The Day of the Owl (7 page)

'Well, if you put things in those terms ... '

'What other terms can I put them in? In the terms of that colleague of yours who wrote a book on the mafia, which if you'll allow me to say so, was so fantastic that I'd never have expected such nonsense from a responsible person ... '

'I found the book very instructive.'

'If you mean you learned something new, all right; but whether the things described in the book really exist is another matter ...Now let's look at it from another point of view. Has there ever been a trial during which it has emerged that there is a criminal association called the mafia and that this association has been definitely responsible for or actually committed a crime? Has any document or witness any proof at all which has ever come to light establishing a sure connection between a crime and the so-called mafia? In the absence of such proof, and if we admit that the mafia exists, I'd say it was a secret association for mutual aid, no more and no less than freemasonry. Why don't you put down some crimes to the freemasons? There's the same amount of proof that the freemasons go in for criminal activity as there is that the mafia does.'

'I believe ...'

'You just believe me. Take my word for it and, in the position I unworthily hold, God knows if I could deceive you, even if I would ... What I say is this: when you, with the authority vested in you, direct - how shall I put it? - your attention to persons indicated by public opinion as belonging to the mafia merely on the grounds of suspicion, with no concrete evidence that the mafia exists or that any single individual belongs to it, then, in the eyes of God, you are committing unjust persecution. This brings us to the case of Don Mariano Arena ... And, incidentally, of this officer of carabinieri who arrested him without thinking twice, with an irresponsibility unworthy, if I may say so, of the uniform he wears. Let us say with Suetonius:
"ne principum quidem virorum insectatione abstinuit
..." In plain language, this means Don Mariano is revered and respected by the whole town, is a bosom friend of mine and - believe me, I know how to choose my friends - he's also highly thought of by the Honourable Member Livigni and by the Minister Mancuso.'

*

The twenty-four hours of preliminary arrest had already expired for Marchica and were falling due for Arena and Pizzuco too. At nine o'clock sharp Marchica started pounding on the guardroom door to insist on his rights, of which he was well aware, and was told by the sergeantmajor that the Public Prosecutor had extended his detention for another twenty-four hours. Marchica, more or less reassured as to the form, resigned himself to the substance, or the plank bed on which he lay down again with a certain relief. The sergeantmajor left him, mulling over the fact that Marchica had started agitating exactly at nine o'clock when he had no watch, as this, together with his wallet, tie, belt and shoe-laces, were in a drawer of the office.

At ten o'clock the sergeantmajor woke Marchica again and returned his belongings. Marchica thought he was about to be released; the combination of sleep, worry and stubble on his face broke into a triumphant grin. But outside the barracks was a car into which the sergeantmajor shoved him. There was already one carabiniere in the back and another one followed Marchica, who found himself squeezed tight between two carabinieri in the back seat of a Fiat 600. He at once invoked the highway code, and the sergeantmajor, already seated beside the driver, was so taken by surprise that he merely changed the subject with an amiable: 'Anyway, you're all thin.'

At C, Pizzuco and Arena were already in the cells of the Carabinieri Company H.Q. The captain had thought that if he let them stew in their own juice for twenty-four hours, they would be riper for interrogation; a day and a night of discomfort were bound to have their effect on all three men. He began with Marchica.

Company H.Q; was in an old convent, rectangular, each side with two rows of rooms divided by a corridor, one row with the windows facing inwards on to a courtyard, the other outwards on to the streets. To this unharmonious building the Sicilian statesman Francesco Crispi, and his even more harassed ministry, had added another, ugly and shapeless, which attempted to reproduce, in smaller proportion, the original layout. The result was something like a child's copy of an engineer's design. In place of the courtyard there was a kind of shaft; and the two buildings were connected by a maze of passages and staircases which made it difficult to find one's way about until one knew them really well. It had, though, the advantage of providing larger rooms than the old building. The first floor was used as offices and the second as the C.O.'s quarters.

The C.O.'s office had a large window opening on to the shaft; opposite, with an equally large window, was his lieutenant's office, the two windows being so close that, by leaning out, papers could be passed from one to the other.

The desk was arranged for Marchica to sit facing the window, with the office door on his right. 'Were you born at B.?' began the captain. 'Yes, I was,' replied Marchica in a tone of resignation. 'And have you always lived there?'

'Not always. I've been in the army and done a few years in prison.'

'I suppose you know many people in B.?'

'It's my hometown. But you know how it is, sometimes one's away for a couple of years; then one suddenly finds the boys grown up, the old people older. And as for the women ... You leave 'em as little girls playing with nuts in the street and, when you come back, find 'em with babies clinging to their skirts and maybe misshapen bodies ...'

'But those of our own age, who have always lived near us and played with us as kids, we recognize them at once, don't we?'

'Sure,' said Marchica, beginning to worry more about the captain's unruffled, conversational manner than the trend of his questions.

The captain was silent a moment as though absorbed in his own thoughts; and Marchica looked out of the window at the lieutenant's office opposite, empty and brightly lit. The captain had been careful to light only the table-lamp in his own office and it was turned down towards a little side-table where the sergeant was writing; thus Marchica had a perfect view of the other office.

'Then you must have known a man called Paolo Nicolosi... '

'No,' said Marchica hastily.

'You must have,' said the captain. 'Maybe you don't remember him for the moment, as he left B. some years ago. I'll try to refresh your memory. Nicolosi used to live in Via Giusti which is a turning off Via Monti where you, if I'm not mistaken, have always lived ... His father was a smallholder but worked as a tree-pruner; the son, now married and living in S., carries on the same job ... '

'Now you mention all this, I do seem to remember ...'

'Good ... After all, some things, some people; it's not so difficult to remember, particularly if they're associated with a happy period of one's life: childhood, for instance ...'

'We used to play together, I remember. But he was younger. And when I went to prison for the first time -unjustly, as truly as God is in the Sacrament - he was still a boy; I've never seen him since ...'

'What's he like? His face, I mean, his build ...?'

'About my height, with fair hair and bluish eyes ... '

'A little moustache,' said the captain with conviction.

'He had one before ... '

'Before when?'

'Before ... before he shaved it off.'

'So you must have seen him when he had a moustache, then after he'd shaved it off.'

'Maybe I'm getting mixed up ... Now I come to think of it, I'm sure I am ...'

'No, you're not,' the captain reassured him, 'your memory's excellent. He wore a moustache until he got married, then he shaved it off. Maybe his wife didn't like it... You must have met him at B., then. I don't know whether Nicolosi has been to B. lately, since you were let out under the amnesty, but it seems likely ... Or maybe you met him at S.?'

'I haven't been to S. for years.'

'That's odd,' said the captain, as though faced by an unexpected problem, 'very odd; for it was Nicolosi himself who said he'd met you at S. and I can't see any reason for him to lie about it... '

Marchica was floundering. The captain looked at him, gauging his bewilderment; to and fro under the midday August sun ranged Marchica's mind like a dog, exploring every possibility, every uncertainty and presentiment with the instinct of a hunted beast.

Suddenly the door of the office opened and Marchica automatically looked round to see who it was. In the doorway was the sergeantmajor of S., who saluted and said: 'He's made up his mind.' Behind him, holding up his trousers, dishevelled and unshaven, stood Pizzuco. At a sign from the captain, the sergeantmajor quickly closed the door and withdrew. Marchica was overwhelmed with dismay. There was no doubt about it, Pizzuco, after the flogging he had undergone, was going to spill the beans (actually Pizzuco had been dragged out of bed that minute, with nerves shattered by bad dreams, not by torture). Then under the naked light in the office opposite, Marchica saw Pizzuco, the lieutenant, and the sergeantmajor enter, the lieutenant sit down and at once put a short question to Pizzuco. Pizzuco began talking away and the sergeantmajor writing furiously. Actually the lieutenant had merely asked him about his means of livelihood; and Pizzuco was pouring out the edifying story of his honest and blameless existence based on indefatigable toil, all of which was being taken down by SergeantMajor Ferlisi's nimble pen. But Marchica, in his inner ear, heard Pizzuco's voice revealing a story which, at the very best, meant a twenty-seven-year sentence for him, twenty-seven long years in the Ucciardone from which not even God could save him.

'What reason could there be to lie about it?' went on the captain. 'I don't mean you, I mean Nicolosi. What reason could he have had, to say something that's, after all, so petty, so unimportant?'

'He can't say it,' said Marchica firmly.

'And why not?'

'Because ... because he can't.'

'Perhaps it's because you think, rightly and with good reason, that Nicolosi's already dead ...'

'Dead or alive, it's all the same to me.'

'Well, no, you're right, you know. Nicolosi
is
dead.'

Visible relief showed on Marchica's face, a sign that, without the captain's confirmation, he would still have had some doubts whether Nicolosi was really dead or not. Therefore he was not the man who had killed Nicolosi.

(In the other office Pizzuco was muttering: 'You bastard, you yellow rat, you son of a sow. Four strokes of the cat and you spew up everything. You'll pay for it, though; either at my hands or someone else's, you'll pay!')

'Yes,' said the captain, 'Nicolosi is dead, but sometimes the dead talk, you know ... '

'Only at a spiritualist's table,' said Diego scornfully.

'No. They can talk by the simple method of writing something before they die. And Nicolosi, after meeting you, had the excellent idea of writing your name and nickname on a piece of paper: Diego Marchica known as
Zicchinetta.
He then added the time and place and the very plausible opinion that the presence of
Zicchinetta
at S. at that hour was connected with the killing of Colasberna ... Quite a letter, in fact... which, seeing that Nicolosi is dead, will carry more weight with the judges than any evidence he could have given alive ... What a blunder you made! Nicolosi left the note with his wife with instructions only to hand it over to us if anything happened to him. If you'd let him live, I'm certain he would never have dared give evidence, let alone come forward and report what he had seen. It was a fatal mistake, killing him ... '

In the opposite office Pizzuco had finished his harangue; the sergeantmajor put his sheaf of papers in order, and came over to make him sign the sheets, one at a time. Then the sergeantmajor left the room and appeared a moment later in the captain's office with some sheets of paper under his arm. Marchica was sweating blood.

'I don't know what you think of Rosario Pizzuco?' said the captain.

'A sponge-f of slander,' said Diego.

'I'd never have believed it, but I agree with you. I understand that, for you Sicilians, "slander" is the word used for revealing actions that should never be revealed, though they deserve the proper punishment of the law ... I agree with you. Pizzuco has committed that kind of "slander". Do you want to hear it? ... Read it out,' he said to the sergeant, handing him the sheets which had been brought in by the sergeantmajor.

The forged statement, which had been very carefully thought out, declared that, of his own free will ('flogging', thought Diego, 'flogging'), Rosario Pizzuco confessed to having met Marchica some time previously and told him confidentially of insults that he had received from Colasberna. Marchica had offered to avenge him; but he, being Rosario Pizzuco, a man of sound moral principles, allergic to any kind of violence and quite alien to vindictive feelings, had rejected the offer. Marchica had insisted, even blaming Pizzuco for his undignified attitude of forbearance in regard to Colasberna, adding that he, Marchica, also had personal motives for resentment against the same man, about a job or some money refused him by Colasberna, Pizzuco didn't quite remember which; and that, one of these days, he was going to
astutare
or 'snuff' Colasberna, meaning that he was going to snuff out his life as one snuffs a candle. This proposal he would doubtless have put into effect. But a day or two after Colasberna's murder, Pizzuco had gone to B. on a land deal, met Marchica by chance, and been told in confidence, without his even asking, an appalling story of a double murder. Marchica's exact words had been: 'I set off to snuff out one and found that I had to snuff out two,' which, in Marchica's underworld jargon, meant quite definitely that he had committed two murders: Colasberna, and the other, Pizzuco suspected, Nicolosi, whose disappearance was arousing comment. Pizzuco had been appalled at this dangerous revelation and gone home very upset. Of course, he had not mentioned the matter to a living soul, as, knowing Marchica's violent character, he'd feared for his own life. Asked why Marchica had confided such a dangerous secret to him, Pizzuco had replied that perhaps Marchica, who had been away from the district for a long time, thought he could take Pizzuco into his confidence owing to certain experiences in common - though only superficially so, added Pizzuco; both, during the confused period of the Separatist Movement, having served with the
EVIS
, the Volunteer Army for Sicilian Independence, Pizzuco for the purest of idealistic motives, Marchica for his own criminal ends. To the further question whether it was possible to discern the hand of other persons, of instigators, that is, behind Marchica, Pizzuco had replied that he did not know but that, in his own opinion, this was quite out of the question; he simply attributed the crimes to the violent character and the overwhelming criminal urge to prey on others' lives and property of which Marchica had always given ample proof.