The Sicilian   ::   Puzo Mario

And now he thinks me his enemy. Ah, you can't know what sorrow this brings me. My only dream is that one day Turi Guiliano can return to his family and be acclaimed the champion of Sicily. He is a true Christian and a brave man. And with a heart so tender that he has won the love of every Sicilian." Don Croce paused and drank off a glass of wine. "But the tide has turned against him. He is alone in the mountains with barely a handful of men to face the army that Italy sends against him. And he has been betrayed at every turn. So he trusts no one, not even himself."

The Don looked at Michael for a moment very coldly. "If I were completely honest," he said, "if I did not love Guiliano so much, perhaps I would give advice I do not owe you. Perhaps I should say, in all fairness, go home to America without him. We are coming to the end of a tragedy which in no way concerns you." The Don paused for a moment and sighed again. "But of course, you are our only hope and I must beg you to stay and help our cause. I will assist in every way, I will never desert Guiliano." Don Croce raised his wineglass. "May he live a thousand years."

They all drank and Michael calculated. Did the Don want him to stay or to desert Guiliano? Stefano Andolini spoke. "Remember we have promised the parents of Guiliano that Michael will visit them in Montelepre."

"By all means," Don Croce said gently. "We must give his parents some hope."

Father Beniamino said with a too humble insistence, "And perhaps they will know something about the Testament."

Don Croce sighed. "Yes, Guiliano's Testament. He thinks it will save his life or at least avenge his death." He spoke directly to Michael. "Remember this. Rome fears the Testament, but I do not. And tell his parents what is written on paper affects history. But not life. Life is a different history."

The road from Palermo to Montelepre was no more than a one-hour drive. But in that hour Michael and Andolini went from the civilization of a city to the primitive culture of the Sicilian countryside. Stefano Andolini drove the tiny Fiat, and in the afternoon sun his close-shaved cheeks and chin blazed with countless grains of scarlet hair roots. He drove carefully and slowly, as men do who have learned to drive motor vehicles late in life. The Fiat panted as if short of breath as it wound uphill through the enormous range of mountains.

At five different points they were stopped by roadblocks of the National Police, platoons of at least twelve men backed by an armored car bristling with machine guns. Andolini's papers got them through.

It was strange to Michael that the country could become so wild and primitive such a short distance from the great city of Palermo. They passed tiny villages of stone houses that were precariously balanced on steep slopes. These slopes were carefully gardened into terraced narrow fields growing neat rows of spiky green plants. Small hills were studded with countless huge white boulders half-buried in moss and bamboo stalks; in the distance they looked like vast unsculptured cemeteries.

At intervals along the road were holy shrines, padlocked wooden boxes that held statues of the Virgin Mary or some particular favored saint. At one of these shrines, Michael saw a woman on her knees praying, her husband sitting in their donkey-drawn cart guzzling a bottle of wine. The donkey's head drooped like a martyr's.

Stefano Andolini reached over to caress Michael's shoulder and said, "It does my heart good to see you, my dear cousin. Did you know that the Guilianos are related to us?"

Michael was sure this was a lie; there was something in that foxily red smile. "No," he said. "I only knew the parents worked for my father in America."

"As I did," Andolini said. "We helped build your father's house on Long Island. Old Guiliano was a fine bricklayer, and though your father offered him a place in the olive oil business, he stuck to his trade. He worked like a Negro for eighteen years and saved like a Jew. Then he came back to Sicily to live like an Englishman. But the war and Mussolini made their lire worthless and now he owns only his house and a small piece of land to farm. He curses the day he left America. They thought their little boy would grow up a prince and now he is a bandit."

The Fiat had stirred up a cloud of dust; alongside the road growths of prickly pears and bamboo had a ghostly appearance, the pears in their clusters seeming to form human hands. In the valleys they could see the olive groves and grapevines. Suddenly Andolini said, "Turi was conceived in America."

He saw Michael's questioning glance. "Yes, he was conceived in America but born in Sicily. A few months' wait and Turi would be an American citizen." He paused for a moment. "Turi always talks about that. Do you really think you can help him escape?"

"I don't know," Michael said. "After lunch with the Inspector and Don Croce, I don't know what anything means. Do they want me to help? My father said Don Croce would do so. He never mentioned the Inspector."

Andolini brushed back his thinning hair. Unconsciously his foot pressed down on the gas pedal and the Fiat scooted forward. "Guiliano and Don Croce are enemies now," he said. "But we have made plans without Don Croce. Turi and his parents count on you. They know your father has never been false to a friend."

Michael said, "And whose side are you on?"

Andolini sighed. "I fight for Guiliano," he said. "We have been comrades for the last five years and before that he spared my life. But I live in Sicily and so cannot defy Don Croce to his face. I walk a tight rope between the two, but I will never betray Guiliano."

Michael thought, What the hell was the man saying? Why couldn't he get a straight answer from any of them? Because this was Sicily, he thought. Sicilians had a horror of truth. Tyrants and Inquisitors had tortured them for the truth over thousands of years. The government in Rome with its legal forms demanded the truth. The priest in the confessional box commanded the truth under pain of everlasting hell. But truth was a source of power, a lever of control, why should anyone give it away?

He would have to find his own way, Michael thought, or perhaps abandon the mission and hurry home. He was on dangerous ground here, there was obviously some sort of vendetta between Guiliano and Don Croce and to be caught in the vortex of a Sicilian vendetta was suicidal. For the Sicilian believes that vengeance is the only true justice, and that it is always merciless. On this Catholic island, statues of a weeping Jesus in every home, Christian forgiveness was a contemptible refuge of the coward.