La Brigantessa

by Rosanna Micelotta Battigelli

  “Colonel Russo?” his first officer calls.

  Russo’s smile fades. He slides the package under some files in his top drawer and closes it deftly. “Come in.”

  GABRIELLA KNOWS, BEFORE DON SIMONE SAYS anything, that something is wrong. His erratic tap at her cell door a moment ago, his unusually strident voice calling her name, his knitted brow when she opened the door, and his clasped fingers working furiously like the movements of an ant have ignited a drumming in her chest.

  “Don Simone, what is it?” She looks past him down the long corridor, her stomach clenching.

  “We have to leave the monastery.” Don Simone’s words are calm, but his eyes are blinking rapidly. “Don Filippo has just gotten word that the carabineers, under orders from their superior officer Colonel Russo, are questioning the villagers and farmers in the area as to our possible whereabouts, and any associations and relatives we may have in the outlying area. It is only a matter of time before they discover my affiliation with Don Filippo if they don’t already know. We must seek asylum elsewhere.”

  Gabriella feels her stomach twist again. “How does Colonel Russo know…?”

  Don Simone reaches for her hands. “Signor Alfonso went to find him.” He frowns. “His brother found him in the stable—barely alive—and tended to the wound” He shakes his head. “I left him for dead…and now he is recovering….”

  Gabriella’s knees buckle. She sags against Don Simone as a wave of nausea hits her. He is alive. Clasping Don Simone’s sleeve, she gasps, “What are we going to do? What will they do to me? What will happen to Luciano? We must leave.” She straightens, knowing there is no time to be weak. “But where can we go?”

  Don Simone winces and Gabriella realizes that her fingers are digging into his arm. She lets her hands fall to her sides.

  “Don Filippo and I will discuss this while you prepare your brother. Luciano will remain here, Gabriella.”

  “Here?” Gabriella hears the near shriek in her voice. “I can’t leave him. I won’t.”

  Don Simone clasps her by the shoulders. “Look, Gabriella. Don Filippo has an excellent idea. Luciano will be sheltered with the good Sisters of the Convent of Saint Anna here in Gerace. The orphanage is their life’s work. Don Filippo will send Brother Martino to deliver him safely into the Sisters’ very capable hands.” He squeezes her shoulders. “Gabriella, Brother Martino is expected already with the usual delivery of oil, fruit, and root vegetables. Luciano will travel safely in the cart with the supplies.”

  Gabriella starts at the approaching footsteps. It is only Don Filippo. Heart pounding, she listens as the abbott adds, “I will apprise the abbess of your situation, and I can assure you that Luciano will be as safe as if protected by our Holy Mother herself. You have my word.”

  Gabriella searches his eyes for any sign of insincerity and finds none. He smiles at her kindly. “If God be with you, who could be against you?”

  She feels the mass of knotted muscle in her stomach dissolving as his warm brown eyes envelop her. She nods and flees to get her brother.

  Gabriella shudders as a salt-tinged breeze from the Ionian Sea slaps her cheeks. Even from this elevation, they can hear the churning and slapping of the waves against the rocky shoreline. In the distance, the muffled cry of a goshawk sounds like an injured child. Gabriella’s sob catches in her throat as the cart carrying her brother is engulfed by the swaying poplars on either side of the path. She feels Don Simone’s reassuring squeeze on her shoulder.

  “Luciano will be safe,” he murmurs. “The abbess at the Convent of Saint Anna will provide everything he needs. She is well-known for her special devotion to orphans.”

  I am an orphan too. Gabriella’s stomach contracts, though not from lack of sustenance. Brother Domenico has made it his personal mission these last two days to ensure her compliance at mealtimes. She might as well have been eating hemp, though; each bite has been an ordeal. The hearty bean soup served earlier, thick with garlic, onions, and potatoes, and consumed with gusto by Don Simone, almost brought her to the point of retching with its overpowering smell. She took a few sips to appease Brother Domenico, and then fortunately he and Don Simone were summoned urgently by Don Filippo, and her discarded bowl went unnoticed.

  She is aware of Don Simone’s concern. She can read the subtle messages on his face by the familiar telltale signs: eyes that blink more rapidly than usual under furrowed brows, a perplexed twitch of the lips, and his right hand stroking his chin. His every gesture is as familiar to her as those of everyone in her family. He is her family. He and Luciano are the only family she has left. And now Luciano is gone. Something inside her wants to believe Don Simone that he will be safe, but a louder voice is insisting that she should have kept him with her.

  Oh Luciano. She looks up to the sky, praying for a sign that God has not forsaken them. Then she remembers that she is angry with God; she wants nothing more to do with Him. He has failed her and her family. He has led her to believe she had a future with Tonino, and now her beloved has other plans for the future. Whether she likes it or not, she has to accept the fact that Tonino may never come back to her alive. She can’t bear to even imagine what Tonino is thinking or doing now, for surely he knows that she has fled Camini…. Oh God, what torment!

  God! He is as dead to her as her father. Yet despite herself, she cannot help but recall one of the many psalms that Don Simone has preached about: “‘He shall set me high upon a rock. And now my head shall be lifted up above my enemies.’”

  She grunts, refusing to gain any comfort or assurance from the words. The only one who can protect her from her enemies now is Don Simone. She takes his outstretched hand, and they hurry into the monastery to pack a few supplies before fleeing.

  ALFONSO HAS MIXED FEELINGS ABOUT CLAUDIO leaving. Although he trusts his brother implicitly—Claudio has assured him that his neck wound is healing and that he need only change the dressing regularly and apply the medicated balm to restore the damaged tissue—there is something that is troubling him. It is the matter of the pulsating jabs on the left side of his head. He has never suffered from head ailments in the past, save perhaps, for the throbbing after an occasional night of revelry to celebrate an outstanding success at his favourite gambling house in Venice. And even then, the pain was more of a constant thrum as opposed to these intermittent jabs that feel like lightning striking.

  Claudio suspects nerve damage. He has supplied Alfonso with a vial of nerve pills and cannot say for certain how long the pains will last. “What do I do when the pills are finished?” Alfonso sounds like a helpless child even to himself.

  “Go to the pharmacy in the town of Stilo.” Claudio writes an indecipherable message on a piece of vellum and hands it to Alfonso. “I met the pharmacist last week when I took the journey with the boy Valerio. He’s learned and well-respected. He will take care of your every need.” He checks his pocket watch and looks pointedly at Alfonso. “Must you pursue this?”

  Alfonso knows Claudio is not referring to the pills. “I suppose you disapprove,” he rasps, propping himself up in his bed with a grimace. The shifting precipitates a jab to his head. He has been resting all afternoon; the trip to the military station in Caulonia to consult with Colonel Russo thoroughly drained him.

  “Alfonso, how could I not? I don’t know what you were doing when we were taught our catechism at school, but pursuing this matter…pursuing her goes against anything we—”

  “Don’t spew morality at me, brother. We’re long past those guilt-provoking lessons of our youth. Or at least I am.”

  “Forget your pride and return with me,” Claudio insists. “She was only trying to defend herself.” Claudio opens his mouth as if to continue and then clamps it shut. He returns to his own room. Alfonso hears him fiddling with the straps of his suitcase and then he is back, setting the bag down before approaching the bed. Alfonso returns Claudio’s stiff em
brace and shifts his eyes to the window, reluctant to see any further disapproval in his brother’s eyes.

  He sighs, wishing Claudio could prolong his stay. He does not relish the thought of being alone in this barbarous region. Now that Don Simone has gone, he has no one but the ignorant peasants in the village with whom to associate. Even the mayor, whom he and Claudio met shortly after their arrival in Camini, appeared to be barely more respectable than the villagers. Alfonso had taken in the almost threadbare elbows on his jacket, his stained teeth, his unclipped fingernails, his coarse pastoral dialect. He had offered his hand when introduced by Don Simone, and it took everything Alfonso had not to extract it precipitously out of his clammy grasp.

  Alfonso almost regrets having purchased the church property in Camini. It is the first expropriated property south of Naples to be added to his land holdings. He recalls the warnings and scoffing of some of his associates in Turin upon hearing that he was considering making the purchase and planning to travel the length of the country to inspect his investment personally.

  “You’re descending into hell itself,” Ottavio Venturi from the pharmaceutical company proclaimed.

  “I hear the peasants are barely more civilized than their African neighbours to the south.” his banker said with a sneer.

  “The most cultured women are coarser than our northern whores. Or does the thought of sticking it into a near-savage excite you?” one of his gambling friends in Venice guffawed, adding an obscene gesture.

  Alfonso’s jaw clenches. Gabriella Falcone, despite her lowly status, had no outwardly “savage” attributes. Her eyes, devoid of the dullness of the barefooted women returning from the fields, were shiny and alert, her movements nimble and purposeful as she carried out her kitchen tasks. Her hair, thick and immaculate—no greasy sheen or sun-dried thatch crowning her soft face. That face. Perhaps that is why he wanted her. The softness of that skin, a hint of coral on those cheekbones, lips that looked like they were meant to….

  Alfonso gasps as a pain shoots down the side of his head. The left side. Always the left side. “Dio bestia,” he swears. Were it not for that girl, he would be returning to Turin with his brother. To hell with the church lands. He’d unload them without a second thought.

  But he cannot leave before he has found Gabriella. Surely, she cannot outsmart him even with the aid of the priest. He has the money, and now, the forces of law on his side to help him track her down and punish her for her crime. Secretly, he hopes to locate her before Russo’s men. He must. Despite his neck wound and the infernal jabs to the head, he has been sustained by thoughts of how he will enact his own brand of justice on the girl.

  Moments later, he hears the clip-clop of hooves and the accompanying clang of the cart’s wheels. Valerio will lead the mule out of Camini to Locri, where Claudio will await the train heading north.

  His brother knows him far too well. Claudio knows that he will not be content until his pride has been assuaged. The only way to do that is to find the girl and….

  Alfonso smiles, thinking of what he will do to Signorina Gabriella before turning her over to Russo. If he is lucky enough to find her first.

  GABRIELLA CRINGES WITH EVERY STEP she takes through the forested mountain path. They have been walking for at least three quarters of an hour. Her shoes offer little protection from the grizzled roots that occasionally break through the sun-scorched earth. Every coarse pebble strewn across the forest floor feels like a spike. Despite their elevation, the midday August heat is still unbearable. Gabriella’s soles are burning. This is what St. Joan of Arc must have felt like as the flames began to lick the bottoms of her feet. She cries out as a sharp stone penetrates the thin flap of sole on her right foot. She lifts her foot, sways, and falls in a heap near a clump of wild sage.

  Don Simone gasps. “Did you twist your ankle?”

  Gabriella shakes her head. “My foot’s bleeding, though.”

  Don Simone mumbles something under his breath that sounds suspiciously like a curse of some kind, and Gabriella looks at him in wonder. She has never heard him utter a bad word in her life.

  “Dio, perdonami,” he adds immediately, and despite her pain, Gabriella almost feels like laughing. Don Simone, the most holy man she knows, swearing, and then asking God’s forgiveness. “We must take care of this right away,” he tells her, removing her shoe, “before it becomes infected.” He reaches into his cassock and pulls out a flask. Gabriella looks away and braces herself. She flinches as the alcohol makes contact with her open wound. Her foot feels as if it is engulfed by flames. Shuddering, she attempts to pull her foot away, but Don Simone holds it firmly. She can see that he is trembling, though, and his face looks as pained as she feels. He reaches again into his cassock and produces a handkerchief, which he folds before tying it around her foot.

  “How can I walk like this?” She winces as Don Simone helps her wedge her foot back into the torn shoe.

  Don Simone takes a deep breath, his finger tapping one side of his face. “We will rest for a while. But we cannot stay in this spot.” He straightens, looks around, and then nods in satisfaction. “See that grove of poplar trees? Beyond it is a shepherd’s hut; we can stop there. Besides, you need to eat. Come.”

  Gabriella cannot put her full weight on her foot. Leaning against Don Simone’s arm, she limps the thirty or so paces to the grove, and squeezes through a narrow opening into a field of mixed grasses intertwining in wild profusion. Gabriella can easily identify them: myrtle and rosemary, thyme and fennel, lavender and sage, and the abundant soapwort. The field is so overgrown that at first, the hut is easily missed. Don Simone points to it excitedly. “There. I knew it would be here.”

  The door creaks as they enter. He helps Gabriella into a dilapidated woven chair before sitting down on a rough bench. “I come this way occasionally on my travels,” he says, taking a couple of apricots and a hunk of cheese from his packsack. “The shepherd whose hut this belongs to lives on the outskirts of town with his daughter, who works as a housekeeper at a villa in the area. His wife is dead. The fellow always invites me to have a little tipple with him—ahem, of tea, mostly—when I pass through. He told me to stop in even if he wasn’t here, if I needed a rest or goat’s milk.” Don Simone chuckles. “I imagine he’s out to pasture with his goat, or we could have enjoyed some fresh milk.”

  Gabriella accepts Don Simone’s offering of fruit. For the first time since they left Camini, she feels hunger gnawing at her stomach. She bites into the apricot, savouring its sweetness. She watches as Don Simone pulls out a jackknife and cuts the pecorino cheese into wedges. He hands her a couple of generous wedges, takes one for himself, and puts the rest in the packsack. Her foot is still throbbing, but for a moment she allows herself to be content for the food and the rest.

  Don Simone begins to say “Grace,” but she plops the second apricot into her mouth, ignoring his frown at her obvious disrespect. Whatever respect and devotion she had for God died with her father and her dreams of a life with Tonino.

  AFTER BIDDING CLAUDIO GOODBYE in the piazza, Alfonso sends a shoeless ragamuffin in search of Valerio Bosco, who had previously taken him and Claudio for a tour of the church lands. Before leaving the rectory that day, Alfonso had watched Valerio conversing with Gabriella. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but the look of adulation on Valerio’s face was obvious.

  It was clear to Alfonso that Gabriella did not feel the same. Her face, though flushed, did not mirror the boy’s infatuation, and her drawn eyebrows and pursed lips inferred a touch of irritation. She had smiled, though, after he left, and Alfonso had observed her secret amusement with a flurry of mixed feelings. It was the first time he had seen her smile since his arrival.

  “I know the area, Signor Alfonso,” Valerio is saying confidently. “I can help you find Signorina Gabriella.” His face clouds over. “I was very sad to hear about her father’s death. Signor Falcone was a
good man. Poor Gabriella, with no one to protect her and her father from that robber. He must have been a vagrant; there has been some talk of a gypsy encampment near the river. Oh, if only you or your brother had been at the rectory…” Valerio’s grey eyes well up and he wipes them with a handkerchief from his pocket.

  “Indeed,” Alfonso murmurs, rubbing his temples. He feels a slight throbbing, but he has not felt a jab in the last hour. He clears his throat; it feels as if it is lined with the thorns of the prickly pear. He has confided in the boy that when he and his brother returned, they found a note from Don Simone, saying that he had come back from his visit in the neighbouring hamlet of Riace, only to find Gabriella wild with grief over her father. She had taken leave of her senses and was tearing at her hair and clothes and screaming like a devil, threatening to jump off a cliff. He felt there was no recourse but to take her to a place where she could receive treatment for her hysteria. Alfonso added as an afterthought that Don Simone promised to inform the authorities about the robbery, and that he would locate Luciano and take him with them.

  “Don Simone requested that we make provisions for the funeral.” Alfonso lets out an audible sigh. “As you know, the funeral was yesterday. The poor girl must be half-mad with grief or she would have returned. There are arrangements that have to be made now that she and her brother have been orphaned, which is why we must find her.”

  Valerio shakes his head. “Why wouldn’t Don Simone say where he was taking Gabriella and Luciano?” His eyebrows arch in puzzlement. “Something’s not right.”

  Alfonso coughs, the phlegm gurgling in his throat. “That’s what worries me,” he says, his voice dropping dramatically. “They left with the mule and cart by night. What if they came across the gypsies? Or worse, brigands?” He feigns a shudder. “God help them.” Crossing himself, he looks off to the hills. “As new proprietor of the church and its accompanying lands, I must do everything I can to help my staff. Which is why I am seeking a guide to take me through the area and make inquiries. Sooner or later, we will find them.”