by Peter Watson
Anna-Maria had beamed. “It’s more important to have good manners,” she had replied, taking the chocolates, “than knowing how to hold your drink.”
He had been careful that night to ask her to dance—and not to leave it to her to ask him.
“One more thing, Silvio,” she had said during the dance.
“Yes?”
“Chocolates taste even more delicious when eaten with champagne. Will you come tonight?”
“If you still want me to, I’d love to.”
She had squeezed his hand.
Now, in her cabin, she handed him a glass. She crossed to the bar, where she had laid out several of his chocolates on a plate. “Here, try one. Drink some champagne, and then, while you still have the taste in your mouth, eat the chocolate.”
He did as he was told and moaned with the pleasure of the experience.
“Come and sit on the sofa.” She did as she had done the night before, kicking off her slippers and lifting her legs onto Silvio’s lap. She laid the plate of chocolates on her own lap. “Help yourself,” she said.
He took another chocolate. Last night she had made all the moves, asked all the questions. He had acted like a sullen mule. He realized that the most flattering thing for her would be if he took the initiative tonight.
He pointed to the books on the table. “You travel with those?”
“I love reading. Other worlds, other times. It’s a way of meeting people you wouldn’t otherwise meet—or couldn’t meet.”
He nodded. He had never thought about reading in that way.
“Tell me about New Orleans. What kind of town is it?”
She considered the question, nibbling on a chocolate. “Nothing like Palermo, for a start. The main feature is the river, the Mississippi. It’s huge—not like an Italian river, all dried up for most of the year—but maybe a quarter of a mile wide. It’s brown, dark brown—like when they burn the stubble on the slopes of Rocca Busambra—fast-running, very deep, and you don’t swim in it because there are huge eels. Sometimes it floods badly, so in places a big mound of earth has been built along its banks, called a levee. New Orleans was once a French town, that’s why it’s called New Orleans—Orleans is a place in France. Some people still speak French and many streets have French names. Everything interesting happens in the French Quarter. That’s where the markets are—coffee, meat, fruit, clothes—and all the gambling joints, all the whorehouses. And there’s this new kind of music. Brass bands but different somehow.”
Silvio sipped his champagne more slowly tonight. “Does your father live in the French Quarter?”
Anna-Maria smiled. “No, we live to the west, in an area known as the Garden District. All the houses have big gardens, with very lush vegetation. Not many of the streets are paved, and when the river floods—well, you can imagine the mud. In the summer it’s very hot and humid. In the winter it can be foggy. Oh yes, and there’s a carnival after Christmas. It’s called Mardi Gras.”
“What’s that?”
“A kind of fair. Everyone dresses up in fancy costumes and parades through the streets with bands—there are a lot of Negro bands in New Orleans. They make their way to a big dance hall, where the costumes are judged and there’s a big ball. I go every year.”
“What costumes have you worn?”
“Oh, one year I went as a Spanish flamenco dancer, and last year I went dressed as a Greek goddess.”
Silvio didn’t really understand, but had to keep talking. “Tell me about the Negroes. I’ve never seen one.”
“No, that’s boring, and you’ll find out soon enough. I want to hear your story. You killed a man.”
He nodded. “A vendetta.”
“What does it feel like, to kill someone?”
What had Nino said? Be soft on the outside, hard inside. Like an olive. “The man betrayed us. Someone had to do it. The killing was just.”
“Why you?”
“I had to prove my loyalty, my courage.”
“Why? Were they in doubt?”
He pointed across the room. “You can’t learn courage in books. There’s always doubt until you’re tested.”
“But you are a blood relative of Nino’s. Wasn’t that enough?”
It was then that he realized the answer to his father’s uncertainty. “Brains, and courage, are more important than blood.”
She eyed him. “I wonder if you’re right. But you still haven’t explained. What’s it feel like to shoot someone?”
“I’ve only done it once. It’s not as bad as seeing your parents die.”
There was a silence in the cabin. Silvio couldn’t read Anna-Maria’s face. She held her glass to her lips but didn’t drink. Then she said, “Take off your jacket and pour some more champagne.”
Silvio went to the bar, but when he turned round Anna-Maria was nowhere to be seen. One of the doors, to the bedroom, was open.
Now what? Silvio had not dared wear Annunziata’s ring, and it was only a matter of days since he had seen her. Could he be this unfaithful to her so soon? She would be missing him, thinking of him, just as he thought of her. She would never imagine that he had already met someone like Anna-Maria. He had never imagined it himself. He kept reminding himself that Anna-Maria was not as beautiful as Annunziata, but she was inviting, and interesting—all that reading, no doubt. And he couldn’t deny he wanted to touch her, to bury his face in her flesh, to feel her naked skin against his. Then again, what choice did he have? Nino had made it clear what he wanted Silvio to do. No matter that Nino might have more than one motive for pushing him into Anna-Maria’s bed; his argument was a good one. It would be difficult for them to find their feet in New Orleans and Anna-Maria’s father was their best hope. The Palermo Priolas were family, but maybe they would feel their debt to Nino was discharged by his safe passage to America. And they had no debt to Silvio.
Nor could he entirely overlook the fact that these were near-ideal conditions in which to lose his virginity. An older, willing woman, champagne, their own cabin on an oceangoing liner. A week ago Silvio had never been anywhere more sophisticated than Palermo. The world of champagne, chocolates, and dancing was as alien to him as the Vatican.
Silvio slipped his fingers between the stems of the champagne glasses and lifted them off the bar. With his other hand he picked up the champagne bucket—the bottle inside it was still half-full—and walked across the cabin. He went through the open doorway into the bedroom. He paused only to bend his foot behind the door and kick it closed.
“I’ve got a plan.”
Nino fell into step with Silvio as they patrolled the deck. They were walking toward the stern of the ship, past the kitchen. Though the weather was cloudy, it was warm.
“A plan for what?”
“Now that I’ve gotten you laid, it’s time to strike back at the Orestanos.”
Silvio could barely concentrate. Half an hour earlier he had been looking down at Anna-Maria writhing beneath him. He had found out what he’d missed that night on the hillside and it was even more glorious than he’d imagined.
“Listen to me, you mule. Tonight, while you were fucking your head off, I stopped by at the bar of the casino—remember the outside door last night where we were given the key to the shower?”
Silvio nodded. They had reached the stern of the ship. They crossed to the other side and began to walk forward.
“I sponged a drink off the barman, and while we talked I said you got lucky.” Silvio shot him a glance, but Nino merely chuckled. “Now listen. Tomorrow night, when you’re with Anna-Maria, I’ll do the same thing. I’ll add that from what she’s been saying, you’re set up for the rest of the trip.”
“But—”
“Shut up! Listen to an older man. The barman knows who I am. All the crew do. I’m betting he’ll sell the information to Onofri Orestano.”
“What information?”
“That every night, between midnight and three, I am alone on deck. And that each night, around
two, I stop by the casino bar for a drink and a smoke. One night, between now and our arrival in America, the Orestanos will come for me.”
“How will they get onto the main deck?”
“Whoever sells them the information will also make sure they can get up here. Probably dressed as crew. There are two hundred crew on this ship—I know because I asked. They might all know me, but they won’t all know each other.”
“If fifteen come for you you’re dead. There are no sulfur fires on deck.”
“There won’t be fifteen. From their point of view this has to be a quiet, clean job. If they make a mess they’ll be handed over to the American authorities and put back on the next ship to Palermo. Or be tried in America. After all, this is a Priola ship and they are Orestanos. In any case, whoever sells the information about me won’t want a whole gang on the rampage on the upper deck. That way his own job is at risk, if anyone found out who passed on the information.
“No, my guess is that the deal will be for two, three, or four of them, just a handful, to sneak up here, dressed as crew, then to try and surprise me, overpower me, knife me, and throw me overboard. Then they’ll slink back to the immigrant decks, three or four anonymous people among six hundred. Everything will be hushed up. I wasn’t on this ship when it left Palermo, so why should I be on it when it arrives in America?”
“I thought we were protected by the Priolas?”
“Only up to a point. They arranged for us to be smuggled aboard and have given us passage, but that’s it. In their position they can’t be seen aiding someone like me. If I get caught, or killed, they’ll say they knew nothing about my being on board.”
They were midships now and descended the steps to the deck below.
“This is the tricky part—but if it works it will be effective. Tomorrow night, you sleep with Anna-Maria, just like tonight But after you’re done, and only after you’re done, you tell her my plan—”
“What!”
“Keep your voice down. Anna-Maria is family: a blood relative. We can rely on her. She would react like her father if I got killed, but if she can help stop it, or help beat the Orestanos, she will.
“Now listen. Tomorrow night, after you’ve fucked her, you tell her that from then on, you will go to her cabin every night as before. But until something happens, instead of fucking your brains out—and try not to put it quite like that—you will leave her cabin at precisely one-thirty. If you’re being watched, as I expect you will be, whoever is doing the watching will wait half an hour or so after you arrive, to see that you really are staying awhile. But he won’t wait forever because, if I’m right, and there are only two or three or four of them, he’ll be needed for the assault on me. So at one-thirty, when your watchman should long since have gone to join the others, you leave Anna-Maria’s cabin.
“I want you to check that no one follows you. Then take up a position outside the casino bar but on the deck below. There’s a set of steps that connects the two decks; they won’t expect you to hide there. Remain in the shadows as much as you can—and listen. As near to two o’clock as I can, I’ll go into the casino bar. You may hear a scuffle, but in any case I’ll call out. I don’t know what it will be, but you’ll hear. Then come up the stairs as quick as you can.”
Nino paused, and Silvio interrupted. “How can you be so sure it’s going to work out that way? They could jump us in the cabin—”
“We’re only in the cabin in daylight. Only officers are allowed in that part of the ship. They need to make a quick getaway after they hit me—so their attack has to be on the open deck, which means it has to take place at night. If they attack both of us, they’re bound to need four or more men, to make sure it works. That’s too unwieldy a number. They’ll attack me alone. Believe it.”
Silvio still wasn’t convinced. “What if there are more than four of them? It could happen, Nino, and then we’d be hopelessly outnumbered.”
“It won’t matter,” said Nino. “When you hit someone, always hit them as hard as you can. Listen to an older man. I’m betting the Orestanos won’t carry guns. They need to do all this in silence. But you will have a pistol.”
7
Silvio had never seen so many officers’ white uniforms all together in one place. They stood in three rows, behind the first-class passengers, and as Nino had put it, they looked like candles in a cathedral. In fact, this being Sunday morning, the saloon had been turned into a cathedral of sorts—or at least a chapel—for an hour or so.
Silvio had not been keen to attend the service. He rarely went to Mass in Sicily and he thought Nino was equally infrequent in his attendance. But this time Nino had insisted. Was it because Anna-Maria would be there, and Nino wanted to impress her? Or was there a side to Nino that Silvio wasn’t aware of? He certainly seemed engrossed in the service, and knew all the Latin responses.
The saloon made a reasonable church, Silvio decided. The ship’s chaplain stood by the piano, with a large cross on the sideboard behind him where the cutlery was stored. The pianist was the same man who played in the evenings, though he now wore a different expression on his face, more beatific. The captain, who clearly enjoyed the sound of his own voice, led the singing. Outside, the weather was glorious; but despite all that, Silvio did not feel well.
He had woken that morning without really wanting to. His talk with Nino the previous evening had depressed and frightened him. Too much was happening too quickly.
Until recently, aside from the death of his parents, nothing much of consequence had occurred in Silvio’s young life. But in the past weeks that life had been transformed. Before his ride to Palermo, with that fateful package, he had lived the life of a boy. Now, only a few weeks later, he was heading for a different world, already an exile and a murderer. He was about to be involved in a vicious fight, where, it was as certain as could be, someone else would be killed. Yes, he had grown up as part of Nino’s family, so he had been brought up to expect the unexpected. Still, he had never expected this.
Silvio looked about him. Not only the captain was singing lustily. They all were—Anna-Maria, the chaplain, Breguzzo, the first officer, Dr. Tolmezzo, Enrico, the barman from the casino, the opera singer. Even Nino.
Suddenly Silvio understood why Nino had insisted on coming to the service. He was frightened of dying in the fight. Or he was prepared to die, and was making his peace with God. Most likely, knowing Nino, he was asking for a few favors.
Why wasn’t he more religious? Silvio asked himself. Was it really because his parents were dead? That’s what he’d always told himself. No merciful God would have let that happen, surely. Or was there more to it than that? He looked at Nino out of the corner of his eye, then across to Anna-Maria. They both appeared to be unswerving believers—why couldn’t he feel the same?
Maybe it was something to do with family. Anna-Maria had parents, Nino had Annunziata. Did that mean each had a sense of being part of something bigger than a solitary individual, of something that went before and would come after? Silvio suddenly stopped singing. He had never, not once, felt lonely. Until now. Until now he had only wanted to sleep with Annunziata for the pleasure. He had never thought of having children. If he was killed in the fight with the Orestanos, he would leave no one behind. The only way to make up for losing his parents was to have children of his own: he saw that now.
When Silvio entered Anna-Maria’s cabin that evening, she was already in her nightdress, reading. She put down her book, gave him a peck on the cheek, and pulled him by his jacket toward the bedroom. “The champagne’s in here.”
He resisted, however. “What are you reading?”
“Something translated from the French, about a woman who takes Paris by storm.”
“Who wrote it?”
“A Frenchman called Emile Zola.”
“Can a man write about women?”
She eyed him. “Why are you so interested?”
“Why are you?”
“I told you. You can go a
nywhere with books. All over the world. Into the past. You feel things in books, sometimes, before you feel them in real life.”
“Such as?”
She shook her head. “You’re not here to talk about books, Silvio.” She reached out and took his hand. Once in the bedroom, she began opening the champagne. He went to help but she shook him off. “I’ll do this. You get undressed.”
He unbuttoned his tunic and began to slide it over his shoulders.
“What’s that?” She had spotted the gun in his pocket.
He had planned to tell her afterward, as Nino had said, but now that she had seen the gun he told her why it was there.
As he did so he noticed that Anna-Maria changed. She gave him his champagne, but then, taking hers, she walked away from him. She reopened the door that linked the bedroom and the cabin. She walked back and forth in the cabin, asking questions.
“Whose idea was this? How many times have you used a gun? How can you be so sure there will be only three Orestanos? How can you shoot them—the whole ship will hear the explosion. What would happen if Nino got killed but you lived? How do you know they will even accept the bait?”
The more questions she asked, however, the more Silvio realized that they weren’t real questions, in the sense that she demanded a specific answer. Rather, Anna-Maria was rehearsing, for her own benefit, the risks of the venture. But the whole time she was excited. Last night she’d been eager to hear about his vendetta killing. Part of her was frightened, yes. But she seemed fired up by the idea of him as a gunman. Now she even went to his tunic, which he had dropped on a chair, and took out the gun. Silvio noticed that beneath her nightdress Anna-Maria’s nipples were firm.
She came back into the bedroom and stood before him. Gently, she shoved him backward so that he sat on the bed. Then she pushed him flat, lifted her nightdress over her head and, completely naked, sat astride him.
Anna-Maria looked up and down the deck. “All clear,” she whispered. Silvio stepped outside. It was the following night, cloudy, but with brief snatches of moonlight. It didn’t take him long to reach the ventilator shaft he had earmarked as his hiding place. It was very quiet on board.
