed to check with the carabinieri before she agreed to meet. ‘Who do you need to call, ’Cetta?’ her mother shouted back. ‘Why do you need to ask anyone? Do you hear your daughter?’

  On the line came the sound of a small child crying and screaming. Lazzaro was holding the phone towards Concetta’s youngest daughter, Rosalba, seven, named after her grandmother. The girl was in tears. ‘She’s dying without you, ’Cetta!’ she said.

  ‘Tell her not to worry,’ said Concetta, softly.

  ‘Tell her to be quiet?’ replied Lazzaro. ‘’Cetta, she’s dying here.’

  ‘OK, OK. Tell her I’m close by. Tell her I’m coming.’

  ‘You meet us on the other side of town!’ ordered Lazzaro, and hung up.

  The following morning, when Concetta’s protection officers went to her hotel room, they found the door open with the keys in the lock. Inside, her suitcase was gone.

  The surveillance team wouldn’t hear Concetta’s voice again for more than a week. That wasn’t because she hadn’t been talking, however. Three days after arriving back in Rosarno, Concetta secretly recorded a statement at the Cacciola family lawyer’s office in town. The recording, including one brief interruption, lasted eleven minutes and seven seconds.

  My name is Maria Concetta Cacciola, today is 12 August 2011, and I want to clarify what happened to me this May.

  During a visit to the carabinieri barracks, I told them I had some problems with my family. My family had received some anonymous letters. At the time, I was in a bad way. I was jealous. My husband was in prison. Then these letters came and I held up my hands to what they said, and my family shut me in my home, telling me I couldn’t go out or have friends. I was angry at my family. I wanted to make them pay. So I told the carabinieri: ‘Maybe I can help you. I have problems with my parents and my family. I’m afraid that my father and my brother are going to do something to me.’

  Initially, they did not take me away. But a few days later, they told me that I should talk to their superiors and the carabinieri commander came to see me. And that’s how it happened. I said whatever I needed to say in order to get away from home. I was confused. But my reasoning was to make them pay. I was so angry.

  Two days later, they told me they had agreed to take me into custody and they met me again at the barracks. There was a car ready and two magistrates were there to talk to me. At first, I was confused. But then, because I wanted to leave, I said things that weren’t true and which hadn’t happened. Because I just wanted to go away and make them pay for my suffering. Finally, one magistrate said to me: ‘It’s Friday. Get ready to leave here on Monday.’

  In fact, they came to get me on Saturday. They took me to Cosenza. Three days later, the two magistrates came back and began pressuring me about my family. And I, because I was still furious with them, I again accused my father and my brother.

  I was a month and a half in Cosenza. From there they took me to Bolzano. But by the time I got to Bolzano, I wanted to retract because I realised that
out of anger I had said things that weren’t true. It was all just things that I had read in newspapers or heard people talking about and just because I was so enraged I accused my father and brother of being involved even when they were not. I realised I was in the wrong. I realised that because I was so angry, I was accusing people who had nothing to do with anything. It wasn’t right. I wanted a lawyer. But they told me I couldn’t have one because witnesses weren’t allowed lawyers under the law. I told them I wanted to return to my family. But they told me: ‘Don’t go back to your family. We are your family now. Your family won’t forgive you if you go back now. If you thought they wanted to kill you before, imagine what they’ll do now they think you have a relationship with us.’ And I was afraid, knowing what I had done and how gross an injury I had inflicted.

  In Bolzano, I talked to my daughter by email. After that, I spoke to my mother. I wanted to know what my mother thought of what I had done. In Bolzano, I also met people who might have recognised me. At that point, I was moved immediately to Genoa. They told me: ‘You can’t have any contact with people you know.’

  From Genoa, I called my mother again and told her I missed her and wanted to see her. I spoke to my mother and my father too. And now I really knew what I had done! My mother came to Genoa but the state told me I couldn’t have any contact with my family. When I got into the car with my dad, however, I realised he had already forgiven me for the mistakes I had made. We reached Reggio Emilia. I was scared of going back to Calabria, though not of my father, and of my own free will I left again with the carabinieri for Genoa. They asked me: ‘Are you sure you haven’t told your family that you’re staying in Genoa?’ I said I hadn’t, even though I had told my mother.

  I had also told my mother that I wanted to talk to a lawyer. From Genoa I called a lawyer, Vittorio Pisani, telling him I was confused because the state had told me that if I hadn’t been represented already in the process then I couldn’t start now. Anyway, the state told me to stop calling the lawyer, and added that I was stubborn, that I shouldn’t call my family, that I should turn off my phone and everything else. I didn’t agree. And I called my mother again, asked her to come back up to Genoa, and she came with her brother and my daughter and I left Genoa of my own free will. Now I have decided to appoint the lawyers Gregorio Cacciola and Vittorio Pisani to represent me …

  At that point the recording cut, then resumed:

  I’ve now been back at home for three days with my father, my mother, my brother and my children. Finally, I have found the peace …

  ‘… that I have been looking for,’ prompted a female voice in the background.

  … that I have been looking for. I should add that I have written a letter to go with this recording. In the future, I hope to be left alone, out of contact with anyone and with no one contacting me.4

  On 13 and 14 August, Concetta’s surveillance officers picked up two text messages she sent to Pasquale Improta using a phone she had managed to hide from her family. In them, she told a different story. She said she was a prisoner of her family in the yellow house on Via Don Gregorio Varrà once more. This time, however, ‘they brought lawyers to make me retract,’ she wrote. ‘They made me say that I was using drugs, that I was angry. My brother won’t speak to me. Their coldness is terrifying. I don’t want to stay here, Pa. I don’t see how any good will come of this.’

  Concetta asked Pasquale to pass a message to Chief Marshal Salvatore Esposito at the carabinieri headquarters in Reggio Calabria. She wanted to return to witness protection, she said. This time, she had to take her children with her. ‘I feel caged here,’ she wrote. ‘What can I do?’

  Pasquale passed on the message. On 17 August, Concetta spoke to the carabinieri several times to confirm she wanted to re-enter witness protection. Just before 11 p.m. she called Marshal Esposito in Reggio. After confirming for himself that Concetta wanted to return to the programme, Esposito asked how best to extract her and her three children. ‘Can you leave the house?’ he asked. ‘Even later tonight?’

  Concetta said no. She asked if Esposito could send officers to arrest her to make it look as though she was being taken against her will. ‘It’s so difficult here, with my father and my brother,’ she said. Even outside the family, she explained, ‘there are also those around them, people know what happened. Word that I’ve been speaking to the carabinieri is spreading.’

  ‘Are you afraid of moving or of the repercussions?’ asked Esposito.

  ‘Both!’ replied Concetta.

  Eventually, Esposito and Concetta agreed that she would call when the time felt right – that night or the following morning – and that Esposito would dispatch a car immediately. It would be with her fifteen minutes after her call, Esposito said. ‘Call any time,’ he added. ‘We’ll be waiting.’

  In Reggio’s Palace of Justice, Alessandra was also waiting. It was August, the daytime temperature was breaching 40 °C and the entire country was on holiday. Pignatone, Prestipino and Giovanni Musarò were all away. Only Alessandra remained. ‘The situation appeared to be calm with Cacciola,’ said Giovanni later. ‘There was a wiretap of her talking to a friend in which she said that she knew she would be killed – but not soon. She was talking about a year, a year and a half, because it would be stupid to kill her immediately. And anyway, Concetta was going to be back in protection soon. So we felt safe.’

  The next day, 18 August, in a conversation recorded by a bug inside the Cacciola car, Concetta told her mother she had spoken to Chief Marshal Esposito. She added she intended to return to witness protection.

  ‘’Cetta, no!’ screamed Lazzaro. ‘No! Absolutely not!’

  ‘You told me everything would be different!’ shouted Concetta.

  ‘I was resigned to you leaving us,’ replied Lazzaro. ‘But now I’m not. No! I won’t accept this!’

  ‘Mum, I have to finish what I started,’ said Concetta.

  Half an hour later, Concetta phoned the carabinieri once more and told them she was in a dilemma. It was impossible to leave the house without being accompanied by her mother. On the other hand, if she left with her and her mother returned home without her, then her mother would face dire consequences. Eventually Concetta agreed with the carabinieri that the solution was to wait for everyone in the Cacciola house to fall asleep that night, then usher her children out into the street and into a waiting carabinieri car. They would do it around 1.30 a.m. Four hours later, Concetta called back to say her youngest, Rosalba, had a fever and everything had to be put off for a day or so.

  Reading the transcripts, Alessandra was exasperated. ‘We were all waiting for her call to come and pick her up. She had called and said: “I want to come back.” The barracks were all ready for her and her children. I’d even asked the carabinieri to come back from their holidays. So we were just waiting. And then this back and forth. Honestly, at that point, we thought that she was playing with us. We discovered that the part about her daughter being sick was a lie. Her children were at the beach. Concetta just did not have a clear mind. She was changing it constantly. Some days she reached out to us. Some days she didn’t. There was such indecision. We really wanted her to make up her mind and make a final decision, a choice. But we thought that at least she had the situation under control. And I think perhaps she herself thought she had more time.’

  The next day, 19 August, Alessandra and the carabinieri waited by the phone in case Concetta changed her mind once again. No call came.

  On 20 August, Alessandra and the carabinieri gathered again to resume their vigil. ‘The whole team was there on alert, waiting for her to give the word and we’d go in and get her. But we couldn’t do anything until she gave us the go-ahead. By law, since she was a witness, we weren’t allowed to charge in and break down the door. She had to open the door for us. And she just couldn’t open that door.’5

  At 6.40 p.m. on 20 August 2011, Concetta’s father, Michele, arrived at Santa Maria Hospital in the town of Polistena, twenty minutes from Ro
sarno. Concetta was immobile in the back seat of the family Mercedes. She had burns around her mouth and foam spilling from her lips.

  In emergency admissions, Dr Fortunato Lucia confirmed Concetta had no pulse. As staff at the hospital called the police, Dr Lucia attempted to resuscitate her using CPR. The paramedics handed the doctor a red plastic bottle of hydrochloric acid which they said Concetta’s family had found next to her in the family basement. Dr Lucia tried to put Concetta on an intravenous drip but without a pulse, it wouldn’t take. By the time a police patrol arrived at 7 p.m., Dr Lucia had pronounced Concetta dead.

  ACT THREE

  ITALY AWAKES

  XVIII

  Maria Concetta Cacciola’s death certificate identified her as having been born three decades earlier, a few miles south of the hospital in which she died.1 It listed her as living ten miles to the west in Rosarno. Born in Calabria. Lived in Calabria. Died in Calabria. As her family had promised her, it was as though the past four months had never happened.

  Word of Concetta’s death reached Alessandra and the carabinieri in a call in the early evening from the local police. The officer said the indications were that Concetta had drunk a litre of hydrochloric acid in the basement of the Cacciola family home. For the second time that year, Alessandra found herself momentarily overwhelmed. ‘It was terrible for everyone,’ she said. ‘No one had imagined it would end so finally, so completely. We were all ready to pick her up. It was very hard to come to terms with.’2

  Giovanni took Alessandra’s call on holiday. He was speechless. Years later, he would say: ‘You can’t let the work become personal. But the story of Maria Concetta Cacciola was terrible, really hard to bear. She hadn’t even been arrested and had no convictions. She was just a witness.’3 It was the tragedy of Concetta’s death, the way it seemed almost mythically pre-destined, that most disturbed Giovanni. ‘Maria Concetta Cacciola was a character from a Greek play,’ he said. ‘She went back even though she was aware she would be murdered. She went back out of love for her children. This almost symbiotic relationship that she had with her mother, the love letter she wrote to her – there is something beautiful about it. Beautiful, and unacceptable.’