The Sicilian Woman's Daughter

by Linda Lo Scuro

  “They could be right, you know,” I say. “Surely the police will give you updates on their findings, even if you’re here.”

  “No, it ain’t the same. I gotta go.”

  Zia gives him a hot mug of tea.

  “What can you do?” I ask him.

  “I don’t know right now. But God knows that I will find out what happened.”

  “Why did they go to Sicily?” I hazarded.

  “On holiday. And to go to the cemetery to visit the graves of our mum and dad, Uncle Tony... It was years since they went last time.”

  “They’ll turn up somewhere. Maybe, on a whim, they decided to visit some other place first. Like Taormina, for example,” I say.

  “No, then why did they take the bus to The Village?”

  “Maybe the bus driver made some recommendation, so they decided on the spot.” What a feeble thing I’ve just said.

  “Their mobiles ain’t working. The batteries must’ve run down.”

  I can’t answer that.

  “We hope, we pray,” Zia says.

  Adriano stares at the floor in front of him. Instead of the wild bull Zia was expecting, he turns out to be as helpless as a lamb. He looks dejected. I could feel sorry for him if he hadn’t raped Susi. And that was in the period when Susi and her mother were being beaten to a pulp by his sweet Uncle Tony.

  Adriano has had a comfortable little life with his wife and children, and he has a successful window-cleaning company. Contrastingly, Susi has been haunted by demons and hasn’t been able to establish a loving relationship with any man. It has all been sex for her. Thinking that’s all she is good for. Being an object to be used and discarded. I’m not a psychologist, my view may be totally wrong, but that’s what I think. The easiest thing is to agree with him, so that he goes to Sicily and gets an education as well. That would be excellent revenge for Susi. So I change my tune.

  “Well, you might be able to track them down, if you go. One thing’s for sure you’d be the most dedicated. The police have plenty of other cases to think about,” I say.

  He agrees with that.

  “We’re going to Sicily as well. My husband and I are leaving Saturday. Zia and Susi are flying out on Tuesday week. A friend’s birthday party. You probably know them: Angelina, she’s got a daughter called Provvidenza who married a chap from The Village called Giulio.”

  “Oh, yeah, I know Giulio. We’ve been out drinking with other mates. He’s a nice guy.”

  Yes, of course, Adriano would know and like Giulio. Two of a kind. Well, they might actually get their comeuppance together.

  “We stay with my sister Peppina,” Zia says.

  “If you need us you will find Zia there. Do let her know about any developments,” I say. “We’ll help if we can, won’t we, Zia?”

  “We hope, we pray.”

  Adriano leaves, thinking he has our full support and probably feels blessed because Zia will be there in Sicily at the same time to comfort and assist him.

  Zia obviously doesn’t know about the rapes. Susi swore as much. If Zia had had even an inkling, she would have hung Adriano up to dry by the cugliuna in her pantry. It was indeed lucky that I’d met Adriano at Zia’s. Any thought of blackmailing him, for money to make amends for Susi being raped, was now out of the question. He’ll pay a far higher price. Everything is coming together.

  After Adriano leaves, Zia tells me that Provvi and Angelina are visiting on Wednesday afternoon at three o’clock. Would I be there? “I’m sorry, Zia. I can’t make it. So much to do before we go.” I stand up to leave, “See you in Sicily. Meeting point will be at Peppina’s.” I kiss Zia on both cheeks.

  “Ah, you wear you bed sock in bed?”

  “Yes, Zia,” I lie, “they’re fantastic. “

  She is pleased. “I make pink bed sock for Susi, then I make blue bed sock for you Benjamin. I start blanket after that.”

  “That’ll be great,” I say. I kiss her on each cheek and say: “Bye for now and have a good flight over. It’s alright, Zia, I’ll see myself out.”

  PART II

  Sicily, 2017

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Saturday 23rd September to Monday 25th September

  “Come on, we’ll miss the flight if you mess around any longer,” Humps says.

  “Alright, Grumps,” I reply. “Don’t get so worked up. We don’t want to spoil the holiday before leaving the house, do we?”

  “Bloody last-minute-itus. And how much more are you packing into that suitcase?”

  “When you’re looking for something on holiday, and I fish out what you need, you’ll be glad I took it with us. Do you mind helping me close this thing, please, darling?”

  We manage to get out of the door, on our train, only to get to Heathrow hours before we could even check in our suitcases. Humps likes to get there early. Sit in the business lounge, read all the papers while drinking white wine and eating anything from curry to chocolate cake. If we went back home now, Humps would have been more than satisfied with his ‘holiday.’

  When we land in Palermo, the first thing that knocks us back is the heat. “Bloody hot,” Humps says, as we walk from the plane to the terminal.

  “Come on, let’s go and get an air-conditioned hire car, that’ll take us to our air-conditioned hotel,” I say.

  As we are whizzing along the motorway, I couldn’t help thinking about where exactly Giovanni Falcone, the judge and magistrate, his wife, Francesca Morvillo and their driver and two bodyguards, were blown up by the mafia. This must be the route. And then I see the tall brown monument erected in their memory with a high parched mountain acting as a backdrop. I ask Humps to stop at the next lay-by – to look at it properly and to take in the scenery. The landscape around us is dry, you could say scorched, with a few contorted trees here and there. They look as if they are groaning and, at the same time, they look hostile. A hot wind conjures up, out of nowhere, lifting dust and spinning it in concentric circles.

  “It was here,” I say to Humps, in front of the monument, “that Falcone was killed.” I am moved. After a few minutes I say: “Shall we go?”

  “Whatever madam desires,” Humps says jovially, and opens the car door for me. Of course, Humps knows about the bombing of the bravest anti-mafia judge whose famous comment was that the mafia had a beginning, therefore it must have an end, like anything else. This must also be the area in which Rosa and Bella disappeared. I wonder where they are buried.

  As soon as we set foot in the hotel, the tiredness of the journey disappears. It is so beautiful. Baroque with cream walls depicting figures from Ancient Greek mythology in stucco. We are welcomed with a glass of champagne at reception. Our room is tastefully decorated with a view over the beach to the Mediterranean – no road in between. Sea, sand and sky – no clouds.

  “Look at that view, Humps. Isn’t that better than sitting in the airport lounge?”

  Dinner is on the hotel’s veranda directly on the beach. A balmy evening. We eat to the sound of waves served by immaculately groomed waiters in pristine white uniforms. They recommend little plates of tasters for antipasto; they recommend ricotta and pistachio pesto pasta for our first course; they recommend fresh grilled sea-bass for our second course; they recommend a bottle of chilled Benanti Pietramarina white. Who are we to argue? We’ll decide later if we can manage the ricotta cannoli dessert.

  The next day is spent mostly on the beach: walking, reading, generally lolling around, swimming and eating ice-creams. And on Monday we have more of the same. We decide to give the archaeological sites a wide berth. Maybe we’ll go and see them some other time.

  Today, Monday, is also our wedding anniversary. Perhaps Humps has forgotten. He hasn’t as much as hinted at it all day. I bought him a pair of silver cufflinks, had them engraved with an M and H entwined, they are not too showy, otherwise, I know, he wouldn’t wear them. Evening comes and I get dressed up for dinner. Even if he has forgotten our thirty-fifth wedding anniversary, I am going to spend it in
style anyway. We are led out to the veranda on the beach again.

  Actually, Humps is dressed up to the nines as well. A young man comes towards us carrying a huge beautiful composition of flowers. It is Mark! What is he doing here? “Happy anniversary,” he says. Clara appears too, and then comes Emma with little Benjamin. Wonderful! The waiters ask us to move to the bigger table in the corner. Emma and Clara have decorated the table with an assortment of little cards, place names, candles and flowers. They all knew about this surprise except for me.

  Far from forgetting, Humps fishes a deep-blue box out of his jacket pocket. I gasp when I open it. Inside is a beautiful white-gold necklace with a mother-of-pearl oval-shaped pendant, and earrings to match.

  THIRTY-NINE

  Tuesday 26th September – morning

  Luckily the kids show no sign of wanting to go to The Village when I tell them during breakfast that Humps and I are planning on going later that day.

  “I want to see The Village, the place of your origin. You’ve kept me away from it long enough,” says Humps.

  “You’ve insisted so much that in the end I had to give in. Anyway, you know I like to make you happy, don’t you?”

  “Like I do with you,” he says.

  “OK,” I say. “You drive?”

  “I’ll gladly be your chauffeur, madam.”

  “I need to warn you. Out there, it won’t be anything like it is here. This is a smart tourist area. We’re going out into the wild.”

  “I can take it as long as I’m with you,” he says.

  “You’re incorrigible.”

  “Long may it last.”

  Then he proceeds to tell the kids about my new-found attachment to Zia. “Back in Blighty she’s spending all her days at Zia’s house, aren’t you, darling?”

  “Well, not all my days. I have been there quite a lot lately. I don’t deny that. But now I’m no longer working, I don’t have excuses not to go.”

  “You’ve made a point of not having contact with your family for years,” Emma says. “We hardly know any of your relatives.”

  “And that’s the way it should stay,” I say. “Now wouldn’t you rather enjoy the sea, than come with us to a backward medieval village?”

  “I quite like the idea of a medieval village,” says Clara. “We can spend tomorrow on the beach. If we don’t come with you now, when will we have the chance again?”

  “You’ve got a point there,” Emma says. “Yes, let’s all go.”

  “The car’s big enough for all of us,” Mark says. “Let’s do it.”

  “We can’t all pounce on Peppina,” I say. “You don’t understand. Once we leave this town, there are miles of barren countryside. Along the only road to The Village, all we’ll go through are two separate hamlets. We have to wind our way over the undulating land. To say that it’s at the back of beyond is a gross understatement.”

  “Is there a bar in The Village?” Clara asks.

  “Yes, there is in the piazza.”

  “That’s fine, then,” Clara says. “We can get drinks and snacks at the bar and wait there, if all else fails. I can drive.”

  “No! No way,” I say. “Daddy’s driving and I’m sitting in the front passenger seat next to him. This isn’t England, you know? None of you have any idea. When we go through the hamlets, or meet anyone along the country roads, we have to be careful. If there are people standing in the middle of the road, you don’t ask them to move. No horn honking. You turn your engine off and wait until they’ve finished. When they move, we can go.”

  “What’s that all about, then?” Emma asks.

  “About power and control.”

  “What?” Mark says.

  “Exactly, as I said before, none of you have any idea. If you want to come, you keep quiet and do as I ask. That’s a non-negotiable condition.”

  And on that strict-teacher note, we get into the car and set off. I tell them: “This island is in a pincer and it trickles right down to the extent that it affects your everyday behaviour. For me, it’s palpable, I can almost touch it, and I certainly feel it. It’s so different from your safe cosy London world.”

  “Wow, is this place exciting, or what?” Clara says. “It’s all new to me and needs to be explored. I want to understand it.”

  Shortly after leaving the seaside town behind us, the bumpy, dusty, winding road begins. We come across a shepherd with his flock. When he sees us he stands at the side of the road, instructs his dog to move his sheep to one side so we can get by. I wave and thank him. I say to Humps: “Please, just please, don’t run over one of those sheep. Or cause one to fall over the ridge.” We bump our way slowly, curving past the flock. We are so close to them that one or two of the sheep rub up against our car. Little Benjamin is ecstatic, jumps up and down, points to the sheep while oohing and aahing.

  The landscape is desolate. Hard terrain parched by the unforgiving sun. It probably hasn’t rained for months. No greenery in sight. On we drive slowly until we come to the first hamlet. People are sitting and standing along the road talking to each other. Mostly men. As we pass, they stop and stare at us. “Don’t worry folks,” I say, “they are simply curious. They do that with every passing car. Used to do it forty years ago, still doing it now.”

  “That’s weird,” Emma says, “they don’t even pretend not to be looking.”

  Dogs are roaming around on their own. One of them stops in the middle of the road in front of us.

  Humps looks at me: “What am I supposed to do now? Wait for it to display its power and control over us?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “Wait a moment and see if it budges.”

  A man steps down from the pavement. Gives the dog an almighty kick. The malnourished dog whimpers and runs off. The man doffs his cap and gestures to Humps that we can continue our journey.

  “Poor dog,” Clara says.

  We go through the next hamlet, or should I say a ghost hamlet? Unfinished houses. All at different stages of construction. A few are only frameworks of a house. Sad brick skeletons on the horizon. Stray dogs roam around here, too; looking for food, looking for water, while cats laze in the shade of red oleanders. “I don’t know how the bus ever gets to The Village,” Humps says, “bloody difficult enough for a car.”

  “There’s no bus route along this road. It comes from the opposite direction, then goes back the same way. If you want to go to the sea, you have to go by car.”

  The road widens. We come to a drinking trough for animals with clear water running into it from a tube. Little Benjamin loves water, he smiles and kicks while he plays with the water tinkling out of the tube. “This is drinking water,” I say, “people from The Village come here to fill up containers of it to take home. Carrying water was something I helped out with. That was in contrast with my life in London where we had running water and plenty of food. You,” I pause and look at my family one-by-one, “assume that my life’s been like that as well. I’ve wanted a better life for you two,” now I’m looking at my daughters, “I’ve kept you away from here where relatives actively seek to harm you, where there’s danger at every corner. This is the place where I was so severely beaten that I had to have my kidney removed...” I stop. My daughters look at me in wonder as if they are seeing another side of their mother. “Sometimes,” I say, “it annoys me when you take your easy lives for granted.” I am near to tears. They don’t comment.

  There was complete silence all around. Nobody who lives in the area would venture here at this time of day. They’d come early morning or in the evening. Not a car, nor people, just the sound of water running into water, and a few flies buzzing around. Peace and tranquillity. We stand there and listen. Pointless talking would spoil the moment. A pleasant breeze wafts over us and creates ripples in the water. Behind us an empty boundless stretch of neglected land. Scattered sand-coloured boulders, shaped like kneeling nuns with their heads down to pray, looking closely at the spidery cracks in the terrain. The distant sharp sloping path
ways and sinister mountains make the landscape look unforgiving.

  After a few more kilometres, we enter The Village. Tall terraced houses painted orange, yellow, pink, with green or brown shutters. We drive up a narrow black slabbed road. Between the houses and the road are high narrow pavements on each side, also used as a step up to front doors. Scooters randomly parked along the sides of the road. We pass an altar dedicated to Mother Mary with dessicated flowers in vases, and a rusty candlestick clogged up with hardened wax. A little further down is a small shop selling religious framed pictures of Jesus and various saints, they are randomly pinned to the wall of the shop. Washing is hanging on curtain lines across the road from one house to the other, and also parallel to balconies. Kids play in the streets watched by grandparents on wicker chairs balanced on the pavements. A mother calls out from a balcony to her son below. Eyes follow us.

  Soon we are in the main piazza. The village’s only bar stands at the top of the piazza; men sit at tables on the pavement outside the bar and some are sitting in the middle of the piazza in a cluster. A few of the older men are wearing coppolas, flat caps typically worn by the older generation in Sicily. “The men in black coppolas are those whose wives have died. A sign of respect,” I say. A group of younger men are playing cards on coloured plastic tables in the shade of old trees. Ours is the only car in the piazza and the men stop what they are doing to see who has come into the village. No doubt someone will follow us to find out which family we belong to. After they’ve seen us go into Peppina’s house, they will leave us alone. A lot of emigrants come back to The Village from abroad. So they are used to these returning strangers.

  We stop on a side street off the piazza. “Can we park here?” Humps asks.

  “You can park anywhere you like,” I say, not adding that my family are the bosses here, so we can do what we want.

  “Do you want to go to the bar, or are you coming to meet Peppina?” I say to the kids. They decide they’d like to get a drink at the bar, have a quick look round The Village, then meet us at Peppina’s.