Beati Paoli

by Luigi Natoli

part one, chapter 19

"In 1708 I was in Naples: I was twenty years old, and I thought I was the master of the world. I was poor, alone, homeless, no relatives, no country. The memories of the convent had also faded, as clouded by other more recent memories. I felt a craving to do, and the idle life I spent in that city, waiting for the ship to take back the sea, could not only be boring, but, worse still, mortifying and shameful.

Living like a simple sailor, I frequented the taverns of the harbor and attacked briga easily; but I must confess to you that I felt a kind of disgust, a secret aversion to that society and to what I did. I remember an episode.

I was on the pier, at the new castle, seeing some convicts pulling a galley into the arsenal, for repairs that were needed. There were other people. The captains, armed with large clubs, watched over the convicts, whose feet, on the other hand, were bound together by chains just enough to take a step.

One of those rugged convicts, bearded like a goat, naked and dirty like a savage. Pulling the rope emitted certain ferocious grunts, short, sometimes, that drew attention. Suddenly I saw him pale, stop and shout: "No, Giuseppico! no!"

A man cleft the crowd of the pitiful: skinny, boney, black, looking, wounded. His eyes flashed with hatred. I realized he was armed with a knife...

The convict cried out again, with terror: "No, Joseph! no!..."

The man who responded to this name murmured a few words between his teeth in a dialect that I recognized, although I did not understand it well. Sardinian age."

The knight of Floresta passed away.

"Sardo?" asked with sliced indifference.

"Yes."

"And his name was Giuseppico?"

"Yes, why do you ask me this question?"

"Nothing... because many years ago... I also had a Sardinian servant, whose name was Giuseppico... Go on."

"As much as I could understand, Joseph said: "I have been waiting for you for ten years!..."

He was almost on the convict. I saw the blade flash: then I climbed on Giuseppico, grabbed him by the arms, preventing him from committing the vileness of murdering a man without defense. That beast roaring because of the unexpected impediment, threw itself on me, trying to get apart, to strike me, but my arm had become of iron, my hand was a bite: he tried to penetrate it, and then I tormented his arms, which gave a creak.

He shouted and gave in. I don't know if I unloaded his bones; he certainly couldn't react, but three or four men, who were evidently there to protect him, met me with knives in hand. I recognized the Camorists: that Giuseppico was one of theirs. With these people you have to be bold: I had no weapons, but I faced them, improvising one quickly. There was a gush there, I ripped a waiter and warned myself: that piece of wood had to become a formidable weapon, because two of those bad guys were immediately put out of combat: the other two fled. Around me there had been a great circle of spectators, whose curiosity was sufficiently excited by my youth: the convicts themselves, the capicirma, the algozini, had stopped to watch that singular duel and perhaps all regretted that it had ended so soon.

But victory did not keep me laurel crown: far from it! I suddenly found myself surrounded and bound by guards and soldiers; and what soldiers! Blonde, gigantic, smelly beasts of wine, screaming in an unknown language... You will surely guess that I speak of the Austrian soldiers, because, as you know, since July 1707, the kingdom had been occupied by the troops of the emperor Charles VI.

My condition was critical: I ran the risk of going to jail, because the emperor's justice was not joking: on the other hand I must confess to you that those Austrians were awfully disliked to me.

Two reasons for me to settle. The sea was just a stone's throw away: I gathered in a supreme effort all my energies, and gave a very powerful impact to the two soldiers who held me back, I sent them astray among their companions, and I plunged into the water, between the astonishment of the soldiers, the screams of admiration and the laughter of the crowd, the disappointment of those wretches. But after that first stupor, those barbarians, mortified by the fiasco, ran to a boat to chase me. They did not know they were dealing with a man who grew up in the water, who could be related to the famous Colapesce.

With a few strokes I reached a ship of the Republic of Venice and you will take me there. Foreign territory to remove me from which it was necessary either a betrayal or long practices. Short: from the Venetian ship I passed in a Dutch that sailed the same evening to Genoa, but that was not the last one. my navigation.

It would be a long time to tell you about my pilgrimages through Italy. How did I live? I don't know, either, and thinking about it now, I am surprised that I was alive, in a thousand deprivations, a thousand hardships, a thousand dangers. My fast didn't stop me from laughing and my poor clothes didn't stop me from falling in love with every pretty girl and fighting me.

I returned to Naples after two years, with the intention of coming to Sicily and tracing Father Giovanni or Father Bonaventura. But it seemed that an adverse fate always took me away from them. The tartan on which I traveled, past Capri, was attacked and taken by two large Barbarian ships and we were chained and thrown into the holds and transported to Tunis...

During my shepherd life, I had learned to play the pipe: I built myself, and I didn't play badly. Along the crossing, to deceive the idle, I played some of those pathetic Sicilian songs, which had remained in my heart like an echo, a sign of the homeland: those songs had the power to appease the barbarians: they put themselves around me and urged me to sonare and they were there to listen to me numb and forget everything else; so that landing in Tunis, I was presented to the Bey, as a rare and precious piece and I was not thrown into the life sentences, but kept in the palace of the Bey, as the player of His Mohammedan Highness.

If I told you that those years of captivity contain lovely memories for me, maybe you wouldn't believe me... But it is.

I enjoyed relative freedom and was often called to play in the harem. Once, playing one of my most pathetic Sicilian songs, I saw through the inferriates, behind which the women of the Bey listened, I saw the eyes of one of them filled with tears and I felt it stirred. I've never seen a woman cry without touching me. Why were you crying? Was he young? Was she beautiful?

I saw nothing but her eyes, and they were big, black, melancholy. In the evening, before being closed, a brunette slave passed by me, whispered to me a word, which made me cheat. It was a greeting, a simple greeting sent to me by the still mysterious listener: but it was enough not to let me turn a blind eye during the night. I had a keen desire to know who she was, to see her, to know her. As for the first, it did not take long to satisfy him: from that black slave, who seemed to be looking for opportunities to see me, I knew that she was a young woman, for two years in the harem, and that she was a Sicilian, kidnapped by the corsairs, on the beaches of Marsala. You cannot imagine what a grievous and merciful strait my heart oppressed that news. My song had aroused in her the memory of the distant homeland, which perhaps would never have revised, and her greeting seemed then to me as a regret, a desire, a cry of pain, affection, a begging!... Alas, I was but a slave, and my virtuosity would not redeem me.

From that day of the crazy and daring thoughts swirled me and tormented my brain. First of all, I wanted to see my fellow countryman; but the task was neither easy nor without great dangers. The harem was guarded by formidable and fierce eunuchs, and Muslim laws are, in this regard, very strict. But what can prevent a woman from getting what she wants, despite the strictest prohibitions and the most careful custody? You will never imagine how many intrigues tie together, entwine, take place inside the impenetrable enclosure of the harem. Of the slaves who are attached to this or to that of the women of the Lord, they are the discreet and guarding mezzanines of those intrigues. They don't betray each other, because everyone knows about the other, and indiscretion can cost them their lives. The good Oicuma put on an extraordinary zeal and sharpness: she had all the robberies of the Negroes and all the subtleties of the servants. In his grace, once, I, hidden in a garden, could see Elizabeth, or how she had become, Lizbeth, without the veil, while she was with other women on a terrace. He seemed beautiful to me. She knew where I was, although she didn't see me, and made a gesture as a greeting; a painful gesture, almost desperate...

What am I gonna tell you? At twenty-two years old, feelings of friendship, of piety, towards a young and beautiful woman turn into love. We loved each other; we loved each other desperately: but with love rose powerful, incessant, the thought of escape...

I spare you the more or less crazy and unbelievable plans that I drew in my mind, and that Elizabeth, with the practical sense of women dispersed: to disappoint the vigilance of the enuchi, to drop the keyholes that locked the doors, to go beyond the walls of the harem, to find a ship, to be able to sail without fear of being pursued, were no problems to be solved easily. Elizabeth sent me to say that I was waiting for the month of Ramadan, and I would leave the escape initiative to her.

Meanwhile, in order to ingratiate myself and to sleep my keepers, I went and said that I would become Turkish: but from day to day I postponed the solemn ceremony, which is their baptism. However, I gained greater freedom, tolerance and benevolence. One Imam began to instruct me on the Qur'an: I learned a little Arabic, and to show that I followed the law of Muhammad, I clothed myself in their manner, abstained from wine and pigmeat, and hung on the girdle of long rosaries, like their saints: but when they believed that I recited their prayers, I mentally recited ours. I didn't have any weapons. One day in an old warehouse, I managed to find among many irons, an Italian sword; one of those long swords, strong, with a wide and ornate guard, that we see in the portraits of our ancients; swords that required a firm and secure arm: it is the sword that I brought with me. I managed to steal it and hide it.

"This - I thought - will help me."

But more useful would have been money. Gold plates have more power than the tip of a sword on certain occasions. I was poor. But Elizabeth also thought of this. One morning he sent me a necklace of pearls to sell it. I was very proud of it, as it seemed to me to be mortifying, but there was no discussion. I proposed to use it to deliver Elizabeth, and not to touch a grain for my use. The necklace must be taken cent'onze: I took it secretly to a Jew who smelled under a dubious origin, barely paid forty onzes. The wretched man tried, with honeyed insinuations, to tear the secret from me; but when he saw the futility of his attempts, he thought of taking back his money, threatening to denounce me as a thief. I saw myself lost. I pushed him back to the bottom of the shop, squeezed him down his throat to stop him from yelling... maybe I squeezed a little too much. I left him on the floor, burying him under a bale of carpets, and came out of the shop by closing the door behind me.

The month of Ramadan had already begun, which is like a Lent for the Turks: a time of penance, fasting, prayers in their own way. A funny thing for us, but that they do devoutly. During that period, as soon as the sun went down no ship can leave the port: a cannon shot announces the closure of the port. All sailors know this custom and if they need to leave in the evening, they hurry out of the harbor before the cannon blow. You will have already understood that we had agreed to take advantage of these circumstances to escape.

From three or four days had arrived a galley of Trapani, with safe conduct, to disembark salt and board carpets. I concerted with them: they were animated young people, broken to every discomfort and familiar with the sea fights to which the idea of wronging Muhammad smiled. I don't know if you know the topography of Tunis: the city is located at the bottom of a large, closed bosom, called for its form "lake of Tunis": a short channel connects the lake with the Mediterranean; on this canal stands the Goletta with its ramparts, similar to a watchman on the entrance of the lake. The Bey then lived in the heart of the city, near the bazaar, in a large palace, protected by a fortress called the Kasbah, erected by Charles V. Leaving it you had to cross the district of the bazaar, and go out to the marina to embark: but it remained then to overcome the Goletta.

We waited for a Friday, a day of great prayer. Elizabeth with the help of the brunette, went out disguised as a man on the side of the garden, avoiding the vigilance of the eunuchs and the guards. She trembled within herself, but acted with a great strength of mind. I expected it hidden in the bottom of a boat, mounted by six sturdy galley sailors, who, in order not to arouse suspicion had loaded some merchandise. Elizabeth came to the boat carrying a big roll: it looked like a carpet; inside he kept a small box with its joys. She seemed to be a young porter, of those who work at the landing place. When I saw her entering the boat, I felt my eyes filled with tears; she too began to cry. The six oars gave a thunder in the water and the boat fell off the shore. At sunset there was a few hours left, just enough time to get out of the canal of the Goletta a minute before the cannon announced the closing of the port. I did not yet dare to get up from the bottom of the boat for fear of being discovered: Elizabeth had also hidden herself; the bales and legs of the rowers celled us but nevertheless we trembled. I had taken Elizabeth's hand into my hand: it was our first meeting, and we dared not say a word; but our eyes spoke for our souls.

Some Turkish ships passed by. If the desire could hasten the boat, it would have given her wings. From the bottom I saw the sky still bright, and I said to myself, "There's still time!" And I was like, "If they come after us? What if they notify the guard of the Goletta?"

I had my sword with me, the sailors had brought carabines and spades. There were seven of us and he didn't lack courage. Suddenly one of the rowers said, "If I'm not mistaken, they're chasing us."

Then I got up so much that I protruded the boss. Two boats full of people, that did not stand out well, came in great rage of oars; from one of them someone agitated a kind of flag: perhaps a signal.

Impallidii; not for me, but for Elizabeth. "Come on!" I shouted.

There were backup oars: I took two of them, I adapted them on the forks, I planted myself on a bench and vigorously struck. The boat got a glimmer.

"Good!" exclaimed my companions, surprised and encouraged by that unexpected rescue.

We gained space; but the further we strayed and the more we increased the flagning: and then, suddenly, there was a shot. We were, I think, less than half a mile from the canal and we saw the sun slowly coming down behind the hills; a little more and the cannon would have given the mark. We multiplied our efforts; the boat really seemed to have wings: kneeling in the bottom, Elizabeth prayed. But here, at the mouth of the canal a zambocco loaded with soldiers detach from the pier of the Goletta to bar us the way. The slightest delay would have lost us, because we would have remained in the cage: by now it was life or death. Just a little while longer and we'd be out of the canal.

The zambech had stood before us; there was no time to lose: we were about fifty steps away from it.

I said, "Watch out! They're coming to the raid: let's get ready!"

The leader of the soldiers shouted to us to stop. Oh, yeah! We gave a more vigorous blow of oars, diverting from the course to avoid an impact that could be harmful to us too.

"Down!" I shouted.

We threw ourselves under; a discharge passed over our heads: we took note of ourselves with the flattened carabines and set fire at our turn. Those scoundrels didn't expect the shot, and they were all caught; our shots caught in the sign, they arrested, they dismayed, they terrified the attackers; they let us clear the way.

"Animal, one more row!..."

After the first dismay, and when the wounded lay down, the soldiers reloaded their weapons while the zambech was coming upon us with fury, at the raid. We were already at the mouth of the harbor: we had just time to bow down, that our enemies made us one last discharge almost point-blank; the balls plunged into the edge, someone crossed the planade and wounded. I guessed it at the scream of pain.

I wielded my sword; the sailors armed themselves in a moment with spades and dark ones. The Tunisians tried to hook up our boat with harpoons, but the impact with which they dressed was enough to push us out of the port line. Fearing that we fled, they threw themselves at us with greater fury, while other armed boats survived. The moment was tragically terrible; one more minute and then we would be free or taken. Trying to repel the rigging, we'd get out of the harbor more and more. The sun had come down behind the mountains; one last light wandered: our struggle not to be caught was desperate. Suddenly a cannon hit him; we shouted with joy; the harbor closed, the boats stopped; we and the zambech were outside, in the clear sea. Then we cast cats and rigged, and hooked up the zambets to draw them with us. We came to our hands fiercely, desperately.

What I did with my sword, I don't know: the Tunisians were more and tried to get free.

Our shots fell on their arms, on their hands. Screaming, moaning, and blood.

I cried out to my companions, "Go out... That's enough for me."

Four oars with a violent thud dragged the two boats away, narrowed to each other, while I fought. If we could get past the rocks that are high and steep there, we would also be covered by the ramparts.

In the Tunisian boat there were no more than six valid soldiers; the others, wounded, groaning, had abandoned themselves on the benches or in the bottom; those six clinged around me; one of them having reloaded his archibush targeted me. I heard a cry I saw a figure throwing before me; a blow: a cloud of smoke wrapped us...

Oh, poor Elizabeth! She took in her chest the ball that was to kill me: she fell for me!..."

Blasco stopped. Her voice had lowered because of the emotion and her eyes were weary with tears.

Then he said: "I had a confused perception of what had happened: but it was enough for me to lose the light of my eyes: I jumped like a fury in the zamb, swirling the sword that drove, came down, landed like a lightning.

Whoever escaped from it threw himself into the waves, drawing blood from them: half an hour later we had no more adversaries. My companions, five were valid, one wounded in the leg, gave themselves to row of lena, the joy of victory having infused into their new strength; I wept on poor Elizabeth lying motionless, bleeding, lifeless, at the bottom of the boat. By picking up the zabex, we reached the galley, where they were waiting for us trepidating. Our arrival was received with great cries of joy: we carried in triumph; but I did not have the soul to enjoy it, for the great pain that struck me. Elizabeth was not yet dead; we laid her on some skins and tried to prepare some remedy for her.

She opened her eyes, looked at me long, and closed them: she seemed to see on her lips the shadow of a smile, which opened my heart to hope. The night fell: the moon rose from the sea, great and red; the waves were glittering; the galley was spinning at the measured thunder of the oars. Elizabeth had lost her senses again, and I was standing next to her, speechless, staring at her with a narrow heart in a vise. More than a mile from the island of Zembra, Elizabeth came to her senses, and murmured: "I die... Goodbye!"

It seemed to me that her lips expressed a desire; I bowed down and wept and kissed her. No kiss was more chaste and more painful. She breathed in that kiss... Thus came an end to a love sprung up in the shadow of the harem, nourished by ardent desires and hopes, tragically cut off, sanctified by the chastity of death...

At dawn we landed in Marsala. We searched for Elizabeth's relatives and gave them that poor flower, which the pallor and ineffable penalty of death made more beautiful. I gave them the box of Elizabeth's jewelry and gave to the sailors all my rights to the wounded Tunisians and prisoners, whom they could sell as slaves. I did not take for myself that a lock of the poor girl's hair and left on foot with my sword, to seek father John or father Bonaventure. That first flower of love, and its painful death had placed in my heart a desire for affection, which until then life errabonded and adventurous and, perhaps more, the unawareness of a teenager, had not made me feel.

Finally, though my origins were wrapped in mystery, I had to have relatives, and perhaps still alive; I had to be someone, no matter how much my parents had abandoned me.

What am I gonna tell you again? In the countryside of Pietraperzia I ran into some bandits, compañeros of the famous Saltaleviti. I got rid of it with the cunning, a little by sending two to reach their old head, very unlike them. I overturned the whole territory of Catania, Messina, without being able to gather any other news that only one, that father Bonaventura was in Palermo. In Messina, guess who I found over a prison in the kingdom with the jailhouse of the convicts? That Sardinian Giuseppi."

"Oh!" said Coriolano della Floresta, opening his eyes; "are you sure?"

"Yeah, the bad guy recognized me. He started screaming that I was a robber escaped from prisons, that I had a bounty on me... He was on the ship, I was on the dock; I couldn't hit him. People made themselves: I had to go away; what do I say? I had to run away so as not to fall into the hands of birri and throw myself into some new juniper. Leaving the Imperial Gate for the Cathedral, I bought a horse from a farmer, who may have been older than Methuselah, and resumed the road of the mountains. To abbreviate, I stayed a few months in the service of the city of Randazzo, at the head of an armored company, to deliver it from the bandits who haunted those woods; but it was no business for me, and one day I planted all of them and left with my sword and two loaves in the saddlebags. In Girgenti, in a bull's game, I went down the arena, killed the angry beast, which had already disemboweled a fool, and I was brought into triumph. This victory brought me an adventure with a lady; the adventure pulled enmities at me, I was attacked at night, I had a duel, and as they were powerful people, who had set in motion the tax lawyer, the bishop, the weapons instructor, the jurors, I had to leave. I went to the venture, a little Orlando, a little Don Quixote; I returned to Marsala, and wanted to pay a tribute to Elizabeth's memory... I got sick of fever and was treated in a convent in Alcamo... Finally, with my old horse to which I had become fond with my sword so faithful, I came to Palermo to look for father Bonaventura.

I learned from him who was my mother; sweet and holy creature, dead as a martyr; I ignore who my father is. A patrician of a great name, apparently... It doesn't matter. The great name, and it doesn't redeem him from the double crime of putting me into the world and abandoning my mother.

And alive? Is he dead? I don't know. But Father Bonaventura knows this, and does not believe that he reveals this secret; nor do I want to strengthen his soul. If it is silent, it means that it cannot break the secret: I must respect it; moreover, it is better to ignore it. I couldn't love that man, because he rebels at the living sense of justice that lies at the bottom of my spirit. So that I remain what I am: a nameless one. I had some illusions in my imagination, but the real facts rushed to get her out of the way very soon. Let's go! Life must not be taken seriously!..."

He kept silent and remained a little absorbed: the expression of deep bitterness that painted his face, contrasted with the last words and with the smile of his lips.

Coriolano asked him: "What do you count on doing now?"

"Supplicate His Majesty to take me into his guards. He is a king who willingly makes war: and here are probable opportunities for me to break my head..."

Coriolano smiled, "Later than ever!" he said and, rising, he added: "Here you can stay as long as you want, and have everything, without compliments. Make sure you've found your home. Good night."