Beati Paoli

by Luigi Natoli

part one, chapter 16

Those were weeks of riot, which called in Palermo not only the inhabitants of the country and of the nearest cities, but also those of the most distant cities, and even from Messina and Catania, despite the winter season, which made the roads even more uncomfortable, for themselves difficult.

For three hundred and more years, from King Martin to that year 1713, there had been no celebration of crowning in Palermo; Charles V himself, coming to Sicily from the company of Tunis, did not ask to be crowned in the ancient capital of the kingdom, where though nineteen royal heads had been consecrated and crowned by the metropolitan; it is understood, therefore, what attraction he exercised that new ceremony, which would certainly not be seen frequently, that had a great political significance for the island and that raised to new hopes the national feeling.

Since mid-December the immigration of the "kingdoms" had begun; the foundations and inns were populated by unusual travellers, who came with the sacks filled with country cheeses, savoury pork thighs, nuts and dried figs and with glazed earthenware fiascos full of good wine, to make economy.

In the convents and in the palaces the small provincial lords, the abbots, the big bourgeois who had some relationship were hospitality; in the streets there were encounters of "kingdoms" who looked with amazement at the wonders of the capital, of which they had always heard talking with amazement and even with horror. They knew that to stay in Palermo it took the sacks very bulging; even the statue of the emperor in the Bologna plan said, with his hand stretched out before: "Here you have to spend a lot so big! But for an occasion like that one could face the expense. The city seemed to them superior to any imagination. The Duomo, the statues and fountains scattered throughout, the tall palaces, the carriages, the flying chairs, the shops, but above all the Fontana Pretoria and the Four Songs, left them with their mouths open.

Taking advantage of that invasion of "foresters" Andrea had come out of his hiding place. Uncle Rosario had transformed it with a gray-squirted wig, a pair of big glasses, a slightly filthy and shiny talar dress. Andrea looked like a province pretonzolo and Don Raimondo himself wouldn't have recognized him. Some brats, seeing him in the streets, and assuming he was raining by some mountain village, shouted at him behind some wandering joke that made the passers-by laugh; but Andrea pretended not to understand, and took her in holy peace, not to call too much attention to others above himself.

He was wandering around with the appearance of a curious, looking for wonders, but actually to discover a trace of the people he was trying to find. In those days, to stand there, to stand here and there, to see people, to hear speeches, there was as much as one wanted.

In the plan of St. Erasmus there was a large and magnificent pavilion, where the king and queen would go in private form, to dress in all the pump of majesty and, sitting on the throne, receive the tributes of the nobility and the magistrates of the kingdom; from there, then, they would move for the official solemn entry into the city.

Before the Gate of the Greeks the Senate set up a magnificent triumphal arch, almost eighteen meters tall, decorated with pillars, columns, statues depicting the virtues of the new king and the qualities of the happy city of Palermo. The painters ended up in those days giving the gold and silver over the blue that stood there.

Another arch, rich in trophies and chiaroscuro paintings, was built by order of the Senate at Porta Felice: and, in order not to disturb the architectural beauty of the two sides, they had placed on the pillars a wooden arch, painted in marble. A third arch had raised the Neapolitan nation before its church of St. John in Piazza Marina, surmounted by a statue of the Virgin, and decorated with velvet. Further up, in the Cassaro, in the crucichio formed by the Loggia road and that of the Chiovari - today Cintorinai - the Genoese had raised another triumphal arch, sixty palms tall, with four facades, four arches, pillars, columns, frames, trash, statues and chiaroscuro paintings representing the exploits of the Dukes of Savoy and the Genoese in defense of the Christian faith, whose triumph was also symbolized in the cross, arms of the Savoy princes and the Republic of Genoa.

Around these arches, whose artisans, decorators, painters gave the last hand, the curious crowded, going from one to the other, commenting, magnifying, communicating news and impressions. Those works seemed to be places of meeting.

But the major crowd gathered to the Four Songs that the Senate had decorated with the greatest splendor. Four triumphal arches stood at the outlets of the four streets, with paintings, adorned, allegories; golden and silver drapes and velvet covering the four monumental facades; and above them emblems, symbols, inscriptions, magnified the new king, and expressed the joy of the city and the kingdom; on the four fountains, four great allegorical canvases; on the sides of each of them, two stages for the musicians. The octagonal square looked like an immense pavilion.

The usual meeting place, now with those apparatuses recalled in addition to the "kingdoms," the strangers, even the citizens of the most distant neighborhoods, and the four streets seemed the mouths of four confluent rivers that confused tumultuously. From there all Palermo passed through.

The last arch of triumph, raised by the Milanese colony, stood at the corner of the archbishopric that looks at the Duomo.

Andrea went from one to the other lingering, observing, peering without opinion, under the mask of poor good mountain priest, but more stopped at the Four Songs, where the greater the contest of the curious, the greater the probability of seeing some familiar face, of grasping a few words. But neither a motto, nor a look. He saw nothing but petty physiognomy and heard discourses that did not interest him.

Perhaps, he thought, a trip to the inn would not have been on purpose: but a pretext was needed, and it was not difficult to improvise one. With a small bag on his neck, pretending to have arrived then, he began to visit the inns: those of S. Antonino, that of the Mexican, that of the "Olio," the "Campana," the Fieravecchia, the Lattarini, that of Failla ai Tornieri; he went to that of Colonna Rotta, pretending not to be happy with the local or the price, but lingering in each of them. His incontentity caused him the bad words of the innkeepers, who became angry. Oh, what did that hungry man want, a feather bed with silk blankets? He could thank God if he found a kennel, for so long he was miserable in his greenish robon!...

But evil words and threats did not shake him: he only felt that his research was fruitless. He had visited in vain the inns of the city, where the "kingdoms" used to come, and only the poorest and most suburban remained.

He then went on the road of Serraglio, outside the door of Termini where two poor inns were; but when he arrived in Piazza della Fieravecchia, in front of the fountain surmounted by the crowned statue of Palermo, he stopped struck by a figure of woman, hugged over the steps, with his head a little bent on his chest and the tired and bald air.

He looked at it carefully with the air of those who are not sure, but more willing to recognize a person already seen; and the more he looked at it, the more it seemed to be reconfirmed in his appearance and a lively joy was painted on his face. The woman lifted up her head: perhaps the black shadow of that firm pretonzole before her called back her gaze.

He stretched out his hand, saying in a raucous voice: "Does he give me charity?.. If you want, I'll guess your fortune."

"My venture? I know it, my daughter. I don't expect any prizes, because I don't play at the Seminary of Genoa or at the extraction of Milan..."

"I read fate..."

"Do you have trade with the devil?"

Guess what, he was trembling with fear.

"Say to laugh. Do you give me charity? A grain..."

Andrew went through his pockets and found a small piece of bronze and gave it to the woman.

The square was almost deserted. Some porters sat on the steps, on the other side of the fountain, slumbering waiting for some commission that was not coming; few people crossed the square, quickly; no one looked after them.

Andrew bowed down and said, "Where have you been, Peppa la Sarda?"

At that name the woman leaped astounded and frightened, and terrifiedly looked at that priest, endeavoring to remember if he had ever seen him before, and stuttered with a fiction accusing him: "Peppa la Sarda?... I don't know who he is... maybe he's fooling himself."

"I don't fool myself, and it's useless to pretend. I've known you 15 years ago... when you lived at the Mount of Pietà..."

The woman trembled at a true loss, could not find a word of reply, wandering around with her eyes, suspicious, and investigating the grinning face of that mysterious and unknown priest.

"Sometimes I came to visit you in your dungeon, when you were drinking... even to send some... Duchess to the other world!..."

The woman lost all self-control; she stuttered again: "But no... vossignoria is deceived... If anyone hears... some things don't say that in the street..."

"Don't be afraid... No one hears us, and you wouldn't understand... Come on, get up. I've been looking for you for several days."

"Me? Looking for me?..."

"Yes, you; don't be surprised; I don't want any dust, but some information... Get up."

Peppa the Sarda, subjugated, rose up; she had her clothes torn apart, her feet bare, her appearance miserable made her look older.

"How you have become!" the false priest murmured; "you will be hungry, of course; I will give you some refreshment... Do you have a sleeping hole?"

"No, sir..."

"And where do you sleep?"

She made a gesture that meant, "Wherever, under heaven."

"Well, well!" murmured Andrea; "I'll find you the accommodation. Go ahead, I'll follow you... and watch out, don't try to escape, because I just need a shout, to rush the guards and hand you over to the Holy Office... And this time you wouldn't get away with a few years in prison. Remember the Duchess of Motta!..."

"For God's sake," he begs the terrified witch "Shut up! I come: where do we have to go?"

"To the Conceria neighborhood, behind the houses of S. Rocco... Go ahead."

The Hail was Sonata, the sky was blackened; Peppa the Sarda trembled with cold and terror. Was that priest a spy? Was it a famulus from the Holy Office? How did you know all those things? How did you know her?... Yet that voice... that voice she had heard. Where? When? He had reassured her, it was true! He led her to some house, evidently, instead of handing her over to the birri and taking her to prison, but that was not enough. What about tomorrow? She was walking fast, as if, coming earlier, she would be freed from a nightmare. He obeyed that blind impulse that sometimes prompts the deed to confess all his crimes, as if to release his soul, and hastens him to punishment, as a deliverance. By now it was in the power of that priest; an act of resistance, an attempt to take it away would have lost it. Away he would recover some of his calm and could consider his condition. The female regained her dominion. You had to play cunningly: didn't you find yourself at other times in dangerous fringes? Didn't she get away with it?

Hope reborn and with hope the curiosity of knowing who that priest was, and how he knew one of the many horrible secrets of his life.

Instead of walking the main roads, he had taken narrow, winding streets, perhaps with a distant dream of escape, but Andrea was so close, that he had to abandon the idea. When they arrived at the parish of S. Margherita, before driving themselves into that maze of mysterious alleys that made the leather Conciator district formidable to the police, Andrea firmly stood next to Peppa la Sarda.

A hundred steps from the parish stopped: "It is here."

They were in front of a tavern lit by a smoky oil lamp.

"Uncle Rosario," said Andrew, "this poor woman is hungry, and I brought her to you, who are of good heart. It has no terdenaries."

He winked with his eye.

Uncle Rosario made a gesture of benevolence and replied, "Enter, good woman."

Then, as there were three or four people drinking around a filthy table in the tavern, he added: "Come this way: you will be with greater freedom."

Peppa la Sarda was too clever to believe the goodness of that tavernier; she understood that they seized her, but by now, not being able to steal from her, she had to face the situation and try to defend herself with all the cunnings that the condition of woman of her coin could suggest.

But he didn't understand the reason for that kidnapping yet, and he wanted those men to come to you. And he mentally said "men" because he didn't doubt a minute that the host and the priest didn't agree.

He followed Uncle Rosario in a small room behind the counter, at the bottom of which was a ladder. Andrea was holding them.

"Up," he said.

"Accompani her you," did Zi' Rosario, giving Andrea a skylight; "I go to take something to refresh her..."

Andrew pushed Peppa the Sarda up, in the little room that he had lived for three months; closed the door, threw on the bed the tricorn, the wig, the glasses, the robon, and placed himself against the lamp, so as to be fully enlightened, he asked with terrible face and voice:

"Peppa the Sarda, do you recognize me?"

She looked at him, paled, stole her frightened eyes and sent out a cry of terror.

"Now to us," said Andrew; "sit down and do not tremble: we will do nothing to you if you have judgment."

Uncle Rosario brought wine, bread and fried fish.

"You see that I have finally found her," said Andrea; and addressed Peppa la Sarda, he added: "Eat: We'll talk later."

But Peppa the Sarda didn't eat: her throat was tight.