The Prince (12 page)

– 1920 –

T
hat afternoon, Marquis Pietro Bellarato returned earlier than usual to his palazzo in the oldest district of Salemi. He was irritated and in a bad mood. With increasing frequency in recent months, his brain was assailed by a flurry of images at that hour that drove him to seek ever more intense and extreme forms of excitement. He would begin fidgeting, yawning, though he wasn't sleepy; rather, it was a lack of oxygen—a restlessness—that forced him to get on his horse and go charging through his lands looking for someone who could satisfy his insane cravings.

The shepherd boys had at first considered it an honor to be able to satisfy their master, but since he'd begun hurting them, they now went to hide as soon as they heard the distant gallop of his horse. They abandoned the flock and ran to take cover among the rocks and cliffs, where the horse couldn't get to them. Terrified, they watched him prowling back and forth near the flock like a hungry wolf, looking for them. The marquis called to them, whistling and shouting, his mouth thick with dust and saliva. He cursed them because they were supposed to stay with the sheep.

Then, when he realized that they would not come out of hiding, he galloped off to the next flock, his head about to explode, in the hope of finding another victim on whom to vent his brutal impulses. And if the unfortunate boy was found, he paid the price for himself and for the other ones who had been smarter than him.

His campieri, with no disrespect, but firmly, had informed the marquis that there was risky gossip about him floating around. But Bellarato was too sure of himself and his authority: no one could stop him. That afternoon had been one of those instances when he'd been unable to satisfy his desires. Returning home, he poured some marsala into a glass and then sprawled on the couch, exhausted by the long ride. He sipped his drink, his hand lying loosely on the armrest.

Tosco, the servant who had grown up with him, finished stoking the fire and asked if the marquis had further need of him. But his master did not answer. The devoted servant had learned when to disappear from the marquis's sight. Tosco left the room shaking his head. He was furious over the marquis's decline. It tore him up to see him in that state. But there was nothing he could do about the insanity that seized Bellarato more and more often lately. If the old marquis, his father, had seen him like that, he would have died of a broken heart.

The marquis closed his eyes partway and fell into a deep lethargy; when he opened them again, he wasn't able to immediately collect his thoughts and had to strain his memory to remember that it wasn't morning but late afternoon. He looked straight ahead—and saw a dark figure, completely covered by a cloak, with a hood lowered over his face.

As soon as he saw the stranger, he leaned forward, frightened. It was then that the mysterious individual let the hood drop and revealed himself.

The marquis recognized him and relaxed. “Oh, it's you,” he said, sinking back on the couch. “What are you doing here?”

Then it occurred to him that the unexpected guest had appeared in his study without being shown in by the servant. He didn't finish that thought because, all of a sudden, the figure drew a long knife from under his cloak. He was on him immediately, trying to pin down his arms, but the marquis broke free of his grip and ran toward the door. The man was quicker, however, and with a lunge gave him a powerful shove that sent him spinning to the fireplace. Bellarato crawled backward, looking for something he could use to defend himself; he reached for the poker, but the man kicked it away from him. The marquis, desperate, then grabbed a burning log from the fireplace and threw it at the intruder. But the man dodged it, continuing his relentless advance. The marquis tried to get up, but the man jumped on him, forcing him to the floor. He stuffed his mouth with a lace doily from the sofa that was used as a headrest. Holding him down, he stunned him with two powerful blows to the head. The assailant then stood up and with the tip of the knife sliced off all the buttons on the fly of the marquis's trousers.

Bellarato, though dazed, was still terrified of the threat posed by the long knife; spitting out the doily, he shouted: “Why are you doing this to me?”

The man's only response was to force him to lie on the couch and then plant a knee on his chest, to prevent him from moving. Realizing that he was going to die, the marquis fought back, kicking with his last ounce of strength and thrashing about like a man possessed. So his attacker punched him as hard as he could, this time squarely in the face. He felt the nose bone crack and a spurt of blood gushed onto his hand. Despite the pain, the marquis did not lose consciousness. He began to cry. The figure in black opened Bellarato's pants all the way and with one hand grabbed his member, stretching it out as much as he could. The intruder's facial expression held no trace of compassion. He brought the sharp blade of the knife to the flesh— the marquis was rasping in terror—and then one clean stroke hacked off the culprit guilty of so many rapes. The marquis let out a bestial howl as a stream of blood began to pulsate rhythmically from the wound, pooling on the couch. The assailant, who had not yet had his fill of revenge, stuck what was left of the limp organ into the shrieking mouth, crammed it down the marquis's throat with two fingers, then held his jaws closed until he began to gasp and sputter, struggling for air. The last words Pietro Bellarato heard were those spoken by his executioner.

“Today Salemi will drink a toast to your death, Marquis.” It was his epitaph; with a last desperate rasp, Bellarato expired, his eyes bulging from their sockets.

A dense cloud of smoke invaded the room. The killer turned and saw the heavy velvet curtains go up in flames as the fire swept quickly to the other wall coverings and antique furniture. The man began coughing. Shielding his mouth with his cloak, he made his way through the blaze, heading for the door. But as soon as he opened it, fresh oxygen burst into the room, reviving the flames that licked at his cloak.

When by dawn the following day the fire was completely put out, very little of the palazzo was left standing. All the antique furnishings, paintings, tapestries, and mirrors had perished. Salemi's carabinieri recovered the unfortunate remains of two people: one was certainly Marquis Pietro Bellarato, according to the testimony of his servant who had left him dozing in the palazzo's drawing room. But he knew nothing about the other person. Nor could the individual's name be ascertained by his identification papers, since they had been completely destroyed.

Chief Brigadier Mattia Montalto arranged for the remains of the two bodies to be transported to the morgue at the nearby hospital. Then he summoned the town physician, Peppino Ragusa, and requested an autopsy. He wanted to know how those two people had died and whether the doctor could identify them.

From a brief preliminary inspection, Ragusa established that it was a man and a woman. But afterward, he had to change his opinion, because upon a more thorough examination of one of the two corpses, he discovered that the one he had mistaken for a woman had in his throat—something that looked like a male member. And it was his own.

They were therefore dealing with an explicit Mafia symbolism, according to which severed genitals, stuffed in a corpse's mouth, were meant to settle an affront committed against the wife of a “friend” or some other offense of a sexual nature.

The murder of Marquis Bellarato caused quite a sensation throughout the territory of Salemi and, as the mysterious killer had glibly predicted, many people drank a toast to his death that day.

But the greatest satisfaction over Marquis Bellarato's demise belonged to the 395 members of the Veterans cooperative. The farmers were unable to contain their elation. Some even wept for joy: with the marquis dead, they no longer had to fear that a competitor might steal the Baucina estate away from them.

The term of the Veterans' option expired the very morning on which the corpse was discovered, and the cooperative had still not obtained a loan from the Cassa Rurale.

As soon as news of the death spread through the town, Don Antonio Albamonte headed immediately for Prince Ferdinando Licata's palazzo to tell him what had happened. The priest found him starting his breakfast of oranges, biscotti, and jam. Sitting down opposite him as the prince spread some jam on a crispy biscotto, the priest asked, “Have you heard about the Marquis Bellarato?”

“What a terrible death, poor fellow,” Ferdinando Licata remarked, and went on eating.

“The fire broke out yesterday afternoon, and they managed to extinguish the flames only this morning at dawn,” the priest continued, breaking a biscuit as if it were a host. “I spoke with Tosco, the servant. He is the only witness. He says he has no idea who the second corpse might be, because he swears he didn't let anyone in to see his master.” After a brief pause, the priest continued. “Prince, don't you think it's quite a strange coincidence that Bellarato died a day before our option was to expire?”

“Of course, Bellarato can no longer acquire the Baucina estate now. We no longer have his option hanging over us like the sword of Damocles. This time destiny played out in our favor,” Ferdinando Licata pronounced.

“Could it be that someone guided destiny's hand?” the priest asked boldly.

The prince spilled some orange juice on his shirt. “Don Antonio, do you mean to suggest that the marquis may have been killed over that transaction?” he asked, wiping it off with a linen napkin.

“Many of our farmers were seriously worried about losing their savings. I wouldn't be surprised if someone decided to settle the matter by creating an inferno.”

“I understand that Dr. Ragusa found a foreign body in his throat,” the prince said glancing at Albamonte.

The poor priest made the sign of the cross. “May the Lord have mercy on him.”

“As he had for his poor victims,” Licata concluded. “The marquis had many enemies. What he did to his young shepherds was truly unspeakable.”

“In any case, peace be with him now. The marquis can no longer trouble us. It's as if the estate were already ours.”

“Don Antonio, your farmers can rest easy. I told them they didn't have to worry.”

The marquis's sudden death indeed meant salvation for the members of the Veterans cooperative. Ferdinando Licata, through a friend, was finally able to obtain a loan from the Bank of Sicily, which was crucial to the successful conclusion of the purchase. The 395 farmers rejoiced at hearing the news that the former Baucina estate now belonged to their cooperative; they applauded the prince and, naturally, Don Antonio, who had insisted on having him in the cooperative as honorary president. Finally, they would own the lands that they themselves would cultivate: a dream that many couldn't even imagine. They would have kissed the ground the prince walked on, so great was their gratitude for his generosity.

Malicious rumormongers tried to suggest that he was directly involved in the matter of the fire, but they were immediately silenced by those around them who pronounced: “
U patri
would never do anything that dishonored himself and his friends.”

From then on, Prince Ferdinando Licata became
u patri
—father—to one and all.

Don Antonio would never forget the favor that Licata had done for him. After the success of the Veterans cooperative, many farmers wanted to form other cooperatives under the patronage of the church and
u patri
, steering clear of the lure of the red leagues with their socialist and anticlerical talk.

The prince himself derived a significant profit from managing the cooperative. For the next four years, he let the farmers cultivate the land as tenants, while waiting to become its rightful owners. In practice, they paid rent to the cooperative, which went into the pockets of the prince's agents. These payments, rather than being counted as amortization of the loan obtained from the Bank of Sicily, to be deducted therefore at the time the individual contracts for the collective purchase were executed, were considered simply a
“ terraggio”
rent—just as if the owner were still the original
latifondista
from whom the peasants were leasing the uncultivated land.

And when the cooperative—namely, the prince and Don Antonio—finally decided that it was time to transfer the estate to the members, it was still the two leaders who established the rules governing the division. They assigned the best lands, the most fertile ones with plenty of water, to a few friends and all the others to the rest of the members. And so it came about that Ferdinando Licata acquired about 250 acres, and assigned another 250 adjacent acres to his older sister, Lavinia Licata, and the same to Don Antonio. Another 500 acres were divided among six or seven friends, while the remaining small plots went to the more than 390 members of the cooperative.

Ragusa, determined to unravel the mystery of the second man who had been burned to a crisp, spent many hours in the medical center's laboratory that night, analyzing the two cadavers.

Ragusa had the stubborn perseverance typical of his fellow citizens. Moreover, during the Great War he had fought on the barren plateau of the Karst, near Trieste, where his protective shell had only grown thicker and more impenetrable. In Bassano del Grappa, where he had been hospitalized for a bayonet wound to his hand, he had met Annachiara; having lost both her parents, she had been an aide there for many years.

Back in his village, Ragusa had left behind a daughter, Ester, in the care of relatives, and the grave of his wife, who had died of malaria. He never would have thought he could fall in love again in his lifetime. Until then life had held in store for him only painful trials and superhuman struggles. But upon seeing that blonde angel, the alchemy of love flooded back, stirring his head and his heart. He was charmed by her gentle, reserved manner. But only toward the end of his convalescence, a few days before being discharged from the hospital in northern Italy, did he get up the courage to reveal his feelings.