Ontreto

by Peter Crawley

  “Per favore…” Ric begins.

  “No! Vada via,” one of the policeman replies.

  “Commendatore, per favore,” Ric tries again.

  The Carabinieri shrug again and glare at him. “No! Vada via,” one orders, “subito, immediamente. Non c’è nulla da vedere. Vada via!” And they wave Ric away again. But, one of them catches sight of the blood on the side of Ric’s face. He raises his head and frowns in question.

  “No, va bene, nessun problema,” Ric explains, rubbing at his temple. He turns away to walk swiftly up the steep hill out of the bay.

  Ric’s legs cramp and his arms sting viciously. And through the chorus of discordant arias playing in his head, he wonders who he can talk to about Marcello and whether Sandro will still be hanging around down in the Corta sponging drinks off tourists.

  He jogs up the steep road and has to pause at the turning into town to catch his breath. He realises he must look a sight, wet, bloodied about the face and tattooed with welts, but a vision of Marcello floating face-down out in the bay drives him forward.

  The Via Sant Anna is strangely deserted. Although it is close to midnight, the houses are all shuttered and apart from the barking of a dog, the street is eerily silent.

  Down in the Corta however, there is more than the usual collection of widowers lurking beneath the statue of San Bartolo. They are talking earnestly and gesticulating at the police. A blue La Polizia launch, a few metres longer than the one Ric watched the policemen hustle the kid into, is berthed on the finger quay beside the Purgatorio and an ambulance sits waiting at the foot of the steps up to the Chiesa di San Giuseppe.

  Ric is relieved to find Sandro sitting, drinking with Giuliana in the café at the foot of the Garibaldi.

  Sandro notices him approach and hurries over to meet him.

  “Oh, my friend,” he says before Ric has a chance to speak, “what has happened to you? You are bleeding. Come, this way,” he leads Ric by the arm, “I will ask Giuliana for the first aid.”

  “Hang on a minute, Sandro,” Ric gasps. “We need to get a boat and go look for Marcello. We need to tell the harbour master, the coast guard, someone: Marcello’s out in the bay beyond Portinente. His boat… we were run down… I think Marcello’s still out there somewhere.”

  Sandro stares back at him, puzzled, “My friend, you have suffered a blow to your head. Are you alright? Are you confused? It is not a good sign to be so confused when you have such an injury. Come, sit down, I will get you a grappa.”

  “No,” Ric replies, tetchily, “I haven’t got time for that. You’re not listening to me, Sandro. Marcello’s barca has sunk and I can’t find any trace of him. I think he might have drowned.”

  “Il Velaccino? Drowned? Not possible, my friend.” The escurzionista stands back and looks Ric up and down. “My friend, you are in a bad way; you are not thinking straight. Perhaps I should walk home with you and we will call for the doctor.”

  “Sandro, listen to me will you,” Ric replies, now angry, “I tell you; we’ve got to get a move on; Marcello’s boat has been run down. He’s somewhere out there; for all I know, he may have drowned.”

  “No, Ric, this is not possible.” Sandro frowns, his curly black hair framing his concern. “Il Velaccino was here in the Corta not five minutes ago.”

  24

  Giuliana cleans Ric’s face with a serviette. She is trying her best not to hurt him and she winces when she applies a steri-strip to his wound as though it is her injury she is dressing, not his. Sandro, too, winces as he dabs after-bite on the welts crisscrossing Ric’s arms.

  “But it can’t have been Marcello. He wouldn’t have left me out in the water like that.”

  “I assure you, Ric. As sure as you and I are sitting here and San Bartolo is standing there, Maggiore Marcello walked through the Corta half an hour ago. He wasn’t injured like you. He even spoke with the owner of the café over there.” He points to the café which is now closed up; it is the same café in which Ric had sat two evenings before with Marcello, the café owned by the man with the pinched face and hard eyes.

  “But I don’t understand, Sandro. If Marcello’s back here, it means he left me out in the sea. Nobody abandons anyone that far out; it took me nearly an hour to swim ashore. God alone knows how I wasn’t run down by any of the fishing boats. It doesn’t make sense.”

  Sandro looks perplexed, but studies Ric, clearly thinking he must have suffered a concussion. “No, it does not make sense. To leave a man from your boat out in the water, in the dark, is not right. Come, perhaps I should take you home. You need to rest. In the morning you may remember something more.”

  Ric stares across the table at the shaggy escurzionista and wonders if he’s playing some kind of game with him; wonders whether he is in league with Marcello Maggiore, and wonders whether they have set him up only to rob him.

  And at that thought, Ric gets up and reaches into his pocket for a soggy note with which to pay for the drinks.

  Sandro reaches out, “No, my friend, this time I pay: a man should not have to pay when he is… well, like you at this moment.” He turns to Giuliana; her expression resembles that of a child whose favourite pet has just been run over.

  “Come, I will walk home with you.” Sandro takes Ric by the arm, forgetting the welts on it.

  Ric pulls roughly away. “Thank you, but I can see myself home. Home?” he repeats loudly. Those remaining at the bar turn to watch him. “It’s not even home; it’s Marcello’s place.” He sighs and shakes his head, which thumps and is making him feel dizzy. Ric loses his balance and leans on the table for support.

  Giuliana hurries to him, but Sandro takes him by his shoulder and leads him out of the café. “Come, you can walk with me. I would not want to find out in the morning that something even more unpleasant had happened to you. If a man cannot look after another who buys him a beer on a hot day, then what report will St Peter give me when the time comes, eh?”

  However, Ric is still angry and shrugs away a second time. “Thank Giuliana for me,” he growls as he turns to walk away up the Garibaldi. “By the way,” he stops and turns back, “what was the ruckus in the Maddalena? Sounded like gunshots, or was it fireworks?”

  Even with the hair hanging down around his face, Ric notices Sandro’s eyebrows rise in disbelief, “Fuochi? No, this was not fuochi. Ah, of course, you could not know if you were out swimming.” But Sandro is looking at Ric very sideways now; scrutinising him as though it is just possible he doesn’t believe Ric has been where he says he has for the last hour.

  Ric, though, is suddenly very tired and realises he hasn’t had to swim that kind of distance since basic training. “Well, what? What was it all about?”

  Sandro is no longer listening.

  A gaggle of La Polizia and Carabinieri appear at the top of the steps up to the San Giuseppe. Close behind them follow four medics bearing a gurney. When they get to the bottom of the steps, they unfold the wheels of the gurney and start pushing it towards the ambulance. The retinue of La Polizia disengage themselves from the Carabinieri and stroll back over the humpback bridge towards the Purgatorio and their launch. Whoever it is they are pushing on the gurney is very obviously dead: the blanket is pulled up to cover the face.

  Sandro looks around, leans towards Ric and whispers, “Girolamo Candela.”

  25

  “Why don’t we wait for a moment?” Sandro suggests. “We can watch them and later we will walk.”

  So they sit back down and order one last grappa.

  “You know, Candela was to make a speech this evening in the Piazza Mazzini,” Sandro tells him. “Well, everybody is there: the magistrato come with the Capitanerie di Porto and La Polizia from Milazzo, the power people from l’Energia Geotermico, the big families who own the desalination business, the electrical business and the hotel people, everyone. Even Old Nino comes to listen.

  “So Candela… after much music and much standing like a cock in the pollaio, he says that if we
vote for his party, Riconquista, we will receive all the benefits from this new source of power: scholarships for the schools in Messina, free health care, free travel,” Sandro scoffs, “the children already have this, eh, and, of course, free electricity. It is as I have told you, yes?”

  Ric nods, recalling the escurzionista’s oratorio.

  “At the end of the meeting there is much smiling and shaking of hands and everyone promises to vote for Candela. I tell you, Ric; it is as if San Bartolo has told the Liparoti his brother Jesus is coming to bless the islands. They went completely pazzi! After the meeting, Candela, or so I have heard, says to his bodyguards he has a rendezvous in the Piazza San Bartolo at the entrance to the Maddalena. You know this is where Edda Ciano lived?” He pauses, waiting to see if Ric is keeping pace with him. “Candela, he does not want his men to go with him, so he goes alone.

  “The bodyguards they stay here, at this café; they think he is going to meet with… you know, a woman friend.” Sandro winks. “They are angry with Candela, because they are supposed to go everywhere with him, but…” Sandro pauses and nods towards the Chiesa di San Giuseppe, “the next moment there is shooting and suddenly the Corta is very quiet, like at a funeral,” Sandro chuckles, “which is quite appropriate when you think about it. And then everyone is shaking fists and arguing and running round like women who have left their washing out in the Scirocco. Some people are arrested and then released and others are released before even being arrested. It is just like opera buffa. You know this type of opera?”

  Ric shakes his head, but slowly.

  “It is comedy without laughing; stupid, but not so funny when everyone is angry. Then one of La Polizia, a little man with a hat, one who must be very important because he is not wearing a uniform and all the police who are in uniform stop what they are doing and listen when he speaks… well, he tells everyone to calm down and that is the end of the fun.”

  Sandro feigns a curious sadness, as though he would’ve preferred the farce to continue. “Now they will take the body to Messina. They could have taken the body to the hospital here. But look! They bring it to the Corta to show all the people how terrible it is that a man should come to Lipari and be killed. It is like waving dirty underwear in your mother’s face; they want us to feel guilty.” Sandro sits back and clasps his hands over his stomach, “Now, you know all that I know. Come, it is late, we must go.”

  As they leave the table, Sandro looks to Ric to settle the account for the extra drink they have had.

  Giuliana, though, refuses his offer of a soggy note.

  Ric smiles and in doing so splits the cut at his temple. He feels around the steri-strips; they are damp.

  As they walk up the rise of the Garibaldi, he asks, “So who would want Candela out of the way?”

  Sandro scoffs again, hesitates and looks at his companion, “Are you sure you are alright, my friend? Your thoughts are a little muddled; perhaps you need a medico more than Candela. I don’t think they will be much use to him now.”

  “Indulge me, Sandro.”

  They start walking again. “You English have a saying, how long is a piece of string?”

  “Was he that unpopular?”

  “You must look at the big picture, Ric. If you don’t have an interest in politics, then whatever the politicians do does not affect your life; you can live happily and ignore them. But this is Italy, my friend, and everyone must have an opinion. The consequence of this is that whatever the politicians do, it affects our lives. If Il Cavaliere makes bunga bunga, then we lose faith in him. If we lose faith in him, we will have election. If we have election, we have new government. If the new government reduces our pension, we have to work for more years. If we have to work for more years, we die younger and we miss out on the pleasure of sitting under San Bartolo to discuss politics. So, because Il Cavaliere can’t keep his cazzone in his pantaloni, I die before my time.

  “Or, maybe one of the families from the islands does not want this brave new world Candela is promising. It upsets the balance of power; it changes things.” He pauses and scratches his mop of curly hair. “Then, of course, it is much simpler to eliminate your political opponents before they become a threat to you, rather than when they have established themselves, eh?”

  At the corner of the Garibaldi with the Maurolico, Ric turns to enter the narrow maze of vicolos that will take him to the monolocale. “You think it’s that simple?”

  Sandro wobbles his head from side to side. “Maybe; you can make it as simple or as complicated as you like. This is a different kind of politics; except, perhaps, in Italy, it is the same.” He pauses and grins, “But then, it is possible he has been caught with his fingers in the wrong jar of cookies. Could be the money jar or maybe the honey jar? Or it could be one of those jars which is left in the dispensa, the place where you keep food and wine…”

  “The pantry?”

  “Yes, pantry; it is a nice word. But perhaps this particular jar was left for many years in the corner of the pantry because the contents were too bitter to taste. But the family, they did not want to throw the jar away because it is something they have inherited. And now, many years later, this family has opened it again and the smell is so bad they can no longer ignore it. These things, sometimes they happen.”

  “Why play that out here?” Ric asks. “Why out here on this island?”

  Sandro chuckles again, “Why do it in your own back yard, in Palermo, when you can do this here? Many tongues in the mountains, eh?”

  “You think Candela’s family are caught up in some old blood feud?”

  Sandro chuckles, “Possible, but I don’t think so. Ciao, Ric. Sleep well. Perhaps in the morning you should go to see Il Velaccino and ask him why he left you to the fishes.” He walks away down the Maurolico, a long, loping, confident gait which suggests that whatever tomorrow brings, Sandro will be ready for it.

  Ric treads carefully through the alley. It is late, there are no lights on and only the slender reflections of the moon help him avoid the bins, bicycles and flowers left out for the night. He tries to remember the many twists and turns of the narrow vicolos which will lead him to the small rooms Marcello has let to him: Il Velaccino, the sailmaker, a man who shows him unnecessary kindness one minute and then abandons him out in the ocean the next.

  Ric’s head bangs and his muscles groan in disapproval of the demands made upon them; it is time to leave it all until the morning.

  He locates the monolocale and bends down to fish the key out from under the flower pot by the door. The blood rushes to his head and when he straightens up, he is dizzy.

  Ric reaches out to steady himself and is grateful to think there is no one about to mistake him for the drunkard he must resemble. But as the thought comes to him, he feels the hair on the back of his neck begin to prickle: someone is watching him from the shadows.

  Glancing to his left, he notices a shadow shift at the corner of the alley.

  Ric hesitates. “Who’s there?” he asks, loud enough to wake up the neighbours.

  The figure, if it is the profile of a man he can see and not simply a curious shape thrown by the moon, does not respond. The vico is cool, the night air trapped in the narrow confines of the alley; the silence absolute. The town, like Candela, is sleeping.

  He waits a couple of seconds longer before turning the key in the lock. “Is anyone there? Sandro?” he calls more softly. Ric can think of no reason why anyone should be out at such a late hour and yet he has the strangest feeling that someone is watching him. But the shadow is frozen and Ric wonders again if his eyes are playing tricks on him. What little adrenalin the evening hasn’t absorbed, seeps into his muscles; he can feel them begin to harden and bunch.

  “Who’s there?” he asks one last time. “Come out, I know you’re there.”

  The figure steps forward, “Sono io, Giuliana.”

  Ric sighs and then mutters, “Giuliana! You frightened the life out of me.”

  “Sorry, Ric.” Her
hair shines silver in the moonlight. She is wearing a quilted jacket which, he realises, is why he didn’t recognise her shape.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “I come to find out if you are okay. It’s okay?”

  He isn’t quite sure if she’s asking if he’s okay, or if it’s okay with him that she is asking. “I’m fine, thank you. You did a great job on my head.” Ric doesn’t want to open the door in case she takes it as an invitation. Giuliana may not be local, but he’s not naïve enough to think that though old enough to know her own mind, her relatives might know it better. Yet, even in the pale moonlight Ric can see that her eyes are asking all the questions he’d usually be only too happy to answer.

  Giuliana stands waiting, expecting.

  He reaches out to her and rests his hand gently on her shoulder. “Go home, Giuliana. I’m fine, thank you. I’m grateful for your concern.”

  She pouts, childishly, “But Ric–”

  “But Giuliana,” he turns her round, “go home. I am very tired. Perhaps another time,” he adds to help her save face.

  She shrugs a little insolently, “Okay, Ric, perhaps some other time, yes?” And she steps back, pausing to throw him one last sulky look so that he should be in no doubt about exactly what it is that he is turning down.

  “Sleep well, Giuliana,” Ric says, with as much paternal sentiment as his weary mind can muster.

  “Ciao, Ric,” she replies as she sways away down the alley.

  But as Ric turns back to unlock his front door, he is sure he hears a scuffling sound from the other end of the alley. He sighs heavily and weighs up whether he should call out again. It has been a long day and, so far, too long a night.

  He hesitates.

  A cat rushes past his feet and is gone, swallowed up by the shadows.