Conor Fitzgerald - The Namesake

‘Papa?’

His father held up his hand. ‘Wait.’ Three more popping sounds reached them. Then they heard the sound of tyres screeching on hot asphalt.

‘Papa?’ said Ruggiero again.

‘It’s all right, son. We are safe now.’

A car roared by the front of the house. Someone beeped timidly at it as it took the corner and started heading out of town, up the mountain.

His father let out a long breath. ‘When you are sworn in as a santista, only another santista may take your life. If a santista should commit an error, he is expected to punish himself, because no one else may touch him. That is what the glass of poison represents.’ So saying, he picked it up and drank it.

‘No!’ cried Ruggiero, leaping up and running over to him.

His father grabbed him and almost squeezed the life out of him, and laughed. Ruggiero could smell alcohol on his breath.

‘Don’t worry. That was Aquavit I just drank. Maybe you’d like one? But no, your mother would not approve.’

He squeezed some drops of lemon onto the beads of blood and winced a little, then licked his fingers. ‘There are thirty-three santisti. When you receive the title, you leave the Honoured Society. You no longer swear in the name of the angels and saints, but take an oath instead to the secular heroes of the Italian Risorgimento: Giuseppe Mazzini, Giuseppe Garibaldi and Giuseppe La Marmora. These are men of the state, men of law enforcement. Like other santisti, I pledged allegiance to them. By this act, I left the Society, yet continue to work exclusively in its interests and for its benefit. We members of the Santa collaborate with the authorities. We have friends in uniform, lunch with Senators, negotiate with the political parties of the Republic, and have even helped design new laws. Our peers are not men with guns, but bankers, lawyers, developers and investors. All that we do, we do to advance the fortunes of the Society and enrich its members. When a man joins the Santa, he is condemned to a life of loneliness, exile and betrayal. The first thing he must do is undertake to keep his status secret from the group to which he belongs, from his closest companions, from the ’ndrina that brought him up, and even from the boss that commands him. In the case of a conflict of interests, the santista shall always prevail. To do so, he calls on the help of other santisti. Usually, but not always, he will call on the three fellows who were present at his induction. They will act personally or through the agency of sgarristi, camorristi, or even mere contrasti d’onore.

‘Eventually, circumstances will conspire to make the real status of a santista become known even to his former companions. If they are wise and farseeing, and if they are not greedy for power, they may recognize that their brother has become a santista and withdraw their claims. If they are not, they will accuse him of calumny, collaboration, theft and betrayal.

‘A santista can also become a vangelista. This is a great honour, and there are but twenty-five such persons. But the life of the vangelista is even lonelier. A vangelista writes the rules of the Society. He determines the rites, and enforces them, maintaining unity of purpose, discipline and clarity within the Society as it expands. A vangelista should be a man who is steeped in history and tradition, but one who also knows how to maintain those traditions in this violent and rapidly changing world. A vangelista, for instance, might live his whole life in Germany, or Australia, or Canada, making sure the traditions and lines of command are obeyed, preventing infiltration from the authorities while ensuring the Society has representatives within the authorities. It would be hard, say, for anyone to challenge a vangelista on the protocol of revealing some of the secrets of his work to his own son, since the vangelista is endowed with magisterium. Like a Doctor of the Holy Apostolic Church, a vangelista is the ultimate arbiter of moral codes and the scriptures. It would take another vangelista to challenge him.’

‘What’s higher than a vangelista?’

‘A trequartista. So called because he has access to and command over three-quarters of the entire Society. A trequartista must be an old man, as I hope to be some day.’

‘Is Mamma coming home?’

‘Of course! She cannot be touched. Neither can you. But I don’t think you want to have the reputation of one whose valour derives from his untouchability, do you?’

Ruggiero shook his head. ‘No.’

‘Although I have seen proof of your courage on many occasions, none so striking as the other evening when I found you standing guard, with a throwing knife that would barely scratch a cat, you have not had any opportunity for a public display of this strength of character and determination.’

Ruggiero heard the low wail of sirens as Carabinieri cars shot out of the fortified compound in the centre of the town and came racing up the hill towards the place where the popping noises had come.

His father picked up the golden needle and dropped it into a tiny cylinder pouch and tucked it into his pocket. He grasped the antique carbine, and said, ‘I’m going to hang this back on the wall in our bedroom. I suppose you are dying to get out of the house and see what has happened. The men you will see out there thought they were coming for us. If their wounds shock you, consider that that is what they intended for me, your mother, you and the baby. I will almost certainly be gone by the time you get back.’

Ardore

With almost the last of his strength, Blume rolled the heavy log table across the floor, trying to get up some speed without losing aim. It hit the door full on, but without much force, and the weakened hinge stayed firmly in place. He heaved the log away, realizing that he would never manage to gather the strength to try again.

He lifted the lantern and examined his handiwork. Around the hole he had chipped away, the pozzolana cementing the metal frame of the door to the wall of the cave had cracked and begun to crumble. He was able to pull away quite large slabs of it, though some of it stayed hard and unyielding. He went back to the table and took the final lantern as backup. He was pleased at his foresight when the third one died. For a while, he worked in the dark, pulling and punching, breaking his nails and bruising his knuckles. A hot trickle down his arm told him he had reopened the gash in his hand, but he continued working in the dark, putting off the moment of truth.

Finally, he switched on the last lamp to see what he had achieved. Between the frame of the door and the wall was a gap large enough for him to insert his arm and shoulder. He sat down, placed the lamp beside him, leaned his back against the overturned log, and rhythmically, but without violence which would lead to injury and desperation, started kicking at the edges of the gap he had opened. Pozzolana dust and shards of limestone fell on his leg. The frame showed no signs of giving way, but its position relative to the wall seemed to have moved very slightly. He kept at it, alternating from left foot to right every thirty kicks, until the misalignment between the bottom part of the steel frame and the cavern wall was a question of inconvertible fact and not blind hope. A lump of cement, biscuity and welcome, fell on his leg. He rested, slept, had no visitations, woke, and continued.

Eventually there was space for his head. What was the rule? If a cat could fit its head through a crack, then the rest of its body could follow? Or was that a rat? At any rate, he didn’t think it applied to large policemen. And yet, he was going to try. He stretched out his arms and clasped his hands religiously together, then pushed them through the gap and followed with his head before he could stop himself. Immediately he was stuck, but he had been expecting this. Using his elbows and pushing with his foot against the log on the other side, he half turned, and his right shoulder slipped through the breach, wedging his body very firmly against the sharp upper part of the gap, but the sensation of one shoulder going through had given him courage. If the only barrier was pain and not the laws of physics, he would get through. He pushed and heaved and thrashed, and then something came loose in his shoulder and he screamed and cried, and found to his chagrin that he was calling for his mother. But the dislocation of his shoulder saved him. His upper body was out, the rest followed. Weeping with pain, he started edging forwards, realizing that he had left the lamp burning in the darkness behind him out of reach.