Page 6 of The Girl from Sicily

6

LUCIA, JUNE 1943

Lucia gazed up at the stars, embedded in the velvet blackness of the summer night. It was hot inside, and she’d come outdoors to sit in the cool. Many of their neighbours were doing likewise, and the street murmured with the sound of whispered conversations.

Dinu pulled up a chair next to her and sat himself down.

‘ Ciao ,’ she said, turning to smile at him. She’d barely seen him since Gero Bonanno had arrived, and she wasn’t happy about that.

The other day, after he and Francu had shown the American how to get to don Nofriu’s, Dinu had come home in a rage. Gero had accepted the boss’s offer of a room in his house, and Dinu said it was an insult to the family that he’d preferred to live in comfort rather than bunk down with them.

Lucia had been relieved, not offended. Getting Gero out of the house meant he’d have less chance of being a bad influence on her brother. She worried about Gero’s connections with the village godfather.

But Ma had taken Dinu’s side.

‘It’s like a slap in the face,’ she’d said.

It wasn’t too long before she changed her mind. Gero came the next morning with half a kilo of ground beef for her to make a ragù to stuff arancini with. He’d become Ma’s number one favourite person since then.

Lucia huffed to herself. Don Nofriu traded in meat on the black market, she knew for a fact. Gero would have arrived with money to fund his activities on the island, and he’d have used some of it to purchase the beef. He must have further use for her family, she’d thought.

And he soon proved she wasn’t wrong. She’d found out yesterday from her twin that Gero had hidden his radio down in the valley after he’d parachuted from the plane. Dinu and Francu had set off with him after nightfall to bring it back to Lucia’s family home.

‘Why can’t he keep it at don Nofriu’s?’ she’d asked her brother.

‘He doesn’t want him getting wind of his business.’

‘And what business might that be?’

‘He wants to snoop on troop movements for a start,’ Dinu had said. ‘I know I can trust you not to breathe a word.’

Time to change the subject , Lucia thought.

‘So, frati .’ She glanced at her twin. ‘How about we go hunting tomorrow?’

‘I can’t, soru . Gero would like me to show him where the nearest division of the Italian Sixth Army is camped. Remember, we spotted them last month while we went looking for rabbits further afield?’

‘Please, take me with you,’ she begged. ‘I’m going crazy cooped up here all the time.’

‘Not sure that’s a good idea, sis.’ Dinu rubbed at the back of his neck. ‘I don’t want Gero getting the wrong idea about you.’

‘That I’m a tomboy? I don’t care a jot if he does and neither should you.’

‘Life here isn’t like in America.’ Dinu cleared his throat. ‘You’re not supposed to be out and about with a guy unless you’re married.’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ she said, folding her arms over her stomach. ‘That’d only apply if I was alone with him. Which I wouldn’t be as you’d be with us, stupid.’

‘Who are you calling stupid?’ He shot her a look.

‘Just kiddin’.’ She laughed to dispel her disquiet at Dinu’s sudden dark tone. ‘But seriously, what could be the harm?’

‘Let me run it by him tomorrow, okay? He’s meeting Pa and me for a coffee in the Bar Centrale before we go to work.’

‘Thanks, frati .’ She leaned across the space between them and gave him a hug. ‘I won’t embarrass you, I promise.’

‘You’d better not,’ he said.

Again, there was a dark edge to his tone, a darkness that made her shiver.

* * *

The next evening, Lucia dressed in her brother’s clothes and headed off with her brother and Gero at nightfall by the light of a full moon. Her parents thought she was going to hunt rabbits with Dinu, and she hadn’t put them straight. The danger was minimal. They were only going to verify the exact position of the encampment and wouldn’t go anywhere near the troops. As they walked, they chatted about their childhoods in New York.

‘Remember when we used to meet up on Coney Island?’ Gero reminisced.

They didn’t go to Coney Island to swim, Lucia reflected. Neither she nor Dinu had ever learnt because there was never enough room in the water. There were also those twenty-thousand leaks under the sea, which turned it into the biggest urinal in the city. She gave a shudder of revulsion.

‘The beach was sardine-packed with oiled bodies, most of them funny-looking,’ she said.

‘They were all in varying shades of sun-toasted red.’ Gero flung his head back in laughter.

‘I remember our sandcastles would always end up being trodden on,’ Lucia said, thinking back to how everyone staked out their territory, leaving just enough space for folks to walk past. Many crotches would approach at the level of her nose, and her view of misshapen rumps would make her feel like throwing up. Not to mention all those beer bellies spilling out over waistbands.

‘My parents wouldn’t let us use the bath houses to get changed in,’ Gero said. ‘They reckoned they weren’t as clean as our bathroom at home.’

Lucia smiled ruefully at the memory. Ma had been of the same opinion, even though they shared theirs with the apartment next door. Furthermore, the bath houses cost fifty cents to rent and Pa only earned about fifteen dollars a week.

‘Ma and Pa made us ride back to Brooklyn on the trolley car in wet bathing suits full of scratchy sand,’ she said.

‘Didn’t you just love the boardwalk, the penny arcades and the frozen custard?’ Dinu’s voice vibrated with pleasure.

‘Oh, yeah. The frozen custard.’ Gero appeared to bounce on his toes. ‘Twelve thousand per cent butterfat. How could I ever forget?’

Lucia was glad he hadn’t mentioned Luna Park. She and her family didn’t have twenty-five cents to waste at a shooting gallery, nor the fifteen required for the rollercoasters. She used to gaze longingly at the Mile Sky Chaser, which surrounded the park on three sides and featured drops of nearly eighty feet.

‘Have you been to any of the beaches here in Sicily?’ Gero asked.

What a crass question, she thought. Did he really believe people like them indulged in breaks at the seaside? She’d been warming to him while they chatted, hoping against hope he wouldn’t involve her brother in anything to do with don Nofriu.

‘Only time I ever saw the coast was when we approached Palermo on the cargo ship bringing us here from New York.’ Dinu shook his head. ‘Sometimes I forget we’re living on an island.’

They lapsed into silence as they trudged on through the night, Lucia’s legs feeling as heavy as lead. She prayed they’d get to their destination soon. Finally, to her relief, they arrived at a bamboo thicket.

Dinu put his finger to his lips and motioned that they should crouch down. The camp appeared lightly defended; Lucia could only spot two sentries. There were about twenty tank-sized shapes, covered with camouflage nets.

‘I’ve got what I came for,’ Gero whispered. ‘We can leave now.’

Not a word of thanks , Lucia huffed. She wished he would leave for good.

* * *

The next day was Sunday. In the morning, before heading off to mass, the entire family took it in turns to have a bath and wash their hair. It was quite a rigmarole. Ma supervised the proceedings, heating water in an enormous cauldron over the fire, then pouring it into a huge iron tub. The least dirty of them went in first – always Annita – followed by Lucia, Ma, Dinu and Pa. A sheet was strung up across the room for privacy, and by the time the show was over, the bathwater was filthy and stone cold. Dinu and Pa didn’t seem to mind, thankfully.

Lucia relished the feeling of cleanliness. The rest of the week, she and the other members of her family made do with a sponge down at bedtime. She put on a fresh clean dress and braided her hair before helping Annita with hers.

‘You look lovely, tisoru ’ – darling – she said to her sister. ‘Come, link your arm with mine and we’ll walk down to the church together.’

Ma and Pa herded them out of the house, and soon they joined their neighbours on the street as the entire village went to mass.

Lucia spotted Dinu and Francu and gave them a wave. Her brother had set off earlier to meet their cousin.

The air inside the church was redolent with the scent of incense and the stench of bodies that hadn’t partaken of a weekly bath. Gero was in don Nofriu’s pew on the opposite side of the aisle to where Lucia, Annita, Pa and Ma were sitting. Lucia gritted her teeth. It looked as if Gero had been accepted as a member of the godfather’s ‘family’, or Cosa Nostra clan.

Dinu and Francu had wormed their way into the bench behind the American. Lucia hated the way they were constantly cosying up to him. She knew her brother well and feared his intentions.

Without warning, she felt hot eyes burning into her. She chanced a quick glance and caught sight of the marshal of the local carabinieri, Giulianu Cardona, an unattractive man with oiled black hair, protruding ears, a pencil-thin moustache and fleshy red lips. He was always looking at her and she disliked him for it.

To distract herself, she gazed around the congregation. The pew in front was occupied by the village schoolteacher, Alberto Spina, his wife, Donata, and their little boys, Lele and Pinuzzo. Rumour had it that Spina was anti-fascist, but it was probably only gossip.

A gruff voice came from the back of the church. Carlo Russo, the village’s fat mayor. Lucia turned around to look at him. As fascist as the black shirt he was wearing, he was sandwiched between his chubby wife, Nilla, and their adolescent sons, Fonziu and Mariano.

Lucia curled her lip. The mayor had done nothing to help the people of Villaurora, and she despised him. Thank God she had the love she felt for her family, or she’d go sour with so much hate. And she loved the blessed Virgin Mary and Jesus, of course. Her faith was strong, she’d been brought up a good Catholic, and she knew that if the life she was living now was lacking in material things, it wasn’t the be all and end all of her existence. She would live in a perfect union of love with God when she went to heaven.

The congregation rose to its feet as Father Michele walked slowly to the altar with his servers. He was don Nofriu’s brother; the two men were like day and night. The priest’s open, smiling face was a complete contrast to the man of respect’s cunning, foxy appearance.

Lucia closed her eyes, and a vision of the velvet sky lit by shining stars came into her mind. She longed to be out in the countryside, hunting rabbits with Dinu without a care in the world. A feeling of dread came over her, and she wished Gero Bonanno had never come to Villaurora.