The Sicilian - Mario Puzo [42]
They ate and drank and treated Turi Guiliano as if he had returned from a long holiday in foreign countries. But then his father wanted to see his wound. Guiliano lifted his shirt out of his trousers and revealed the great flaming scar, the tissue around it still blue-black from the trauma of the gunshot. His mother broke into lamentations. Guiliano said to her with a smile, “Would you rather have seen me in prison with the marks of the bastinado?”
Though the familiar scene duplicated the happiest days of his childhood, he felt a great distance from them all. There were all his favorite dishes, the inky squid, the fat macaroni with its herbed sauce of tomato, the roasted lamb, the great bowl of olives, green and red salad doused with the pure first pressing of olive oil, bamboo-covered bottles of Sicilian wine. Everything from the earth of Sicily. His mother and father told their fairy tales about life in America. And Hector Adonis regaled them on the glories of the history of Sicily. Of Garibaldi and his famous Redshirts. Of the day of the Sicilian Vespers, when the people of Sicily had risen to slaughter the French occupying army so many hundreds of years ago. All the tales of Sicily oppressed starting with Rome, followed by the Moors and Normans and the French and the Germans and the Spanish. Woe was Sicily! Never free, its people always hungry, their labor sold so cheap, their blood spilled so easily.
And so now there was not a Sicilian who believed in government, in law, in the structured order of society which had always been used to turn them into beasts of burden. Guiliano had listened to these stories through the years, imprinting them on his brain. But only now did Guiliano realize that he could change this.
He watched Aspanu smoking a cigarette over his coffee. Even at this joyful reunion, Aspanu had an ironic smile on his lips. Guiliano could tell what he was thinking and what he would say later: All you have to do is to be stupid enough to get shot by a policeman, commit murder, become an outlaw, and then your loved ones will show their affection and treat you like a saint from heaven. And yet Aspanu was the only one he did not feel cut off from.
And then there was the woman, La Venera. Why had his mother invited her, and why did she come? He saw that her face was still handsome, bold and strong with jet-black eyebrows and lips so dark and red that they seemed almost purple in this smoky curtained light. There was no way to tell what her figure was like, for she wore the Sicilian widow’s shapeless black dress.
Turi Guiliano had to tell them the whole story of the shooting at the Four Crossroads. His father, a little drunk with wine, emitted growls of approval at the death of the policeman. His mother was silent. His father told the story of how the farmer had come looking for his donkey and his own remark to the farmer: “Stay content you have lost a donkey. I have lost a son.”
Aspanu said, “A donkey looking for a donkey.”
They all laughed. Guiliano’s father went on: “When the farmer heard that a policeman was killed he was too afraid to make his claim, that he might be bastinadoed.”
Turi said, “He will be repaid.”
Finally Hector Adonis outlined his plans to save Turi. The family of the dead man would be paid an indemnity. Guiliano’s parents would have to mortgage their little piece of land to raise the money. Adonis himself would contribute a sum. But this tactic would have to wait until feelings of anger had died down. The influence of the great Don Croce would be brought to bear on government officials and