“Yes,” he replies, frowning subtly, “and don’t think I’m not grateful, but…”
“I have some money.” Enzo reaches into his pocket. “Perhaps we–”
Ullo shakes his head. “Kid, listen to me: I like you; Virgilio likes you; in fact, we all like you.” He sighs, haplessly, hunches his shoulders and splays his hands in appeal. “But look, you’re not stupid; you’re smart enough to know how this is going to play out. And don’t go selling me any vows about how when you’re in charge you’ll have your revenge, that’s just so much piss in the sea.”
Lilla watches the charade, more petrified than disappointed; for she knows Ullo, everybody does, and everyone has heard the stories of men leaving on ships only for their bloated bodies to be washed ashore a week or two later. She grips Enzo’s arm, her nails digging welts in his skin.
“If it makes it any easier, kid,” Ullo offers, “Virgilio here will walk your young lady–friend back to the Borgo. That way she’ll keep her respect for you and we won’t have to drag you away screaming and kicking like a child who doesn’t understand it’s time to go home.”
A lamplighter wanders past, takes a look at them, recognises Ullo and slips away into the security of the shadows thrown by the street lantern he is soon to extinguish.
“Please, Enzo?” Lilla asks. She slackens her grip on his arm and drops her hands, before reaching up to take her bundle of clothes from his shoulder. “There is no point. I know you are brave and they will only hurt you. Go with them for now: we will have time again soon.”
“Not if his father has anything to do with it,” Ullo sneers. “A fisherman’s daughter? A worthless little shrimp like you for the son of Don Carmelo?”
Of course, the moment Lilla had seen Ullo she’d known it was not going to end well.
“Why you…” Enzo shouts, and leading with his right fist he lunges forward only for Ullo to step back and Virgilio to step round and cosh him over the back of his head with a blackjack.
The assault is swift and brutal, and Lilla is knocked over backwards out of the way as the two men catch the unconscious Enzo before he can drop to the ground.
Forgetting her fear, Lilla screams, “Bastards! Leave him alone,” and she leaps onto Ullo’s back, punching, biting and kicking him for all she is worth.
Don Carmelo’s thug, though, is unimpressed and he reaches over his head, grabs her by her hair and pulls her down. “Enough,” he shouts, spinning round and, without letting go, slapping her hard on the side of her face.
It is as though all the bells of all the churches ring at once and Lilla finds herself flying through the air only to land, skinning her hands and knees against the unforgiving paving of the quay.
“Bring him,” Ullo mutters to his sidekick. And then, as if to add insult to injury, he spits down at Lilla and wipes his lips with the cuff of his jacket. “This is over,” he adds, with the kind of stark finality that brooks no argument. “If you know what’s good for you, Lilla Lunapiena, you’ll go home and forget what’s happened. And while you’re about it, tell your father this isn’t personal but if he wants to make something of it, he knows where to find me.”
Chapter 3
Rubbing the spit from her cheek, Lilla knows there is nothing she can do to change the course of events.
She stands paralysed by her own pathetic impotence, shocked by the suddenness, the simplicity and the severity of the violence. One moment the map of her future had lain within her reach; the next, it had been seized from her and thrown away like a worthless scrap of paper.
Yet she owes it to Enzo not to give in. She cannot let him go quietly. He deserves more. She deserves more.
As the two bullies walk away, dragging his inert figure like a drunk fished from the harbour, Lilla raises her arms, screams and runs at them.
“You bastards! You filth! You are nothing more than the lackeys of Carmelo Ruggeri. How can you call yourself men when all you do is the bidding of a master?”
Without bothering to turn, Ullo swipes at her and knocks her back to the ground.
She gets back to her feet immediately and turns to look at the steamship: the captain is standing at the rail, puffing his pipe, a lazy witness to an abduction that would stir the soul of lesser men.
“You, Captain,” Lilla shouts, “how can you stand there and do nothing? How will you live with your conscience? Look what they are doing to him.”
Her calls, though, fail to draw a response and he simply turns away and fades into the bowels of his ship, a cloud of his pipe–smoke diffusing in the dawn air.
When she turns back towards the men, they have reached the corner of the buildings fronting the harbour. Enzo comes to and begins to struggle against their hold, so they stand him up, slap him once more and drag him into the shadows.
Lilla is suddenly very alone: alone before the hundreds of ships lining the harbour wall; alone before the Hotel Trinacria and the many guests asleep in their beds; alone before the outstretched hand of Neptune, who reassures the citizens of Messina that he will keep them safe from monsters.
“You hopeless God!” she screams and shakes her fists. “You promise, yet like all the rest you fail to keep your promises. You are nothing.” Lilla moans and sobs. She falls to her knees, grabs at the hem of the jersey Enzo has given her and raises it to her face. She inhales his scent. She wipes at her tears. She muffles the outbursts of her frustration.
“Oh, Enzo,” she mutters, “please rescue me from this nightmare. We were going to be so happy. Please, in the name of the love we share, wake me and tell me this isn’t happening. Please, tell me this can’t be happening.”
*
For how long she kneels and sobs, Lilla isn’t sure, and folk walk past averting their eyes as if she is nothing more than an uncomfortable apparition, a stowaway ejected from a ship, a disobedient child thrown out by exasperated parents.
And, like boiling water removed from a stove, her confusion settles to a calmer logic and Lilla realises her tears will only serve to dilute the energy of her misery. “Nothing comes to those who weep; you know this. There is hope,” she mutters, “there must be. He is still alive. I am still alive. We can still be together.”
As she wipes away her tears, Lilla finds herself staring at the bundle of clothes beneath her knees. Strangely a pair of polished shoes seem to have been added to the collection and it takes her a while to realise that they are nothing to do with either her or Enzo, because the shoes are occupied by a man who is now standing beside her.
“There is always hope,” he says.
At first, she doesn’t completely understand what he is saying. “Sorry,” she replies, without looking up, “what did you say?”
“I said, there is always hope.” He pauses. “It is of no consequence what challenges life throws at you; they are all nothing more than challenges you have to meet.”
The man’s pronunciation is unusual, which is why she is confused. In speaking the word hope, he had used the Italian speranza instead of the Sicilian spiransa, and yet the way he extends his vowels suggests to her that he is local.
Lilla looks up at him: he wears a tie and a heavy coat of smoothed wool, topped by a round hat with a curled brim; he has a broad moustache.
“I know you, young lady,” he continues, as he peers down at her. “I have seen you about the marina. What are you doing out and about at this time of day? Shouldn’t you be at home with your family?”
“Ah,” Lilla catches on, “you speak Italian, but you are not, are you? You are English, no?”
“Yes.”
“And you are staying at the Trinacria?”
“Yes.”
“What are you doing out of the hotel so early in the morning?”
“Oh,” he draws pince–nez from his inside pocket, shrugs his cuff and checks his watch, “it is just after five, not so early. Besides, I
couldn’t sleep. Like the dogs, eh?”
“The dogs have been barking all night, haven’t they?”
“Yes, most curious. The concierge told me that when you are praying and you hear the dogs bark, it means something bad is going to happen. Some old Sicilian proverb, he said: a bad omen.”
Lilla scoffs at the idea. “Well, you don’t need to worry; something bad has already happened, so perhaps they will stop their barking now.”
“And you, young lady, you must gather your things and get on home, and I have to go to the telegraph office; the one by the railway station.”
“Will it be open this early?”
“Oh yes. They work through the night.”
“What’s your name, signor?”
“My name is Gordon. That’s my surname. My Christian name is Nathaniel. And who do I have the pleasure of addressing?”
“I am Lilla, Lilla Lunapiena.”
“Lilla Lunapiena,” he repeats. “What a beautiful name. Well, Lilla of the full moon, I must cut along.”
“What do you do, Mr Gordon? Why are you going to the telegraph office?”
“I am a representative of Lloyds of London. I am here to assess the repairs to a ship, in the dry dock. I must send some communications before the office wakes up, after which I hope to meet a lady who is coming here from Giardini Naxos.” Gordon bends down, so that his face is nearly level with Lilla’s. He has kindly eyes and the smooth features of one who does not worry.
“Who is coming from Giardini?”
“My,” he says, “aren’t we full of questions at this hour! A lady, one Mrs Robertson, a nurse. I have to help make arrangements for her to return to Britain.”
“Why is she living in Giardini?”
“Well, she doesn’t actually live in Giardini Naxos; she lives on an island called Isola Bella.” With his thumb and forefinger, Gordon lifts Lilla’s head slightly, gently, so that he can look directly into her eyes. “Now I don’t know what calamity has befallen you this chilly night, but may I suggest that you be off home; you’ll get chilblains sitting on this cold stone. Come on, here’s a couple of coins. Get yourself something to eat; the bakers should be up and about by now.”
“I don’t need your money, Mr Gordon.”
“I see, not only a beautiful young lady, a proud one, too.”
“No,” Lilla grasps one last, ironic smile from her depleted locker. “No, it’s not that. It’s just that I have a bag of freshly–baked scaniatu; my mother’s. The ricotta is nice, even if she never puts enough sausage in them. Here, would you like one?”
Gordon is amused, charmingly so. “Thank you, I will. Though only if you promise me you will get off home.”
“Yes, thank you. I am all right now. You are a nice man. I wish everyone was like you.”
“Well…” The colour in his cheeks glows warm. “Come on, now. Let’s be standing up; that is a start, at least.”
He reaches for her arm and eases her up.
“Thank you, Mr Gordon.”
“Thank you for the scaniatu, young Lilla. Delicious, I’m sure. Now, remember, there is always hope. Be seeing you.” And with a touch of his hat brim and a salute with his doughnut, Nathaniel Gordon is off, his military stride bearing him swiftly south around the harbour.
There is hope, of course there is. And there is yet a future for her and for Enzo. What has happened is nothing more than a temporary setback, a challenge that, as Mr Gordon so rightly says, has to be met. It is a test of the bond between them and a trial of the authority and the tenacity of their love.
The kindness of a stranger, a gift of hope, and the fires of frustration and humiliation dissipate in her cheeks as the desire for vengeance dilutes in her veins. Lilla Lunapiena is no longer a stranger to herself; that nice man Mr Gordon has seen to that.
Chapter 4
The Ruggeri family have recently moved to a tall terraced house, a stone’s throw below the church of San Gregorio and a short walk from the Duomo, on the other side of which, across the Garibaldi, lies the marina. Hemmed by the Strait and the Peloritan mountains, Messina has had to gain height rather than weight, and once modest dwellings now boast two, three and in some cases four stories, each level graced by tall, shuttered doors opening onto ornamental, iron–railed balconies shaded by striped awnings.
The street, like its new resident, is on the up. However, unlike the two men who drag their unwilling cargo down it, the Via dei Templari cannot vet the character of its tenants.
Carmelo Ruggeri is waiting at the door.
“Why did you think you would be able to get away with such a childish trick?” he hisses at Enzo.
Ullo and his sidekick release their prisoner. Carmelo nods. The men walk away.
“Surely,” he continues, staring down, “you are not naïve enough to think I would not hear of it.”
Of course Enzo had not expected his father to hear of his plans. Perhaps it was his brother, that maggot, who had spilled the beans. And Enzo had reasoned that Vittorio would have been overjoyed to see him gone! Really! This was taking his sycophancy to a whole new level.
And could not his father have intercepted him before he set foot outside the door, earlier? Perhaps or more probably not. That was just like his father, wasn’t it? That was how Carmelo Ruggeri met all his challenges, wasn’t it? No preamble, no pretence, no subtlety; a goat, a Girgentana buck in rut, head down, corkscrew horns to the fore. Only he hadn’t fought the fight, had he? No, he had paid Ullo and Virgilio to do his dirty work, so maybe Ullo was the real buck and his father the nanny.
“Get inside, Enzo. We will discuss this in a more civilised setting.”
Upstairs in the living room, Carmelo ushers his son to a chair, while he remains standing.
“Did they hurt you?” he asks.
Enzo is momentarily caught off guard by this rare display of concern. “No,” he replies, all too aware that his head is unpleasantly sore.
Saverina knocks, enters the room, frowns at her husband and removes a delicate oil lamp from the dining table. As she leaves, and hiding her expression behind the lamp so that Carmelo does not see it, she winces and then purses her lips at her son: a blown kiss of sorts, a communication of her sympathy, a measure of her affection.
When the door is closed, his father continues, “Have I not told you before that this Lunapiena girl is not suitable for you?”
“Don’t you mean that she is not suitable for you?” If this is to be yet another headbutting competition, Enzo knows he must front–up or be chased off the mountain.
Carmelo Ruggeri smiles; a resigned, almost warm and patronising smile that suggests the foolishness of youth is to be expected. However, when the warmth fades and his smile wanes, the new Don’s demeanour is more that of a man who will not forgive easily.
“That is not the point, Enzo. I have not dragged our family out of the harbour only to see you squander your future on the daughter of that fisherman. She is not suitable for you and that is that.”
“Yes, father, I know exactly how you feel about her; you constantly make your feelings all too plain to just about everyone in the harbour. Do you ever give thought to how that makes me feel, or worse, how that makes Lilla feel?” Enzo raises his right hand, as if beseeching a power greater than that which stands glowering before him. “And her name is Lilla. You insist on referring to her as the daughter of that fisherman: well, I cannot argue the point about Lilla being the daughter of a fisherman, but that fisherman? You know very well that Nino Lunapiena is, like you, as respected as any man who earns his living from the waters of the Strait. So please, out of respect for her if not me, her name is Lilla.”
“You think the food on our table comes from the Strait?”
“Don’t the ships come from the Strait?”
“Enzo, don’t play the fool with me, I expect better of you. You would prefe
r to pass your life in a hovel, have your wife bear yet more fisher–sons and condemn your daughters to sit in the street and sew pretty patterns for the rest of their days?”
“Since when did my father look down on the people of his past?”
“Be careful, boy.” His father’s tone hardens, his eyes now as dark as the ocean at night.
“Be careful? Why, father, only a man ashamed of his past would deny those who know it.”
Carmelo sits back and waits. “All right, if you want to rile me, then do so. But first, please tell me what it is that makes you think the prospect of your life with this girl, in another country, is so much more attractive than the prospect of your life here in Messina?”
He doesn’t, though, wait for his son’s response.
“Look, let me say this: in Messina we have the most natural harbour in the Mediterranean. Because of this and because of centuries of trade, our city is prosperous. You must understand, Enzo, that if our Sicily is the breadbasket of Italy, then Messina is the centre of its distribution. Screw Palermo! They may think they own our country, but we are much closer to the mainland. We unload and load nearly a thousand ships a week and that is two thousand reasons why our city will grow more prosperous and our business more profitable. Why, our women no longer walk barefoot and even our beggars have better manners than those in Naples. That all promises very well for the future. Our future. Our future and yours. What you should also understand is that your future is now, right here, in Messina. Stay here with me, with your family, with us, and let us grasp our future together.”
“With Lilla?” Enzo asks.
“Why does it have to be with her? What about that Bartolotta girl? She is sweet and will make a man a good wife.” It was exactly what his mother had suggested when she’d tried to persuade him to stay. Clearly, they have been discussing an alternative.
“That Bartolotta girl? Oh, father! I know looks aren’t everything, but she runs Neptune’s Scylla a close second.”
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