Arcadia Awakens by Kai Meyer Page B

her for a drive to the north in her convertible. They cruised a few miles along the expressway to Catania, but soon left it again and drove farther into the bleak, mountainous country of the Sicilian interior. At first the landscape was one of undulating ochre hills, but then it became harsher. The few fields were uncultivated, or charred black where farmers had burned the stubble after harvesting their crops. The smell of smoke was everywhere, though there was none to be seen. Sometimes there were broad bays at the side of the winding road where containers crammed with garbage stood; generally the local people had just left their bags of trash beside the containers. Plastic bottles and empty packaging had collected in the ditches along the roadside, too.
    “I’ve never seen so much garbage all in one place,” said Rosa as they passed yet another blackened field with charred remains of plastic scattered all over it.
    “It’s better than it used to be,” said Zoe. “But you’re right, it’s hard to imagine that it ever could have been worse.”
    “I thought Cosa Nostra made a bundle by getting rid of trash illegally.”
    “Not on their own doorsteps. A few of the families really are big in the garbage business, yes, but they ship it off to Calabria or other places.”
    “Which doesn’t make it better, right?”
    Zoe gave her a serious glance before she had to concentrate on the next bend. “Better not start thinking you can afford a guilty conscience. Or you’re in the wrong place here.”
    “What do you do to fight it off?”
    Zoe seemed surprised by the question. “I go shopping,” she said at last. “Retail therapy is good for a lot of things.”
    “But it’s not what you’re about to do now, is it? Go shopping, I mean.”
    “No.”
    “So where are we going?”
    “I want to show you something. We’re nearly there.”
    “Was this Florinda’s idea?” Rosa made a face. “To get me back on the straight and narrow? I mean as far as the family’s concerned?”
    “She was too angry to say anything at all.”
    “She’ll get over it.”
    “She doesn’t have it easy. Hardly any women are heads of families. Dad was going to be the next capo , but then he and Mom took us back to the States. Suddenly Florinda was alone in her palazzo, having to manage it all.”
    “But surely she doesn’t manage the family business on her own?”
    “She has her consiglieri , her advisers,” said Zoe. “But they’re in Palermo and Catania, a few of them in Rome and Milan. Some of them are second cousins of ours. They run the firms and advise Florinda, but the final decision is always hers. They come here regularly to report back to her, and Florinda often goes to see them. The internet and the phone aren’t secure enough. Most of the business is still done privately, face-to-face, and no technology, however advanced, is going to change that.”
    Rosa looked at her sister’s beautiful but thin profile. She was beginning to realize that there were two sides to Zoe. There was the wayward, fashion-crazy, pleasure-loving Zoe she’d known in the past. But there was also another Zoe, who had obviously thoroughly studied the family and its business ventures. This was a new and unexpected side of her, until Rosa remembered that she had already met that Zoe at the beginning of her stay here—on the way to the funeral, when she and Florinda had sat opposite her, looking like two queen bees.
    That mental image paled when she found herself, against her will, thinking of Alessandro again. She thought it unlikely that Tano had simply given up his plan. Had something else happened on the island after Florinda had swept her away? She felt like a child dragged away from the playground, and it made her furious.
    “You like him?” Zoe suddenly remarked.
    “Alessandro?”
    “You know who I mean.”
    “I don’t even know him.”
    “Exactly, and that’s the problem. The Carnevares aren’t like us. Their family and