Luck was on his side. Nobody had yet noticed the switch. Quinto led him down the stairs to the basement and stopped at the first cell. He put in the key, and only then did he realize that it wasn’t the usual Pepè who’d brought the food.
“How come Pepè didn’t come?” he asked suspiciously as he flung open the cell door.
“He’s sick. Nonna Tina sent me.”
The cell door swung open. Peppino Ragusa was standing in the doorway. His face was bruised, his eyes lifeless, but as soon as he saw his son, he couldn’t help but exclaim “Saro!”
Quinto instantly knew that he had been tricked, but in less time than that, Saro had shoved the board with the bowls at his father, who, completely stunned, found himself holding it. From under his cloak Saro pulled out the liccasapuni, the soap knife he used to shave customers at the barbershop, and with a precise stroke slashed Quinto’s face. The guard first moved to protect his face, then tried to stem the blood by pressing the palms of his hands on the long gash. Saro did not let up. Picking up the wooden board that had fallen to the ground, he brought it down as hard as he could on the unfortunate victim’s skull, causing the guard to slump, unconscious, in a pool of blood.
Peppino Ragusa was a good man and would never have imagined that his son could commit such an act, and in cold blood.
Saro hurriedly retrieved the keys from the lock and then went to open the door of Losurdo’s cell, succeeding on the first try.
Rosario Losurdo immediately took in the situation.
“The other two?” he asked Saro, seeing Quinto lying unconscious on the ground, bleeding.
“They’re gobbling up pasta.” He pointed upstairs.
“They might have heard. Let’s go! You go up first; we’ll follow you,” Rosario said.
Peppino Ragusa had remained in his cell, unable to handle the situation. Losurdo grabbed him by the arm and forced him to come out.
Saro began climbing the stairs, his ears straining to hear the slightest suspicious sound. Behind him came Rosario and then the doctor. Besides a razor, the only weapon they had on their side was the element of surprise. They couldn’t afford to lose that advantage.
Saro reached the door and slowly opened it partway. Peering into the room, he saw Cosimo still bent over his plate of spaghetti. He motioned the others to follow him, but as soon as he went through the door he was struck by something that felt like a mallet, which knocked the breath out of him. He’d been hit by a chair, and as he fell to the ground, the razor slipped out of his hands. Rosario, who was ready for anything, stepped in and rushed headlong at Prospero. Head lowered, he struck him in the chest, driving him against the wall. Turning, he saw Cosimo coming at them with a sawed-off shotgun. It was obvious that the guards had staged the ambush to catch them unawares, and they had succeeded to perfection. Cosimo shouted, “Stop or I’ll shoot!”
Saro, turning a somersault, lunged for the razor. The sudden move distracted Cosimo long enough to spare Losurdo a blast from the shotgun. Cosimo, in fact, aimed the double-barreled gun at Saro, who hastily picked up the razor and threw it at him like a boomerang. The razor’s entire length lodged in Cosimo’s right hand, just as he was about to pull the trigger. It happened in a mere fraction of a second; in fact, the razor’s impact on the guard’s hand deflected the load of gunshot. Cosimo felt a sting like the lash of a whip and then looked at the back of his hand where the liccasapuni was planted. He pulled out the razor and as soon as it was out, blood began gushing from the wound.
Dr. Peppino Ragusa watched the scene as if it did not concern him. But he was stunned by Saro: never would he have thought him capable of such violence.
Rosario Losurdo, meanwhile, had rushed at Prospero, who had yet to recover from the blow to his chest. Losurdo grabbed him by the ears and banged his head repeatedly against the wall as forcefully as he could. At the fourth violent impact, the man slid from his hands.
Cosimo was beside himself with rage; holding the gun in his other hand, since the right one was out of commission, he took aim at Saro, but Rosario Losurdo came up behind him and charged him like a buffalo, butting him in the kidneys and sending him flying to the ground. “Let’s go! Let’s get out of here!” he yelled to Saro.
Ragusa, meanwhile, was helping Prospero. His physician’s instinct led him to assist anyone who required aid.
Saro turned back, grabbed his father’s arm, and forced him to follow him. “Papa, this is no time to be a missionary.”
They reached the front door and staggered out into the fresh evening air.
“Let’s take the truck,” Rosario said, seeing the pickup parked in the courtyard.
“No, no. Look at the tires,” Saro told him. “We have two horses waiting for us down there.”
Rosario looked at the vehicle’s wheels and saw that all four tires had been slashed.
“Nice job,” he remarked.
“That’s nothing, I also cut the brake line,” Saro told him.
They reached the horses. Losurdo mounted the thinner one, and Saro and his father got on a handsome young bay.
As they rode off toward Calatafimi, they heard the cries of Prospero and Quinto. Then they heard the truck start up, but they never saw it appear behind them.
They’d made it. Saro was proud of himself. His father less so.
Chapter 26
– 1939 –
Saro had been able to arrange things with excellent judgment. He evidently had the makings of an organizer: he was quick to make decisions and knew what had to be done to achieve a specific objective.
When he’d begun planning the escape, the first thing that concerned him was not so much being able to rescue his father and Losurdo but where to hide them during the long wait for the ship’s departure.
Saro had decided that they would flee to America, at least until Italy had come to its senses regarding the insane laws against the Jewish race.
In finding a safe place to hole up without arousing suspicions, he had been aided by a religious friend, a Franciscan friar who lived at the Sanctuary of Calatafimi, the mother church. The pious friars had sheltered entire families of dissidents and even mafiosi within their walls on other occasions.
The sanctuary had been built around the year 1200, and, over time, to oppose pirates coming from the sea, it had been transformed into a veritable fortress, solid and sturdy. Saro thought it would make an ideal refuge, not least because it was just a few miles from the port of Castellammare del Golfo, where they would board a fishing boat that would take them to Palermo.
* * *
It was still night when they reached Calatafimi. They headed for the sanctuary and Brother Antonino himself, Saro’s friend, welcomed them and led them into the safety of the monastery’s walls. At that time, perhaps because of the concordat enacted ten years earlier, church properties enjoyed a kind of immunity, so they were considered the safest refuge for those trying to flee the fascist regime.
The friar asked no questions; he looked at the men standing before him, greeted them with a nod, and then said softly, “Follow me.” He turned and walked to a staircase that descended into the church’s crypt.
The friar moved swiftly through the silent corridors, lighting their way with an oil lamp, until he came to a door and opened it. Before letting them inside, he asked solicitously, “Have you eaten?”
“Actually we didn’t have time,” Saro replied.
“I’ll bring you something. Meanwhile, go in and get settled. There are some pallets available.”
Saro entered the large room first and was amazed to see how many other people were in there. Everyone stared at the newcomers in absolute silence, frightened, waiting to hear their stories. One question was going through their heads: Were they friends or informers?
Saro explained that they were from Salemi and that they were waiting to sail for America. At those words, everybody relaxed; they were all in the same situation.
For several years now, the sanctuary had become a way station
for Sicilians who had to flee Italy clandestinely.
In recent weeks, the monks had taken in two Jewish families: one from Caltanissetta and the other from a small village near Enna. These desperate, anxious people had brought just a few things with them—only the strictest necessities—in order to be able to move quickly.
Somewhat apart from the two Jewish families, so he would not be confused with them, was a certain Vito Pizzuto, a gabellotto from the Vicaretto estate. He had been hiding in the sanctuary for at least a month, to avoid capture by the fascist squads in Trapani, who had accused him of antigovernment activities.
Everyone in the room had but one goal: to escape from a cruel stepmother of a country and board one of the ships of the Florio fleet, which departed from Palermo, and which a man could sail on without close inspection—provided he tipped the crew well.
As far as personal documents were concerned, there was even a ready-and-willing organization connected with an affiliate at the Port of New York. It offered a one-way ticket, false papers, and the possibility of repaying everything in easy installments. Of course, the cosca—the Mob—would withhold what they owed, taking it directly from what they earned in jobs the organization itself procured illegally, thereby holding the naive immigrants in a double bind.
Could paradise itself be more well thought out than that?
In those days, hundreds of thousands of desperate individuals crossed the ocean that way, in search of a new life and a new world, where work would finally restore the dignity that was denied them in the land of their birth.
* * *
Meanwhile, in Salemi, Prospero and Quinto had crashed the truck into a stone wall on a curve along the road to Calatafimi. Jano joined them, along with Ginetto and Nunzio, and was blaming the two hapless men who could barely stand up, still in shock following the impact.
Prospero had tried to tackle the road at high speed, careening dangerously because of the four flat tires, and when he hit the brake to slow down, the pedal failed, and the pickup slammed violently into a low wall hidden behind a prickly pear.
Later Prospero, Quinto, and Cosimo were taken to Dr. Bizzarri’s clinic. Awakened in the middle of the night, the doctor stitched and dressed their wounds, and then slumped exhausted into a chair a couple of hours later: “That was quite a beating, no doubt about it.”
The words irritated Jano, who didn’t like being duped. “If I get my hands on them, they won’t live to tell it.”
“In the meantime, they must be laughing about it, waiting for a steamer to America,” the doctor commented.
“What makes you think they’re leaving the country?” Jano asked suspiciously.
“Didn’t you tell me you followed them on the road to Calatafimi?” the doctor asked, pouring himself a glass of wine that he’d taken from the medicine cabinet.
“So? What’s that got to do with America?” Jano insisted.
“Well, they’re waiting at the sanctuary for the ship to depart, which should be next week in fact, weather permitting.”
“What are you doing, guessing?” Nunzio asked him.
“No. Everyone knows it. People who want to leave the country and have problems with the law go into hiding at the Sanctuary of Calatafimi and hole up until the evening prior to departure. Then they’re taken to the port of Castellammare, and from there a fishing boat brings them directly to the ship as it’s about to sail. A crewman allows them to get on board covertly, and that’s that.”
The doctor looked at the three men who were listening to him in astonishment. He realized that he had said too much.
“Don’t tell me you didn’t know! Everyone is aware of that trafficking; lots of people earn a good deal of money from it.”
“Are you sure?” Jano still couldn’t believe it was true.
“Of course! Last year around this time, Brother Antonino called me to attend a woman who was pregnant. She was about to give birth, and they were facing the voyage to Palermo. They were afraid she might pop the baby out on the fishing boat. I had to induce labor.”
“Brother Antonino, you said?” Jano wanted to know.
“Yes, he’s actually a Franciscan friar. He’s the one who runs the whole operation. But really, you didn’t know? I can’t believe it.” The doctor shook his head incredulously. “It must be at least two or three years that this has been going on.”
“I get it, Doctor!” Jano was irritated by Bizzarri’s prolonged account, which only underscored their stupidity.
“Maybe it would have been better not to tell you. But the cat is out of the bag now. What’s done is done.”
The doctor’s revelation had rekindled Jano’s hopes of being able to capture the three fugitives. But to begin with, he had to get his hands on the monk.
The following day, along with Nunzio, he went to Calatafimi. Consulting the registry records, he learned everything there was to know about the friar. Brother Antonino was a foundling; his parents had abandoned him at the Capuchin monastery in Salaparuta, and he had spent his entire adolescence and early adulthood there. The friars had raised him like a son; it was natural that at age twenty he would take his vows, mainly because he had always refused to leave the community, despite the fact that the good brothers had encouraged him to seek work outside the monastery’s walls.
Jano couldn’t figure out a way to lure him over to their side.
Nunzio had no qualms. “Let’s take him and put him in the box.”
“Are you nuts? Do you want me to get in trouble with the mayor? The Church would demand our heads in retaliation if we were to do such a thing.”
“What if we raid the sanctuary?”
“It’s not allowed. The churches are taboo for us.”
“Then we have to come up with something devious.”
“Yeah, something very clever. But what?” Jano agreed thoughtfully.
“For example, blackmail,” Nunzio suggested. “Everyone has something to hide in his life. Brother Antonino is certainly no exception.”
“All we have to do is find his weak point. Do you feel like tailing him for a while?”
“With pleasure,” Nunzio replied.
Nunzio’s theory, which held that every man has a skeleton in his closet, proved to be true.
The following day, he stuck closely to the monk, alternating with Ginetto, whom Jano had called in to give them a hand. The three never left him, from morning, when he went out to celebrate Mass in the nearby chapel, till night, when he returned to the sanctuary for evening Vespers. Brother Antonino was a small, thin man with hollow cheeks and a thick, dark beard. He was always on the go. He went to the market to buy whatever food the monks did not produce themselves; he taught catechism to children about to make their first communion; in the afternoon he played soccer with a group of kids on the dusty field in front of the sanctuary, without taking off his cassock. When the game was over, it took him a good while to dust himself off as the kids stood around laughing; he liked to clown around with them. Sometimes he went out before dark, accompanied by an altar boy, to administer communion to some elderly person who was ill and couldn’t get out of bed. Brother Antonino’s conduct seemed to run along the lines of a normal, exemplary ecclesiastical life.
Except that one afternoon, when Ginetto was tailing him, he went into a house with the altar boy, who was carrying the holy water, and stayed there beyond the usual time. Ginetto crept up to the ground floor windows, but there appeared to be no one inside. In fact, he noticed that the kitchen looked abandoned, its cupboards hanging open and the wood stove cold, its doors broken. “Maybe they’re upstairs,” he thought. The small fire escape was easily reached thanks to a pile of masonry debris stacked up against the house. Ginetto decided to attempt the climb, even though his weight would not make it easy. He grabbed the railing and struggled to haul himself up. He climbed over the railing without making a sound. The floor was littered with trash paper, shards of tiles, and crumbled bricks, suggesting that the house must have been abandoned for
a long time. He leaned forward to peer inside the room. On a rickety dresser without drawers he saw the holy water and the little prayer book. Then turning his gaze toward the center of the room, he saw Brother Antonino sitting on the edge of a bedspring; kneeling between his legs was the altar boy. It looked like the monk was hearing the child’s confession. He was holding the boy’s cheeks in his two hands and saying something to him with great tenderness. Ginetto couldn’t hear the words, however.
Then he saw him lift the boy’s face and kiss him on the forehead. The child did not stop him; it was as if he were mesmerized. Then the friar bent the boy’s head and pushed it down between his legs.
Ginetto had seen enough. He climbed down from the fire escape the way he had come. Now he had to run to Jano and Nunzio to tell them what he had seen.
A few minutes later, Jano, Nunzio, and Ginetto arrived at the abandoned house to take the monk by surprise, catching him in the act.
Luck was on their side, because Brother Antonino and the boy were still upstairs in the bedroom. They decided that Jano, being more nimble than Nunzio, would climb up the fire escape, while Nunzio would enter through one of the downstairs windows. Ginetto would stand guard outside so no one could get in, in case something unexpected happened.
The execution was swift. Jano smashed the window and rushed into the room while the friar was still locked in an embrace with the child, who was now completely naked. A few seconds later Nunzio came through the door. The monk was struck dumb. The boy began to cry. Jano picked up his tattered shorts off the floor with the end of his club and held them out to him. “Get dressed and go home.”
The boy took the shabby pants and hugged them to his chest; he started to leave, but Jano blocked his way with his club. “What’s your name?” he asked him.
“Alessandro,” the child replied timidly.
“And your father?” Jano pressed him.
“Roberto Pizzi.” He ducked his head, expecting any number of blows for what he had done.
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