That Summer in Sicily

by Marlena de Blasi

  No need to scream, Chou. I can hear you asking, Why? Why did he leave you to suffer all that time? Why didn’t he tell you that he was well? The truth is, at that moment, I had little need for the why or the how. After the first great convulsion of stupor, there was a noise inside my head like a tumbril trundling over a cobbled street and after that, after looking upon him as he stood there in the doorway, there was an immense, a sublime reckoning. My only need was to continue looking at him, to run toward him, not unlike I did on that evening when I was fifteen. This time, though, he caught me in his arms, crushed me against his chest. This time, it was he who did the kissing. My face and my hair and my mouth. And then he swung me ’round and ’round, his hands clutching me under my arms, until I couldn’t tell if I was seeing the end of some dream or whether the dream was only just beginning. We laughed, raised up screams and shouts of praise to the gods and yet we did not speak, words most often seeming paltry noise in times of pure joy. Still not saying much, I took the prince by the hand, walked him through the villa, showed him rather than told him what we’d done together. As we walked, we met up with all those people from our past—with darling Agata, with little red-haired Valentino who’d grown to be such a fine man, with Olga of the peach-skin cheeks, and with Cosettina, who kept crossing herself and touching Leo’s face as she would the face of St. Francis. Cosimo came running in from wherever he’d been causing his usual fuss and the two old mates held each other for so long that we finally had to separate them. And when we came to the kitchens, all the widows—even the ones Leo had never known before—made an intolerable cacophony of screeching and ululating, chanting and praying. The Tiny Mafalda was among them. She’d stayed apart from the rest who’d run to stand about Leo in an admiring circle. But he saw her, knew instantly who she was, and went to her. Lifted her into his arms as he’d done when she was six.

  There is another beautiful woman who’s waiting to welcome you home, Leo, I’d told him then. Besotted with emotion, trailing the household behind him, he let me pull him along through the garden. We stopped at the bakehouse door. Her face floured like a geisha’s, Carlotta and two others were pulling out the second bake, shoveling the rounds into cooling baskets. I think Leo saw the scene rather than the people, because he just stood there and smiled. Then Carlotta whispered, Papà. She said it louder then and ran to him, finally screaming it, Papà, Papà!

  There is another sin of omission that I must now confess. Carlotta is the Italian version of Charlotte. In her case, Princess Charlotte. When she came to stay with us soon after I’d returned from Palermo, she requested that we call her by her Italian name. Why didn’t I ever tell you that she was Leo’s daughter? You know the answer by now. I am Sicilian. She is Sicilian, too. But I will tell you, Chou, that even after all these years, I can still hear Carlotta screaming Papà. A case when words did not make a paltry noise upon pure joy.

  · · ·

  Even before I was ready to start asking questions, Leo began to lay down the pieces for me. I will tell you that, for days and weeks, he carefully dosed out the events, trying to be certain that I’d taken in one part before he proceeded to the next. I have already dreaded reaching this point in my letter to you since the complications of what he told me—early on as well as over the long years afterward—and the further complications of what Cosimo told me are thick and tortuous. There are times when, even now, I lost my way inside the story. Yet, try to guide you through it I must. Else I might simply end my letter here. Which I may very well decide to do. But first I will try to reconstruct Leo’s story.

  Leo told me that it was Cosimo who’d saved him. Saved him from himself and then saved him from the clan. You see, Leo had arrived at the desperate conclusion to surrender himself to them. To present himself to the same man, this Mattia, who had come to whisper threats in his ear on that evening when he’d been summoned to meet with the clan. Leo had decided to do this even though he had received neither a word nor suffered the least untoward action from the clan during the three years which followed that evening. He’d been left undisturbed save by his own fertile conjecture. Yet, fear having worn him to a kind of madness, Leo had decided to remind Mattia of his promise.

  Leo knew that Simona and the princesses were out of harm’s way, perceived as they were so separate from him, but it was some injury to me, to the peasants, to Cosimo, that agonized him day and night. Though I think you never would, you might ask me why he simply didn’t cease his activities, continue to help the peasants in less conspicuous, less antagonistic ways. Live out his life quietly with me. The story would have to have been about another man, Chou. We’re all who we are endlessly.

  At this time Leo was all but finished with the legal business of partitioning the land, of preparing the channels through which the peasants could sell their crops, of setting up accounts for them, arranging for twice-yearly withdrawals should funds be needed to supplement their first trafficking with profit and loss. He’d thought of everything. He’d made his arrangements for me, for Cosimo. And as though, with all this in place, his earthly work done, he was ready to pay for his deeds as Mattia had promised he would have to pay. Simply put, Leo told Cosimo that he would no longer wait for the clan to come to him but that he would go to them. The prince would no longer live perched on the rim of the well.

  Leo informed Cosimo of the day on which he’d planned to go to Palermo to find this Mattia. He set down all his final desires, instructions, caveats. Left locked metal boxes and their keys in Cosimo’s care. Transferred and consolidated to a single safekeeping the funds and deeds and jewelry that had been deposited in various banks. He was ready. In the meantime, Cosimo had arrived at his own desperate conclusion. As I write all this, I find myself thinking of Isotta. Of Leo’s mother and how she set about arranging her affairs and then arranging herself for death.

  Anticipating Leo’s proposed journey to Palermo, Cosimo himself went to call on Mattia. I suspect the man must have been intrigued by Cosimo’s request for an audience, which, in any case, was granted with ease. With no evidence of the bodyguards, the cohorts who Cosimo had thought would be present, Mattia saw the priest alone in a sitting room filled with lilacs. Callas sang from La Traviata. Though neither of them could have been comfortable, they played the role of old friends, sipped coffee and whiskey and smoked the cheap Toscano cigars of which Mattia was fond.

  As he was obliged to, the priest fired the opening volley. He asked Mattia why he hadn’t yet taken Leo. Why he’d left him, it might seem, in peace for those past three years.

  Has the Church taken to soliciting confessions? Another aberration from Rome?

  Point one for Mattia. Cosimo proceeded. He told Mattia that Leo’s work was very nearly completed. Cosimo began to offer details of the partitioning but Mattia waved his hand as if to say, I know that. I know all that. Cosimo then asked Mattia why he’d allowed Leo to continue with the very programs that the clan found so offensive.

  Mattia answered, Being men of honor, we’ve had our struggles over your prince, Don Cosimo. To make a martyr of him might have caused more grief than will the execution of his “programs,” as you call them. Mattia told Cosimo that he believed the clan’s dilemma over the “disposition” of the prince might have inflicted a far greater punishment on him than would have the bullet through his heart that he’d so long been expecting. Cosimo verified that the sinister abeyance of word and action from the clan had indeed had its brutal effect upon Leo. It was then that Cosimo said, I think it’s time you killed him, Signor Mattia.

  Pretending tranquility, Mattia looked at Cosimo. Asked him if he had also thought about how and where they might dispose of the prince.

  Una lupara bianca, Signor Mattia. When he’s walking across the meadow to the borghetto. There are stands of pines. Beeches.

  A well-delivered and properly cold-blooded recitation, Don Cosimo. Am I to understand that you have joined us in our displeasure with the prince? Have I missed something, some dissonance between the t
wo of you? That would distress me. I mean, it would distress me to be uninformed. But yes, yes, white for a prince. Yes, that’s good. But tell me, Don Cosimo, what is it exactly that you will gain by your prince’s demise? Is it the puttanina you want? She is beautiful, I admit. But I’d understood that you’d been having her since she was a child. Excuse me if I offend you. I don’t mind telling you that I’ve thought about taking her for myself. Perhaps we could share her, Don Cosimo. Once the prince is no longer, what would you say to our sharing the puttanina?

  Cosimo knew that Mattia’s discourse was meant to mortify him, enrage him. To take him off his game. Cosimo stayed the course and it was Mattia who was disarmed. Cosimo said, I shall get to my motives for this lupara bianca, but first, Signor Mattia, would you please be kind enough to tell me what you will gain by prince Leo’s death?

  Vendetta is not an intellectual concept. We, my brothers and I, will gain that particular form of peace of mind which a man of honor feels when he keeps his word. Leo said it himself that night. Don’t you recall? You must do what you must do and so must I, he said. Leo has kept his word. We shall keep ours.

  What if you kept your word to punish Leo, but what if you did it in a way that was, as you said yourself a few moments ago, “a far greater punishment than the expected bullet in his heart”?

  Cosimo told Leo that Mattia openly displayed his agitation. Said that he kept lifting and replacing the telephone receiver that sat on the table between them.

  Cosimo, we’re both busy men. I thank you for your visit. In parting, let me assure you that I will give due consideration to your, to your words.

  Cosimo said that Mattia rose, offered his hand to Cosimo but that he, Cosimo, remained seated and said, Please, Signor Mattia, I’ve not yet answered your question. You wanted to know what it is that I will gain by the prince’s demise. I think that’s how you put it. The demise that I intend—the lupara bianca of which I spoke—does not have to mean his death. It can signify his removal, his exile, the end of all his freedoms. Another kind of death. It does not have to mean his physical death. You, as a man of honor, will save face, will keep your promise to punish Leo. Punish him even more than your threats and your silences have punished him already. The prince is not your enemy. He did not take from you; he did not call for rebellion; he mustered no one to move against you; he does not want what you have; he seeks neither power nor influence but only to help half a hundred men, women, and children who were hungry. The prince is also a man of honor, Signor Mattia.

  Mattia said nothing. As though in a trance, he closed his eyes. The only sound in the room was from Callas.

  Cosimo spoke again. He cares very little for his own life. Perhaps someday you will know how little. But I care for his life. Not to share it with him, not to stay in his presence, but to know that such a man still walks, however restrainedly, upon this poor earth of ours. That’s the proposition which I came here today to present to you. Banish Leo, Signor Mattia. You decide when, where, under what circumstances, under what regulations. He will comply. The only other thing I beg of you is to leave the girl alone.

  The puttanina? That I will not promise.

  Then my mission fails.

  As though Cosimo were not present, Mattia paces, sits, paces, turns pages in a book that he does not look at, closes his eyes, mouths words that sound like prayer.

  Get him away. By the time you’ve arrived back at the palace, instructions will be waiting for you. Get him away tomorrow. Tonight. Convince everyone of the lupara bianca. You’ve been a priest for long enough to have learned to lie, Cosimo. Convince everyone, especially the girl. I shall oversee his exile while you remain at the palace to comfort the widow, the daughters. The girl. Should you try even to speak with the prince or he with you, I’ll kill both of you. Likewise, should Leo make the most fleeting contact with the girl, I’ll kill her. Send her to him in a box. And if he’s still alive after he sees the way in which she died, I’ll kill him, too. You tell him that.

  Then it was Cosimo who rose to leave, offered his hand to Mattia. Though he did not offer his hand in return, Mattia said, I thought I’d forgotten the stories my grandmother, my mother, used to tell me about when they were young. About hunger and cold and heat and work and about being thrashed, first thrashed and then raped, by the noble’s capo, should they in any way displease him. I thought I’d forgotten those stories but, for some reason, today they all came back to me. Every one of them. Get him away, Cosimo. Get him away before I forget the stories once again. Oh, that jacket he always wears. Keep that jacket. Give it to the girl.

  Cosimo said that this last served to prove to him that Mattia’s surveillance was complete, since it was true that Leo constantly wore the same suede riding jacket. But, wearing it, he rarely, if ever, left the palace grounds. The surveillance was carried on from within.

  Cosimo asked, Who is it, Signor Mattia?

  He said that Mattia began to laugh then. Laugh and shake his head. He showed Cosimo to the door.

  So through the offices of Cosimo, Leo was exiled rather than murdered. Two questions are on your lips, I know. What would have happened if Leo, himself, had gone to Mattia? And without either Cosimo’s intervention or Leo’s surrender of himself, what would Mattia have done?

  I have asked these of Leo and Cosimo. You might imagine how often. Neither of them, certainly not I, can know the answer to the first. There was always a vacillating consensus between the men that Leo, in his weakened state, might have presented a less-than-persuasive case for himself. To the second question, there seems no doubt of the outcome. Leo would have been murdered.

  And so Leo had lived with me for three years in self-imposed exile in the palace and then, for fourteen years, he lived in the exile imposed by Mattia. You’ll want to know where Leo was sent. What did he do? How did he live? And with whom?

  Leo was taken to live on a farm whose wheat fields covered the length and breadth of a high plateau. The fields below the plateau were only a few kilometers from the western borders of the land he had just given away. So near and yet so far. A serpentine tactic, you might think, but as you will learn, it was not.

  Alongside a large, extended family of tenant farmers, Leo worked as a laborer during the growing seasons. In the colder months, he helped to keep the barns and the farmhouse in repair. He was treated as the valuable worker and pleasant companion he showed himself to be. He slept in the cavernous loft of one of the outbuildings where he was not uncomfortable. He ate at the family table; his clothes and his bedding were cared for by the women of the house. He was invited to attend and to participate in what few outings and celebrations these simple mountain people enjoyed. Though they worked hard and lived simply, Leo said that this family did not seem to be poor. They seemed not to be living hand to mouth so much as they seemed to be living in the way they chose to live. An itinerant priest came to say Mass in a chapel in the fields each Sunday. They birthed their own children, buried their own dead. Small groups of the men and sometimes of the women went to market twice monthly to one or another of the nearest villages. Leo was often among them. But wasn’t he recognized in the villages? you want to know. Though he wore a poor man’s clothes, perhaps even took on a poor man’s bearing, I think someone who had once known Leo would surely have known him in any guise at all. You must remember, though, the inexorability of Sicilian silence.

  Several times each year, Mattia and his own family—his wife and grown children, grandchildren—would arrive in a colonnade of automobiles to spend a Sunday with this family on the farm. With Mattia’s family. Yes, this exile that Mattia chose for Leo was none other than his matriarchal home, and the people with whom Leo lived and worked were all Mattia’s relatives. Scrubbing, polishing, cooking, gathering branches and wildflowers, carrying barrels up from the cellar, Leo said that for those Sundays with Mattia, the family prepared as if for Christmas. He was their benefactor, their protector. The prodigal son.

  Mattia would always shake Leo’s hand.
Look him hard in the eye. Rest his great, wide hand on Leo’s back for a while. Ask him why his glass was empty.

  Mattia punished Leo—would have killed him—for the blatant irreverance he showed to the clan’s dictum. But only secondarily was Leo to be punished for his real actions—his willful intervention of a centuries’-old system of hierarchy that kept the wealthy in comfort and the poor in misery. It was the affront more than the deed itself. I shall not minimize the deed, though. You see, had all the landowners done what Leo did, the clan’s revenues would have been mightily impacted. It was a far cleaner task for the clan to plunder a handful of cowering, effete landowners than it would have been to bleed pittances from thousands of historically starved peasants waving freshly inked deeds and hunting rifles. But once again, the upsetting of the hierarchy happened to be Leo’s crime against the clan. The crime might well have taken on another form, his irreverance might have been demonstrated for some other cause. But what matters here and what seems so difficult to clearly state is that it wasn’t what Leo did so much as it was his affront for which he had to pay. Leo’s duel with the clan was not a philosophical one but one of deference. Leo did not defer to the clan. Leo did not allow the clan to prevail. A mortal sin. Leo compelled the clan to make an example of him.