*
The “liberation” of Gangi from the Mafia (430 arrested) was solemnly celebrated by Cesare Mori in person, who gave a speech from a balcony of the town hall to the terrorized population. Beside him was Alfredo Cucco, whom the prefect hadn’t yet fingered as a mafioso, wearing the Fascist black shirt and an aviator’s helmet. Mori for his part was wearing big boots and an incomprehensible, oversized light-blue band across his chest. In a powerful voice he said, among other things:
“Citizens! I will not lay down my arms. The government will not lay down its arms! You have the right to be free from riffraff, and you shall be! Our operation will be carried out through to the end, until the entire province of Palermo has been saved. The government, through my efforts, will perform its duty to the fullest, and you must do yours. You who are not afraid of rifles but fear the renown of the ‘cops,’ get used to the idea that the war against criminality is the duty of all honest citizens. You are beautiful people, strong and well built, with all the physical attributes of virility. You are therefore men, not sheep. Defend yourselves! Strike back!”
Defend yourselves and strike back. But isn’t that what the Sacco brothers were trying to do?
Chapter XI
The intervention of the Fascist political secretary brings to light, to some extent, an element thus far kept in the background, though always present: the Saccos’ political loyalties.
The Saccos never “threw themselves into politics” (as people would start to do in more recent times), but this didn’t prevent all the brothers from embracing socialist ideas.
Their freedom is therefore a perpetual affront to the Fascists.
The ridicule resulting from the Saccos’ escape, moreover, sparks a profound hostility towards them among the special forces who had besieged them. Capturing them becomes something more than a police operation, at this point. It’s a personal matter.
The situation is paradoxical.
The Saccos liberated Raffadali from the Mafia, as Mori had exhorted Sicilians to do.
But the forces of order were against them.
The Saccos, however, had no intention of doing anything against the forces of order. At most they might reproach them for doing nothing to help them when they most needed them. Or worse.
Chapter XII
That the repressive actions taken by Mori’s men in Raffadali were prompted by Commendatore V is a plausible hypothesis. This is what Alfonso Sacco maintains in the Biography he wrote while in Saluzzo Prison after the fall of Fascism.
But it’s not possible to prove, through witnesses, the secret meeting he tells of having with Commendatore V, in the course of which the Commendatore advised the two brothers not to turn themselves in yet. What is certain is that this meeting, if it did take place, occurred only a few days before the arrival of Mori’s men in Raffadali.
Chapter XIII
The savage violence of the special forces following the surrender of the “gang” cannot be proved, though it is highly probable.
Nobody at the trial asked Lieutenant Nuvoletti how, in a firefight that lasted two hours, according to his declarations, one of the “gang” members could be killed and the other four more or less seriously wounded, without a single member of the special forces being even grazed by a bullet.
The Fascist assault on the Carabinieri compound on October 28, in an attempt to have the prisoners turned over to them, confirmed that the “notorious Sacco gang” had become a matter more of politics than public safety.
Chapter XIV
The same article by Giuseppe Pirrello contains a supplementary interview with the senator and mayor of Raffadali, Salvatore Di Benedetto.
“The townsfolk had created a legend because, among other things, they’d been won over by the fact that the Saccos were keen to have a ‘style’ of their own. One day, when they were staying at a house in town, they were surrounded by the Carabinieri. Vincenzo Sacco climbed up onto the roof and gave a speech trumpeting their desire for justice. After which they managed to break the encirclement and escape. They realized they had to create a consensus if they were going to hold out. And this consensus derived from the fact that they obstinately opposed the Mafia, which is, and remains, cowardly when confronted by organized forces. And that’s what the Saccos were, in a way: an organized force fighting on equal terms against the Mafia. They had their own collectors in town who would go from house to house to gather funds in the name of and for use by the gang.”
A “legend,” says Senator Di Benedetto. But what does it mean, concretely speaking, to fight the Mafia “on equal terms”? It means shooting back at mafiosi, just as the mafiosi would shoot at anyone who didn’t want to submit to their abuses.
Once freed, Alfonso agreed to a few interviews. And when they appeared in print, he would carefully correct the inaccuracies in pen, in the margins.
For Pirrello’s article, where he admitted that the killing of Plano and Mangione was the work of the Saccos, he made no correction.
So maybe it wasn’t all legend.
Chapter XV
The Sacco brothers always claimed they were innocent of the crimes attributed to them. And they firmly maintained this position throughout the many long years of their imprisonment, and even after they were pardoned.
But then who did kill the two Mafia bosses, Cuffaro and Terrazzino, and force the other mafiosi of Raffadali to get out of town? It is not, of course, up to the Saccos to furnish the names of the real culprits.
One hypothesis of which Alfonso allows a glimpse, however, is that the two murders were either the result of an internal feud, or were committed by someone who was fed up with the Mafia’s abuse and took matters into his own hands, knowing that the killings would in any case be blamed on the Sacco brothers. The Saccos claimed they limited themselves to demonstrative actions, such as scaring to death the lawyer who functioned as the brains of the Mafia.
To tell the truth, one cannot say that the Saccos’ last trial, the definitive one, unfolded in an atmosphere of serenity and balance. And so?
So the Saccos everyone knew as solitary avengers, infallible sharpshooters, and tireless, unconquerable fighters were merely a town legend?
And the Mafia was defeated by three nonexistent knights?
By empty suits of armor?
By simple appearances?
If so, then what an amazing story!
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I’ve been able to tell this utterly true story only because Giovanni Sacco, one of Girolamo’s six children, asked me to recount the vicissitudes his family lived through, and provided me with official documents, family writings and correspondences, and minutes of the trials.
I would therefore like to thank him with all my heart and dedicate this book to his memory.
I’ve limited myself only to changing a name or two here and there and using false initials.
I have tried to show, through this “Western of things of ours”8—to use one of Sciascia’s titles—how the Mafia not only kills, but in those cases where the state goes missing, is also able to shape and irreparably upend people’s lives.
A.C.
8The Italian original of this phrase, Western di cose nostre, plays of course on one of the names by which the Mafia is known in Italian, la cosa nostra, “this thing of ours.” (t.n.)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Andrea Camilleri is widely considered to be one of the greatest living Italian writers. Several installments in his Montalbano crime series have been New York Times bestsellers, and he is the recipient of many Italian and international literary awards. He is the author of The Revolution of the Moon (Europa, 2017). Born in Sicily, Camilleri currently lives in Rome.
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