Page 29 of The Girl from Sicily

29

CARULA, MAY 1969

‘Villaurora sure is quaint,’ Carula said to Iain as they strolled hand in hand across the village square towards the Bar Centrale. They’d arrived in Sicily a week ago and had spent the first three days in Palermo before picking up a rented car and heading to Cefalù for the night. After a morning visiting the charming seaside town, they’d driven inland to Enna, and then on to the baglio.

‘It’s not how I expected,’ Iain said. ‘I thought there’d be a lot more people about.’

Carula shivered despite the warmth of the day. She felt eyes on her, but when she looked around, there was no one to be seen.

In the café, she ordered cappuccinos for herself and Iain. Her mamma had brought her up speaking Sicilian and she felt entirely at home in the language. Just like she felt at home in the baglio. Her grandparents were looking after it beautifully for Lucia, who’d told her it would be hers one day. Not for ages, Carula hoped. Mamma was only in her mid-forties and Carula prayed she would live a long, long life.

She gazed at her husband, her heart brimming with love. How lucky she was to have met him – he grounded her and had become her rock. Although Mamma had patently done all a single parent could do for her child, Carula had always felt there’d been a huge hole in her life. She hung on every word her mother told her about Gero. At the baglio, she’d caressed the trincaria, feeling a tangible connection with her father, and she could sense a vestige of his presence in the farmhouse, the place where her parents had been so happy. It was a shame Lucia hadn’t returned since she’d moved to America. She always maintained the memories were too painful, but surely enough time had passed…

‘This coffee tastes great,’ Iain said, breaking into her thoughts. ‘Can I get you another cup?’

‘Thanks, I’d love that.’ Carula smiled.

She glanced at the counter while Iain went to order their coffees. A man dressed in a carabiniere uniform had come into the bar and was leaning against it, drinking an espresso. The thin grey hair at the sides of his head had been combed over his baldness. He lifted the cup to his fleshy red lips, and met Carula’s eye.

Not wanting to be caught staring, she quickly glanced away. But the man came up to their table when Iain returned.

‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t help noticing your similarity to someone I used to know. My name is Giulianu Cardona. You aren’t, by any chance, Carula Bonanno, Lucia Pavano’s daughter?’

Surprised, Carula confirmed that she was before introducing Iain and saying her married name was now Turner.

‘We’re on our honeymoon, staying at my mother’s baglio,’ she added.

‘I’m an old friend of Lucia’s,’ the carabiniere said. ‘I knew your father, Gero, very well.’

‘How amazing!’ Carula widened her eyes. ‘My grandparents are in New York still, but my Aunt Annita is here and I’ll be meeting my Uncle Dinu tomorrow in a restaurant in Castronovo. We’re heading there after we’ve visited the temples in Agrigento.’

She translated the conversation into English for Iain before turning to Cardona.

‘It’s strange my mother never mentioned you?—’

‘When you see her next, please give her my regards.’ The carabiniere smirked. ‘I’ve never forgotten her, you see.’

Carula didn’t know how to respond to Cardona’s words and was glad when she didn’t need to as the policeman gave her a bow and then marched out of the café.

* * *

The next day, excitement making her chest feel light, Carula was walking across the main square of Castronovo, high in the mountains to the north of Agrigento, hand in hand with Iain. She was finally about to meet her Uncle Dinu, her mother’s twin. Mamma had told her so much about him, how they used to hunt rabbits together, how close they were until the chaos of World War II and Carula’s decision to move to America drove them apart.

When Carula pressed her mother for details, she’d said that Sicily had gone through massive turmoil during and after the Allied occupation, and the less said about that the better. Mamma had also lamented her brother’s lack of letter-writing skills – she knew very little about his life these days, and hoped Carula would find out more from him.

Carula’s heart pounded. The man picking at the dish of olives in front of him on the outside terrace table of the restaurant couldn’t be anyone but her uncle. When she’d asked her Aunt Annita how she would recognise him, Aunt had said he was the image of Lucia in male form. And she was right.

Dinu scraped back his chair and came forward to greet her and Iain. They spoke to him in English and he replied in the language of his childhood.

‘I remember you as a little girl,’ he said, kissing Carula on both cheeks before leading her and Iain back to the table. ‘Let me introduce you to my cousin, Francu.’

Everyone shook hands and a waiter appeared to take their food order.

‘What do you recommend, Uncle?’ Carula asked.

‘This is our first time here.’ Dinu shrugged. ‘But you can’t go far wrong with pasta alla norma followed by grilled sea bass.’

Carula explained the dishes to Iain.

‘Sounds good,’ he said, glancing at her. ‘Shall we have the same?’

‘Great idea, honey.’

Movement caught her eye, and she pointed in the direction of the far side of the square. ‘Look, there’s Giulianu Cardona.’ She smiled. ‘He introduced himself to us at the bar in Villaurora, and we told him we were planning on meeting up with you.’

Carula’s smile vanished as she caught her uncle’s expression. His nostrils flared and his eyes had turned cold and flinty.

‘You betrayed me, Carula.’ He spat the words. ‘How could you?’

‘What?’ She stared at him blankly.

Before Dinu could clarify, all hell broke loose. Cardona was racing towards them, followed by a posse of carabinieri.

Carula gasped as Dinu drew a pistol from under his jacket. Cold sweat spread down her body and she held her breath.

Bullets caught Cardona on the side of his face and neck, spinning him around. His body crumpled to the ground, his eyes unseeing.

Carula had never seen anyone killed before and nausea swelled her stomach. She started screaming.

‘Duck!’ Iain shouted, pulling her under the table.

Guns roared. Bullets flew.

‘Run!’ Dinu yelled at Francu.

Carula’s heart nearly stopped while she watched them as they set off across the piazza, ricocheting bullets raining down while the carabinieri pursued them, both sides firing.

A bullet caught Dinu’s arm. He grasped hold of it and he swore with pain.

Carula’s eyes widened. Her uncle and Francu had reached a car, parked on the other side of the square. Francu bundled Dinu into the passenger seat and got behind the wheel. Bullets crashed into their rear window, smashing it to smithereens.

And then Carula felt herself falling, down into blackness as the world spun around her. The last thing she heard before she fainted was Iain muttering that Dinu and Francu had got away.