Luciano's Luck (17 page)

Luciano and Maria paused at the door. The scene was incredibly primitive: bare stone walls, mud floor, an open fire on the hearth with the most rudimentary of chimneys so that the room was half-filled with smoke. There were two goats tethered beside a couple of young children wrapped in a blanket who watched what was happening at the other end of the room with great round eyes.

A young woman lay on a crude wooden bed, her face running with sweat and racked with agony. An old crone sat on a stool beside the fire stirring something in an iron pot. She had a face like wrinkled leather and wore a black scarf around her head, black dress and broken boots.

The young woman moaned again, her knees sprawling apart under the blanket, her belly swollen. Maria unlatched the lower half of the door and went in and Luciano followed her.

She leaned over the girl, placing a hand on her brow and the young man said. ‘She's been in childbirth since yesterday. That's why I sent for the
Strega.’

Stregas
were witches more than anything else. There was usually one in most villages who sold potions and spells that were really only herbal medicine. In the back country, they were the peasant's substitute for a doctor.

Maria started to pull back the blanket to examine the girl and the old woman reacted angrily, turning on the stool.

‘Infamita!’

The man got hold of Maria by the wrist and twisted it. ‘What are you doing? You think I want my wife shamed before strangers?’

Luciano took a handful of hair, dragged back his head and rammed the muzzle of the M1 up under his chin.

‘What's your name?’

The man gasped in pain. ‘Solazzo.’

‘Well, listen to me. God has smiled on you tonight because the good sister here is a nurse. A real nurse from a real hospital, so stand back and leave her to it or she'll have two patients.’

The old woman at the fire started to protest. Solazzo silenced her with his hand, gazed at Luciano searchingly, then turned to Maria.

‘This is true, what he says?’

‘Yes,’ she said.

He took off his cap, wiped his face with the back of one hand. Maria turned back to the girl on the bed who was crying now, moving her head from side to side. Maria pulled down the blanket and raised the stained shift, exposing the swollen belly.

‘How long did you say she has been in labour?’

‘Since yesterday afternoon.’

She leaned over the girl, examining her quickly and finally turned, her face grave. ‘Mr Solazzo, we have a serious problem here. The reason for your wife's long labour is plain. A child is normally delivered head first. This one is the wrong way round.’

‘God in heaven!’ Solazzo said wildly and crossed himself.

‘Isn't that what they call a breach?’ Luciano asked.

‘That's right.’

The woman cried out sharply, pushing her body up from the bed and Solazzo said, ‘Help her, Sister, for the love of God.’

She raised a hand to still him. ‘Exactly,’ she said. ‘For His sake and for hers. Now you will bring me hot water and cloths. Tear up a sheet, a shirt, anything. And as clean as possible.’

Solazzo hurried to the fire. Luciano said, ‘You've got to be joking. Clean? In a hovel like this?’

‘We will do the best we can, all of us,’ she said. ‘Including you, Mr Luciano. Now listen to me closely and I will tell you what I want you to do.’

Maria leaned over the young woman. ‘Elena, isn't that it? I want you to trust me. Do you trust me?’

Elena Solazzo nodded wearily and Maria wiped sweat from her face. ‘When I tell you to push, use all your strength. You understand?’

Luciano was at the other end of the bed with a bowl of hot water and torn strips of linen ready. Solazzo and the old woman stood by the fire. One of the children at the other end of the room started to cry and Solazzo whispered to the old woman who went to comfort them.

Maria went to work, probing gently inside Elena for the first problem was to deliver the legs. She felt for the back of the baby's knee and prodded. The leg flexed instantly and so did the other when she repeated the trick.

‘And now, Elena, push,’ she said. ‘Push hard!’

She held out her hands and Luciano wiped them clean and dried them. She grasped the baby firmly by the legs and pulled down until the shoulders were clear, but the arms were still inside, extended.

As Luciano watched she probed again gently, twisting to the left, hooking a finger into the left elbow and delivering the arm. A moment later, the other arm was also free.

Elena was gasping for breath like an animal, staring up at the ceiling, face contorted with pain.

‘How's it going?’ Luciano asked softly.

‘Fine so far, but this is the most dangerous part, delivery of the head. If it's not done just right…’

She paused and he completed the sentence for her. ‘She could have an imbecile on her hands.’

Maria took a deep breath, trying to remember every aspect of her training. The essential thing was to bring the head out slowly and steadily. She put her right arm underneath the infant and got a finger into its mouth, which meant she was now supporting it.

Her other hand was on the neck, fingers spread and she started to pull. It was amazing how much strength it took; then suddenly it was clear and safe in her hands.

The baby was not breathing, was a deep shade of purple all over. She cleansed the nostrils and the mouth of mucus with strips of linen and placed a hand over the chest.

‘Is it okay?’ Luciano demanded.

‘Oh, yes, a strong heartbeat.’

She blew into the tiny mouth, very, very gently. Quite suddenly the chest heaved and the baby started to cry. Solazzo cried out as if responding to it.

Maria tied the cord, then cut that last essential link between mother and child. ‘A daughter, Mr Solazzo, in case you hadn't noticed.’

Elena was crying now, tears mingling with the sweat, and as Maria wrapped the child in strips of linen, Solazzo leaned over.

‘What a little beauty. We name her after you, Sister.’ He laughed out loud, tension pouring out of him.

Even the old woman was smiling and she came forward, the two children shuffling beside her, wrapped in their blanket, and the goats bleating in the shadows.

Maria washed blood from her hands in the basin. Luciano said, ‘You did all right.’

‘Why thank you, Mr Luciano.’ She smiled back at him. ‘Could I have more hot water?’

She turned and started to clean Elena's belly and thighs. Luciano went to the door and emptied the bowl into the yard. He lit a cigarette and leaned on the door, staring out into the rain. He hadn't felt so alive in years.

Solazzo appeared beside him with a bottle. ‘A drink, Signor?’

Luciano took a pull. It was cheap Sicilian brandy and it burned all the way down. He choked and handed the bottle back.

Solazzo took a swig himself. ‘What you said earlier about the good sister is true, Signor? She is Don Antonio's granddaughter?’

‘You are of the Society?’ Luciano asked.

‘Since I was seventeen years. And you also, Signor.’ He shrugged. ‘I do not need to ask. May I have the pleasure of your name?’

‘Luciano.’

Solazzo's mouth gaped in astonishment. ‘You are Luciano, Signor?’

‘That's right.’

Solazzo grabbed for his right hand and kissed it. ‘Don Salvatore the Saviour. God sent you to us out of the storm tonight.’

‘Very possibly,’ Luciano said and glanced up.

Maria was smiling sadly at him from across the room.

Fifteen miles north in a small lost valley high in the Cammarat, Don Antonio Luca ate his evening meal alone, the windows to the terrace of the old rambling farmhouse open to the night. The long living room, though primitive in some respects with whitewashed walls and a stone floor, was comfortable enough with a log fire burning in the open hearth in one corner.

He sat at one end of a long dark oak table and ate sparingly of the dishes which were laid before him.
Narbe di San Paolo,
ravioli filled with sugar and richotta cheese and fried, and
cannolo,
that most famous of all Sicilian sweets. He reached for the wine bottle and, finding it empty, rang a hand bell.

The woman who entered was no more than thirty, a shapely, fleshy peasant with wide hips that stretched the conventional black cotton dress to its extremity. Her hair was night-black and fastened into a tight bun at the nape of her neck. Her skin was olive, the lines just beginning to show, and she had kind eyes.

‘Another bottle, Katerina,’ he said.

She went out without a word and he lit a cigar, got up and went and stirred the fire. He was sixty-five, the hair and carefully trimmed beard iron grey, a tall man still, the shoulders only slightly stooped with age.

The face was the most remarkable feature. Ruthlessness, pride, arrogance, but also a blazing intelligence. He wore the rough clothes of a mountain farmer, corduroy trousers, waistcoat, red flannel shirt, and yet there was a curious impression of elegance to him still, a suggestion of the aristocrat in gamekeeper's clothing that was strange in a man who had started life as a sharecropper's son.

Katerina came back with a fresh bottle of wine. ‘Mario's here.’

‘Good. Send him in and bring coffee.’

He stirred the logs with a foot and turned as the door opened again.

The man who entered was in his midfifties and had the face of a confident gladiator who had survived the arena. A small, greying man with an engaging presence; he could still smile as he killed, and he had killed many times on the orders of his Capo. Mario Sciara, Antonio Luca's strong right arm.

Luca said,‘Well?’

The door opened again and Katerina came in with the coffee.

Sciara said, ‘They are here, Don Antonio.’

‘Luciano?’

‘Yes.’

‘And my granddaughter? Where are they now?’

‘I don't know exactly. They were at the villa of the Contessa di Bellona but there was trouble.’

‘What kind of trouble?’

Katerina paused in the act of pouring coffee, waiting. Sciara said, ‘You know how much the Communists have worried about increasing Mafia involvement in the resistance movement. When they heard Luciano was coming, they didn't like it. They tried to give him the business.’

‘Who was it?’

‘That sheepfarmer from Bellona, Russo, and some boy or other. Luciano took care of it, as I understand it. They're both dead.’

‘So, his hand hasn't lost its cunning. And my granddaughter? She was there?’

‘Yes, Capo.’

Luca's eyes flared and when he picked the bottle of Marsala up from the table, his hand shook.
‘Infamita.
To do such a thing. Luciano can take his chances, but to place my granddaughter's life in jeopardy.’ He emptied the glass in one quick swallow. ‘There were others involved?’

‘Mori, the schoolmaster.’

‘That bastard. Another Red. He pays, Mario, in full.’

‘Already taken care of, Capo. Vito Barbera has seen to it on your behalf.’

‘Good.’ Luca nodded. ‘One can always rely on Vito.

Now, to the other business. Is the Englishman, Carter,

with them?’

‘Yes, Capo.’

‘Excellent I like Carter.’ He turned to Katerina. ‘When he comes we can play bridge again with a dummy hand, but better than nothing.’

‘You will see them?’

‘Of course. They can come here. Make the necessary arrangements with Padre Giovanni. Now, have your coffee and tell me how the war goes.’

Later, standing in the darkness of his bedroom with the window open to the terrace, he watched lightning flicker over the mountain. Katerina moved in from the other room and stood beside him. She wore a robe of heavy silk and when his arm went around her, his hand cupped her left breast, his fingers stroking the nipple erect.

‘You are unhappy, Antonio?’

‘Can you always be so certain?’

‘Of course. It is Maria, I think. You do not wish her to come? Why not? She is of your own flesh. Your only surviving blood kin. It is not natural.’

He sighed. ‘How can I explain to you? As a child, I adored her and she loved me totally. She never knew her father, God rest him. I was the only man in her life. Then that day, that terrible day when she and her mother got in the car…’ his voice faded.

‘My poor Antonio.’ She rested a hand on his shoulder.

‘She turned from me, with words of hatred on her lips.’ He shook his head. ‘No, my love, when she comes now, it is as if we turn over an old stone and expose the corruption that lies underneath.’

‘No, Antonio. She comes with love I am sure.’

He laughed harshly. ‘Is Antonio Luca a fool? Is this how he has survived all these years? She comes because I have refused to help the Americans in this coming invasion. She comes because they hope she will be able to change my mind. If it were not for that, she would not have come at all.’

There was a terrible desolation in his voice and she turned into him, holding him tight. ‘Come to bed, Antonio.’

‘Soon,
caro,
very soon.’ He kissed her hair and pushed her gently away.

When he moved out on the terrace he could smell the mimosa, heavy and clinging on the damp air. The whole electric world waited for a sign. It came. The heavens opened and it started to rain.

13

Koenig was standing at the window of his office at the police barracks in Agrigento shortly after dawn, when Suslov and his Ukrainians drove into the courtyard below. As Koenig watched, the door opened behind him and Rudi Brandt came in with a cup of coffee.

Koenig nodded down into the courtyard as Detweiler was dragged from the
kubelwagen.
He fell to his knees and one of the Ukrainians kicked him. Then two of them ran him across the yard towards the entrance of the old police captain's house which Meyer was using as his headquarters.

‘More work for the undertaker,’ Koenig said.

‘So it would appear, Colonel.’

‘Find out who he is and report back to me.’ Brandt went out at once and Koenig opened the window. The storm of the previous night seemed to have blown itself out, but rain drifted against the window in a fine spray. He felt old beyond his years, unaccountably depressed, as he sipped his coffee and watched Rudi Brandt cross the courtyard below.