26
Ric’s head is dull and his mouth is dry. He wakes to find himself lying on his bed, but again has no idea of how long he has slept. Slivers of white light creep from between the margins of the shutters.
There is a noise from downstairs: someone is moving about.
He hauls himself upright and eases himself down the tight staircase, trying to remember if he locked the door after his unexpected rendezvous with Giuliana; perhaps, he thinks, she has returned to salvage her pride.
But it is Valeria. She has brought provisions and more of his clothes, which she has ironed.
“Ric, Buongiorno,” she greets him, smiling. “Time to get up or the day will soon be as old as I am.” She’s left the front door open to allow a little light and fresh air into the room. The kettle is heating on the stove.
She glances up at him, but her expression changes quickly, “You look a little tired this morning – Ric, what has happened? You have had some trouble?”
He strokes the plaster above his right eye and frowns as he remembers the moonlit night and the hull of the fishing boat coming onto him, like a shark rising out of the depths. The crusted flesh splits and stings, but at least the chorus in his head has quieted.
“You want to tell me how you got this?” She inclines her head, frowning.
“Not really. It’s a kind of unidentified squid-fishing injury; long story.”
Valeria steps towards him and examines the plaster at the corner of his forehead and his temple. “Fishing?” she repeats with an air of scepticism. Satisfied that whatever the extent of his wound it has been adequately dressed, she stands back and says, “It must have been big, this totani.”
“Actually it was a boat load of them.”
“You went fishing alone or with someone?”
“With Il Velaccino, last night; didn’t reckon on it being such a dangerous recreation.”
“It isn’t usually, but…” Valeria pauses.
“But what?” Ric asks.
“But…” she begins, and again she hesitates, “no matter.” She shakes her head as if to banish some stupid idea and stands back to open the shutters.
Now that the little room is properly lit, she can get a better look at him. “Ric, you look terrible,” she puts the shopping in his small fridge, “but from what people tell me, you were not the only person to have received an injury last night.”
Ric sits down gently at the table. “I gather someone shot Candela.”
“Yes, you are correct; it is a bad business.” Valeria stares at the floor, her lips pursed in thought.
“Did you know him?” Ric asks to break the silence.
“Know him? Why would an old woman know a politician from the mountains, from Sicily,” but then adds with a rancour Ric would not have thought she possessed, “they are all pigs. They are not to be trusted.”
“Did you go to the meeting?” he asks, “I gather most of the town was there.”
She hesitates before saying, “Such things, like looking into the future, do not interest me. When you have as many years as I have, the horizon appears nearer with each dawn.”
Ric remembers hammering on her door after he’d swum into the point, but also remembers her telling him she takes a sleeping draught.
They are silent while she pours the boiling water into the cafetiere. The rich vapours of the coffee stir his senses.
“Interesting guy, Marcello,” he says, as much to break the sombre mood as to keep her talking.
Valeria looks up sharply, “What makes you say this?”
“Only that he seems to know all there is to know about the island; seems to know everything and everyone, as though nothing happens here without his knowing about it.”
“Yes, I suppose you could say that about him. But we are a small island; it is natural that people know each other.”
But Ric wants to know more about the man who left him to drown out in the Sicilian Sea in the middle of the night. “His family must be one of the older families of the island.”
“Yes,” is all she replies.
“You mentioned a man to me the other day,” Ric says: “Bongiorno, the communist who helped some of the deportees escape. Seems he taught Marcello English in school. Was Marcello’s family part of the crew who helped deportees escape from Lipari?”
Valeria takes one of her long, thin white cigarettes from her bag and passes Ric her lighter. “I believe so,” she says as he reaches over. “You know, only three of the deportees escaped.”
“I didn’t, no. Please, tell me.”
“Francesco Fausto Nitti was a bank clerk, the nephew of a former Prime Minister, and Emilio Lussu was a lawyer. Lussu was one of the Aventine Secessionists who walked out of the Parliament after Mussolini’s thugs murdered Matteotti. He was the founder of the Sardo d’Azione, the Sardinian Action party. The last of the three was Carlo Roselli. He, too, was a lawyer, but he came from a wealthy Jewish family. Roselli founded the Giustizia e Libertà, the Justice and Freedom Party. All three were very different in character, but they were men of character and conviction, not like the politicians we have now.”
Valeria stares into the distance and sighs as though the recounting of the tale is weighing heavily on her. “Because these men could not stomach Mussolini or his Fascism, they were sent here, to Lipari, to exile.”
“How did they escape?”
Valeria stubs out her cigarette. “I believe it was a night in July 1929. They swam out to meet a motoscafo – a fast boat – which took them to Tunisia. Some people say they swam from a haunted house near the rocks below the citadel; others say it was from a house on the Maddalena, or perhaps the bay at Portinente. Nobody really knows. The smaller the number of people who knew; the smaller the chance of being betrayed.”
“And after that?” Ric encourages.
“After that? All three of them went to fight for the Republicans against Franco. The French Fascists – the cagoulards – assassinated Roselli and his brother; Nitti fought with the resistance in France, was captured and escaped again; and Lussu helped the British defeat the Germans before returning to Rome, to the government.”
“They sound like extraordinary characters,” Ric says. He pours more coffee and studies her. From appearing so bright and full of life when he’d first come down the stairs, Valeria now seems weary; her eyes a little glassy with emotion.
“Did any others escape from the island?”
She wrests her gaze from the distance and focuses on him, “Many tried. Four escaped from the citadel using bedclothes tied together. Michelagnoli was one; he dressed as a woman and another man, Magri, as a priest. They hid in the hills, but they soon starved and begged a man for food. He gave them bread, but his wife told the Carabinieri. The man was sent away to Ustica for five years.” She chuckles in a sad, ineluctable way. “The irony is that without him, his wife probably starved to death. Perhaps it is true, eh? What goes around comes around.”
Valeria sips her coffee, remembering. “A man named Spangero tried to escape on a ship, but the captain was German and returned him to the authorities.”
“What about swimming to one of the other islands? Vulcano doesn’t seem that far away.”
Valeria shakes her head, “No, the currents in the Bocche di Vulcano are too dangerous. And in that time, Vulcano was a barren place; a few vines, nothing more.”
“Seems crazy when you think you could keep anyone cooped up here when you can see the coast of Sicily in the distance. Only three ever got away?”
“Yes, only three.” She hesitates, clearly wondering whether she should continue. But he can see that it is not that she is concerned she might be boring him; rather she is considering whether she should tell him something. Her eyes are unfocussed and for all his presence across the table, she appears momentarily detached.
“Go on, Valeria, please.”
“There were three others who tried to escape in the same way as Nitti, Lussu and Roselli. Their names were Drago, Tam
boia and Farinelli, but they were betrayed. The Carabinieri were waiting for them; they were all killed.”
“You seem to know a good deal about these people, Valeria.”
“I was told about them when I was young… and one reads,” she says, dreamily. “The others, like Nitti and Lussu and Roselli are famous. They are in the history books. Drago, Tamboia and Farinelli are not so famous. After all, who remembers the names of the dead except their loved ones? For these three, there were no monuments.”
“So, Marcello’s family was a part of that underground network; the anti-fascists?”
Valeria nods, slowly, “So I have heard.” She looks up from staring at the table and asks, “But why the interest in Marcello, Ric? It is unlikely that he would know much about your ancestor. Marcello’s grandfather was one of the more… how would you say, more influential people in the island at that time, but he died many years ago. His father, Onofrio, passed away last week; the funeral took place the day you arrived. The Maggiore family are one of the oldest families in Lipari; they used to have the business for the transport between Milazzo, Palermo and the islands.” She frowns at Ric, “So why so much interest in Il Velaccino?”
He shakes his head a shade dismissively, giving him time to conjure some answer other than wanting to know if there is any reason why the man should have deserted him out in the sea. “It’s just that one of the escurzionisti told me Barbarossa wiped out all the old families in the sixteenth century. I was interested in just how old the old families are; that’s all.”
Valeria studies him for a moment, chewing the nail of her index finger. She takes a drag of her cigarette and points at him, “You know, Ric, if you ask too many questions, you may hear something you wish you had not. I told you: Lipari was once known as the Island of Grief and also the Island of the Damned. And, talking of the past, I must be going now. I have to visit my doctor to inquire after my health.” Valeria stands up, very slowly, as though because she has sat for so long her bones have atrophied. “After all,” she adds, as she stubs out her cigarette and gently loops her handbag over her shoulder, “these days, he knows my well-being better than I do.”
“What do I owe you for the shopping?”
Valeria chuckles, “Nothing, Ric, you have already rewarded me enough with your company; that is as much compensation as an old woman can ask. Ciao, Ric, take better care of yourself. And stay away from such dangerous pursuits, eh?” She smiles warmly, turns and walks out into the vico.
The lemon and citrus of her perfume mingle with the odours of the coffee and cigarette smoke in the space she has vacated, and Ric is left wondering about her. Again, he tries to estimate her age and wonders if he was at fault in causing her to recall such unpleasant and perhaps even painful memories. She looks old enough to have lived through the second Great War, as the plaques in the Mazzini describe it, but he could not help but notice the consuming sadness in her eyes when she spoke of the deportees who had died long before it. He wonders if perhaps she shared some political affiliation with them. But he remembers, too, that she is originally from near Palermo, so there is no reason why she would be connected to a bunch of sorry politicos imprisoned on some island in the Sicilian Sea.
Ric shrugs and wonders: her age is of little consequence to him. Valeria has been kind to him since his arrival five days before, without her and her man Salvo, the Mara might be sitting at the bottom of the ocean.
And that reminds him; it is time to talk to Marcello.
27
The Corso Emmanuelle is a hive of activity, but all in typically slow motion. The Apes, loaded with vegetables, fruit and fish, are fringed by portly dowagers and skinny spinsters taking their time to make up their minds about what they are going to treat themselves to for lunch.
Sandro is chatting to a couple of middle-aged downbeats. He waves smartly, but he is commanding too big an audience to want to break off his spiel. And Giuliana appears from the door of the panificio, smiles and waves him towards a café, but he resists her offer.
Ric decides to walk up over the saddle to Canneto to Marcello’s yard, rather than take the bus through the tunnel. The exercise, he decides, will drive the ache of the previous evening’s swim from his limbs.
The Lunga is busy and the escurzionisti are, like a shoal of expectant piranhas, already limbering up for the arrival of the tourists off a colossal cruise liner wallowing in the bay.
An Aliscafo pulls in to the dock; a man announces its onward stops, the speakers atop the ticketing hut projecting his amplified voice in the tones of a tired bingo caller.
Stern-faced Carabinieri are checking the identity of all those waiting on the pier.
Before the road curves round to the Porto Pignataro and the tunnel through to Canneto, he cuts left up the hill and winds his way through a hamlet of low houses towards the saddle that connects Monte Rosa to the spine of the island. As he passes each gate, dogs rush at him, barking wildly, and in places he has to watch his step as the rough-and-ready road is potholed and uneven. The glare from the sun high over his right shoulder is relentless and the dust thrown up by his footfall hangs lazily in the air.
Ric follows the footpath at the end of the road and climbs up to the saddle. But, once there, the trail narrows and leads on up to the first of the twin peaks, Pietra Campana. He has to backtrack to locate the slender, overgrown trail which leads down to Canneto. The pathway is little more than a gulley-like run-off cut deep through the vegetation. He loses his footing and stumbles down, reaching out to hold onto anything that will slow his descent. In doing so, he grabs a handful of agave and cuts his palm on the serrated edge of the leaf.
He swears at no one in particular as he hops and jumps down between the steep banks of the path.
By the time he comes out by the entrance to the tunnel, he is sweating, one knee is grazed and his right palm is bleeding. “Next time, you idiot, take the tunnel like everyone else.”
The yard, the Cantiere Nautico Maggiore, sits a hundred or so metres up a turning on the left. The road is deserted, dusty and crowned in the centre. A low white wall topped by a wire mesh fence runs along one side; old shacks with bleached-wood walls and doors held closed with heavy, rusting padlocks line the other. Marcello’s yard is deserted.
Ric checks the sun and reckons it is a little early for lunch. He drags the heavy iron gate back and steps into the yard.
Scuffling and growling alerts him to the arrival of a hairy black mongrel. As he turns to face it, he realises it is too late for him to dash back out of the gate and so raises his arms to fend it off.
But as the dog leaps at him, the chain tethering it to the kennel extends fully and the dog halts in mid-flight, twists like a circus acrobat and lands on all fours in front of him.
The ferocious mongrel, eyes wild and frothing at the mouth, barks madly. It’s frustration at not being able to reach him adds fuel to the fire of its fury.
They stare each other down until a mutual respect is established and the dog retires to the shade.
The Mara, supported by a crude assortment of jack stands and blocks, sits up in the middle of an uneven row of a half dozen more modern sailing boats. She looks uncomfortably out of place among the detritus of the yard and reminds Ric of a maiden aunt abandoned amidst a mob of drunken labourers. Hoists, chains, rusting engines, discarded outboards and broken spars litter the yard. And, at the back beneath a lean-to, a bench displays all the elaborate paraphernalia of the sailmaker. Coils of waxed cotton sailtwine, seaming and roping palms, sidehole cutters and hooks, spur grommets, turnbuttons, thimbles, jib hanks, slides, shackles and boxes of wooden and multi-coloured parrel beads are strewn about. And, under the bench lie rolls of sailcloth: yellowed flax, greying hemp and white cotton of varying weights, some crosscut and others radial, and all manner of more modern polyester and nylon, both laminate and woven.
Marcello is nowhere to be seen, so Ric walks over and around the back of the Mara. The propeller is missing, the stern tube has been
disassembled and, in places, the hull is badly in need of anti-fouling; clearly, old Camille has not had the Mara out of the water for some time.
A wooden ladder stands up against the stern of the sloop. He checks it is secure and climbs up to the deck. The hatch cover is closed and, once he’s pushed it back, he steps down.
Inside, the cabin is sweltering in the midday heat and the stale odours of drying cedar, engine grease and diesel foul the air.
Ric slides his mattress and a section of the bed aside, bends down and lifts the small cover off the hatch in the floor.
Where he expects to see the two small plastic bags, one containing the gun and the other the money and passports, there is only one bag. The gun is missing.
“Damn! What the hell do I do now?”
But before he can answer his own question, he hears the scrape of the gate outside and a car pulls into the yard.
Ric replaces the cover, slips the board and bed back into place, and steps up through the hatch to the deck.
Marcello is taken by surprise. “Hey, Ric,” he calls up, taking the stub of his cigar from between his lips and shading his eyes from the sun, “you should have called. If I had known you were coming I would have brought cold drinks.”
Ric slides the hatch cover in place and quickly, but not too obviously quickly, descends the ladder.
“No matter, Marcello, I thought I’d walk over to see how she was coming along.”
But the short, curly headed Liparotan is, like his dog, suspicious of Ric.
“Hope you don’t mind, my friend,” Ric says, as innocently as his nervousness at being caught in the act will permit. “I thought I’d left something on the boat.” Now it is his turn to watch the man back.
“Oh, yes? What thing is this that you have left on the Mara? We have been in the cabin, but I have not touched any of your things.”
Ric waits, studying Marcello. If he is lying, he gives away no trademark tell.
“Sure. I mean I’m sure you wouldn’t. I didn’t think you would. It’s just that I can’t remember where I’ve left a couple of items of clothing. ‘Suppose they must be at Valeria’s. Maybe she’s kept them back to iron them.”
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