"But first, we must make a stop," Sciafani said, as calmly as if he were giving me a lift to work.
"Where?" I didn't like the idea of stopping anywhere, or the fact that he had surprised me with it. I was supposed to be in charge here.
"At the house of Signor Patane. His wife is ill. Yesterday I told him I was a dottore. I thought it might make him less anxious. He asked if I would examine her this morning." He combed his wet hair back with his fingers and set off, the country doctor making his rounds.
"Why didn't you tell me before?" I asked, quickstepping to keep up with him.
"Because I thought it would make you more anxious."
"Listen, hiding out here is one thing, but going into a village, isn't that dangerous? What if there are Fascist sympathizers?"
"See, you are more anxious already. Be thankful I did not tell you last night and ruin a good night's sleep. There will be no Fascists there. Do not worry, my friend."
"Did he say what was wrong with her?"
"She is weak, and coughs up blood. He is very worried about her." "Hasn't he taken her to a doctor?"
"There is no doctor here. This is nothing but a little village where people work as they always have for the very rich, who pay very little."
"What about in Palermo or Agrigento?" I asked.
"That is the other side of the world to these people," he said. "They would have to walk there, and she is in no condition to do so. And there is the war. Even if there were no war, there would be bandits on the road. No, there is no way out for them."
"Sounds like the stories of Ireland under the English my uncle used to tell me. There was nothing there for the Irish but hard work and death. No way out, except to leave for America. Uncle Dan never forgot his grandfather telling him about digging for potatoes and coming up with nothing but shrunken, rotted things not fit to eat. He was the only one of his family to survive the potato famine."
"Did not your father speak to you about this? Only your uncle?" Sciafani didn't miss a beat when it came to family. His view of the world didn't seem that far off from the one I was brought up on. Family first, which meant your father, then the rest of them, then the rest of the world.
"My uncle is the older brother. He remembers those stories better, and he's never stopped being angry about it. He's a policeman too, and he's also IRA." Sciafani raised an eyebrow in a silent question.
"Irish Republican Army. The IRA fight the British to free Northern Ireland."
"Ah," Sciafani said. "You come from peasant revolutionaries."
"I don't know about that," I said, not happily.
"No, do not take offense. Peasant is a class, not an epithet. And to be a revolutionary in such circumstances is natural. Some say this is how the mafiusu came to be. Still today, when a young man is inducted into cosa nostra, he takes a blood oath to protect the weak from the powerful."
"That doesn't sound like the mobsters I knew in Boston," I said, wondering how he knew so much about this.
"No, I am certain it is quite different in America. And the reality is different here also. But what is important to remember is how these men see themselves. Look, ahead, there is the village."
We turned a corner in the rutted dirt road and I saw a clump of low buildings. A small church at the far end anchored the cluster against a slide down into the ravine that curved in front of us. As we crossed a small stone bridge, the smell of human waste slammed into my nostrils. A ditch by the side of the road carried a sluggish flow of brown, foul liquid from the village to the ravine, where it spilled over into a dark pool and fed the small stream at the bottom.
"It is better when it rains," Sciafani said.
"I bet," I said, not wanting to open my mouth any farther to tempt the swarming flies.
The church was nothing more than a gray dome surrounded by grayer walls, the stucco long since peeled away to reveal the lines of rough-cut stone, fitted tightly together. The houses were all the same-low squat buildings, some of plain concrete blocks, others of stone, but all in the same square shape, with crumbling, faded orange roof tiles. They radiated out from the church, as if each home wanted to be as close as possible to their priest and prayers.
The first house we walked by was abandoned, shards of roof tiles bleaching in the sun where they had landed on the ground. It stood alone, away from the rest, as if it had fallen out of favor, the tragedy, bad luck, or both of the last residents still clinging to it. The doorway showed traces of soot, and the faint smell of smoke drifted in the air. The rest of the homes were hardly in better shape. No flowers or little gardens decorated the landscape. It was uniformly gray-the hard-packed dirt road, the stones, and the dust on my shoes-all the color of granite crushed down to powder.
Doors were shut, and no curious villager peeked out at the two strangers walking in their street. One of the doors was painted with a black streak, over which per mia madre was written in white.
"For my mother?" I asked Sciafani, guessing at the words.
"Yes. It is a sign of mourning in these villages." He looked at the ground as we walked, avoiding my eyes and the scene around him. He seemed uncomfortable, and I wondered if the poverty and grimness we had encountered was embarrassing to him or if it reminded him of part of life in Sicily he didn't want to think about.
Another door was hung with black cloth. Another had nothing but a slash of black paint, weathered and cracking in the dry air. Death was everywhere, even far from the battlefield. A low rhythmic sound echoed from the stone walls. A chant. We stopped, and a priest in a black cassock came from around a corner, his hands holding up a prayer book, his skirts brushing the dirt. Behind him four little children held their hands in prayer as they followed in line. Six men held a plain wooden coffin on their shoulders. The wood had a fresh-cut look to it, and I could smell it, the aroma of pine and sawdust lingering as they passed by. Women dressed in black wept as they brought up the rear, shuffling along with veils covering their faces, the only brightness evident in small white handkerchiefs fluttering from pockets and disappearing beneath gauzy black veils. We watched the small procession make its way across the piazza and around the church, probably to a graveyard where someone had hacked a hole out of the stony earth.
"Pleasant little town," I said.
"This way," Sciafani said, ignoring me as he turned right at the entrance to the central square. He strode ahead of me, eyes on each house, looking for Signor Patane's. Then he stopped short and fixed me with his eyes, his face flushed.
"I come from such a town as this. It is a very difficult life, one you should not mock."
"I wasn't mocking," I said, holding up my hands in protest, or perhaps surrender. "I didn't mean it that way, I'm sorry."
"Very well. Come, this is the house."
"Wait a minute," I said, grabbing him by the arm. "I thought you said your father was a doctor in Palermo. I don't see many doctors coming from a village like this."
He pulled his arm from my grasp and turned away from me. He wiped his face with one hand and breathed deeply, as if readying himself for a difficult task. "I did come from a village much like this one. I was adopted by a husband and wife who could not have a child. He was the doctor from Palermo. As often happens, as soon as they adopted me, she bore a child. But it did not matter to either of them-we were both treated as blood."
"What happened to your parents?"
"We should not keep il signor Patane waiting." With that, he knocked on a bare wooden door, the grain bleached to a light gray by the harsh Sicilian sun. It seemed odd to me that a guy who was adopted would be the same one who preached about only trusting family. Trusting them to do what, that was the question.
I followed the good dottore in as Patane opened the door. The room was cool, a relief from the heat. An old tasseled rug covered the stone floor, and the walls were bare of decoration, except for a picture of the Virgin Mary, her immaculate heart in flames. The furniture was old and worn but clean. A side table gleamed, a thin coat of dust starting to coat the glossy wax shine. Signora Patane took her housework seriously. Her kitchen was spotless too. I waited there while Sciafani and Patane went into the bedroom off the kitchen, where I could hear a harsh cough that wouldn't stop. The coughing continued through softly murmured words, and I knew she was very sick. I got up and looked around the kitchen. Pots on a shelf gleamed. Iron skillets still damp from oil rubbed into them hung from hooks on the wall. Jars of seasonings were lined up full along the counter. Dried peppers and garlic cloves hung in twisted strands from a rafter. Everything was ready, clean, and in order. Irish or Sicilian, it didn't matter. I knew a woman who kept a kitchen like this yet didn't greet her company on her feet with cakes at the ready was in bad shape indeed. From the look of how stocked everything was, I thought maybe she didn't expect to be back on her feet any time soon.