Unto the Sons (83 page)

——

Arriving behind the tree,
Antonio could not believe it!

There, at his feet, leaning against the base of a tree trunk were the books by Balzac!

They had been stolen from there two days before
—who
had returned them? Who
ever
returned stolen merchandise in Italy voluntarily? What was the meaning of this? Antonio stared down at the books, not daring to touch them. Suddenly he imagined a sinister aspect entering his courting adventure, and the sweetness of the anisette that lingered in his mouth began to agitate the exposed nerve in one of his lower molars.

From his position behind the tree he cautiously edged forward for a better view of the post office. But there seemed to be no one afoot watching him. The only people entering the post office now, moments after the four-o’clock church bells had stopped ringing, were two nuns who crossed themselves before pulling open the heavy doors with ease. Still very tense, Antonio again looked down at the books. He closed his eyes momentarily and breathed deeply, trying to regain his composure, to think with clarity. He cursed Basile and Paone for smoking all his cigarettes. He opened his eyes again; the books were still there. They looked the same as they had two days earlier; at least the book on top appeared no more wrinkled or bent than when he had last seen it, and the tiny part that had been torn off on the lower tip of the cover had gotten no larger.

Within a few seconds he had calmed himself somewhat, for it occurred to him that he was aggravating himself unnecessarily. What was there to worry about?
Surely
, Olympia had taken them—and
not
one of her jealous suitors—for, as the baron said, she read French. If she had read both books in two days, it indicated that she was a fast reader, and that she stayed home a lot (a good sign in a potential wife). Her having returned the books indicated, of course, that she was on to his little game. But so what? Maybe a love note, or a pressed flower, awaited him between the pages. If a
vindictive suitor
were involved, however, there might be the dreaded imprint of the Black Hand society; and then what? At lunch Basile and Paone had confirmed that Olympia had many admirers, including the one from America to whom Antonio’s father had alluded.

Basile said his name was Raffaeli. Bruno Raffaeli. He was said to have been born in Philadelphia. Basile, who had many relatives there—and not a good word to say about any of them—had seen Raffaeli sporadically in Maida, and was convinced he was an individual of dubious character. Raffaeli’s parents had operated a restaurant in Philadelphia, but they had sold the place before returning to Italy a year and a half before and acquiring
the cliffside manor beyond Maida that had belonged to the late marquis of Botricello.

Antonio was told nothing more by his friend about Bruno Raffaeli, except that he was big and broad-shouldered, and that he was in and out of Maida frequently, but never predictably, and that, like the majority of trans-Atlantic travelers who made guest appearances in the local
passeggiata
, he eschewed the proletarian fashion adopted by most hometown bachelors in favor of the wide-brimmed fedoras and sharp-lapeled double-breasted overcoats preferred by gang leaders in America—overcoats with a white handkerchief in the outside pocket, and most likely a pistol in the inside pocket.

Impatiently, Antonio reached down, picked up the books, and flipped through the pages, prepared for anything—love notes, flowers, or threatening messages from the Black Hand society. He found none of these. Everything about the books seemed the same as when he had last touched them, except that his page markers were missing, which was the least of his concerns—for now, looking up, he saw Olympia walking along the road. It was four-ten. She was late. Her head was covered by the hood of her cape, which she held close to her body on this frosty day. But he recognized her instantly from her walk, and especially her long legs. If she was cold in her upper body, she was apparently warm below: her skirt today seemed shorter, exposing her legs above the knees, and, as usual, she wore sandals.

She did not look in his direction before entering the post office, which surprised and also disappointed him. The game was still on, although now there were renewed doubts about the players. Still standing behind the trees, Antonio glanced backward, then turned toward the front and peeked through the leaves. A few harmless-looking elderly couples were coming and going along the road, but no stalwart figures in fedoras. So Antonio tucked the books under his arm and stepped out of what he assumed to be his obscurity. Summoning whatever stoicism was within him, he stood ready to confront the vicissitudes of his village.

Boldly he walked toward the post office, half tempted to enter. But what would he do in there? Confront her directly? Confront her about what? No, he thought, that would be forcing the issue, and it might make him appear foolish. While he believed it had been Olympia who had taken the books, he could not be absolutely certain. It
might
have been Raffaeli. Or some other possessive deviant awaiting the right moment to ambush Antonio. Suddenly, serious thoughts of danger rose within Antonio,
much as he tried to repress them. For the first time in years he recalled the fate of his late uncle Gaetano. Antonio remembered hearing the tale of how young Gaetano, standing in the shadows beneath the balcony of the woman he would eventually marry, had been jumped from behind and slashed across the temple with a knife. This had occurred in Maida thirty years before. Was Maida today any more advanced? The town today might be even
more
backward!

In any case, Antonio decided not to enter the post office. Olympia would be coming out any second. At once Antonio turned away from the front door and, with the books underarm, ambled on toward the square, reminding himself, as he had earlier, that there was no reason to panic. He should remain calm; alert but calm. He should continue for at least another day to play the baron’s game: play hard to get, if that
was
what Antonio had lately been doing with his time-consuming, possibly ill advised, masquerade of coquettishness.

Antonio saw Basile and Paone approaching. As Antonio waved, Basile left Paone behind and ran toward Antonio. He staggered before he reached him, and gasped for breath, seeming indeed disabled.

“Antonio,” he blurted out, holding on to Antonio’s shoulder for support, “I saw Raffaeli!” Basile then began to cough, and appeared on the verge of choking until Paone rushed forward to revive him by pounding him on the back.

“Raffaeli walked past the café with another man just after you left,” Basile went on haltingly, as Paone rubbed his back and looked upon Antonio with an expression of Maidese gloom that Antonio found irritatingly similar to the agonized face displayed in paintings of Saint Francis.

“Antonio,” Basile concluded, almost in a whisper, “I think we should stay with you.”

“No, no, my friend,” Antonio said, placing his hand on Basile’s shoulder, “I’m grateful, but that won’t be necessary.”

“Please, I think we should stay,” Basile insisted, “this man might be dangerous.…”

Antonio’s first instinct had been to welcome his friends as bodyguards, but then he saw this as a sign of cowardice, and also a capitulation to the philosophy of pessimism that had persisted in his village for centuries. Were he to be guided by the thinking of his friends—and, alas, his father—he would in spirit be back with them in the hills. No, Antonio believed that he and his father were cut from different cloth; the metaphor displeased him as much as the paternal disrespect it implied, but it was nevertheless the truth. Antonio had not returned home to reenter the
Middle Ages. He was in southern Italy in search of an idealized woman of old-fashioned values whom he considered timeless and priceless. And in his quest for such a woman he would not be discouraged by any reputed gangster from America, or by some local cutthroat who might exist only in the imagination of these kindly but fearful villagers who seemed at home only in a secluded place of oppression and frequent earthquakes.

“Well,” Basile said, finally breathing normally, “maybe you’re right. Raffaeli, when I saw him, wasn’t headed toward the post office. He was walking down toward the fountain, and maybe to his horses, and maybe he was off to see his parents.”

“Yes,” agreed Paone, sounding quite relieved that Antonio would not be needing them as bodyguards.

“But let me thank you both again,” Antonio said, shaking their hands and waving them off. “I’ll just be stopping at my father’s shop, and there are plenty of people around, and anyway I’m not concerned about Raffaeli, or anyone else.”

After his friends had departed, Antonio continued with an added spring in his stride, his feelings of pride and self-confidence renewed. He whistled as he walked, recalling a flamboyant musical revue he had seen in Paris at the Folies-Bergère; and while he remained on the alert, aware of the pedestrians in front of him as well as those along the edges of the square, there was in neither his look nor his manner any anxious expectation. Frankly, he was feeling good. He had outgrown his town, was above its petty grievances, but was not unmindful of the positive things about this place and its people. The offer of help from Basile and Paone, fearful as they undoubtedly were, had touched Antonio, and they certainly could not be held accountable for what this land of misfortune had done to their souls. And Maida, for all its antiquation and its occasional primitive passions, retained a quality of simple beauty and familiar intimacy that he missed in Paris. This square itself, rather large for a village so small, had been planned centuries before by people who thought
big
, and there
was
a largeness to be found even in these townsmen whom he may have ungraciously thought of as narrow-minded.

As Antonio walked on in his heightened state of awareness and forgiveness, he heard things he had not heard before—the genial sounds of birds in the gray winter sky, and what sounded like the polite applause of palm leaves in the wind, and what clearly was the sound of a choir at practice in the monastery near the cemetery. His thoughts of Olympia, his wondering about where she was exactly since leaving the post office—she
had
to have left it by now!—and the thoughts of warning carried his way
by Basile and Paone, had receded in his mind and were being replaced by thoughts more conciliatory and felicitous now that he was again at peace with himself.

When he reached the edge of the square and turned toward the narrow street leading to his father’s shop, Antonio heard at first imprecisely, and then more definitely, the hurried tapping of female feet along the cobblestones well behind him. Not turning around, not even when he vaguely heard his name called out eagerly by a female voice, Antonio entered the street that was heavily darkened in shadows. He kept walking, his pace quickening, as the onrushing woman gained ground while pleading with him to stop. He almost did stop, hearing in her voice a tone that was oddly compelling and that brought to mind his classroom readings about the legendary Calypso every young southern Italian boy is regularly warned about by his mother and priest—the beseeching voice, both sympathetic and insistent, that induces procrastination, dalliance, and ultimately ruination. The fact that this was an exaggeratedly negative interpretation of Calypso mattered little in the rural south, where nearly all of Greek mythology was instilled with touches of Italian tragedy and iniquity. Antonio had almost reached his father’s tailor shop when the woman caught up with him and, throwing her arms around his back, forced him to turn and embrace her.

“Mother!”
Antonio cried out, as she wept in his arms. “Mother, what’s wrong? What are you doing here?”

“Oh, I was afraid I’d never see you again, Antonio!” Maria said, trembling and holding him close. “I’ve had premonitions for days, Antonio, that you were being followed by evil men. These premonitions became so strong an hour ago that I ran out of the house to your father and told him we
had
to stop you from getting killed. He said you wouldn’t listen to him, so he sent me through the back road to the post office to convince you myself to leave town. I couldn’t find you, but thank God you’re here now.”

“Mother, Mother,” Antonio said, sounding more stern than he intended, “you’ve got to get control of yourself.…”

“No,” she interrupted, trying to push him away, “we must leave! The monsignor’s carriage is waiting. I’ve packed an overnight bag for you. Your father and the monsignor’s driver are all set to go.”

“To go where?”

“To Bovalino,” she said. “
There
awaits the woman of your dreams.”

“I can’t, Mother, I can’t,” Antonio said.

“You must!” she demanded. “If you don’t, something horrible will happen—not only to you, but to me.”

The street was empty, and her tearful urgings had brought some neighbors to their second-floor windows. The sounds of their shutters opening, and their inquiries about her well-being, embarrassed her.

“I’m sorry, Antonio,” she said, more quietly, “but you must trust me.” Then she said something that Antonio heard perfectly, but in his surprise he exclaimed,
“What?”

“I saw her,” his mother repeated.

“You saw
Olympia?
”

“Yes,” she went on, “I saw her in the post office. I had a good look at her.” After a pause, his mother continued: “Oh, Antonio, she’s
not
much to look at. Her face is long and bony, the kind of face you see on so many noblewomen, and it always reminds me of horses. And she’s tall, Antonio. She is a head taller than you are. Oh, my dear Antonio,” she intoned with forbearance but finality, “she’s not for you. She’s just
too tall!
”

Antonio said nothing. His arms were still around his mother, but he was staring out into the shadows of the lonely street, shaking his head slowly. Yes, he thought, his mother really knew how to get him. So, Olympia was too tall. What else was there to say? That just about ended it. Antonio could not picture himself walking arm in arm with a woman noticeably taller than himself down the aisle of a church, or indeed up the Avenue des Champs-Élysées.