Michael Dibdin - End games

‘So what? The latifondo system is as obsolete as Russian serfdom. Far enough removed from us now, in fact, that we can even afford to indulge in a little nostalgia. If you ever drive over to the east coast, take a look around the Marchesato. You realise instantly that the only viable way to make any economic sense of that lunar landscape is intensive, centralised wheat farming on a massive scale with low labour costs.’

Zen laughed.

‘You’re sounding a little sentimental, Giovanni. Are you sure you’re not secretly voting for the Lega Nord?’

Sforza erased that suggestion with a decisive swipe of his hand, but his eyes smiled.

‘You know the old saying — once a Communist, always a Communist.’

‘So you still believe in that line in the Marxist creed: “to each according to his needs”?’

‘Devoutly.’

‘Well, my needs presently include tracking down any surviving members of the Calopezzati clan and getting as much information as possible about their whereabouts and activities during the war years. Can you help?’

‘Yes, but I need to smoke. Let’s pay these swine and adjourn to a cafe.’

They found a suitable place a few doors away, with tables on the street where they could smoke. The coffee was tolerable, but Giovanni Sforza was incredible. He swung into action as one to the manner born, calling a dozen of his contacts and gouging the information he needed out of each until a complete network had come into being and formulated a result, which he then communicated to Zen.

‘The man you need is Cataldo Antonacci. He curates the archives and local history section of the provincial museum. What he doesn’t know about events around here for the last thousand years is not worth knowing. He’s expecting you within the hour.’

‘Did you explain the nature of my interest?’

‘Naturally not. I merely said that the chief of police wished to consult him about a matter that he had not disclosed to me but which might quite possibly be legally privileged. He sounded very impressed.’

Twenty minutes later, Zen was in an elegant building on a quiet piazza high above the sterile grid of the modern city below, discussing the origins of the latifondo system in general and of the Calopezzati family in particular with Cataldo Antonacci. The historian’s expression of benign bemusement suggested that Zen’s visit possibly constituted a slight indelicacy, but one which he was too well bred to bring to his guest’s attention. Nor, needless to say, did he enquire why such an eminent official as the capo della polizia for the province of Cosenza was so interested in a dry subject that most people had learned about at school and promptly forgotten.

With exquisite tact and a welcome gift for concise synthesis, he related the origins of the huge southern estates in land grants made by the Spanish viceroys of Naples during the eighteenth century, and in their subsequent enlargement by shrewd purchases from adjoining landowners, often ancient noble families who had got into debt and needed cash fast. The key to success, the archivist explained, was to get possession of a property large enough to be virtually self-sufficient, to allow diversity of production involving economies of scale thus insulated from the vagaries of the market. The continuing integrity of the operation was then guaranteed by strict adherence to the primogeniture system, under which the eldest son inherited everything, the other males being maintained on an allowance but forbidden to marry.

‘To do that successfully over many generations requires good luck or good genes. The Calopezzati were gifted with both. They were of humble origins, small landowners from Cosenza, but they proved exceptionally astute and energetic in developing and managing their property, which eventually extended from the wheat plains around Crotone to the alpine forests and summer pastures of the Sila massif above us to the east. There was constant tension and occasional strife with the local peasantry, most usually over the encroachment and expropriation of smallholdings and common land bordering the Calopezzati domains, but in general the system worked fairly smoothly. By the mid-nineteenth century the family had been raised to baronial rank, was immensely wealthy and kept a splendid palace in Naples.’

‘So where did it all go wrong?’ Zen ventured to enquire.

‘The short answer is after the Great War. By then the Calopezzati were powerful political players, and the baron thus spent most of his time at the centre of things in Rome, leaving the management of the estate to less able relatives or salaried underlings. In addition, socialist ideas about the rationalisation of land ownership had finally started to take root in the south, leading to demonstrations which often ended in bloodshed.’

Cataldo Antonacci shrugged.

‘But in the end, it was their good luck that ran out. On the death of Baron Alfredo Calopezzati, the estate passed to his son Roberto, who was actively involved with the Fascist Mas X movement and later saw action in Ethiopia and the wider war that followed. He handed over administration of the estate to his sister Ottavia, who ruled over it with an iron hand from the old family stronghold at Altomonte, thirteen hundred metres up in the Sila mountains.’

‘What was she like?’

‘By all accounts, a stone-cold bitch. Her father Alfredo had been respected, if not exactly liked. Even her brother got some admiration for his courage and daring, although there were darker sides to his character. But to the best of my recollection I have never heard anyone say a positive thing about Ottavia. While the country fell apart and endured defeat and invasion, she remained shut up in that chilly fortress known locally as la bastiglia, surrounded by a retinue of loyal servants and armed guards. Then one winter night just before the end of the war, a fire broke out. It completely gutted the structure and killed the baroness, as Ottavia was called, although she had of course no claim to that title.’

‘And what happened to the estate after the war?’ asked Zen.

‘It was broken up by the agrarian reforms of the 1950s and what remained to the family was sold off.’

‘Did either Roberto or his sister have children?’

‘Not so far as one knows, but the details of the war years remain murky. It’s not even clear if Roberto survived, but Ottavia certainly died childless. She’d never married and was past childbearing age when the fire took her.’

‘So the family is now extinct?’

‘It may well be. That’s the price you pay for voluntarily observing primogeniture even after it was made illegal. But surely in your position it would be possible to…’

Zen nodded his assent. Yes, he would certainly make further enquiries.

‘As it happens, we’re standing in a former possession of that family,’ the archivist said as he saw his visitor to the door. ‘This building was originally one of their many properties. When they came south from Naples for the summer, they would break their journey in Cosenza for a few days and wine and dine the local notables before making the long trek up into the mountains to Altomonte. Until a century ago there was no road beyond Spezzano. The baron and his entire retinue had to get out of their carriages and continue on muleback.’

Zen had taken a taxi to the offices of the museum, but he opted to return to the modern centre on foot, down the narrow curve of Corso Telesio, where renovated apartments awaited yuppies with enough money and stamina to gentrify the largely abandoned mediaeval maze, and across the Busento river, a mere trickle between islands of gravel and tall reeds at this time of year. For a moment he wondered if he had wasted his time by going to see Antonacci. What he had learned had been interesting, particularly the bits that didn’t make sense, like Ottavia being past childbearing age when her son had been born. However, it remained doubtful how relevant any of it was to the task of getting Pietro Ottavio released as soon as possible by his kidnappers.