Ric feels a little dizzy. Perhaps it is the heat or the palm wine, or perhaps it is that he feels cheated. He isn’t sure which. But he is also taken with the idea that every time he thinks he is getting close to finding out about his forebears, instead of being content with the information he receives, he is left with the impression that there are yet more questions he needs to find answers to.
“Well, Nino,” he says after this new piece of news has been allowed sufficient time to sink in, “that is a tale and a half. So, you mean to tell me that I’ve come all this way to find an empty grave?”
The old man grins, mischievously. “It would seem that way, my young friend. For eighty years that grave has been empty and no one has thought to question why.”
Ric knows he is being led, but is more than happy to be if by doing so he will be afforded more information. He smiles, perfectly sure that the old man can feel him do so.
“So, why, Nino? Why has Antonio Sciacchitano’s grave sat empty all these years?”
“Mmm, I will tell you. And I can tell you this now because all the players in this opera are all long passed and it can no longer put anyone in danger. But first, a little coffee, which you will have to make. Oh, and bring some of the biscuits, please. That girl is more careful with her rations than a field kitchen.”
As Ric gets up to begin clearing the table, Nino reaches out and grasps his forearm. The old man does this so speedily and accurately that Ric is wont to question his lack of sight. He waits.
“My friend, Ariana only allows me one teaspoon of coffee in the caffettiera. Perhaps, as she is not here, we can spoil ourselves and have two each.” He touches briefly the rim of his dark glasses and whispers, “What the eye does not see; the head will not worry over, eh?” He chuckles.
“Seems like a good idea to me, Nino.”
When Ric returns with the tray of coffee and biscuits, Nino has fallen asleep, so he places the tray as gently as he can on the table. The old man’s posture suggests he is still awake; his head is upright, his back is straight and his arms are folded across his chest. But there is tranquility and serenity to his form and Ric wonders for a moment if he might, like the players in his opera, have passed on.
“This is why I need the coffee,” Nino says, very suddenly. “The mind is tempted to sleep and I would rather it stayed awake. That way I know I am still alive. Now, where were we?”
“The empty grave?”
“Ah, yes. Una tomba senza cadavere,” he repeats. “An unusual occurrence, a grave without a corpse. Of course, one finds many graves without names, but a grave with a name and yet without a corpse is most unusual.”
Old Nino sips his coffee and nods, “Mm, that is better. So how do we come to have an empty grave in our cemetery, eh? Firstly, I am too old to remember all the funerals I have attended. When you get to my age, you have seen so many they all blend into one unhappy procession; few of them are remarkable. But my father told me this man, Sciacchitano, learned from a conversation he had overheard in a café in Canneto that the three deportati – Drago, Farinelli and Tamboia – were betrayed to the Carabinieri. At that time, one of the principles involved in the arrangement of the escape was Vincenzo Maggiore, Marcello Maggiore’s grandfather. I believe you know Marcello.”
“I do. He’s fixing my boat.”
“My father told me that when Vincenzo heard these men had been betrayed, he sent Antonio Sciacchitano to Punta San Giuseppe to warn them. Alas, he arrived too late and the men were killed in the ambush the Carabinieri had set for them. On his way back through the town, Tonio was stopped by a patrol and questioned as to what he was doing out so late. With no excuse and soaking wet after his futile attempt to warn the unfortunate deportati, he was arrested. However, Sant’Agata was watching over him: a bribe was paid and he was permitted to escape. And this was when he came to my father and begged him to spirit him and his companion away to the mountains, to Sicilia.”
“That still doesn’t tell me why he’s not in his casket in the cemetery.”
“Patience, my friend, patience! When the Commendatore found out Tonio had escaped, he went completely pazzo. The Carabinieri searched the island as if they had been told the treasure of San Bartolo would be theirs to keep if only they could find it.
“Tonio hid in the pomice warehouse at Pietra Liscia until the noise had died down, at which time my father took him to Baarìa. However, the Commendatore did not allow the Carabinieri to let the matter drop. He proclaimed that Tonio would wish he were dead rather than suffer the tortures they would inflict upon him when they found him. This gave Vincenzo Maggiore the idea of making the Commendatore think Tonio was actually dead. He persuaded the… the… pubblico ufficiale che indaga i casa di morte sospetta, I don’t know this word…”
“The coroner?”
“Si, the coroner. He persuaded the coroner to provide a death certificate and so a funeral was held. The whole town turned out; the procession was as long as the Corso Vittorio and the coffin without a body was buried in the cemetery. In fact, there were so many people that the Commendatore, who was also by chance a highly superstitious man, feared a riot like the one in 1926 when the people of Lipari protested against the criminals who were sent here. This he could not afford for fear of being disgraced, so he allowed the funeral to take place without interference.”
Ric chuckles, “He wasn’t much of a one for the job, was he?”
“No,” Old Nino replies. “Many of the Fascists were more concerned with keeping their positions than they were with doing their work correctly. For us, this was a blessing.”
“So my great-grandfather – if he is my great-grandfather and not a figment of someone’s fertile imagination – left Lipari for Baarìa and never came back?”
“How could he? He was dead! Oh, there are others here with the name Sciacchitano, but they are not of the same family and you will find families of this name throughout the south of Italy and, no doubt, some in America too.”
“And after the war? He didn’t return after the war?”
Old Nino turns to face Ric as if reading his expression, “The war was not finished until fifteen years later and by that time there was even less reason to come back. Pomice and zolfo were being mined more economically in the Americas, there was no tourist trade to speak of and there was so much poverty that anyone with a gram of ability departed for greener fields. And besides, Tonio was not a fool; he would have understood he would not have been safe in Baarìa. It would have been better for him to leave Sicilia for good. Probably, he went to Tunis or perhaps on a boat to France.”
Ric thinks, “Perhaps even to Britain?”
“Yes, perhaps even to Britain. After the war, many went to work as agricultural labourers.” Old Nino turns his face back towards the strait between the islands. “Many went and have never returned; I, of course, could not.”
In an attempt to lift the old man from his maudlin, Ric offers, “Your father was a brave man, Nino, in much the same way as you were; you both answered the call when it came.”
He nods his wizened head very slowly. A slender line of tears trickles from beneath his dark glasses. He wipes his nose with a handkerchief. “It is true. Even though I have no sight, I can see my father in front of me as if it were yesterday.” He pauses. “Now it must be time for you to find your excitement elsewhere. An old man has only so much energy for this kind of recollection and now that I have brought my memories back into my mind, I would like to be left alone with them.”
“Sure, Nino, I understand. It goes without saying how much I appreciate all the time and effort you’ve committed to remembering what happened. Is there anything I can do for you before I go?”
The old man smiles a little mischievously. “If you would be kind enough to replace the legbi where you found it and wash these glasses, it will make Ariana’s return all the more agreeable, thank you.”
Ric does as he is asked, wondering, while he is washing and drying, how he will ever find out whether or not he is related to the courageous Antonio Sciacchitano.
Outside, Old Nino has regained his upright posture, suggesting he may have gone to sleep.
The wind is strengthening, white caps litter the purple sea below the point and Ric wonders if he should cover the old man with a rug. He watches and realises that if he ever makes it to such a venerable age, he would like to be left sitting on a stonewall seat, in the shade of a pergola, fanned by the sea breeze and before such a fair view; especially if that view was exactly the same as the last time he’d seen it, nearly sixty years before.
As he leaves, he recalls the old man saying that Tonio Sciacchitano had brought a young woman with him to his father’s house that night, and he wonders about the woman and whether she, too, made the journey in the fishing boat to Baarìa.