- 36 -
There was a long pause in the telling of the tale. Grandpapa seemed to be musing to himself. At last Ben could stand it no longer.
“There was something you were going to tell us about the Vitelli,” he prompted gently.
The old man jerked up from his reverie. “Ah, yes. Yes - that is very important.”
There was another long pause while he collected his thoughts. At last he began. “To understand what I am going to say, you must go back a very long way. You have to realise that since the decline of the Roman Empire, Italy has been a collection of separate states. Sometimes they were independent. Sometimes they were the subjects of other nations like the Austrian and Spanish Empires. But never until about six generations ago was the whole of Italy combined together as one nation. And even now the government in Rome does not have the same power in the land as the British parliament does in London.”
He paused and Ben wondered whether his mind had wandered again. But suddenly he returned to his story.
“In a country like this the powerful, the high-born and the very rich often behaved as if they were above the law. It was not unusual for them to run their own part of the country in the way they wished rather than in the way the government would have wished. This was especially so when the government was weak and was often changing.” He spread his hands in the Italian gesture. “I understand that in the North the state is thought to be more important. But down here in the South it is often the person who is more important than the state.”
He paused and looked down at Francesca. “This talking tires my throat. Will you get me a glass of orange, my dear?”
She jumped to her feet and hurried to do as he asked. As she went up the path, the old man leaned forward, suddenly imbued with a new sense of urgency.
“There are some things that I want to tell you that I do not wish the girl to hear.” He shrugged. “No doubt she will hear it herself one day - perhaps from you. But maybe not quite yet, eh?”
He settled back in his chair. “I will try to be brief. Once the Vitelli were one of the greatest families in Southern Italy. They owned much land, many vineyards, several palazzi. They were merchants and they were traders. They were nobles in the kingdom of Naples. But so much power in the hands of so few people and with so little control over them did the worst for those families.”
“I believe you say in England that power corrupts.” He smiled at Ben. “Well, that was true of the Vitelli. But there developed in the family a schism. There were two ways of thinking. One group, led by the elder brother, said that the Vitelli should become the biggest and the most powerful family in the whole of Italy. Maybe they would even become the kings one day.
The younger brother said that they were already rich and powerful enough and that they should care for their people and do good things in the world and bring benefits to Italy by industry and by trade. These two ways of thought were disputed between the two brothers and in the end they quarreled totally. The father, an ignoble fiend called Alphonso Vitelli, decided in favour of the elder brother. The younger one was expelled from the family. He left with some of his supporters and said that he would never again call himself by the Vitelli name. So he took the name of the house where he went to live, and thus was born the Cimbrone family. That younger brother was my own great grandfather.”
He paused to let his words sink in. Ben gazed out over the bay, but his mind was dwelling on this tale of a hundred and fifty years ago.
“The Cimbroni were now very weak,” continued the old man. “The Vitelli lost no opportunity to destroy their prosperity. Most of their friends and supporters fell away and returned to the Vitelli, or they were eliminated. But Angelo Cimbrone was a wise and sensible man. He slowly built up the Cimbroni by trade and by industry as he had said that he would. He always dealt fairly with all men and he passed instructions to his sons and his other supporters that they were to do the same. Gradually the Cimbroni once more became a power in the land and the Vitelli suffered as a result.
That continued until the nineteen twenties when Mussolini, whom we knew in Italy as Il Duce, came to power. Some people were pleased that Italy was once again ruled by a powerful and ruthless dictator. Some families became strong supporters of Il Duce in return for the rewards of power. One of these families was the Vitelli.”
The old man wiped a tear away from his cheek. It seemed he still felt the memory of those days very keenly. “My father would not side with Il Duce, and certainly not with the Vitelli. He was imprisoned on some charge. I do not know that it was ordered by the Vitelli, but I suspect it. After five years he died in prison. That was not long before his fiftieth birthday.” A kind of pleading note seemed to have come into his voice as he continued.
“At that time I was a young man. Francesca’s papa was only a few years old. I had a lot of difficulty just trying to stop the whole of our business from being swept away. For a time it seemed likely that our lands would be given to the Vitelli through some ancient claim. I was prepared to do anything to stop that. So I agreed to give them tribute.”
“What do you mean?” asked Ben.
“I agreed to pay them money each year in return for immunity from prosecution. It was to be a portion of our income but there was a minimum amount per year. I was young and foolish when I signed the agreement. I realised too late that I had saddled my family with a burden which would keep them poor even when we should have had riches. But what was I to do?”
He continued bitterly, “I know now that I was weak and cowardly. There came a time a few years ago when the wine crop had failed and we could not afford to pay the tribute for that year. When the Vitelli came to me and said that they were willing to bury our old differences and once more become friends, I had no choice but to agree. Of course there were conditions. We had to acknowledge their superiority and follow their instructions in certain business dealings. We were to agree to the uniting of the two families by a number of marriages. For me it seemed to present a way out of our troubles. I thought it was a way that I could protect my family from any more suffering. And for more than fifty years the tribute and the killings stopped.” He breathed in deeply and his sightless eyes dropped to his feet. “But now it seems that the killing is back.”
He sat forward with a sudden urgency. “I know now that I was wrong. There is no other way but to fight them. The Vitelli are the kind of people who will take advantage of another person’s humanity and treat it as a weakness. They must be defeated. That is the only way to protect all the other ordinary people.”
He slumped back in his basket-chair as though exhausted by the telling of the story. Ben was worried for a moment that it had all been too much for him and had caused him to become ill. But just at that moment Francesca returned with a tray bearing three glasses and a jug filled with fresh orange juice and crushed ice. She filled one for her grandfather and he gratefully took it from her, drank a long draught and set it down on the balustrade with a precision born of long practice. Thus refreshed Grandpapa Cimbrone continued his tale while the other two sipped at their delicious drinks.
“I was telling your friend,” he said to Francesca, “that Alfredo’s marriage to Mancino’s girl was a mistake. The Vitelli have not changed. Now they will not rest until they have ruined and swallowed up the Cimbrone family by whatever means they are able to use.”
Ben noticed that Francesca remained silent, but her eyes had acquired a dangerous glint.
The Mafia Emblem Page 36