The Florios of Sicily
Page 36
While Caruso heads to the offices, followed by an accountant, Vincenzo takes his son’s arm. They walk across the courtyard, to the trizzana, the boat shelter.
Ignazio accepts this gesture with wariness and surprise. He cannot remember his father ever holding him this close.
Down below, the waves sound like the sea lapping against the walls of a cave.
“The first time I came here—” Vincenzo stops, repressing a smile. “I was with Carlo Giachery. I remember everything was falling apart here, it was a wretched, dirty place. We didn’t even spend the night on the island because there wasn’t anywhere decent to stay. Then, the next day . . .” Another smile. He turns to look at the building behind him. “I sent a message to Palermo asking for ship carpenters and builders to do the place up. Meanwhile, I started teaching people how to produce tuna in oil. I removed my jacket, rolled up my sleeves . . .” Ignazio watches him as he repeats these same gestures, takes off his jacket and other clothes until he is in shirtsleeves. “I gathered the heads of all the families and their wives to show them I wasn’t afraid of getting my hands dirty.” He squeezes his shoulder and shakes it affectionately. “When people work for you they must feel that they’re a part of something.” He stops. The sun hits Ignazio’s ring. “I’ve told you this many times: my uncle, who you were named after, used to make me stay behind the aromateria counter. I hated it but now I see how important it was.”
“For understanding people.”
“Yes, for getting to know them. Because when someone asks you for something, you have to know what they really want: is it a herb to simply make them feel better or to treat a real pain? If they want wine, are they after quality or the prestige attached to it? If they need money, is it for power or because they’re in financial difficulties?”
Ignazio understands and thinks about this. He’s still pondering it when he arrives at the village, alone while his father is in a meeting with Genoese agents. The small, narrow streets are flooded in white sunlight; the tuna-oil-soaked tuff is no longer crumbling; there are now flagstones in the square outside the main church. His father has arranged for a schoolteacher for those who wish to learn to read and write, just like they do in Britain. All around the village, there are quarries like gorges sinking into the ground.
Favignana is a cliff of tuff, Ignazio thinks. You just have to scratch the surface and you find this thick layer of yellow, dappled with shells. The soil is pebbly and the few gardens and vegetable patches have been established with determination on the floors of tuff quarries, where muddy saltwater seeps through.
Then, once you’ve gotten used to the smell of tuna processing, you truly notice the sea: it’s an angry, living, fierce blue.
The wealth comes from the sea.
This is an island of wind and silence, and Ignazio thinks he would like to live in a place like this: to belong to it and feel it inside him like a piece of flesh or a bone. At once be this island’s master and its child.
He doesn’t know that this is really going to happen.
* * *
The door slams violently and there’s the sound of agitated footsteps and shouts. Giulia looks up from her embroidery and raises her eyebrows. “What’s the matter?”
Giuseppina shrugs her shoulders. “I suppose it’s mon père.” They exchange a glance. “And angry, at that.”
They put their work aside and go to the rooms where the noise is originating.
Giuseppina is a reedlike sixteen-year-old with large dark eyes. They’re the only beautiful feature in her anonymous face. And yet she is gentle and patient.
As she draws nearer, Giulia recognizes her husband’s voice. Then she walks into the dining room and finds Angelina sitting in an armchair, frowning, arms folded. Her father is towering over her.
“What’s the matter?”
A look from her husband makes her freeze in the doorway.
“What’s the matter?” she repeats. “Vincenzo, what is it?”
Angela’s reply is a poisoned arrow. “My father is accusing me of not going along with his marriage plans. He says that I should be prepared and is chiding me for not being attractive enough. As though somebody else but you two made me!”
Giulia turns and looks at her daughter. “Don’t you dare speak like that,” she says. That’s how Angelina is: sharp and angry. She’s not the kind of girl that lets herself be swayed, and neither is Giuseppina. But this time, Giulia has to reluctantly admit, she has a point. Sadly, fate has not been generous with her daughters as far as the gifts of beauty and grace are concerned.
Giuseppina goes to her sister and gives her an encouraging, comforting hug.
“I had a meeting at the association with Chiaramonte Bordonaro. I put to him the possibility of a union between our families. Angela is eighteen now . . .” The vein on Vincenzo’s forehead is throbbing fast. “But no: it seems that our daughters are not . . . interesting. And not doing anything to make themselves so.”
Angela looks at him with her eyes half-shut. She bears a striking resemblance to her paternal grandmother. “Neither my sister nor I are ever invited to parties. And why is that? Because we’ve never had the opportunity to meet anybody outside these four walls, we know very few girls our age, and people look at us as though we were servant girls dressed in our mistresses’ clothes. We have practically no friends, while our brother is paraded about, invited to all the gatherings, and goes riding at the Favorita with noblemen’s sons. You take him everywhere with you, to meetings with other traders, and introduce him as if he were an only child. And now you’re saying you can’t find me a husband? Have you ever wondered whose fault that is?”
“Hush, hush, my dearest . . .” Giuseppina caresses her face and tries to distract her. “You can’t talk to our father like this . . .”
“Oh, that’s right, I can’t . . . because he’s the master! And what are we, Giuseppina? Less than nothing! Aren’t we his daughters, too? But instead, as far as he’s concerned, only Ignazio exists. Ignazio! Ignazio! Ignazio!” Giulia sees her daughter’s eyes fill with tears in an escalation of rage, jealousy, and sadness.
Vincenzo closes his fist, then opens it and draws closer to her. “What do you mean?”
“Enough now!” Giulia hardly ever raises her voice, and when she does, she silences everybody. She points a finger at her daughters. “You two—to your room.” Then, hands on her hips, she addresses her husband. “To your study. Let’s go.”
She walks in earnest, not waiting to be followed.
There’s much more than anger in those footsteps and quick breathing. Once the door is shut, Giulia turns around. “How could you do such a thing without telling me?!” she shouts. Her rage is overwhelming, reddening her time-lined face. “Offering our daughters to the highest bidder among your associates? What are they, sacks of bark?”
Vincenzo is confused. “They’re of marrying age. Why not consider an advantageous match?”
Although it’s not the first time they’ve had this argument, Giulia’s feelings today are different. Stronger. Acidic. The sense of flesh tearing, of a gash that, she already knows, will not heal painlessly. “They’re respectable girls; they may not be a pair of Venuses, but they’re affectionate and polite. It’s certainly not their upbringing that prevents them from being invited. It’s something quite different.”
“You, too? Don’t go on about it. They’re girls, they’ll have an excellent dowry, there’s nothing else to say, and that’s what men look for nowadays.” Vincenzo is annoyed. “They can’t accept just anybody, not with their name.”
“And yet you know that the name and the money aren’t enough. Even now.”
This is not a doubt but a statement. Vincenzo falls silent because his wife is right.
He goes to the desk, sits down, and buries his face in his fists.
It was just a suspicion at first, which he’s carried around for a few months, ever since he began to let it be known that he had two daughters of marriageable age.
Vincenzo’s mouth has been coated in bile ever since.
He has not felt this ashamed in years. He stands up. Maybe, he thinks while pacing up and down the room and relating the conversation to his wife, he needs to revisit his youth in order to feel the sting of humiliation in all its ferocity once again. “That’s right, it’s not enough.” His voice is low, steeped in rancor and bitterness. “Our daughters aren’t enough. Everything I have done, Casa Florio . . . We are not enough.” And, as he looks at Palermo, bathing in the October sun, he doesn’t notice that Giulia has tears in her eyes.
“You want a match with an aristocratic family for yourself, not for them.” She speaks softly, afraid to let out a sob. Traces of her old pain surface. “It’s what you were unable to do for yourself, right?”
She sees her husband hesitate, taking a step back into his soul, betrayed by his fingertips curling into his palm.
She remembers, a lump in her throat. Fingers pointing at Angelina and Giuseppina, as illegitimate, baptized in secret without a celebration or even a toast, acknowledged only after Ignazio was born: the boy, the heir to Casa Florio.
Never mind that they now have a dowry that’s the envy of heirs to noble families, that they speak French, wear jewels, or that their church veil is made of lace: they are still two bastards. And she is still a kept woman. Some memories leave a sediment, ferment, but never disappear completely, and always find a way to surface again and cause pain.
Because there’s a kind of pain that can never end.
But Vincenzo can’t even imagine this: he’s incapable of accepting that something should be denied him. Anger dominates his horizon and prevents him from seeing Giulia’s bitterness. “Try to understand. Back then I was . . .” He stops, asking for her help.
Help she is not willing to give. Not anymore. “You used to make and break, Vincenzo, never taking anybody else into consideration. For years I lived with our children without any rights, in fear that at any moment you would throw me out so you could marry a noblewoman chosen by your mother.” Giulia feels her voice growing hoarse but pulls herself together because some things have to be said, things she has carried inside her for years. “You had your life, you followed your path . . .” She swipes the air with her hand and her voice trembles. “No, now you listen to me. I will not tolerate that Angela and Giuseppina go through what I went through, I don’t want them to feel as humiliated as I did. They will not marry somebody who despises them just so you can protect your own interests and those of Casa Florio.”
Vincenzo slumps on the chair. “I married you, Giulia.” He looks at her from below, silently asking for a truce.
“Because you had a son and you had to legitimize your heir. If it had been another girl, I would still be living in Via della Zecca Regia and you would probably have a wife ten years younger, who would have provided you with a legitimate heir to Casa Florio.”
These words carry Giulia’s old fear of never having been enough for him. Of being his deepest regret. A failure.
Vincenzo stands up and puts his hands on her shoulders. “No,” he says, “and yes.” He puts his arms around her and speaks into her ear. “Because if I’d found her, I would never have allowed her to talk to me like this.”
He holds her tight. Giulia is surprised and almost frightened. She stiffens but, a moment later, leans against his chest, her fingers searching for the heartbeat under his waistcoat. It feels agitated and nervous.
“I want what’s best for my family,” he says.
She looks up. “You want what’s best for Casa Florio, Vincenzo.” She doesn’t attempt to conceal her exasperation. “And what’s best for you is a son-in-law with a title, who brings prestige to the name Florio. But the girls were born out of wedlock and they’re your daughters. No aristocrat will ever want them.” She strikes to hurt, to remind her husband that for many people he is still a laborer. The grandson of a Bagnara man. She takes his left hand: his wedding band and Ignazio’s ring are on his finger. “Angelina’s right. They don’t get invited to parties with girls their age and often sit apart at balls. They are well brought up but that’s not enough.”
“They’ll have a large dowry,” he replies stubbornly, pulling his hand away. “Their money will be their title.”
“No. If you want a future for your Casa Florio then it’s not them you need to rely on but Ignazio. He’s the one who must make a good match. You need to focus on him.”
* * *
Left alone in his study, he ponders her words for a long time.
Giulia is right.
He examines his library: the leather spines, the golden lines, the shelves, and the glass doors. Everything illustrates his life: from the books in English to the scientific works, as well as the volumes about mechanical engineering. Because for him producing means building.
So has all my work been for nothing? he asks himself. Was it all pointless? Was it not enough to work, to create a financial empire with the little I had, experimenting, pushing myself to do what nobody else even tried to in Sicily?
No, it wasn’t enough.
“They want a coat of arms. Noble blood. Respectability.” He emphasizes this last word and laughs to himself. A cruel laugh that ends in a growl.
He’d forgotten the bitter taste of humiliation.
His fury takes the form of a wave. Vincenzo stifles a cry and sweeps the paper, account books, and even the inkwell from the desk. The walnut surface receives an angry blow.
The ink spreads over the rough draft of a letter addressed to Carlo Filangeri, Prince of Satriano. Only one name stays legible: Pietro Rossi.
More anger is added to his existing anger. Vincenzo almost feels as though somebody is laughing in his face. “That piece of mud!” he shouts, screwing up the sheet of paper. The ink stains his fingers and drips like black blood as he tries to slow down his breathing.
Pietro Rossi, president of the Royal Bank, who has been torturing him with pointless demands and trying to discredit him in every way and drive him to resign; who won’t pay him for his work as trade governor; whom he has tried to ignore but who has now exhausted his patience.
* * *
A few days ago, Vincenzo went to the Royal Bank: it was his turn to pick up the money delivered by the steamer, record it, cash the letters of credit, and pay whatever was due.
A hour went by, then another. Nobody turned up.
Shortly before lunch, he gave in to his restlessness, grabbed his overcoat and hat, and headed for the stairs.
There he met Pietro Rossi. “Where are you going?” the man asked without even a greeting.
“To Via dei Materassai. I’ve been here for three hours and have no intention of wasting any more time.”
Tall, thin, with a stiff mustache, Rossi stood in front of him. “Not at all. It’s your task and your duty. You will stay here until three.”
“I’ve already wasted a morning pandering to your obsessions, Rossi. Not a single creditor came. Rather, you owe me service certificates dating back to March last year. I can’t be paid without those.”
Rossi opened his eyes wide and laughed in his face. “You want to be paid? And for what, exactly?”
A clerk who was coming down the stairs slowed down, ready to collect every word and turn it into gossip. Vincenzo gave him a dirty look and the man walked away. “As a governor of the Royal Bank, I’m entitled to a salary of six oncie a month for ser
vices rendered and for helping with registrations,” he said in the kind of tone used to explain something simple to an idiot. “And I can only get it if you’re kind enough to sign the documents. Is that clear or do I have to draw it for you?”
Standing two steps below him, Rossi walked up to him and said, in his face, “Forget it.”
A slash that left Vincenzo speechless.
“You’ve no idea how to be a governor,” Rossi hissed. “You may have all the money in the world but you don’t know what it means to work for the government or an institution. All you care about is business, and the government is useful to you only as far as it doesn’t impinge on what you do . . . I don’t blame you, but then don’t persist in trying to do something you can’t.” He pointed a finger at him. “Let me tell you something: the world doesn’t revolve around Via dei Materassai, your steamers, or your loans.”
Vincenzo pushed his finger away. “I do it because I can do it. And who the hell are you to tell me what to do? You think I don’t realize you deliberately give me shifts on the days when my ships arrive and I should be in the office? Or that you call meetings when I’m in Marsala?”
“You’ve been using this excuse for years but we both know the truth.” Rossi climbed another step and stood sideways, as though about to leave. “You have people watching your back because of your money, whereas I know what I’m doing and take pride in it. Things you’re not even aware of.”
“I do my job and you have to pay me for it.”
Rossi looked at him calmly. “No,” he said, then left.
Vincenzo remained silent for the first time in years. He instead started writing the letter that is now scrunched in his hands, but hadn’t found the right words to finish it.
Because his sentences either expressed too much or too little, mentioned indignation and demanded recognition when there was only one correct word: hatred. Yes, hatred: toward those who still consider him a parvenu, a petty, coarse man. He almost enjoys being unpleasant, thus confirming their prejudices. They won’t change, anyway.