The Sicilian - Mario Puzo [174]
Michael sighed. “Guiliano had no choice,” he said.
“We are more fortunate,” the Don said.
It was the first lesson Michael received from his father and the one he learned best. It was to color his future life, persuade him to make terrible decisions he could never have dreamed of making before. It changed his perception of honor and his awe of heroism. It helped him to survive, but it made him unhappy. For despite the fact that his father did not envy Guiliano, Michael did.
CHAPTER 30
THE DEATH OF Guiliano crushed the spirit of the people of Sicily. He had been their champion, their shield against the rich and the nobility, the Friends of the Friends, the Christian Democratic government in Rome. With Guiliano gone, Don Croce Malo put the island of Sicily through his olive press and squeezed out an immense fortune from rich and poor alike. When the government tried to build dams to provide cheap water, Don Croce had heavy equipment for building dams blown up. After all, he controlled all the water wells in Sicily; dams supplying cheap water were not to his interest. With the postwar boom in building Don Croce’s inside information and persuasive negotiation style procured the best building sites at a cheap price; he sold dear. He took under his personal protection all the businesses of Sicily. You could not sell an artichoke in Palermo’s market stalls without paying Don Croce a few centesimi; the rich could not buy jewels for their wives or racing horses for their sons without taking out insurance with Don Croce. And with a firm hand he discouraged all the foolish hopes of peasants who wished to claim uncultivated land from the estate of Prince Ollorto, because of nonsensical laws passed by the Italian Parliament. Squeezed between Don Croce, the nobles and the government in Rome, the Sicilian people gave up hope.
In the two years after Guiliano’s death, five hundred thousand Sicilians, most of them young males, emigrated. They went to England and became gardeners, makers of ice cream, waiters in restaurants. They went to Germany and did heavy manual labor, to Switzerland to keep that country clean and build cuckoo clocks. They went to France as kitchen helpers and sweepers in garment houses. They went to Brazil to hack out clearings in the forest. Some went to the cold winters of Scandinavia. And of course there were the fortunate few recruited by Clemenza to serve in the Corleone Family in the United States. These were considered the luckiest of all. And so Sicily became a land of old men, young children and women who were widows by economic vendetta. The stone villages no longer supplied laborers for the rich estates, and the rich also suffered. Only Don Croce prospered.
Gaspare “Aspanu” Pisciotta had been tried for his crimes as a bandit and sentenced to a life term in the Ucciardone Prison. But it was understood by everyone that he would be given a pardon. His only worry was that he would be murdered while in prison. Still the amnesty did not come. He sent word to Don Croce that unless he was pardoned immediately, he would reveal all the contacts the band had with Trezza, how the new Premier had conspired with Don Croce to murder his own citizens at the Portella della Ginestra.
On the morning after Minister Trezza’s ascension to the premiership of Italy, Aspanu Pisciotta awoke at eight in the morning. He had a large cell, filled with plants and large screens of needlework he had taken up during his time in jail. The brilliant silk of the embroidery patterns seemed to quiet his mind, for now he often thought of his childhood with Turi Guiliano, of their love for each other.
Pisciotta prepared his morning coffee and drank it. He had a fear of being poisoned. So everything in that cup of coffee had been brought to him by his family. The prison food he first fed in tiny portions to the pet parrot he kept in a cage. And for emergencies he kept on one of his shelves, with the