Beati Paoli

by Luigi Natoli

part two, chapter 3

Don Girolamo Admirata lived in the district of Capo, on the square of St. Cosmo, a modest little house, like his condition. The house had two floors and climbed there for a wooden ladder, covered with slabs of slate. Don Girolamo lived on the first floor; on the second he had gone to live the painter Bongiovanni: this closeness had established a good friendship between the two families, and no day passed that they did not see each other. The Bongiovanni, a widower, had found in the wife of the admirer, Mrs. Francesca, an affectionate relative who taught Pellegra those ancient and almost lost home virtues of the women of the past, who knew how to consecrate themselves to the care of the house, with admirable self-denial, and were the comfort and center of the family. Pellegra, to confess the truth, did not seem to take much advantage of Mrs. Francesca's teachings because - said this - the painter had misled her with books. What did a woman need to do sonnets and read Latin books like a Jesuit father? These were men's things: a girl just had to know how to read the divorce book and make her own signature; so they were educated all the girls of the middle class who were then able to cut, sew, cook, stir starch, embroider trines, were in short good in the government of the house. Pellegra loved books and had one that always read, and it was, what most scandalized the good lady, a book of poems that spoke of love! But already, Don Vincenzo Bongiovanni had never had a judgment; and it's good that Pellegra, after all, was a good girl.

Between one vent and the other of this kind, that Pellegra always listened with a smile, the lady Francesca taught the girl what she could. The closeness, this mother's office and the freedom that the painter, in the beginning of his mental illness, left to his daughter, had more closely that sweet sympathy of which they had felt taking Pellegra and Emanuele in the study of the painter, the first time they had seen each other.

They had not met before, because Don Girolamo Ammirata had kept Emanuele, as an orphan, in the College of Turchini, - as it was said by the color of the dress, the collegial, and had finally resolved to withdraw him, as well as for the development of the boy, who at the age of fourteen seemed a man, even for the living care of Mrs. Francesca, who, having no children, felt all the weight of her solitude. Nothing was quieter and more moving than the evenings spent in that simple and almost patriarchal house. Don Girolamo played his card game with the painter and some friends when it happened; Mrs. Francesca worked a tablecloth of altar, which she wanted to offer as a gift to the Immaculate, and told one of the many wonderful stories, which formed her intellectual heritage, which Emanuele and Pellegra listened with a certain rapture, sneaking over some sweet handshake, and smiling. The two brass lamps, with two beaks, spread on those groups a pink and bland light, in which the contours were languid, and things were confused.

The same short and frequent laughter of Fr Vincenzo Bongiovanni, his talkative fatuity did not disturb the harmony of that house, in which it seemed that the furniture themselves and the color of the walls had been chosen in the likeness of the people.

The walls had soft tints: either a light blue of pervinca, or a soft green of pea: the furniture was simple, the chairs were stuffed, a chest of goose dresser, paintings roughly painted on glass and closed in dark wooden frames, a small table. The tranquility of the house was once disturbed by the arrest of Don Girolamo Ammirata, provoked by the Duke of Motta, but a few days later, Don Girolamo returned to his family, life had resumed his monotonous, equal, serene course.

On the same night that Matteo Lo Vecchio arrived in Palermo with Giuseppico's corpse, Don Girolamo Ammirata and Don Vincenzo Bongiovanni played their game, while Mrs Francesca worked on her tablecloth, and the two boys read, or rather Pellegra read and Emanuele listened, seriously thoughtful. In the morning, at the table, he had said that his intention would be to marry Pellegra. And he had said it seriously as something long thought; and yet Don Girolamo had laughed loudly, against his usual.

"You?... groom of... But it's funny!"

Emanuele, blushing, stuttered:

"Why? What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing... but these are things that make you laugh;" answered Don Girolamo, and, being serious, he added: "at least wait to become a man to talk about these things."

However, that brief dialogue had revealed to Fr Girolamo and Mrs. Francesca what kind of feelings were already manifested in the heart of Emanuele and had warned them that it was now necessary to open their eyes well. Until then, they had considered Emanuel as a child still incapable of certain feelings; now suddenly, the child manifested appetites as a man; and it seemed that now, for the first time, they were aware of the physical development of the child.

That's why that evening Emanuele was more serious and thoughtful, while Don Girolamo seemed in a more humor playing and pricking the talkative painter, who laughed and wandered like a child.

In the evening he spent this way, when a whistle, similar to the verse of a blackbird, was written down from the street three times in a different tone. Don Girolamo grabbed his eyebrows and let no impressions leak: but as soon as he closed the game, he threw the cards and got up.

"Now that's enough," he said, "I'm going for a walk to stretch my legs."

"Do I come with you?" asked the painter.

"No, stay with the women, you. You know I just like to go..."

It was not a new fact and nobody surprised; very often Don Girolamo suspended the game and went out, rejecting the company that invariably offered him the Bongiovanni. He took his sword, his hat, and his cloak, and went out. A man was waiting for him down the street corner.

"You! Are you already back?" exclaimed the rational, recognizing Andrea.

"I just... can't stand it!..."

"Well?..."

"Let's get out of here; let's make sure first of all, because I'm sure I have someone on my heels... There must be a spy, a traitor!..."

Don Jerome watched him stupefied.

"A spy?... A traitor?... What does that mean?"

"It means that we've been discovered, that someone has set a trap on our way, that I've miraculously escaped..."

"What about Giuseppico?"

"I don't know anything about it: either taken or dead. I jumped from a height of fifteen reeds..."

Hunting for the dark and winding alleys, Andrew quickly told what had happened to him at the bottom of Milicia with the false abbot.

"We must warn Zi' Rosario now!" said Fr Girolamo. And he approached a young man who, apparently, slept revolted in a litter, behind the compartment of a door.

"Dude," he said by touching his forehead, "what's the big portu?"

"Ceci toastati."

"And where were you born?"

"To Cuncuma."

"He's fine. Run to the cube of the "Masticoso" and tell him the guardian is waiting."

The young man went to leave, but took a few steps he stopped and joined another young man who was hastily meeting him and with whom he exchanged a few quick words. Both returned and reached Don Girolamo who with Andrea went towards the church of Santa Maria. In their appearance, the rational realized that something serious had happened.

"The savage priests attacked the "Masticoso"."

Don Girolamo sent a cry of amazement, pain and anger.

"Someone had to eat the pumpkin..."

Andrew had fallen into a gloomy pain; he understood that all this was the effect of his imprudence, explained and excusable, but at that moment, for him, grave and desperate. He saw Don Girolamo planting his eyes on him, as if he had been in doubt, and he blushed: did they suspect him then?

He raised his gaze to the rational, clear and sure, and with a moved voice he said to him: "Don Jerome, if your lordship believes that I have failed, call me to judgment and make me give the death of the traitors; but your lordship knows what I have done for holy justice... and I do not think I deserve..."

The rational did not answer. Why would Andrea betray, if he had provided the Society with the evidence that he had to crush Don Raimondo Albamonte? However, the birri could not have been sent to the base of Milicia to cut off the way to Andrea and Giuseppico, nor could they go to arrest Zi' Rosario, without a spy who had placed them on the road. And the spy was to be among the few characters who possessed that secret: the head, hidden and mysterious, that only Don Girolamo knew personally in the face; the sacristan of St. Matthew, Zi Rosario, Andrea and him, Don Girolamo. If he wasn't Andrew, one of the most active architects of that conspiracy; if he wasn't, uncle Rosario, arrested; if he wasn't, then who could bring them to justice? There was nothing but the sacristan: would he be the traitor?

You had to make sure.

"Let's go," he said.

He had not taken a few steps that another young man, who apparently seemed to be a shop clerk, stopped Don Girolamo, thinking for running.

"The dogs," he said, "have brought the raven to the new inn."

The "crow" was precisely the sacristan of St. Matthew. Don Girolamo paled: the sacristan was far from the spy: he was also a victim. Then he feared for himself, because it was evident that the police held in their hands the lines of the conspiracy prepared in the sacristy of St. Matthew and in the basement of the Beati Paoli.

He said to the young man who had raised up, "Go to my house, see what quails pass by; we will wait for you behind the church of Santa Maria."

And turning to Andrew, he added with a gloomy voice: "You come. This is not clear, and we must see ourselves in it."

Fifteen minutes later the young man returned pale and moved: "Dogs dirty the cuba!"

"I was sure of it. She's okay. But they won't catch me. Tell my wife I'm going to breathe air in the country tonight, and I'll send her news tomorrow, and you... I'll be waiting for you at dawn at the Devil's Tower. Come on, Andrea."

It was already night, the streets deserted: Don Girolamo and Andrea went up side streets up to Porta Carini, took the path of the sticks and disappeared into the shadows of the gardens that surround the city from the north, heading towards the old Zisa castle.

In the nearby convent of the Annunziata there was a gardener who would have been happy to provide them with security for that night.