realized I'd forgotten about her and then remembered, but I lost her again.
Sciafani shook me by the shoulder. The old man was returning.
Only the part about Diana had been true. Early this morning I'd remembered everything, and it had descended upon me like an avalanche of sharp stones. Diana being taken prisoner by the Vichy French while on a SOE mission. Taken by Luc Villard as part of his ransom scheme, drugged, beaten, and raped. I'd found her, brought her back to Algiers to heal, and worried that my best wouldn't be good enough when it came to loving her. All day, while we'd walked, I'd filled my mind with thoughts of home and birds and old friends, but I'd suppressed my memory of Diana. I was ashamed of myself.
'He seems to be alone,' Sciafani said, oblivious to the emotions raging inside my head. I tried to sound normal and focus on the old man and the house.
'How long has it been?' I asked. The sky was darkening as the sun dipped below the horizon.
'One hour, perhaps.'
'Not enough time for him to reach the Germans and get back here, I don't think.'
'Well, if it was, then at least we will meet them with full stomachs. Come,' Sciafani said. I did as I was told.
This time, the donkey's baskets were full of blankets and food, along with a jug of wine. The old man, Signor Patane, was very talkative. He kept up a conversation with Sciafani as he helped us unload. He unlocked the padlock on the door and led us inside the building. Farm implements hung from the walls and hay for the donkey was piled up in one corner. He spread out the blankets and set down the food and wine. A chunk of yellow cheese, two rounds of bread, and a jar of olives. It looked like a feast.
' Muffoletta, provola, ' he said proudly, pointing to the bread and cheese. I got the impression he was saying he made them, or more probably, his wife. I smiled and nodded.
'Are these his olive trees?' I asked Sciafani, as I smiled at Signor Patane.
'No. A rich Fascist from the mainland owns all this land. Signor Patane works for him, as do most people in his village. He hopes the Americans will take the land from the Fascists and give it to the people.'
I thought about the three kinds of people in the world. 'So do I,' I said.
Signor Patane left us with his good wishes. From what I could understand, unless he was a terrific actor, we were safe here tonight. We ate, ripping the bread and biting into pieces of the sharp cheese. The plump olives were a rich green, marinated in their oil. We drank from the jug of strong red wine. By the time we'd eaten our fill it was dark. Before I fell asleep, I tried to see Diana's face, but the only vision before me was of her in that dusty courtyard, right after I'd freed her, her face twisted with rage and tears, lifting the revolver to her head.
Remember who you are, I wanted to say. You're not what somebody did to you, you're not what happened to you.
It occurred to me that I had said that to her, later, in Algiers, after the bruises and physical wounds had healed. My father's words. They'd helped me once, and I hoped they helped her too. Now it was my turn again, and as I drifted off to sleep I imagined I was back at Kirby's, watching my dad lean in on his forearms and whisper to me, so close it was almost a kiss.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The sun was over the horizon when I awoke. Sciafani was washing up at the pump. We drank water, ate the bits of bread and cheese left over from the night before, and prepared to set off in the direction of Agrigento.
'But first, we must make a stop,' Sciafani said, as calmly as if he were giving me a lift to work.
'Where?' I didn't like the idea of stopping anywhere, or the fact that he had surprised me with it. I was supposed to be in charge here.
'At the house of Signor Patane. His wife is ill. Yesterday I told him I was a dottore. I thought it might make him less anxious. He asked if I would examine her this morning.' He combed his wet hair back with his fingers and set off, the country doctor making his rounds.
'Why didn't you tell me before?' I asked, quickstepping to keep up with him.
'Because I thought it would make you more anxious.'
'Listen, hiding out here is one thing, but going into a village, isn't that dangerous? What if there are Fascist sympathizers?'
'See, you are more anxious already. Be thankful I did not tell you last night and ruin a good night's sleep. There will be no Fascists there. Do not worry, my friend.'
'Did he say what was wrong with her?'
'She is weak, and coughs up blood. He is very worried about her.' 'Hasn't he taken her to a doctor?'
'There is no doctor here. This is nothing but a little village where people work as they always have for the very rich, who pay very little.'
'What about in Palermo or Agrigento?' I asked.
'That is the other side of the world to these people,' he said. 'They would have to walk there, and she is in no condition to do so. And there is the war. Even if there were no war, there would be bandits on the road. No, there is no way out for them.'
'Sounds like the stories of Ireland under the English my uncle used to tell me. There was nothing there for the Irish but hard work and death. No way out, except to leave for America. Uncle Dan never forgot his grandfather telling him about digging for potatoes and coming up with nothing but shrunken, rotted things not fit to eat. He was the only one of his family to survive the potato famine.'
'Did not your father speak to you about this? Only your uncle?' Sciafani didn't miss a beat when it came to family. His view of the world didn't seem that far off from the one I was brought up on. Family first, which meant your father, then the rest of them, then the rest of the world.
'My uncle is the older brother. He remembers those stories better, and he's never stopped being angry about it. He's a policeman too, and he's also IRA.' Sciafani raised an eyebrow in a silent question.
'Irish Republican Army. The IRA fight the British to free Northern Ireland.'
'Ah,' Sciafani said. 'You come from peasant revolutionaries.'
'I don't know about that,' I said, not happily.
'No, do not take offense. Peasant is a class, not an epithet. And to be a revolutionary in such circumstances is natural. Some say this is how the mafiusu came to be. Still today, when a young man is inducted into cosa nostra, he takes a blood oath to protect the weak from the powerful.'
'That doesn't sound like the mobsters I knew in Boston,' I said, wondering how he knew so much about this.
'No, I am certain it is quite different in America. And the reality is different here also. But what is important to remember is how these men see themselves. Look, ahead, there is the village.'
We turned a corner in the rutted dirt road and I saw a clump of low buildings. A small church at the far end anchored the cluster against a slide down into the ravine that curved in front of us. As we crossed a small stone bridge, the smell of human waste slammed into my nostrils. A ditch by the side of the road carried a sluggish flow of brown, foul liquid from the village to the ravine, where it spilled over into a dark pool and fed the small stream at the bottom.
'It is better when it rains,' Sciafani said.
'I bet,' I said, not wanting to open my mouth any farther to tempt the swarming flies.
The church was nothing more than a gray dome surrounded by grayer walls, the stucco long since peeled away to reveal the lines of rough-cut stone, fitted tightly together. The houses were all the same-low squat buildings, some of plain concrete blocks, others of stone, but all in the same square shape, with crumbling, faded orange roof tiles. They radiated out from the church, as if each home wanted to be as close as possible to their priest and prayers.
The first house we walked by was abandoned, shards of roof tiles bleaching in the sun where they had landed on the ground. It stood alone, away from the rest, as if it had fallen out of favor, the tragedy, bad luck, or both of the last residents still clinging to it. The doorway showed traces of soot, and the faint smell of smoke drifted in the air. The rest of the homes were hardly in better shape. No flowers or little gardens decorated the landscape. It was
