by James R Benn
Sciafani shrugged and obliged. They exchanged some rapid-fire Italian, and Sciafani shrugged again, that all-purpose gesture that I'd seen more of in Sicily than I had before in my whole life. "He says Don Calo will tell you what happened, if he wishes to, and to stop asking questions."
I was pretty sure Sciafani had added that last part himself.
CHAPTER * TWENTY-ONE
WE DROVE NORTH, on back roads through little villages. The Fiat strained up a dirt track climbing through orchards and olive groves until the road straightened out and we saw a small hilltop town in the distance. A signpost said Montaperto, and I could make out a collection of orange-tiled roofs clustered together on the highest point around. I looked back and was rewarded with a view of green rolling hills and a dusty, brown view of Agrigento farther out. The car slowed, and I saw an Italian soldier approach us carrying a shovel on his shoulder. He wore his bustina but no shirt and he was soaked in sweat. I tried to shrink into the backseat, to make my American uniform invisible.
It didn't matter. He and the driver chatted amiably as four packs of cigarettes were handed over to the soldier. They were Echt Orients, a German brand. I guessed the Mafia liked to spread its business around. The driver ground his gears as the Fiat struggled with the incline. The soldato called to his buddies and they left the entrenchment they were digging to claim their smokes. As we passed, the snout of a heavy machine gun was visible, protruding from the sandbags and covering the lovely valley behind us. A mortar was set up behind it, surrounded by sandbags and shells. Camouflage netting covered the emplacement, making it look like a natural fold in the terrain. By the time you got close enough to see it, you'd be dead.
"They are Sicilian," Sciafani said, as if that explained everything: the easy passage, the cigarettes, the deadly ambush.
We drove through the narrow street that cut through the village. The buildings were two or three stories tall, covered in faded stucco that had crumbled away in places, revealing rough brickwork underneath. Probably a few hundred people lived in these homes, crowded along the roadway at the top of the hill. I knew what would happen to them if our guys came up that hill and got hit by the mortar and machine gun. The soldati would take out a dozen or so GIs before they were pinned down. Some energetic lieutenant might try flanking them, but there was no cover on either side of the road. That would fail, and finally he'd radio Battalion HQ for artillery or an air strike. They might have to wait a while. Or maybe they'd have armor support coming up. Either way, the small emplacement would be smashed, along with a good portion of the village. People would hide in their cellars, and tons of brick would fall on them, fires would rage, and the ground would shake with each hit. A couple of hundred people would die, all because four Sicilian soldiers stayed at their post.
Had Nick betrayed our mission? Or could he have needed the handkerchief for something else? I couldn't think about him. Right now I had enough to worry about with Sciafani. He was armed and in his own strange world, and I had no idea how that was going to impact mine.
We cleared the village and the Fiat bounced over a potholed dirt track, descending into the valley due north. Sciafani pulled his dagger out and cleaned it, using the burlap bag to wipe it down. When he was finally satisfied, he smiled weakly, almost apologetically, and cut a piece of cheese and bread with it. He handed them to the driver, who took the food without comment or thanks. Then he cut up the rest and we shared it, washed down with wine from the bottle, which we passed around. A communion of secrets.
We picked up a good road and passed by more fields and orchards. Lemons hung heavy on branches, and the ground between rows was freshly turned. The air was cooler here, tinged with a hint of green richness emanating from the dark, fertile soil. There were no houses, no roadblocks or hidden entrenchments. It was peaceful, and part of me wished I could sit in the shade beneath an orange tree, drink wine, and sleep.
I did sleep, but when I opened my eyes I was still in the backseat with Sciafani, and the fertile fields were far behind us.
"What the hell is that smell?" I asked, realizing what had awoken me.
"The Vulcanelli di Macalube," Sciafani said, gesturing out to the grayish brown mud flats surrounding us. No more greenery, no smell of fresh-turned soil. Instead, the stink of sulphur and parched, cracked layers of mud, divided by streams of oozing gray liquid, assaulted my senses. I even wondered for a second if I was dreaming, but the smell convinced me I was wide awake.
"What is it, and do we have to go through it?"
"It is an area of natural gases, forcing the mud to the surface. See?" He pointed to a mound about a yard high, where bubbles of gray mud exploded out of the ground and ran down in rivulets, looking like pictures I'd seen of lava from flowing volcanoes. "It goes on for a few kilometers more. It is a safe passage; no one would put a roadblock here."
"You got that right," I said, trying not to breathe the rotten egg odor in too deeply.
"There is a legend that once a great city stood here," Sciafani said, staring out the window with that faraway look again. "The people of the city thought so highly of themselves that they forgot to thank the gods properly for their good fortune. This angered the gods, and they sunk the city beneath the earth, condemning the people to live forever underground. The only thing that comes to the surface is their tears." We drove through the macabre landscape, past bubbling pools and streams of ooze, until finally we left the weeping city behind. I thought about the bomb damage I'd seen in London and the destruction across North Africa, the rumble-strewn streets of Agrigento. Nature--or the gods--had matched that devastation here.
We stopped in Aragona, where more cigarettes changed hands and soldati filled our gas tank from five-gallon jerry cans, taken from one of their own trucks. Our driver seemed to know everyone on this route, and I figured he was part of Don Calo's communication network. Nothing in writing or over the phone, nothing but reports and whispers between the caporegimes and their couriers.
We crossed the Salito River and saw Italian engineers, a guastatori unit, wiring demolition charges beneath the bridge. On the north side, two antitank guns covered the approach to the river, their barrels barely visible jutting out from the camouflaged bunkers. Again, cigarettes were handed all around, and our driver joked with the men, who were glad to take a break from their work. An officer stood apart from them, glaring at our car, but saying nothing.
"Many of the officers are not Sicilian," Sciafani said. "Mussolini does not trust us to lead our own men, so he puts Fascists in charge, men from the north." He uttered the phrase like a curse.
The sun was low in the western sky, beginning to touch the tips of the mountains we were traveling through. The road curved back and forth on switchbacks, slowly gaining altitude as we approached the crest and the mountaintop village of Mussomeli. The Fiat seemed to accelerate in thanks as the ground leveled out, and we passed a tall, rocky outcropping, a couple of hundred yards in height, with a small castle built into the top of the rock. Italian Army trucks were parked at its base, along with tents sprouting aerials, all covered by the usual netting. They definitely had artillery spotters up there, with a view for miles in every direction. As long as they had this observation post, anything that moved south of Mussomeli would get plastered by their artillery.
We headed down the north side of the mountain to the town. Mussomeli was at a crossroads, five roads intersecting near it. The town itself cascaded down the side of the mountain, a crowded assembly of gray stone buildings spread around a church with a tall steeple. A column of Italian soldiers was marching out of town, past a concrete bunker covering the main road. Our driver waved, and some of the men nodded back. Evidently he didn't have enough cigarettes for a whole company. He spoke to Sciafani, pointed back at the column of men with his thumb, and laughed.
"His sister-in-law's uncle is the sergente of that company, all Sicilians. He says there is a platoon of MVSN Fascists at the castle, and the commander of the town is a Fascist, and that the
Sicilians will cut their throats as soon as the word is given."
"Whose word?" I asked.
"Don Calo's," Sciafani answered. "Who else?"
"It sounds like he's in a position to save a lot of lives."
"A man who can save lives can also take them, have you thought of that?" He spoke with a fierceness that surprised me. Ever since Agrigento he'd been subdued. Stunned by the realization of what he'd done. Now , as we drew closer to Villalba, I sensed a shift in him, an anger that overcame whatever guilt he felt, becoming stronger as the distance from his murderous act increased. Were we getting closer to another? I wanted to ask him directly, but I couldn't assume the driver didn't understand English. A man like Don Calogero Vizzini hadn't survived without playing every angle, and I figured he'd want to know anything that passed between us.
"Tell me about the village you were born in, Enrico." I had a suspicion that whatever secret he was keeping about his family was the reason for his actions. All of them, including killing Tommy the C and staying with me.
"It is not important," he said.
"What did your father do?"
"My father is a physician."
"Not your adoptive father. Your real father," I said. "What was his name?"
There was silence in the car. Sciafani put his hand to his mouth, as if to keep the name from slipping out. Leaning against the window, his eyes darted to the driver, who stared straight ahead. He switched on his lights, illuminating the winding road and the looming pine branches that crowded over it.
"Nunzio. Nunzio Infantino," Sciafani said, balling the hand pressed against his mouth into a fist so that the name was barely understandable. He closed his eyes and doubled up, as if in great pain, still holding his hand to his mouth. I waited. Finally he opened his hand and gasped for breath, exhausted from the ordeal of uttering his father's name.
The driver spoke, I think to ask Sciafani if he was going to be sick. He glanced back and Sciafani shook his head and gestured for him to keep driving. I nodded and was rewarded with another Sicilian shrug.
"Was your village like the villages we drove through today? All the buildings crowded together, maybe located at a crossroads?"
"No, there is no crossroads. But it does sit upon a hilltop, surrounding the Chiesa di San Filippo, where I was baptized. As Enrico Infantino."
I was watching the driver's eyes in the rearview mirror. I could only see half his face, but I saw him react to the name: a blink, a quick look in the mirror at Sciafani, then back to the road. Whether he understood English or not, he'd recognized that name. I tapped Sciafani on the arm, where the driver couldn't see, and signaled with my hand to keep it down. He nodded.
"Well, whatever General Eisenhower thinks about the Mafia, he'll be very glad if Don Calo cooperates. It will not only save American lives but Sicilian lives too, in all those small villages like yours. Many lives, Enrico."
He shook his head. Now that he'd spoken his father's name, I wondered if the whole history of his life that he'd kept buttoned up was aching to be released. But he'd gotten my warning about the driver, that maybe he'd said too much already. So he sighed and handed me the burlap bag with the big Bodeo revolver still in it.
"Yes," he said sadly. "Many lives, many innocent lives. You would think it would be a simple choice, wouldn't you?"
"There are no simple choices. People think there are because they don't think about their options. My father used to say that if people thought through what might happen before they acted there'd be a lot less killing on any Saturday night. He's a homicide detective, in Boston."
"He is wise, but some people need to act more and think less. A lifetime of thinking alone is no good. A desire that is never acted upon becomes pitiful. Do you know your Shakespeare, Billy? Hamlet?"
"Well, I had to read it in school. I had a hard time with it so my dad took me to see the play. They were putting it on at Harvard. It was a lot easier to listen to than read."
"One of my English teachers had us read Shakespeare and memorize passages as part of our lessons. In act three, Hamlet says:
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action."
"I remember that part about conscience making cowards of us all," I said. I hadn't understood anything the actors were saying at first, and then all of a sudden I realized I understood everything, and that it was beautiful.
"It is very true. But I think if Hamlet had gone to war, that pale cast of thought would not have lasted. He had to revenge himself on the man who killed his father. Don Calo killed mine."
CHAPTER * TWENTY-TWO
WE CHUGGED UP A long, steep hill, surrounded by acres of wheat on all sides. Workers dotted the fields, cutting and stacking the crop, moving like a ragged line of infantry, stooping for cover and then moving forward again, mowing down the enemy that faced them in never-ending rows. We passed a donkey, laden with bundles of grain, led by a peasant woman. She wore a gray tattered dress, her stooped head covered by a black scarf. Adding to the donkey's burden, a man sat astride it, his feet scraping the road.
"He will wear out his wife and his donkey before he walks," Sciafani said. "Then he will have nothing and will look back with longing on the days when he used to ride an ass."
The driver laughed. I'd been right--he understood English. I looked at Sciafani, and he shrugged, an eloquent gesture that said, What can we do?
The car crested a rise and picked up speed as the village of Villalba came into view. The sun was setting behind us and lit the town, bathing the gray and brown stone walls in soft light, casting jagged shadows into the streets. Villalba sat on a gentle slope, surrounded by cultivated fields and a hilltop overlooking it to the north. It looked like any other town we'd passed through, but this was the end of the line, one way or the other. No troops were digging entrenchments; no machine guns covered the road into town. Villalba was not a crossroads, not a strategic center. Its only military value lay in what one man might or might not do, in how much weight a silk handkerchief carried, and how convincing I could be.
The car turned into a large piazza, anchored at one end by a two-story building with BANCO DI SICILIA in large letters at the top and at the other by a tall church tower. I wasn't surprised when the driver stopped right between them, in front of a house where a young man lounged against the wall next to an iron gate, his lupara slung over his shoulder. The windows were narrow and guarded with iron grilles. I wrapped the burlap bag around Tommy the C's revolver and shoved it under the seat in front of me. I glanced at Sciafani and he nodded wearily in agreement. There were bound to be more shotguns inside, and two guys bringing a dead caporegime's pistol into a Mafia chief 's house would mean a very short stay.
The driver got out and signaled us to follow the guard through the gate. As I did, I felt an odd satisfaction at having made it this far. A few days ago, I'd had no idea who I was or why I was here. I'd fought the Germans, escaped a Mob trap, been smuggled across the mountains, bombed, faced down bandits, and regained most of my memory in the process. Two men had been murdered, and others, including Harry, had died, all for this damn silk handkerchief stuffed deep in my pocket. I realized I didn't know exactly what to say to Don Calo, or if he'd understand me. Nick was the one who spoke the Sicilian dialect fluently, and who knew where the hell he had ended up.
The walls of the house were thick, and the entryway opened into a small courtyard with a covered walkway around it. The windows facing the inner courtyard were wide and open, with welcoming soft yellow light spilling out onto the stones. I heard the clatter of dishes and women's laughter. It was strange, delightful, and disorienting.
The guard put his palm out, signaling us to wait. He removed his cap, stamped his feet to shake off the dirt and d
ust, and opened a door, leaving us alone in the darkening courtyard. If it wasn't for the guard on the other side of an iron gate, I would've been tempted to run, grab the car, and head for the hills. Except we were already in the hills. Surrounded by Italians and Germans. I shivered, chilled by this thought and by the night air. Sciafani brushed at his suit and tucked in his shirt, doing his best to make himself presentable. With all the dirt, blood, and sweat he'd soaked up, it was hard to see any improvement. He looked nervous, and I wondered if this was the end of his mission too.
The door opened slowly, squeaking on its hinges. A silver-haired man with a slight paunch descended the two stone steps into the courtyard. His eyebrows were bushy and jet black, in sharp contrast to his slicked-back hair. He wore a short-sleeved white shirt, and his suspenders pulled his baggy pants above his waist. He had a broad face and a wide mouth and his eyes narrowed as if he was studying us, trying to understand exactly what we were. Behind him, a wide-shouldered man, his hands behind him, stood in the doorway and stared at us. He didn't have a paunch and his eyes were steady.
"Benvenuto," the older man said, approaching us and staring at Sciafani. He cocked his head, the way people do when they're trying to place a face.
"Don Calogero," I said, then surprised myself by nearly bowing.
"Welcome," he said, "but please wait."
He spoke slowly in a thick accent, holding his hand up and waving it back and forth, as if he couldn't be bothered with the first American soldier to make it to Villalba. He spoke rapidly to Sciafani, a stream of questions that reminded me of a small automatic snapping off a series of shots. Sciafani's face crumpled. A lifetime, perhaps, of knowing this man had killed his father, and decades of fear holding him back, until everything he'd seen and endured in this war had conspired to make him a killer. It all played out on his face as Don Calogero Vizzini, whom the Allies considered the single most important Sicilian, stood inches from him, asking who he was.
