guarding for his family. I am surprised when he asks me to partner up.
“It’s an easy gig,” Sterling promises. “We pose as a couple of American tourists. Follow the Russian’s wife and kidniks to Harrods. Keep an eye out while they’re having tea. No worries, Atlas will hire you on a freelance basis. Make some bucks before heading back to L.A. How about it?” If Sterling is trying to make it right after hiding Falassi from me, this isn’t cutting it. I want no part of the old lady hooch, nor am I up for wrangling over the same old issues. After being immersed in the mysteries of Siena, I want something shiny and concrete, like a brand-new apartment that smells of fresh paint, with appliances wrapped in plastic and pristine walls in which nobody has set a nail.
“Appreciate the offer, but I need to get home,” I tell him.
“Sure thing,” he says. “I’ll call when I’m back in the States.” But when we kiss good-bye in the courtyard, with Chris waiting to drive him to the airport in Rome, I honestly don’t know if we will see each other again. Cecilia is waiting sympathetically in the doorway when I hurriedly turn back to the abbey. I don’t want to see Sterling walk away, carrying the black rucksack, once again.
Just before the August Palio, Siena is swollen with visitors, and the sound of the tamburino mixes with human voices — not singing songs, but shouting for justice. When the story breaks that anti-mafia prosecutors have a witness willing to admit that he has been responsible for the disposal of hundreds of bodies killed by the mafias, the thirty or so polite citizens who had turned up in the Commissario’s office and were offered the opportunity to drink his piss, swell to a huge crowd of families and anti-mafia reformers demanding answers.
Siena becomes the scene of a parade considerably less charming than drummers in medieval costumes. Angry marchers pack the narrow streets — many of them young people, as well as relatives carrying snapshots of those who have been taken. They line up outside the questura in the sad hope that Falassi can identify the faces of the loved ones he cremated in acid. Their signs read, ANTI-RACKET and ADDIO, PIZZO (GOOD-BYE, PIZZO), and REFUSO! International TV crews follow. One of the speakers is Nicoli Nicosa: “The government can no longer silence what cannot be silenced,” he says into the cameras. “We have a witness to these diabolical acts. They cannot be hidden any longer.” The marchers pour into Il Campo, where the police have mobilized. I stay on the periphery, a bystander, nothing more. Now it is up to the Italian prosecutors. I do not envy the job of diffusing the turbulent emotions of the marchers — thousands of them, from all over Italy. If the Commissario were not already in custody, the mob would tear him limb from limb. An older woman, well-dressed, wearing a suit and large sunglasses, passes close enough for me to see the photo she is carrying of a smiling young man wearing an earring. Over the picture she wrote in English, “Please help me find him.” On my last night at the abbey, we make El Salvadoran pupusas. It is the kind of time-consuming dish for which you need the hands-on help of a sister. You have to make cornmeal dough from scratch, pork and potato filling, and a topping of marinated carrots and cabbage. I know I will never make it again, unless I make it with Cecilia.
“Nicoli cooked for us while you were gone.” “He’s a good cook.”
We are both wearing aprons, flattening balls of dough into circles with our palms.
“I think you’re wrong about Nicoli,” I tell Cecilia. “He was desperate when you went missing.” “I know.”
“I don’t think you do.”
“And I think you’re wrong about Sterling.” “That’s another case entirely,” I say lightly. “Nicoli was lost without you.” “He spent a lot of money and went through a lot of stress,” she acknowledges.
“Jesus, Cecilia, it’s not like he was buying a car! I can tell you, he was tortured to his soul.” She just laughs.
“You don’t believe he’s capable of really loving you?” “What did he say?” she asks curiously.
“He said, ‘I love my wife.’ He would have done anything to get you back. He would have walked into the line of fire.” “I’m glad,” she intones like a sleepwalker. “Don’t put too much filling in.” My yellow stuffed half moons looked like Play-Doh time in kindergarten.
“Cecilia!” I want to shake her. “Your husband loves you! You have to believe me.” “Like you believe me when I say our father loved you?” “It’s hard when there’s no empirical evidence.” “There is evidence.” She points with a wooden spoon. “In your heart.” “Really? Our father was murdered. I’ll never know how he felt about me. But your husband is here, every day.” She sighs. “Something like this goes so deep, it changes the way you look at life. You never feel right. It never goes away.” “Are you still talking about the other woman?” “Not only her. I have lost my belief,” she says.
We grill the
“Are you sure?” I ask. We are driving back from Siena in the mailbox car, dispatched by Cecilia to get honey and pears for dessert.
“I don’t want to leave my mom.” “That’s very thoughtful, but I don’t think she would want you to miss out on a whole year of school.” “It’s okay; I don’t really know what I want to do.” “What are you thinking about doing?” “You’re going to laugh.”
“Make me.”
“FBI. You’re laughing.”
“It’s a
“The FBI requires you to have a college degree.” He thinks about it.
“I can do that,” he says.
Already I am missing the combative teenager; it is bittersweet to see that he is growing up, deferential to his mom and peaceable with his dad. I don’t tell Giovanni about the sacrifice Zabrina Tursi made. At least I can preserve that much of his innocence.
Nicosa still refuses Rizzio’s insistence that the family relocate in exchange for his testimony.
“You can’t stay here,” I tell Cecilia after the honey and pears, when we take our evening walk. “The family is marked.” “As I said, it’s a war. You adjust.” “You people are targets! They’ll get you at a traffic light, Cecilia! They killed seven people in England over an egg fight in Calabria! Why are you so stubborn?” “My husband will never leave Siena. His blood is here. His work is here. He won’t give in. For better or worse, I am with him. Isn’t that what you wanted?” “Your husband is behaving like a horse’s ass.” I stop and grip her shoulders. I look into her troubled eyes. “You’re my sister. I love you. I can’t just leave you in harm’s way.” “I love you, too,” she answers with resignation, and kisses me tenderly on both cheeks.
The following day I fly back to Los Angeles. Cecilia and I do not speak of her marriage again. Nor do I bring up her affair with the Commissario. There are some things even sisters shouldn’t ask.
SAN LUIS OBISBO, CALIFORNIA
EPILOGUE
On my first day back at the Los Angeles field office, SAC Robert Galloway calls me into his office.
“I brought you a souvenir.” I unfold a green and white square depicting the crowned white Noble Goose.
“What is that?”
I try to explain the
Galloway removes an unlit cigar from his mouth and squints at the silk.
