«At Ponte dell’Ammiraglio, along the road, over the arches, under the bridge and in the fields, they’re massacred by bayonets.»
I made contact with Don Fortunato by surprising him, one morning after Mass, as he was quietly sipping his coffee. The café was in the center of town, almost elegant, and Don Fortunato was relaxed, his face angled toward the sun, eyes closed, a few days’ growth of beard, a black jacket and cravat even on those days of searing heat, and a barely lit cigar between his nicotine-stained fingers. I noticed they add lemon peel to the coffee down here—I hope they don’t also put it into caffelatte.
Sitting at a nearby table, all I had to do was complain about the heat and our conversation had begun. I told him I’d been sent by the Roman Curia to find out what was going on in these parts, and this allowed Musumeci to speak freely.
«Most reverend Father, do you think that a thousand men, gathered together from all over the place, armed any old way, are able to land at Marsala without losing a single man? Why was it that the Bourbon navy—the finest fleet in Europe after the English—fired here and there without hitting a single person? And later at Calatafimi, how did the same band of a thousand bunglers—plus several hundred young scoundrels sent out there with a kick up their backsides by a few landowners who wanted to curry favor with the occupying forces—when put in front of one of the best-trained armies in the world (and I don’t know whether you’re aware of what a Bourbon military academy is like)…how did that thousand or so bunglers manage to drive back twenty-five thousand men, even if only a few thousand of them had actually been sent into battle and the others had been held back in their barracks? It took money, my dear sir, large quantities of money to pay off the naval officials at Marsala.
And General Landi, after a day at Calatafimi when everything was still in the balance, had enough fresh troops to see off those volunteers. But instead he retreated to Palermo! It is said, you know, that they’ve tipped him fourteen thousand ducats. And his superiors? General Ramorino was shot by firing squad in Piedmont some twelve years ago for far less than that—not that I’m particularly fond of the Piedmontese, but they do understand a thing or two about military matters. Yet Landi was simply replaced by Lanza, who, I reckon, had already been paid off. In fact, look at this famous conquest of Palermo…Garibaldi had reinforced his band with three thousand five hundred scoundrels rounded up from among Sicily’s convicts, and Lanza had around sixteen thousand men—yes, sixteen thousand.
And rather than using them en masse, Lanza sent them off against the rebels in small groups, and they were overwhelmed—inevitably—not least because various local turncoats were paid to shoot at them from the rooftops. Here at the port, Piedmontese ships unload rifles for the volunteers under the eyes of the Bourbon ships, and on land Garibaldi is allowed to reach Vicaria prison and the forced labor camp where he liberates another thousand common criminals, recruiting them into his band. And I can hardly tell you what is now happening in Naples. Our poor sovereign is surrounded by wretches who have already received their money and are sapping the ground from under his feet.»
«Where does all this money come from?»
«Most reverend Father! I am astonished that you in Rome know so little! It is English Freemasonry! Can’t you see the connection? Garibaldi a Mason, Mazzini a Mason, Mazzini exiled in London in contact with the English Masons, Cavour a Mason who receives orders from the English lodges, all Garibaldi’s men are Masons. The plan is not so much to destroy the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies but to inflict a fatal blow on His Holiness, because it is clear that, after the Two Sicilies, Vittorio Emanuele also wants Rome. You believe the yarn about these volunteers setting off with ninety thousand lire in their pockets, which would hardly be enough to feed that band of gluttons and drunkards during the voyage? Just look at the way they’re devouring Palermo’s last supplies of food and pillaging the surrounding countryside. The fact is the English Freemasons have given three million French francs to Garibaldi in gold Turkish piasters, which can be spent anywhere in the Mediterranean!»
«And who is looking after the gold?»
«The general’s trusted Freemason, Captain Nievo, a young whippersnapper, not yet thirty years old, who is no less than the official paymaster. But these devils are paying off generals, admirals and anyone you like, while poor people starve. The peasants were expecting Garibaldi to divide up their masters’ estates, and instead the general has sided with those who own land and money. Mark my words, those young ruffians who went off to risk their lives at Calatafimi, as soon as they realize nothing has changed, will start shooting at the volunteers, and with the very same rifles they’ve stolen from the dead.»
Abandoning the cassock, I wandered about the city in my red shirt and happened upon a monk, Father Carmelo, on the steps of a church. He said he was twenty-seven but looked forty. He wanted to join us, he confided, but something was holding him back. I asked him what it was—after all, there had been friars at Calatafimi.
«I would come with you,» he said, «if I was sure you were doing something truly great. All you can say is that you want to unite Italy so as to create one country. If the people are suffering, they will suffer whether united or divided, and I don’t know if you’ll be able to stop that suffering.»
«But the people will have freedom and schools,» I told him.
«Freedom is not bread, nor are schools. Perhaps such things are enough for you up there in Piedmont, but not for us Sicilians.»
«What do you want, then?»
«Not a war against the Bourbons, but a war by the poor against those who are starving them, who aren’t just at court, but all over the place.»
«And that includes you monks, whose monasteries and lands are everywhere?»
«Yes, it includes us—indeed us first, before everyone else! But with the Gospel and with the Cross. Then I’d come. Your way is not enough.»
From what I’d learned at university about the famous Communist Manifesto, this monk must be one of them. I understand so little about this island of Sicily.
Perhaps because I have been obsessed by the idea since my grandfather’s time, I began to wonder whether the Jews were also involved in this conspiracy to support Garibaldi. They are nearly always involved somehow. So I went back to see Musumeci.
«But of course,» he said. «First of all, while not all Masons are Jews, all Jews are Masons. And what about Garibaldi’s men? I was amused to look at the list of volunteers at Marsala, published ‘in honor of those gallant men.’ And there I found names such as Eugenio Ravà, Giuseppe Uziel, Isacco D’Ancona, Samuele Marchesi, Abramo Isacco Alpron, Moisé Maldacea and Colombo Donato, formerly known as Abramo. Do you suppose they’re good Christians with names like that?»
(16th June) I went to visit Captain Nievo, carrying the letter of introduction. He’s a young blade with a pair of well-groomed whiskers and a tuft beneath his lip, who cultivates the attitude of a dreamer. A mere pose—while we were speaking, a volunteer came in to ask about some blankets to be collected, and like an officious bookkeeper he reminded him that his company had already been given ten the previous week. «Are you eating blankets?» Nievo asked. «If you want to eat any more, I’ll send you off to a cell to digest them.» The volunteer saluted and disappeared.
«You see what work I have to do? They’ll have told you I’m a man of letters. And yet I have to supply soldiers with money and clothing, and order twenty thousand new uniforms because every day new volunteers arrive from Genoa, La Spezia and Livorno. Then there are pleas for money—counts and duchesses who want an allowance of two hundred ducats a month and think that Garibaldi is the archangel of the Lord. Everyone here expects matters to be sorted out from above. It’s not like the north—if we want something, we get going and do it. They’ve entrusted the coffers to me, perhaps because I graduated from Padua in civil and canon law, or because I’m not a thief, which is a great virtue on this island where prince and shyster are one and the same.»
He clearly enjoyed playing the absent-minded poet. When I asked him whether he’d already been made colonel, he said he didn’t know. «The situation here is rather confused,» he said. «Bixio is trying to impose the sort of discipline you find in Piedmont, as if it were a military academy, but we’re just a band of irregular troops. Leave out such trifles, however, if you’re writing articles for Turin. Try to convey the true excitement, the enthusiasm everybody feels. There are people here who are laying down their lives for something they believe in. The rest are treating it as an adventure in colonial
