The Sicilian - Mario Puzo [15]
Hector Adonis said, “There are only a few of those statues left in Sicily. Curious, but we are very close to Africa.”
Guiliano’s mother said, “It doesn’t matter what she looks like, you can pray to her.”
“Yes,” Pisciotta said. “She can do as much good as the other.” There was contempt in his voice.
Michael watched Pisciotta take his leave of Guiliano’s mother. He could see the real affection between them. Pisciotta kissed her on both cheeks and patted her reassuringly. But she put her head on his shoulder for a brief moment and said, “Aspanu, Aspanu, I love you as I love my son. Don’t let them kill Turi.” She was weeping.
Pisciotta lost all his coldness, his body seemed to crumple, his dark bony face softened. “You will all grow old in America,” he said.
Then he turned to Michael. “I will bring Turi to you within the week,” he said.
He went out the door quickly and silently. He had his own special red-bordered pass and he could melt again into the mountains. Hector Adonis would remain with the Guilianos, though he owned a house in town.
Michael and Stefan Andolini got into the Fiat and drove through the central square and onto the road that led to Castelvetrano and the coastal city of Trapani. With Andolini’s slow tentative driving and the numerous military roadblocks, it was noon before they came to the town of Trapani.
BOOK II
TURI GUILIANO
1943
CHAPTER 2
IN SEPTEMBER OF 1943 Hector Adonis was a Professor of History and Literature at the University of Palermo. His extremely short stature caused his colleagues to treat him with less respect than his talents deserved. But this was foreordained in the Sicilian culture, which commonly and brutally based nicknames on physical shortcomings. The one person who knew his true value was the President of the University.
In this September of 1943, Hector Adonis’s life was about to change. For southern Italy, the war was over. The American Army had already conquered Sicily and gone on to the mainland. Fascism was dead, Italy was reborn; for the first time in fourteen centuries, the island of Sicily had no real master. But Hector Adonis, knowing the ironies of history, had no great hopes. The Mafia had already begun to usurp the rule of law in Sicily. Their cancerous power would be as deadly as that of any corporate state. From his office window he looked down on the grounds of the University, at the few buildings that could be called a campus.
There was no need for dormitories, there was no college life as known in England and America. Here most students studied at home and consulted with their professors at stated intervals. The professors gave lectures which students could ignore with impunity. They needed only to take their exams. It was a system that Hector Adonis thought disgraceful in general and stupid in particular as it affected Sicilians, who, he thought, required a pedagogical discipline even more severe than students in other countries.
Watching from his cathedral-like window he could see the seasonal influx of Mafia chiefs from all the provinces of Sicily, come to make their lobbying calls on the professors of the University. Under Fascist rule, these Mafia chiefs had been more circumspect, more humble, but now under the beneficent rule of American-restored democracy, they had risen like worms struggling through rain-broken earth and resumed their old ways. They were no longer humble.
The Mafia chiefs, the Friends of the Friends, heads of small local clans in the many villages of Sicily, came in holiday finery to plead the cause of students who were relatives or sons of wealthy landowners, or sons of friends, who were failing in their courses at the University, who would not get degrees unless some firm action was taken. And these degrees were of the utmost importance. How else would families get rid of sons who had no ambition, no talent, no intelligence?