The Sicilian - Mario Puzo [13]
Michael looked out on the dark night, the town of Montelepre nestled in the belly of the great mountains, only the central square showing a pinpoint of light. The sky was stitched with stars. In the streets below there came the occasional clank of small arms and the hoarse voices of patrolling carabinieri. The town seemed full of ghosts. They came on the soft, summer night air laden with the smell of lemon trees, the small whirring of countless insects, the sudden shout of a roving police patrol.
“I’ll wait as long as I can,” Michael said gently. “But my father needs me at home. You must make your son come to me.”
She nodded and then led him back to the others. Pisciotta was pacing up and down the room. He seemed nervous. “We have decided that we must all wait here until daybreak and curfew is over,” he said. “There are too many trigger-happy soldiers out there in the dark and there could be an accident. Do you object?” he asked Michael.
“No,” Michael said. “As long as it’s not too much of an imposition on our hosts.”
They dismissed this as irrelevant. They had stayed up through the night many times when Turi Guiliano had sneaked into town to visit his parents. And besides they had many things to talk about, many details to settle. They got comfortable for the long night ahead. Hector Adonis shed his jacket and tie but still looked elegant. The mother brewed fresh coffee.
Michael asked them to tell him everything they could about Turi Guiliano. He felt he had to understand. His parents again told him what a wonderful son Turi had been always. Stefan Andolini told about the day Turi Guiliano had spared his life. Pisciotta told funny stories about Turi’s daring and sense of fun and lack of cruelty. Though he could be merciless with traitors and enemies, he never offered an insult to their manhood with torture and humiliation. And then he told the story of the tragedy at the Portella della Ginestra. “He wept that day,” Pisciotta said. “In front of all the members of his band.”
Maria Lombardo said, “He could not have killed those people at Ginestra.”
Hector Adonis soothed her. “We all know that. He was born gentle.” He turned to Michael and said, “He loved books, I thought he would become a poet or a scholar. He had a temper, but he was never cruel. Because his was an innocent rage. He hated injustice. He hated the brutality of the carabinieri toward the poor and their obsequiousness toward the rich. Even as a boy he was outraged when he heard of a farmer who could not keep the corn he grew, drink the wine he pressed, eat the pigs he slaughtered. And yet he was a gentle boy.”
Pisciotta laughed. “He is not so gentle now. And you, Hector, don’t play the little schoolteacher now. On horseback you were as big a man as any of us.”
Hector Adonis looked at him sternly. “Aspanu,” he said, “this is not the time for your wit.”
Pisciotta said to him excitedly, “Little man, do you think I can ever be afraid of you?”
Michael noted that Pisciotta’s nickname was Aspanu, and that there was ingrained dislike between the two men. Pisciotta’s constant reference to the other man’s size, the stern tone in which Adonis always spoke to Pisciotta. There was, in fact, a distrust in the air amongst all of them; the others seemed to hold Stefan Andolini at arm’s length, Guiliano’s mother seemed to trust no one completely. And yet as the night wore on it was clear that they all loved Turi.
Michael said cautiously, “There is a Testament written by Turi Guiliano. Where is it now?”
There was a long silence, all of them watching him intently. And suddenly their distrust included him.
Finally Hector Adonis spoke.