(boys) – who gain the ‘respect’ requisite to their advancement in the society by offering their services for such unpleasant jobs. When no picciotto is at hand to kill for honour’s sake, the Mafia casts around to find a sicario , a hired killer who is a specialist in the use of the sawn-off shotgun, known as the lupara . In this case a difficulty arose because Ponzio would normally be in the company of his henchmen, thus making him a difficult and risky target. One of the Ghibellina members had a bright idea. He knew of just the man for the job, a certain Gandolfo, a close friend of Ponzio’s, who might be persuaded, for a price, to lead him into a trap.
Gandolfo was called to the clinic and the proposition put to him. Allegra says he seemed very angry at first, but – although Allegra does not say this – pressure must have been brought to bear, because the next day he agreed. Allegra set out for Ghibellina in his Fiat Topolino, with Gandolfo and two other doctors – who were probably brought along as components of a prefabricated alibi – and the lupara wedged uncomfortably behind the knees of the two men squatting in the back. At Ghibellina, Gandolfo was left to do his work, while Allegra and his friends called on a patient. Later Gandolfo was picked up again on the outskirts of the village, and Allegra learned, to his anger and disappointment, that nothing had happened. Gandolfo made lame excuses for not having kept his promise, but to Allegra it was clearly a case of cold feet.
It took another week’s work on Gandolfo before it seemed quite certain that he had finally swallowed his scruples. To use a Mafia technical expression, ‘the spur was applied’. This time, surrounded in Allegra’s clinic by the men of honour of Castelvetrano and Ghibellina, Gandolfo was compelled to swear to carry through his mission. In what is described with macabre understatement as the ‘usual little speech’, Allegra explained to him what happened to those who failed in theirobligations to the Mafia. Then the question of the thirty pieces of silver came up again. The Mafia ‘brothers’ assured Gandolfo that he would be found a job for his pains, and thus be given the means of starting a new life. This time the assassin saw that there was no escape, and he went off to Ghibellina for his last meeting with his friend.
‘I never saw him again,’ Allegra says. He adds: ‘Things had reached such a pitch with the Ponzio nuisance that had we not been able to make this arrangement, it might even have meant breaking the association’s rules and turning him over to the police.’ Rarely can the mentality of the Mafia have been exhibited so effectively in a single sentence.
6
V ILLALBA, classic capital of the Mafia’s state-within-a-state, turns out to be a small bleached town, carved from the bone of its own landscape. In winter, rancid water from the cold rains lies in its cobbled streets, and in summer an ochreous bloom of dust covers the stumpy buildings. A few wilted hollyhocks, self-sown in the angles of walls, curl down like flower-decorated shepherds’ crooks. Piglets and chickens scuffle among the black refuse piled up in the side-streets. Many of the houses on the outskirts of the town are bassi , Neapolitan style, consisting of a single windowless room into which light and air enter only through the door, and in which the members of the family sleep in bunks. Blue paint daubed on door jambs and on window surrounds – when windows exist – testifies that the Moors were here, blue being sacred, the colour of heaven. The name of the feudal estate Villalba was built to serve – Miccichè – derives from the Arabic Mikiken. The town has a saint with a grimacing, anguished face, padlocked into a shrine like an ancient strongbox. In its heyday, twenty years ago, Villalba had a population of about six thousand, a figure now halved by emigration.
The feudal lands that surround Villalba, rolling away to the horizon
Gandolfo was called to the clinic and the proposition put to him. Allegra says he seemed very angry at first, but – although Allegra does not say this – pressure must have been brought to bear, because the next day he agreed. Allegra set out for Ghibellina in his Fiat Topolino, with Gandolfo and two other doctors – who were probably brought along as components of a prefabricated alibi – and the lupara wedged uncomfortably behind the knees of the two men squatting in the back. At Ghibellina, Gandolfo was left to do his work, while Allegra and his friends called on a patient. Later Gandolfo was picked up again on the outskirts of the village, and Allegra learned, to his anger and disappointment, that nothing had happened. Gandolfo made lame excuses for not having kept his promise, but to Allegra it was clearly a case of cold feet.
It took another week’s work on Gandolfo before it seemed quite certain that he had finally swallowed his scruples. To use a Mafia technical expression, ‘the spur was applied’. This time, surrounded in Allegra’s clinic by the men of honour of Castelvetrano and Ghibellina, Gandolfo was compelled to swear to carry through his mission. In what is described with macabre understatement as the ‘usual little speech’, Allegra explained to him what happened to those who failed in theirobligations to the Mafia. Then the question of the thirty pieces of silver came up again. The Mafia ‘brothers’ assured Gandolfo that he would be found a job for his pains, and thus be given the means of starting a new life. This time the assassin saw that there was no escape, and he went off to Ghibellina for his last meeting with his friend.
‘I never saw him again,’ Allegra says. He adds: ‘Things had reached such a pitch with the Ponzio nuisance that had we not been able to make this arrangement, it might even have meant breaking the association’s rules and turning him over to the police.’ Rarely can the mentality of the Mafia have been exhibited so effectively in a single sentence.
6
V ILLALBA, classic capital of the Mafia’s state-within-a-state, turns out to be a small bleached town, carved from the bone of its own landscape. In winter, rancid water from the cold rains lies in its cobbled streets, and in summer an ochreous bloom of dust covers the stumpy buildings. A few wilted hollyhocks, self-sown in the angles of walls, curl down like flower-decorated shepherds’ crooks. Piglets and chickens scuffle among the black refuse piled up in the side-streets. Many of the houses on the outskirts of the town are bassi , Neapolitan style, consisting of a single windowless room into which light and air enter only through the door, and in which the members of the family sleep in bunks. Blue paint daubed on door jambs and on window surrounds – when windows exist – testifies that the Moors were here, blue being sacred, the colour of heaven. The name of the feudal estate Villalba was built to serve – Miccichè – derives from the Arabic Mikiken. The town has a saint with a grimacing, anguished face, padlocked into a shrine like an ancient strongbox. In its heyday, twenty years ago, Villalba had a population of about six thousand, a figure now halved by emigration.
The feudal lands that surround Villalba, rolling away to the horizon
Similar Books
