The Collaborator

by Gerald Seymour

  He searched for her. He had never seen her in the flesh, but had the surveillance photograph to remember. Rain spattered his head and jacket. He saw some old people, mostly men, many meandering with a toy-sized dog on a lead, and some youngsters of both sexes who wore tracksuits and earphones, and ran in a trance. The most exercise Castrolami took was to walk, via a bar for an espresso and a pastry, to the station for the Funicolare, and after his descent to the Stazione Cumana, he would cross via Toledo and reach the barracks at piazza Dante. He thought it sufficient exercise for any man in the morning, but if it rained he brought his car. Twice, while he had waited under the tree, a dog had come to the trunk, cocked its leg and pissed. On neither occasion had the owner apologised.

  He couldn’t see her. He wondered if she was standing back, hesitating to show herself. He moved clear of the tree-trunk so that he was more visible. Put simply, there would be only one swarthy middle-aged Italian waiting at two minutes past nine – yes, he had remembered to alter the time on his watch – under a tree in diabolical weather. The city authorities in Naples were about to declare a drought: the skies had been clear for weeks and the temperature in late September still reached the high eighties. In his apartment he had a raincoat, unused and forgotten. Behind the front door umbrellas stood in a stand, also unused and forgotten. Maybe he’d drown. Maybe he’d catch pneumonia.

  She appeared.

  He could see her face. She had a small umbrella up, with a pretty flower pattern, but held it back over her head because at that angle it shielded her better. She wore a light plastic coat that came to her hips, but her legs were soaked, though she seemed not to notice it. He knew what he would say. Unable to sleep in the Holiday Inn, with the walls seeming to enclose him, a sealed tomb, he had passed the hours in deciding the tone he would take and the relationship he would create with her. Perhaps because she was here, not in Forcella, she seemed more vulnerable than he had expected. At home she would have known every trick in the game of counter-surveillance – had been born with the tactics in her genes. Anyone from the Borelli clan – other than the young idiot, Silvio – knew the craft of criminality from the moment they dropped out of their mother’s utero. A man had said that the Camorra would live until every woman in the clans was sterilised and every man castrated. She did not use any counter-surveillance tactic: it was clear that she knew she was late for a meeting and was looking for the second party.

  He knew, too well, the enormity of what she had done, but Castrolami reckoned she knew it better than he did. Should he wave or hold his ground under the tree? He had thought she looked vulnerable, but this was Immacolata Borelli, daughter of Pasquale and Gabriella, sister of Vincenzo and Giovanni, educated and intelligent, granddaughter of Carmine and Anna, being groomed in financial management so that she could clean dirty money. Vulnerable… not innocent. She saw him.

  She stopped. She was on a path and a cyclist swerved past her. Then two runners divided and went either side of her. The wind took the flaps of her coat and opened it as far as the lower buttons allowed. Castrolami noted the vivid orange blouse; he thought it was her statement. He smiled grimly to himself. She was entitled to make a statement, but this was the easy time. She would know the threat to her life if she came close to him, talked to him, did as she was instructed, but he doubted she had grasped the pressures that would now build in her mind. But that wasn’t his problem.

  He came out from the shelter of the tree. The rain in the wind layered on his face. His collar was damp, his tie bedraggled and the jacket’s shoulders were sodden. His hair was flat, and drips fell off his nose. He murmured, ‘Come on, you little bitch. Come and do the business.’

  She did. She had a good swing to her walk. She was the daughter – clear to him – of the clan leader and the clan leader’s wife. The child of the padrino and the madrina locked eyes with him and closed on him. The vulnerability was now hidden. She stretched her stride. He believed then that she hoped to dominate him because that was her culture. She could wish it, but it would not happen.

  She stood in front of him. She could have tried to use her umbrella to shield both of them, but she collapsed it, shook it, pocketed it. If he could be wet, so could she. She spoke coolly: ‘I am Immacolata. Are you Castrolami?’

  He reached into his pocket, lifted out his wallet, flipped it open and showed his identification. He put it away.

  He knew what he would say.

  *

  Over his shoulder, she saw a kid kick a football. So normal. She saw a man throw a stick for a yapping dog. So ordinary. Far behind him, kids were skiving from school and dropped sweet wrappers as they fooled. So predictable.

  He said, ‘You asked me to come and I came. You can beckon once and I’ll run, but it won’t happen again. If you flick your fingers or whistle, a dog will come to you. I’m not a dog. So, I’m here. What do you want to tell me?’

  ‘Two days ago, I was at the cemetery in Nola for a funeral, my friend’s funeral, and—’ she stammered, uncertain.

  He was harsh and his voice was cutting. ‘I know about Nola, Marianna Rossetti and the Triangle. I know what happened to you there, what was said and what was done. I repeat, what do you wish to tell me?’

  She had thought there would be a car, a big Lancia or a Fiat saloon, and that a call on a mobile would bring it hurrying to the nearest kerb, that she would be whisked inside and away to an embassy house. She had expected a tone that was at least respectful, if not deferential. She wanted control and couldn’t find it. ‘I’m Immacolata Borelli, I—’

  Withering: ‘I know who you are, who your parents are, who all of your family are.’

  ‘I am part of the Borelli clan, and—’

  ‘Of course you’re part of it.’

  ‘I said in my call to the palace, I wish to return to Italy,’ she blustered.

  ‘Then return to Italy. Does the Borelli clan not have sufficient funds to permit you to purchase an airline ticket? If you wish to return, then do so.’

  ‘I want protective custody.’

  She saw his eyes roll and his lips moved on those words – I want protective custody – but soundlessly. The rain was harder now but he seemed not to notice its new intensity. He stared down at her, his eyes never off hers. Nobody had ever stared challengingly into the face of Immacolata, daughter of Pasquale Borelli. Then: ‘Why?’

  ‘And I require immunity from prosecution.’

  Now his head shook, a comedian’s exaggeration, and she thought she heard a click of his tongue. ‘I very much doubt we would consider that. I presume we’d be talking through the statutes concerning money laundering, extortion, tax evasion – maybe not acts of physical violence – membership of a criminal conspiracy. We do reduced sentences but not immunity in circumstances such as yours. What would justify protective custody, a reduced sentence? What chips can you place on the table?’

  ‘It’s because of what my family has done.’

  ‘Indirect responsibility for the poisoning of your friend.’

  ‘I wish to do something in her name.’

  ‘Your friend was poisoned by the contamination of the water table with toxic waste illegally dumped.’

  ‘So that I can look, in my mind, into the face of my friend and not feel total shame.’

  His expression showed no enthusiasm – rather, boredom. ‘That would be excellent. You do something, we’re not specific but something, and you can go to a priest, squat in the confessional box: “Can’t really tell you too much about all this, Father. Wouldn’t be healthy for you to know, but I’m doing something to right a wrong. My family did the wrong, not me personally, but I want overall forgiveness, and more sunlight in my life.” How gratifying. What are you prepared to tell me?’

  ‘I can tell you about my family.’ Her voice was little more than a whisper.

  He lifted an eyebrow as a slow smile curved his lips. ‘I had difficulty hearing that – again, please.’

  ‘I said that I can tell you about my family.
’ She had spoken boldly.

  ‘Did I hear that correctly? I’m not sure. Again.’

  She knew he was toying with her, that he was the cat and she a small rat. The amusement was in the mouth, but not in the eyes that looked down on her. She broke. ‘I’ll tell you about my family,’ she shouted.

  ‘Better. Again.’

  She yelled, over him, past him and out across the worn grass of the park, at the trees, the walkers and joggers, the talkers and the kids who should have been at school. ‘I’ll denounce my family.’

  Many in the park had heard her. Some merely turned their heads but went on their way, others stopped to gawp. ‘I hear you, but do I believe you?’ he said softly.

  ‘You have my word.’

  He allowed the irony to run over her: ‘I have the word of the daughter of Pasquale and Gabriella Borelli?’

  ‘Everything.’

  Now he was an uncle to her. As a zio would, he tucked her hand into the crook of his arm and walked with her through the rain, their shoes squelching on the grass and the mud. ‘You travelled to Nola, Signorina, you were late, for whatever reason, and did not reach the basilica in time for the funeral mass, but you travelled on to the municipal cemetery. There, you were humiliated, and subject to the emotional experience of parting from a friend. You flew back to London. You didn’t sleep. The accusations are alive in you and guilt haunts you. You pick up the telephone. None of this, yet, is difficult. You make a statement to the prosecutor’s office that is laced with dramatic intent. You put down the telephone and imagine champagne corks pulled, an executive jet on stand-by and that you will be brought back to Naples to be met on the tarmac with a red carpet, the cardinal in attendance and the mayor. No, it hasn’t happened. They sent Mario Castrolami, as you requested, and the flight home will be in economy where there is little leg room, the food is foul and English barbarians are talking about the culture fix they’ll get in our home over seventy-two hours. You will then, Signorina, be surrounded by strangers – and don’t expect them to regard you as a resurrected Mother Teresa. They will try to leech from you every scrap, morsel, titbit of information so that they can shut away your family for even longer – the family who has trusted you with their lives, and whom you will have betrayed. Many months after you’ve taken that flight back to Italy you’ll have to appear in court. At one end of the room there will be the judges, in the well of the court the ranks of the lawyers, and at the other end a cage. Behind its steel bars you will see your family. Will you turn to me then and say, “Dottore, I have doubts now on the course of action to which I was committed last September. I’ve changed my mind. I don’t wish to go ahead with this. It was a mistake. I want to be reunited with my family. I want the love and warmth of my gangster father, my ruthless, vicious mother, my murderous eldest brother and my psychopathic middle brother. I want to return to them.” Will you turn your back on the court? Many do, Signorina. They climb high, survey the view and scramble down. Their nerve doesn’t hold. Will your nerve hold?’

  She lowered her head and looked at the toecaps of her shoes. She allowed him to lead her along. ‘It’ll hold.’

  ‘They all say that, but many fail to deliver.’

  She stopped. She felt his fingers drop from her arm. She faced him and tilted her head. She could see the cage, their faces, the hatred that beamed at her, and the contempt. ‘My word should be sufficient guarantee.’

  ‘You will never be forgotten, never forgiven. You will never again walk the streets of your city as a free woman. Can you turn your back on Naples?’

  It was her home.

  Those Greek traders who had first anchored their boats in the shadow of the great mountain, mid-eighth century BC, had called it Nea Polis, the New City. The Romans came later from the north and corrupted the name to Napoli. Now it is a city adored and detested, admired and despised. It is one of UNESCO’s proudest World Heritage Sites, and is regarded by Interpol as having the greatest concentration in the world of Most Wanted organised-crime players. Horace, the Roman poet, coined the phrase ‘Carpe diem’, ‘Seize the Moment’, and it is still the maxim of Neapolitans.

  Many cultures have left their mark on Naples. After the collapse of Rome’s civilisation and its hold on the city, the occupying army was that of the Ostrogoths, then the Byzantines from Constantinople, the Normans and the Spanish. There were Bourbon satraps and Napoleonic revolutionaries. Admiral Nelson’s fleet covered the port with cannon, the Wehrmacht and the Gestapo sought to control it, after which the Americans gave it military government. In the last century, Communists, democrats and Fascists have attempted to bring Naples to heel, but failed.

  At the university, the academics seek to excuse the inner city’s million people for its ungovernability. They quote the actual and the potential. The actual is the Camorra, the generic name for the criminal families that are the principal employer and major pulsebeat in Naples. The potential is the lowering image of the mountain, Vesuvio, with its volcanic capability and history of destruction. The criminality survived the most savage reprisals of the Mussolini era and now cannot be beaten: the threat of the volcano mocks any who look far to the future: it may erupt at any time and warning will be minimal. Those same academics point proudly to the magnificent churches and palaces, and strangers flock there from across the world.

  John Ruskin, the English art critic and reformer, came to the city in the late nineteenth century and saw the Naples that has attracted the first overseas tourist industry. He wrote, ‘The common English traveller, if he can gather a black bunch of grapes with his own fingers, and have a bottle of Falernian brought him by a girl with black eyes, asks no more of this world or the next, and declares Naples a paradise…’ But he would not be seduced and continued, ‘… [Naples] is certainly the most disgusting place in Europe… [combining] the vice of Paris with the misery of Dublin and the vulgarity of New York… [Naples] is the most loathsome nest of caterpillars… a hell with all the devils imbecile in it’. Outsiders may come, criticise and leave, but those who are bred and live in Naples are held by loyalty, as if in chains, to the city.

  The gulf makes a perfect natural harbour. The sea ranges from azure to aquamarine. The churches are noted for their splendour, and the castles that defend the shore are reassuring in their strength. It has the best of everything – architecture, painting, sculpture, music, food, vitality, and the refusal to be cowed – with the biggest open-air narcotics supermarket ever created, the wealthiest criminal conspiracies ever known, and a degree of violence that makes both the brave and the cynical cringe.

  In the heart of the old city, where the streets were laid by Roman road builders, then wide enough only for a handcart to pass and now for only a scooter, is the district of Forcella. The Borelli clan ruled Forcella.

  ‘Can you do that, erase that place from your mind?’

  ‘I hope…’

  ‘What’s hope? Useless, inadequate. Either you can or you can’t.’

  She flared. ‘I am Immacolata Borelli. You offer me no respect.’

  Castrolami shrugged, as if she had scored no points. He said, ‘I see so many of them. This isn’t Sicily. The vow of silence doesn’t exist in Forcella, Sanità, Secondigliano or Scampia. In the far south, the gangs are linked by blood. It’s impossible to consider that a family would turn in on itself. But you’re not Calabrian – I’ll get to the point, Signorina – or Sicilian. The clans of Naples have greed, brutality and no honour. Do you understand? We have more men and women offering to collaborate than in any other part of Italy. They’re practically queuing outside the palace. Sometimes the prosecutor has to check his diary to make sure he has a slot for a new one. Many are rejected because they have little to offer that we don’t already know, a few because we don’t believe they can sustain the pressure of their treachery. I offer no informer respect, and I’m used to rejecting them. Don’t think, Signorina, that you have earned my admiration or have my gratitude.’

  ‘You insult me.’ She tried to
stamp her foot, and mud spattered out from under her shoe. No avenue of retreat was open to her. She knew it, and so did he. She couldn’t throw a tantrum, spin on her heel – slip probably – and walk away. She had met him. Perhaps she had been photographed with a long lens from a car among those parked bumper to bumper around the park. Perhaps he had a wire strapped to his chest and a microphone in one of his jacket buttons. Did she believe that – if she walked out on him – the ROS would not allow a photograph limited distribution among the journalists accredited to the palace, or not make available a snatch of her voice to the RAI correspondent in the city? On Sunday mornings priests talked often about taking personal responsibility for one’s actions, the need to consider consequences beforehand. She couldn’t meet his eyes and dropped her head. It had stopped raining, the wind had freshened, and she shivered.

  He said, ‘You know better than I do that the name for such a person is infame. That person is not a patriot, a hero or heroine. Disgrace walks with them, and the infame who betrays his or her family is the lowest of the low. You could never stand, Signorina, on a box in the piazza del Plebiscito and attempt an explanation of what you have done. You’ll become a pariah and be forced to make a new life.’

  Her lip trembled and her voice, to her, was hoarse. ‘I will.’

  ‘Never go back?’