Arcadia Awakens

by Kai Meyer

  Her voice made her sound younger than fifteen. It struck Rosa that Iole hadn’t been to school for over six years. She had a television set, she told them; she liked the cartoons best. Rosa wondered whether it was only her vocabulary that had suffered from being held hostage so long.

  “By they you mean Cesare Carnevare and his men?” asked Rosa.

  “Yes.” Iole dropped into one of the bowl-shaped orange plastic chairs, pulling the chain in after her and putting her arms around it. The metal links chinked softly again. “I’ve only seen Cesare three times since they took me. Once right at the beginning, then again in the mountains, and the last time was a few months ago. He came here looking for something.”

  Alessandro pricked up his ears. “Do you know what?”

  She shook her head. “But in the end he found a safe behind one of the pictures in the strawberry room.” She smiled apologetically. “I called it that because there’s a picture hanging there with a big red blotch that looks like a strawberry. I’ve given all the rooms names. And the animals outside the windows.”

  Rosa gazed at the front of the room, which looked out on the rough surface of the lava slope and the inky blue sea. No animals anywhere in sight.

  “What was in the safe?” asked Alessandro.

  Rosa looked at him accusingly. He did seem to be sorry for Iole, but his wish for revenge on Cesare was stronger than any other feeling he might have. Rosa sensed his rage coming back. The strange, turbulent emotions that had come over them both in the studio were gradually disappearing. She had let herself be carried away, she’d lost control. That was bad.

  Just as he’d used her, now all that really interested him about Iole was what she knew about his enemy, Cesare. Rosa stepped between him and the girl on the chain. “Leave her alone. We have to think how to get her out of here.”

  He stared at her as if that were completely beside the point. Then he shook his head. “If Cesare finds out we’ve met her, he’ll know we found something.”

  Rosa took a menacing step closer to him. “So we just leave without her? You can’t be serious!”

  “Papers,” said Iole behind her back. “There were papers in the safe. And photos. Cesare looked rather pleased.”

  Alessandro swore.

  “They were useless,” said Rosa. Even before he looked at her in surprise, she realized she’d spoken without thinking properly, but in fact it was only logical. “Your mother didn’t even bother to hide them. I mean, in a safe? She probably wanted him to find something. So that he wouldn’t keep searching and find the important files—the folders hidden in the pictures. They were for you.”

  Alessandro nodded. “Yes, that’s possible.”

  “You have what you wanted now,” she said coolly. “So let’s make sure she doesn’t have to stay here any—”

  “Of course!” Suddenly the grim determination she’d heard when he had the scalpel in his hand was back. “Tano will know about Iole. I’d better start with him.”

  “It’s not so bad here,” said Iole. Her fingertips were circling one another in the air in front of her drawn-up knees, like a pianist’s fingers. “This is a lovely house. And it’s always light here in the daytime. It’s only at night, when the animals come—”

  “I’ll see to it,” Alessandro interrupted her. “Rosa, you stay here with her.” He was hurrying out, but at the last minute realized that he was still holding the folder of documents. After a moment’s thought, he came back and handed it to Rosa. “Watch this, will you? Just while I get things sorted.”

  She couldn’t figure him out at all. The only thing she did know was that he made her furious all the time, never mind what he did. First he used her, then he put on airs and left her standing. All the same, she was still supposed to do as he said. You stay here with her. And Watch this. She never did anything for other people. Not if she could help it. She had surprised herself by standing up for Iole.

  “It’s all right, you run along after him,” said the girl, looking even smaller and more vulnerable, as if the horrible dish-shaped chair were holding her in a plastic fist. “Don’t worry about me.”

  Run along after him? Rosa almost choked as she got her breath back. Then she nodded briefly. “You wait—we’ll be back here soon, okay?”

  “Are you really going to do it? Get me out of here?”

  Rosa wanted to leave at once with the wretched folder, but she stopped for a moment, hesitated—then went up to Iole, stroked her hair, and said, “I promise. We’ll get you out of here just as soon as we possibly can.”

  Iole looked at her, wide-eyed like a cartoon character in one of the TV shows she liked so much. “Remember to watch out for the animals … they come at night. Always at night.”

  Rosa forced herself to give Iole an encouraging smile before she raced away. Holding the documents close, she left the villa, crossed the front courtyard, and followed Alessandro down the steps to the beach. He was either extraordinarily fast or extremely angry or both—anyway, he had a considerable start on her. She caught a glimpse of him down by the grotto, then he disappeared from her view.

  When she finally reached the beach, she stopped dead at the scene in front of her.

  Alessandro had flung himself on Tano. The two of them were fighting so hard that even the young men with the mirrored sunglasses had retreated and were making no attempt to stop the fight.

  Rosa slowed down and stopped twenty yards away. She’d seen plenty of fistfights in Brooklyn. But what intrigued her here was that neither of the combatants uttered a word. As if there were nothing more to be said between them, as if the opponent weren’t even worth abuse. Slowly, she moved closer, softly putting one foot in front of the other on the churned-up sand.

  Tano wasn’t wearing his glasses; one of Alessandro’s blows had knocked them off. But that wasn’t the only thing that made him look unusual. There were his eyes. They were filled with darkness, with two huge pupils swallowing up the world. Just like Alessandro’s eyes earlier, in the studio. And now that she looked at Alessandro again, she realized that his eyes too were deep black once more, and his hair seemed even blacker than before.

  The two girls who had been in the water were standing on the beach a little way off to one side, beside the crates of provisions. The third girl was sitting up on her beach chair, following Tano’s nimble movements with a fixed gaze. The young men were still watching, motionless. Only the waiter tried to do anything, shouting something meant to calm everyone down. A hiss from Tano’s throat silenced him.

  The two combatants circled each other warily. Waiting for whatever kind of attack the other would decide to launch.

  Rosa’s eyes fell on Tano’s bare back. It was hairy. She had thought that was the effect of the sunlight glinting on it, but now she saw a thick line of pale yellow hair running from the nape of his neck down his spine.

  Tano uttered an angry bellow, and the two of them clashed again.

  No one was taking any notice of Rosa. She hurried over to her bag and stuffed the folder with Gaia’s documents in it. As she straightened up again, she heard a droning noise over the sea, coming toward the beach.

  The sound of helicopter blades.

  Blinking into the sun, she saw a chopper coming in over the water, racing past the anchored yacht and heading straight for the beach. Its outline was blurred by the glittering of the sun on its fuselage.

  Alessandro threw Tano to the ground and dropped with both knees brutally on his adversary’s rib cage.

  The two girls tore open one of the crates, and the next moment they had machine guns in their hands. Machine guns! The sight was so unlikely that Rosa blinked again.

  One of the boys took his sunglasses off. The steward looked as if he were turned to stone.

  Alessandro crouched over Tano on the ground, threw his head back, and uttered a triumphant howl like a beast of prey. Shadows raced like wildfire over his body, turning it black as pitch.

  Tano howled as well.

  Alessan
dro opened his mouth wider, even wider. He looked as if he were going to sink his teeth into Tano’s throat. Or was he calling something out, something that Rosa couldn’t hear through the noise of the rotor blades?

  Sand swirled up and hid her view.

  I promise you, she’d told Iole, we’ll get you out of here.

  The skids of the helicopter touched down.

  FAMILY FEUD

  THE PILOT LEFT THE BLADES turning as he ran from the cockpit, bending low, and opened the sliding door in the side. Sand blew over the beach; the girls’ hair danced on their bare shoulders.

  Rosa already knew who she was going to see.

  Florinda Alcantara slipped out, ducked under the noisy scythe of the rotor blades, and straightened up. Two armed men jumped out of the helicopter behind her.

  Her henchmen were carrying light machine guns, like the girls in Tano’s party. The pilot drew an automatic from his jacket, too. The whole thing was like a scene from a third-rate action movie—made on a low budget that didn’t allow for crowds of extras.

  Bikini-clad girls toting machine guns, Mafiosi with mirrored sunglasses. A pilot in an artificial leather jacket. She’d have liked to call “Cut!” to stop the action. Then they could all go home while the movie people swept the set.

  Instead, her aunt called, “Come along, Rosa, the party’s over.” Even her dialogue belonged to a villain in a B movie.

  Florinda was halfway between the helicopter and Rosa. Her dyed blond hair whipped around her face, while the two men with guns took up their position on either side of her.

  You had to hand it to Florinda, thought Rosa. This might be a silly scene, but she was as elegant as ever in a black suit with a short skirt and a fitted jacket. The clearest sign that she didn’t seriously expect violence was her high-heeled boots. In a fight, she couldn’t have run three yards over the sand in those things.

  And suddenly Rosa saw what was going on. All this was pure theater. Every gesture, every word, every look was part of a secret language that only members of the families understood. The concordat protected them from each other, and the whole macho show was nothing but the icing on a cake with a flavor they all knew well. It was like the Mafiosi were sticking to a tradition based on what they’d seen in films about themselves. Probably they could all reel off the dialogue of The Godfather and Scarface along with the actors.

  Alessandro was still kneeling on Tano’s chest, with both hands around his cousin’s throat. The strange darkness that had come over his body just now had disappeared. Rosa couldn’t see his eyes closely; they still looked very dark, but that might be because of the shadows. When he glanced at her, she thought she saw sadness in his gaze.

  Only seconds had passed since Florinda’s arrival. Tano used the moment of surprise to rear up—and this time he succeeded in throwing his opponent off balance. Alessandro’s attention had been distracted just a moment too long, and now he was paying for it. Tano flung him off and jumped to his feet, but didn’t try to attack Alessandro again. Instead he stared at him with hatred in his eyes, then ostentatiously turned his back on him and walked slowly up to Florinda and her men. He knocked the sand off his bare torso, entirely unaffected by the storm of the rotor blades, and planted himself three yards from Florinda.

  “This island is private property. You know that. But you come here anyway, bringing your henchmen with you, waving guns about—which could very quickly lead to a breach of the concordat—without caring at all about giving my guests a hell of a fright.” He had to shout to be heard over the howling of the chopper.

  Alessandro got to his feet. Rosa pressed her lips together and stared him down. She still didn’t understand exactly what had just happened, but whatever it was she could handle it.

  She picked up the bag with her things and set off for the helicopter. It was better this way. For everyone here, probably even for the lonely girl up in the villa. Rosa joined Florinda, who didn’t even deign to glance at her.

  Alessandro walked over to Tano.

  The four of them stood facing one another in the middle of the swirling clouds of sand.

  Florinda was staring at Alessandro as if looks could kill, but her remarks were for Rosa. “You have no idea what you’re getting mixed up with. They could have taken you hostage. It probably wouldn’t even have meant a breach of the concordat.”

  Tano grinned. “We’d have to look that up somewhere, right?”

  “No bloodshed, no kidnapping,” said Alessandro. “That’s the agreement.”

  “Always useful to have a budding lawyer in the family,” remarked Tano derisively.

  To Rosa’s indignation, Florinda’s anger seemed to be aimed solely at Alessandro, not his arrogant cousin. What would happen if she left him alone with the others now? Would Tano really kill him? Not after all this fuss, she hoped. Especially since it wasn’t a secret now that those two girls knew their way around automatic guns a little too well.

  But she couldn’t be sure.

  Come with us, her eyes pleaded with him.

  An imperceptible shake of the head. If he turned his back on his family now and went with the enemy clan, he’d have no one left on his side. He’d lose face. Maybe Tano was speculating about that very possibility. His problem would solve itself if Alessandro showed weakness.

  Florinda gripped Rosa’s upper arm firmly to lead her to the helicopter. Rosa shook her hand off so energetically that the reproach in her aunt’s eyes gave way for a moment to an anger and dislike that almost turned Rosa’s stomach. That only made her even angrier herself.

  “Don’t do that again,” she snapped at her aunt. “Ever.”

  And with that she turned and marched to the sliding door of the helicopter, carrying her bag, with Gaia’s documents in it.

  She glanced at Alessandro once more. She was looking for the darkness in his eyes, the shadows she had just seen. Nothing left of that. The sand pattered against his bronzed skin, but he didn’t move a muscle.

  Florinda got into the seat opposite her, and finally the two gunmen followed. Rosa wedged the bag between her knees and held it tight with both hands.

  The helicopter took off. Its slipstream carved a trail of spray though the surf. Then it gained height again and flew a circuit in the air around the yacht.

  Rosa looked down at Isola Luna one last time through the window. She thought she saw the topsy-turvy white structure of the villa bright among the lava rocks, and thought of Iole, who might be still crouched in that plastic chair, waiting for her to come back.

  She avoided looking at Florinda for the rest of the flight. She had nothing to say to her anyway, so they sat in silence until the olive groves were moving past below them, and the palazzo rose in the golden light of afternoon.

  The next day Zoe took her for a drive to the north in her convertible. They cruised a few miles along the expressway to Catania, but soon left it again and drove farther into the bleak, mountainous country of the Sicilian interior. At first the landscape was one of undulating ochre hills, but then it became harsher. The few fields were uncultivated, or charred black where farmers had burned the stubble after harvesting their crops. The smell of smoke was everywhere, though there was none to be seen. Sometimes there were broad bays at the side of the winding road where containers crammed with garbage stood; generally the local people had just left their bags of trash beside the containers. Plastic bottles and empty packaging had collected in the ditches along the roadside, too.

  “I’ve never seen so much garbage all in one place,” said Rosa as they passed yet another blackened field with charred remains of plastic scattered all over it.

  “It’s better than it used to be,” said Zoe. “But you’re right, it’s hard to imagine that it ever could have been worse.”

  “I thought Cosa Nostra made a bundle by getting rid of trash illegally.”

  “Not on their own doorsteps. A few of the families really are big in the garbage business, yes, but they ship it off to Calabria or other places.
”

  “Which doesn’t make it better, right?”

  Zoe gave her a serious glance before she had to concentrate on the next bend. “Better not start thinking you can afford a guilty conscience. Or you’re in the wrong place here.”

  “What do you do to fight it off?”

  Zoe seemed surprised by the question. “I go shopping,” she said at last. “Retail therapy is good for a lot of things.”

  “But it’s not what you’re about to do now, is it? Go shopping, I mean.”

  “No.”

  “So where are we going?”

  “I want to show you something. We’re nearly there.”

  “Was this Florinda’s idea?” Rosa made a face. “To get me back on the straight and narrow? I mean as far as the family’s concerned?”

  “She was too angry to say anything at all.”

  “She’ll get over it.”

  “She doesn’t have it easy. Hardly any women are heads of families. Dad was going to be the next capo, but then he and Mom took us back to the States. Suddenly Florinda was alone in her palazzo, having to manage it all.”

  “But surely she doesn’t manage the family business on her own?”

  “She has her consiglieri, her advisers,” said Zoe. “But they’re in Palermo and Catania, a few of them in Rome and Milan. Some of them are second cousins of ours. They run the firms and advise Florinda, but the final decision is always hers. They come here regularly to report back to her, and Florinda often goes to see them. The internet and the phone aren’t secure enough. Most of the business is still done privately, face-to-face, and no technology, however advanced, is going to change that.”

  Rosa looked at her sister’s beautiful but thin profile. She was beginning to realize that there were two sides to Zoe. There was the wayward, fashion-crazy, pleasure-loving Zoe she’d known in the past. But there was also another Zoe, who had obviously thoroughly studied the family and its business ventures. This was a new and unexpected side of her, until Rosa remembered that she had already met that Zoe at the beginning of her stay here—on the way to the funeral, when she and Florinda had sat opposite her, looking like two queen bees.