Dark Night of the Soul

by Kristi Belcamino

  “Yes, that is my hometown. My husband is from here, so we move here.”

  “My mother is from Sicily.”

  The woman tilted her head. “What is her name, child?”

  “Her name was Lucia-Grazia Bonadonna Santella.”

  The woman’s eyes grew wide. She leaned towards me, nearly tipping out her chair. She reached toward me and started speaking in Italian so fast I couldn’t understand the words.

  “I don’t understand,” I said. She clutched my hand. I cast a desperate glance at the younger woman but she was no longer in the room.

  “The Bonadonnas. Saved us.”

  “My mother’s family helped you? Saved you?”

  “Yes.” She yelled something in Italian. The young woman appeared in the doorway, a concerned look on her face.

  The older woman spoke in Italian and the younger woman disappeared. Within seconds, she came back in with a small box that she placed on the older woman’s lap. The box was full of colorful prayer cards with pictures of saints and the Virgin Mary and the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Some were laminated. Some were frayed on the edges, worn soft from being fingered over the years.

  She flipped through them, biting her lip, squinting and speaking quietly to herself. Then, waving her arm in triumph, she held a card up high. It was a picture of the Virgin Mary dressed in baby blue robes with a crown of pale pink roses. She thrust the card at me.

  I turned it over.

  Lucia Maria Bonadonna. 1959-1989.

  My grandmother. It had to be. She’d only lived to thirty. She and my grandfather had died in a freak boat accident on their way to a vacation in Sardinia. The captain had sent a distress signal and seconds later the boat exploded.

  The young woman stood in the doorway now. She tapped her watch and looked at the door. It was time for me to go. I held up one finger to signify I’d only be a minute.

  I squatted down beside the woman’s wheelchair and held the card out to her. “Who was this?”

  The woman looked at me and made a face. “Who are you?”

  “Gia Santella,” I said. “Remember? My mother is Lucia-Grazie Bonadonna Santella.”

  “Aha. You look nothing like your mother. You saved my daughter.” She smiled and grabbed my hand tightly.

  I didn’t argue with her. “You know … you knew my mother?”

  She made a distasteful face and shook her head. “No. Her family, yes.”

  There it was. Her family again. And the face confused me.

  She clutched at me. “Your mother saved us. You saved my daughter.” She leaned over and made the sign of the cross on my forehead. I resisted the impulse to draw back. I looked up helplessly at the young woman who just shook her head. I stood.

  “Can I come back another time?”

  “Yes, of course. Any friend of my daughter is welcome in this house.”

  “Thank you.” I palmed the prayer card as the young woman escorted me to the door.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Jack Sparrow

  I was in Pizzo within the hour.

  Rounding a corner at the top of the mountain, I nearly swerved off the road taking in the spectacular turquoise sea below. Like most of the cities along the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea, Pizzo was a city of terra cotta-roofed buildings perched clinging to the side of a cliff above the water. A thin strip of white beach dotted with colorful umbrellas lay far below.

  The town square, Piazza della Repubblica, wasn’t far from the beach on a rare stretch of flat terrain. I parked a few streets away and made my way through the square, packed with people, tents and café tables. At one end, a band played what sounded like The Rolling Stones with Italian lyrics.

  Giant glass vats of strawberries were everywhere. As I walked by, people proffered cups of strawberry gelato, strawberry cake, and tiny strawberries dotted with sugar.

  For free.

  And, as luck would have it, I was allergic to strawberries. They’d triggered a nasty rash around my mouth when I was little so I’d avoided them ever since. I shook my head at every gorgeous offering, feeling as if I was telling them to fuck off instead of just politely declining their generosity.

  “You no like strawberries?” I looked down. It was a slight boy about ten with massive dark brown eyes and incredibly long thick eyelashes.

  “How did you know I spoke English?” I said.

  “Americana,” he said. He scoffed and pointed at me, his hands going from my head to my feet. I was slightly insulted.

  “Sono Americana e Italiana.”

  He made a pffting noise and waved his hand back over his shoulder.

  He held out the gelato cup. “It’s free. No money.”

  “I love gelato, but I can’t have strawberries. I’m allergic.”

  He raised an eyebrow and then looked over my shoulder. He raced over to a man who was scooping out the gelato, said something and came back, grabbing my hand.

  “You know that Pizzo is famous for two things?” he said. “Strawberries and tartufo di Pizzo. Come.”

  “I’m not sure what that is, but I think I surely must have it.”

  He led me by the hand through the crowds. He was adorable.

  Inside a small gelateria, he ordered for me.

  The man behind the counter handed me a cone of gelato with fudge and sugar dripping from it. The man shook his head when I pushed euros across the counter, letting it sit there.

  I took a bite of the gelato: chocolate and hazelnut. Oh, my God.

  The man smiled at the sounds I made. For a second, I flashed back to Bobby sitting in the restaurant the night before we left San Francisco. Not long after that, everything in my life had taken a turn for the worst. The car crash kicked off the bad luck that culminated in Bobby’s murder.

  Trying not to show my despair, I smiled at the man, gently pushed the euros across the counter saying, “Please” in English—somehow the word for “please” in Italian escaped me—and walked out, swiping at a few stray tears.

  The boy ran after me. “My uncle is mad you pay him. It’s a feast day.”

  “That’s your uncle?”

  The boy looked up and took in my tears, concern lining his face. “You don’t like?” He gestured at my dessert.

  “I love,” I said. “I just was a little sad. It reminded me of someone I loved.”

  “Someone gone?”

  I nodded. I was here for a reason. Not to sample the wares in this incredible town. I looked around. The square was packed with people. Any signs of two murders here the day before were long gone.

  “Can you show me where the men were killed here yesterday?”

  He was a sharp kid. His face scrunched up. “You know the men killed here? Is that why you are sad?”

  “No.”

  He seemed satisfied with that answer and led me over to a statue in one corner that was topped by a bust of a haughty looking dude. The pillar said, “Umberto 1, Pizzo MCMII.”

  “Here?” I asked.

  He nodded. The stones around the statue looked damp as if they had been recently washed, but there was no sign of blood.

  “Who’s the dude?”

  “King Umberto.” He said it as if I were an idiot. Which maybe I was. There was some significance to the bodies being left right here. I knew it. Just then, the man at the booth where the boy had been working, whistled. The boy scowled but leaned over and kissed my hand. He held my hand and looked up at me, eyes soft.

  “I must go, my queen,” he said, and raced off.

  I stood staring at him. Why had he called me his queen? I chalked it up to the Italian flirtatious nature. But still, it disturbed me to be called “queen” when I was hunting the Queen of Spades. For a second, I wanted to chase after him and ask what he meant, but I saw that the man had sent him on some errand scurrying up a back stairway.

  The bakery was two doors away. I decided to Google the king to see if there was some significance to the bodies being left at his feet.

  My phone screen was har
d to read in the sun, so I stepped into a dark doorway and scrolled through the tiny text. Not much. Looked like the king was loathed for being an authoritarian and ultimately killed by anarchists after a few failed attempts. But then as I read on, my eyes widened. His assassin was an Italian-American living in New Jersey who came overseas strictly to murder the king.

  Although there had been several unsuccessful attempts to take the king’s life by fellow anarchists, Gaetano Bresci had succeeded, shooting the king to death on July 29, 1900.

  It made sense that the Queen of Spades, who was in her own way an anarchist, by declaring war on the La Cosa Nostra, would leave the bodies at the feet of the king’s bust.

  Just then my phone rang again. My heart leaped, hoping it was Dante. It was James. I stared at it for a second this time before sending it to voicemail. This time he didn’t leave a message. I had three unheard messages on my phone from him. But then, a text popped up from him. “I’m sorry about Bobby.”

  I reeled. How did he know? Then I remembered the shooting had obviously made international news. For a second, my finger hovered over the button to call him back. But I couldn’t deal with his sympathy right then. It would make me weak. And more than anything, right now I needed to be strong.

  I tucked my phone into my bag.

  The shadows were growing long so I headed toward the bakery, pushing the door open.

  A woman in her late thirties, her red hair pushed back by sunglasses, was behind the counter reading a book. She wore all white and a giant thick white apron.

  “I’m looking for Donny?” I hoped she spoke English.

  “I am she.” She arched a perfectly manicured eyebrow. She must be used to people assuming she was a male. “May I help you?”

  “Do you have a second?” I looked around. The glass cases were mostly empty. A few crumbs left behind. The baskets behind the counter only contained a stray roll or two and one loaf of bread. It was too late in the day to buy bread at the bakery in this part of the world. No self-respecting Italian would wait until after lunch to buy bread.

  Donny stood and came out from behind the counter. She brushed her hands off on her apron and untied it in the back.

  “I was just going to take a break.” She smiled. I declined to point out that reading an Umberto Eco paperback behind the counter might be considered “taking a break” in most places, but to each her own. She disappeared through a back doorway for a few minutes and then came back with tea and a plate of small cookies. No strawberries in sight, thank God.

  We were halfway into our tea when I finally brought up the murders.

  Her eyes met mine over her tea cup. “I thought that was why you were here.”

  “Why?”

  “I read the papers. You were part of the group of Americans in the Hotel Rizzoli shooting.”

  It was not a question. I swallowed the lump lodged in my throat and nodded.

  “My boyfriend.”

  She placed her hand on my mine. “I am sorry.”

  “I saw a woman there. On the street, outside. She had long dark hair and wore all black, formfitting clothes …” I trailed off. The way she became still told me I didn’t need to say more.

  “Did you see her face?”

  “No, only from behind.”

  She took a sip of her tea before speaking again. Carefully she set it down, arranging it so it lined up perfectly with the colorful square of tile on the table.

  “You think it is the Queen of Spades?”

  “Yes.” I searched her eyes. There was no reaction.

  “Why did you ask about seeing her face?” I said.

  “Nobody knows exactly what she looks like. She appeared here in Calabria a few years ago. Out of nowhere, it seemed. But she was instantly connected. She had faithful followers like that.” She snapped her fingers, the red nail polish a crimson blur. “She is mysterious. But deadly.”

  “I think she killed my boyfriend.”

  The woman looked thoughtful, placing her chin on her hand. “Why?”

  I opened my mouth. I was speechless. I had no motive. But she was there. And she ran off before the police arrived.

  “Why do I think that or why did she kill him?”

  “The Queen of Spades doesn’t kill innocent people.” The same arched eyebrow. This time it pissed me off.

  “My boyfriend never did a thing to hurt a soul in his life.”

  “But the La Cosa Nostra,” she said, jutting her chin toward the square where the bodies were found. “That is right up their alley.”

  “Killing those young men?”

  She laughed loudly, throwing her head back as she did.

  “No,” she said once she was done. “That was the Queen of Spades. She killed them because they were La Cosa Nostra. I meant the Hotel Rizzoli? That sounds like La Cosa Nostra.”

  She met my eyes, not looking away. It made me uncomfortable but I was determined not to look away.

  “Why couldn’t it be both? Her and them?”

  “They are her sworn enemies.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.” The woman looked over my shoulder, her forehead creasing. “I mean obviously because the La Cosa Nostra … well,” she shrugged. “Are criminals, but other than that? I don’t know.”

  I thought about that. It was what the newspaper had said. The Queen of Spades had declared war on the other mafiosi.

  “But the motorcyclists could be working for her. She was overseeing them … in the shadows, making sure the job was done.”

  The woman tilted her head. “If it was her hit, if she had been the one who ordered the murders, do you think she would be within one hundred miles of there? No. There is a reason she has never been seen or caught.”

  “She didn’t know I was out on the balcony and saw her.”

  “The Queen of Spades would never take that risk.”

  “Maybe she made her first mistake.” I said, staring until she looked away.

  She stood. “I must go check the dough now.”

  Before she slipped through the doorway, she paused, and as if it were an afterthought said, “Be sure to check out our famous sea caves before you leave the country.”

  It didn’t make sense, but her comment was so wooden and odd that it sent a tremor of unease through me. Sea caves?

  Keeping an eye on the door in case she returned, I wandered over to the counter, looking for something. I didn’t know what. Some clue. Something that would lead me to the Queen of Spades. The paperback lay splayed open, forgotten. She was about half way through The Name of the Rose. Good book. But the name “Umberto.” Same as the statute of the king outside. A lot of fucking creepy coincidences in Italy. Things that never happened in America.

  A small boy was standing by my car when I got to it. He looked like a smaller version of the boy who had helped me earlier. Same big brown eyes and ridiculously long eyelashes. When I got closer, he noticed me and his eyes lit up. “Regina di spade. Regina di spade. Regina di spade.”

  He was chanting the words gleefully and dancing around. Then he took a stick and dipped and thrust and parried here and there like a pirate with a sword.

  Must be pretty boring being a kid in Pizzo, I thought. Finally, I had to be aggressive to get to my car door, which he seemed to be guarding.

  “Move it or lose it,” I said, getting closer. He stepped aside and did the most eloquent bow, that I stood struck for a moment until he winked, tapping his heels together with military precision.

  “Go find someone your own age to play with, Jack Sparrow,” I muttered.

  Just then the older boy showed up. He cuffed his little brother in the head and I felt bad.

  He scolded him in Italian.

  “He’s fine. He was just being a kid.”

  The younger boy smiled. “Queen.” He looked at his older brother whose cheeks grew read.

  “Why is he calling me that?” Then I remembered the older brother had also called me that earlier.

  He s
hrugged. “You know, the Queen of Spades.”

  “What?”

  Just then a man walked out of a store and yelled. The boys scuttled away toward him, the older boy looking back at me apologetically and then blowing me a kiss. The younger boy turned and saluted me, standing at attention. Weird little dudes.

  I watched them in my rearview mirror as I drove away.

  Queen. Shit.

  They thought I was the Queen of Spades. Son of a bitch.

  As I pulled around the block, I passed the alley behind the bakery and glanced down it. Donny, the baker, stood outside smoking and talking animatedly on a cell phone, hands waving around.

  Have to go check the dough, my ass.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Freefalling

  Before leaving town, I pulled over to the dirt shoulder overlooking the sea below. The water below didn’t even look real. The turquoise color was brilliant. The sun was low on the horizon, casting an orange and pink glow that was spreading across the skies and the seas. It was like a movie. I’d planned to show Bobby all of this. To give him his first glimpse of southern Italy. To share all this beauty with him. To watch staggering sunsets like this together. To take him to Sicily where my ancestors were from. To make love to him in the warm waters of the Mediterranean. No more.

  All my dreams had been shattered.

  It seemed like a lifetime ago that Bobby and I had talked about visiting Sicily together. I’d wanted him by my side when I finally entered the villa that Turricci had given my mother. It was high time I sold it, washed my hands of something that reeked of his rapist blood money. But I wanted to at least look inside and see if there was any sign that she’d ever been there. Maybe some remnant of her preserved.

  It was not something I was looking forward to doing, but I had taken comfort knowing that Bobby would be by my side. No more.

  Something about being in the old country, where my mother and father had lived, felt both comforting and terrifying. The way people reacted to my mother’s name. Bonadonna. It was with both awe and fear. I didn’t understand.

  There were too many secrets surrounding my parent’s pasts and I didn’t think I had the strength to uncover them. It was all I could do to stay focused on the only thing keeping me alive: my thirst for revenge.