Paolo Di Stefano Giallo d Avola Translated by Isobel Butters for
Paolo Di Stefano Giallo d Avola Sellerio Palermo 2013 ISBN 978-88-3893-017-1 Pages: 340 Pages translated: 225-229 Foreign rights: Marcella Marini rights@sellerio.ti Chiara Restivo diritti@sellerio.it
It was there, on the island of Santo Stefano in the municipality of Ventotene, that Salvatore Gallo was to spend his life imprisonment. He was to be shut up for the rest of his years in the Bourbon penitentiary that housed nearly three hundred convicts in ninety-nine cells, arranged around a circular courtyard. He walked, under escort all the time, along a cliff path. It had been so long since he had walked outdoors that his legs began to ache immediately. He breathed the frothy wind as it rose from the sea. When he reached the gates of the fortress, he looked up at the high walls and then down to his right as he quietly whispered his temptation to jump off the cliff. In a way it appeared familiar to him, like so many of the precipices of his own mountains, but even before courage he lacked the freedom to take his own life. He seemed like the type who was not afraid of dying. «Come on, here you will get what you need; you won t have any of the rest ever again.» As he delivered the sentence the sergeant at his side burst into a laugh that echoed through the stone hall. In the entrance was a table with a register and they showed him where to write his surname and name. He was asked to deposit on the same table his jacket, shirt, trousers and cap, and was told they would send it all in a parcel to his children. He was made to undress on the spot and 3
in return received a coat of dark cloth that he put on at once, in complete silence. A small jailer limped in front of him down a long corridor, past dozens of gates and railings. They were crossing the stony courtyard when suddenly the silence was broken by a rhythmic, deafening clanging. As if all called together by a signal from above hands, eyes, mouths and teeth appeared behind the grating, parts or fragments hanging in the air of bodies indistinguishable in their entirety. Some beat loudly against the iron, others laughed, while others again shouted: «Where are you from?» «Who the fuck are you?» «It is true that war is breaking out?» «Are you from Milan?» «From Sicily?» «Rome?» «You do know what do you expect here, don t you?» «Did you bring American cigarettes?» «What s life like out there?» «Is the Pope dead?» «Have you brought some women?» «You got chocolate?» «Come on, mate, into the common grave.» «This is the cemetery of the living.» «What do you reckon? Do you like it?» «Who did you kill?» «I m innocent!» Salvatore Gallo found the strength to cry into the pale air, despite the lump in his throat. «Me too! Me too! Me too! Me too! Me too! Me too!» He heard a hail of laughter from all quarters. Gallo took up behind his accompanier again. When they reached an arch on the other side of the courtyard, they went up two flights of stairs to the cell assigned to the 4
lifer. In front of the open door, the jailer pulled an apple and a cigarette out of his pocket and said in a deep voice unsuited to his physical appearance: «Do not be put off, Gallo, you ll be alright here and you ll see there are good people.» Salvatore Gallo entered a sort of wet and narrow cave, scarcely two yards by three; bed, mattress, blanket, a wooden bench and a small hopper-light that revealed a patch of sky. The little jailer s eyes were soft and watery with compassion. He clapped him on the back with his child s hand, locked the iron door and disappeared noiselessly into the darkness. The clock struck its time but time there stood still. At six o clock the siren sounded and the patrol passed. Half an hour later the coffee arrived, and at half past seven a queue of prisoners began to form for the latrines. The first year, Salvatore Gallo had been due to stay in isolation, but owing to good conduct he soon began to work in the open air, from eight till noon and from two till five. Some prisoners worked in the vineyard and orchard, others built a house on the cliffs, said to be for the guards families. An undated wirephoto from the Italia agency shows Salvatore Gallo standing, in his lifer s uniform, large pyjama-like clothes with broad vertical black and white stripes, white woollen hat pulled down over his forehead, a dark scarf wrapped several times around his neck and hands in his pockets. To his left a very tall, robust man, a brute, in the same clothing as Gallo; jacket open on his chest, and before the two of them a wheelbarrow loaded with stones. Who knows what Salvatore Gallo was thinking as he stood immobile, a rather nonchalant air and sunken eyes, 5
in the circular oasis of stone that was the courtyard of Santo Stefano. Where all that surrounded him were gates and arcades on three floors. Nearby was the hexagonal chapel where on Sundays he went to confession and where he could smell the sea without ever being able to see or touch it. Was he thinking of his children, who had never been in touch, of his brothers far and near, of his brother Abele, of Venerina Costa, that venomous slut, of the judges good and bad that had sentenced him, of justice and injustice, of the contrada Cappellani estate devoured by weeds, drought and wild herbs? Of his home at Testa dell Acqua, lost, empty and left to mould? They worked silently without chains, without smoking and without eating. The house was always under construction. The walls were built, then pulled down and started again. At noon the siren sounded and the men returned in single file to the fort to eat a plate of pasta and potatoes and a piece of bread. Once a week they were given a meatball weighing less than 2 ounces and an apple. At five they returned to their cells and were given another plate of potatoes and another piece of bread. The doors bolted, the lifers were left alone in their few square feet. As the groans and cries of the youngest rose to a pitch, the old fell until dawn into a sleep as heavy as the stones of Santo Stefano. 6