The Florios of Sicily

  Map of Italy, 1815

  Beehive Mapping

  Dedication

  To Federico and Eleonora:

  to the courage, recklessness, and folly

  we have shared over days

  that were lost and found again.

  Epigraph

  What though the field be lost?

  All is not lost—the unconquerable will,

  And study of revenge, immortal hate,

  And courage never to submit or yield:

  And what is else not to be overcome?

  —JOHN MILTON, PARADISE LOST

  Contents

  Cover

  Map of Italy, 1815

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  The Florio Family Tree, 1723–1868

  Prologue

  October 16, 1799

  Part OneSpices

  November 1799 to May 1807

  Part TwoSilk

  Summer 1810 to January 1820

  Part ThreeBark

  July 1820 to May 1828

  Part FourSulfur

  April 1830 to February 1837

  Part FiveLace

  July 1837 to May 1849

  Part SixTuna

  October 1852 to Spring 1854

  Part SevenSand

  May 1860 to April 1866

  Epilogue

  September 1868

  Acknowledgments

  A Note from the Translator

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  The Florio Family Tree 1723–1868

  Prologue

  Bagnara Calabra, October 16, 1799

  Cu nesci, arrinesci.

  Those who leave, succeed.

  —SICILIAN PROVERB

  THE EARTHQUAKE IS A HISS that starts in the sea and wedges itself into the night. It swells, grows, then becomes a roar that tears through the silence.

  In the houses, people are asleep. Some are awoken by the clinking of pots and pans, others by slamming doors. By the time the walls begin to shake, however, everybody is up.

  Cattle lowing, dogs barking, praying, and cursing. The mountains shrug off rocks and mud, and the world turns upside down.

  The tremor reaches the Pietraliscia district, grabs a house by its foundations, and shakes it violently.

  Ignazio opens his eyes, snatched from his sleep by this tremor sending cracks running through the walls. Above, the low ceiling seems to be falling down on him.

  It’s not a dream. It’s reality at its worst.

  In front of him, Vittoria’s—his niece’s—bed is swaying between the wall and the middle of the room. On the bench, the metal casket wobbles and falls to the floor, along with the comb and the razor.

  A woman’s screams echo through the house. “Help! Help! Earthquake!”

  The yelling makes Ignazio bounce to his feet but he doesn’t run away. He must first make sure Vittoria is safe. She’s only nine and so frightened. He drags her under the bed to shelter her from the rubble.

  “Stay here until I come back for you—you hear me?” he says. “Don’t move.”

  She nods, too terrified even to speak.

  Paolo. Vincenzo. Giuseppina.

  Ignazio runs out of the room. The corridor seems endless, even though it’s only a few steps. He can feel the wall pulling away from his hand, tries to touch it again but it moves, like a living thing.

  He reaches his brother Paolo’s bedroom. A beam of light is filtering through the shutters. His sister-in-law Giuseppina has leaped out of bed. Her maternal instinct has woken her up to warn her that Vincenzo, her son, just a few months old, is in danger. She tries to pick up the baby, who’s sleeping in a cradle suspended from the beams of the ceiling, but the wicker basket is prey to the seismic tremors. The woman weeps in despair and reaches out as the cradle frantically sways.

  Her shawl slips off, exposing her bare shoulders. “My baby! Holy Mother of God, help us!”

  Giuseppina manages to grab the child. Vincenzo’s eyes open wide and he starts crying. In the chaos, Ignazio sees a shadow. His brother Paolo. He jumps off the mattress and pushes his wife into the corridor. “Out!”

  Ignazio goes back. “Wait, Vittoria!” he shouts. He finds her in the pitch blackness under the bed, curled up, her hands on her head. He lifts her and runs. Pieces of plaster come off the walls as the howl of the earthquake persists.

  He can feel the little girl seeking shelter, clutching so hard at his shirt she’s practically wringing the fabric. She’s so scared, she’s scratching him.

  Paolo pushes them over the threshold and down the stairs. “Here, come.”

  They run to the middle of the courtyard as the tremor reaches its climax. They huddle together, heads touching, eyes shut tight. There are five of them. Everybody’s here.

  Ignazio prays, trembles, hopes. It’s coming to an end. It has to end.

  Time splinters into seconds.

  Then, just as it began, the roar calms down and finally stops completely.

  For a moment, there is only the night.

  But Ignazio knows that this tranquility is deceptive. The earthquake is a lesson he had to learn very early on.

  He looks up. He feels Vittoria’s panic through his shirt, her fingernails digging into his skin, her trembling.

  He sees the fear in his sister-in-law’s face, the relief in his brother’s; he notices Giuseppina’s hand searching for her husband’s arm and Paolo breaking away to get close to the building. “Thank God the house is still standing. Tomorrow, in the daylight, we’ll see the damage and—”

  Vincenzo picks this very moment to burst into tears. “Shh . . . quiet, dear heart, quiet.” Giuseppina rocks and comforts him as she walks up to Ignazio and Vittoria. Giuseppina is still terrified. Ignazio can tell by her quick breathing and the smell of her sweat. Fear mixed with the scent of soap on her nightgown.

  “What about you, Vittoria? Are you all right?” he asks.

  His niece nods but refuses to let go of his shirt. Ignazio pulls her hand off forcibly. He understands her fear. The little girl is an orphan, his brother Francesco’s daughter. He and his wife died a few years ago, leaving the child to the care of Paolo and Giuseppina, the only people able to give her a family and a roof over her head.

  “Don’t worry, I’m here.”

  Vittoria stares at him, silent, then clings to Giuseppina just as she did to him a moment earlier, like a castaway.

  Vittoria has been living with Giuseppina and Paolo since they got married, just under three years ago. She takes after her uncle Paolo: taciturn, proud, reserved. And yet right now she’s just a frightened child.

  But fear wears many masks. Ignazio knows that his brother, for example, will never just stand there, crying. Hands on his hips, grim, he’s already looking around the courtyard and at the mountains that enclose the valley. “Holy Mother of God—how long did it last?”

  His question sinks into the silence. Then Ignazio replies, “I don’t know. Long enough.” He’s trying to steady the shuddering inside him. His face is tense, the stubble of a fair beard on his jaw, his hands slender and nervous. He’s younger than Paolo, who actually looks older than he is.

  The tension melts into a kind of exhaustion, giving way to physical sensations: humidity, nausea, stones digging into the soles of their feet. Ignazio is barefoot, in his nightshirt, practically naked. He brushes his hair off his face and looks at his brother, then at his sister-in-law.

  It takes him only a second to decide.

  He walks to the house. Paolo rushes after him and grabs him by the arm. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  Ignazio indicates with his head Vittoria, and Giuseppina, who’s rocking the baby. “They need blankets
,” he says. “Stay with your wife. I’ll go.”

  He doesn’t wait for an answer. Quickly but cautiously, he climbs the stairs and pauses in the hallway to let his eyes grow accustomed to the darkness.

  Plates, ornaments, chairs—everything has tumbled on the ground. Next to the dresser, a cloud of flour is still hovering over the floor.

  He feels a pang in his heart: this is the house Giuseppina brought his brother Paolo as her dowry. It’s their house, true, but also a cozy place where he feels welcome. Seeing it like this upsets him.

  He hesitates. He knows what could happen if there is another tremor.

  But only for a few seconds. He goes in and snatches the blankets from the beds.

  He goes into his room, finds the knapsack where he keeps his work tools, and picks it up. Finally, he finds the iron casket and opens it. His mother’s wedding ring shining in the dark seems to want to comfort him.

  He puts the box into his knapsack.

  In the corridor, he sees Giuseppina’s shawl on the floor. She must have dropped it as she ran out. She never parts with it. She’s been wearing it since the day she became a part of their family.

  He grabs the shawl, returns to the front door, and crosses himself before the crucifix on the jamb. A second later, the earth starts to quake again.

  * * *

  “Thank God, this one wasn’t as long.” Ignazio shares the blankets with his brother and gives one to Vittoria. Then the shawl.

  When he returns it to Giuseppina, she feels her nightgown and finds her skin, naked. “But—”

  “I found it on the floor,” Ignazio says, casting down his eyes.

  She mutters a thank-you and wraps herself in the fabric, eager for something comforting to take away this anomalous cold. She shudders with anxiety and memories.

  “No point staying out in the open.” Paolo throws open the cowshed door. The cow makes a weak sound of protest as he drags her by the halter and ties her to the opposite wall. Then he uses flint to light a lantern and stacks heaps of hay against the walls. “Vittoria, Giuseppina, come and sit down.”

  It’s a caring act, Ignazio knows, but the tone is that of an order. The women, wild-eyed, stare at the sky and the road. They would stay in the courtyard all night if someone didn’t tell them what to do. And that’s the task of the head of the family. To be strong, to protect: that’s what a man does, especially a man like Paolo.

  Vittoria and Giuseppina let themselves collapse on a heap of straw. The little girl curls up, her fists clenched in front of her face.

  Giuseppina looks at her. She looks at her and tries not to remember but memory is a sneaky bastard that creeps up inside her, grabs her by the throat, and sucks her back into the past.

  Her childhood. Her parents. Dead.

  She scrunches up her eyelids and pushes the thought away with a deep breath. Or at least she tries. She holds Vincenzo tight, pulls down the top of her nightgown, and the child immediately clings to her nipple. His little hands grab the delicate skin, his fingernails scratching the areola.

  She’s alive. Her son’s alive. He won’t be orphaned.

  Ignazio is standing still on the threshold. He’s studying the profile of the house. Although it’s dark, he’s looking for signs of subsidence, a crack or a chipped wall, but can’t find anything. He cannot believe it, and almost doesn’t dare hope that nothing is going to happen this time.

  His mother’s memory is a gust of wind in the night. His mother laughing, reaching out with her arms, and he, a child, running toward her. All of a sudden, the box in his knapsack feels very heavy. Ignazio gets it and takes out the wrought-gold ring, which he clasps, his hand over his heart. “Mamma.”

  He says it in a whisper. It’s a prayer, perhaps a search for solace, for a hug he’s missed since he was seven years old. Since his mother, Rosa, died. It was 1783, the year of the Lord’s vengeance, when the earth trembled until there was nothing left of Bagnara but rubble. That devastating earthquake that struck Calabria and Sicily, killing thousands, and swept away dozens of people in one night in Bagnara alone.

  Even back then he and Giuseppina were close.

  Ignazio remembers her well: a pale, skinny little girl, wedged between her brother and sister, staring at two mounds of soil marked with a single cross: her parents, killed in their sleep, crushed by the rubble of their bedroom.

  He was next to his father and sister; Paolo stood a little farther back, fists clenched and a dark expression on his adolescent face. In those days, nobody mourned just their own: the funeral of Giuseppina’s parents, Giovanna and Vincenzo Saffiotti, took place on the same day as that of his mother, Rosa Bellantoni, and many other Bagnara residents. It was always the same surnames: Barbaro, Spoliti, Di Maio, Sergi, Florio.

  Ignazio looks at his sister-in-law. As soon as she lifts her head and her eyes meet his, he knows that she, too, is haunted by memories.

  They speak the same language, inhabit the same pain, and carry around the same solitude.

  * * *

  Ignazio indicates the hill beyond the village of Bagnara. “We should go and see what happened to the others.” In the darkness, lights signal the presence of houses and people. “Don’t you want to know if Mattia and Paolo Barbaro are all right?”

  There’s a slight hesitation in his voice. At twenty-three, he’s a fully grown man and yet his gestures remind Paolo of the child who used to hide behind the family house, past their father’s forge, whenever their real mother would chide him. Later, with that other one—his father’s new wife—Ignazio did not cry anymore. He would just stare at her with deep resentment and say nothing.

  Paolo shrugs. “No need. If their houses are still standing, it means nothing’s happened to them. It’s still night and dark, and Pagliara is a long way away.”

  But Ignazio keeps glancing nervously at the road and, beyond, at the high ground surrounding the village. “No. I’m going to check what’s happened.” He takes the path leading to the center of Bagnara, while his brother curses in his wake.

  “Come back!” he shouts, but Ignazio raises his hand as a sign that no, he’ll keep walking.

  He’s barefoot, in his nightshirt, but he doesn’t care: he wants to check on his sister. He goes down the high ground where Pietraliscia is located and reaches the village in a few minutes. There’s rubble here and there, chunks of roof, broken tiles.

  He sees a man running, a gash on his head. The blood shines in the torchlight with which he illuminates the alley. Ignazio walks past the square and turns into the narrow streets blocked by hens, goats, and escaped dogs. There’s a lot of chaos.

  In the courtyards, women and children are reciting the rosary or calling out to one another, asking for news. The men, on the other hand, are looking for spades and hoes, and picking up knapsacks with tools, the only things that can guarantee their livelihood, more precious than food or clothes.

  He clambers up the path to the Granaro area, where the Barbaros live.

  There, on the side of the road, are shacks made of stone and timber.

  Once upon a time, there were real houses there: he was a child but he remembers them clearly. Then the 1783 earthquake destroyed them. Those who were able to rebuilt them as best they could with whatever they had managed to salvage. Others used the ruins to build larger, wealthy houses, like his brother-in-law, Paolo Barbaro, his sister Mattia Florio’s husband.

  As a matter of fact, she’s the first person he sees: Mattia, sitting on a bench, barefoot. Her eyes are dark, her expression stern, her daughter, Anna, clinging to her nightgown and Raffaele asleep in her arms.

  At that moment, Ignazio sees his mother in her, with her dark coloring. He goes to her and puts his arms around her without saying a word. The anxiety stops biting at his heart.

  “How are you? Paolo? Vincenzo? And Vittoria?” She takes his face between her hands and kisses his eyelids. There’s a tearful note in her voice. “How’s Giuseppina?” She hugs her brother again, and he can smell bread and fruit,
a scent of home, of tenderness.

  “All safe and sound, thank God. Paolo’s put her and the children in the cowshed. I came here to see how you—how you all are.”

  Paolo Barbaro appears from behind the house. He’s leading a donkey by the halter.

  Mattia tenses up and Ignazio lets go of her.

  “Oh, good. I was about to come and get you and your brother.” He ties the animal to the cart. “We have to go to the harbor and check on the boat. Never mind if it’s just you.”

  Ignazio opens his arms and drops the blanket. “Like this? But I’m half-naked.”

  “So what? Are you embarrassed?”

  Paolo is short and stocky, while his brother-in-law is lean, with a young, sinewy body.

  Mattia comes forward, struggling with the children, who are clinging to her. “There are some clothes in the chest. He could wear—”

  Her husband silences her. “Who asked you? Why are you always butting in? As for you, hurry up, get on. With all that’s happened, nobody’ll care what he’s wearing.”

  “Mattia was only trying to help me,” Ignazio says, trying to defend her. He can’t bear to see his sister with her head down, her cheeks burning with humiliation.

  His brother-in-law jumps on the cart. “My wife always talks too much. Now let’s go.”

  Ignazio is about to answer back but Mattia stops him with a pleading look. He knows only too well that Barbaro has no respect for anyone.

  * * *

  The sea is viscous, the color of ink, and blends into the night. Ignazio jumps off the cart as soon as they reach the harbor.

  Before him is the windswept bay, enclosed by a wall of cliffs and sand, shielded by a sharp mass of mountains and Cape Marturano.

  Around the boats, men are shouting, checking the cargo, tightening ropes.

  There’s such a bustle, one would think it’s midday.

  “Let’s go.” Barbaro heads toward King Roger’s tower, where the sea is deep. That’s where the larger boats are moored.

  They come to a boat with a flat keel. It’s the San Francesco di Paola, the skiff that belongs to the Florios and Barbaro. The mainmast is swaying to the rhythm of the waves, and the bowsprit stretches out to sea. The sails are folded and the rigging is in place.