Love is Just a Moment (4 page)

“First they came with offers of money. A gangster from the city, a cousin of Libano’s, needed somewhere to hide from the police after a botched kidnapping in Rome, and since this area is under Libano’s control they decided to send him here. My father politely refused. I remember how he treated the visitors with such calm respect before he ushered my mother to take me back inside, I remember the frightened wonder I felt to see him so calm in the face of what was, even to me, such obvious menace and evil.

“Then they returned with threats, but still my father refused them with the same polite fairness. I am a simple man of simple means, he said, I do not want anything of your world and ask only that you leave me to be in my own. Imagine how such a reasonable invocation could be its own death warrant for the man who spoke it, then you will understand the true nature of these animals who call themselves men.

“They could have sent their fugitive to any other farm on the island and indeed that is what they eventually did. But that was not enough. My father had offended them, first by refusing the allure of their wealth, and second by dismissing the strength of their threats. To such men that is an offense worth killing for, and why not? To men like Libano other human beings have no more value than cattle or sheep.

“I cannot express to you the pain, the disbelief, the agony I felt when an old neighbor came to the house in tears to tell us that my father had been gunned down in the village—this village—where he had come to deliver wool to the market. They tried to keep me sheltered from the truth but I knew from that very moment that the mean-spirited hateful man who had visited our farm in recent weeks to speak to my father was the one responsible. I knew that it was Libano who had killed him.”

Rebecca winced for the pain of that little boy who’d had so much stolen from him, so suddenly, so early in his life. She reached out and took Piero’s hand, stared at him longingly, her eyes wide and shimmering as they filled with tears.

“Piero,” she said, “I’m so sorry that happened to you.”

“It is the past now,” he said, his voice firm and cold, “history, that cannot be changed or undone. All that I can do now is avenge my father and honor that goodness that carried him throughout his life and filled him with the strength to be a man and stand up in the face of such evil. In my suitcase I carry a pistol and when I hold it I will do so with the same precision with which I held the mandolin when I sang to you earlier. And as it did then, my father’s voice will guide my hand once more.”

8

“But Piero,” Rebecca sighed, her voice uneven, desperate, “don’t you see? Then you’re only playing their own horrible game. If you do something to those guys, those sick assholes over there, then they really have won. You’re just feeding into the violence and hatred. Is that what you think your father would have wanted from you? Is that how he would have wanted you to live?”

Piero’s stony composure broke for a split second and for just a moment Rebecca caught a glimpse of that scared and uncertain little boy who had endured such tragedy so many years ago. It made her want to wrap her arms around him, press his head against her shoulder and cover him with kisses. Never let go. But it was only there for a moment and then Piero regained the determined, fatalistic expression that had taken him over since Libano’s limousine first snaked its way up the mountain road.

“No,” he said, “that is not what he would have wanted, but nonetheless it is what I will do. For all his great strengths and character, my father was not without fault. He should not have let Libano leave the farm that second day he came calling with such outrageous demands and threats, he should have known that these thugs do not make such warnings lightly. My father should have killed him when he had the chance.”

Rebecca winced again, she could feel him slipping through her fingers with every word. With every second that passed he seemed to grow more determined to carry out his terrible goal and, as he did, it seemed like more and more of that beautiful, kind soul she had come to know in him was being quenched like a faint flame in the winds of a howling, midnight storm. Soon there would be nothing left but hatred and malice. She had to do something to stop him, to save him before it was too late.

“If you do this,” she said, “I will never forgive you.”

Even though she meant the words with every fiber of her being, Rebecca immediately regretted them as she saw the pain it caused on his face, the solemn resolve, twisted now by agony and remorse. But perhaps it was right that he should feel it—because it
would
break her heart to lose him now in such a terrible way, truly, it would. He had to be made to understand that there were more souls in this world now than just him and the men he had come there to face. Just like Libano had when he destroyed the life of a good man years ago, if Piero killed him now it would leave only tragedy behind.

“Rebecca…” Piero said, his voice now hoarse and barely a whisper, “please. I hope that someday you will come to understand. Someday you will realize why we found each other today. It is proof that my destiny is true, that I should be given such a wonderful experience of beauty with such a beautiful soul as yourself. I have to believe that.”

Her brow furrowed as she stared at him, her heart brimming with such mixed and contradictory emotions that it physically hurt. She felt such sympathy for him, such sorrow for what he’d been through, but also anger for what he intended to do next, for how he would leave her here in the wake of his revenge. How could she be expected to just go back to her life after that?

“You really believe it,” she said, “don’t you? That the universe is guiding you, that it’s watching out for you?”

“I must,” Piero said, “I must believe it.”

“Well maybe it is,” Rebecca answered, imploring him now with wide, searching eyes, “but if so, couldn’t it be that the universe—God or destiny or whatever it is—sent me here
not
to share your last moment, but to stop you from doing what you came here to do? To save you from making a terrible mistake?”

Piero’s gaze dropped to his lap as his face crinkled with uncertainty. It was like she could hear the gears turning as she watched him and for the first time since Libano and his gang had arrived she felt the warm, fragile pang of hope in her heart. She was right, she considered as she reflected on the words that had seemed to spill from her breast without any thought. It made as much sense at least as Piero’s idea that destiny had brought him here to exact vengeance on these men.

But for Piero such an idea had been with him for so long that he was clearly not ready to give up on it. When vengeance has been the motivator for so long it cannot be discarded so easily—not without leaving a gaping black hole in its place.

“No,” Piero murmured, his tone failing to match the firmness of his words, “no that cannot be so. Vengeance must be done. Libano has caused too much harm already, now it is time for that to be taken away from him. I am the only one who can do it.”

“And then what?” Rebecca said, feeling more sure of herself now, “Are you going to gun down all the other Mafiosi in this country as well? Because if it’s only Libano then you can be sure someone just as bad if not worse will be willing to take his place once he’s gone.”

A slight, uncertain smile appeared on Piero’s soft lips though Rebecca certainly did not feel like there was anything to smile about. “You are very clever Rebecca,” he said, “it is true, I cannot kill all of them, I cannot do anything to diminish the force of evil in this world. But I can kill Libano, I can ensure that there is justice in this one instance at least.”

“I don’t think you believe that,” Rebecca said, “I don’t think you really believe that there’s any justice in gunning another human being down like a dog in the street. That’s what men like him do and yes, you’re right, they deserve to pay for it, but not like this.”

Piero did not speak for a moment and Rebecca waited patiently despite her own anxiety as he formed his thoughts. She was sure now that he could be reasoned with, persuaded, but the chance was spinning on the head of a needle and for now at least it could still go either way.

“When I was sixteen,” Piero said finally, “I borrowed my neighbor’s shotgun, telling him that it was to hunt the wild dogs who had been invading our farm, and then I went into Palermo to the club where Libano and his masters were known to conduct their business. Back then, inflamed with the fires of youth and still reeling from the loss of my father six years previously, it was not enough that I should deal with Libano—I intended to kill all of those men in that organization. I wanted to wipe them off the face of the earth completely.

“I waited all night in an alleyway across from the club and when they finally showed up I moved out of the darkness towards them, and the shotgun clutched beneath my father’s jacket—itself several sizes too big for me—was almost the same height that I was. I went to the back of the building where a low basement window would give me opportunity to take aim and fire at will, a foxhole to shoot through where they would not be able to return fire, provided I caught them off-guard and moved fast with an aim that was true. I was ready to do it then Rebecca, truly, and if there was chance that I too would die then I would do so willingly with the name of my father on my lips.

“I lay down on my stomach, the broad jacket spread out over my body and the gun perched and aimed beneath me. I had them in my sights, my aim was on Libano and I was ready to do it when another entered the alleyway. It was the doorman of their club, a big dumb hateful brute who had probably caused as much pain and suffering in his own life as any of them. If he had known what I was really there to do I would have died before I’d even seen him. I would have died and Libano would have lived.

“But he was stupid and mistook me for a homeless boy. Presuming me asleep, he kicked me in the side and when I turned to look up at him, my over-sized coat still covering the gun beneath me, the terror I felt so arrested me that I could not utter a word. You drunken little rat, he said, if you don’t get out of here we’ll break your legs. I nodded wildly, words now returning as I apologized and promised to move as soon as I regained my strength. The brute told me he would be back in two minutes and if I wasn’t gone by then they’d make me pay for my indolence. When he turned and went back to the door, I got up and—hiding the gun beneath my father’s coat—hurried away. The time was not right, I knew. I had been spared for a reason.”

“What was it?” Rebecca asked, thinking now that if something had made him doubt his mission then, it might be possible for it to do so again.

“It was my mother,” Piero said, firmly, solemnly, “she needed me, she was all I had, and it was a terrible thing that I was prepared to leave her alone like that just to exact my revenge. I knew that I was needed at home, that I had to be with her, and that I would have to wait from then until the time was right to really do what was called of me. That was why I was spared.”

He looked at Rebecca, his gaze open and serious and careful. “If my father had lived I think they would both have gone far into old age, strengthened and nourished by the force of their love. But after his death, she was never the same. In ten years she seemed to age three times that and though I looked after her to the best of my ability, loved her with the same power that I had always loved them both, there was nothing I could do to mend her broken heart. Three days ago, I found her, cold and still in her bed. Finally she was with the one she loved again and soon I would be with them too. But first I had to fulfill my obligations in this world. I spread my mother’s ashes on the grave of my father and then I took the bus to Montagna Del Mare, knowing that Libano and his accomplices dined here on this day every week. That is where I was today before I found you.”

9

Rebecca felt the pain and anguish of her empathy for him well up inside her like a wave of daggers. Now at last she could fully understand him, fully understand his sense of purpose. This bright, clean hopeful soul had had everything he’d ever held dear to him taken away by the callous cruelty of wicked men. No wonder he was so ready and willing to take such drastic action in the name of revenge. His life had been robbed of everything else.

“Oh my God,” she whispered, “Piero, I’m so sorry.”

She reached out to take his hand and though he lifted his other in protest he did not stop her from taking it in hers and squeezing him tight. He tried to dismiss her pity but his voice broke off into nothingness, a quaver of emotion that even he could no longer subdue. It was a moment before he had the strength to speak again.

“Now I am alone,” he said, “and the circle can finally be complete. Now there is nobody to miss me when I’m gone, to need me in their life. Now, there is only me and Libano.”

She squeezed his hand tighter, studying his beautiful face which seemed to be striving with every inch of his being to remain stone-faced and cold. She could almost see the sorrow and hardship that he’d endured, foaming like the waves of a tempest tide just below the surface of that cold, determined expression. Surely it could not be long before it washed him all away, everything that he was, lost to pain and suffering.

“No,” she said, “that’s not true. Piero, you do have somebody who needs you—you have me.”

He winced with genuine pain, his eyes determined to keep their gaze anywhere but from the power of her own. “Please,” he murmured, “don’t say this to me now.”

“But I have to,” she said, “I know we’ve only just met and I know that you’ve lost so much, but this is the truth. I do need you now. Yes, I need you to stop this crazy mission of yours, but more than that, I need you in my life. I need you to be with me.”

He did not speak, his gaze still burning into the near-distance beyond her, but neither did he take his hand from the comfort of her own and she strove now to put all of her soul, all of her goodness into that touch, to imbue him with the honesty of her words.