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I used to love to ride my pony to the Greek temple at Segesta.

This magnificent Doric temple, about ten miles out of town, overlooked my family’s farm in the hill country behind Castellammare. The temple roof is missing, but all its thirty-six columns are standing. The side lintels and the front and rear pediments are also intact.

The color of the temple would change with the progress of the sun, from a soft gold at noon to a bronze at sunset. Swallows nested inside the temple, and green lizards darted in and out of the masonry cracks. Orange poppies grew on the hillside. You could hear the bleating of sheep and the lowing of cows. On rainy days, I would roam through the temple grounds foraging for snails, which my grandmother fried in garlic.

The temple was built on a lofty spot in the countryside in honor of Demeter—the Greek goddess of agriculture. The goddess’ altar is missing from the temple; as throughout the entire island of Sicily, conquerors and invaders have come and gone through Segesta with devastating regularity. All that remains of the Greek town itself is scattered stone blocks. Grass and shrubs cover the dead city.

Although it is easy for outsiders to list Sicily’s foreign invaders, it is difficult for them fully to appreciate what this perpetual turmoil did to the Sicilian character. It is one thing to understand, and yet another to feel. But let us just run through the list of invaders: Greeks, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Vandals, Byzantines, Saracens, Normans, Angevins, Aragonese, Bourbons, fellow Italians and the Allied army during World War II. No wonder that Giuseppe Tommasi of Lampedusa, the Sicilian author of The Leopard, called Sicily “that America of antiquity.” The island has a stew of races. Wandering through Sicily you will encounter not only people with raven hair and olive skin, but also blonds and redheads, people with the palest of skin and people with tawny skin, Latin faces, Asiatic faces, African faces and Celtic faces. The latest additions to this diversity are the black-skinned children that American GIs left behind during World War II.

Sicily has been buffeted by foreign influences for well over two thousand years. The Arabs alone, for example, remained for about three hundred years—a full century more than the United States of America has been in existence. It is obvious that without a genius for survival, Sicilians would have long ago lost their identity. Greek genius built the temple at Segesta, but Sicilian genius made it possible to endure subjugation and to survive long after the Greek town fell to ruin.

Out of necessity, Sicilians put all their talents and energy into creating a life-style of survival, a peculiar and distinctive way of life that over the years became Tradition. Prevented from participating in the rule of their own land, Sicilians withdrew all the more into their own families. Everyone inside the family was a friend, all outsiders were suspect. Unable to understand the many strange customs and languages foisted on them by their conquerors, Sicilians took comfort in their own parochial dialects and customs, developing their own shibboleths or investing common words with double meanings. Exploited by colonial laws and cheated by greedy public officials, Sicilians developed their own folk laws and their own business practices. Frustrated and angered by the inequities of state justice, Sicilians adopted a personal sense of justice which placed the responsibility of conduct and punishment on the individual and the family. This subcultural system of justice did not overthrow the official order, but existed alongside it. In an unjust world, it was necessary to create one’s own justice.

A Sicilian of the old Tradition gives his highest allegiance to his family. Outside of that, however, he’s proudly independent. He knows how to look after himself. As the Sicilian proverb says, “The man who plays alone never loses.” Above all, he is intensely aware of himself, like a stallion in the wild.

On my family’s farm downhill from Segesta, we used to keep a stable of spirited Arabian horses which we would obtain from my Uncle Giovanni. Those Arabians were our pride. I had my own Arabian stallion as a young man. Probably the highest compliment you can pay a man’s horse in Sicily is to describe the horse as mafioso. As an adjective, the word has many connotations, but all share the same general import: spirited, brave, keen, beautiful, vibrant and alive.

Let us say two Sicilian wagon drivers happen to meet each other at the foot of a hill. One might say to the other:

—Let’s race up the hill. I’ll show you which horse is mafioso.

A horse may be said to be mafioso; so can an apple or a woman. So can a man.

*   *   *

Not long after my father returned from America, he became enmeshed in a problem unrelated to the feud with the Buccellatos.

A rancher who owned land near the Bonanno property had been murdered and my father was accused of conspiracy to commit the crime. He was innocent, but the prosecution’s principal witness was a man willing to testify that he had heard my father talk about the murdered man in unfriendly terms. It was a tenuous case which could have gone either way. In the absence of hard evidence, the outcome of the trial would depend on who made a better impression on the witness stand.

The witness on whose testimony the case hinged was another neighbor rancher by the name of Vetrano, who had a wife much younger than he. She was pretty, and he kept her in virtual seclusion on his ranch, playing a suspicious Othello to her innocent Desdemona.

I remember my grandmother taking me across the mountains to Trapani, the capital of the extreme western province in Sicily, where my father’s trial was being held.

My grandmother told me that she went to talk to her son in prison during the trial. He told her the outcome of the trial was uncertain. He admitted that he might be found guilty if his lawyers did not impeach Vetrano’s testimony.

—My lawyers are useless in this matter, my father said. Vetrano has it in for me.

—But why? my grandmother said. Why does he hate you?

My father told her that jealousy had turned Vetrano’s mind. When my father came back from America, he had made it a point to visit the nearby ranches and reacquaint himself with his neighbors. When he visited Vetrano’s ranch, he did not find the owner home and so he chatted amiably with his comely wife. Who knows how she later spoke of the charming young don Turridru? Who knows how her suspicious husband interpreted her words?

—You mean Vetrano thinks you and his wife …

—What else?

—What are we going to do, my son?

—We are going to fight deceit with imagination. Please do as I say. Speak to the midwife in Castellammare. She is your friend. We need a small favor from her.…

In those days, midwives would visit married women to examine them, check on their pregnancies, and administer to their periodic needs. It wasn’t surprising, then, that donna Crocifissa, the midwife, should show up at Vetrano’s ranch to examine his wife.

—Just routine, nothing to worry about, the midwife assured Vetrano’s wife. Suppose you lie down and let me look at you.

After the examination, donna Crocifissa went directly to see her good friend Vita Bonanno. The midwife described the young wife’s private anatomy. My grandmother then relayed the vital information to her son.

The following day Salvatore Bonanno requested permission to address the court himself.

—Your Honor, my lawyers have done the best they can, my father said. They are the two best lawyers in Trapani, as Your Honor well knows, but the infamy against me is so great that even they cannot help me.

My father’s lawyers were just as amazed as the spectators and the judge at this pronouncement. Both lawyers were capable professionals, but they did not know what was on their client’s mind. If they had known, they probably would not have gone along with my father’s risky idea, for it involved unorthodox methods and absolute panache in execution.

—Your Honor, I ask the Court’s forgiveness for having held my tongue so long, my father said, rising to his feet. I confess that I never thought this sorry business would get this far. I thought the infamy against me would have been cleared up by now. I can assure this Court, and every man here, that if it were not for the outrageous lies spoken against me, I would ordinarily rather face death than say what I have to say.

It was his duty, the judge told him, to bring forth all the evidence.

—Out with it, the judge ordered, in less flowery language.

—Very well. I have remained quiet up to now because I did not want to compromise one of the fairest flowers in Sicily, if not the whole world. This woman is the wife of my accuser, Vetrano.

My father pointed to Vetrano and stared at him for dramatic effect. Then he continued:

—The reason for this man’s perjury against me is very simple. He hates me because his wife has cheated on him.

The courtroom swelled with hubbub. The judge kept rapping his gavel. Vetrano kept banging his fists on the railing, red in the face and slobbering at the mouth. My father looked serene.

—This is v-very serious, said the flustered judge. And ir-re-regular.

—For my indiscretion with this lady, my father continued, I am fully accountable to God. But I do not see any wisdom in allowing myself to be vilified and sent to prison for what is, after all, a common occurrence between men and women.

Suddenly, my father turned around to face his accuser, scoffing him.

—Look at Vetrano now. Why, he cannot even bring himself to speak coherently.

It was true. Vetrano seemed to be in the throes of an epileptic seizure.

—Signor Bonanno, the judge snapped, he is not on trial, you are.… Can you prove you went to bed with his wife?

The question sent a wave of lewd anticipation through the suddenly hushed crowd.

—Your Honor, it pains me to admit that this lady and I were caught up in a moment of passion, an unpremeditated moment. Reason abandoned us. The act seemed quite innocent at the time.

—Yes, yes, the judge said, but this is not the time for a hymn on fleshly desire.

—Your Honor took the words right out of my mouth. What lovely flesh, what strong legs, and such a firm bottom. As for her breasts …

—Excuse me, the judge interrupted adamantly. What is your proof, sir?

My father approached the bench. He told the judge in a whisper that an examination of the young woman’s private anatomy would reveal the presence of an exquisite brown mole directly above the cleft.

A subsequent court-ordered examination of the woman confirmed the presence of the mole—which had been discovered originally by the midwife. This revelation caused a furor in the trial and undermined the prosecution’s case. My father was acquitted.

The trial soon became known throughout the entire Castellammare region. Whenever Vetrano passed, street urchins would make the sign of the devil’s horn, the sign of the cuckold, behind Vetrano’s back.

*   *   *

My father’s destiny took its final turn with the outbreak of World War I. He was drafted into the Italian army early in 1915 and assigned to the artillery. His regiment was sent to the Austrian border, where it was in the thick of the fighting. In one battle, almost all the men in the regiment were wiped out; my father was one of the few survivors, but he was badly wounded. Before Christmas of 1915, he came home to recuperate. Complications set in, and a month later, he knew he was dying.

My father’s death scene was calm and deliberate, and for me, at the age of eleven, dreadful. Near the end, he invited people into his bedroom for a last word or blessing.

How helpless my father must have felt during his last moments. He knew he would be leaving his wife without a husband and his son without a father. In addition, his family would be battling for its existence against a stubborn local enemy.

He asked my mother to fetch him some writing paper. In a feeble handwriting, he scrawled a pithy message to his nephew Peppino in the army. I later found out that he urged his nephew to take his place back home when he could.

Then he called for me. I was led to my father for the last time. He spoke to me. On other occasions, I knew how to react to his words. This was different. I did not know what my emotions should be this time. All I knew was that I should get as close to my father as possible. He instructed my mother and Uncle Stefano Magaddino to take good care of me. His last words were:

—Your name is Bonanno. Always be proud of your name.

He died while clutching me to his bosom.