Aliandra was received in Randazzo with that sort of ovation which only
Italians accord to a successful artist; and her father's house was
filled for a whole day with the respectable townsmen and their wives and
daughters, who came to greet her and congratulate her. For the
newspapers had informed them of her successes in Rome, and the Sicilian
papers had exaggerated the original reports tenfold. The mayor and his
wife, the municipal officers, the grey-haired lieutenant of carabineers
with his pretty daughter, the rector, the curate, the young emigration
agent of the big steamship company with his betrothed bride and her
mother, the principal shopkeeper with his wife and children, the
innkeeper--in short, all that represented the highest fashion in
Randazzo, including Don Tolomeo Bellini, the most important tenant
farmer on the great Fornasco estate as well as a small freeholder, whose
ancestors had been privileged to bear arms, and who, therefore, ranked
as a gentleman and stamped the cheeses from his dairy with a little
five-pointed coronet. Basili had formerly hoped to get him for a
son-in-law, and he would have been considered a very good match for the
notary's daughter.
All Randazzo talked of the singer's return, and the poor people crowded
the street to get a look at her. The mayor said she was an honour to the
province and to Sicily, and the rector, who had baptized her, expressed
his hope that she might be always as good as she was famous, for he
distrusted the name of art, but wished the girl well for her father's
sake and her own.
Don Atanasio, the apothecary of Santa Vittoria, tried to persuade his
daughter to go with him down to Randazzo and pay Aliandra a visit.
'It will divert you a little from your sorrow, my daughter,' he said,
shaking his head.
Concetta's dark eyes turned slowly towards her father with a wondering
look, as though she were amazed at his audacity and yet pitied his
inability to measure her grief.
'The dead need no amusements,' she said, gravely. 'They are very quiet.
They wait.'
'Eh--but the living,' objected Don Atanasio. 'We are alive, you know.'
Concetta did not heed what he said.
'The dead are very quiet. They wait for the Judgment and the
Resurrection--the judgment of blood, and the resurrection of the
innocent. Then they will be alive again.'
Don Atanasio sighed, for his unhappy daughter was no longer like other
women. She was of those simple beings for whom life has but one purpose
after love has taken possession, and from whom the loved one, dying,
takes all purpose away for ever. The old man sighed and looked sideways
at her, and a tear ran down his thin, straight nose, and fell upon the
plaster he was spreading on the marble slab before him; but his
daughter's dark eyes were dry. She was sitting on a little low stool
behind one end of the counter, where she could not be seen by any one
who might chance to come into the shop. Her head was screened by the
great old-fashioned marble mortar.
Don Atanasio laid down the broad mixing-knife he was using, pushed back
the black broadcloth cap which Concetta had once embroidered with a
design of green leaves, wiped his spectacles, turned away to blow his
nose with a large coloured handkerchief, and turned back again to take a
long look at the girl. He laid his hand gently on her head, pressing her
forehead back until she looked up into his face.
'You wish to make me die also,' he said slowly. 'What have I done that
you wish to make me die?'
She looked at him very sadly, and then quickly got hold of his other
hand and kissed it with a sort of devotion. She was very fond of him. He
patted the back of her head affectionately.
'In truth, my dear,' he said gently, 'if I see you always thus, I shall
not live long, for I have only you in the world, and the rest does not
matter. But it is not that, since I would die to make you happy. What
should it be for me? I am old. I am of no use. They will have another
apothecary in Santa Vittoria. That is nothing. My thoughts are for you.'
'Do not think for me,' answered the girl. 'I sit here quietly. I do no
harm. And then, when it is later, I go to see my dead one every day.'
'But it is not good to do this always,' objected Don Atanasio,
coaxingly. 'That is why I say come down with me to Randazzo to-morrow,
and let us go and see the notary Basili, who has broken his leg, and his
daughter, the great singer, who has come back from Rome to visit him.
She is a good girl, and you can make a little conversation with her. It
will be a diversion, a sober diversion, and the air will do you good,
and the movement.'
She kissed his hand again, then dropped it, and drew up her black shawl
over her head, for she heard a step on the threshold. Don Atanasio heard
it too, and immediately took up his mixing-knife and went to work again
at the plaster. The newcomer was the lieutenant who commanded the
infantry men quartered in Santa Vittoria. He asked for six grains of
quinine in three doses.
He was a quiet young fellow, scrupulously neat in his close-fitting
tunic with its turned-down velvet collar, his small red moustache,
carefully trimmed, and his red hair parted behind and well brushed below
his cap. He had singularly bright blue eyes with rough red eyebrows and
a bright and healthy but much-freckled complexion.
Don Atanasio proceeded to weigh out the little doses of the valuable
drug, and the officer watched him as he cut the clean white paper into
smaller sizes and neatly folded each package.
'Do you know all those Pagliuca brothers?' he asked suddenly.
The apothecary stopped in his work and looked at him keenly. The officer
was a Piedmontese, and was, therefore, unpopular in the south.
'Eh!' ejaculated the apothecary. 'They formerly lived here. I have seen
them.'
Concetta did not stir in her hiding-place at the end of the counter,
behind the marble mortar. The officer was silent for a moment, and the
apothecary hastily folded the last package, slipping one end of the
doubled paper into the other, as chemists do, and taking up another
sheet of paper in which to wrap the three doses together.
'One of them has suddenly returned here,' said the officer. 'He is in
the neighbourhood, and is not here for any good purpose. Most probably
he has come to do some injury to the gentleman who killed his brother,
the brigand.'
In spite of herself Concetta drew a sharp breath between her teeth. The
officer's eyes turned inquisitively towards the corner where she sat.
'It is the cat,' said Don Atanasio, calmly. 'One lira and fifty
centimes, Signor Lieutenant,' he added, handing the officer the package
across the counter.
'They say that it is Francesco Pagliuca who has come back, and that he
was seen this morning in Randazzo,' said the young man, while he counted
out the money in big coppers; for, as usual in the south, there was a
scarcity even of the flimsy little paper notes. 'We do not know him by
sight, you see,' he continued, 'and I should be very glad of any
information, if you should see him in the village. One
thirty--forty--fifty--there it is.'
He laid the last copper on the marble slab.
'A thousand thanks, Signor Lieutenant,' said Don Atanasio, collecting
the coins.
'And you will let us know if you see the young man?' asked the officer.
'You shall be served,' replied the apothecary, gravely.
The officer thanked him, nodded, and went out, with a little clattering
of his light sabre. When he was gone, Don Atanasio's grave face relaxed
in a smile.
'And those are the men who expect to rule us Sicilians,' he said in a
low voice, more to himself than to his daughter. 'They wish to catch a
man. What do they do? They warn his friends by asking questions. What
can such people catch? A crab, as we say, that will bite their own
fingers. Then they complain. They are like children. They do not even
know what the mafia is, and they come to Sicily.'
Concetta sat quite still in her corner, thinking. It seemed to her sure
that Francesco Pagliuca had come to kill Orsino Saracinesca, for his
brother's sake. That was what the officer thought, and all the soldiers
would be looking out for Francesco, and on the smallest excuse he would
be arrested on mere suspicion. It did not strike her that he could
possibly have come for any other purpose, and her one desire was that
Orsino should be killed. That was man's work, that killing, and she
would leave it to the men. But if none of them would do it, she would
some day take her father's gun and wait for Orsino at the cemetery, for
he often passed that way. She was not afraid to kill him, but she
considered it to be the duty and business of the Corleone men. They had
prior rights, and, besides, they were men. A woman should not do any
killing so long as there were men to do it, except in self-defence.
It was clearly her duty, she thought, to warn Francesco that the
soldiers were aware of his presence in the neighbourhood. It would be
much wiser of him, she reflected, to communicate with the outlaws who
were about Noto, and get half a dozen resolute fellows to help him. She
had no knowledge of his character, though she had often met him, and she
supposed him to be like his brothers, bold and determined. So she wished
to warn him, in order that he might safely accomplish what she supposed
must be his purpose.
The difficulty lay in finding him. Her father might help her, perhaps,
but it was doubtful. It was quite certain that he could not say or do
anything which could thwart Francesco's plans, but, on the other hand,
she knew that he would be careful not to seem to help him, for he had to
keep on good terms with the authorities, for the simple reason that he
held a government license as apothecary, which could easily be taken
from him.
'Did you know that Francesco Pagliuca had come back?' she asked, after a
long silence, during which the plaster had been finished, folded up, and
laid aside ready to be called for.
'I knew,' answered Don Atanasio, but he did not seem inclined to say
anything more.
'Why did you not tell me, father?' asked the girl.
'It might have given you pain, my child. And then, one does not say
everything one knows. One forgets many things. He slept at the house of
Don Taddeo, the grocer.'
'Where is he now? Is he still here?'
'Who shall say where he is? Heaven knows where he is. I cannot know
everything.'
He answered with a little irritation, for he understood that Concetta
wished to see her dead lover's brother, and he could not understand how
any good could come of the meeting.
Concetta rose slowly to her feet and came out from behind the counter.
She had grown very thin, but she was not less beautiful. She drew her
black shawl together under her chin, and it fell over her forehead to
her eyes. There was no disguise in it, for everyone knew her, but she
felt that it gave her some privacy in her grief, even in broad day and
in the street.
'I go to breathe the air,' she said quietly, moving towards the door.
'Go, my daughter, you need it,' answered the apothecary.
He watched her sadly, and as she went out he moved to the entrance of
the shop and looked after her. Tall, sad, and black, and graceful, she
walked smoothly along the shady side of the street, which was deserted
in the blazing noon. Don Atanasio did not go in again till she had
turned the corner and was out of sight.
She found the grocer's brother, the fat and cross-eyed sacristan, eating
dark brown beans out of an earthen bowl with an iron fork, in the open
shop. No one else was there. It was a cool, vaulted place, with a floor
of beaten cement and volcanic ashes, and a number of big presses in a
row behind a long walnut counter, black and polished with age. Hams and
sides of bacon hung from the ceiling, and the air smelt of salt pork,
cereals, and candles. The fat man sat on a bench, in his shirt sleeves,
eating his beans with a sort of slow voracity. He looked up as
Concetta's shadow darkened the door.
'Will you accept?' he asked, lifting his earthen bowl a little as he
spoke.
'Thank you, and good appetite,' answered the girl. 'How are you?'
'Always to serve you, most gentle Concetta,' said the man. 'What do you
need?'
'Eat,' replied Concetta, sitting down upon a rush-bottom chair. 'I do
not come to disturb you. Are you all alone?' She peered into the shadows
at the back of the shop.
'Eh, you know how it is? Taddeo eats and then goes to sleep, and while
he sleeps I keep the shop. In truth, it needs no great merchant to do
that, for no one comes at this hour.'
'And you and your brother do not eat together?'
'Generally we do, but to-day, who knows how it was? He ate first and
went to sleep. Then I brought my beans here for company. This is our
conversation. I open my mouth, and before I can speak the beans answer
me. This I call, indeed, conversation.'
'And Francesco Pagliuca, with whom does he converse upstairs?' asked
Concetta, lowering her voice.
The man looked up quickly, with his mouth full, as though to see whether
she were in earnest and knew the truth. A glance convinced him that she
did.
'He went to Randazzo at dawn,' he said, almost in a whisper. 'He makes
love with the notary's daughter there.'
Concetta did not believe that this could be the only reason for
Francesco's return.
'Why does he not stay at Randazzo, then?' she enquired. 'Why should he
come here at all? It is a long way.'
'Perhaps he is afraid of Basili's friends,' suggested the fat man. 'Or
he prefers to sleep here because the air is better. He will certainly
not tell us why he comes.'
'Is he coming back this evening?'
'I think so, for he has a box here with his clothes, and other things.
But for charity's sake, tell no one.'
'I?' Concetta laughed in a cold way, without a smile. 'I wish to warn
him that the soldiers know he was in Randazzo yesterday, and are looking
out for him.'
She told the man of the lieutenant's visit to her father's shop, and he
listened attentively.
'I could wait for him in the road,' he said. 'He thought that the
soldiers would not know him here, because they are all new men. But they
have seen him in Randazzo and have sent word. They think that he has
come on account of the Saracinesca, but he has followed the notary's
daughter from Rome. They cannot touch him so long as he does no harm.'
'They may prevent him from doing it,' said Concetta, looking steadily at
the man.
'That would be a pity,' he answered gravely. 'I will wait for him in the
road.'
'But if he comes by the bridle-path over the hills, you will miss him.'
'I do not think he will do that, for it is a bad road, and he had my
brother's best horse to ride.'
'Go and wait in the bridle-path,' said Concetta. 'I will wait in the
road, towards Camaldoli.'
'He will not come before sunset,' observed the sacristan. 'That crazy
priest of the Saracinesca, Don Ippolito, comes to play the organ in
Santa Vittoria every day, and pays me to blow the bellows, and he never
goes away till twenty-three o'clock.'
Twenty-three of the clock is half an hour before the sun sets, at all
times of the year, by the old reckoning, which is still in use in the
south.
'You can send a boy to blow the bellows,' suggested Concetta. 'You
cannot trust anyone to warn Francesco Pagliuca.'
They both supposed that since enquiry was being made for him, he would
be in imminent danger of arrest, with or without any legal grounds, an
opinion sufficiently indicative of the state of the country. The man
stared blankly at the wall for a few seconds after Concetta had last
spoken, then nodded, and began to eat again.
The girl rose from her chair, and moved towards the door with her
graceful, slowly-cadenced step. She had done what she had come to do and
was quite sure of the man, as indeed she had reason to be, for the mafia
protects its own, and generally has its own way in the end, in spite of
governments and soldiers. If Concetta and the fat sacristan asked no
one to help them, it was because it was such a very simple matter to
warn Francesco of danger, that they needed no assistance. But as they
needed none, they told no one what they were going to do.
Concetta came home again to the quiet little shop, and Don Atanasio
bolted the glass door, and they both went upstairs to dinner. The girl
ate a little better than usual, and sipped half a glass of strong, black
wine.
'The air did you good,' observed her father, looking at her. 'Eh, this
human body! What is it? Who shall ever understand it? You go out every
afternoon, when it is cool, for two hours, and it does you no good, and
you eat no more than a bee takes from a flower. And to-day you go out
for half an hour into a heat that would burn up paving-stones, and you
come back with an appetite. So much the better. It is not I that should
complain, if you ate the house and the walls, poor child.'
'When the heart is thirsty for blood, the body is not hungry for meat,'
said the beautiful, white-faced girl, in her clear, low voice.