The Four Corners of Palermo (19 page)

“I’m hungry,” said Serena.

“I’ll go see what’s in the fridge.”

“It’s unplugged. I looked while you were sleeping. There’s a can of chickpeas and a can of tuna in the pantry.”

My skin was on fire. Sleeping in the sun had burned me to a crisp.

“I’m going to go take a shower, then I’ll make you the best salad to be found anywhere near the Gulf of Capaci.”

“Hurry up,” she said with a smile.

I stood up, and I saw out of the corner of my eye that she had lain down and was taking off her bikini top.

I found the guest bathroom, slipped off my Port Cros swimsuit, and stepped into the shower. The water was cool; the spray was gentle. I felt my body temperature return to a seasonal level.

A minute later I saw her. Serena slid open the glass door and slipped under the spray, pressing close to my body. She was nude. Her breasts pressed against my chest, and without a word, she turned around. Her buttocks brushed against my penis.

The water was pouring over us; I could feel my heart beat. She turned around and faced me again, opened her eyes, stared at me, and moved her mouth closer to mine, while her hands explored my back. Then I felt the water pour into my mouth and her kiss slip down to my beard. I couldn’t control my erection: I tried, but I couldn’t do it. Inside me, the usual neon sign was blinking:
HOWEVER
. The adversative conjunctive adverb that rang out like a passage from the Bible,
that compendium of every good deed that man can perform here on earth. And, inexplicably, I wanted to perform a good deed: control my erection, wipe the slate clean, confine those few minutes to a dream that I’d lock up in a cupboard with all the other wonderfully forbidden things that life had in store for me. The
HOWEVER
cupboard already had one fine item enjoying pride of place: Serena nude next to me, our toes intertwining, our hands touching, the desire doing a little preliminary stretching. I felt like a fool. She confirmed that sensation with a glance.

“All right,” she said as she left the shower.

Nothing more.

I made a bowl of salad as if I’d taken a shower alone.

That Sunday ended in the silence of sunset, with us sipping a Messina beer on the terrace as we listened to the others’ stories about the Isola delle Femmine and the sea urchins that Peppino had gathered and pried open for everyone. That night on the way home, as we were about to go in the door, Serena gave me a light kiss on the lips, and I didn’t try to dodge it.

“I love you,” she told me.

So did I, really. I loved her. I loved Fabrizio. And all the love I felt for the world at large that night kept me awake, forcing me into sweat-drenched dreams: the cocaine eyes of Vito Carriglio as he shouted: “Journalists! I need to talk to you guys!”; the sensation of Serena’s bottom brushing against me; the blinking neon sign reading
HOWEVER
.

I now think back on all the
no
s I’ve given and received. I’m still in the black: there are more
yes
es than
no
s. It was my good luck to
grow up without any particular privations, even if it’s clear to me that defeats do more to make you grow than victories do
.

At the end of the eighties, with a group of trusted friends, I tried playing Privations, a game described by an American minimalist in one of his books. We gathered in a circle, on a fashionable beach, and the one who was “it” first said: “I’ve never been to Australia.” Whoever had been to Australia had to give him a five-hundred-lire coin: his take was minimal. The others, who were as deprived of that experience as the one who had spoken, were under no obligation to pay. After travel, the statements soon shifted to the areas of love affairs and sex: “I’ve never had sex in a public place”; five people paid up. “I’ve never had a homosexual experience”; only one paid up. “I’ve never cheated on my partner”; and there was a chill in the air. A friend of mine, who was playing with his girlfriend sitting beside him, thought it over briefly and then set down a five-hundred-lire coin on the blue beach towel that was serving as our green felt table. His girlfriend looked down at the coin, leapt to her feet, and strode off toward the water in tears. We never played that game again
.

And yet privations remain one of the pillars of our emotional growth. It makes you feel heroic to tell yourself no, to say no to the pleasure you can glimpse in a smiling invitation, in a pair of lips brushing against yours, destined to be nothing more than a couple of lives brushing past each other. You grow, you suffer, as if life itself were a hairshirt to be donned and worn
.

As I look back, I can’t say how many of those
no
s did me good, and I’m not thinking only of the field trips from the routine of love; I’m also thinking about career choices, the fear of taking on the new, reaching for the better instead of settling for the good. Other people’s rejections aren’t up to us, but we can encourage them: it’s our own structure of certainties that makes others tilt toward a
no.

At age twenty-four this was all pure intuition, a skin-sense of loyalty to ourselves and to friendship. We didn’t know what regret was. Now we do, and we can feel it burn. Knowing, moreover, that all the
yes
es of life are written in our eyes
.

“City news?”

“Yes.”

“I have some things to tell you about the
picciriddi fatti scomparsi
—the children that were disappeared.”

The same voice, the same sound like a dried walnut.

“
Buon giorno
, I’m listening.”

I grabbed a piece of paper covered with writing and turned it over: underneath was a black Bic ballpoint.

“You need to take notes.”

“I’m taking notes.”

“Good. Now then: the three
picciriddi
? Vito Carriglio disappeared them in Sant’Onofrio.”

He pronounced the words clearly, and his accent became harder, even wrinklier.

I scribbled the words. My heart was racing.

“Can you tell me where Sant’Onofrio is?”

“Did you take that note?”

“Yes, but—”

Click
.

I sat there, staring at the sheet of paper. Then I thought of a small town by that name, over near Altavilla Milicia. I knew someone who lived there. I picked up the phone book for the province of Palermo. Rallo, Raspano, Ravanusa … Ravanusa, Salvatore: Contrada Sant’Onofrio, phone number 26.06.01.

It was there.

A house, a field, a grave, a prison?

I went to my news editor and told him about the phone call. We decided not to call the chief of the mobile squad immediately: after all, he’d had me followed, so he could wait a little while to find out. I’d check things out on my own. First I needed to talk with Carriglio’s lawyer. And pay a call on Rosaria Savasta.

I started at the hall of justice. By noon the day’s hearings were already over, and Counselor Giovanni Gallina was one of the lucky ones that day. I found him at the bar, his black robe draped over his arm, kidding around with two other colleagues. I walked over and as I approached, I heard that they were talking appraisingly about a female clerk of the court.

“You ought to see the
minne
on her,” Gallina was saying as he raised a Stagnitta-brand demitasse of espresso to his lips. The other two lawyers joined in with some bawdy mimicry, tracing double B-cups in the air. They stopped snickering when they saw that I was heading straight for them.

“Counselor Gallina, forgive me for intruding.”

I introduced myself, and he knew who I was: he’d been reading my articles about his client. The other two lawyers made themselves scarce, claiming a sudden urgent need to get back to their hearings.

“
Prego
, tell me what I can do for you,” said Gallina, checking to make sure his charcoal-gray jacket was buttoned properly. He’d taken on an alert and professional tone of voice, the tone of a man about to earn a retainer.

“I’d be interested in talking to your client Carriglio.”

“So would everyone. You can’t imagine how many journalists have called me. But he’s in prison, at the Ucciardone. It’s not that easy to get a permit for a visit in there …”

“Pass me off as your assistant: we can go together.”

“Why should I do that?”

“Because I have a piece of information that no one else has.”

Counselor Gallina leaned a foot closer. His breath smelled of coffee.

“And just what would this piece of information be?”

“I know a name that might mean something to your client.”

“And what would that mean to me?”

“That depends. The name is Sant’Onofrio.”

The lawyer furrowed his brow and expressed his doubts: “What the fuck is Sant’Onofrio?”

“A place.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Maybe Carriglio has: Why don’t you ask him, and then we can talk later this afternoon.”

We exchanged phone numbers and a handshake.

I went back out onto the street.

The Vespa was parked in front of the newspaper. I released, all at once, the tension that had been building up inside me as I shoved my foot down onto the kick-starter. The engine turned over instantly. I was heading for Acqua dei Corsari.

The little building on Via Ettore li Gotti was just as dreary as it had been the first time I met Rosaria Savasta. Someone must have dumped an animal carcass next to a pile of garbage as tall as a truck. You couldn’t see the carcass, but you could smell it.

I rang the bell. I announced my name.

The door clicked open.

Rosaria Savasta was a dark patch in the dim light of the landing. She was waiting for me with one hand on the anodized railing.

“What is it?”

“I have something to ask you.”

“Come in.”

I entered. I heard sounds coming from the kitchen. I imagined the old crow moving pots and pans by pecking at them with her beak.

“What is it?” she asked again, pointing me to a chair.

“Have you ever heard of a place called Sant’Onofrio?”

She made the distinctive Sicilian sound for no, clucking her tongue against the front of the roof of her mouth. As she made that sound, she jutted her chin out and tipped her head back. I once read that there are only two peoples on earth who nod their head vertically to express the word “no”: a nomad people of the Sahel and the Sicilians.

“But this Sant’Onofrio must mean something. I got this from the same person who called me the first time.”

I didn’t say anything more. First I wanted to find out if she knew anything. Then I’d report to the mobile squad.

“No, that stinking
fituso
of a husband of mine never talked to me about this Sant’Onofrio.”

“I didn’t see you the other night at Ficuzza. It was a good thing you didn’t come.”

“I was with my father.”

I thought about what would have happened if the bodies of the three children really had been buried there, in the Ficuzza forest. The delirious face of Vito Carriglio resurfaced in my memory. I imagined the days and nights of that married
couple, in bed, waking up in the morning, during their meals, while the children were suffering from colic. The normal everyday life of a Mafia couple—he’s a two-bit
malacarne
; she’s the daughter of a mob boss. A violent, out-of-control life, with three little children who thought they had a mother and a father like everybody else.

“And just what did Signor Savasta say to you?”

She looked me up and down. The outcome of that glance would determine the likelihood of my learning anything. She decided to trust me: I hadn’t written anything the first time, and I wouldn’t write anything the second time either.

“It doesn’t matter what my father said to me, what matters is what I asked him for.”

“And what was that?”

“Vendetta.”

Rosaria stood up and went into the kitchen. The noise of the pots and pans stopped as the echo of that word reverberated in the room:
vendetta
.

She came back a couple of minutes later. She didn’t offer me anything to eat: she’d just wanted to take a break from herself and her anger.