Pietro Bellarato discovered his deviant nature as the years went by and, unable to vent his brutality on women, he turned to his favorite plaything: Tosco. The young man, pathologically attracted to his half brother whose position he would have liked to be in, could think of nothing better than to satisfy all his most shameful desires, which was the ruination of them both. At little more than twenty years of age, Marquis Pietro Bellarato had become a kind of satyr, always on the prowl for new, transgressive experiences. He made his half brother dress as a woman, in his mother’s clothes, or had him wear a horse harness and rode him stark naked. But soon enough they exhausted the range of perversions, and the plaything began to bore him.
So one fine day Tosco was set aside, like an old whore, though he hadn’t yet reached twenty.
For Tosco, being rejected by his adored Pietro was the most traumatic moment of his young life. Several times he thought of suicide, but then, as often happens in such situations, he threw himself into the arms of the first one to come along. And the youths in town were merciless: they passed him around from one to the other, as if he were the town slut. They took advantage of his state of mental confusion, and one night they subjected him to an exceptionally brutal ordeal. He found himself at the bottom of a slimy pit, completely naked, not even aware of what was happening, because the ghastly wine they’d made him guzzle had completely muddled him. Then, like a distant echo, he heard mocking laughter from the edge of the pit and felt warm jets of an acidic liquid stream over his face, mouth, nose, every inch of his body. And his persecutors did not stop at that revolting act of cruelty. In the uncertain light of the moon, he glimpsed someone at the edge of the pit who, still snickering, had lowered his pants. But a commanding voice put an end to those scornful laughs and the pack, having now had their fill of nasty games, backed down.
A strong hand helped him pull himself out of the hole and led him to a nearby stream, where he could cleanse himself of all the affronts he’d had to endure. He stayed in the water for a long while. Then Nunzio, one of Manfredi’s sons, took him back to the marquis’s palazzo, where he was finally able to get some rest.
That night, strangely enough, Tosco found inner peace again. He started dreaming up a thousand tender fantasies about the one who would replace Pietro in his mind. Nunzio had been so kind to him, and he was so young. By means of countless subterfuges, they continued to see each other, although Nunzio, to avoid being teased by his buddies, behaved very coldly toward him in public.
* * *
“Have you eaten? Can I fix you something?” Tosco asked.
Nunzio’s attention was attracted by a couple of leather straps with small bells attached, resting on a chair. He picked them up and tinkled the bells. “What are these?”
Tosco took them from him and hid them in a drawer. “Never mind.”
“What are those bells? Who gave them to you?” Nunzio persisted.
Tosco took his arm. “Are you jealous?”
“Of course not! Come on, tell me. Is there someone else?”
“No, nobody. It’s your friends’ bright idea. Don’t tell me you didn’t know.”
“I don’t know anything about it, I swear.”
“Your friend Jano gave them to me. I’m forced to wear them on my wrists and ankles every time I go out. He told me: ‘So when people hear you coming, they can run away. Because you faggots are worse than the plague.’ Now I only go out when the vegetable cart comes and I have to buy something. A good woman from the parish church takes care of the rest.”
“I’m sorry.”
Tosco went to hug him again. “I can’t take it anymore. Help me. Don’t abandon me!” His cry of despair pierced Nunzio’ heart like a spear. And to think that he had gone to him seeking a little comfort. Then, as if reading his thoughts, Tosco looked up and wiped his eyes. “You’re sad too. What happened to you?”
“The usual quarrel with my father. Only this time he put a curse on me.”
“What did you do to him?”
“I didn’t do anything. It was that bastard, Prince Licata, who went back on his word. He had promised my father a piece of the Madonnuzza estate. For my father, who never had anything in his life, owning that land would be the reward for a lifetime of hardship.”
“The prince went back on his word? I can’t believe it! Was it perhaps because of you?”
“Yeah, it’s my fault, because I belong to the fascist combat league.”
“That’s the only reason? You must have affronted the prince in some way, for him to break his promise.”
“We roughed up Ciccio Vinciguerra.”
“Who?! U pisci? But he’s of no consequence.”
“When he talks, he says things against our Duce. We had to punish him.”
“Ferdinando Licata is a tough bastard. But in times like these, no one is untouchable anymore,” Tosco remarked. “You’ll see, sooner or later he too will make a misstep, and then your father will be able to have his piece of land.”
He hugged Nunzio and whispered, “Will you stay here tonight?”
“No. I only have an hour before the movie ends.”
“Too bad. We’ll have to hurry then.”
* * *
Later, when the screening was over, Nunzio met up with Jano as he was heading home with Ginetto.
Jano was irritated and walked along in silence. When he was in that mood, his comrades knew it was wise to leave him alone. But Nunzio approached him just the same and said, “I need to talk to you.”
“Nunzio, you missed the movie.”
“Actually, I had things to do.”
“With some gorgeous babe?” Ginetto butted in.
“I had a quarrel with my father.”
“I know. Ginetto told me everything. That prince is becoming more and more of a pain in the ass.”
“Him and his gabellotto,” Nunzio added.
“Losurdo has one good thing going for him, though,” Jano corrected him with an insinuating smile.
“Which is?”
“He has a daughter named Mena.” He smiled at the thought of how beautiful she was. “So we don’t touch Losurdo. And the prince is still too powerful. Let’s not make our lives difficult.”
“Easy for you to say. Meanwhile, because of your bullshit, I’m the one who’s worse off,” Nunzio burst out.
Jano clapped him on the shoulder, stopping him. “Hey, pal, I don’t bullshit,” he said, pointing a finger in his face. “If you don’t like what we do, you’re free to pull out. Just be careful you don’t cross me.”
“Come on, Jano, Nunzio’s father is a fool,” Ginetto interceded to soothe his companions.
“Ginetto’s right. My father is a nobody. And I’m getting all worked up over nothing.”
“That’s better, my friend.” Jano threw an arm around his shoulders. “All of us have one thing in common: our fathers, who are assholes.” And with that, the three walked on and were swallowed up by the dark of night, laughing uproariously as if nothing had happened between them.
Chapter 18
– 1921 –
Evening hours at Salemi’s carabinieri station were interminable. After six o’clock, Brigadier Costanzo Felici and Vice Brigadier Rocco Trigona, together with two recruits, were forced to live as virtual prisoners in the small headquarters. Only rarely did they get to go out and mingle with some townspeople with whom they had managed to make friends.
The two shared a room, where they slept and rested up during their off-duty hours. A second room was occupied by the other two conscripted recruits. The adjacent kitchen had space for a large table, where they spent most of their free time, that is when they didn’t have to be on call for Chief Brigadier Mattia Montalto. Costanzo Felici, a Neapolitan, served as the cook; he knew his way around pasta sauces and eggplant parmigiana like a five-star master chef.
That year, the old folks in Salemi said they couldn’t recall ever having such a dry, stifling summer. Only late at night did the temperature make sleepin
g possible. That’s why Costanzo Felici and Rocco Trigona had lingered at Mimmo Ferro’s tavern that night, playing cards with some friends. It was very late when they returned to the station, a bit tipsy after having downed more than a few glasses of wine.
Before going to bed, Costanzo whipped up a mountain of spaghetti al sugo for himself and his colleague. The two recruits had already been asleep for some time.
While Costanzo was draining the pasta and Rocco, with earphones in his ears, was trying to find a music station on the crystal radio, a rock suddenly broke through the window and landed beside Costanzo. Startled, he dropped the enameled pot, burning his hand. Corporal Trigona, absorbed in listening to the music, didn’t notice a thing. Only when he saw his friend move cautiously toward the window did he take off his headset.
“Costanzo—” he began, but he didn’t finish the sentence because his friend gestured for him to keep quiet and turned out the light.
He joined Felici near the window with the broken pane. They peered out but found the street deserted. So Costanzo Felici headed firmly toward the door, followed by the vice brigadier. They went out into the little square, their automatics in hand.
It was four in the morning, and the streets of the town were sunk in deep silence. The brigadier motioned to his colleague that they should go back inside. They returned to the kitchen, and Felici bent down to retrieve the rock. Or rather the sheet of lined paper wrapped around the rock. They sat at the table and smoothed out the sheet as best they could to read the message. The writing was shaky and uncertain. But the message could be read clearly: “There is a surprise for vossia at Borgo Guarine.”
“Do you think we should wake the chief?” Costanzo Felici asked, worried.
“Let him sleep—it’s nothing,” Trigona replied smugly. “An anonymous note.”
“But here in Sicily, anonymous notes are like gospel, you know?” His own words convinced the brigadier to wake Montalto, who lived in a two-room house with his wife, Lucia, in the center of Salemi. They had been married for five years now, but had not yet been blessed with a son and heir.
When he got to the station, the brigadier showed him the anonymous note, and Montalto decided that they should leave immediately for Borgo Guarine.
* * *
The sky was beginning to grow light, transforming the night’s darkness into a muted blue. That time of day reminded Chief Montalto of numerous stakeouts, patiently lying in wait to surprise bandits hidden on some farm. He’d spent so many nights out in the open, he had lost count. When they came in sight of the Guarine farm, a light mist hung over the entire countryside. An eerie silence surrounded the place. All they could hear was the dull thud of their horse’s hooves on the dirt road and the creaking of the buggy’s wheels. Trigona, the vice brigadier, drew in the reins, and the horse stopped just outside the farm’s limits. The three men got out of the buggy with pistols drawn. They approached with caution, but one detail immediately caught the chief’s attention: the door of the house was partly open.
He pushed it and went in slowly, with Brigadier Felici looking over his shoulder, while Trigona circled to the back of the house.
As soon as he entered, Montalto felt his stomach tighten. Illuminated by the first glimmers of daylight, he saw two corpses on the floor, two men lying on their back. One was unrecognizable due to stab wounds. Montalto approached and turned the man’s head. He was unshaven, and his clothes stank of ashes. The other was also in need of a shave and wore hunting clothes. Montalto’s longtime experience suggested that they must be bandits. He entered the kitchen. There the spectacle was even more horrifying. The Brigadier Felici, who was following him, felt a surge of nausea. The floor was smeared with blood and littered with body parts. A cleanly severed hand lay in front of one of two beds. The chief walked around a large table toward a fireplace, where he’d noticed shapeless masses. The stump of a human body was lying halfway inside the chimney. Revulsion washed over him when he saw that it was the body of a poor woman, every inch of her flesh ravaged. Montalto still didn’t know what awaited him in the bedroom. When he get there he saw on the floor the body of a child, perhaps five years of age, his skull smashed.
“Chief! In here, quick!” The vice brigadier’s voice roused him from what seemed like a nightmare. Rocco Trigona had remained in the kitchen. What could he have found that could be even more horrific?
Montalto’s attention was drawn to a movement in the cradle. He walked over and saw one infant dead and another little bundle of flesh flailing its arms. He saw that the baby’s face was swollen. He took her in his arms.
It was a baby girl: the twin of the child lying disjointed on the bed. Finally, the infant coughed convulsively and, as if a stopper obstructing her throat had been released, began wailing desperately. Taking a blanket from the cradle, Montalto wrapped the baby in it and held her close. He then turned toward the kitchen and nearly collided with Vice Brigadier Trigona, who, hearing the crying, rushed into the room.
“Chief—a baby?” he asked incredulously.
“A little girl,” Montalto said, showing him the infant he held in his arms.
“Come see what I found.” Trigona led him to the small bed in the kitchen and lifted the covers, motioning for him to look underneath.
Montalto handed him the baby, whom Rocco Trigona held somewhat awkwardly, then bent down and saw little Jano sleeping soundly, as though he’d fainted.
* * *
Felici and Trigona brought Jano and his infant sister to Dr. Ragusa’s house. Annachiara had had her first child, Stellina, a few months earlier and temporarily welcomed Piera, the newborn, as another daughter. She remained with them until she was weaned, whereupon the court gave her up for adoption to a couple in Catania. The doctor examined Jano, but the child hadn’t suffered any physical trauma, and that same day, he was taken to a close family friend, not far from town.
Around noon, Montalto, who had remained behind to collect evidence at the farm where the massacre had taken place, was joined by Captain Lorenzo Costa of the Royal Guard and a couple of his subordinates. Soon afterward, Ragusa also appeared, summoned by Montalto to give a clinical account of the cause of death and above all to report on the atrocities the woman had suffered. In addition, the public prosecutor, accompanied by two of his deputies, arrived from Santa Ninfa.
Ragusa, after just a cursory look at the carnage, confirmed that following the killing of the man and children, the woman had been raped several times. What she had gone through was unimaginable. Besides being raped, she had been tortured with a knife and bore shallow cuts all over her body. The two men found in the doorway, however, had been killed outside the farmhouse and later dragged inside. The marks left by heavy boots were obvious. Outside a thorough search also identified the points at which they had been attacked and killed.
* * *
All the inhabitants of the neighboring farms came running when they learned of the tragedy. They all knew the sacrifices that Geremia and Rosalia had made to raise Gaetano Vassallo’s children after Teresina, his wife, had died giving birth to the twins. That atrocious massacre added tragedy to never-ending tragedy. But who could have done something so heinous? The peasants, men and women alike, watched in silence the comings and goings of the experts, the carabinieri and detectives who kept going in and out of the farmhouse carrying exhibits and material evidence that might be useful to the investigation.
Hidden among the crowd was Gaetano Vassallo. Barefoot, in ragged clothes, with a filthy cap on his head and a long beard, he blended in among the numerous farmers crowding around the scene of the bloodbath. He was heartbroken but clearheaded as never before. Seeing what had happened almost made him howl in pain. His thoughts went back to a year before, when he had seen his wife die in his arms. Now this new horror was added to a sorrow that had not yet healed, and it tore at his heart. He would have liked to run into the house and hold his children tight, but destiny denied even that simple comfort to him.
He had to ke
ep his nerves steady. He had to find out who was responsible for that butchery. Then he would take his revenge. Whoever was behind the massacre would curse the day his mother had brought him into this world.
He tried to catch a name, a clue, anything the carabinieri might say. But he couldn’t afford to draw suspicion upon himself, so he wandered among the little knots of peasants, pretending to be curious, asking first one then the other what had happened. He also had to be careful to avoid meeting the eyes of anyone who might know him, even though in his beggar’s disguise it would be hard to recognize him.
After that ill-fated night, Vassallo felt as if he himself were dead. Consumed by guilt for not having been able to help his loved ones, he abandoned any idea of revenge and disappeared. No one ever heard any more about him, and some speculated that he’d hanged himself because he could no longer bear the weight on his conscience.
* * *
Chief Montalto discovered the trap door to the cellar, which had previously been perfectly hidden by the cradle. He walked through the entire tunnel before emerging two hundred yards away in a cave in the nearby mountain. The soil in some places had been recently disturbed. Cigarette butts indicated that someone had been waiting there for quite some time. By the end of his search, he had formed a clear idea of what had happened.
“I think Vassallo came to visit his family with these two felons,” he said to Captain Costa, pointing to the two outlaws lying near the doorway. “Someone set a trap for him, but he managed to escape through the tunnel and that ‘someone’—more than one, of course—took it out on his entire family.”
“I wonder who could have hated him so vehemently,” Captain Costa mused. “In any case, I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes now. If Vassallo finds out who did this, he’ll skin them alive with his own hands,” he concluded with a shudder.
“There is only one justice, and that’s divine justice. But whoever did this will have to answer to human justice as well,” the chief brigadier agreed.
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