Gerald Seymour - The Collaborator

What would he say? How would he say it? And why?

He would say – and it had been rehearsed in his wife’s presence, with her making suggestions, and when he had walked, avoiding possible surveillance and the gaze of cameras, and when he was in the car, being driven north to Scampia: ‘I value this meeting. I appreciate that you have given me your time. I am grateful for this opportunity. To the point. These are difficult times in Forcella. My son, Pasquale, is in Novara, and I believe your cousin and your nephew are also in Novara. My eldest grandson, Vincenzo – a fine boy – is held in London, and my younger grandsons, Giovanni and Silvio, are in Poggioreale. My beloved daughter-in-law, Gabriella, also is arrested. These are very severe times for my organisation, built with my blood and sweat for half a century and more. The threat to us now is from our own. I could tear out my tongue for speaking her name. My granddaughter, my Immacolata, has prostituted herself and taken the money of the government. She destroys all I have built. We identify a weakness. A boy from England followed her here, is stupid, is ignorant, and loves her. We hope the whore loves him. We hold him, but not where we can keep him. We need a secure place. I ask for a secure place – a week, no more – under your protection. I ask also for my son’s most able associate, Salvatore, to be allowed free access. We will put as great a burden of pressure on my granddaughter – to retract and withdraw – as is possible. Here, under your control, is the most secure place in Naples. I would, of course, pay well for such a service.’ That was what he would say.

There were more men on the walkway, at either side and in front of a door.

The door was rapped, opened.

He saw then that Salvatore was blindfolded with a cloth, perhaps one for drying dishes, but he himself was not. He prayed to the Virgin that Salvatore would accept the indignity, not curse and rip it off. He was rewarded, but he saw the heave in Salvatore’s chest. The people in Scampia could recruit Salvatore or shoot him and leave him sprawled on a pavement. He thought, himself, he was safe – too old to be butchered. Too feeble. Too insignificant. He was shown in. Salvatore was guided after him.

He was taken to the kitchen.

A man sat there, dapper, with rounded shoulders and a cigarette, lit, between his fingers. A packet of Marlboro Light lay on the table. He had good hair, well styled, and clothes that looked expensive but not luxury wear. Beside the cigarettes there was a pocket calculator and scrap paper with scrawled figures in columns. Pasquale had known this man. There were no alliances in Naples, as there were in Calabria or in Palermo, but there were arrangements. He played his part. He ducked his head, showed respect. He knew, if the request for help, co-operation, was granted that a high price would be exacted. There was no alternative. He was fascinated by the face of the man, his features. A photograph of him appeared regularly in the newspapers, but was more than twenty years old. No more recent image existed, and the newspapers said the police had never succeeded with a telephone intercept in recording his voice.

Salvatore had made the links, arranged the meeting. He had done well.

Carmine Borelli was waved to a seat. If his request was granted, the boy would be moved to the most secure suburb of the city, would be beyond reach.

He began, ‘I value this meeting. I appreciate that…’

*

He sawed at the chain. It was not a dream, not any longer. Eddie Deacon could ease his thumbnail into the growing slit in the link.

He worked harder, frantic.

He had his jacket off, hitched on his shoulder. Without the sticks that were offered at the cafe, Castrolami would not have reached halfway up the steep path.

It was still early morning, but already the haze was building and the dawn clarity was wiped out. The city was far away and distanced further by the skim of cloud that sat over it. When he stopped and turned, he could make out the runway at Capodicino, the high-rise blocks of Scampia, the cranes at the docks, the curved line of the via Francesco Caracciolo, the Castel San Elmo squat on the hill, and the Castel dell’Ovo that jutted out into the sea. He could not see his own district, let alone his block, or the block of the artist.

He had started this trek on the south-west side of the mountain for the view. It was so many years since he had attempted anything as childishly idiotic as a climb to the crater rim of Vesuvio – maybe ten. Perhaps, then, it had been in February or November, not in the heat of a September morning. The sweat spilled off him and the dust lay on his face.

It was annoying to Castrolami that the American – well, American, but claiming some Italian, maybe some German, a possibility of some British ancestry, and the certainty of being a gypsy, a mongrel that was a bastardo – walked well and kept just behind but did not heave, pant and gasp. His annoyance was increased by the refusal of the bastardo to ask, at any time, the purpose of the journey. They had left the barracks at piazza Dante, climbed into Castrolami’s car, driven away from the city and parked in the yard by the station at Scavi Pompeii. They took the bus up the hill, past the old fortifications that overlooked the sea, the ever-thinning scrub. When the bus came to the park, they were left with a final three hundred metres on foot to the rim. It would have been good to hear, ‘What the fuck are we here for?’

He had not thought to bring water. Sweat discoloured his shirt. Each time he stopped, to calm his breathing and pretend to examine the view, a steady column of tourists passed him, going up and coming down. He alone wore suit trousers and carried a jacket. It could have been that Lukas found amusement in the climb, in Castrolami’s discomfort. They hit the last metres.

The path of caked, stamped-on dust cut through a lunar landscape. Almost nothing grew here. The stones and rocks were angular, punishing, a dull, lifeless grey. There was a first viewpoint where a fence kept the tourists a metre or more back from the rim and the cliff beyond it. There were Japanese, in large numbers, so Castrolami pushed on and headed for a white metal and plastic contraption, a couple of metres high and fastened with wire stays. He thought it would do for his purpose. He leaned on a rail. Lukas came alongside him, gave him nothing, waited and kept silence. Not being asked why took the gloss from Castrolami’s moment.

His calm broke, almost a snarl of anger: ‘Do you want to know why you are here or do you not want to know?’

He was not certain but he thought he felt a weakness.

Could have been mistaken, didn’t believe so. Eddie Deacon worked at the link, running it on the rough concrete ridge. What was certain, the pit where his nail went was always deeper.

Lukas said, ‘Do you want any smart shit talk from me about what volcanoes I’ve visited, where I’ve picked up hunks of lava? I can do that talk if it’s necessary. I don’t think it is. The view is non-existent. Comfort is non-existent. Shade is non-existent. We’re the only two cretins in this place too dumb to bring water. You have, friend, my undivided attention.’

He saw Castrolami’s lips purse, reckoned the anger was at the edge of control. He thought the morning wasted. Lukas said, ‘Say what you want to say.’

There was a harshness about the crater’s rim, and the sun came up from the stones of lava fields to reflect back into his eyes. He looked down, could see far into the hole, and found himself straining to see better. A hawk soared on the east side. The drop of the cliffs from the rim to the core was uneven, ragged. Faint curls of thin smoke or steam emerged from the rocks and dissipated. Lukas supposed there was some relevance to it… and was patient. He was rewarded.