Arcadia Awakens

by Kai Meyer

  Alessandro smiled out of the screen at her, hair as unruly as on the plane. He looked unexpectedly elegant in a dark suit. Not even the flash photography could affect him much. He had a small scab on his chin, probably from shaving. Thank heaven there were no photos of Rosa’s shins on the internet.

  A man of about fifty was standing beside him, with black hair and a high forehead, dark brows, and a politician’s frozen grin.

  Baron Massimo Carnevare, said the caption, with his son, Alessandro.

  She didn’t meet a soul as she left the palazzo, then walked through the shadowy circle of chestnut trees to the outskirts of the olive groves. She was wearing a short black skirt, a black T-shirt with the words THERE ARE ALWAYS BETTER LIARS on it, and her metal-studded boots. She’d removed the rest of the polish from her nails that morning.

  Alessandro’s name had led her to another site, and she clicked on it, although there just seemed to be more stuff about his father and his father’s businesses on that one as well. But she hadn’t had a chance to read more than the opening sentence before it struck her as too risky to go on using Florinda’s computer.

  Ten thousand people had died in southern Italy because of the Mafia in the 1980s alone—three times more than in the Troubles of Northern Ireland over a whole twenty-five years.

  She didn’t know how many of those victims could be chalked up to the Carnevares and Alcantaras. Today she was going to meet many of the men and women responsible for the massacres carried out by Cosa Nostra. Men and women who had made decisions and given orders back then. It made her kind of nervous, as if she’d been invited to attend a serial-killer convention that afternoon.

  My God, what am I going to wear?

  She smiled to herself, because that question had probably been on Zoe’s mind for days.

  By now she was in the middle of the olive groves, and she walked downhill past the distorted tree trunks. Florinda’s men must be on patrol somewhere near—the property was surely guarded the whole time—but she saw no one, and was glad of that.

  Back at the airport Alessandro Carnevare had offered to drop her off at the palazzo. Not far out of their way, he had claimed. Nonsense. The village of Genuardo, where the Carnevares had their headquarters, was over an hour’s journey from here. She knew that now. Had Alessandro just wanted to use her as a pretext for getting to the heart of an enemy clan, so that later he could boast of it to the sons of the other bosses, the capi? She didn’t trust him a bit.

  Which brought up her real problem. She couldn’t trust herself anymore, either. She’d learned that a year ago, and now she had to come to terms with it, because there wasn’t any other option. It was easier to shift her distrust to other people than face herself in the mirror, gaze into those eyes that looked mascara-rimmed even without mascara, and tell herself: It’s you. You’re the problem.

  Something moved to her right.

  Rosa stood still and looked at the pattern of sunlight and shadows. A rustling sound hissed through the leaves. Beyond the tangle of prickly pear cacti, she heard a growl.

  She tried to make something out. But there was nothing. Only dark and light in harsh contrast, as if she had accidentally stepped out of a color TV program into a black-and-white photo.

  The hissing again. That wasn’t the wind.

  Out of the striped pattern of light and dark, a tiger came prowling.

  BESTIARIUM

  HIS MOVEMENTS WERE so fast that the next moment he was right in front of her, yellow-and-black head raised, mouth slightly open. He was looking right into her eyes.

  Nothing moved. It was as if the world were frozen solid. Everything Rosa had just been thinking was unimportant. The animal dominated her mind and her feelings. She and the tiger were here. Nothing else.

  His paws were as big as her head, and his muscular hind legs were broader than her torso. His fangs shone with the saliva that was gathering on his black chops. He smelled like a locker room after a football game.

  Something was definitely wrong. She didn’t know much about Europe and the world outside the States, but the tiger in front of her didn’t belong here. Feral dogs and domestic cats, yes. Not tigers.

  A ripple ran through his body. He was crouching, ready to pounce.

  That dizzy feeling came back. It was even worse than on her arrival at the airport. This time there was no hot car for her to lean on, so that the pain could clear her head. It’s a dream, she thought. It can’t be real.

  She swayed, almost fell, heard a voice. Zoe’s voice. From somewhere or other she was calling Rosa’s name.

  I’m here, she thought.

  Here with the tiger.

  But then her vision cleared, and she was alone. Whatever had been standing in front of her was gone. A few olive leaves fell slowly from the lower branches. One settled gently on her hand, but she hardly felt its touch.

  “Rosa?”

  She turned, still fighting to keep her balance.

  “I was looking for you everywhere,” said her sister. “What are you doing here?”

  Don’t say a word, Rosa told herself. Don’t say a word about the tiger. Or they’ll think you’re even crazier than everyone claims and send you straight back to New York.

  “Oh, fuck, Rosa—you’re not wearing that T-shirt to the funeral, are you?”

  Black limousines followed one another along the narrow mountain road. The luxury cars made their way around the bends at walking pace, as slowly as if they were part of some huge public spectacle.

  Looking out the window, Rosa watched the endless line of vehicles crawl higher over the brown crest of the mountain, gleaming against the deep blue sky.

  “They’re coming from all over the island,” said Zoe. She was sitting next to Florinda in the spacious back of the limousine. Rosa sat facing them.

  “Why don’t they come by helicopter?”

  “Obviously your mother never taught you anything about piety,” said her aunt.

  “I’m supposed to learn that from you and your friends.”

  Florinda and Zoe glanced through their gigantic sunglasses at Rosa. They looked like a couple of devout churchgoers. More than ever, she felt like a stranger who accidentally happened to find herself in this car, in the middle of the wild, ancient landscape. There was no mistaking the close bond between the other two women. Although Zoe looked so like their mother, at that moment she and Florinda, clad entirely in black and with identical pairs of sunglasses, could have been twin sisters.

  Rosa saw herself reflected four times over in the black lenses. Her long hair was too unruly for any brush to control it. She had tied it behind her head with a scarf, so that Zoe would leave her in peace instead of delivering lectures about appropriate clothing and respectful behavior. Respectful—two years ago she’d have thought it impossible for that word to ever pass her sister’s lips.

  The driver, one of the villagers whose family had worked for the Alcantaras for generations, steered the limo around the next bend. Genuardo and the Castello Carnevare must be quite close now, but she hadn’t seen either yet. They must be behind one of the bare, sun-baked hills, she supposed. There was nothing here but scrubby grass with cattle grazing every once in a while, looking up in surprise as the column of cars passed by.

  They reached the mountaintop in a cloud of dust. Rosa slipped over to the other side of her seat and saw the graveyard. It was surrounded by a wall nine feet high, and stood on the steep rise like an angular, compact fortress, white and pale yellow like the wide landscape they had been crossing for the last hour. Behind the top of the wall rose the pointed roofs of countless family vaults, a forest of stone crosses and figures of saints. It was a south Italian custom for prosperous families to build expensive chapels as the last resting place of their dead, and many such lavishly decorated buildings stood side by side in this graveyard.

  A warm wind bowed the tops of the cypress trees on the other side of the wall. For a rural area like this, the cimitero of Genuardo was surprisingly large.<
br />
  Ten thousand dead in ten years, Rosa remembered. There were probably a whole lot of large graveyards on Sicily.

  The procession of cars continued on. Rosa’s eyes passed over the flaking plaster of the walls. Now and then there were gaps, gateways covered with gratings through which she could look down the avenues between the tombs. Several of the simpler ones were strikingly decorated with playthings hanging from them, dolls faded by the sun, weather-beaten teddy bears. Apart from the cypresses there were no other trees. The sun drained all color from the walls and the landscape.

  “Look at that,” said Zoe.

  A figure clad from head to foot in the black worn in these parts by simple countrywomen stood by a grave just beyond one of the gratings. She kept raising a sledgehammer in both hands and bringing it down on the tombstone. One corner of the stone had already broken off, but the woman was not content with that. She went on hammering away without looking up, as the cars rolled slowly by, enveloping her in clouds of dust.

  Florinda leaned forward to look past Zoe and Rosa. “I know that woman,” she said.

  Rosa tore her eyes away from the bizarre spectacle and looked at her aunt.

  “Her son was a pentito, an informer who gave evidence for the prosecution against the families.” Florinda spoke without a trace of emotion. “He didn’t take the good advice the judges gave him. Instead of going into hiding abroad under a new name, he came back to visit his mother. His clan’s soldati picked him up at Messina harbor. A package was delivered to his mother every day for a week, each of them containing a part of his body.”

  Rosa looked back through the billowing dust. The old woman was leaning on the shaft of her hammer. Then she raised it again, trembling, and struck the tombstone another blow.

  “She’s begging for her life,” said Florinda. “She wants to show everyone she’s disowned him, she condemns his treachery to the families.”

  Rosa touched the glass of the window with her fingertips. “But he risked his own life to see her again.”

  “Obviously she has more sense than he did.”

  They had left the gateway with its grating behind; now there was nothing to be seen but the high walls again.

  “Will that help her?” asked Rosa.

  Florinda shrugged. “Someone will notice her gesture with approval.”

  An atmosphere of open hostility met them in the graveyard. The expensively dressed men and women waiting in a long line at the main entrance to the Carnevare family vault cast dark glances at the three Alcantara women.

  Florinda’s bodyguards, who had come in a second car, had been left at the gateway of the graveyard. The heads of dozens of families and the other family members did the same. Out of respect for the dead, the clans refrained from spectacular displays of feeling and unconcealed threats, but many here made no secret of their mutual dislike.

  It hardly affected Rosa at all. She still felt like an outsider observing a war-torn area, as if none of it had anything to do with her. But of course she was only pretending to herself. The moment she showed up here with Florinda and Zoe, there was no doubt whose side she was on. Every hostile glance directed at the Alcantaras was as much for her as for Florinda and Zoe.

  “Don’t worry,” whispered her aunt. “No one here will risk breaking the concordat.”

  “The what?”

  “An old word for a truce,” said Zoe. “None of these people like the Alcantaras, but no one would risk taking any action against us.”

  “If there’s a truce,” said Rosa, “who makes sure everyone observes it?”

  She got no answer, because the magnificent funerary chapel of the Carnevares was right ahead of them. It had to be one of the oldest structures in this graveyard; it was taller than the others and not made of marble, like some of the more modern vaults, but of the brown tuff stone used for the baroque palazzi. On both sides of the entrance, carvings of animal figures and faces went all the way up to the mighty gable.

  Alessandro Carnevare was standing at the entrance, accepting condolences. His black suit fit perfectly. He had combed his hair, but that hadn’t done much to control it; it was still tousled, unlike the rest of his family’s. Their hair was combed back and kept in place with gel.

  The last twenty yards to the chapel were slow going, as the crowd of humanity came to a near halt. Dark, reserved faces. Hostile glances their way now and then. Elegant gentlemen, but also a number of thuggish features looking out of place among the expensive designer suits.

  Alessandro shook hands with everyone, often using both hands as if it were a fraternity ritual rather than an exchange of condolences.

  “The baron was very well respected,” whispered Zoe, so softly that Rosa could hardly make out what she was saying. “That’s his son. Alessandro Carnevare.”

  Rosa nodded as if she were seeing him for the first time.

  Zoe leaned even closer. “He’s going to take over as his father’s successor in a couple of weeks’ time. As long as nothing happens to him before then.”

  “Oh?” Rosa clenched one fist.

  “The man next to him,” said Zoe, unobtrusively pointing, “is Cesare Carnevare, the late baron’s cousin and his consigliere, his adviser, for many years. He’s running the business until Alessandro comes of age.”

  Rosa narrowed her eyes slightly to get a better look at the man. The hot midday sun laid a shimmering heat haze over the scene. There was an intense smell of cypresses and the musty odor of the gravestones.

  Cesare Carnevare was tall and by no means unattractive—you could probably have said that of the whole family. She put his age at fifty, but she wasn’t sure, because she would also have thought Alessandro in that suit was older than he really was. Cesare had a powerful build, broad shoulders, and huge hands, which were particularly obvious when he received the condolences of the mourners filing past. His enormous fingers could have enclosed any other man’s entire fist.

  Rosa glanced sideways at Zoe, briefly. Her sister went on, “Because everyone knows he’ll try to get Alessandro out of the—”

  “Hush,” hissed Florinda.

  They were almost within hearing distance of the family members in front of the chapel now.

  Beside Cesare stood a second young man, only a little older than Alessandro, athletic and tanned, with blond highlights in his dark hair. He wore rimless glasses. Rosa was surprised she hadn’t noticed him earlier. He was staring at her. Maybe he’d been doing so all along. So frankly and openly that something inside her turned to ice. She relaxed her fist—so as not to hurt herself if she had to go physically on the defensive.

  “Tano,” Zoe whispered to her. “Cesare’s son.”

  Florinda led the way. Without hesitating, without batting an eyelash, she gave the three men her hand. Neither Cesare Carnevare nor either of the two younger men showed what he was thinking. Brief, respectful courtesies were exchanged. For a moment Florinda’s delicate fingers disappeared in Cesare’s great paw.

  Zoe was next. She managed to give Alessandro and Tano a fleeting smile, but she could hardly look into Cesare’s eyes. Rosa thought her sister was letting her uneasiness show a little too clearly. She hoped to do better herself.

  She withstood Tano’s stare through the lenses of his glasses easily enough. Shook his hand. Expressed her sympathy courteously. Didn’t look away, made no nervous movement. She didn’t have to pretend; aggression was her strong point, and the challenge in Tano Carnevare’s eyes only made her feel more self-confident.

  Come on if you dare, her handshake told him, and from the flash of surprise in his eyes she saw that he’d read the message.

  She turned to Cesare, Tano’s father and the dead man’s cousin. He was a more formidable man, there was no doubt of that even from a distance. At close quarters, she could physically sense the aura of menace that surrounded the late baron’s consigliere. As she returned his cool, calculating glance, she saw her aunt in a new light, and for that she was grateful to him. Florinda must be an ext
remely determined woman to have faced an enemy like this all her life without giving an inch.

  “You must be Rosa,” said Cesare Carnevare.

  How did he know her name?

  “Welcome home.” His voice was deep and pleasant, not at all what she had expected.

  She nodded to him and continued on.

  Stopped in front of Alessandro.

  She put out her hand—and promptly missed taking his because instead she was looking into his eyes, into that unfathomable deep-sea green that seemed even brighter in the sun-bleached graveyard among all the black of the mourners. Finally, after a short, almost embarrassed moment that hopefully no one else had noticed, their hands found each other.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  She bit her lower lip and was about to move on when he smiled—smiled at her from beside his father’s grave.

  “I hoped you’d come,” he said quietly.

  THE SLAVE’S BOOK

  ROSA AND ALESSANDRO STROLLED together down the avenues between the tombs, keeping their distance from the other mourners. After expressing their sympathy once again, most of them were making for the exit from the graveyard, where a buffet had been set out in the shade of a tall stone cross, and waiters offered champagne on sparkling silver trays. The priest who had led the funeral procession was standing with the heads of the clans, taking lively part in their conversation.

  Many glances followed Rosa and Alessandro as they moved away from the others and past the monuments. Florinda never took her eyes off them, and Cesare also kept glancing at them. Zoe stood alone with a glass of champagne in the shadow of the archway. With those dark glasses on, Rosa couldn’t tell where or at whom she was looking.

  “We’ll start them gossiping,” said Alessandro. “I ought to have warned you they’d talk.”

  “Let them.”

  “You don’t mind?”