“To warn him about what?”
“About minding his manners.”
“So then he lost his temper, and nutcase that he is, he decided to punish his wife and his father-in-law by hiding the children,” Gualtieri mused aloud.
Then he dismissed me by calling his secretary on the phone. He asked him to put a call through to the magistrate who had issued a warrant for the arrest. My time had expired; I could go back to the newspaper now and write my article.
Three hours later, the first copies were coming hot off the press, in the basement of our downtown office building. Banner headline: “Arrested for Kidnapping His Own Children.” Subhead: “The suspect is Vito Carriglio, son-in-law of Mafia boss Tempesta. He refuses to say where he’s hiding the children.” Under that was my byline.
The editor in chief summoned me to his office, together with my news editor, to congratulate me. That had never happened before. I felt the urge to call my father, tell my mother, and hug Serena. Perhaps not in that exact order.
I went home after a second visit to police headquarters, in the hope that something else might leak out about the arrestee, Vito Carriglio. No one knew anything more than what I’d written in the article. I opened the apartment door just in time to hear the phone ring and someone pick up.
“No, I think he’s still at the paper.”
“Fabri, I’m here.”
“Ah, here he is, he just got in. I’ll put him on.”
He put one hand over the mouthpiece and said to me: “It’s the switchboard.”
“You need to get back here immediately, the boss wants you: Carriglio told the police that he killed his three children.”
I hadn’t taken off that pair of jeans and that shirt for almost fourteen hours. The newsroom was buzzing. My boss summoned me to his desk.
“I talked to Gualtieri half an hour ago. That nut Carriglio told the prosecuting magistrate that he murdered his children and buried them in the Ficuzza forest. He was laughing while he said it. The prosecuting magistrate immediately called Gualtieri, and, in the name of the agreement that you have with him, he called you and then me.”
“Has anyone gone to Ficuzza?”
“I was waiting for you. Carriglio talked about an agritourism bed and breakfast a couple of miles from where Carabinieri Colonel lo Turco was killed. There’s a farmhouse that belongs to the mayor of Corleone. The bodies are supposed to be buried between the B&B and the farmhouse. Gualtieri’s on his way with floodlights, the engineering corps, and police dogs.”
“I’ll leave immediately.”
“But don’t take your Vespa. Call Filippo, we need photographs. Take his car.”
Fifteen minutes later, Filippo Lombardo was waiting for me in front of my apartment building at the wheel of his white Fiat 127. He had his Nikon FM2 on a strap around his neck, and his other cameras in his bag. Thirty miles, in the cool darkness of an October evening, driving over the Madonie mountains, amid crags that could have been anywhere but Sicily; chestnut forests, deep dark valleys. And between the farmhouse and the agritourism bed and breakfast, an hour later, the blinding glare of floodlights.
The prosecuting magistrate had authorized Carriglio to be present at the excavation site. That was the first time I saw the man: he was sitting on a tree stump, handcuffed, between two penitentiary officers who had accompanied him in a paddy wagon from the Ucciardone prison to the place where he claimed to have buried the corpses of his children. Carriglio was smoking a cigarette, holding it between the forefinger and middle finger of his right hand. His left hand was practically pressed against his right hand by the handcuffs, in a strange position that might have seemed to be one of prayer. He was a corpulent man; the prison overalls stretched to contain his belly: he was sweating in spite of the chilly mountain air. We walked over to him. Filippo’s flash went off. He looked up at us.
“Journalists! I need to talk to you guys!” he shouted. His face reminded me of nothing so much as the mascaron of the Mouth of Truth in Rome.
“Shut up, Carriglio,” said the policeman on his right, jamming an elbow into his ribs. He went back to his cigarette, forgetting about us. Meanwhile, the men from the military engineering corps were digging where Carriglio had directed them. The floodlights were illuminating the space as if it were high noon.
Filippo and I took a stroll around the patch of land. Gualtieri was in a squad car, talking into a radio mike. He was reporting to the chief of police.
Three children murdered in Palermo was an unpleasant piece of news; we needed to treat it more delicately than the usual round of Mafia murders. What did Palermo have to do with a massacre of children? What did Palermo have to do with the madness of a single man? In Palermo, death had always been administered with precision, in massive but specific doses, with respect for the methods that Cosa Nostra demanded: submachine guns, car bombs, bodies dissolved in acid, .357 Magnum bullets to the back of the head were all fine, but improvisation was strictly forbidden. The case was a bafflement to the Mafia liturgy; it hadn’t been taken into account. Neither had wildcat operations, hurtling pieces of out-of-control shrapnel. But the man sitting just a few yards away from us, in handcuffs, looked like a collection of shrapnel.
They dug all night, but they uncovered nothing. No dead bodies. The place was full of earthworms, moles, manna ash trees, but no murdered children. At dawn, exhausted, the men with shovels were told to stop digging. Carriglio was sent back to his cell. His confession had proved a falsehood. Filippo and I, reeling from the cold and exhaustion, started back to Palermo. I thought back to the wife’s words: “My husband doesn’t deserve the truth. The truth is for honest people. Someone who steals his children from behind your back is a dishonest coward.” The false truth of Vito Carriglio, child murderer.
We went straight to the paper. I wrote my piece and by eleven that morning I was already home. When I came in, I found Serena eating breakfast. She gave me a loving look and kissed me on the cheek. I stank. I didn’t even bother to apologize. I took a shower and slipped into bed. At five that afternoon I woke up with no idea where I was or, more important, what time it was—but now my mother would have recognized me, at least. And that was a welcome change.
The apartment was empty. I remembered that Fabrizio had said he was going to Rome that morning: he’d enrolled in a three-day corporate management course. A note from Serena, which I found on the kitchen table, told me that she’d be back that night. It ended with a request: “I need to see you: we have to talk about Sunday. The forecast is excellent. I want to go to the beach.” Cicova meowed, perhaps sensing my state of mind: a mixture of lust and terror.
It was a Friday in mid-October. An excellent day to talk about going to the beach.
Carriglio sent word from his cell that he wanted to talk to the prosecuting magistrate again. He denied that he’d murdered his children. He said that he’d been in a state of confusion, that he’d simply wanted to scare his wife and the rest of the Savasta family. The prosecuting magistrate requested that security measures be reinforced. They couldn’t run the risk of his committing suicide, at least not until he’d told them where he was keeping the children hidden.
On Saturday morning, Gualtieri gave me all the particulars, which I used in my article; I wanted to explain to the readers that Carriglio was a dangerously unstable man. Capable of anything.
I submitted my piece and turned my thoughts to the sights and smells of the sea in autumn. According to the forecast, the temperature would be eighty degrees, with plenty of sunshine: I had a Sunday with Serena awaiting me.
A friend of ours, Antonio, invited us to come stay in his parents’ house on the water, at the tip of the cape on the Gulf of Capaci. It was a villa I knew very well, with a terrace overlooking the Isola delle Femmine, the barren mountain of Sferracavallo, the orange groves of the plain of Villagrazia. And especially the sea. A vast expanse of water: peaceful, turquoise. Looking out from that terrace, in summers gone by, in years past, we’d waited for da
wns and dreamed of sunsets. We’d gone in search of our first kisses there, fourteen-year-olds with lots of experience with rock and roll but not much with sex. It was our age of innocence. We talked about love, politics, the future, the careers we wanted for ourselves, the year 2000, which would be just like the year 1000, with bands of distraught souls sailing over our cities in flying saucers, flagellating themselves in fear of the end of everything, the beginning of everything, accompanied by lights that we imagined as sabering lasers, filled with psychedelic colors. Our wild fantasies were given a boost by the clumps of Lebanese and Moroccan hash that circulated in those days, wrapped in squares of aluminum foil, only to be crumbled into shredded tobacco and then rolled into huge, virtuoso three-paper joints. And then we’d talk about rock bands with spectacular names: Free, Black Sabbath, Yes, Jefferson Airplane … those had been the platforms of our dreams. And that Sunday we’d be going back to Antonio’s villa, to the terrace from which all our desires were first launched into the air.
My sister swung by to pick up me and Serena at ten on Sunday morning. Her red Citroën Dyane took an hour to cover the twenty miles to the villa. Antonio was already there with Peppino, a classmate of his who was trying to work as an architect even before getting his degree or a license, and with Maristella, a silent, Middle Eastern—looking young woman who had opened a children’s bookshop, the first one in Palermo.
Peppino had a villa nearby. His father, a criminal lawyer with a local reputation, owned a Boston Whaler that he moored offshore.
“Come on, let’s sail over to Isola delle Femmine,” he suggested as soon as we got there. “Swimsuits on, and we can go.”
Serena tried to catch my eye and made a face, dropping her straw bag on the floor.
“I’m tired, I didn’t get much sleep last night. I’d prefer to stay here and soak up some sun on the terrace.” Her eyes sought mine again. I looked away.
“What about you?” Peppino asked me.
“I don’t know, I ought to read the papers.”
“Come on, stay and keep me company,” said Serena, who’d changed into a bikini in the meantime. She was wearing a cotton two-piece suit decorated with a pattern of small yellow flowers, with a top secured by a knot in the back and a bottom that rode low on her hips, held together with a pair of skimpy cords. In the sunshine her skin looked amber gold and perfectly complemented her dark hair.
“I think I’d better stay, Peppì: I’ll just stay and keep her company.”
I was tired, and the idea really did appeal to me. The four of them went off, talking about the panini and sfincione they were planning to pick up at the bakery. They’d be back in the afternoon.
Serena stretched out on a green beach towel, looking out toward the sea. From there, the gulf was a perfect curve, defined by the islet out in front of us and the horizon line. I lay down next to her, on another towel. Facedown, just like her. I felt the warmth of the sun relaxing the muscles in the small of my back: there was no way I could read a newspaper flat on my belly. Serena said nothing, as if she’d fallen asleep. But the one who fell asleep was me.
The touch of her hand caressing my shoulders woke me up.
“Journalist, you’re getting sunburned.”
I heard her voice and suddenly remembered where I was and what I was doing.
“Grazie, Sere, but there’s no risk of sunburn. I have Sicilian skin.”
I stretched lazily, turned over onto my back. She smiled at me. She was smearing a little cocoa butter onto her face.
“You were asleep for an hour.”
“I really am tired; it’s been a tremendous week, and you know it.” I sucked in my abdominals, as if my belly had been swallowed by my chest cavity.
“I wonder what Fabrizio’s doing,” said Serena, setting down her bottle of tanning oil.
“He’s studying, he’s always studying.”
“He was supposed to call this morning, there won’t be anyone to answer the phone.”
“Don’t you have his number in Rome?”
“Yes, but I didn’t want to call him at nine o’clock on a Sunday morning: it seemed unfair to wake him up.”
I looked at her: Serena wasn’t the kind to worry about what was fair or unfair, she was someone who liked to play games. Dangerous games.
I leafed through Il Corriere della Sera: I found its graphic design intimidating. Its headlines even more so. It reported events that seemed to come from a universe that was radically different from ours. It talked about Southeast Asia, a terrifying terrorist attack on the Americans in Lebanon, and Star Wars—the missile defense shield, not the movie. Scientific discoveries. I was envious of a world that was exotic and at the same time normal, a world that seemed so far from Palermo.
“I’m hungry,” said Serena.
“I’ll go see what’s in the fridge.”
“It’s unplugged. I looked while you were sleeping. There’s a can of chickpeas and a can of tuna in the pantry.”
My skin was on fire. Sleeping in the sun had burned me to a crisp.
“I’m going to go take a shower, then I’ll make you the best salad to be found anywhere near the Gulf of Capaci.”
“Hurry up,” she said with a smile.
I stood up, and I saw out of the corner of my eye that she had lain down and was taking off her bikini top.
I found the guest bathroom, slipped off my Port Cros swimsuit, and stepped into the shower. The water was cool; the spray was gentle. I felt my body temperature return to a seasonal level.
A minute later I saw her. Serena slid open the glass door and slipped under the spray, pressing close to my body. She was nude. Her breasts pressed against my chest, and without a word, she turned around. Her buttocks brushed against my penis.
The water was pouring over us; I could feel my heart beat. She turned around and faced me again, opened her eyes, stared at me, and moved her mouth closer to mine, while her hands explored my back. Then I felt the water pour into my mouth and her kiss slip down to my beard. I couldn’t control my erection: I tried, but I couldn’t do it. Inside me, the usual neon sign was blinking: HOWEVER. The adversative conjunctive adverb that rang out like a passage from the Bible, that compendium of every good deed that man can perform here on earth. And, inexplicably, I wanted to perform a good deed: control my erection, wipe the slate clean, confine those few minutes to a dream that I’d lock up in a cupboard with all the other wonderfully forbidden things that life had in store for me. The HOWEVER cupboard already had one fine item enjoying pride of place: Serena nude next to me, our toes intertwining, our hands touching, the desire doing a little preliminary stretching. I felt like a fool. She confirmed that sensation with a glance.
“All right,” she said as she left the shower.
Nothing more.
I made a bowl of salad as if I’d taken a shower alone.
That Sunday ended in the silence of sunset, with us sipping a Messina beer on the terrace as we listened to the others’ stories about the Isola delle Femmine and the sea urchins that Peppino had gathered and pried open for everyone. That night on the way home, as we were about to go in the door, Serena gave me a light kiss on the lips, and I didn’t try to dodge it.
“I love you,” she told me.
So did I, really. I loved her. I loved Fabrizio. And all the love I felt for the world at large that night kept me awake, forcing me into sweat-drenched dreams: the cocaine eyes of Vito Carriglio as he shouted: “Journalists! I need to talk to you guys!”; the sensation of Serena’s bottom brushing against me; the blinking neon sign reading HOWEVER.
I now think back on all the nos I’ve given and received. I’m still in the black: there are more yeses than nos. It was my good luck to grow up without any particular privations, even if it’s clear to me that defeats do more to make you grow than victories do.
At the end of the eighties, with a group of trusted friends, I tried playing Privations, a game described by an American minimalist in one of his books. We gathered in a ci
rcle, on a fashionable beach, and the one who was “it” first said: “I’ve never been to Australia.” Whoever had been to Australia had to give him a five-hundred-lire coin: his take was minimal. The others, who were as deprived of that experience as the one who had spoken, were under no obligation to pay. After travel, the statements soon shifted to the areas of love affairs and sex: “I’ve never had sex in a public place”; five people paid up. “I’ve never had a homosexual experience”; only one paid up. “I’ve never cheated on my partner”; and there was a chill in the air. A friend of mine, who was playing with his girlfriend sitting beside him, thought it over briefly and then set down a five-hundred-lire coin on the blue beach towel that was serving as our green felt table. His girlfriend looked down at the coin, leapt to her feet, and strode off toward the water in tears. We never played that game again.
And yet privations remain one of the pillars of our emotional growth. It makes you feel heroic to tell yourself no, to say no to the pleasure you can glimpse in a smiling invitation, in a pair of lips brushing against yours, destined to be nothing more than a couple of lives brushing past each other. You grow, you suffer, as if life itself were a hairshirt to be donned and worn.
As I look back, I can’t say how many of those nos did me good, and I’m not thinking only of the field trips from the routine of love; I’m also thinking about career choices, the fear of taking on the new, reaching for the better instead of settling for the good. Other people’s rejections aren’t up to us, but we can encourage them: it’s our own structure of certainties that makes others tilt toward a no.
At age twenty-four this was all pure intuition, a skin-sense of loyalty to ourselves and to friendship. We didn’t know what regret was. Now we do, and we can feel it burn. Knowing, moreover, that all the yeses of life are written in our eyes.
The Four Corners of Palermo Page 12
