“Nah, she keeps ’er eye on ’er even worse than at San Giusippuzzo. Totina and Catarina get there early in the morning, say their confessions, and then take communion. Round four in the afternoon, they head back home to San Giusippuzzo.”
“Wait a second,” said don Anselmo. “And what do they do between the end of the Mass and four o’clock?”
“They go an’ eat at my sister-in-law Clarizza’s house. She’s Catarina’s big sister.”
“And does this sister-in-law have any sons?”
“Yessir, she’s got two. But they’re in America.”
“And how old is her husband?”
“’E’s eighty. Turiddru was twenty years older than Clarizza when they got married.”
There seemed to be no answer. Could it really have been the Holy Spirit?
At that moment the voice of the town crier rose up from the street.
“Citizens of Palizzolo!” he shouted in Italian, for anyone who might understand. “The state of martial law has ended! The curfew and prohibition of public assembly have also been lifted!”
This was immediately followed by the Sicilian translation:
“Cumpaisani palizzoloti! No more martial law! You can stay out all night if you like and get together with as many people as you want!”
*
At four o’clock that afternoon Casimiro the manservant intercepted the mayor as he was coming out of his home on his way to City Hall.
“Don Liborio asked if you could drop in at the club for a minute.”
As soon as Mayor Calandro entered the salon, everyone present started clapping.
“Long live our mayor!” cried don Stapino Vassallo.
Almost all the members were there, even Dr. Bellanca, who hardly ever went to the club. Only Baron Lo Mascolo and Marquis Cammarata were missing.
“Are we all present?” President Spartà asked the secretary.
“All present except for the sick.”
“Casimiro!” don Liborio called.
The waiter came in with four bottles of champagne fresh out of the icehouse. A small table had already been set in one corner of the great room and was covered with glasses. The bottles were uncorked and the glasses filled.
“Gentlemen, please serve yourselves,” said don Liborio Spartà. “But first I should like to propose a toast of thanks to Mayor Calandro and all those who supported our initiative to free Dr. Bellanca. The pressure the mayor and all of us put on the prefect has achieved the desired result. To your health, Dr. Bellanca!”
They all drank. The mayor didn’t feel like telling the truth, which was that the prefect had nothing whatsoever to do with the matter.
“Another round?” don Serafino Labianca asked.
“Of course!” said don Liborio. “Whom would you like to toast?”
“I propose a toast to the unfaithful wife of Captain Montagnet!”
Everyone laughed. At a certain point don Anselmo approached Dr. Bellanca, put an arm around his shoulders, and pulled him a short distance away from the others.
“There’s something I wanted to ask you.”
“Go right ahead.”
Before speaking, don Anselmo pulled him even farther aside. He didn’t want anyone to hear him.
“Can an eighty-year-old man get a girl pregnant?”
“Apparently there have been some such cases. But it’s extremely rare. Why do you ask?”
“Because my overseer’s daughter, Totina—”
“I know the whole story, don Anselmo. Her mother brought her to me for an examination.”
“The only male that Totina could have had any contact with was Zia Clarizza’s husband, but he’s eighty years old.”
“You’re referring to Turiddru Cannizzaro?”
“Precisely.”
“But do you know Cannizzaro?”
“No, sir.”
“Cannizzaro is a patient of mine. He suffers from catarrh, but is otherwise a strong, healthy man.”
“So in fact you’re saying it could have been him!”
“Not on your life, don Anselmo! I didn’t say that!”
“You just don’t want to compromise yourself,” don Anselmo said in disappointment.
And, sidling up to the lawyer Sciortino, he took him by the arm and pulled him aside.
“I would like you to draft a statement of denunciation for me, which I’ll drop by later to sign.”
“I’m at your service, don Anselmo. Whom do you want to denounce?”
“Captain Montagnet, for abuse of power.”
“You can’t do that, don Anselmo. It’s true that the prefect has proved us right, but that would be pissing outside the pot!”
“Well, maybe you happen to piss outside the pot, seeing that your hands shake! And if your hands shake that bad, we can only imagine your cock!”
Sciortino decided it was best to turn his back and walk away. It was not a day for squabbling.
Signura Albasia Chiarapane arrived in Palizzolo from Salsetto. A woman of fifty, five-foot-eleven, and blonde, she had a baritone voice, was authoritarian and brusque in manner, and looked a little like an ostrich. Even Teresi felt a tad intimidated by her. She didn’t even embrace her son and didn’t bother to ask what had happened to him. Instead, she went immediately on the attack:
“What is this? All these days without any news from you? Is that any way to treat your mother?”
“Mamà . . . ”
“You’re just like your father! Both of with your heads in the clouds, and I always have to take care of everything!”
“Mamà . . . ”
“What did you do to your lips?”
“Mamà . . . ”
“I bet you didn’t even go to the Cammaratas’!”
“Mamà . . . ”
“The man you sent to Salsetto told me you had a bout of the flu. Well, it looks to me like you’re all better. Now get dressed and let’s go!”
“Mamà . . . ”
“Signora, your son has suffered a concussion, lost three teeth, broken three ribs, and I don’t know how many—”
“Didn’t I just say he always has his head in the clouds? You went and got run over by a carriage!”
Luigino, her son, became disheartened, closing his eyes and lying down in bed. Teresi grabbed the enraged ostrich by the arm and dragged her into his study.
“And who are you, may I ask?” asked Signura Albasia.
“I’m Matteo Teresi, I’m a lawyer, and it was I who, together with my nephew Stefano, found your son on the street. He’d been savagely beaten, left for dead, put in a large sack, and dropped by the side of the road like an animal.”
The lawyer made a point of telling her exactly what had happened, without diluting a thing. He wanted to make her as incensed as possible.
“And did Luigino recognize the assailant?”
“The assailants, Signora. There were two of them: a mafioso, and the Marquis Cammarata.”
“I don’t think this is any time for jokes! Shame on you! Marquis Cammarata is a gentleman who would never hurt a fly!”
“Just ask your son, Signora.”
“But why would he do anything like that?”
“Because he’s convinced Luigino got his eldest daughter, Paolina, pregnant, and that—”
The signora jumped out of her chair, dashed straight for the staircase, went upstairs, entered her son’s room, and dealt him a hard slap in the mouth.
Blood immediately started flowing from the reopened wounds.
But the lad’s mother didn’t even notice.
“You disgusting cad! Taking advantage of my cousin’s innocent daughter!”
“Grab her,” Teresi said to his nephew.
And together they seized her and dragged her downstairs again to the study.
&nbs
p; Teresi locked the door and put the key in his pocket.
“Now try to calm down, Signora. Your son spent the whole night in a state of delirium. I wrote down what he was saying. And you must know that people speak the truth when they’re delirious.”
He handed her a sheet of paper.
“Would you please read this?” he said.
*
Also at four o’clock that afternoon, Dr. Palumbo, seeing that Rosalia Pampina still wouldn’t make up her mind to drink so much as a drop of water and insisted on remaining silent with her eyes popping out of her head, loaded her into the carriage with the help of the notary’s wife and a maid, and took her to the hospital in Camporeale. There a doctor examined her and then said to his colleague from Palizzolo:
“I’m going to have to report this.”
“So go ahead and report it,” said Palumbo.
Half an hour later, the report, which described severe, repeated acts of sexual violence and sodomy inflicted by unknown parties upon the person of young Rosalia Pampina, residing in Palizzolo at the home of Domenico Giallonardo, notary, was brought to the attention of one Lieutenant Di Lullo, commanding officer of the Carabinieri station in Camporeale. The lieutenant then duly passed it on, according to protocol, to Captain Montagnet.
When the report arrived on the captain’s desk, he was not surprised. He already knew Rosalia Pampina’s story, having been told it by Lieutenant Villasevaglios, who had obtained the names of the three women raped by Salamone the brigand before letting them go free.
For the sake of investigative thoroughness, the captain dropped in at the Giallonardo home. The notary was out, but his wife, Signura Romilda, told him everything he wanted to know.
“But who could it have been?” Signura Romilda asked when she had finished. “She didn’t tell us anything when she got back here. And it could only have happened during the night she spent out.”
“Right,” said the captain, refraining from telling her about the brigand.
He thanked her and left. But if Rosalia was speaking before she went to church, why did she stop when she got back from church? Of course it was possible that the trauma from the violence she’d suffered had a delayed onset. Or else, since she was a churchgoing girl, maybe when she went to confess, the priest hadn’t wanted to grant her absolution? And if so, why deny her that?
The girl had not consented to the act—on the contrary, according to Villasevaglios, she had taken the whole thing much harder than the other two girls, and it had required a lot of effort to reassure her.
Captain Montagnet decided to go and speak directly with the priest of San Cono.
The first thing Patre Filiberto Cusa said was that all he could tell him about Rosalia Pampina was that she was a serious girl with a healthy fear of God who went to confession and took Communion every week.
“And did she confess the evening she came here?”
“That was her reason for coming.”
“And did she tell you about the rape?”
“I can’t answer you, as I’m sure you’re well aware.”
“One last question, Reverend. Did you grant her absolution?”
“You’re very clever, Captain. If I answered your question, I would be implicitly admitting that Rosalia had confessed to something so dire as to jeopardize her chance of absolution. But I want to tell you something that might be of help to you. For us, no sin is committed if a person is forced to sin through violent coercion. I hope I’m being clear.”
“Perfectly clear.”
Therefore, Rosalia had been granted absolution. So then why had she fallen into despair? He had an idea.
“One more question, Father. How long was she here in church, do you remember?”
“I would say not more than twenty minutes.”
There was something that didn’t add up. Signura Giallonardo had told him that Rosalia returned home two hours after she’d gone out. Granting that she’d spent half an hour in church, where had she spent the other hour and a half? And, more importantly, with whom?
*
When the captain returned to the station, the carabiniere on duty told him there was a couple, a man and a woman, waiting to see him. He’d shown them into the captain’s office. As Montagnet entered, the two stood up.
“Good afternoon. My name is Matteo Teresi, and I’m a lawyer here in town,” said the man.
“And I am Signora Albasia Chiarapane.”
“Pleased to meet you.”
Sitting down he realized that he’d left the hospital doctor’s report on his desk. He grabbed it and put it in a drawer, not knowing, however, that Teresi had had all the time in the world to commit it to memory.
“What can I do for you?”
The lawyer and the lady exchanged a glance of consultation. She went first.
“The lawyer and I are here to report the attempted murder of my son, Luigi.”
“Did this happen here?”
“Yes.”
“Is it an accusation against an unknown party?”
Now it was Teresi’s turn to speak.
“No. We are accusing Marquis Filadelfo Cammarata and a noted local mafia chief known in town as ’u zù Carmineddru, but whose surname is unknown to us.”
“I know his surname,” said the captain. “His name is Carmine Pregadio. And where is her son at present?”
“At my house,” replied Teresi. “We picked him up off the street. They’d put him inside a sack, apparently thinking he was dead.”
“I would like to hear his testimony first. Can he come here?”
“Doctor Palumbo, who has been attending to him, has forbidden him to get out of bed. But if you’d like to come to my house—”
“Let’s go,” said the captain, getting up.
*
After more than an hour, Teresi came out with the captain and accompanied him to Dr. Palumbo’s office, as Montagnet wanted to hear his testimony. As they were walking in silence, Teresi came out with an expression intended to prick the captain’s curiosity.
“How odd, though!”
“What’s odd?” asked Montagnet.
“That Baron Lo Mascolo’s daughter is also two months pregnant!”
But he didn’t seem so interested.
“He came charging over to my house,” Teresi continued, “accusing my nephew of having seduced his daughter.”
“Did he threaten him?”
“He wanted to shoot him dead!” the lawyer said, laughing.
“Threatening with a firearm. Would you like to press charges?”
“No. He was finally convinced it wasn’t my nephew. But don’t you find it strange that two unmarried girls are both exactly two months pregnant?”
“As far as that goes, the number of pregnant women who don’t want to reveal the name of the culprit—for lack of a better term—is four.”
Teresi was stunned, stopping dead in his tracks in the middle of the square. He didn’t know that Dr. Presti, after half an hour of interrogation by the captain, spiced with the threat of a ten-year prison sentence, had cracked and told him everything he’d been told by Dr. Bellanca.
“But . . . how did you find out . . . ?”
“We’re carabinieri, aren’t we?”
He’d just dropped the captain off at Dr. Palumbo’s and was on his way home, where Luigino’s mother was waiting for him, when he was stopped by don Anselmo Buttafava.
“I have a request, my good man.”
“I’m at your service, don Anselmo.”
“I need you to draft an accusation for me . . . ”
“I’m sorry, don Anselmo, but isn’t Sciortino your regular lawyer?”
“Yes, and in fact I approached him first, but he wouldn’t hear of it.”
“Whom are you accusing?”
“Ca
ptain Montagnet, for abuse of power.”
“That’s a rather groundless accusation.”
“You think? So his charge against me had deep foundations?”
“Listen, could we talk about this tomorrow morning at nine? I’ll come to you, if you prefer.”
“All right, I’ll be waiting. Can I ask you one more thing?”
“I’m in a bit of a rush, don Anselmo. Go ahead.”
“In your opinion, can an eighty-year-old man get a young girl pregnant?”
The lawyer froze in his tracks for the second time in ten minutes.
“Why are you asking me that?”
“Because Totina, the daughter of my farm overseer, ’Ngilino, is two months pregnant and saying it was the Holy Spirit that did it. But I think it was an uncle of hers, except for the fact that he’s eighty years old. He must have taken advantage of her when she came into town for Holy Mass.”
The lawyer was barely even listening to him anymore. He was wondering whether Totina was already one of the four pregnant girls, or the fifth.
CHAPTER VIII
ATTORNEY TERESI STARTS THINKING ABOUT THINGS
Signura Albasia Chiarapane headed back to Salsetto as the sun was setting, but before leaving announced that she would be back the following afternoon. After eating what his daytime housekeeper had made, and serving some as well to Luigino, Teresi told his nephew not to go upstairs to chat with the lad, but to come into his study.
“I want to ask you something.”
“Go ahead.”
“It’s about Antonietta Lo Mascolo.”
“I’ve already told you what I know about her. But if you want to keep talking about her, I can do that too.”
“Stefanù, I’ve been giving this whole affair a lot of thought. You have maintained, and continue to maintain, that Antonietta was in no way the kind of girl who would drop her knickers for somebody she’d just met the day before, correct?”
“Correct. But not even for somebody she met three years before, either.”
“I would like to know what it is that makes you so sure.”
“It’s the way she acts, Zio. The way she talks. And she wasn’t just making small talk. She was convinced in her heart of everything she did and said. One time we even talked about when she would get married. She had a very clear idea of the kind of man she would choose: he had to be serious, and honest. Just like her. She didn’t care whether he was rich or not. Last year the baron told her that Baron Piscopo’s son, Arrigo, had expressed interest. She replied that it was completely out of the question. She’d seen this Arrigo once, and that had been enough.”
The Sect of Angels Page 9
