The Florios of Sicily

by Stefania Auci

  “Your mother’s worried and she’s right to be.” With two fingers, he pushes aside the curtain over the window. “You were a child, twelve years ago, when the revolt broke out, and I got caught up right in the middle of it. It would be better if you went to Marseille. I’d feel better knowing you’re far away from here, where anything could happen.”

  “I’d rather stay.” Ignazio’s face is determined. “You need help running the business and I know many people who’ll give me firsthand news of what’s going to happen in the forthcoming hours.”

  “Very commendable.” His father sits back, relaxing, and interlaces his fingers over his crossed legs. “You’re twenty-one years old and you already know how to act. I thought you’d welcome the prospect of going to France for a while, especially now, but you . . . And I also thought you could find yourself an attractive Frenchwoman you could pass the time with there, while things blow over here. Besides, I can’t imagine someone like you just sitting and staring into the eyes of your sisters’ female friends.”

  Ignazio suddenly blushes. His father doesn’t notice his lips pursing and quivering, or his restrained breath swelling his chest.

  Only he knows what it cost him to decline the offer to go to France. Because he would like to return there more than anything else. But he cannot and must not.

  For a moment, he lets that painful memory sweep over him. A memory as sharp as a piece of glass you can’t help admiring for its beauty, glow, and reflection. Blond curls, a gloved hand, a head bending down to hide the tears of his departure. Then the letters, so many letters.

  Nobody must know what happened in Marseille. Especially not his father.

  His father, who needs him now more than ever. His father, who is increasingly overweight, increasingly tired, increasingly old.

  Ignazio could never fail in his duties or disappoint him. That’s not what’s expected from the heir to Casa Florio. Vincenzo notices his son’s blushing but mistakes it for embarrassment. Ignazio is always very reserved about his female friendships. “Ah, son. I know you’re a ladies’ man.” He raises his eyebrows, complicit.

  Ignazio forces himself to nod.

  “All right, let’s forget about women and think of ourselves. Now listen, this is what we have to do.”

  The son leaves his memories in a corner, the way he always does. He looks at his father and listens.

  “We went through a lengthy slump in 1848. There was almost no trading and the taxes inflicted on us by the Neapolitans were destroying the economy. The interests involved now are much more complicated. As a matter of fact, there have been emissaries from the Savoys circulating among noble and tradesmen’s families. They’ve also tried contacting me but I chose not to meet with them, at least not yet . . . I want to work out what’s happening first. There’s too much chaos, and with Bourbon troops gathering at Porta Carini, there’s not much we can do. I think the Bourbons are expecting Garibaldi’s men to enter through there but nobody’s actually said that. The city is under siege. We have to keep our ear to the ground, see in which direction the wind is blowing, and be ready to take advantage of whatever situations present themselves. It’s no longer up to the Sicilians now. The Savoys want to get their hands on Sicily and the whole realm, and this time they’ll find a way because they’ll get help here. They already have Tuscany and Emilia, but they have no idea what awaits them here . . . Too many uncertainties, too many interests in play.”

  Ignazio looks out the window again. “We’ll do what it takes to protect our Casa Florio.”

  That is all Vincenzo needs to hear.

  * * *

  Back at the villa with the servants and her mother-in-law, Giulia is anxious and restless. A handkerchief in one hand and keys in the other, she walks through the rooms to Giuseppina’s bedroom. There’s a maid sitting outside the door.

  “Is she up?” she asks.

  The maid, young but of strong build, leaves her sewing. She has an accent from the Madonie and red skin from spending long days in the sun. “Yes, signora. She ate without a fuss and now she’s sitting in the armchair, as usual.”

  Giulia walks in. The scent of fresh roses in the room cannot completely conceal the sickly sweet smell of old age.

  Giuseppina is in the armchair. Her mouth half-open, she’s singing a song, incomprehensible words in thick Calabrian. For weeks now, she’s been alternating between moments of lucidity and days when the world capsizes and ghosts from over eighty years become real again.

  One of her eyes is vacant, as though a veil no physician could treat has blotted the light from it. There is no cure for old age.

  Giulia swallows a clot of saliva and panic. Her anxiety multiplies. She reaches out to caress Giuseppina but pulls her hand away. She is overwhelmed, paralyzed with pity. “Donna Giuseppina . . . would you care to go out?”

  Giuseppina gets up with difficulty, her body hunched over by arthritis. The maid puts a shawl over her shoulders while Giulia takes her by the arm.

  They walk along the villa’s hallways. Giulia has been thinking for some time now that it’s not death that erases all guilt and purifies the memory, but illness. In a way, seeing her mother-in-law grow old has been compensation for all the harm she received, and has taught her compassion. She no longer harbors even a shadow of desire for revenge. They say there’s a mysterious justice in the order of things, a balance that follows unknown laws.

  They go down into the courtyard, where Vincenzo has arranged a table and a few armchairs. The sea provides a gentle backdrop.

  Giulia often writes to her daughter Giuseppina, who lives in Marseille with her husband, Francesco, the son of Augusto Merle, Vincenzo’s long-standing business associate. Like Angela’s, hers is a peaceful, wealthy marriage. Angelina already has three children, while Giuseppina had given birth to her second just a few weeks ago. Although her daughter’s letters betray her homesickness for Palermo and her family, Giulia knows that she is a contented wife.

  She’s more worried for Ignazio, who seems so controlled, so hard. She wonders what has become of her “little prince,” that inquisitive boy enthusiastic about everything. He has become a young man with disarming politeness and a rigid soul, perhaps even more so than his father’s. As though he needs to obey a self-imposed rule, Ignazio is above all rigorous with himself. And that’s what Giulia fears. This rigidity.

  The maid resumes her sewing, while Giuseppina slumbers and, every so often, emits strange sounds or utters disjointed sentences.

  She suddenly grabs Giulia’s hand. Her pen squirts on the paper and produces a blotch of ink. “You must tell Ignazio that I made a mistake, that I had only one life. You have to tell him, all right?” Giulia doesn’t know whom she means, her son or that uncle she never met. Then she sees her mother-in-law’s eyelashes glisten with tears. “I loved him. He was the one I should have married, I know this now. I loved him but I never told him because he was my husband’s brother. And now I want him to understand that you have to marry not for money but for—” She bursts into sobs, shouts, and wrestles. They can’t placate her. The cap that holds her hair in falls to the ground and her lips stretch over her teeth.

  On an impetus, Giulia hugs her. “He knows,” she says into her ear to calm her down. “He knows.” She feels tears stinging her eyelids. The stories Vincenzo mentioned, about that strange love between brother-and sister-in-law, are confirmed. She gently gets her to stand up, dries her tears, and leads her back to her room. There, she puts her to bed and gives instructions for a tranquilizer to be given.

  Her final thought, as she closes the door behind her, is that she at least knows she made the right choice with Vincenzo. Even though she had to wait for years.

  * * *

  Along the walls, amid the streets overlooking the Cassaro as far as the sea, beyond the bastions breached by cannon fire, time stands still. A scent of dried algae drifts in from the sea, and from the mountains that of orange blossoms.

  It’s almost as though Palermo is lett
ing everything just happen to her. That she’s her own spectator. But, in actual fact, Palermo is only sleeping. Under her sand-and-rock skin there’s a pulsating body, a flow of blood and secrets. Thoughts that quiver from one side of town to the other.

  And these thoughts now have a name: Garibaldi. In the name of Victor Emmanuel II he has claimed the dictatorship of Italy, called the people of the island to arms, and already occupied Alcamo and Partinico . . .

  But the injury of the Gancia still stings. Moreover, news has spread that Rosolino Pilo, who rushed to Garibaldi’s aid, has died fighting at San Martino delle Scale, just a dozen miles from Palermo.

  Vincenzo Florio has no way of knowing what’s going to happen but he walks into the offices of the Royal Bank with a bag and a decision. He has left Ignazio in Via dei Materassai. He doesn’t want him involved.

  A flight of stairs.

  As a trade governor, he controls, compares data, and obtains information. He orders all the money in cash—all of it—to be transferred into the safe, along with the bank drafts. As soon as the crisis is over, the money will have to be released back into circulation or converted into the kingdom’s new currency. In the meantime, it’s better to keep it safe.

  There isn’t much that can be done about the ingots in the treasury, however: soon—it’s only a matter of hours—Garibaldi’s men will come to requisition the gold supply, which is very substantial.

  God only knows where this gold will end up.

  It was clever of him to hang on and not give in to Pietro Rossi, who tried to get him to resign.

  Even now that the situation is breathing down his neck and everything is collapsing, he knows he’s able to do what he’s doing. He picks up the papers and stuffs them in his bag: they will be Casa Florio’s safe passage to the future.

  * * *

  Palermo is breathing a scirocco, and waiting.

  Garibaldi is less than seven miles away by now. The city both awaits him and fears him, uncertain about whether to go and meet the Red Shirts and the picciotti—the peasants who joined Garibaldi and helped him during the Battle of Calatafimi—or to barricade themselves in a defense that’s most probably futile.

  Families are divided. The city is split. Some people have barricaded themselves in their houses, bolting doors and windows, the women are reciting their rosaries and the men quaking behind their closed shutters. Many young men, on the other hand, have picked up rifles and are ready for the assault.

  On May 23, Garibaldi’s men reach the city gates, not by sea but through the mountains. Palermo’s residents watch the dust from the clashes and listen to the bang of the cannons and shots. Four days later, Palermo yields: Porta Termini, the city’s most vulnerable entrance, is stormed by a group of brave men. The Bourbons then decide to shell the city from the sea, but it’s too late: after a clash in Via Maqueda, the city is conquered once and for all.

  The men in red shirts go along Porta Termini and spread through the city. Young people—and not only they—join this crowd that speaks an Italian full of different nuances, new sounds, and various accents. There are hugs and suspicious looks, flags being waved, and, at the same time, family jewels being hidden away. The streets, cluttered with furniture stacked up for barricades, are cleared, revealing the façades of the buildings.

  Piedmontese, Venetians, Romans, and Emilians discover the blooming, sensual beauty of a city they had heard about only from the lips of their companions in exile. The cathedral and its Moorish pinnacles, and the Royal Palace with its Norman mosaics, rise next to sumptuous Baroque houses with large, potbelly balconies. Sailors’ and fishermen’s cottages alternate with imposing buildings like the one belonging to the princes of Butera. What a strange city, they say: at the same time poor, filthy, and regal. They can’t take their eyes off the colors, off the ocher walls that seem to reflect the sunlight; they can’t understand how the stench of the sewers can coexist with the scent of the orange blossom and jasmine that decorate the courtyards of aristocrats’ palaces.

  However, while the soldiers are looking around and Garibaldi declares that they can’t stop, that they have to keep going and redeem the entire Bourbon kingdom, other men in the city are making contracts and sealing agreements. The provisional government is located in what is now called Palazzo Pretorio, the same Palazzo di Città where the 1848 rebels got together.

  Twelve years have passed since then, but a few of those rebels are now back: older, more cynical, perhaps, but no less determined. Many people have unfinished business to take care of or new pacts to make, and this crowded place is not ideal for that. Better somewhere else, somewhere quieter, far away from the crowd and prying eyes.

  Along the street of Porta Termini, beyond the Palazzo Ajutamicristo and just before the Magione cloisters, there is an imposing, stern building.

  There are unmarked carriages, and a hubbub of voices and people outside the gates and in the courtyard.

  Inside, there’s a room screened by brocade curtains.

  One of the heads of the rebellion is here with Vincenzo and Ignazio Florio. Two guards are watching the door. Anybody walking past it drops his voice.

  Father and son are standing still. Their faces don’t carry the slightest emotion.

  Ignazio watches his father, studying his gestures.

  The man seems to be calmly waiting.

  “Naturally, the information I am giving you proves my full knowledge of the Royal Bank,” Vincenzo says without any emphasis. “I’m exposing myself considerably by offering you this material.” He taps the briefcase on his lap, the same one he had with him when he went to the Royal Bank a few days earlier.

  Every word is a drop that breaks the silence.

  “It’s an interesting offer. I shall inform General Garibaldi. He will equally take into account your contribution in producing cannons for the Red Shirts in your Oretea foundry.”

  “It was my duty as a Sicilian. Besides, as soon as my workers realized they were cannons to be pointed at the Bourbons, they didn’t even mind how long they worked.”

  “You had the foresight to wait and see which way the wind was blowing.”

  “Yes, the right way.”

  The man pauses and drums his fingers on the table. He has a strong Palermo intonation, with barely a hint of a foreign accent. “In any case, you’ve put your business at the service of the revolution, and I’ll be the first to take that into account. I’ve been authorized to negotiate the takeover of the Royal Bank, and your confidential information will give us a comprehensive overview of the situation. Your responsibility stops here.”

  Vincenzo narrows his eyes.

  The man lights a cigar and slowly waves the match to extinguish it. His mustache, yellow from the tobacco, quivers with pleasure as it takes in the warm smoke. He inhales, then shakes off the ashes into a small plate. There’s a pistol next to it: the same one he used to threaten the Bourbon guards a few days ago, when leading one of the columns of Garibaldi’s picciotti who stormed the city. He stares at Vincenzo, reading his thoughts. “As I thought: Do ut des,” he finally says.

  “Exactly.”

  There’s a pause. Ignazio watches, in awe, the perfect stillness of the two men. A duel without aggressiveness.

  “What?” the man asks.

  “The authorization to create a credit institution for trade requirements in Sicily.” Vincenzo crosses his arms over his wide chest. “If the Savoys take possession of the Royal Bank, then we traders need to fund ourselves some other way.”

  The curtain of smoke becomes a veil through which they observe each other, a net that catches unspoken words.

  “You’re quite a peculiar man, Don Florio. First you rented out your steamers for the Bourbons to patrol the coast, and now you’re here to sell information about the Royal Bank to the Savoys.” He moves his hands, and the ash from his cigar falls to the floor and scatters on the tiles. “You certainly don’t lack a sense of opportunism.”

  “Well, at this moment my ships have
been requisitioned by your dictator, Garibaldi, so I don’t have any left. As for the rest, as I’m sure you can appreciate, I was in no position to refuse anything to the king. In any case, you didn’t try to get in touch with me earlier, as you did with others last year.”

  Another silence, this time made of surprise and wariness. “Ah, Palermo. One would think she was able to keep a secret, but . . .”

  “It’s a matter of knowing what to ask and of whom,” Vincenzo remarks.

  The man’s large mustache stirs and reveals a slightly contemptuous grimace. “You and your Casa Florio have the possibility to refuse anything to anyone, if you so wish, signore. You obtained the mail monopoly, and one could say you also have a monopoly on the kingdom’s sea transport, practically without paying any taxes, thanks to the credits the Crown granted you. You could have helped the rebellion twelve years ago, and yet you backed out, remember? I was there, we both know it, so there’s no use denying it. Never mind, it’s all water under the bridge. And now you’re talking business to me and I’m replying to you. I think it’s what we’re both interested in.”

  Ignazio sees his father’s hand tighten and recognizes the signs of increasing annoyance. Uncle Ignazio’s ring, from which Vincenzo never parts, flashes a glow like an alarm. “I don’t like wasting time. I want a yes or a no.”

  The man smooths a nonexistent crease on his pants. “You’ll get your credit institution in exchange for information about the Royal Bank. The only problem could be if Garibaldi is against it, but I don’t think he will be. As for the rest . . .” He opens his arms. “My door is always open to you.”

  Vincenzo gets up and Ignazio comes to stand next to him. “I’ll tell you what we need. Help us and we’ll be your allies. Give me a guarantee that my business will bear no consequences and that my ships will be returned undamaged. That’s all for today. Sometime in the future, we’ll discuss the renewal of the mail agreement with . . . them in Turin. Can you do that?”

  The man proffers his hand. “You have my support besides that other matter,” he says, indicating with his head the bag with the documents. “Sicily is always in need of men like you, with broad shoulders, to face the future that awaits her. I’m saying this as secretary of state.”