That Summer in Sicily Page 16

  “The letter is handwritten on thick, vanilla-colored paper, sealed with red wax in the old-fashioned way. It is delivered to Leo at the breakfast table by one of the servants.

  “ ‘A gentleman is waiting in the hall, sir. For your response,’ says the servant, smartly restraining a smirk. This is all eighteenth-century behavior and Leo is perplexed. We stay quiet as he slits the seal, opens the note.

  “ ‘I hope it’s an invitation to a masked ball,’ says Charlotte.

  “We laugh, keeping our attention upon the prince as he reads.

  “ ‘Ah, yes. Yes, please tell the gentleman that I accept. And thank him, Mimmo,’ Leo says to the servant, who rushes off, shaking his head almost imperceptibly.

  “Leo hands the letter to Cosimo, pours more coffee, letting it spill from his already full cup into the iridescent white saucer painted with small blue flowers. He smiles in our direction. Cosimo reads it, hands it back to Leo, and they both rise, saying buongiorno. Leo’s nod to me says that he’ll see me a bit later.”

  “Leo has been invited to a dinner hosted by the nobleman whose lands are separated from his by a small village. The letter informs him that upon this occasion other guests will be present, both local and from as far away as Palermo. Though Leo presumes it to be a social gathering, the letter is worded more as a summons than an invitation. It is the very first such approach—social or otherwise—that Leo has received from this ‘neighbor.’ The dinner is to be that very evening. It is early in December 1950.

  “Though he says he would like me to sit with him in the library and, later, in his office, Leo hardly speaks to me throughout the day. I ask why he so readily accepted the invitation if it does not please him to attend. He tells me, ‘It’s a matter of duty.’

  “I stay with him even while he dresses, ties the formal black shoes he wears only to weddings and funerals. From a cobalt glass vial he pours neroli oil out into his palm, runs it through his yellow hair, still damp from the bath, and strokes two heavy silver brushes through the short, thick curls, and I think that my prince wears fewer than his thirty-eight years. He asks if I will spend some time after supper with Cosimo. He desires that Cosimo and I wait for him in the small salon near the chapel. He says he won’t be late. But the priest, also dressed in his most formal clothes, awaits him in the hall, the main door open, the automobile purring at the foot of the palace steps.

  “ ‘Since I was fresh out of sealing wax, I sent live word to your host via Mimmo. I told him to say that, as the sacerdote of his very own parish, I would be most willing to put aside the business of the church this evening in order to bless his gathering. I didn’t ask Mimmo to wait for an answer,’ Cosimo tells him.

  “They laugh and embrace and laugh again. Don Quixote and Sancho Panza in the front seat of the faithful gray Chrysler.”

  “Among the local landowners with whom both Leo and Cosimo are acquainted, their host presents two men they have never met. These are introduced as politicos from Palermo. The others present seem to already know the two Palermitani. In fact, save Leo and Cosimo, the group—twelve in all—demonstrate an almost fraternal camaraderie. The subject upon their collective lips is agrarian reform. They speak of the soon-to-be-signed into law State decree that will demand that Sicilian landowners sell, at token prices to their peasants, all abandoned or unproductive tracts suitable for agriculture. Soon it is clear that Leo is the evening’s quarry.

  “When the gentlemen are settled at table, the murmuring, head-shaking discourse of the cocktail hour becomes pointed. As though by rehearsal, each man ’round the table tells of one of Leo’s follies: his restructuring of the borghetto buildings; the medical care; the instruction in hygiene; the birthing rooms; the borghetto school and the mandatory attendance of the peasants’ children up to twelve years of age—at least five years after the children should have been working in the fields, says one of the men. Another tells of the well-stocked storerooms, the well-laden tables, the distribution of clothes and bedding, the evening Mass celebrated in their chapel. Decorum is soon surrendered to shouting, so eager are they to boast of another and another of the prince’s indiscretions.

  “ ‘And have you heard, gentlemen, that good Prince Leo’s peasants need no longer relieve themselves in the sainted peace of the woods? A white-tiled latrine, gentlemen, only a white-tiled latrine is good enough for Prince Leo’s peasants.’

  “The laughing is bawdy now. It is threatening. As though only a gunshot could quiet it and yet, with a single clink of his silver knife against a glass, a hush falls. It is one of the Palermitani who commands the floor.

  “ ‘Prince Leo, we do not deny the need for reform. The time has come. But the time has only recently come. Let the changes take due course. If you set about righting a thousand years of wrongs too abruptly, the reforms won’t last. These people need authority far more than they need an evening Mass or curtains on their windows.’

  “ ‘Or a shiny new latrine,’ shouts another.

  “The laughter starts up again but is short-lived as Leo begins to speak.

  “ ‘I have no doubt of the peasants’ need for leadership any more than I had doubt of their need for more bread and a clean, dry place to sleep. The changes I’ve made—and those I shall make—I make in my own name and in no one else’s. I hardly consider myself a social reformer. I do not look at you and urge you to follow me, nor can I concern myself whether you do or you don’t follow me. I will not parcel my land because the government demands it of me. I will parcel it because I know that it’s the right thing to do. You, kind sirs, must do what you must do. But so must I.’

  “There is a long silence scratched, now and then, by a match run against a pocket flint, the loosening of a tie grown too tight. The repeated clearing of a throat.

  “ ‘Is it true, Prince Leo, that you kiss the hands of your peasants?’

  “It is the other Palermitano, the one called Mattia, who asks the question. He has spoken so softly and without moving from his slouched position at the table that Leo does not know from whom the voice has come.

  “ ‘Now why would that be of interest to you?’ he asks, looking at each one ’round the table.

  “This other Palermitano, this Mattia, then stands, walks to the place where Leo sits, lays his short, blue serge-covered arms upon Leo’s shoulders, bends his head to Leo’s ear, says gently, ‘If you don’t bully them, they’ll despise you, Leo. You’ve heard that before. I tell you it’s true.’

  “Mattia raises his head, crushes his voice to a cracked, exhausted whisper. ‘When, someday, we hear you’ve suffered a misfortune, we’ll understand the source of it. The loss of respect, I mean. Yes, we’ll understand that you invited your misfortune with a kiss.’ ”

  “When Leo had returned that evening, he had not come to my rooms. This non-observance of our nightly ritual—our spending an hour or so being quiet together, in reviewing the day—signified his distress and caused mine. The next day, with apparent pain and in great detail, it is Cosimo who recounts the events of last evening to me. As he describes the gathering, the atmosphere of palpable bitterness, flagrant distaste, my worry gives way to a choking fear.

  “ ‘But who are these men, these two from Palermo?’ I ask Cosimo.

  “ ‘They are of the clan,’ he says with maddening simplicity.

  “ ‘What is this clan? In whispers and asides, I’ve been hearing this word since I was a little girl. Are they a family, a group of bandits, renegades? Is this the same clan who murdered Filiberto?

  “ ‘I would say that the answer is ‘yes’ to all parts of your question. They are a family—related by choice rather than by blood, which is often the stronger of the two attachments. They are a group of bandits. Bandits among whom you would find the illustrious, the high-ranking, the many-starred members of our society. You would find priests in as many numbers as you would find politicians, nobles, and merchants. Well represented, too, would be the State and local and military and financial police. And final
ly, you would find hungry men who are willing to carry out their orders, no matter how gruesome.’

  “As he speaks, Cosimo looks anxiously at the door to the salone where we sit, expecting Leo to enter, I think. But then he turns his back to the door, ceasing to care if Leo should hear what he says to me and be displeased by his candor.

  “ ‘Where there is no State, someone steps forward, for better, for worse, to take on the role of the State. The clan is Sicily’s State. La Mafia. Interesting, don’t you think, that its name derives from the Arab? From mahjas. Sanctuary. Refuge. Place of succor. That’s what the medieval bandits had in mind to provide for themselves and for their families when they began their missions. Twelfth-century Robin Hoods, they were. Who could fault them? Swashbuckling brigands out to thieve those who had more bread than they could eat in a day. Does that sound familiar to you, my dear? Were you not a swashbuckling brigantessa yourself? Stashing bread and cheese and cakes in your pockets so you might feed your sister? You can understand how this all began but can you, can anyone, understand or defend its evolution? The clan no longer steals sheep or butchers cows by the light of a clandestine fire, drags the bloody parts of them back to their villages. Like lions taking their kill back to the lair. They leave that sort of activity to the unenlightened. They want more now. Now, they want everything. Now they want to crush the poor as they were once crushed. Memory does not always arrive whole from its journeys across the generations. Over seven or eight or nine centuries and, more recently, under the strategic guidance of the victors of the Great War, the clans have reached far beyond their humble, rural roots. Like Etna, the Mafia spits violence at will. It spits at the State when, every once in a while, it stirs from its langourousness. It spits at the Church, which has always been prone to its own form of sanctified violence. It spits at anyone daft enough to stand in the way of its eruption. And so where are the defenders of the poor? Where are the hussars who will ride over the mountains to save them from the wolves? I shall tell you where they are. Sitting at table with the clan. Feasting and plotting their glories. Just as they were last evening. All the tribes are in league. They are as one. Mafia, Church, and State. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Leo has yet to—how shall I say this?—Leo has yet to hold this truth in reverence.’

  “ ‘And he won’t,’ I say. ‘He never will.’

  “ ‘You puzzle me, Tosca. The sage in you puzzles me. And so is there nothing to do?’

  “ ‘It’s you who say there is nothing to do. All the tribes are in league. Leo is his own tribe and if there is something to do, he will do it. Not you. Not me. I remember years ago your telling me that it would be you who would catch Leo when he faltered. You said, And he will falter. I promised myself then that it would be me rather than you who would be close enough to catch him. We were both wrong, both presumptuous, weren’t we? I know now that falter, Leo shall never do. But you, Don Cosimo, have you faltered? Where is your place in all this hierarchy? ’ My unusual use of the formal address causes him to look sharply at me.

  “ ‘I have no place save as the prince’s confessor. Through my own crises of faith and through the behavior and refusals of behavior that have resulted from those crises, I have forfeited most all other duties and rights associated with my ordination. The Curia has yet to defrock me only because of Leo. Because of his full and indisputable knowledge of certain events and practices within the Curia. And because of his generous support to the parish. To the Dioceses. Funds and favors—and perhaps even silences—that they know he would withdraw should I be further stripped. You see, dear Tosca, Mother Church is the only true whore in Sicily. You know well enough that I think Leo to be foolhardy, imprudent, and yet my allegiance is to him. My allegiance will always be to Candide.’ ”

  CHAPTER XIV

  “LEO KEPT OFTEN APART FROM ME AFTER HIS MEETING WITH the clan. And when we were together, I felt the distance between us even more than when he’d go off by himself to ride or when, having locked its door, he stayed hours alone in the library. When he did talk, it was about his fear. Not ostensibly of course, since he couched the fear behind fake practicalities. We must discontinue our morning rides because there is so much more to do at the borghetto, he would tell me when the evident truth was that, with the new systems in place and in operation, the peasants had always less need for us. For instance, efficiency and yield had increased at an almost incalculable rate in the fields. The peasants were better housed, better fed, better clothed, better cared for than most of them had been in all their lives. These fundamentals intact, the two programs that next concerned Leo—the school and the infirmary—also flourished.

  “Cosettina had so progressed in her studies and had expressed such longing to take on the post of maestra that, for her seventeenth birthday, Leo gifted her a small, thin briefcase covered in red ostrich skin and engraved with her initials. Inside it was a note of congratulations to the new maestra of the borghetto school. I, myself, had been advanced to the post of Saturday-morning Story Lady.

  “Even my weekly presence in the infirmary had become redundant, since the doctor’s visits had been increased to thrice weekly and the State had begun to send ’round nurses and social workers to assist him and, I suspected, to gather intelligence. Talk of Prince Leo’s borghetto and his new programs had quietly traveled across the straits and up the peninsula.

  “Countering Leo’s insistence on the peasants’ greater need for us, I would remind him that it was the development of their independence that was his ultimate goal. He would acquiesce. Until he’d spun another veil. I need more rest, Tosca. And you, amore mio, you must return to your studies of the classics. I’ve been neglecting my business affairs and must be more diligent with attorneys and accountants and agricultural consultants. I have a ‘farm’ to run, after all, he would tell me, fixing his gaze somewhere just above and to the left of mine.

  “I understood that he feared, not for himself, but for me. Together in the early quiet of the woods, I would make as accommodating a target as would he. And so our morning rides were abruptly suspended, as were my solo jaunts. My own fear thrived, undisclosed. Little by little, Leo clipped and pinched at our already reserved lives. A boy dragging a stick through the sand, he drew the boundaries of his unassailable realm. As though the clan could not scale the walls, we were to live inside the palace. The gardens, the lemon groves, the borghetto, and some of the closer fields were as far away as we would venture. But this would pass, I told myself. He is suffering the first cut of horrific fear. He will take up his peace again in the spring, I told myself. He would take up his peace again in the spring after that. For nearly three years, he at best mustered only a figment of it. And even then, it came and went, his peace. Slits of light from behind the shade. Yet in all that passage of time, no more red-sealed invitations written on thick vanilla-colored paper were delivered to him at breakfast. Neither summonses nor admonitions interrupted his days. Nary a snake in the grass where he deigned to walk. Though we never again, would never again, ride together nor go out upon our little journeys to the sea, we adapted. In truth, the way we lived during that time was not so different from how we’d lived when I was younger. Once again we followed the rituals. It was the only life that the princesses had ever lived and the one that, when she was present, Simona fell into with comfort. If we wanted new clothes, merchants or their representatives ported trunks and wheeled wardrobes into the small salone. If we wanted music for an evening, concertists were invited to sing and play. If we wanted to have supper in the borghetto, laden with baskets of sweets and fruits, we walked over the meadow to join our neighbors. We often worked mornings in the fields, side by side with the peasants or with the ortolani in the palace gardens. I wanted to learn to cook, and so stayed with the palace brigade among the roasting pans and the simmering pots and the heaps of flour lined up on the scrubbed wooden table where the pasta and the bread were made. And there were always guests. More even than in my earlier days. Generations of cousins and widowed aunts a
nd longer-widowed great aunts and brothers-in-law and friends of friends arrived and departed and arrived again. As if it were true. As if there really was safety in numbers. And if there were whisperers in their ranks, I never heard them. Somehow and at some point, I had become one of them.”

  “It was Ascension Day, the day when fresh water is said to become holy and when the peasants go to bathe themselves in the healing waters of the ascending Christ. And then to rest in the sun, to eat their bread and ham, and to drink their wine. Though we’d always gone with the peasants on this holy day, Leo had preferred, this time, to remain quietly at the palace. But the day had not been quiet.

  “It’s just after sunset now and Leo and I and Cosimo stand in the road beside the borghetto to wait for the procession of old carts that carry the women home. We see the lights from a long way off across the spring-shorn fields, the scintillas of the candle lanterns swinging from the axles of the wagons. As they come nearer, I can hear the carts creak and groan under the weight of the women who sit upon unsteady chairs, lace shawls over their braids and about their shoulders. I know that they are holding hands and I strain to hear them singing plainsong under the rising May moon. I wish that I were with them in their tilting chairs, swaying in rhythm to the slapping of the horses’ flanks, the heavy clumping of their hooves over the ancient stones.