The Sicilian

CHAPTER 24

Before the coming of Luca's army, when Guiliano could enter Montelepre as he pleased, he had often seen Justina Ferra. Sometimes she had come to the Guiliano house on an errand or to receive the money Guiliano gave to her parents. Guiliano had never really noticed her growing into a beautiful young woman until one day he had seen her on the streets of Palermo with her parents. They had gone into the city to buy finery for the Festa not available in the small town of Montelepre. Guiliano and members of his band had gone to Palermo to buy supplies.

Guiliano had not seen her for perhaps six months, and she had grown taller and slimmer in that time. She was tall for a Sicilian woman, with long legs that tottered on newly bought high-heeled shoes. She was only sixteen years of age, but her face and form had flowered in the subtropical earth of Sicily and she was a mature woman physically. Her hair was pulled into a jet black crown studded with three gemlike combs, exposing a neck as long and golden as that of an Egyptian woman on a vase. Her eyes were enormous, questioning; her mouth sensuous, yet the only part of her face that betrayed her extreme youth. She wore a white dress with a slash of red ribbon running across the front.

She was such a picture of loveliness that Guiliano stared at her for a long time. He was sitting in an open cafe, his men scattered at the tables around him, when she walked by accompanied by her mother and father. They saw him. Justina's father kept his face stony and made no sign of recognition. The mother glanced quickly away. Only Justina stared at him as she went by. She was Sicilian enough not to greet him, but she stared directly into his eyes and he could see her mouth quivering to restrain a smile. In the sun-drenched street she was a pool of shimmering light, of the sensual Sicilian beauty that blooms at an early age. Since becoming an outlaw Guiliano had always distrusted love. To him it was an act of submission and held the seed for a fatal treachery, but in that moment he felt what he had never felt before – a suffusion in his body to kneel before another human being and willingly swear himself into an alien slavery. He did not identify this as love.

A month later, Guiliano found that his mind was obsessed with the memory of Justina Ferra standing in that pool of golden sunlight on the street in Palermo. He assumed it was merely sexual appetite, that he missed his passionate nights with La Venera. Then in his reveries he found himself not only dreaming of making love to Justina, but of spending time with her roaming around the mountains, showing her his caves, the narrow valleys filled with flowers, cooking meals for her over the open campfires. He still had his guitar in his mother's house and dreamed of playing for her. He would show her the poems he had written over the years, some of which had been published in the Sicilian newspapers. He even thought of sneaking into Montelepre and visiting her in her home, despite the two thousand soldiers of Colonel Luca's Special Force. At this time he came to his senses and knew something dangerous was going on inside him.

This was all foolishness. There were only two alternatives in his life. That he would be killed by the carabinieri, or that he would find sanctuary in America, and if he kept dreaming about this girl it would not be America. He had to get her out of his mind. If he seduced her or carried her off, her father would become his deadly enemy, and he had plenty of those already. He had once flogged Aspanu for seducing an innocent girl and over the years had executed three of his men for rape. This feeling he had for Justina was that he wanted to make her happy, to make her love and admire him and see him as he once saw himself. He wanted her eyes to be filled with love and trust.

But it was merely his tactical mind that explored his options. He had already decided on his course of action. He would marry the girl. In secret. Nobody except her family would know and of course Aspanu Pisciotta and a few trusted members of his band. Whenever it was safe to see her, he would have her escorted into the mountains so that they could spend a day or two together. It would be dangerous for her to be the wife of Turi Guiliano, but he could arrange to have her sent to America, and she would be waiting for him when he made his escape there. There was only one problem. What did Justina think of him?

Caesero Ferra had been a secret member of Guiliano's band for the last five years, strictly as a gatherer of information, never in its operations. He and his wife had known Guiliano's parents and had been neighbors; they lived ten houses down the Via Bella from the Guiliano house. He was more educated than most of the people in Montelepre and was dissatisfied with farming. Then when Justina as a child had lost the money and Guiliano had replaced it and sent her home with the note that the family was under his protection, Caesero Ferra visited Maria Lombardo and offered his services. He gathered information in Palermo and Montelepre as to the movements of carabinieri patrols, the movements of rich merchants who were to be kidnapped by Guiliano's band, the identity of police informers. He received a share of the loot from these kidnappings and opened a small tavern in Montelepre, which also helped his secret activities. When his son Silvio had returned from the war a Socialist agitator, Caesero Ferra ordered him out of the house. Not because he disapproved of his son's beliefs, but because of the danger to the rest of the family. He had no illusions about democracy or the rulers in Rome. He had reminded Turi Guiliano of his promise to protect the Ferra family and Guiliano had done his best to protect Silvio. And after Silvio was murdered, it was Guiliano who promised him that the murder would be avenged.

Ferra had never blamed Guiliano. He knew that the massacre at Ginestra had profoundly disturbed Turi Guiliano, had caused him to grieve, that it still tormented him. He heard this from his wife who had listened for hours to Maria Lombardo talking about her son. How happy they had all been before that terrible day years ago when her son was shot down by the carabinieri and he had been forced against his better nature to kill in return. And of course every killing since then had been necessary, forced upon him by evil men. Maria Lombardo excused every killing, every crime, but she faltered when she spoke about the massacre at the Portella della Ginestra. Oh, the little children torn by machine-gun fire, the defenseless women killed. How could people think her son would do such a thing? Was he not the protector of the poor, the Champion of Sicily? Had he not given fortunes to help all the Sicilians in need of bread and homes? Her Turi could never have given the orders for such a massacre. So he had sworn to her on the statue of the black Madonna, and they had wept in each other's arms.

And so over the years Caesero had pursued the mystery of what had really happened at the Portella della Ginestra. Had Passatempo's machine-gunners made an honest mistake in the elevation of their fire? Had Passatempo, out of the sheer bloodthirstiness for which he was famous, slaughtered those people for his pleasure? Could the whole thing have been engineered to damage Guiliano? Was there perhaps even another band of men who had opened fire with their machine guns, men not under Guiliano's orders but perhaps sent by the Friends of the Friends or even by a branch of the Security Police? Caesero left nobody off his list of suspects except Turi Guiliano. For if Guiliano were guilty the whole world he lived in would collapse. He loved Guiliano as he had loved his son. He had seen him grow from a child to a man, and there had never been a moment when he had showed any meanness of spirit, any viciousness.

So Caesero Ferra kept his eyes and ears open. He bought drinks for other secret members of the band who had not been thrown into jail by Colonel Luca. He caught scraps of conversation among the Friends of the Friends who lived in town anc occasionally came to his tavern to drink wine and play cards. On one night he heard them talking laughingly about 'The Animal' and 'The Devil' visiting with Don Croce, and how the great Don had turned those two feared men into whispering angels. Ferra pondered on this and with that unerring Sicilian paranoia made the connection. Passatempo and Stefano Andolini had at some time met with the Don. Passatempo was often called 'The Brute' and Fra Diavalo was Andolini's bandit name. What were they doing holding a private conversation with Don Croce at his house in Villaba, which was far from the bandits' mountain base? He sent his teenaged son to the Guiliano house with an urgent message and two days later was given a rendezvous in the mountains to meet with Guiliano. He told Guiliano his story. The young man showed no emotion and only swore him to secrecy. Ferra heard no more. Now three months later he received another summons from Guiliano and expected to hear the rest of the story.

Guiliano and his band were deep in the mountains, out of range of Luca's army. Caesero Ferra traveled at night and was met by Aspanu Pisciotta at a rendezvous point to be led to the camp. They did not arrive until early morning and found a hot breakfast waiting for them. The meal was elaborate, spread out on a folding table with linen and silver. Turi Guiliano was dressed in a silk white shirt and tan moleskin trousers which were tucked into brown polished boots; his hair was freshly washed and combed. He had never looked so handsome.

Pisciotta was dismissed and Guiliano and Ferra sat down together. Guiliano seemed ill at ease. He said formally, 'I want to thank you for that information you brought me. It has been pursued and now I know it is true.