The Four Corners of Palermo (5 page)

“And anyway, I love him. My classmates are all idiots, but he and I do good things together, and when I’m with him I feel that life is beautiful … but at the same time horrible.”

“Horrible how, what are you trying to say?”

“No, nothing.”

Rosalba understood that she’d been tossing around adjectives again. She knew it was a bad habit of hers. Natalia, a classmate who had moved to Palermo from Venice, had told her that Sicilians have a defect: they tend to overuse adjectives. It wasn’t something she believed, Natalia had explained to her; it was something her mother had said. Her mother was a hard woman, born in Mestre, who rarely if ever hugged her.

“But maybe that’s exactly why I like Sicilians: they make even the simplest things warm and interesting,” Natalia had added.

Rosalba loved that Venetian beanpole. But she knew that she herself overdid it with her adjectives.

“Mamma, saying that life is horrible doesn’t mean a thing. It’s just a figure of speech. All I know is that for now I want to stay with Marinello. I’m going to see him now, we have a date. Unless you need it, I’ll keep the Ford Fiesta tonight and tomorrow. You have the Fiat 126. You can use that.”

Mariapia looked down at the table, and touched the bottle of water and Idrolitina. She moved it an inch to one side, as if she was setting the table. Everything around her was orderly and tidy. She looked her daughter in the eyes: long, deep eyes. So filled with blackness that they scared her.

“All right, my love. If we need to go out, we’ll use the Fiat 126. But remember that your finals are coming up, and you have studying to do.”

Rosalba got dressed: bell-bottom jeans and a tight yellow tank top.

She embraced her mother: she could sense the smell of home in her hair. She went to the bus stop for the number 3, marked by an orange pole, this one standing straight up,
and a bench. And she took the one going back to the outskirts of town.

“Why is Marinello still alive?”

“He was lucky.”

“There’s no such thing as luck.”

“I swear it. May I be struck dead on the spot. Otherwise …”

“Otherwise you’re worth nothing.”

“
Patri
, you have to believe me: I’m still the best.”

“Don’t talk crap: we tell you to go kill that traitor to his family and when you come back you’ve let him shoot you.”

“It was nothing, he just grazed me.”

“Sure, but he shot you, all the same. And you, after practically finishing him off, you let a little girl screw you.”

“She was coming right at me with her car.”

“A fine way for the killer of killers to wind up: hit by a car. You make me laugh, Peduzzo.”

Totuccio didn’t want to make anyone laugh. Being forced to justify himself in the presence of Don Cosimo Spataro, his father and the
capo di tutti capi
of Palermo, city and province, was not something he deserved. He’d always killed everyone he was sent to kill. He’d never had to explain anything.

Don Cosimo looked at him with expressionless eyes. There wasn’t even contempt in his gaze. There was nothing, and that might well be worse.

“Get me the
zammù
, Totuccio.”

The super-killer stood up fast, like a Rottweiler obeying an order given in its mother tongue. He went into the kitchen and came back with a glass of cold water and a small bottle of Unico anise.

“
Patri
, how much?”

“Leave it be. I’ll take care of it.”

The water turned from transparent to milky white with each drop that the don tilted into the glass. The scent permeated the room. They were sitting at the dining room table, and the lace doily at the center was the handiwork of Donna Rosalia Coppola, mother of Totuccio, wife of Don Cosimo, but most important of all, the eldest daughter of Don Tano Coppola,
capo di tutti capi
of both Palermo and its surrounding province; or at least he was until the day his beloved son-in-law Don Cosimo Spataro decided that there should be only one
capo di tutti capi
.

That was one of the first jobs assigned to young Peduzzo: murder his grandfather, that country gentleman who every November 2 gave all his grandchildren, Totuccio included, the weapon of their choice. November 2, in Palermo, is a major traditional holiday. It’s a pagan festival, a day of dark candies sold on the street and gifts given to children: toy rifles, air pistols, weapons and nothing but weapons. Rosalia Coppola refused to view her father’s corpse: she understood; she showed not the slightest hint of rebellion. A wife she was and a wife she remained. The wife of the new
capo di tutti capi
of Palermo, city and province.

Totuccio looked at the doily and thought about his mother upstairs with his still-unmarried sisters, Carmela and Maria, teaching them the art of embroidery.

“
Patri
, tell me what I have to do.”

“What’s the name of the
picciotta
that traitor is going out with?”

“Rosalba Corona.”

“You know what the problem is: Marinello refuses to kill
and to swear the oath. We can’t let a stranger into our home, a girl from a family where no one has been
combinati
, made Mafia. This Corona, what’s worse, I hear that he’s causing us trouble over our water deals. He’s killing us on the price. We’ve been seeing fewer profits ever since he got the job.”

“What can I do?”

“Kill him and his wife: Marinello and that
buttana
of a girlfriend of his will get the message. Right?”

“Right.”

Don Cosimo finished his glass of water and
zammù
. He was giving a second chance to that son of his, who really was a good
picciotto
.

“How spectacular should I make it?”

“Not very—after all, the ones who need to understand will understand.”

The man who turned the light on was called Tommaso Buscetta. Until the day he started telling us how things worked in the Mafia, we had stumbled through the darkness of ignorance. The first thing that the Boss of Two Worlds explained to Judge Giovanni Falcone was that the word “Mafia” didn’t exist: the members referred to it as La Cosa Nostra. The second thing was that the Mafia was run by the Commission, also known as the Cupola. The third thing was that in order to become a Mafioso, you had to swear an oath
.

That wasn’t all. The first great Mafia
pentito,
or informer, made it clear that in order to become a Mafioso, that is
, “combinato,”
there are certain absolute prerequisites: you couldn’t be a blood relation of anyone who worked for the state; you must lead a moral life, without too many lovers, illegitimate children,
or girlfriends on the side; you must display courage, obedience, and criminal valor
.

After a short observation period, the future
picciotto
was summoned to swear the oath, which consisted of a brief ritual performed in a private home. There he would meet at least three men of honor of the “family” he was about to join. The eldest of those present would utter certain phrases, explaining that Cosa Nostra was founded to do good, to protect the weak. Then, with a thorn from a bitter orange tree, he would draw blood from the candidate Mafioso’s finger and let a few drops fall onto a holy card, which would in turn be lit afire. The new Mafioso must complete his oath with the ritual words: “May my flesh burn like this sacred image if I fail to keep faith with my oath.”

Marinello had replied: “No, thanks.”

Evening at the newspaper. I was leafing through the sports section of the
Giornale di Sicilia
: the Palermo soccer team had been left behind, in the minor leagues, instead of being promoted to Serie A. I was reading the sports articles as if they were so many obituaries. At seven that evening I had an appointment to talk with a couple of kids from the Liceo Garibaldi who knew Rosalba Corona. Ahead of me lay a half hour of boredom.

Her phone number was scribbled in the top right-hand corner of the calendar, almost as big as my desk, on which I put everything: typewriter, cups of coffee, notepads, pens, cigarettes.

I asked the switchboard to give me an outside long-distance line: 02.

“Is the lawyer in?”

“How are things going in the murder capital, stupid?”

“
Ciao
, Francesca.”

“You Palermitans, do you go to the beach or do you just suffer in silence?”

“Sometimes the beach comes to us: last year, the waves came and took two kids off the outer breakwater. Massive waves, full-blown tempest, atmosphere straight out of Melville.”

“You’re being pointlessly dramatic: I was just talking about swimsuits.”

“I go underwater fishing, in scuba gear with a speargun.”

“I guess that’s just one more way to go on killing.”

“Francesca, are you sure the lawyer isn’t home? I’m starting to think I’d rather talk to him …”

She laughed. “All right, I have nothing against fishing. It’s just that I hate boats. They increase my sense of instability.”

“I fish from under the surface of the water. Down there, it’s perfectly stable, let me assure you: you’re like a floating corpse. The truth is that I love boats, though.”

“Too bad for you.”

“Fine, let’s play a game. If I were to say to you: Francesca, come on, let’s go from Vulcano to Lipari and then to Salina, to see the most beautiful water on earth, to feel the gentlest breezes on earth on our faces, to sunbathe in the most beautiful sun on—”

“I don’t sunbathe, and I don’t like boats. So my answer would be no.”

“No, period?”

“No, period.”

What I liked about her was her warmth, her ability to shave off sharp angles. I said goodbye to her in the tone of voice of a
disappointed skipper of a sailboat watching his guests throw up over the side. Wasted time, wasted beaches. I hadn’t even asked her how the pictures from the photo shoot had turned out. Perhaps boredom was better.

I grabbed my Ray-Bans and the keys to my Vespa, and I went to see the two kids from the Liceo Garibaldi.

They were waiting for me outside Bar Crystal, the temple of the
torta Savoia
, the Savoy torte: alternating layers of chocolate cream and sponge cake; a circular tablet of pure pleasure, drenched in a lava flow of chilled cocoa.

The two kids were a couple: her name was Antonia; she was blonde, with brown eyes, dressed in a pair of Lee jeans and a pink tank top. Her boyfriend was named Filippo, and he told me that he was a competitive swimmer: he had a trim, powerful physique, a strong, American jaw, and short hair. I imagined him wearing goggles and a rubber cap: perfect. They had come in their dark-blue Peugeot Boxer. Classmates, in the third year of
liceo
, section III-B. They didn’t attend classes with Rosalba, but she and Antonia had been close friends and had socialized until last summer.

“Then this boy showed up, Marinello, and she disappeared: I only saw her at break.
Ciao
, how are you, then
arrivederci
. We stopped going dancing together, she stopped coming to parties. A few of her classmates told me that she was still getting good grades, but that she seemed distracted. She had other things on her mind.”