In 1935, when Don Salvuccio Guastella, the village doctor, passed away, the fascist hierarch at the time was Comrade Sante Tropeano, who was more accustomed to telling jokes than to administering the truncheon or castor oil.
The only scion of the richest family in the countryside, Salvuccio grew bored of easy city skirts and, having comfortably obtained a degree in medicine at the University of Rome, returned to the village at forty years of age. As a country doctor he attended to both the local maladies and the village’s impregnable thighs.
In truth, his conquests didn’t have as much to do with his charm, which was waning, as they did the villagers’ hunger. As everyone knows, all over the world in times of misery, women are the ones who bring home the bread.
One of the only sources of work in town was the Bourbon palace that occupied nearly all of Piazza San Sebastiano, and the extensive estates belonging the Guastella family. Many were the women who tended to the needs of the elderly confirmed bachelor.
Guastella’s servants were regularly replaced. In the darkest periods, in exchange for some extra bread, many of them fell before the irresistible conqueror. The shrewdest observers whispered that half the countryside had descended from Guastella. The husbands of the women in service to him were filled with terror at the prospect of recognizing the doctor’s features in their own children.
However, the Don Juan hadn’t been in action for some thirty years, and everything had been forgotten by the morning of October 13, 1935, when, at the age of ninety-five, still virile by all indications, his death was announced by his trusted servant.
The entire countryside attended Don Salvuccio’s funeral, the departed having been its richest and most illustrious inhabitant. Only a few impertinent elders let out a snicker during Don Remigio’s eulogy at the priest’s affirmation that the deceased had been like a father to his fellow countrymen.
Don Salvuccio was buried, and everyone eyed his mansion and his grounds. It would all go to the state, with the Guastellas now extinct.
After a few months passed and nobody thought about it anymore, a group of villagers were summoned to the town hall for an important announcement. The invitations had been stamped by Royal Notary Mr. Egidio Notarbartolo, and a total of seventeen men and women were to appear.
The mystery of the announcement was soon resolved. On his own initiative, Don Salvuccio had recognized all of his mules in his will and testament.
People fainted, especially since two had been joined in holy matrimony and had had numerous children. Seven of the mules comprised the entire leadership of the honored society, the official shit-smearer and boss included.
Guastella was very generous when he died, and all of his possessions, which were considerable for those parts, were divided equally among his bastard children; the revelation of the dishonor was buried by acres of pastures, farmhouses, vineyards, olive presses, and large sums of cash. The new orphans left arm in arm, knowing half the village was family. And they would squander all their abundant well-being in a flash.
Their legal problems were soon resolved; the Holy Rota annulled the incestuous union.
A few days after the will was unsealed, people’s attention turned to the malandrini. They had all been the products of affairs. Notary certified affairs. Their changed economic conditions attested to their acceptance of their status.
And who could say anything, since they were the most ruthless members of the organization?
The picciotti subordinates wouldn’t dream of smearing manure in the faces of their leaders. The pranksters didn’t have the courage to enact the treatment on the non-malandrini bastard stepchildren, either, since they were still close relatives of the honored brothers, even if they were the products of cuckolding.
So the pungiuti made their rounds in peace. Seven brothers, who had made a blood oath and were now actual blood brothers, forgot about the Spanish rules and the humiliations inflicted on honorable members like them.
Only one prankster was young and foolish enough to have the courage to honor the tradition: Sante Tropeano.
The hard part was finding the trophy horns that marked a cornuto, a cuckold. In those miserable times it wasn’t easy to find so many beasts ready to be sacrificed all at once.
His comrades of the Agrigentino, where more goats were bred than anywhere else in the South, answered his call, arriving in Piazza San Sebastiano with a military truck escorted by a large squad of soldiers in fascist uniform, the Sons of the Wolves, as they were known.
Relieving the envy of the children whose mothers had kept their thighs closed tight against Salvuccio’s graces and goodwill, the sons of the new Empire hung horns, harvested from what must have been enormous wethers, on the doors of the children born of Guastella’s maids, or on doors of the women’s cuckolded widowers, if they were still alive. And Sante and his pals left huge heaps of manure at the front doors of the seven honorable members.
The pungiuti, having swallowed their toad, awaited the collapse of the Empire, when Sante’s fascist friends could no longer come to his aid. When they finally showed up at Tropeano’s house to settle the account, all they found was an open barrel full of manure. Sante was on a ship bound for Argentina.
This was how Bino became disillusioned and broke away from the honorable and fallen society, dedicating himself to accompanying his noble goats.
The day after our graduation party, we loaded our backpacks and began our usual meandering. We spent days hiking among the beech and the larch trees on the highest part of the mountain. In early August, when we were hunting for brigand treasures in the caves of Malupassu, following a secret lead from Luciano, Bino tracked us down to announce that Sante had arrived.
He found Luigi and me lying on a sprawling gray parachute with Luciano reading us love letters, in English, that an allied paratrooper had left in a case with his uniform and documents at the back of an unexplored tunnel. We put everything back where we’d found it, to await the return of the now elderly aviator or his descendant. We fell in line behind Bino’s brisk strides to return to the fold. Bino confirmed that the remains of old military aircraft were not infrequently found in that area. Some of them were empty, while others had become the coffins of wistful young pilots.
We found Sante in good spirits; he’d convinced Santoro to come south with his girlfriend. They were all staying together down the mountain, housed in one of the first residences built on the coast. He’d left them having lunch at my parents’ house and had come to see us.
Everything was fine, he said. The negotiations for the ransom payment would soon be resolved. He was already working hard to find us accommodations in Milan, saying he wanted us all to be college graduates and enough with this fooling around. Until we found a place of our own, we would stay with him.
Everything had been quiet here, too, we explained; cops and pungiuti had visited the Aspromonte sheepfolds in vain, hoping for news about the hostage, or news of strange individuals carrying millions of lire. They had given up and left for Sardinia on a tip from Don Peppino Zacco, who assured them that barbarians from that island were the perpetrators.
Sante went away happy. He left behind his caliber 9, a military weapon that would have earned him at least five years in prison if they’d caught him with it, and in return he asked me for the Colt Cobra from Cavalier Fera.
It was all going a little too well.
We would never see Sante again, but when we said goodbye on that blue August day, he seemed so genuinely benevolent.
We quietly resumed our mountain holiday. The sea held no attraction for us, with its deserted sun-baked beaches, flat and bare as far as the eye could see. It wasn’t for us.
Leaving the three of us behind at the fold each day, my father and Bino, radiant as they had been in recent times—and what a miracle that was—joyfully set off over the pasture with their sacks overflowing and their flasks full of wine.
After years of cajoling, we had finally secured permission to renovate the goat paddock, and in the absence of my father’s long-standing opposition, we rearranged the enclosure.
For three or four days, I watched my father and Bino head out for the pasture. Then I decided I would figure out their secret.
The next morning, I waited for their now predictable merry exit and quickly went ahead of them to wait in the pastures, armed with binoculars, leaving Luigi immersed in work on the enclosure, Luciano directing it.
After a while I caught a glimpse of them, my two goatherds, lying blissfully in the shadow of the enormous hackberry tree down in the Sardivia pits, a plateau the size of four soccer fields suspended between the mountains, as the goats tranquilly grazed.
My heart leapt to my throat as I spotted a figure approaching on their right. Just before a whistle of warning leapt from my tongue to my lips, I saw Bino rise slightly and nod to the newcomer.
My fear subsided into amazement. The man walked with an uncertain but calm step. He was holding the type of ax shepherds carried, but there was no chance he was a shepherd, his chest was too erect. Only then did I realize he was wearing camouflage; the label, now visible, read “Ejército Español.” My camouflage.
The three of them ate peacefully, took a quiet nap, and then followed the goats to the river. I watched them for a time and returned to the sheepfold, where I found Luigi nailing boards while Luciano snoozed.
Our shepherds reappeared at dusk with a satisfied air, they praised our work, rushed through their chores, kissed all three of us, then got into the car to go down to the village.
That night I thought about the man who had approached Bino and my father under the hackberry tree. I concluded he’d been a shadow, a fugitive, whom they’d wanted to hide from us, too; it was not uncommon for them to give shelter to someone without mentioning a word about it, not even to me. Then came sleep. And in a dream I recognized him: he was anything but a shadow. His prominent shepherd’s belly had fooled me. They’d fattened him up well. The crazy old geezers were letting our hostage roam free in the mountains.
I knew from experience that it wasn’t unheard of as a practice, especially when the prisoners were with us for a long time. Some shepherds had even brought hostages to bathe in the sea or out to eat at a restaurant. It had also happened that hostages with stingy relatives had on occasion been released before their ransom was paid, agreeing to return to settle the bill for themselves once everything had calmed down.
“Stories,” I told myself, thinking my two shepherds would have sensed I was onto them.
But they didn’t sense anything. They arrived early the following morning, rousing us, as excited as children home from school. They were bearing a huge tray of sweets, which Sante had sent him, they said, plus two giant amberjacks to grill, a gift from a fisherman friend who had “stayed awake all night to fish” and, miracle of progress, a cooler as high as Bino’s groin, full of beer and ice cream.
How could I spoil that joy?
Unaware of my concerns, Luigi and Luciano were already gorging themselves.
I looked at the faces of the shepherds, at the encouragement in their eyes, and dove into the party.
They waited for us to collapse from our binge and went off with a loaded donkey to look for their goats and the swine.
I watched them in secret for a few more days. I observed how respectful the hostage was with Bino, the long conversations he had with my father. No, he wasn’t duping them, I thought. He had been free perhaps for months, yet every day he showed up to their appointment on time.
He had made a pact on his honor, I told myself.
Later, I understood: my father had finally found a friend; Bino had found that God had seen fit to grant him another adopted son at his venerable age.
The Milanese entrepreneur had rekindled their consciences, which had been dormant, not dead.
The last days of August arrived, and the spell was broken. A sorry Marshal Palamita was the bearer of the bad news.
The village was an oven. The unbearable heat had driven Bino and my father to seek refuge in the mountains, and they had been staying in the sheepfold.
The marshal arrived in his Fiat Campagnola, leaving his fellow officer in the car. His stride was unusually slow. His face wore a solemn expression.
Bino foresaw misfortune and to dispel it said, “Boys, get a coffee for the marshal.”
It was useless. The evil could not be undone. Sante had been dead for two days. He’d been eating breakfast with his family when two hired assassins burst in; everyone in the area knew Sante and no one had had the courage to do the job themselves.
The fools had anticipated an easy job. Sensing an ambush, Sante unloaded five rounds from his Colt Cobra. He was still reloading when the other two assassins standing on guard outside checked the house after their friends didn’t emerge.
Sante didn’t reload in time, and he paid for the twenty years’ worth of toads he had forced the pungiuti to swallow. The assassins were so shocked to find Sante alive that they only managed to hit him once, and though the village hospital couldn’t save him, his killers didn’t have the courage to celebrate. They denied all involvement.
Anna had already taken Sante away to be buried in Milan.
We could only mourn over his photos.
The blackest soul, the terror of the pungiuti, was gone. But in the shadows, an even blacker one was already growing.
We cried for a month. The pain was immense. So it was we came to understand the suffering of others, of mothers, wives, children. But in the end, as always, life took the upper hand.
We stalled for a few more weeks. We had no direct experience negotiating a kidnapping ransom, nor did we even want the money—we did not want to profit off of what had been Sante’s idea. We wanted to clear his conscience of that last wicked act.
Finally we left everything up to Bino and my father, who were overjoyed at being able to send the hostage back to his family.
They had been taking care of the fold with Leonardo, as they’d been calling him for months. He wore the white shirt and black pants of a shepherd, he climbed into the jeep with the two cousins, and together they took the dirt road, with its curves and potholes, down to the town.
He looked like any other villager when he took a seat in a cramped and stale carriage on the national rail train bound for the North.
Leonardo disembarked in Florence, caught a bus that connected the city to the mountain villages, got off with a bag in his hand, took a walk in the woods, changed his clothes, and then, appropriately disheveled and confused, knocked on the door of the first house he saw to beg for help.
The next day he appeared on the news, unrecognizable from the long months of deprivation. He was wearing a Benemérita jacket over a tattered cashmere coat. A military T-shirt with “Ejército Español” written on it peeked through his open shirt.
The strong grip of the law—which was currently off chasing down savage Sardinian shepherds—had distracted Leonardo Brambilla’s torturers just long enough for the wealthy Milanese industrialist to escape without paying the billion-lire ransom demanded of his family.
Our paths would cross again.
We arrived in Milan on November 2, the Day of the Dead. We settled into a boarding house on viale Abruzzi, number 17. We left our luggage, and after a quick shower found the tram stop on viale Piave. The 29 left us in front of the Monumentale Cemetery, the eternal resting place of distinguished Milanese.
The socialist councilman had procured a plot for Sante’s black soul. We asked for the location of the headstone and went to visit. A blond boy was standing near it, hand in hand with a girl, and he blew kisses in the direction of Sante’s photo before walking away.
We stood where the two kids had been. Sante was an innocent boy again in the photo, which portrayed him in younger years. Below the pho
to, Anna had ordered an inscription: “You lived and died by your own rules, leaving your wife, your son, and your brothers to mourn your absence.”
It was too much. We ran away. We didn’t even leave the flowers we’d bought at the entrance, dropping them instead at the door of some fancy chapel.
Anna had loved Sante while he was alive and understood him in his death.
On the 5th of November, the last possible day to register for university classes, I enrolled in medicine, Luigi in economics, and Luciano, after having been admitted to the physics department, chose law, to the displeasure of many a former teacher.
On the basis of our income, our tuition and accommodations were subsidized. In December, we moved into three single rooms in a student dormitory on viale Romagna. The dorm was like a seaport, or an Arabian souk. A microcosm of assorted humanity crowded the halls, the canteen, the study rooms. British students, Americans, Arab scholarship kids, aspiring terrorists, budding geniuses. In other words, the future.
Junkies, thieves, maniacs, they all passed through. A constant party. It stunned us for a while. Our Valenciano days were over; you couldn’t just leave twenty thousand lire on a woman’s nightstand. She would have throttled you.
We led a life of leisure. After a year I had passed one exam, Luciano had passed seven, and Luigi hadn’t passed any.
I found a large glass jar containing most of the money we’d robbed from the owner of the Valenciano in the suitcase my mother had packed for me before I left. Thirty-six million lire, shared between Luciano and me, now sat in the air duct that lead to my room, protected by three Beretta 9x19-caliber pistols.
The university grants were awarded on a rigid merit-based system: if you took all your exams, you got to keep everything. If you partied too much, you lost it all. No accommodations, stipend, canteen or book discount.
Black Souls Page 8
