The Girls of Piazza D'Amore by Connie Guzzo-Mcparland

appeased by his wife and daughter, who had pleaded with him for days not to do anything crazy. After the family’s honour was salvaged by Aurora’s marriage, Micu returned to spending long nights at the cantina. Paola had expelled him from her bed years before.
    Alfonso was his frequent companion there, especially after he negotiated his sister’s marriage to Pasquale. Micu and the other men followed the goings-on between Lucia and Totu like a soap opera.
    After his sister’s engagement, Alfonso’s head was full of ideas about his future business dealings in America, where there was real wealth to be made. Alfonso had the land, the olives, and the olive press, but no one to make it all work for him, so he spent hours pumping Micu’s head too. He needed his arms and experience in oil-making. Why should Micu keep on caring about Don Cesare’s arid orchards when he was treated like a gopher for Don Cesare’s right-hand man, the l’Amatise?
    Alfonso rode his Vespa around the province like a madman, looking for deals for home-made salami and goat cheese, and had Don Cesare laughing when he started working on getting an olive press to compete with him. Alfonso was wasting his money, Don Cesare told everyone. The young man simply didn’t have the experience, and most importantly he lacked the contacts needed for selling the oil.
    One night at the cantina with Micu, Alfonso came up with a different twist to the stories that had circulated in the village about Paola and Don Cesare. While working in the farmhouse, he had observed the goings-on at Don Cesare’s casale not far from there, and he agreed with Micu that all the gossip about Don Cesare and his wife was false. It wasn’t Don Cesare at all who met his wife there. Alfonso had watched for months on the days when Micu was sent left and right to pick up materials and deliver oil or wheels of crushed olives. On a day when Micu was dispatched to deliver an order in Catanzaro, Alfonso convinced him to follow him to the farm instead.
    They hid behind a tree and watched as Gennaro, the l’Amatise – Don Cesare’s devoted brother-in-law, Totu’s father, the serious quiet widower who was too busy to get re-married – paid Paola a visit. The two men waited patiently all afternoon and even saw Gennaro sit on the porch, shirtless, sipping an espresso, and then patted Paola on the behind as she came out to shake a tablecloth. Micu couldn’t contain his anger at that sight, but Alfonso forced him to stay quiet. With Micu fuming, they sat behind that tree till late in the afternoon when Gennaro, his shirt back on, left the farmhouse. No wonder Gennaro had interceded for Paola and her children with Don Cesare. Whose children were they?
    Micu was ready to get his hunting rifle again, but Alfonso talked sense into him.
    The best way to get even with Gennaro and Don Cesare, Alfonso convinced Micu, was to leave them eating dust, leave them to do their own dirty work. Let Gennaro look for another lackey and someone else’s wife. Alfonso promised Micu a share of the profits in the new company if he left Don Cesare’s employment and went to live in the farmhouse by the river. There, he would have the power to cut Don Cesare off from the flow of water – and Gennaro from his wife’s favours.
    Alfonso made sure that the trysts between Paola and Gennaro were made public. The implications went beyond Paola and Gennaro. Totu’s past shady encounters with Aurora, which Alfonso swore were real, smelled of incest, as she was probably his half-sister.
    After this last revelation, Totu didn’t fight back. He became despondent. He cursed his uncle and father and the village and vowed to get out of Mulirena and never set foot there again. To spite Alfonso even more, his friends convinced him that there was still one last card left for him to play. Together they concocted a foolproof, old-fashioned course of action that