Murder In Matera

by Helene Stapinski

  The locals passed in their steady passeggiata and craned their necks to get a good look at us. I was no longer the only American in Bernalda. But they all knew who I was and probably clucked their tongues when they saw me alone in the café with Leo, one of the town’s most eligible bachelors. “Vergogna, vergogna,” they were probably mumbling under their breath. Shame, shame. I had a wedding ring on my finger. And they all knew Leo was not my husband.

  My husband was “far from town,” just like Francesco had been when Vita gave birth.

  And though I didn’t hear anyone say it, I could hear them think it when they looked at me.

  Puttana.

  Chapter 28

  TAKE THIS BODY, TAKE THIS BLOOD

  EVARISTO WALKED FASTER THAN ANYONE ELSE IN BASILICATA. He was from Rome, which explained why he operated in a higher gear, much closer to my New York speed. He was a policeman in Pisticci whom I’d met while doing research here ten years ago. Evaristo now had a gray beard and wore a tan cargo vest with lots of pockets. He looked like Ernest Hemingway, but I recognized him right away under all that facial growth as he hurried past me on the street one morning.

  As he zipped by, I shouted his name. Evaristo!

  He abruptly stopped, turned, looked up, and recognized me, a broad smile spreading beneath his shaggy beard.

  We hugged and I told him that I had tried emailing him about this most recent visit, that I was living just a few blocks from here. He said that he—like many of the older Italians here—rarely checked his email.

  I introduced Giuseppe when he arrived and told Evaristo we were doing research in the archives in Pisticci.

  “I am now in charge of the police records!” Evaristo exclaimed, his still-dark eyebrows rising high on his forehead. “I can help you.”

  “It looks like we found the murder,” I said, and told him about the stolen pears, and the shotgun and Antonio Camardo dying in the attack. “I want to look up the victim today. He was from Pisticci. Probably the landowner. I want to see if we can find his death certificate.”

  “That’s easy,” said Evaristo, leading us toward the comune. Minutes later he was perched on a ladder, reaching for the fourth level of a metal shelf seven feet off the ground. He put on his glasses, craning his neck to read the spines of the two-foot-tall books that were so big and heavy they had caused the metal shelves to sag. After a minute or so, he located the right book, a large brown marbled volume with the words “Registro Dei Morti Di Pisticci” written on the beige spine. Below that was the year, 1872.

  Evaristo twisted around and handed the unwieldy book to me, then climbed down. He took the book back and placed it on a nearby desk. I came and stood next to him as he flipped through the yellowed pages and suddenly, there he was—our man, Antonio Vincenzo Camardo. Evaristo gave me a fist bump.

  I leaned over and read the death certificate along with Evaristo. I read it once, and then read it twice. Because I thought I was reading it wrong. Then I read it a third time. It said Camardo was only fourteen years old when he died. How could that be? How could the padrone have been only fourteen? But there it was, in the book.

  “Is this right?” I asked Evaristo, still thinking I was reading it wrong. “It says he was only fourteen years old.” Giuseppe read over our shoulders.

  “Yes,” said Evaristo, looking again at the death certificate. “He was fourteen. A boy.” Giuseppe nodded solemnly.

  It also said that Camardo lived right down the street at 56 Via Cirillo. “This was not a rich neighborhood back then,” Giuseppe said, pointing to the address in the book.

  Antonio Camardo, the victim of my family crime, was not the padrone after all. He wasn’t even the son of the padrone, judging by this address. This kid was a peasant, just like Francesco and Vita.

  He was just a boy left to guard the land. A boy who had been hired and put there by the padrone to do his dirty work. It suddenly made sense why his mother was with him.

  I thought about Francesco brutally beating a boy nearly the same age as my own son. In front of his mother. I wondered how hard Camardo had fought back, how he was surely no match for twenty-seven-year-old Francesco and his friends. It was no longer a story of a poor farmer in battle with an evil landowner unwilling to share his fruit, but a story of some violent, awful men punching and kicking a kid to death.

  And those awful men were my relatives.

  We checked Camardo’s birth certificate, located in another big book, on another bent shelf, just to be sure of his age. And sure enough, in the yellowing book of birth certificates, there he was, born to Carmina Albani and Donato Camardo, a farmer, both age thirty, on September 12, 1858, at 1 P.M. here in this neighborhood in Pisticci.

  We walked over to the address—a small white house with a brown wooden door—and rang the bell. We waited and then rang again. But no one was home. I was relieved. What would I say? My ancestor killed your ancestor? How do you do?

  I tried to imagine what Antonio Camardo looked like but could only conjure pictures of my own son. A big head of coarse brown hair, big pools of dark chocolate-brown eyes, the stubble of his first mustache pushing its way to the surface of his upper lip. Maybe he had just started shaving with his father’s razor like Dean had. His voice had probably just recently changed, deep and more manly than the body that gave it life.

  His body would be tall and tan and skinny, the lanky arms and legs of a still-growing, awkward adolescent, his mother hopeful he would grow into a handsome, graceful man one day. I wondered if Carmina looked at him like I looked at Dean, stealing glances at the dark, wiry hair just beginning to sprout under his armpits, the few hairs poking through on his chest and skinny legs. Did she project what those adolescent features would look like once they were finished changing and evolving, once they were set on the face of the man who was once her baby? Except her baby, this boy, Antonio Camardo, would not grow into a man. Francesco would see to that.

  He would die, surrounded by his mother and father and his extended family, in that small house on Via Cirillo, his head wound bleeding not onto fancy sheets and a pillow, but on the straw-stuffed, lumpy mattress of a peasant.

  I thought about this fourteen-year-old boy learning to shoot his gun. Dean had shot a gun once on a family trip to Wyoming. We were with a friend who knew about guns and we had all gone target shooting out on the prairie, an exotic outing for a kid from New York City, where playing with guns was not considered cool.

  But here, in Southern Italy, boys on farms were taught to shoot rifles, to defend against poachers and brigands. And my relatives.

  Any relief I had felt this week for having found the murder was now replaced by a feeling of sick sorrow for this unknown kid who wasn’t even related to me. The murder was worse than I had imagined.

  I thought about having fist-bumped Evaristo just now and winced. This kid dying was nothing to celebrate.

  Maybe Miserabila was right. I should leave the dead in peace. Knowledge had led me to despair, just like Adam and Eve. Maybe I was better off being ignorant, happier not knowing. But there was no turning back now. The paradise of happy ignorance was lost.

  I thanked Evaristo for his help, kissed him and Giuseppe on both cheeks, and told them I was heading home for lunch. But I wasn’t hungry. My appetite was gone again.

  I HAD GIVEN UP ON THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH LONG AGO, BUT I suddenly felt the need to inhale the familiar smell of incense and be surrounded by a comforting crowd of silent, penitent strangers. Hearing the church bells ring in the late afternoon, I got dressed and headed around the corner to the Convent of San Antonio.

  I took a seat in the back. San Antonio—the same name as the victim—was filled with lifelike statues in bold colors and paintings of the saints done in the dramatic Neapolitan style. A painting of San Bernardino, in his monk outfit, was to my left, as was St. Margherita, St. Bonaventure, and St. Giacomo in a bright red cape. Over near the wall was the Blessed Mother with a luminous crown of real lights floating around her head.<
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  The church was also filled with real people, on a weeknight, which would never be the case in the United States, men, kids, but mostly older women, more than one hundred of them, silently perched in the pews like statues themselves, patiently waiting for Mass to start. A painting of twenty-three Franciscan martyred monks being crucified in a row floated over the altar. The ultra-vibrant colors of the paintings and statues had a supernatural quality to them, almost paganistic, like something you’d see in your dreams or maybe a nightmare.

  Mass began and I tried to follow along, sandwiched between two anziane. I knew the English mass by heart, but not the Italian. I worried the old women would notice I wasn’t reciting all the prayers but was simply mumbling along with nonsense words. Partly to avoid their stares, I did something sacrilegious. I went up to receive communion, which I hadn’t done in years. I knew that you really needed to go to confession before receiving communion after a long absence from the church.

  But there was no time for that. I went straight up to the priest, who was dressed in a white and gold cassock, my hands folded in front of me, lifted my chin up, and heard him say, “Corpo di Cristo.” Body of Christ.

  “Amen,” I replied, pronouncing it the Italian way, with a soft “a.” I stuck out my tongue and the priest placed the host into my mouth. I clamped my teeth down onto it and headed back to my pew, blessing myself quickly as I walked, bypassing the chalice of blessed wine, the “blood of Christ,” which a deacon was handing out to those more faithful than I was. The nuns had taught us never to chew the host, to instead gently let it melt in our mouths. But I was no longer a schoolgirl.

  We had been taught in Catholic school that Jesus had died for our sins—for that original sin committed in the Garden of Eden and all the millions of sins that had followed. Receiving communion, we were told, was our way of welcoming Jesus into our hearts, admitting our wrongdoing, and asking forgiveness, sinners bound by a sacrificial lamb.

  I had never understood the idea of Jesus dying for our sins, but suddenly, looking up at the crucifix over the altar, I understood all at once. It was finally clear to me after all these years. Maybe it was because I couldn’t understand the Italian mass and was left time to reflect for once, looking at him bleeding up there on the cross.

  Jesus had been tortured and murdered in front of his mother and all his friends and everyone he had ever known, for no good reason really. But before he died, he forgave his murderers. He didn’t just say love your enemies. He did love his enemies, even the worst of them. He forgave them for killing him. While his mother watched. That was about as bad as it got, killing someone for no good reason in front of his mother. And he forgave them for it.

  I thought back again to my visit to the Crypt of the Original Sin, where I had seen that mural of Adam and Eve for the first time, the flowers blooming all around them, symbolizing rebirth and regeneration.

  Our sins were not a black mark against us, but our way of learning and teaching ourselves a lesson. Maybe my search was a search for redemption, not just for Vita and Francesco, but for my whole family, a way to get back to paradise and put the past behind us once and for all. It wasn’t just about being stubborn, or worrying about my children’s future sins, or wanting to get revenge against Miserabila.

  It was about forgiveness.

  The anziani gave me a welcoming smile as I returned to my pew and knelt down to begin my prayer. But I wasn’t sure what I was praying for exactly. My list of intercessions was quickly growing and at this rate, I would have to say a whole Rosary to cover all my bases.

  I had started my search thinking the murder was over a simple card game, one man and maybe a woman losing their tempers and killing another in a moment of passion. But this was something else. I couldn’t get the image out of my head of Francesco kicking a fourteen-year-old boy in the head again and again while the kid’s mother watched.

  Maybe I was praying for the strength to walk away. Or was I praying for the strength to stick around? I was praying for Giuseppe’s harvest, that’s for sure. And for his sister Sabrina and the children she’d left behind. And for the man who killed her. I was giving thanks for having found my murder and for having found Imma and Giuseppe to help me. I was praying for my husband and mother back home, and for my children, that Paulina’s strep would go away without any complications. I was praying for the souls of Vita’s dead sons, Rocco and stillborn Domenico, who never made it over to America. And to ask forgiveness for my relatives, for Beansie and cousin Chubby and Mike, and Francesco and Leonardantonio, who had killed an innocent teenager. I was praying for young Antonio Camardo, killed for no good reason, in front of his mother—just like Jesus. I asked forgiveness for that stupid fist bump I had given Evaristo today. But mostly, I was praying for Vita, whose life was about to change because her husband was surely, rightfully headed to prison.

  Chapter 29

  FAR FROM TOWN

  FRANCESCO AND LEONARDANTONIO WERE MANACLED THE whole bumpy ride through the mountains using a bagno handcuff. Rather than two separate cuffs, the bagno consisted of one forged piece of iron shaped like a McDonald’s letter M with two spaces for hands and a vertical metal screw bar with a wing nut beneath the wrists that would be cranked up tightly so that the hands couldn’t move. A padlock kept the cuff in place.

  They wore shackles on their ankles as well, thick, circular iron cuffs bound together with a short iron chain. Their ankles were linked to one another, like on a chain gang. Since it was November, it was starting to grow cold in the mountains during their three-day journey. They stared out the carriage window at the countryside, the olive trees still green but the lush valleys now a golden-yellow stubble.

  That little bastard—that tough guy Camardo with his gun—would have to up and die, Francesco thought. Just my luck. But what was Francesco supposed to do, just let him shoot at them again? He couldn’t let him reload. He had had to attack him. It was his family duty. Leonardantonio was his brother-in-law and had been injured. And Camardo surely would have fired again.

  But had they really punched and kicked him hard enough to kill him? Until he was on top of the guy, Francesco hadn’t realized he was just a kid. But he was just a boy. Maybe it didn’t take much to break him.

  Francesco shuddered, thinking of his own son, Rocco, back home, replaying the scene over and over again in his head, the teenager and his mother shouting at them, Camardo aiming that gun. Loading it from the front and firing. He could see him on the ground reloading the gun, and picture himself running toward him with the stick to stop him. A few punches and kicks and the boy lying there with so much blood pouring out of his head. And then running. Running. And the long, drawn-out drive back to Bernalda with the injured horse.

  He and Leonardantonio couldn’t discuss the murder or their side of the story, not with the carabinieri right there in the carriage with them. But their slumped posture and their longing looks out at the countryside—their freedom suddenly taken from them—communicated all they needed to say to one another. They were headed to the regional capital of Potenza, where they would be tried. Over and over on that long, long ride, they replayed the murder. How could this have happened? What had they gotten themselves into? What would happen to Vita and young Rocco, only seven months old?

  Francesco replayed his goodbye to them in his head, Vita holding the baby in her arms, like a sad Madonna and Child, both her and Rocco crying, sobbing, clinging to Francesco and not wanting him to go. Francesco told her not to worry, that everything would turn out all right. But he was lying. Nothing ever turned out all right in Bernalda in the nineteenth century.

  He was worried this would be their last time together, that he would never return, would never even see them again. They couldn’t make the trip to Potenza to visit him in jail or to attend the trial. It was just not possible; they could barely survive life in Bernalda. And how would they survive without him now? Vita told him before he left, trying to look strong for him and swallow her tears, that she co
uld move back in with her parents, with Teresina and Domenico. But they had their youngest still at home, and a small army of other grandchildren to take care of.

  Francesco and Leonardantonio were tied up at night when the carriage driver and policemen rested in the countryside, darkness falling over the craggy mountains and straw-colored valleys below, like a dark velvet curtain falling on a tragic opera. The leg irons and the bagno cuffs—so named for the deep prisons that would flood, giving the prisoners a bath (or bagno)—were particularly uncomfortable. But for the sadistic carabinieri, that was part of their charm. Along with their worry, and the murder, replayed dozens of times, the cuffs made it hard for Francesco and Leonardantonio to sleep. Just as they drifted off, the sun rose and the carriage was off again, headed to Potenza.

  Chapter 30

  WAY OUT

  ON SMOOTH ITALIAN HIGHWAYS, MY RIDE TO POTENZA WAS much shorter than Francesco and Leonardantonio’s three-day journey. It was just ninety minutes, fully air-conditioned, though we no longer needed the AC by the time we arrived. The town was in the mountains and at least ten degrees cooler than the coast. I was actually a little chilly when I stepped out of the car, the first time I felt so that month. I thought of Francesco and how cold it would be at night in that prison in the middle of November.

  Giuseppe couldn’t come with us. His long-awaited wheat harvest was taking place that day. So Imma and I made the trip without him.

  We wanted to see the prison, Santa Croce, where Francesco and Leonardantonio served time, and the old courthouse where they had been put on trial.

  People from Matera still hadn’t gotten over the fact that Potenza had replaced them as the capital of the region more than two centuries ago. But Potenza’s 380,000 residents could not care less. Their city was more than six times larger.

  Most of the town was modern and ugly. Earthquakes over the centuries had destroyed many of the old, beautiful historic buildings. Potenza was brutta. It couldn’t compare to Matera’s tragic beauty. When you told someone from Matera you were going to Potenza, they sneered and always made some snide comment. “Why would you want to go to Potenza?” “What does Potenza have that we haven’t got?” “Have you been there? It’s not worth the gas to get there.”