A Rebel In Love

A Rebel in Love

Novel

Original title: D’amore e di briganti

Translated by: Giovanna Bongiovanni

A Rebel in Love

Cristiano Parafioriti © 2021

Cover by

Nunzio di Dio

Layout and editing by

Salvatore Lecce

“I want them all dead! They are all peasants, bandits and enemies of the Savoy, enemies of Piedmont, the Bersaglieri and the world. Death to the peasants, death to these southern sons of bitches, I don't want any witnesses, we'll say it was the bandits.”

(Colonel Pier Eleonoro

Negri by order of General

Enrico Cialdini, Lieutenant

of King Vittorio Emanuele

II, August 1861)

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

This is a work of fiction. Characters, organisations, and circumstances are the product of the author's imagination or, if they existed, used for narrative purposes. For the rest, any resemblance to actual events and people is entirely coincidental. Or almost.

EVERY DAMN MORNING

In Galati Mamertino, Sicily, Calogero Emanuele, known as “Bau”, gets up early and is conscious of having to start another day of work in the town hall. Like many Sicilian fathers, his children are scattered across Italy for work and, of course, this distance cannot help but make him get out of bed a little sadder.

Every damn morning.

Spring has just begun and here in the Nebrodi mountains, there is a timid sun. At dawn it rises from the mountain of Rafa and a few warm rays strike the wrinkled tiles of the main square of this remote village, but they do not warm the chilly air and the numb bodies of those getting started.

Calogero Bau drinks his coffee at the Bar Ciccio, smokes his second cigarette and stares absently at the few passers-by and the imposing Mother Church. At that very moment, his heart turns dark. He thinks of don Peppe Emanuele, known as Malupilo, the evil hair, his father, who had died only a few years before, and who was a pillar of that church, always involved in organising the events, preparing the procession and the Masses, and unconditionally serving the Lord and the clergy. He might have seemed a little gruff at times, but he was just old-fashioned, in the good sense of the word, a man of few words and a lot of work. When he passed away, it was as if an aisle in that church had collapsed, and it was even worse for his son Calogero, who had relied on this man for his whole life.

Calogero Bau has a wife, three young sons, an elderly mother and a “thornback” sister who still lives in Galati. He is employed by the town hall – a luxury nowad

ays – and making a living as best he can. A cup of coffee, a couple of cigarettes and then he's off in his blue Fiat Punto to work at the Records Office, just outside the village on the road to Tortorici.

Every damn morning.

ESCAPE TO TRUNGALI

It was a cold and dark afternoon. My friends from the Pilieri neighbourhood and I were in the woods near Trungali. It was a bit of a creepy place because of the dilapidated church, and people in Galati Mamertino used to say terrible things about it. However, Ture S., our leader, had decided to build a hut nearby, next to the small stream. He believed that it would be a proof of bravery. We had brought some wooden planks, a ball of wire stolen from a building site and other necessary tools. We worked on it for more than two hours until our hut was ready. We were children and building a hut in the forest was an important mission. We had wooden swords, bows made of string and imaginary enemies; we were fearless in our own way.

After munching on some hazelnuts and a few unripe chestnuts inside the hiding place, we noticed that the sky was darkening and drops started to fall. Then it grew heavier and heavier, and the thatched roof could no longer shelter us all. We fled in disarray, some of us through the woods, others down into the valley, and I sheltered under the archway of the entrance to the ruined church of Trungali. Besides the shivering cold, the shivers of dread slowly crept in. The ruins of that temple protected me from the rain but not from fear. Indeed.

Rumours had it that a young girl had died nearby centuries ago. In an attempt to escape the Baron of Galati and owner of the land, who wanted to own her, the girl had fallen to her death on the sharp trunk of a freshly cut green hazel grove. Nobody had seen the baron trying to force himself on her, and the death of the girl had been dismissed as a fatal tragedy.

Though unpunished by the public, the nobleman was assailed by remorse and, in an attempt to relieve his soul, decided to build the church on the crime scene. But the idea turned out to be a bad one from the start, a harbinger of dark omens and misfortunes. Finally, one summer night, a disastrous fire started mysteriously from the church itself and engulfed the surrounding woods. After three days of fierce fighting against the flames, which seemed to be fuelled by a mysterious force, the fire was finally doused, the last flames had been extinguished, revealing the now charred body of the baron to some peasants. The young girl's revenge had been carried out at last, in some sinister way.

As I thought about this disturbing event, my nostrils were hit by a strange stench. I slowly turned my gaze to the inside of the church, and the threatening grunt of a black wild boar rose up from the stalks of nettle and weeds. It didn't flinch at my cries, it didn't retreat a step, quite the opposite, it appeared clearly about to aim at me. And I was absolutely terrified when my first impression of danger became clear. The offspring of the black boar was out there, close to me. I realised I was in the worst position: between the mother and her cubs. In a flash I took off down what seemed to be the safest route, had it not been that one of the little wild pigs decided to run ahead of me so as to look as if I were chasing him.

The mother must have believed this and, having ensured the safety of her remaining offspring, she threw herself into the defence of the little one on the run. Suddenly the scene turned out somewhat ironic. I tried to move away from the main path, feeling my arms torn by branches and my legs itching from the nettles I was compulsively cutting down in an attempt to save myself.

The squealing cries of the fleeing cub were drowned out by the furious screams of its fur-black angry mother, and no path was safe for me. Weary and tired, I stumbled on a bed of leaves, slippery from the pouring rain, and turning around I realised I had no escape. I only had time to feel a hard, dull blow hitting me.

* * *

It was the recoil of landing.

The wheels of the landing gear had touched the ground, waking me up from that strange nightmare. I looked at my watch: it was 8.40 am. The plane had been quite on time.

I got up still shaken by the distressing dream, took my trolley out of the overhead locker and switched on my mobile phone. The other passengers did the same, and from their phones, which had been put back into service, there was a disturbing concert of ringing, trilling and chirping. When the door opened, Palermo's light filtered into the cabin. Just outside the plane, even before descending the ramp, the air of my homeland filled my lungs and my heart.

As I took the bus from the airport to the train station, the monument commemorating the Capaci massacre passed by me.

Such endless sadness! A painful stele standing in memory of an unforgettable pain, a bloody stain in the history of an island tormented by the Mafia.

After a long journey by train along the Tyrrhenian coast towards Messina, I got off at Sant'Agata di Militello, where my parents were waiting for me. And so we took one of the many roads leading to the Nebrodi by car.

I looked back wearily at my village nestled against the mountainside and, after a quick meal, I fell asleep, this time more peacefully, lulled by the air of that pale spring not yet in bloom, in Galati Mamertino, Sicily.

LONELY SOULS

At five o'clock in the afternoon, my mother took a chance and offered me an inviting hot coffee. She knew I longed to see the square and my old friends from the village after so many months spent more than 1,700 kilometres away. I am forty years old, twenty of which have been spent in the North, half a life that seems like a whole one, actually.

The caffeine immediately kicked in. At six o'clock I took the road to the square. Walking through my old neighbourhood, I had the bittersweet feeling of flipping through an album of memories, I felt my chest tighten around my heart. It's all in the past now. There, of Via Pilieri, only the stones of the houses remain standing, while here, at the bottom of my heart, lie the much heavier rocks of memory.

Calogero Bau was the first villager I met. I couldn’t refuse to drink a coffee with him at the Bar Ciccio. He told me about his children, especially Ilenia, the eldest, who had told him over the phone that she was very excited about reading my stories. Then he began to talk to me about his work at the records office and how, over time, he had become fascinated by reading about old birth and death certificates, some particular registry events, surnames that have now disappeared, or rather, as he called them, old stuff.

I would never have imagined that Calogero Bau could somehow arouse such curiosity in me. He was a good man, no doubt about it, humble and friendly, but he certainly never looked like someone who could discuss such specific and particular topics with me. But he managed to intrigue me incredibly. I even took the trouble of breathing the passive smoke of his umpteenth cigarette and, outside the bar, we went for a walk in Piazza San Giacomo. For a moment I caught a glimpse of my father sitting at the Circolo dei Maestri Artigiani, reading the Gazzetta del Sud. It was in that brief moment that I felt truly at home. Calogero Bau spoke to me again about the records. Actually, he couldn't tell me much more, but it didn't spoil my burning and inquisitive desire to check the papers he had told me about. At dusk, I picked up my father from his last evening chores, and together we made our way home. As soon as we were out of the door, however, thanks to the clear sky, I was assailed by an uncontrollable desire to go towards the Mount of Rafa.

From there, the view is unparalleled at any time of day, but the Rafa evening is pure poetry! At sunset, the sun gives way to the moon and the stars, and yet, before it dies, it manages to ignite the view of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Aeolian Islands looming in the distance. The islands seem on the verge of being swallowed up by the waters, but they never drown. They remain in constant balance, as if protected by a celestial pact that has placed them there forever. Well, I know what the truth is: those islands are us, exiled children of this land, now detached from it. So close to our hearts but so far away from our bodies that we can only touch each other every now and then. One day it happened that we, the exiles, were cut off from our roots, because of the unfair fate that has condemned this land and its children for at least two centuries now.

A dark will, entirely devoted to evil, that turns us into islands of exiles. In the North, in Germany, in the USA, in Australia. Small, large islands of children stolen from their mother island.

An archipelago of lonely souls.

TRUTHS

I am sure that one day I will discover the hidden reason why the same brand of coffee, drunk in the South, shoots into your body a dose of caffeine that seems three times stronger than in Lombardy. Maybe it's the water, the air, or some strange mental conception, but the effect of a sip is like that of a bucket of ice-cold water suddenly thrown in your face.

Calogero Bau was on time. After the usual coffee and cigarette, we walked towards the records office. During the short walk, the now crumbling silhouette of the church of Trungali appeared in the distance, bringing back the nightmare of the previous day. It had all felt so real that I shuddered with fear at the mere memory.

The record offices were housed in a cold and damp basement; I didn't think much has changed since the last time. The sun never shines, and it's practically on the outskirts of town. I don't envy the people who work there any more than I did back then.

At least, waiting for me now was Bastiano Montagna, who, besides being a dear old friend of mine, I discovered was also an employee of that office.

We greeted each other affectionately, he already knew I was coming, and after a few chats about the good old days, he led me to the room where they kept the papers dating back to the 19 century. There I found birth and death certificates, marriage registers, various other loose documents, and many loose packages. Strictly speaking, the official registers were almost all in folio forms, a typical format for that era. They were in binders with ties on each side of the folder, and the year marking each record was on the front, written with a blue pencil.

I sat down and started flipping through the acts and documents. Almost all of them had a pre-printed form, and the blanks were filled in by hand.

I picked a year at random, 1856. The cursive handwriting appeared to be graceful, and I realised at once that the person who had filled in these registry documents had learned calligraphy at school, a luxury for moneybags at the time. In fact, from the signatures on the acts, I learned the mayor of the time was also a civil registrar and had drawn up the registers.

I was already aware that, at that time, my Galati was only “Galati” without the appellation “Mamertino” which had been added in 19121, but I didn't know it belonged to the district of Patti. Not bad. However, I stumbled across some pleasant facts.

I discovered that the town encompassed part of the current neighbourhoods; some surnames were not yet common while others had been lost over time. I read about the existence of a particularly prolific textile industry, so much so that many women under the entry “employment” were in fact “spinners”.

Along with the regular registers, some years had an extraordinary part called dei proietti attached. I didn't even know what the word proietti meant.

From a quick search on my phone, I discovered that proietti were simply foundlings, babies abandoned at birth for various reasons: poverty, misery, or, alas, just because they were unwanted. To provide a solution to this phenomenon in a dignified and Christian manner, the council of Galati employed a certain Anna Guarnera as “midwife and devout caretaker of the rejected babies”.

In the Panetteria neighbourhood there was a foundling wheel for the unwanted babies and a warning bell.2 When the bell rang, Anna Guarnera, the devout receiver, was awakened and alerted of an abandoned baby. She would rush to pick them up, look after them until morning, and then go to the Town Hall. Here, along with the mayor and a few witnesses, the child's health was briefly checked and, finally, officially registered. On the same day, the priest of the Mother church, at the first mass, gave the baptism, choosing a name decided on by those present – unless the baby was with a card suggesting a specific name.

The register of foundlings, therefore, listed every newborn found alive or, unfortunately, dead. Most of the records were filled in by hand in the same graceful cursive,3 making some parts hard to read but still clear.

Giacomo Maggiore, Salvatore Mundi, Giulia Condelli, Caterina Fragale, Anna Santalucia, were only some of the invented names given to foundlings at the time of registration, for lack of any other information.

I left the record office at about 11.45 a.m. The registers contained the same information, except for the names and little else. After all, I thought they were just registers of births and deaths, not very different from today's ones.

Back home, I found the table set. The cold had made me burn a lot of calories and, even before the whole family had arrived, I greedily devoured countless hot and crispy cro-quettes and thistle fritters, whose delicious smell I still remember.

After lunch, exhaustion set in, but I didn't have time to doze off, because around a quarter to four, I woke up by a message from Bastiano Montagna. He asked me if he could put the registers I had consulted away or if I had stopped by to look at something else. But what else was there to look at? Indeed, I recalled a few loose bundles piled up without any specific dates. The cold had perhaps dampened my curiosity too, but I decided to indulge in another afternoon of study.

At half-past four, I went to the records office again.

I had no intention of taking any more mouldy boxes out of the shelves, as they were damp to the point of disintegration. They were stored in a room lit by a dim and flickering lamp. I imagined that the stale air was also damaging the electrical cables, so I helped myself with the torch on my phone.

The was a mess all over: boxes were packed with acts, inheritance records, collections of Bourbon decrees, shredded codes, collections of laws, statutes, concessions, private contracts.

Bastiano brought me a beautiful little book on parchment. He took it from a box of church books, or so he told me. There was indeed a wooden box stored in a dark corner containing contracts, deeds of gift, wills, legacies, in short, a series of random documents, but related to liturgical offices and ecclesiastical matters and not to Municipal correspondence.

There were also missal, prayer books, an eighteenth-century “Importanti discorsi per l’esercizio delle bona morte” by a certain Giuseppe Antonio Bordoni, a Latin text, “Epitome thoelogiae moralis ad confessariorum examen expediendum”, by Michele Manzo published in Naples at the printing house of Pasquale Tizzano (dated 1836), “Ristretto di mistica dottrinale” by Father Giannotti da Perugia (mid 18 century), a great collection of selected sermons by Father Da Loiano published in Naples in 1827.

I was particularly struck by a series of biblical tomes with parchment covers and gilt tooling on the spine, belonging to Sacred Scripture is just the vulgate in Latin and vulgar with the explanations of the literal and spiritual meaning taken by the Holy Fathers and by ecclesiastical authors by Le Maitre de Sacy priest published in Naples in 1786 by Gaetano Castellano. Many volumes were missing, also because this work appeared colossal.

At first glance, the complete collection could have consisted of at least forty volumes. I saw only a dozen, but they were enough to lead me to a leading discovery. At least those texts – but I assumed the other church books as well – were all from the vanished Abbey of Sant'Agata di Galati, which had once housed an order of Poor Clare nuns.

I noticed the same disturbing handwritten note inside each of the remaining tomes:

Sor Clara Rosa Girgentani Custos Veritatis4

What truth could this Poor Clare from Agrigento be the keeper of? I could only hope to learn something from the other tomes. I took them out of the box one by one and placed them on the desk; who knows how long they had been in the dark!

There were twelve of them, some of them incredibly well preserved, such as volume XIII containing the two books of the Parapolimeni, or volume XIV of the prophets Ezra, Nehemiah, and Tobit. However, other volumes were in a poor state, due to the humidity they had been exposed for who knows how many years, and that has increased their deterioration.

After a first reading, I slumped in the chair, tired, because even just reading those pages for ten minutes caused me a certain amount of effort. The letters were mostly small, perhaps to make the book more tiny and pocket-sized, and some of the handwritings were very different from today's style (the letter “s”, for example, was printed in a font more similar to a modern “f”). The sheets, wrinkled and thin, were damp and almost stuck together.

I felt drained but struck by the thickness of one of the tomes; it was two different shades of colour, the first half being more in keeping with the chromaticity of the book and the second half being darker and more worn. I opened the text. It was Tome X of the New Testament containing St. Paul's Epistle II to the Corinthians and the Epistle to the Galatians.

I was stunned.

Unlike the handwritten note on the other texts, this one had a rectangular cut-out that read “Ex Libris u.J.d. a. Raymundi M.Musumeci Paroch. s.J.b. Syracusis”.

Touching it, I realised that it was a paper scroll that had been laid out in a second moment. Exposing the page slightly to the sun, I noticed something written under that piece of paper. But at the time, I could not mess with the text too much to free the hidden writing, nor could I consult it. Employees were hanging around my desk, and I could attract their attention. Besides, detaching the paper without damaging the writing underneath required painstaking work and tools that I did not have with me.

As dusk fell, it became dark, and it was time to leave. And yet, my curiosity was eating me. Under the pretence of putting the tomes back in the wooden box, I returned to that dark room. The other volumes returned to their long rest, while

Tome X “decided” to come with me.

I was unfair, and I am to blame, but after so long, I confess that I would do it again.

εὕρηκα (EUREKA)

To remove the paper without compromising the writing underneath, I thought of a particular technique. I heated some water in a small pan, and, with a brush stolen from my niece, I moistened the surface of the leaflet.

The paper was similar in size to those cards attached to wedding favours. Despite my evident clumsiness in all things that involve good craftsmanship, I carefully managed to re-move the addition.

Once I removed the delicate piece of paper, I immediately proceeded to blow-dry the uncovered surface, still very wet, with a hairdryer so as not to melt the ink and undo all the work done – sometimes YouTube tutorials come in handy. And this is what emerged:

Sicut prediximus et nunc iterum dico: Si quis vobis evangelizaverit praeter id, quod accepistis, anathema sit.5

I did not fall into the trap of believing that it was just the clerical pseudo-dread of a cloistered nun. I strongly felt a connection, a common thread which, first through Calogero Bau and then through Bastiano Montagna, had led me to that tome.

I transcribed the sentence as it was on Google. It may have been a trivial, cheap, and unscholarly method, but in the end, the search engine did its job in full. The Latin inscription was a verse from Letter of Paul to the Galatians, the same epistle held in the second part of that tome. The similarity between the words Galatians and Galàti immediately jumped out at me.

What was that sentence then? A revelation? A warning? A clue?

Today I would merely call it a gateway. The hidden and arcane entrance to a story that, even today, I do not feel like defining “tragic” because that would be trivial, nor “romantic” because that would not be exhaustive.

Following that inscription, I then opened the tome to the Epistle of St. Paul the Apostle to the Galatians. But to my great surprise, the pages of the epistle were missing, completely removed. In place of the Pauline epistle, a manuscript booklet had been carefully and meticulously placed.