AUTHOR'S NOTE
The idea for writing this story came to me when, as a courtesy to two Egyptian student stage directors, we studied The People of the Cave, by Taufik al-Hakim, in a class of mine.
It seems therefore appropriate to dedicate this book to my students at the Silvio d'Amico National Academy of the Dramatic Arts, where I have been teaching stage direction for over twenty-three years.
It is boring to repeat, with each new published book, that the events, characters, and situations are purely fictional. Still, it is necessary. So while I'm at it, I would like to add that the names of my characters come to me by virtue of their amusing assonances, with no malice intended.
NOTES
3. four large Saracen olive trees: Very ancient olive trees with gnarled trunks, tangling branches, and very long roots. The name suggests that they date from the time of the Arab conquest of Sicily, which began in earnest in the late ninth century, after more than a century of isolated raids, and lasted until the Norman conquest, which began in 1060.
18. a man of honor: An epithet that stands for mafioso, used mostly by the mafiosi themselves. Tano the Greeks regret for the decline of honor among them is a common refrain among mobsters of the older generation, such as the repentant Tommaso Buscetta.
21. to speak in what he called Talian: Many uneducated Sicilians, even in this day of mass media and standardized speech, can only speak the local dialect and tend to struggle with proper Italian. Oftentimes what comes out when they attempt to use the national language is a linguistic jumble that is neither fish nor fowl. In such speech the first syllable of the word italiano is often dropped to taliano, especially when the preceding word ends in a vowel, as in parlare taliano.
23. notify the carabinieri: The Italian carabinieri are a national police force, bureaucratically separate from local police forces and actually a branch of the military.
23. like I'm running a chicken farm here: Gallo and Galluzzo both mean rooster, the second being a diminutive of the first.
32. they think omerts on the decline: Omerts the traditional Sicilian law of silence, in force particularly among members of the Mafia.
34. madunnuzza biniditta!: Blesslittle Madonna! (Sicilian dialect).
35. caught in the net, the chamber of death: A reference to traditional Sicilian tuna- and-sword-fishing and the mattanza, when the fish are slaughtered. Schools of the fish are caught in nets which are then gradually closed until the space holding them, the cammara della morte, becomes very small, like a death chamber.
40. the testimony of Cavaliere Misuraca: The honorific title of cavaliere, bestowed on members of various orders of knighthood (e.g., Cavaliere di Malta, Cavaliere della Repubblica) and often awarded in the modern age to successful men in different areas of business and industry (such as il cavaliere Silvio Berlusconi), was given out wholesale during the Fascist period. Cavaliere Misuraca, as the unfolding episode implies, was probably a beneficiary of this Fascist largesse or earned his title for his efforts in war.
43. government was red, black, or sky blue: Red refers to the Communist and Socialist parties, black to the Fascist (or now Post-Fascist) Party, sky blue to the now-defunct Christian Democratic Party.
48. the repubblichini?: These were the members and supporters of the so-called Republic of Salhe puppet government instituted in 1943 under the Nazi occupation in the North Italian town of the same name, after German parachutists boldly snatched Mussolini away from the anti-Fascist partisans who had captured him. The government was made up of die-hard Fascists under the recently deposed and now resurrected Duce.
49. the first Fascist militias: These were the fasci di combattimento, an association of private militias that engaged in strike-breaking, street violence, and other forms of political action and intimidation. The Fascist movement was born from these groups.
52. Asinara: A high-security prison on the island of the same name.
58. ca e simenza: A mix of roasted chickpeas and pumpkin seeds; sometimes peanuts are added.
76. Il Mezzogiorno: This is an actual newspaper. Its name means The South (or, literally, Midday).
78. Essere Donna: The magazine is purely fictional; its name means To Be a Woman.
106. a traitor or repenter: In Italy, Mafia turncoats who turn states witness are called pentiti, or repenters.
122. Ll di mort, alegher! It's the Day of the Dead, oh joy! (Milanese dialect). Delio Tessa (18861939) is a well-known Milanese dialect poet. The Day of the Dead, November 2, is commonly called All Souls Day in English.
125. Customs Police: This is the Guardia di Finanza, a police force subordinate to the Ministry of Finance and responsible for overseeing customs, state monopolies, and taxes. Their duties include
