The Sicilian - Mario Puzo [43]
Turi Guiliano listened to them all patiently, smiling, nodding his head, not showing his irritation. They still thought of him as he had been at Festa time over two months ago. He had taken off his sheepskin jacket and stripped himself of arms; his guns lay at his feet beneath the table. But that had not impressed them, nor the ugly huge scar. They could not imagine how his mind had been torn apart by that great blow to his body, or that he would never again be the young man they had known.
In this house, he was for this moment safe. Trusted people patrolled the streets and watched the carabinieri barracks to give him warning of any attack. The house itself, built many hundreds of years ago, was made of stone; its windows had heavy wooden shutters locked and a foot thick. The wooden door was strong and iron barred. Not a chink of light could escape this house, no enemy could force his way in quickly in a surprise attack. And yet Turi Guiliano felt himself in danger. These loved ones would trap him into his former life, persuade him to become a peasant farmer, to lay down his arms against his fellow men and leave him helpless to their laws. At that moment he knew that he would have to be cruel to those he loved most. It had always been the young man’s dream to acquire love rather than power. But that was all changed. He now saw clearly that power came first.
He spoke gently to Hector Adonis and to the others. “Dear godfather, I know you speak out of affection and concern. But I can’t let my mother and father lose their little bit of land to help me out of my trouble. And all of you here, don’t worry so much about me. I’m a grown man who must pay for his carelessness. And I won’t have anyone paying an indemnity for that carabinieri I shot. Remember, he tried to kill me just because I was smuggling a bit of cheese. I would never have fired at him except that I thought I was dying and wanted to even the score. But all that’s past. I won’t be so easy to shoot the next time.”
Pisciotta said with a grin, “It’s more fun in the mountains anyway.”
But Guiliano’s mother was not to be distracted. They could all see her panic, the fear in her burning eyes. She said desperately, “Don’t become a bandit, don’t rob poor people who have enough misery in their lives. Don’t become an outlaw. Let La Venera tell you what kind of life her husband lived.”
La Venera raised her head and looked directly at Guiliano. He was struck by the sensuality in her face, as if she were trying to attract his passion toward her. Her eyes were bold and stared at him almost in invitation. Before he had thought of her only as an older woman; now he felt her sexually.
When she spoke her voice was husky with emotion. She said, “In those same mountains you wish to go to my husband had to live like an animal. Always in fear. Always. He could not eat. He could not sleep. When we were in bed together every little noise would make him jump. We slept with guns on the floor beside the bed. But that didn’t help him. When our daughter was ill, he tried to visit her, and they were waiting for him. They knew he was softhearted. He was shot down like a dog in the streets. They stood over him and laughed in my face.”
Guiliano could see the grin on Pisciotta’s face. The great bandit, Candeleria, softhearted? He had massacred six men as suspected informers, preyed on wealthy farmers, extorted money from poor peasants, struck terror into a whole countryside. But his wife saw him differently.
La Venera did not notice Pisciotta’s smile. She went on: “I buried him and then buried my child a week