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