On his way back into town, Ric takes the easier option of the tunnel. The racket shouted by the cars, minibuses and scooters in the narrow passageway provides a deafening prelude to the activity beyond it. Whereas Canneto is an oasis of calm, the languorous atmosphere pierced only by a water taxi plodding offshore, the Lunga and Marina di Porto Salvo are all activity. A bright orange tanker lies up at the fuel pier, feeding the island like a gaudy wet nurse. The garbage boat is departing its berth below the citadel and even though it is siesta, the afternoon Aliscafo eases up, its hydrofoils sinking into the green waters of the port as it waits for its sister to vacate the dock.
The Carabinieri are still checking the papers of those leaving through the port, but outside of flagging down a helicopter or thumbing a lift on a yacht, the Lunga is the only gateway off the island.
At least the cemetery will be quiet, he thinks: even the dead must rest.
Ric pauses and looks up at the eternal stone flame, the cross of thorns perched on the high columns and the inscription Omnia Traham beneath. And from some dark corner of his school days he recalls the scripture: Et ego, si exaltatus fuero a terra, omnia traham ad me ipsum.
But, unlike the first day when his curiosity had gotten the better of him and he had walked straight in to wander amongst the mausolea, now he feels unable to enter until he has remembered the translation. He rubs his brow and searches his mind.
“And… and if I…”
A rumpled, wrinkled old man sits inside the gate, an expectant yet bemused expression on the stretched parchment of his face. He has long since lost his teeth and he is so thin, his flat cap and baggy trousers appear to be wearing him.
“Got it,” he mumbles to himself, “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things unto me: Book of John.”
The old man cackles at the sight of a much younger man bartering his way into the afterlife.
“Afternoon, Pop,” Ric offers.
The man raises his hand in salute and rasps, “Salve, mio amico.”
The air beneath the cypress trees is cool, the mood of the cemetery appropriately calm. There are so many graves Ric is not sure where to begin.
Common sense tells him the cemetery would have begun its life either right by the entrance at the bottom or perhaps a little way up, a respectful distance from the harbour. The newer residents would have found themselves billeted further back up the slope as the cemetery expanded in the only direction available.
Ric imagines a grid and starts out inspecting the head stones and coffin-like mausolea. Some are ornate and intricate, some art deco in design and others plain and simple. But here and there a measure of wealth, standing or affection, or perhaps all three, is displayed in glossy black or shimmering white granite: the older the occupant, the more frugal and austere the style; the younger the occupant, the more polished and pretentious the aspect.
An old crone swathed in black, doubtless the better half of the fellow by the gate, is laying fresh flowers at the grave of the Conti sisters; twins born in 1890. She places a plastic bottle upside down in an earthenware vase and punctures the top so that the water will drip very slowly to feed her bouquet of clematis, cornflowers and blue violets.
More than a few of the headstones record the deaths of those interred as early as 1888; the year, as Valeria has told him, the island of Vulcano last erupted. And he comes upon the tomb of the Bongiorno family, a stone cross standing on top of a sarcophagus-shaped vault; stark and restrained and almost soviet in architecture, the word CREDO – Believe – is chased in the centre.
The terraces layer up into the hillside. Stone steps sweep around the Lombardo family: Luigi – dolphins, sails and tridents carved in the base and an anchor standing proudly on the plinth, Giovanna Arena – a simple eternal flame sculpted in stone, and Francesco – pictured in bas relief on an obelisk, a man of some standing at the turn of the century before.
An hour later, he finds a pedestal graced by a weather-worn angel of mercy standing alone in the lea of the chapel-house wall. The name of the family buried beneath the slab of stone is barely legible, but the Christian name seems to begin with the letter A and the surname S.
Ric bends to the gravestone and rubs the contours of the inscription. It is difficult to make out at first, but when he stands back the letters catch the sun and the name becomes clear.
It is ANTONIO SCIACCHITANO, the surname Camille has suggested his great-grandfather went by. There is no date of birth, but the details of his passing are inscribed simply as MORTO LUGLIO 1930. The headstone is heavily pitted and aside from the roughly hewn image of flowers and an incense bowl, he can make out only a couple of other words: INTEGERRIMO CITTADINO, which he roughly translates to a something citizen.
He kneels down on the corner of the gravestone and tries to read more of the inscription. But the words are illegible and after a few minutes he gives up. Ric can see no reference to a spouse and neither of the graves either side bear any relation.
Outsize black ants trail to and fro across the path and a gecko eyes him warily from the shadow of an adjacent pedestal. Down on the terrace below him, workmen toil, cleaning the stone edifices, restoring the mausolea which have succumbed to the ravages of the Aeolian winds and the Sicilian sun.
Ric recalls what Camille told him about the guardiano of the marine cemetery high up in the Bosco of Bonifacio; namely that if he wanted to find out any details of those buried in the cemetery, he should ask the men who attend the graves. But the labourers he is watching work diligently and silently, there is no radio to distract them and they do not whistle or sing. They seem, to him, to approach their tasks with all the appropriate reverence of men who know they are plugging away amongst the departed.
So the possibility is that this supposed relation of his passed away in 1930. Carmelo Corbino, across the way, made it to a hundred. How old, he wonders, was Antonio? But, if he is to take any comfort from his discovery it is that Antonio was thought of as an integerrimo citizen, which he believes must be positive. Surely, the loved ones of the departed were not in the habit of inscribing a headstone with anything other than terms of endearment. Right up at the back towards the final tier of the cemetery stand imposing and impressive mausolea; some twice a man’s height and colonnetted and domed, like elegant pantheons.
As Ric turns, he notices a substantial, simple tomb set apart from the more recent, flashier copies.
The tomb is vaguely Roman in style, the roof squares to a pitch and the doorway is high and wide. The lintel is set in a recessed arch transcended by a semi-circular lunette, the columns in each corner carved from single pieces and their capitals convex and plain. The name inscribed on the lintel reads MAGGIORE.
Ric peers in through the wrought iron gate. A dozen or more plaques denote who is interred in the vault: the line of Maggiore runs far back into the nineteenth century. The women, Grazia, Isabella, Katarina and Maria are many; the men few. And Ric reasons this is because so many of the fathers, sons and brothers would have been buried where they fell in the mountains around Caporetto or the deserts of Abyssinia. He studies the names and dates for a while, looking to see if any of the plaques bear relation to his forebear’s time.
There is one: a plaque bearing the name Katarina, her date of birth 25 Gennaio 1910 and her passing 18 Luglio 1930. Katarina Maggiore died at the tender age of twenty. Clearly, Marcello would not have known her, but Ric wonders whether Antonio Sciacchitano might have?
Above Katarina’s plaque is that of Vincenzo, who passed away on 13 Aprile 1951. And alongside her, in his newly placed casket, lies Onofrio, born 1928 and died as recently as 10 Giugno 2013, and Ric realises that this is the man whose funeral cortège he watched pass down the Corso a few days before. He also toys with the idea that Vincenzo may be Marcello’s grandfather, and Onofrio Marcello’s father; Marcello is at the outside no more than fifty.
He completes his inspection and strolls back down the avenue of cypress trees, nodding politely at the old fellow waiting patiently for his wife to finish paying her respects.
The Carabinieri are still checking the papers of people queuing for the Aliscafo and he thinks he spots Valeria among them. To avoid the policemen, Ric slips into the Corso Vittorio through a narrow alley to his right and strides up the cobbled street.
Halfway up the Corso a diminutive individual is sitting at a café.
There is nothing out of the ordinary in a man sitting alone; many of those loitering in the cafés sit by themselves and watch the world pass by. However, this man stands out from the many others. He is watching, though not in a casual or cursory fashion; his eyes are sharp and they move fast from one person to the next. He is judging those who pass him by, weighing them in his mind and committing their images to memory.
And, this man is not wearing the relaxed apparel of any local; for him there is no short-sleeved shirt fashioned from a material that resembles the kitchen curtains, no trousers that look as though long ago they lost touch with their corresponding suit jacket and no shoes that are slipped easily from one’s feet at the door. This man is wearing a sombre grey suit, white shirt and funereal tie; his shoes are laced and polished. A grey Homburg sits on the table before him.
Yet what truly sets the man apart from the locals is that all the tables around him are vacant except for one, at which table sit two smartly turned out policemen. One of them is very tall and solidly built and neither of them are smoking or drinking. They wait, both attentive and apprehensive, like courtiers to a doge.
The man sees Ric come striding up the Corso and immediately picks him out to be a cat amongst pigeons.
Ric knows it is unwise to make eye contact with such an individual; his training has taught him to recognise such people and assume the pretence of ignorance.
However, his gaze is drawn to the man as if by some curious magnet and, once the connection has been established, Ric feels the only course left open to him is to acknowledge him. So he nods, politely.
The man inclines his head subtly. He doesn’t nod outright. Evidently, he doesn’t want those around him to know he has made Ric an exception to his rule.