La Brigantessa

by Rosanna Micelotta Battigelli

  Alfonso takes another drink from his water jug before remounting Borbone. They continue along an overgrown mule track flanking a deep gorge. Valerio is silent, taking care to avoid getting tangled in the bracken. Alfonso follows him cautiously, hoping nothing causes his mule to become skittish. When the path finally splits into two, Valerio takes the west fork, where they soon find themselves between low hills cultivated with olive trees. Looking ahead, they see a hamlet chiselled into the mountainside, the stone and mortar houses all clustered together like grazing sheep.

  They pass a goat herd with the scrawniest group of goats Alfonso had ever seen, and a group of washerwomen beating their laundry in the public wash house. Running about are a pack of scantily clothed children, their sun-browned arms and legs knobby and discoloured with bruises or marked with scabs. They stop and stare when Valerio says good day to the women, and Alfonso can’t help shuddering inwardly at the yellow tinge in their eyes, and how they barely move when the houseflies linger on their skin. He signals to Valerio to keep going; the last thing he wants is to be in the vicinity of malaria-stricken peasants.

  When they are out of sight of the villagers, they seek shade in an oleander grove, tethering the animals and handing them apples before sitting down on a knoll to have their own snack of apricots and cheese. Valerio tells him the rumours about the barefooted children; that they are most likely the bastardi of the Baron Saverio Contini, who, by all accounts, plans regular visits to the homes of his labourers, making sure that his officers see to their timely payment of taxes and loans, while he goes about questioning their young daughters as to their suitability for work in his palazzo in the town or villa by the sea. “People began to notice an increase in hurried weddings, as well as an increase in the hamlet’s population,” Valerio snickers. “They realized the Baron was ‘questioning’ the girls with his pants down, the cornuto. They say that at a good number of the children in the hamlet are his. He denies it, of course. He has half a dozen of his own, and if he had to support all the snotty-nosed children that he has sired, he would be as penniless as the peasants.” Valerio sobers. “He’s nothing but a piece of shit. Pezz ’e merda!” He spits, his mouth twisting in disgust. “Don’t you think the Baron is despicable, taking advantage of the young women like that?”

  Alfonso chokes on a piece of pear and sputters out a series of coughs. He shifts uncomfortably, his sudden thoughts of Gabriella dissipating with Valerio’s pointed question. He takes his time drinking from his flask, and then, seeing Valerio’s eyes still pinned on him, he nods emphatically.

  “Of course,” he replies, making sure his voice is inflected with just enough indignation. “The Baron’s actions are unconscionable. Who does he think he is?”

  Valerio starts plucking some of the pink flowers off the oleander shrubs. He gives a satisfied snort. “If he did that to my girl, I’d…I’d want to kill him. Or at least castrate him.”

  Alfonso looks at him sharply. “Is Signorina Gabriella your girl?”

  Valerio gives him a sheepish look before averting his gaze to the leaf in his hand. “I care for her, but she doesn’t have eyes for me.” He looks up with a hopeful glint in his eyes. “Yet.”

  Alfonso smiles cynically at the innocent infatuation on the boy’s face.

  Valerio puffs out his chest. “That’s why we have to find her, Signor Alfonso. And bring her home safely.”

  Alfonso clears his throat again. His eyes narrow. “Don’t worry, lad. We’ll find her.” When Valerio nods and jumps on Spirito’s back, setting off eagerly, Alfonso adds under his breath, “And you can have her, little boy, once I’ve played my favourite game with her: The Baron and the Maid.”

  He calls out to Valerio that he will join him presently. Alfonso turns and disappears behind a giant clump of oleanders. With the sweet fragrance of hundreds of pink blossoms enveloping him, he relieves himself quickly, the strident buzz of the unseen cicadas around him muffling his restrained grunts of pleasure.

  “GABRIELLA, I TRULY BELIEVE THIS GALANTE will keep his word. The brothers I don’t trust even if they were blind. But there is a sense of honour about him. Yes,” he says, nodding and staring at the ground, his eyebrows knit together. “That man has more decency than villainy in his bones. Or we wouldn’t be standing here now, having this conversation.”

  Gabriella says nothing. Theirs is hardly a conversation, but Don Simone is absorbed in his rambling opinions, and she doesn’t feel the need to disagree with him openly. She is reluctant to sanctify Stefano Galante simply because he hasn’t done anything to them. He is a brigand, after all. A brigand chief. He has to have committed some dark deeds to garner him such a title. He certainly wouldn’t have gotten it for simply being a gentleman, like his name indicates. It could have been any number of things: rape and murder at worst, or abduction and extortion at best. Either way, he is a criminal, and she can’t believe that Don Simone is willing to overlook this.

  “I have to sit down,” she winces, limping to her pallet.

  He nods. “Rest your leg. I will return in a little while.”

  Gabriella feels her shoulders losing some of their tenseness. She could feel a wave of fatigue sweep over her as Don Simone rambled on, and now she is almost tempted to lie down, but she has something she must do before he—or Stefano Galante—returns. She doesn’t want to give herself time to change her mind. She must act now, or she might forever regret it. Taking a deep breath, she gets up and moves to Galante’s pile of blankets. Approaching footsteps outside the hut startle her. She pulls the knife out of the cheese and shoves it into a deep pocket of her skirt. Plopping down on her pallet, she breathes deeply, willing the erratic pounding in her heart to subside.

  “Signorina?” a voice calls just outside the blanketed entrance. Gabriella gasps softly. The last thing she expected to hear was the voice of a woman.

  A new round of drumming begins against her rib cage. The shadow wasn’t a dream.

  HE MUST BE IN PURGATORY. He can barely see through the wisps of fog that float about like suspended souls. Nor can he feel anything but a throbbing in his head. He squints to try to make sense of where he is, but the fog won’t clear. He shudders as a cold, clammy sensation envelops him. The oppressive fog pins down his eyelids and he wants to succumb to a persistent drowsiness, but a shuffling nearby jolts him and his eyes flutter open again. This time he is able to ascertain a shape moving over to him. It is small, it must be a child; between the ribbons of fog, he can distinguish the outline of its head, a glimpse of mouth, a body clothed in white. An angel, he thinks, trembling.

  In the distance, a woman’s voice calls out. Is she calling for me or the child? he wonders. He considers the possibility that the angel has been sent to lead him out of purgatory…

  His heartbeat quickens. Surely a white angel will lead me to heaven. My earthly transgressions have been few….

  He doesn’t know whether to be happy or sad. Sad to leave his earthly life—although at the moment, he can remember so little of it—or happy to enter the place of eternal light…. He bows his head, a prayer springing to his lips.

  He becomes aware of the exchange of voices, the woman murmuring something to the child, and the child responding. A boy. When the voices begin to recede, his head jerks upward. The child is gone. He recoils as if he has been slapped. Frantic, he tries to call out, but his throat has constricted. The sound it emits is nothing more than a strangled croak.

  He is aware of a curtain of black approaching him, and to his horror, a pair of gnarled hands descending upon his face, prying his eyelids apart before squirting a liquid into each lower lid. The hands force his eyes shut, while other hands restrain his arms and legs. His brain swims with the terrifying thoughts of the atrocities to which he is being subjected. Perhaps I am in hell after all….

  The rasping he hears must be the devil breathing down on him.

  “Open your eyes now.” A woman’
s voice.

  The rasping stops. He realizes with a shock that he has been the one making those ungodly sounds.

  “Open your eyes.”

  He obeys. He squints a few times, and a hand comes up to wipe the excess liquid spilling from his lids.

  He looks past the gnarled fingers to the face staring down at him. Not the devil, nor an angel. A nun with benign brown eyes crinkling as she begins to smile.

  “It’s a good sign if you can see me,” she says. “There should be no more fog. And if there is, we’ll administer another dose of drops.” She nods to the nuns holding down his arms and legs and they leave, their starched habits creating a faint breeze.

  “And now, Signor Tonino, all we have to do is clear the fog from your head.”

  “Tonino?”

  “Yes, your name is Tonino. And I am Abbess Emanuela.”

  “I thought you were the devil.” His voice is still hoarse.

  The abbess chuckles. “I’m sure some of the novices think the same way when they first arrive at St. Anna.” She strides to the window and opens the shutters. She pours some water into the cup still sitting next to the jug and returns to offer it to Tonino. He nods gratefully and sitting up in the bed, drinks it thirstily.

  “Abbess Emanuela,” he ventures, “what else can you tell me about myself?”

  “I will send Sister Caterina to answer some of your questions, as I must attend to another matter.” She turns to leave, then stops to look at him thoughtfully. “Perhaps you can answer some questions as well.”

  As she turns to the right of the doorway, her steps echoing on the slate floors, he slowly gets out of bed, slips his feet into the knitted grey slippers left on the floor and sits in the wicker chair by the window. The fragrance from the creamy buds of the potted plant fills his nostrils. Jasmine. Star-like flowers that wait until after the sun has set to open. He breathes in the scent while looking out at the countryside that is spread below him like an endless tapestry. It seems so familiar with its crags and ravines, pastures and olive groves. The hillsides are streaked with the yellow blossoms of broom, the mountain paths edged with pink and white oleanders, giant aloe, and prickly pear cactus.

  If he can remember this, then surely other memories will be restored to him. He must be patient. He feels the bandages still wrapped around his head, the scratches healing on the side of his face. He murmurs the name she has told him is his. Tonino. Tonino. He continues to repeat it. A patter of footsteps draws his gaze away from the countryside. He sees Sister Caterina hesitating by the door. He nods, and she enters, wiping her forehead with a white handkerchief. As she approaches, his gaze follows the movement of her hand. He can make out a delicately embroidered rose on one corner and part of an initial on the opposite corner. She tucks it beneath the cuff of her left sleeve and gives him a faint smile. “May God grant us the strength to carry on in this heat. This has to be the worst summer in years.”

  Tonino nods sympathetically. She must be roasting in her black habit. It falls over a crisp white shirt, the collar of which extends to just under her chin. The only exposed skin is her face below her white wimple, and her hands. “The abbess said you can tell me what you know about me,” he prompts.

  Sister Caterina takes out her handkerchief again and gently dabs under her eyes. Her cheeks are flushed and when she suddenly sways, dropping her handkerchief, he rises quickly to stop her from falling. He helps her into the chair, reaches for the jug to refill the cup, and hands it to her. As she drinks from it shakily, he feels a twinge of memory of another girl drinking from a cup…a girl with a handkerchief…He stoops to pick up the nun’s handkerchief and notices the embroidered P on it. Not the same letter. Even so, he feels an inexplicable happiness. He holds out the handkerchief, his hand trembling. There is a girl in my life, he realizes. Someone I love.

  With a sudden thrumming in his chest, Tonino takes a few steps to sit at the edge of the bed and waits for Sister Caterina to compose herself.

  “I’m sorry,” she says, fanning herself with her handkerchief. “You are anxious to recover your memory. I hope I can help you.”

  RUSSO REMOVES HIS OVERCOAT and drapes it over an ornate walnut chair. He reaches for the bottle of Vecchia Romagna on the massive oak-and-walnut-inlaid sideboard. Pouring a generous amount of the brandy into a snifter, he watches the amber liquid swirl around for a moment. It reminds him of the golden striations of tonight’s sunset.

  He tips the glass, letting some of the brandy sweep across his tongue. He savours this initial indulgence before downing the rest of the brandy in one gulp. His esophagus quivers in response, and Russo feels the combined rush of pleasure and pain.

  He proceeds to pour himself another brandy and then, loosening his cravat, stretches out on Liliana’s settee, awaiting her entry. He shivers as he anticipates what she will be wearing. The filmy silk nightdress with the coral skirt panels resembling the reversed petals of a tulip, perhaps? Oh, how he enjoys lifting every flap, and telling her that he is in search of sweet nectar….

  His wife has never been playful in their bed. She has always fulfilled her “duty” with a stiffness that has come to anger him. Unlike any woman he has ever bedded, Gina has always offered him clenched teeth and even more clenched thighs. What aroused him in their early marriage—namely, the swell of her bosom and swing of her rounded hips—eventually lost its appeal when she proved to be more of a prude than anything else, fearing that any attempt to enjoy the act would constitute mortal sin. She would whimper like a scared animal and start murmuring the Ave Maria every time he approached her. His varied attempts at arousing her left her mortified, and he eventually lost patience with her attempts to discourage him, so he took her out of frustration and spite, before discovering that her fear aroused him.

  Eventually, though, Russo found himself yearning to mate with someone who could reciprocate pleasure and desire, and he found satisfaction in discreet encounters with the wives of other military officials whose subtle eyebrow lifts and deliberately timed glances in his direction when their husbands were engaged in conversation with others turned out to be an accurate indicator of their willingness to dally in a temporary escapade, or at the very least, a flirtatious exchange. Russo had ample confidence in his appearance, status, and intelligence, and he knew that these traits attracted women whose disenchantment in their husband or marriage was starting to show, whether in their fleeting but intent glances at him, the dismissive turn of their shoulders when their husbands addressed them, or in the more deliberate manner of finding a way to lean over to him, flaunting the curve of their bosom when in closer view.

  These telltale gestures prompted Russo to come up with unique ways of meeting clandestinely with the woman, and it became a game that he looked forward to with anticipation at any social event.

  In view of his new social activities, his attention to Gina languished, and she turned to religion even more, taking every opportunity to leave for a spiritual retreat in a convent. This delighted him, offering him greater opportunities for extramarital adventures.

  Now, having returned from the Monastery of St. Francis of Paola, she is already involved in the preparations for the annual feast of the Madonna of the Stars at Monte Stella in Pazzano. Russo is not anxious to go home, but for the sake of propriety, he will do so. But first, he will enjoy his visit with Liliana, who is more than happy to accommodate his needs and desires in her own home.

  One corner of his mouth lifts with the memory of their first encounter at the celebration marking the election win of Roccella’s mayor, Pasquale Goldoni. Russo, along with anybody of standing in the community, was invited to this social event shortly after relocating in the area and assuming his new position as Colonel in charge of the repression of brigandage. Mayor Goldoni, like others in office before him, knew instinctively how to inspire and perpetuate patronage. Russo harboured no false illusions about invitation and many others by
politicians and the like; the support of a Colonel in matters requiring delicate collaborations and associations is always deemed essential.

  Russo usually accepted these invitations; they provided him with a pleasant diversion to his otherwise harsh profession of tracking down brigands and ordering their torture and imprisonment, and often, their hanging or shooting.

  A grizzly profession, but necessary. And an official with coglioni is necessary if any progress is to be made in this backwards territory.

  He had spotted Liliana gazing at the Ionian Sea from one corner of the spacious terrace. Oil lamps flickered along one wall, adding illumination as the sun began to set. Huge glazed pots filled with rosemary, a bay laurel, and other culinary herbs stood like sentinels at each corner of the terrace. Fancy wrought-iron planters hung over the terrace railings, and the blooms of bougainvillea, jasmine, and trailing verbena spilled over in a tangled splash of colour, like a suspended and well-used artist’s palette. There were so many scents floating about that Russo felt overwhelmed. He moved around until he found a breezy spot at one end of the terrace. As he breathed in the salt-tinged air with relief, his eye wandered to the opposite side where it seemed another guest was doing the same thing.

  Something in the bearing of the woman held his attention. And then, when she inadvertently turned and caught him staring, he managed a polite nod and casually looked away, pretending to search for someone among those helping themselves at the magnificent banquet table.

  The long table was bedecked with bowls of fruit and platters of cheeses and spiced olives. Large ceramic trays at each end held freshly fried calamari and cuttlefish, the steam rising from the golden bundles. Alongside were glazed earthenware dishes that held stuffed eggplants and zucchini in a still simmering tomato sauce. Large ceramic bowls were filled with arancini, deep-fried rice balls filled with a morsel of cheese or cured pork. Baskets held wedges of coarse bread, and a series of tureens and bowls boasted a variety of vegetables, including green beans topped with slivered garlic and almonds, and salads of radicchio and arugula.