The Sicilian - Mario Puzo [40]
The Abbot escorted Guiliano to the gate of the monastery where Pisciotta was waiting. He presented him with a going-away gift. It was a statue of the black Virgin Mary, a duplicate of the one owned by Maria Lombardo, Guiliano’s mother. Pisciotta had an American green duffel bag and Guiliano put the black Virgin statuette into it.
Pisciotta watched with a sardonic eye as the Abbot and Guiliano said their goodbyes. He knew the Abbot to be a smuggler, a secret member of the Friends of the Friends, and a slave-driving taskmaster with his poor monks. So he could not understand the sentimentality of the Abbot’s farewell. It did not occur to Pisciotta that the love and affection and respect that Guiliano inspired in him he could also inspire in as powerful and as old a man as the Abbot.
Though the Abbot’s affection was genuine, it was tinged with self-interest. He knew this boy might one day become a force to reckon with in Sicily. It was like spotting the trace of godliness. As for Turi Guiliano, he was genuinely grateful. The Abbot had saved his life, but more than that, had instructed him in many things and had been a delightful companion. The Abbot had even let him have the use of his library. Curiously, Guiliano had affection for the Abbot’s chicanery; it seemed to him a nice balance to strike in life, the doing of good without doing great visible harm, the balancing of power to make life go smoothly.
The Abbot and Turi Guiliano embraced each other. Turi said, “I am in your debt. Remember me when you need help of any kind. Whatever you ask, I must do.”
The Abbot patted his shoulder. “Christian charity does not require repayment,” he said. “Return to the ways of God, my son, and pay his tribute.” But he was speaking by rote. He knew well this kind of innocence in the young. Out of it a devil could rise in flames to do his bidding. He would remember Guiliano’s promise.
Guiliano shouldered the duffel bag despite Pisciotta’s protest, and they walked through the monastery gate together. They never looked back.
CHAPTER 6
FROM A JUTTING cliff edge near the top of Monte d’Ora, Guiliano and Pisciotta could look down on the town of Montelepre. Only a few miles below them, the house lights were coming on to fight the falling darkness. Guiliano even imagined he could hear the music coming from the loudspeakers in the square, which always played Rome radio station broadcasts to serenade the town’s strollers before their evening meal.
But the mountain air was deceiving. It would take two hours to make his way down to the town and four hours to get back up. Guiliano and Pisciotta had played here as children; they knew every rock on this mountain and every cave and every tunnel. Further back on this cliff was the Grotta Bianca, the favorite cave of their childhood, bigger than any house in Montelepre.
Aspanu had followed his orders well, Turi Guiliano thought. The cave was stocked with sleeping bags, cooking pans, boxes of ammunition and sacks of food and bread. There was a wooden box holding flashlights, lanterns and knives, and there were also some cans of kerosene. He laughed. “Aspanu, we can live up here forever.”
“For a few days,” Aspanu said. “This is the first place the carabinieri came when they went looking for you.”
“The cowards only look in daylight,” Turi answered. “We are safe at night.”
A great cloak of darkness had fallen over the mountains, but the sky was so full of stars that they could see each other clearly. Pisciotta opened the duffel bag and started pulling out weapons and clothes. Slowly and ceremonially, Turi Guiliano armed himself. Taking off his monk’s cassock, he donned the moleskin trousers, then the huge sheepskin jacket with its many pockets. He put two pistols in his waistband and strapped the machine pistol inside the jacket so it could be covered and yet swung into action immediately. He buckled an ammunition belt around his waist and put extra boxes of bullets in the jacket pockets. Pisciotta handed