Page 3 of The Girl from Sicily

3

DINU, JUNE 1943

Dinu had woken early, and when he returned from the outside toilet, everyone was still asleep. Ma and Pa were snoring loud enough to wake the dead. God, it was dank in here, he thought. He left the door open to let in some light and fresh air.

Pa had asked him last night to take Gero to don Nofriu, and Dinu had agreed. Not because he liked Gero – far from it. The guy was a stuck-up punk. But the opportunity for an intro to the village boss was too good to pass up.

Dinu’s muscles tightened at the thought. He didn’t want to stay in Villaurora all his life; he didn’t want to live like a nobody and die like a beggar. Dinu had made a pact with his cousin, Francu Bagghieri – the son of Ma’s sister, Giuseppina – that as soon as the war was over they’d go into business and make piles of money. If they cosied up to don Nofriu, did him some favours, he might help them. Dinu and Francu had no qualms about what that would involve. They’d heard don Nofriu was always on the lookout for new picciotti , soldiers for his ‘family’. But they hadn’t secured an introduction to him yet.

Dinu sensed Lucia coming up behind him before he saw her; they were always in tune.

‘ Bon jornu, frati .’ Lucia wished him good morning. ‘Are you taking Gero to don Nofriu? Accura .’ Be careful.

‘Don’t worry about me, soru .’ Dinu patted her hand.

‘I wish I could go with you. I’m fed up with being treated like a second-class citizen in this country.’

For once, he was glad of the status quo. Lucia plainly thought of herself as his guardian angel and made it her business to keep him on the straight and narrow. It had always been so. Even in New York, when they were kids, she’d stop him from shoplifting and getting involved in playground fights. All it took was one piercing look from her grey-blue eyes and he’d crumple.

‘I’ll be fine,’ he said. ‘Gonna ask Francu to come with us?—’

‘Do you think that’s a good idea?’ She creased her forehead.

Francu’s family was even poorer than theirs. They had no land, and Francu worked as a day labourer. He spent his time waiting until a campiere – a steward who worked for a big landowner – would be hiring and ‘did him the courtesy’ of letting him bend over his hoe for twelve hours at a time.

Of course it would be a good idea for Francu to meet don Nofriu .

‘ Bon jornu! ’ Gero’s voice came from behind. ‘Can I invite you both to breakfast in a diner?’

Lucia laughed out loud, and Dinu joined in with her.

‘This isn’t New York,’ he said.

‘I know. I was just kiddin’.’ Gero chuckled. ‘Dad told me there’s a bar in Villaurora, though.’

‘Lucia has to stay home to do her chores,’ Dinu said, putting the americano straight. He caught his sister’s scowl as she huffed and went to stoke the fire.

‘Now I’m here in Sicily,’ Gero said, ‘I’m beginning to get why so many Sicilians have emigrated. The poverty is unbelievable.’

‘Who are you calling poor?’ Dinu bunched his fists.

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend—’ Gero held up his hands.

Like hell you didn’t, punk. Dinu kept his thoughts to himself.

‘We can grab a coffee in the piazza,’ he said. ‘I always meet my cousin, Francu, there before Pa joins us and we head for the campagna . This morning, Pa will go to work on his own.’

‘I’m sorry to put you guys out. Maybe I can find don Nofriu’s house by myself?’

‘No. It’s okay. I’ll take you.’

‘Thanks. Let’s go, then!’ Gero shouldered his kit bag.

* * *

Dinu led Gero down the hill to Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele. As they walked, they left behind the poorest one-storey dwellings and approached a street flanked by houses with two floors and balconies festooned with washing. Long and narrow, the village square had been terraced into a flat platform. The parish church of San Pietro, constructed of pale beige tuff blocks like most of the buildings in the area, occupied one end of the piazza, and the Bar Centrale stood opposite.

Francu was already propping up the counter, a cup of barley coffee in front of him. A smile spread across his tanned face.

‘Who’s that with you, kuxinu ?’ Cousin. He wiped his dark, pencil-thin moustache with the back of his hand.

Dinu introduced Gero, giving his fake name ‘Ino’ and recounting that he was a distant relative from Canicatti. He ordered more coffees and suggested they sat at a table in the corner where they wouldn’t be overheard. Then he explained the real reason for Gero’s visit.

‘ Sciatiri e matri! ’ Francu exclaimed. Wow.

‘Can you tell me something about don Nofriu before I meet him so I know who I’ll be dealing with?’ Gero turned his gaze from Dinu to Francu and back to Dinu again.

‘Many years ago, bandits infested the roads between Villaurora and the coast, where farmers sent their grain to be milled.’ Dinu glanced around, making sure no one would hear him. ‘Don Nofriu started his business by arranging protection with a man of honour named Varsallona, whose hideout was in the Cammarata mountains.’

‘Protection meant he was getting paid to keep the grain safe?’ Gero shuffled his chair forwards.

‘Then, during World War One, the Italian army began requisitioning horses and mules in Sicily for their cavalry and artillery.’ Francu took up the tale. He might have been a peasant farmhand, but he was as sharp as a pin. ‘Don Nofriu came to an agreement with the Army Commission to delegate the responsibilities to him. He collected a tax on the animals whose owners wanted to avoid requisition. He was also a broker for other animals that were being rustled, buying at a cheap price from the rustlers and selling at market prices to the army.’

‘Sounds real ingenious to me.’ Gero laughed, delving into his kit bag for a packet of Camel cigarettes, which he offered to Dinu and Francu.

‘He got his comeuppance.’ Francu took a box of matches from his pocket and lit everyone’s smokes. ‘Many horses and mules died of diseases or old age before they even reached the battlefield. The army ordered an inquiry. After the war, don Nofriu received a twenty-year sentence for fraud, corruption and murder, but he was absolved thanks to powerful friends who exonerated him.’

‘By powerful friends, you mean men of honour?’ Gero asked.

‘Of course.’ Dinu took a deep draw of his Camel. ‘In the early twenties, after a group of disgruntled peasants tried to grab land from aristocratic absentee landlords, don Nofriu bought three estates in the Villaurora region. He divided them up and handed them over – allegedly without making a penny, according to some – to a cooperative he’d founded.’ It was a well-known story.

‘Not every peasant got a plot,’ Francu said, tapping ash from his cigarette. ‘And don Nofriu kept over twelve thousand acres for himself.’

‘What happened to the godfathers when the fascists rose to power?’ Gero asked, changing the subject. ‘In the US we’ve been led to believe that Mussolini got rid of them, but that doesn’t appear to be so?—’

‘Like many men of honour, don Nofriu was exiled to the south of mainland Italy,’ Francu said. ‘But he returned to Villaurora six years ago and no one dares to persecute him any more.’

‘Mussolini didn’t get rid of Cosa Nostra like he claimed.’ Dinu exhaled smoke. ‘It’s still very alive in Sicily.’

‘It thrives here because the population respects “ omertà ”, the law of silence, of personal revenge. We feel contempt for the state and its institutions, which have done nothing for us,’ Francu added.

‘No one can disrespect a man of honour and get away with it,’ Dinu said, taking a last draw of his cigarette, then stubbing it out in an ashtray.

‘Thanks for the intel.’ Gero smiled. ‘Now I’d be grateful if you’d take me to meet the man himself.’

Gero paid for the coffees and soon Dinu was leading him and Francu out of the square, around a corner to a side street running parallel with the piazza.

‘This is don Nofriu’s place,’ Dinu said, stopping on the pavement outside an iron gate in front of the wooden door to the ground floor of a three-storey house.

His chest squeezed with anticipation as he rang the doorbell. A man with dark stubble opened the door and peered through the entrance.

‘What do you want?’ he asked in a gravelly voice.

Gero stepped forward and explained.

‘Wait here,’ the man said, slamming the door.

Gero handed around his packet of cigarettes and they all lit up to smoke in silence while they waited.

Before too long, the man returned.

‘Don Nofriu will see the American.’

‘We’re with him,’ Dinu said.

‘The American and no one else.’

‘We’ll wait for you in the piazza,’ Francu told Gero.

Don Nofriu’s man opened the gate to Gero, then slammed it and the door shut. Dinu was speechless with disappointment. There was nothing to be done but to make their way back to the square.

‘You thought we’d get an intro, didn’t you?’ Francu said as he and Dinu lowered themselves onto the middle row of steps leading up to the church.

‘I was counting on it, kuxinu .’

‘We’ll just have to ask the American to put in a good word for us.’

‘If he sticks around.’

‘Hmmm. My guess is that he’ll be here until this godforsaken war is over.’ He smirked. ‘There’ll be rich pickings when the Allies arrive, you’ll see. Don Nofriu will need extra men for his business. We’re in with a chance.’

‘I hope you are right,’ Dinu said as he gazed up at the falcon circling in the thermals above.