Translated from the Italian by Avril Bardoni
Leonardo Sciascia (1921–1989). Born in Sicily, and raised in Caltanissetta, Sciascia developed a passion for literature in his teens while studying under the novelist and poet Vitaliano Brancati, who instilled in him a love of French writers. From the early 1950s, he established himself as a controversial commentator on political affairs and his first published writing, Fables of the Dictatorship, was a satire on Italian fascism. Sciascia was an outspoken public intellectual, critical of corruption, organised crime and entrenched power in his native Italy. He found fame with the novel The Day of the Owl, a fantastical thriller that shed light on the dark side of Sicilian public life. When told that his books in English were shelved in the mystery section, he replied: “At least I hope they will be regarded as metaphysical mysteries.”
The night seemed made to order, the darkness so thick that its weight could almost be felt when one moved. And the sound of the sea, like the wild-animal breath of the world itself, frightened them as it gasped and died at their feet.
They were huddled with their cardboard suitcases and their bundles on a stretch of pebbly beach sheltered by hills, between Gela and Licata. They had arrived at dusk, having set out at dawn from their own villages, inland villages far from the sea, clustered on barren stretches of feudal land. For some of them this was their first sight of the sea, and the thought of having to cross the whole of that vast expanse, leaving one deserted beach in Sicily by night and landing on another deserted beach, in America and again by night, filled them with misgivings. But these were the terms to which they had agreed. The man, some sort of traveling salesman to judge from his speech, but with an honest face that made you trust him, had said: “I will take you aboard at night and I will put you off at night, on a beach in New Jersey only a stone’s throw from New York. Those of you who have relatives in America can write to them and suggest that they meet you at the station in Trenton twelve days after your departure … Work it out for yourselves … Of course, I can’t guarantee a precise date … We may be held up by rough seas or coastguard patrols … One day more or less won’t make any difference: the important thing is to get to America.”
To get to America was certainly the important thing; how and when were minor details. If the letters they sent to their relatives arrived, despite the ink-blotched, misspelled addresses scrawled so laboriously on the envelopes, then they would arrive, too. The old saying, “With a tongue in your head you can travel the world,” was right. And travel they would, over that great dark ocean to the land of the stori (stores) and the farme (farms), to the loving brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, cousins, to the opulent, warm, spacious houses, to the motor cars as big as houses, to America.
It was costing them two hundred and fifty thousand lira each, half on departure and the balance on arrival. They kept the money strapped to their bodies under their shirts like a priest’s scapular. They had sold all their saleable possessions in order to scrape the sum together: the squat house, the mule, the ass, the year’s store of provender, the chest of drawers, the counterpanes. The cunning ones among them had borrowed from the money-lenders with the secret intention of defrauding them, just this once, in return for the hardship they had been made to endure over the years by the usurers’ greed, and drew immense satisfaction from imagining the expression on their faces when they heard the news. “Come and see me in America, bloodsucker: I just may return your money—without interest—if you manage to find me.” Their dreams of America were awash with dollars. They would no longer keep their money in battered wallets or hidden under their shirts; it would be casually stuffed into trouser pockets to be drawn out in fistfuls as they had seen their relatives do, relatives who had left home as pitiable, half-starved creatures, shriveled by the sun, to return after twenty or thirty years—for a brief holiday—with round, rosy faces that contrasted handsomely with their white hair.
Eleven o’clock came. Someone switched on an electric torch, the signal to those aboard the steamship to come and collect them. When the torch was switched off again, the darkness seemed thicker and more frightening than ever. But only a few minutes later, the obsessively regular breathing of the sea was overlaid with a more human, more domestic sound, almost like buckets being rhythmically filled and emptied. Next came a low murmur of voices, then, before they realized that the boat had touched the shore, the man they knew as Signor Melfa, the organizer of their journey, was standing in front of them.
“Are we all here?” asked Signor Melfa. He counted them by the light of a torch. There were two missing. “They may have changed their minds, or they may be arriving late … Either way, it’s their tough luck. Should we risk our necks by waiting for them?”
They were all agreed that this was unnecessary.
“If anyone’s not got his money ready,” warned Signor Melfa, “he’d better skip out now and go back home. He’d be making a big mistake if he thought he could spring that one on me when we’re aboard; God’s truth, I’d put the whole lot of you ashore again. And, as it’s hardly fair that everyone should suffer for the sake of one man, the guilty party would get what’s coming to him from me and from all of us; he’d be taught a lesson that he’d remember for the rest of his life—if he’s that lucky.”
They all assured him, with the most solemn oaths, that they had their money ready, down to the last lira.
“All aboard,” said Signor Melfa. Immediately each individual became a shapeless mass, a heaving cluster of baggage.
“Jesus Christ! Have you brought the whole house with you?” A torrent of oaths poured out, only ceasing when the entire load, men and baggage, was piled on board— a task accomplished not without considerable risk to life and property. And for Melfa the only difference between the man and the bundle lay in the fact that the man carried on his person the two hundred and fifty thousand lira, sewn into his jacket or strapped to his chest. He knew these men well, did Signor Melfa, these insignificant peasants with their rustic mentality.
*
The voyage took less time than they expected, lasting eleven nights including that of the departure. They counted the nights rather than the days because it was at night that they suffered so appallingly in the overcrowded, suffocating quarters. The stench of fish, diesel oil and vomit enveloped them as if they had been immersed in a tub of hot, liquid black tar. At dawn they streamed up on deck, exhausted, hungry for light and air. But if their image of the sea had been a vast expanse of green corn rippling in the wind, the reality terrified them: their stomachs heaved and their eyes watered and smarted if they so much as tried to look at it.
But on the eleventh night they were summoned on deck by Signor Melfa. At first they had the impression that dense constellations had descended like flocks onto the sea; then it dawned upon them that these were in fact towns, the towns of America, the land of plenty, shining like jewels in the night. And the night itself was of an enchanting beauty, clear and sweet, with a crescent moon slipping through transparent wisps of cloud and a breeze that was elixir to the lungs.
“That is America,” said Signor Melfa.
“Are you sure it isn’t some other place?” asked a man who, throughout the voyage, had been musing over the fact that there were neither roads nor even tracks across the sea, and that it was left to the Almighty to steer a ship without error between sky and water to its destination.
Signor Melfa gave the man a pitying look before turning to the others. “Have you ever,” he asked, “seen a skyline like this in your part of the world? Can’t you feel that the air is different? Can’t you see the brilliance of these cities?”
They all agreed with him and shot looks full of pity and scorn at their com-panion for having ventured such a stupid question.
“Time to settle up,” said Signor Melfa.
Fumbling beneath their shirts, they pulled out the money.
“Get your things together,” ordered Signor Melfa when he had put the money away.
This took only a few minutes. The provisions that, by agreement, they had brought with them, were all eaten and all that they now had left were a few items of clothing and the presents intended for their relatives in America: a few rounds of goat-cheese, a few bottles of well-aged wine, some embroidered table-centers and antimacassars. They climbed down merrily into the boat, laughing and humming snatches of song. One man even began to sing at the top of his voice as soon as the boat began to move off.
“Don’t you ever understand a word I say?” asked Melfa angrily. “Do you want to see me arrested?… As soon as I’ve left you on the shore you can run up to the first copper you see and ask to be repatriated on the spot; I don’t give a damn: everyone’s free to bump himself off any way he likes … But I’ve kept my side of the bargain; I said I’d dump you in America, and there it is in front of you … But give me time to get back on board, for Crissake!”
They gave him time and enough to spare, for they remained sitting on the cool sand, not knowing what to do next, both blessing and cursing the night whose darkness provided a welcome mantle while they remained huddled on the shore, but seemed so full of menace when they thought of venturing further afield.
Signor Melfa had advised them to disperse, but no one liked the idea of separation from the others. They had no idea how far they were from Trenton nor how long it would take them to reach it.
They heard a distant sound of singing, very far away and unreal. “It could almost be one of our own carters,” they thought, and mused upon the way that men the world over expressed the same longings and the same griefs in their songs. But they were in America now, and the lights that twinkled beyond the immediate horizon of sand-dunes and trees were the lights of American cities.
Two of them decided to reconnoiter. They walked in the direction of the nearest town whose lights they could see reflected in the sky. Almost immediately they came to a road. They remarked that it had a good surface, well maintained, so different from the roads back home, but to tell the truth they found it neither as wide nor as straight as they had expected. In order to avoid being seen, they walked beside the road, a few yards away from it, keeping in the trees.
A car passed them. One of them said: “That looked just like a Fiat 600.” Another passed that looked like a Fiat 1100, and yet another. “They use our cars for fun, they buy them for their kids like we buy bicycles for ours.” Two motorcycles passed with a deafening roar. Police, without a doubt. The two congratulated themselves on having taken the precaution of staying clear of the road.
At last they came to a roadsign. Having checked carefully in both directions, they emerged to read the lettering: SANTA CROCE CAM ARINA—SCOGLITTI.
“Santa Croce Camarina … I seem to have heard that name before.”
“Right; and I’ve heard of Scoglitti, too.”
“Perhaps one of my family used to live there, it might have been my uncle before he moved to Philadelphia. I seem to remember that he spent some time in another town before going to Philadelphia.”
“My brother, too, lived in some other place before he settled in Brooklyn … I can’t remember exactly what it was called. And, of course, although we may read the name as Santa Croce Camarina or Scoglitti, we don’t know how the Americans read it, because they always pronounce words in a different way from how they’re spelled.”
“You’re right; that’s why Italian’s so easy, you read it exactly how it’s written … But we can’t stay here all night, we’ll have to take a chance … I shall stop the next car that comes along; all I’ve got to say is ‘Trenton?’… The people are more polite here … Even if we don’t understand what they say, they’ll point or make some kind of sign and at least we’ll know in what direction we have to go to find this blasted Trenton.”
The Fiat 500 came round the bend in the road about twenty yards from where they stood, the driver braking when he saw them with their hands out to stop him. He drew up with an imprecation. There was little danger of a hold-up, he knew, because this was one of the quietest parts of the country, so, expecting to be asked for a lift, he opened the passenger door.
“Trenton?” the man asked.
“Che?” said the driver.
“Trenton?”
“Che trenton della madonna,” the driver exclaimed, cursing.
The two men looked at each other, seeking the answer to the same unspoken question: Seeing that he speaks Italian, wouldn’t it be best to tell him the whole story?
The driver slammed the car door and began to draw away. As he put his foot on the accelerator he shouted at the two men who were standing like statues: “Ubriaconi, cornuti ubriaconi, cornuti e figli di …” The last words were drowned by the noise of the engine.
Silence descended once more.
After a moment or two, the man to whom the name of Santa Croce had seemed familiar, said: “I’ve just remembered something. One year when the crops failed around our parts, my father went to Santa Croce Camarina to work during the harvest.”
As if they had had a rug jerked out from beneath their feet, they collapsed onto the grass beside the ditch. There was, after all, no need to hurry back to the others with the news that they had landed in Sicily.