The Prince (8 page)

As in previous years, Ciccio Vinciguerra arrived at the service door of the Licata palace and walked down the long corridor leading to the large downstairs bathroom. There he met the other “hundred saints” who, like him, had been summoned to the celebration of Saint Christopher, the patron saint of the prince's ancestral family.

After all one hundred of the town's poor had washed their feet in preparation, they were led, barefoot, to the Hall of Globes, which was on the main floor of the palazzo. Ciccio Vinciguerra, herded along with the other peasants, walked through the sumptuous corridors with his face upturned, admiring the designs and colors of the ceiling frescoes commemorating the triumph of Jupiter, driving a chariot.

They entered the hall and took their places along the walls, preparing to wait patiently for the arrival of their host and his sister.

At that moment, Ferdinando Licata was speaking with Manfredi, Rosario Losurdo's most trusted campiere, who had recently returned from Ethiopia.

Now close to sixty, Manfredi had served the Licata family as an armed guard from time immemorial. Before him, there had been his father, and even before that, his grandfather. For him, land was a religion, and ever since he was a child—seeing his parents devote themselves to it until they were worn out—he had dreamed of owning a piece of it. That morning, Manfredi had made a big decision, prompted primarily by the insistence of his wife, Adele, and his son Nicola. He had taken advantage of the feast of the
Cento Santi
to go ask a favor of the prince. It was an ancient tradition in Sicily, on certain feast days, to present pleas to those in power.

“
Patri
,” he began, using the customary term of reverence for the prince, after bowing and kissing his hand. “I have a request to ask of you. You've known me since I was a child, and you've seen my little ones born. All my life I've served you and protected the lands that you gave me to look after. You've never had to complain about me or my family.”

“Manfredi, you are one of the most loyal men I know,” the prince indulged him, to hasten along the pleasantries, “but please, go on. Between us, two words are already too many. What is it you have to ask me?” The prince conveyed an innate sense of authority, and therefore inspired fear.

“
Patri
,” the campiere went on with considerable emotion, “I would never dare ask you, but I've reached the age when a wife and children prod you. . . In short, Father, over the years, my family has made many sacrifices. There are three of us who work on your lands.”

“Two,” the prince corrected, “it seems to me Nunzio has been busy with other matters for quite some time now.”

“Prince, it's not easy to raise children these days. Someone puts certain ideas in their head and all our teachings go to hell—with all due respect.”

“Honesty is praised by all, but dies of neglect,” the prince made a long story short.

“Father,” the campiere continued in a supplicating tone, twisting his cap in his hands, “during the months I spent in Africa, I put aside some money; just a little, actually. There's a piece of land down in the valley of the Madonnuzza. I'm talking about just a small plot; a
salmo
. It's barren, abandoned for a hundred years or more now. There's no water nearby. But
vossia
would fulfill an old dream of mine if you would offer it to me for that little bit of money.”

The prince was surprised by the request. “My dear Manfredi, I wouldn't want to rob you,” he said at last, moving toward the door. “Why on earth should you take for your own that piece of land abandoned by God and by man? Do you know the effort it would cost you to make it yield a few potatoes?”

“Consider it an obsession of mine. I beg you.” Manfredi grabbed the prince's hand to keep him from leaving the room.

The prince freed himself from his grip. “We don't divide up the land; you know that. It's a rule. But how much do you have to offer me, Manfredi?”

“Everything we've saved up till now: six thousand liras.” Ferdinando Licata wasn't easily moved, yet the man's moral strength touched him. He also knew that the money wasn't the result of years of scrimping, otherwise he would have said “everything
I've
saved.” It was the result of the cheating and stealing his son Nunzio carried out along with Lorenzo Costa and Jano Vassallo at the expense of the poor farmers in the area.

But he pretended to be unaware of the origin of that small fortune. For one thing, he didn't want to completely alienate the friendship of the family that for three generations had served the Licatas so devotedly. So he answered with a winning smile: “With five thousand liras, I can buy half a Balilla sedan. It would be a good deal . . .

“All right, Manfredi: give me five thousand liras and consider the other thousand my personal gift to you to dig a well. You get a plot of land down in the Madonnuzza, in Sòllima, okay? Let's shake on it.”

Manfredi needed a few moments to realize that the prince had accepted his proposal, and for only five thousand liras! He responded with a big smile and devotedly shook the hand that Ferdinando Licata offered him, indicating a signed contract.

Adjacent to the Hall of Globes was a vestibule furnished with two massive cherry-wood armoires reaching to the ceiling, similar to those found in cathedral sacristies. The prince headed there after his meeting with Manfredi and removed his velvet jacket while his older sister, Lavinia, assisted by the maid, took several white lace-trimmed garments from one of the wardrobes. The ceremony that was about to begin was one that Ferdinando Licata himself had insisted on in recent years to make his presence felt by his most needy fellow townsmen. In actuality, it was an expedient that he had contrived to silence his sense of guilt or at least appease it for a few hours.

The doors of the Hall of Globes were thrown open, and an eerie silence immediately descended within those ancient walls. All one hundred peasants looked toward the door, and soon, as in a miraculous apparition, the unmistakable figure of Prince Ferdinando Licata loomed before them, an image of extraordinary nobility, touching in its humanity. Instinctively all the peasants bowed their heads and upper bodies in reverence. The prince acknowledged this with an imperceptible nod of his head. Then, like a pope, he walked to the center of the hall, followed by two maids carrying several white cloth towels folded over their arms and by other servants bearing enameled basins and large pitchers of water. Bringing up the rear of the procession was the stern figure of Lavinia, who with precise signals directed the servants as they silently and efficiently prepared the staging for the rite of ablution.

Among the group of farmers, the tension was palpable. They all stood in awe of the prince, and they weren't able to fully understand this ceremony in which Ferdinando Licata washed their feet, much as Christ had washed the feet of his disciples at the Last Supper.

At a sign from Lavinia, one of the maids took the arm of one of the peasants and led him to the chair, making him sit down. Meanwhile, the prince approached a basin, rolling up the sleeves of his linen gown. He bent down, dipped the farmer's foot in the water and performed the ritual cleansing.

When the ablution was completed, the farmer stood up, leaving the chair to another poor peasant. The ceremony was repeated, amid the commotion of the servants and the embarrassment of the peasants, until the last participant had his turn.

Then everyone moved to the nearby dining room, where several tables had been laid with the finest dinnerware and where, with the help of his servants, the prince himself served his friends, until the final toast was made.

The other noblemen in the area considered Ferdinando Licata eccentric to say the least for these practices of his. Moreover, they didn't understand why he refused the title of “Don” from his fellow townsmen, given that he had a double right to it: both because he was of aristocratic ancestry and because there in Salemi he was the head of a great community, including blood relations and farmers. But Ferdinando preferred to have those under his protection call him
u patri
, because to them he was like a real father. And the people in the territory of Salemi reciprocated with respect for his authority and with a reverence that verged on the fanatical.

Licata subjected himself to that mortifying ritual for a number of reasons, all well concealed and buried in the deep recesses of his conscience. From time to time, one of them presumptuously cropped up to claim his attention. The most frequent one was associated with the memory of an English girl named Carole.

The young woman had traveled throughout Europe before landing in Sicily, where mutual friends had spoken to her of Prince Licata. The meeting between the two was a classic case of love at first sight. For weeks and months, they were lost in each other. The days spent with her were joyful, full of vibrant scents and colors. In her company, the world seemed like paradise. Licata had never experienced that intimate emotion called love, though he'd had many women before Carole. And she too was in love with his thick, wavy hair, his sky-blue eyes, his authoritative ways, and his physicality. But then something happened that shattered the beautiful dream. Although the coming of a child is generally a blessing from heaven for two people who are in love, that was not the case for Ferdinando Licata. At the age of thirty-nine, he did not feel he could take on the responsibility of a wife, let alone a child, and so he made a mistake that he regretted for the rest of his life.

The celebration of the One Hundred Saints, as well as a number of munificent donations he made to a convent of orphans and to a monastery of Franciscan friars, had led him to become one of Monsignor Albamonte's beloved favorites. From as far back as anyone could remember, the monsignor had counted the prince among his most trusted friends, initiating several lucrative deals with him. And for some years now, Monsignor Albamonte was in the habit of taking part in the One Hundred Saints day. It cost him nothing, and what's more, since the townsfolk associated it with the prince's philanthropic actions, he received many indirect benefits from it.

After having seen to serving his guests,
u patri
went to sit beside his friend the monsignor.

“My dear prince,” the monsignor said, shifting a chair to make it easier for Ferdinando to sit down, “the day when you no longer burn with love, many here in Salemi will freeze to death.” The prelate had a perpetual smile stamped on his face, to express his benevolence.

Ferdinando replied jokingly, “It's really true that you only live as long as you love. And for us, my dear monsignor, not much time is left.”

The priest fittingly touched wood. “Prince, what are you saying?” He smiled, touching the tabletop with his pinkie and index finger extended to form the sign of the horns. “Let's not stop Providence's wheel from turning.”

Don Antonio, thanks to his acquaintances and the gears he'd been so capable of oiling, had managed to become bishop of Salemi in just a few years, and consequently enjoyed a true economic power within the territory.

The two old friends, whenever they met, never missed an opportunity to talk about the good old days. The monsignor recalled once again the evening of their first meeting at Palazzo Cesarò in 1920. A simple parish priest at the time, he had found the ideas of the young Prince Licata to his liking. And he wasn't the only one they'd made an impression on. Indeed, after that meeting, the Sicilian aristocracy's esteem for Prince Ferdinando Licata skyrocketed. Gabellotti, campieri, estate overseers, the armed guards, sharecroppers—all the way down to the last farmer—the populace saw in him the enlightened spirit of a true leader.

– 1920 –

F
or the first time since anyone could remember, the “party of noble agrarians” was faced with the new demands of the times. The “agrarians,” as the large landowners, or
latifondisti
, were called, felt entitled to intervene wherever lawlessness had gone too far, not relying on the help of a distant, inept government. They even considered seceding from the national state, an idea that the journalist Raffaele Grassini would carry to the extreme several decades later with his proposal of an independent Sicily, or “Trinacria.”

Meanwhile, during that period of feverish upheaval, Ferdinando Licata, along with some of his most trusted friends, including Don Antonio Albamonte, was able to seize ownership of many lands. He did this by unscrupulously exploiting the same laws that allowed cooperatives —some formed by returning war veterans, some by socialist “reds,” some by the radical priest Don Sturzo's “white” peasant leagues—to acquire uncultivated or neglected lands in perpetual lease. Ferdinando Licata expanded his estates enormously, becoming one of the largest landowners in Sicily. Thanks to his reputation as a wise and generous man, seemingly in favor of ceding lands to the peasants and averse to violence, it was not difficult for him to find people willing to accept his protection. For the farmers, the majority of whom were illiterate, it was a relief to have someone like him manage the cooperative to which their land share was apportioned. He was accustomed to repeating to his most trusted collaborators his basic principles: “I take and give to others, I eat and let others eat.” The fact that he got the roast while the other diners got the crumbs mattered little in a society where meals were often skipped entirely.

Naturally, this approach caused him violent pangs of guilt toward his fellow townsmen. Prince Licata had a strong sense of innate justice, and knowing that he too helped make the lives of those poor unfortunates more miserable had caused him a number of physical problems, the most obvious of which was an ulcer that for years tormented him day and night.

His first masterstroke of politico-speculative diplomacy was achieved a couple of months after the meeting at Palazzo Cesarò. It was Don Antonio Albamonte himself who gave him the opportunity to participate in one of the first Sicilian peasant cooperatives.