I watched the villagers file past me: black-clad figures wkh stony faces and angry eyes.
They all know why she killed Rocca. That's why they want her dead.
I gazed at them each in turn as they took their place around the empty grave. Maria Rocca, Xavier’s widow, pale and sorrowful, was sobbing into her handkerchief. Earlier this morning she had told me that she despised Sybilia for bringing disgrace and grief to the family.
The bearers set the coffin at the side of the grave to a chorus of angry mutters. With a piercing shriek the voceri launched into her own sermon of vengeance and blood, but Father Andrews silenced her with a scathing glance. I could not help admiring him. His flock were a stubborn, obstinate people, forever harking back to ancient superstitions and their own brand of sledgehammer justice. They were all practising Christians, but they were also Corsicans.
As the mourners stepped forward to nail down the coffin, I gazed at Xavier Rocca for the last time. In an island renowned for bravery, he had outshone them all. As the village headman he had ruled the villagers according to his traditions. It was men like Xavier Rocca who had made the work of the Catholic church and the French police a nightmare in Corsica.
Footsteps on cobbles! As the priest commenced his sermon an icy shiver of fear ran down my back. I scanned the mourners. Not a rifle amongst them, nor a knife, as far as I could see. Father Andrews had refused to perform the requiem mass until they heeded his plea to come unarmed. They had grudgingly agreed.
'We ask Thee, O Lord, to show mercy to Thy servant who is dead, that he be not made to suffer for any wrong he may have done; for he always desired to do Thy will…’
The priest did not falter as Inspector Hiller crossed the cobbled square. He was on time, just as we had arranged, but accompanied by six well-armed policemen. Hiller had never been known to take a chance. The villagers turned their backs on the inspector. Their eyes registered contempt. Not a man in Taita would lift his hat to Rene Hiller. Hiller, however, pretended not to notice the subtle insults as he hung around behind the mourners.
A murmur of rebellion ran through the crowd, but Father Andrews quelled it with a frown and a gesture.
‘Grant, O God, that while we lament the departure of this Thy servant, we may always remember that we are most certainly to follow him I glanced across the mound of flowers to Sybilia’s son, Jules Rocca, who was staring moodily at his feet. Jules had arrived from Ajaccio that morning. He and I were the only ones not wearing black. Like me, he had tied a black scarf around his arm. Jules was a good-looking boy, but he was scowling furiously, and his lips were pulled into a tight line. He looked agonized. The boy had adored his grandfather, and in other circumstances he would have gone after the killer. There was no sign of Ursuline, his half sister. She was a novice in a French convent, and presumably she had not yet learned about Rocca’s death.
‘Have mercy on me O God, as Thou art ever rich in mercy; in the abundance of Thy compassion, blot out the record of my misdeeds. Wash me clean, cleaner yet, from my guilt, purge me of my sin. ’
Father Andrews ended the service, but the mourners hung around as if sensing there was more drama to be wrung out of the morning. There was a sudden silence. A tensing in the crowd. All eyes turned as Sybilia appeared dramatically at the edge of the trees. I moved closer to the rifle I had hidden in a neighbouring grave earlier that morning and watched for any sudden movement in the crowd.
Smoothing the leaves out of her hair, Sybilia walked slowly through the long grass, past the gate, the flowers, and the trim graves, unhesitatingly toward Hiller. She was wearing the same blouse and skirt she had worn when she’d fled into the maquis. Crumpled and bedraggled, she retained her innate dignity.
The mourners parted reluctantly as she approached, leaving a path through the crowd. The police, who were clearly nervous, fingered their guns. Hiller motioned me to move away.
‘I am here,’ Sybilia said to Hiller, ‘to give myself up to your French justice.’
Angry mutters from the crowd; eyes blazing hatred; there was a sudden shout, shrill and violent, from the voceri: ‘Death to the whore!’
Against the mourners’ grumbles, the priest could hardly hear Hiller’s mumbled arrest, but he heard Sybilia’s answer, which rang out loud and clear:
I did not murder Xavier Rocca. I executed him. ‘ Then she swept past, looking proud and uncompromising, as she always did.
I noticed the brave, squared shoulders, her head held high, and her last imploring glance toward her family as they led her away.
Later, when the crowd had dispersed, Father Andrews and I leaned over the stone wall at the perimeter of the square, watching the distant wisp of dust from the police vehicle that was taking Sybilia to Ajaccio.
I said: ‘I have to know why she did it.’
Father Andrews shook his head. ‘Jock, my friend’ — he put his hand on my shoulder — ‘I can’t reveal the secrets of the confessional, not even to you.’
‘Without a defence she doesn’t stand a chance,’ I told him angrily. ‘Can’t you see it’s your duty to help her?’
‘I’ll do all I can,’ he said. ‘The poor, poor girl.’ He broke off and ran his hand over his face in a gesture of despair. ‘She has no chance anyway. Or so Hiller believes.’
While the priest’s voice droned on, I was trying to come to a decision. I had finished my work here. Ahead of me lay the rewards of years of hard work. Was I to throw away my career to help a woman whom I could only call a friend? Looking back, I’m ashamed that it took so long.
‘Sybilia will be made an example of, to deter islanders from resurrecting their age-old system of retribution,’ the priest said. He sighed. ‘Hiller says the prosecution intends pressing for capital punishment.’
How can I return to Boston as I planned and leave Sybilia to her fate? She's alive because of me. When I handed her over for trial, I promised to do my best to help her. But how? With sympathy and false hopes while the conveyor belt of French justice bears her inexorably to the guillotine?
‘I may delay my departure a little after all,’ I said slowly. ‘But I don’t know how I can help her.’
‘You’ll have to dig up the past.’ Father Andrews gave a sly smile. ‘After all, that’s your trade, isn’t it?… Funny how you get reminded of things,’ he went on after a long silence.
‘That look on her face when Hiller took her away… defiant, haughty, but terrified nonetheless, that’s just how she looked when I welcomed her to Taita as a young and frightened bride.’
As he turned away, I heard him mutter: ‘Oh heavenly Father, when is the twenty-year-old past to be allowed to die?’
Part Two
Chapter 7
Taita, 13 July, 1939
Sybilia felt light-headed that morning as she set out for Taita from her home in Chiomia. Not sad, really, or even scared, she comforted herself. Why should she be scared? This could not be happening to her, not to Sybilia Silvani, favourite of the nuns at the convent, school prefect, soloist in the choir, top student in English, aged sixteen years and two months. On, no, this nightmare journey on the back of an evil-tempered mule could not be real. She felt safe inside her cocoon of unreality.
As if in a dream, she glanced from side to side as they passed through the Terri forest. Images flashed past, blurred by her veil: dappled light among patches of mist; thick glades of chestnut trees that darkened the road with their dense foliage; a family of fat pigs, gorged on nuts and berries, wallowing in a mud pool.
People were calling. Laughter flashed among them like sunlight through the branches overhead. She heard her father’s voice, and he too seemed to have nothing better to do than to joke with his friends.
'Blessed Mary, help me. Make all this go away.'
Only a week ago she had been so blissfully unaware that her world could turn upside down. She had been looking forward to another year at school. Mama had insisted. Then, only last week, Papa had informed them of his plans. Mama had cried, but
Sybilia had stood there dry-eyed. The truth was she had felt too stunned to cry. Until then she had imagined that her father had loved her. From this day on, Sybilia vowed, she would never speak to him again.
As for Michel, her bridegroom, she did not even know what he looked like. When she’d met him for the first time early this morning, she had been too depressed and too shy even to glance at him, but she knew he was there behind her, trudging along in this ridiculous wedding procession, together with her mother, her four brothers, six aunts, and their husbands and children, each carrying a part of her trousseau.
I mustn’t cry. It’s not real at all. Just a bad dream. It will pass…
Shortly afterward the winding gravel road left the forest and zigzagged steeply up into the mountains. Now at last the mist seemed to be lifting as they reached a higher altitude. It was becoming hot, for it was nearly noon. The jokes and gibes had ceased; in turn there was panting breath, an occasional curse as a foot slipped on loose gravel. As for the women, they winced and crackled in their Sunday black and kept their eyes fastened on the treacherous path. Best shoes were never made for walks like this, they grumbled quietly.
To the French bom and bred Madame Silvani, the long walk was a torment. She could hardly bear to look at her poor daughter, dangling on the back of that obscene mule. Sybilia was a tall girl with fine bone structure and delicate features that belied her strength. Until last year she had been as thin as a beanpole, but lately her breasts had grown and her hips had become rounded, her glance more womanly. She had been so proud of her, and then, at the very first glimpse of womanhood, her husband, Claude, had used her as a bargain to curry favour with Xavier Rocca, a local leader in the powerful National Front party. It was so bitterly unfair. She should never have married a Corsican. Corsica was a man’s world, and she hated it. She had always borne the restrictions and humiliations of being female with fortitude and compliance, but there must have been a spark of rebellion there, all the same, she thought guiltily, for she had encouraged her daughter, Sybilia, to think for herself, and to expect no less from life than her four brothers. They were all so much alike: fiercely independent, outspoken, proud, headstrong, brave. Each quality was a virtue for a boy but a tragedy for a girl.
She had not spoken to Claude for days. Not since he had returned drunk to the house to announce his evil plans. He and his hunting friends had sealed her daughter’s fate without even consulting her. She had stormed and pleaded for hours, but Claude would not give in. He had given his word, he said. And that was that. ‘It’s a good match,’ he had muttered in the face of her fury. ‘Xavier Rocca is a big landowner, he’s headman of the village and highly regarded in the Nationalist movement. He only has one son, and so he wants to ally himself to our family.’ There was a trace of satisfaction in his voice. 'Rich in men’ was a common-enough phrase to find in Corsican documents, and God knew she had the four best sons in Chiomia.
‘But you have no right to send her away so young and unprepared,’ she had persisted.
‘And what did six years in a convent prepare her for, may I ask?’
‘She wants to be a teacher…’
‘The boys get an education — she gets a dowry,’ he had said, and that was that.
There was no point in arguing. Men controlled the family. Personal inclinations had no place in the Corsican concept of marriage, and young people were frequently called upon to sacrifice their feelings in the interests of the family.
She had betrayed her daughter. She knew that. Sybilia was strong and fearless enough to cope with almost any calamity, except being female.
The sun broke through the mist and the village of Taita was suddenly visible high above: a cluster of stone houses clinging to a ridge poised over a yawning chasm of granite rock from which a waterfall, shining like a ribbon of light, fell to the moon-shaped lake below.
Below the village narrow strips of terraces had been hewn out of rock. They were separated by thick walls of stones, now overgrown with weeds and shrubs. The strips between had been haphazardly cultivated, so that patches of farmed land were interspersed with weeds, olives, citrus trees, grass for the occasional donkey, or simply abandoned to the maquis.
Winding up through the terraces was the only road, providing a tortuous ascent to the village. Unexpectedly the mist thickened again and Taita was lost to sight. The members of the wedding party rubbed their eyes and wondered if they had been victims of a mirage. God knew they were tired enough and thirsty enough, but then Xavier Rocca, who was several paces ahead, called out: ‘That’s it then. That’s Taita for you. The loveliest village in all of Corsica. Today she’s shy, she’s hiding behind a veil of white, just like this young bride. It’s an omen to welcome her. That’s what it is.’
He slapped his mule, Pierre, on the rump, and it lowered its ears and kicked its back legs in temper.
Sybilia shuddered. It was becoming impossible to avoid reality in the face of so many physical discomforts. When they had seated her on the mule dressed in her family’s satin bridal gown and veil, she had prayed that she would die of misery, that she would never reach the hated village, never see her miserable bridegroom, never endure the coming night with the humiliation and pain that she had been warned about. But now, compared with her awful aches and pains, even her grief and dread had taken a back seat. The gown was too tight around her bust, too close under her arms, it pulled and pinched and made the heat intolerable. A cloud of horseflies buzzed around her veil and bit her bare legs, but far worse was the wretched blanket, which had rubbed blisters on the tender skin inside her thighs. At this moment it felt as if she had been set alight there, and she wondered dismally how she would endure another hour of it. She kicked out as another fly landed a stinging bite on her ankle, and Pierre laid back his ears and brayed angrily.
It was a good six-hour walk from Chiornia to Taita. The wedding party had left at eight that morning, and now they were all tired and irritable. Only Xavier Rocca felt happy as he half pulled, half coaxed the obstinate Pierre with his precious bundle toward home. Xavier was a giant of a man, towering head and shoulders over the other villagers, strong as an ox and twice as cunning. He was the best hunter in the district, and for endurance no one could touch him. When he was young he had joined the French navy and quickly learned that he was what women considered handsome, with his crystal-clear blue eyes, wavy black hair, and regular features. Now, at forty-three, his hair was slightly grey, but he looked much the same as he always had. Or so he thought. His hand strayed up to his moustache, and he gently twirled the end of it. Plenty of hard work, plenty of fun, plenty of women, but he kept his secrets away from Maria. Scandal had never touched the village of Taita.
He was smiling, blue eyes twinkling, and he felt the good humour and love of his fellow man bubbling out in great waves. He wanted to embrace every member of the wedding party. At the moment he could embrace the whole world. He had pulled off a coup, and he knew it. The Silvanis owned a long strip of land next to his own, higher up the mountain, where their flocks were pastured in the summer months. It bordered a small mountain lake, which he had viewed with a covetous eye for many years. Silvani had not taken much persuasion to let it go with his daughter, only too glad to ally his family with that of the powerful Roccas. Then there was the girl herself to be considered. She was well educated and a rare beauty. Just the girl for his son. If anything could turn Michel into a man, she would.
For a moment his smile faded as he thought about the boy. Bad blood, he muttered. He had known when he married her that Maria was wrong in the head — a mazzeri they called her in the village — harbinger of death, and some believed the cause of it. Huh! Superstitious nonsense. Xavier tried not to believe in witchcraft, nor in second sight, nor in his wife’s endless conversations with the dead, but he had endured her babbling for these past twenty-odd years with remarkable patience. When Xavier struck a bargain, his word was his bond. He had married Mafia in full possession of the facts, only too pleased to lay h
is hands on her extensive inheritance.
He shrugged off his dismal thoughts and quickened his pace. This was not a day for gloom. It was long past drinking time, and he was thirsty. The celebrations would start immediately after the church ceremony. Yet another waste of good drinking time. He knew the villagers were astonished that he had given in to this earnest young priest from foreign parts who understood so little of Corsican ways. Well, he had, and with good reason to do so, which he was not about to divulge.
The sun was breaking through again. Armfuls of wild flowers lined their route, the chestnut harvest would be bountiful this year, and the pigs and goats were bursting their bellies. There was no better place than Corsica, nowhere so beautiful. He should know. Hadn’t he travelled the world?
Chapter 8
The Church of St Augustine was only two hundred years old, an infant in terms of Corsican architecture. It was built of solid stone blocks, faced with expertly cut slabs of yellowish granite, meticulously fitted together. With its vaulted ceiling and superimposed arches and the little domed lantern on top of it, the church was a masterpiece of mathematical precision in stonemasonry. It was a small church. There were no famous works of art here, but several lovely old wood carvings and statues painted in blue and white and gilt, and an ornate aitarpiece by some long-forgotten master sculptor. Finest of them all was the painted statue of St Augustine of Hippo, symbol of sinners, severe and imposing in his bishop’s robes, his face as white as chalk.
Today the church was decked with flowers in readiness for the wedding, and Father Andrews was wearing his gold alb, cope, and stole that set off his black hair and his dark skin. In spite of his colouring no one could mistake him for anything other than Irish. His features were too angular, with pointed nose and chin and wide cheekbones sloping to a full, sensuous mouth. His eyebrows were black, and bushy, and they almost met over his deep-set, serious eyes, which were of an indeterminate shade of brownish green that seemed to change with the light. At times he looked shy and young, and then his eyes could flash with indignation and he would look years older and downright intimidating.
The Corsican Woman Page 3