That Summer in Sicily (18 page)

“All the words said, she wept. I had been weeping for a while by then and, through the tears, she seemed a gauzy spectre, an eloquent ghost in blue-spotted chiffon.
How her bobbed hair was set in tight waves and the points of her cheeks went red, and how she was almost pretty at that time of day.
A woman come to soothe me. To tell me that the labyrinth is, indeed, my labyrinth.”

“As life at the
borghetto
continues to improve and as Leo sees, senses, a growing serenity among the peasants, he, too, takes on a greater tranquility. We wander off on our first jaunts away from the palace. We pack one of the trucks with firewood and baskets of provisions and some sort of Army-issue cots and feather quilts and candle lanterns and drive through the mountains to a high plateau where we sleep in a field of wild marjoram and hyssop and mint. Leo crushes handfuls of the herbs on a stone, brews a
tisana
with them over the fire, serves it to me in a mother-of-pearl cup, tells me it was with this elixir that the Eleusinians—when she rested in their camps—comforted a mourning Demeter.

“We drive to the sea, and when I finally look upon it, I run from the car. Tearing at my skirt, my shirt, pulling my camisole over my head, loosening my plait, I race into the surf. Splashing, screaming, diving, swallowing the good briny juices of it, I am sluiced and lustrous, a long brown fish prancing in the curling steel-blue waves on the edges of my island. But then I miss the mountains. Wherever it is on the island that Leo takes me, I find beauty and feel joy. But always I miss the mountains. I miss the horses. I miss my everyday life. Yolande and Charlotte are wiser than I.

“As we had done for years by now, Leo and I continue to ride each morning. We no longer set out with palace guests or with Cosimo to trot upon the conventional trails of the social rider, but rather we take to the less-traveled mountain or woodland paths or head for open meadows on the high plateau where we can race. Where we can feel free. Though we might easily arrange our days and nights to include a rendezvous within the palace, these pre-dawn journeys become our courting hours. I think it is the private joy of rising, dressing, and meeting in the dark kitchen where Leo—yellow curls sleep-matted to his temples—would be pouring out two tiny cups of espresso. We run then, shivering, across the gardens to the stables, thieves in the thick quiet of the night. Even the horses seem conspiratorial, patient as meek children as we saddle them, ready ourselves then with sweaters and tweeds that we keep there in the barn. When there is no moon, we take the open trails, and when there is, we ride twisting paths in and out of silent, spookish woods.

“One morning, as the dark is fading, we dismount and lead the horses up to a clearing, step warily along a palisade and into the new pearly light. We stay still, stroking the horses’ necks, waiting for the sun. A hot, violent wind swarms among the dry yellow leaves of the oaks behind us and the soughing of them sounds like a woman crying. Shivering even under the weight of Leo’s old suede jacket, how cold I am, trembling and trying to hear the woman whose cries are softer than the raucous hissing of the leaves. The wind sweetens then and the light roars up behind the mountains, firing the stone and the sky in long yellow flames. And the crying ceases and we walk, less warily I think, along the rim of the cliff, and when we reach the plateau and remount, we ride hard, ride to breathlessness, find shade, walk the horses to cool them. Settle ourselves to rest. In the delicious trembling light under the branches of old poplars, we are lovers.

“Most mornings we ride to the half-ruined
locanda
in the pine woods, the place where we’d stopped to drink wine and walk a bit on the night of my eighteenth birthday. We stay a while there in a small salon, the pale-green paint of its high walls bruised, peeling, the red-tiled floor worn to undulations, the ivory satin skin of the chairs and sofas in tatters. A dark wood Bechstein grand sits at the far end of the room and sometimes I sit to play
Saint-Saëns
. To play
Le Cygne.
Leo stands, eyes closed, arms folded upon his chest, to listen. I play only a few measures before he interrupts.

‘It’s a swan, Tosca. The music was composed to give the impression of a swan. There is no indication that an elephant approaches.
Piano. Piano, amore mio.
’

“There is always tea, still tepid, in a porcelain jug. Bread, marmalade, some sort of biscuit. A melon, artfully carved. A few wild berries in a mended pink dish, the leaves and stems of the tiny things still dusty from the woods. Flowers and blossoms on branches stand in a blue and white ginger jar on the wide stone mantle. We neither hear nor see a soul though our benefactors live in a far wing of the house. Soft, tree-filtered light pours through the wavy glass of the long, many-paned windows and onto us, over us, reclined upon a plush, fringed carpet embossed in great yellow roses. We lie there on the yellow roses before the fire and pretend we are at home. We talk and fight and laugh and eat and drink. We sleep and dream upon the dark red carpet with the yellow roses as though its length and width mark the confines of the world. I run my fingers through the silky fringe of the carpet as I listen to Leo speak. Arms raised over my head, sometimes I clutch at the fringe, hold it in my fists. In the ice-green light, the thin, shimmering underwater light of those mornings, the dark red carpet with the yellow roses does mark the confines of the world. And when the clock in the hall outside the door chimes eight, we gather ourselves to leave. We must be back at the palace, back at the
borghetto
to begin our day’s work.”

“The letter is handwritten on thick, vanilla-colored paper, sealed with red wax in the old-fashioned way. It is delivered to Leo at the breakfast table by one of the servants.

“ ‘A gentleman is waiting in the hall, sir. For your response,’ says the servant, smartly restraining a smirk. This is all eighteenth-century behavior and Leo is perplexed. We stay quiet as he slits the seal, opens the note.

“ ‘I hope it’s an invitation to a masked ball,’ says Charlotte.

“We laugh, keeping our attention upon the prince as he reads.

“ ‘Ah, yes. Yes, please tell the gentleman that I accept. And thank him, Mimmo,’ Leo says to the servant, who rushes off, shaking his head almost imperceptibly.

“Leo hands the letter to Cosimo, pours more coffee, letting it spill from his already full cup into the iridescent white saucer painted with small blue flowers. He smiles in our direction. Cosimo reads it, hands it back to Leo, and they both rise, saying
buongiorno.
Leo’s nod to me says that he’ll see me a bit later.”

“Leo has been invited to a dinner hosted by the nobleman whose lands are separated from his by a small village. The letter informs him that upon this occasion other guests will be present, both local and from as far away as Palermo. Though Leo presumes it to be a social gathering, the letter is worded more as a summons than an invitation. It is the very first such approach—social or otherwise—that Leo has received from this ‘neighbor.’ The dinner is to be that very evening. It is early in December 1950.

“Though he says he would like me to sit with him in the library and, later, in his office, Leo hardly speaks to me throughout the day. I ask why he so readily accepted the invitation if it does not please him to attend. He tells me, ‘It’s a matter of duty.’

“I stay with him even while he dresses, ties the formal black shoes he wears only to weddings and funerals. From a cobalt glass vial he pours neroli oil out into his palm, runs it through his yellow hair, still damp from the bath, and strokes two heavy silver brushes through the short, thick curls, and I think that my prince wears fewer than his thirty-eight years. He asks if I will spend some time after supper with Cosimo. He desires that Cosimo and I wait for him in the small salon near the chapel. He says he won’t be late. But the priest, also dressed in his most formal clothes, awaits him in the hall, the main door open, the automobile purring at the foot of the palace steps.

“ ‘Since I was fresh out of sealing wax, I sent live word to your host via Mimmo. I told him to say that, as the
sacerdote
of his very own parish, I would be most willing to put aside the business of the church this evening in order to bless his gathering. I didn’t ask Mimmo to wait for an answer,’ Cosimo tells him.

“They laugh and embrace and laugh again. Don Quixote and Sancho Panza in the front seat of the faithful gray Chrysler.”

“Among the local landowners with whom both Leo and Cosimo are acquainted, their host presents two men they have never met. These are introduced as
politicos
from Palermo. The others present seem to already know the two
Palermitani.
In fact, save Leo and Cosimo, the group—twelve in all—demonstrate an almost fraternal camaraderie. The subject upon their collective lips is agrarian reform. They speak of the soon-to-be-signed into law State decree that will demand that Sicilian landowners sell, at token prices to their peasants, all abandoned or unproductive tracts suitable for agriculture. Soon it is clear that Leo is the evening’s quarry.

“When the gentlemen are settled at table, the murmuring, head-shaking discourse of the cocktail hour becomes pointed. As though by rehearsal, each man ’round the table tells of one of Leo’s follies: his restructuring of the
borghetto
buildings; the medical care; the instruction in hygiene; the birthing rooms; the
borghetto
school and the mandatory attendance of the peasants’ children up to twelve years of age—
at least five years after the children should have been working in the fields,
says one of the men. Another tells of the well-stocked storerooms, the well-laden tables, the distribution of clothes and bedding, the evening Mass celebrated in their chapel. Decorum is soon surrendered to shouting, so eager are they to boast of another and another of the prince’s indiscretions.

“ ‘And have you heard, gentlemen, that good Prince Leo’s peasants need no longer relieve themselves in the sainted peace of the woods?
A white-tiled latrine,
gentlemen, only a white-tiled latrine is good enough for Prince Leo’s peasants.’

“The laughing is bawdy now. It is threatening. As though only a gunshot could quiet it and yet, with a single clink of his silver knife against a glass, a hush falls. It is one of the
Palermitani
who commands the floor.

“ ‘Prince Leo, we do not deny the need for reform. The time has come. But the time has only recently come. Let the changes take due course. If you set about righting a thousand years of wrongs too abruptly, the reforms won’t last. These people need authority far more than they need an evening Mass or curtains on their windows.’

“ ‘Or a shiny new latrine,’ shouts another.

“The laughter starts up again but is short-lived as Leo begins to speak.

“ ‘I have no doubt of the peasants’ need for leadership any more than I had doubt of their need for more bread and a clean, dry place to sleep. The changes I’ve made—and those I shall make—I make in my own name and in no one else’s. I hardly consider myself a social reformer. I do not look at you and urge you to follow me, nor can I concern myself whether you do or you don’t follow me. I will not parcel my land because the government demands it of me. I will parcel it because I know that it’s the right thing to do. You, kind sirs, must do what you must do. But so must I.’

“There is a long silence scratched, now and then, by a match run against a pocket flint, the loosening of a tie grown too tight. The repeated clearing of a throat.

“ ‘Is it true, Prince Leo, that you kiss the hands of your peasants?’

“It is the other
Palermitano,
the one called Mattia, who asks the question. He has spoken so softly and without moving from his slouched position at the table that Leo does not know from whom the voice has come.

“ ‘Now why would that be of interest to you?’ he asks, looking at each one ’round the table.

“This other
Palermitano,
this Mattia, then stands, walks to the place where Leo sits, lays his short, blue serge-covered arms upon Leo’s shoulders, bends his head to Leo’s ear, says gently, ‘If you don’t bully them, they’ll despise you, Leo. You’ve heard that before. I tell you it’s true.’

“Mattia raises his head, crushes his voice to a cracked, exhausted whisper. ‘When, someday, we hear you’ve suffered a misfortune, we’ll understand the source of it. The loss of respect, I mean. Yes, we’ll understand that you invited your misfortune with a kiss.’ ”

“When Leo had returned that evening, he had not come to my rooms. This non-observance of our nightly ritual—our spending an hour or so being quiet together, in reviewing the day—signified his distress and caused mine. The next day, with apparent pain and in great detail, it is Cosimo who recounts the events of last evening to me. As he describes the gathering, the atmosphere of palpable bitterness, flagrant distaste, my worry gives way to a choking fear.

“ ‘But who are these men, these two from Palermo?’ I ask Cosimo.

“ ‘They are of the clan,’ he says with maddening simplicity.

“ ‘What is this clan? In whispers and asides, I’ve been hearing this word since I was a little girl. Are they a family, a group of bandits, renegades? Is this the same
clan
who murdered Filiberto?

“ ‘I would say that the answer is ‘yes’ to all parts of your question. They are a family—related by choice rather than by blood, which is often the stronger of the two attachments. They are a group of bandits. Bandits among whom you would find the illustrious, the high-ranking, the many-starred members of our society. You would find priests in as many numbers as you would find politicians, nobles, and merchants. Well represented, too, would be the State and local and military and financial police. And finally, you would find hungry men who are willing to carry out their orders, no matter how gruesome.’

“As he speaks, Cosimo looks anxiously at the door to the
salone
where we sit, expecting Leo to enter, I think. But then he turns his back to the door, ceasing to care if Leo should hear what he says to me and be displeased by his candor.