Laura Resnick - Under a Sky More Fiercely Blue.pdf - Laura Resnick - margozap

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Under a Sky More Fiercely Blue

by Laura Resnick

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First published in By Any Other Fame, DAW Books, January 1994

Fictionwise Contemporary

Alternate History

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_In July of 1943, the Allies invaded Sicily, and the Fascist government

toppled five weeks later. Despite two decades of decline under Fascism, the

Sicilian Mafia quickly stepped into the power breach -- with notable help from

the Americans. _

_Charles "Lucky" Luciano, who was serving a thirty year prison sentence

in America, was paroled in 1946 due to his "extensive and valuable aid to the

Navy during the war." The most powerful figure in organized crime, he was

immediately deported to Italy, where he lived in reluctant exile until his

death in 1962. _

_Luciano is officially recorded as having used his influence on the New

York waterfront as part of a counter-intelligence effort to prevent

anticipated sabotage by the Nazis. It is rumored, however, that he did far

more than that. Although Luciano denied it until his death, legend has it that

he was personally smuggled into Sicily in early 1943 to convince Don Calogero

Vizzini and the Sicilian Mafia to assist the Allied invasion, in exchange for

which they would be given the run of the island after the war._

* * * *

The almond trees were in bloom the day he fell out of the sky. Their blossoms

were puffs of pale pink, their appearance strangely similar to the round,

sunburned faces of the German soldiers. My mother always said that the almond

tree, the first of all trees to flower each year, was a symbol of hope. But in

February of 1943, Sicily was a place where hope had been eaten alive by

foreign invaders. And not just the Germans; the Nazis merely stole whatever

the Fascists neglected to take.

We ate what little was left over, rations which were not fit to feed a

rat -- and which were barely plentiful enough to sustain one, anyhow. All that

winter, oranges were our main sustenance. And so at thirteen, I was a small,

skinny boy with sunken eyes and sallow skin. How pathetic and sickly I must

have looked to him, a man who had lived like a king in the gold-paved streets

of America.

At first, I ignored the airplane as it soared above the ancient hills

of Western Sicily. But when the parachute blossomed under a sky more fiercely

blue than any other, my heart burned like the heart of a fire, and I hid

behind some rocks to watch its slow descent. I knew that a solitary man

falling out of the sky and landing secretly in this rocky, barren landscape

could only mean one thing: the Allies had finally sent someone to Sicily.

Of course, one man was not an army, and I quickly began to suspect that

_this_ man was not even a soldier. He fell to earth with a harsh crash and

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cursed fluidly in Sicilian dialect as he rolled downhill, getting tangled up

in his parachute. I watched as he finally fought his way out from beneath its

folds, rose stiffly to his feet, and gathered the billowing heap of silk into

a careless bundle which he then hid beneath a prickly pear. That made me grin,

for I knew no Germans would want to look for it there; I had seen them howl

like children after trying to pick the sweet fruit of the _fico d'India_.

Having hidden the parachute, he retrieved the small knapsack he had

dropped upon landing and looked around, as if trying to guess where he was.

Who knows how different the shape of my life might have been, had I stayed

hidden and let him go his way? But I realized that he was Sicilian, despite

his foreign clothes, for such things are clear to the ear and the eye. I was a

more curious boy than my mother had taught me to be, and, hoping the stranger

had food with him, I cautiously came out of hiding.

He was as alert as a wild animal, for he fell to the ground, rolled

away, and drew a pistol out of nowhere in one smooth, swift movement. I

crossed myself and tried, with a dry, sluggish tongue, to confess my sins

before God.

"Holy shit," he said in English, and I frowned at the strange sound of

the words. "A kid."

He rose slowly from the ground and looked around again, more carefully

this time.

"Are you alone?" he asked. His Italian was guttural, like my mother's.

I nodded. "Where's your father?" he demanded, as if he supposed I was lying.

I found my voice. "Dead."

"Ah. Then where are your brothers?"

I was silent until he cocked the hammer of the gun. "Marco and Rosario

are dead. Tommaso has been in Africa since 1938." I looked at the ground and

admitted, "He might be dead, too."

There was a long silence between us, and it grew so heavy that I

finally looked up. Our gazes locked, and I couldn't have looked away if my

life had depended upon it. In that moment, his eyes were as cold and flat as a

snake's, utterly indifferent to my youth and my fear. I did not tremble or beg

for mercy, for I had been raised to be a man; but I know that I could throw

myself into the fires of Mount Etna more easily than I could face a look like

that again. If I live another century, I will never forget the expression in

his eyes as he decided whether or not to kill me.

Finally, perhaps seeing how harmless I was, he lowered the pistol.

"What's your name?"

"Toto."

"Short for Salvatore?" When I nodded, he smiled beguilingly and said,

"That used to be my name, too."

"Used to be?"

He nodded. "Salvatore Lucania. But I changed it." He stuck the pistol

into the waistband of his trousers, at the small of his back where it was

hidden by his dull brown jacket. "Where are we, Toto?" he asked.

I stared at him without responding, for nothing is given away lightly

in Sicily, least of all knowledge.

"Jesus," he muttered at last. "Welcome home, Charlie."

He sat down on a rock, pulled out a packet of cigarettes, and lit one.

I crept closer and looked at the packet.

"Want one?" he asked.

I shook my head but said with interest, "American cigarettes."

His eyes went cold again, and I looked down rather than be caught in

his web. A moment later he laughed softly, startling me. "Yeah, I know. Not

too smart, if I get caught with these on me. But fuck it. Nobody is pushing me

out of a goddamned airplane and dropping me into fucking Villalba without a

pack of cigarettes."

"This isn't Villalba."

"Well, they weren't just going to drop me into the main piazza for all

the Germans to watch, kid." He inhaled deeply on his cigarette, then asked,

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"How far away are we?"

I shrugged.

"Fucking typical." He looked disgusted. "Look, I'll make it simple for

you. If you started walking right now, how long would it take you to get to

Villalba?"

I shrugged.

"Guess!" he snapped.

"A long time, I suppose. I heard once that Villalba is almost thirty

kilometers from Caltanissetta, which is already a long walk from here."

"What?" He looked at me strangely. "What is the name of your village?"

I looked away again, for I knew better than to answer anyone's

questions, particularly the questions of a stranger. But then, he was not just

any stranger. He had fallen out of the sky to land at my feet, and he had

chosen not to kill me.

"My village is Serradifalco," I said at last.

"_Porca miseria_!" He threw his cigarette to the ground and put his

head in his hands. "Can't those assholes get anything right?"

"They were supposed to drop you near Villalba?" I guessed.

He nodded. "Goddammit! And people wonder why it took those bastards

twenty years to catch me! Hell, they didn't even catch me -- the motherfuckers

set me up." He sighed and lit another cigarette. A fresh one, not the good one

he had thrown to the ground. Such waste amazed me.

"You were sent by the Americans," I said. "But you are not American."

He didn't agree, and I saw then that, unlike my neighbor Signor

Cataldo, this was a Sicilian who had never intended to come back home. He

closed his eyes and admitted, "I was born here. In Lercara Friddi."

"Then they should have sent you to Lercara Friddi, so your family could

help you."

That made him grin. "You could say I've got family in Villalba, too."

"Oh." I thought it over. "If you're going to Villalba, you'll have to

be very careful. The soldiers are very strict."

"I'll need help."

"You're a stranger here. Who will help you?"

His smile was more subtle this time, as if I had said something very

naive. "You don't know who I am, do you?"

He said it formally, in good Italian -- _Lei non sa chi io sono_. His

tone almost made a joke of it, because he was confident that if my eyes had

not been so dazzled by the spectacle of his parachute, I would have seen

immediately, as anyone could see, that he was a man of respect. A friend of

the friends -- _un amico degli amici_. My face flushed with shame at my

foolishness.

"You are of the Society," I whispered, afraid to say it aloud. Then I

frowned. "You live in America?"

"Well, that remains to be seen." His voice was rueful.

"Born in Lercara Friddi..." It was as if the Madonna whispered his name

in my ear then, for I knew instantly who he was. My throat filled with awe as

I cried, "Luciano!" Then, horrified that I had thrown his name so carelessly

to the wind, I clapped a hand over my mouth and backed away.

"Hey, it's okay, kid, calm down. If there's any spot in Italy more

godforsaken and lonely than this, I'd be surprised. No one heard you."

I let my hand drop and continued to stare in wonder. "_Luciano_," I

breathed. "_Il capo di tutti capi_."

"Cut that shit out." He shook his head and grinned again. "Ain't you

heard, Toto? I modernized things in America. We don't do things the old way

anymore. There's no boss of all bosses. I'm more like a chairman of the

board."

I bit my lip, embarrassed at my indiscretion. No matter how they did

things in America, there were many things which we never even said out loud in

Sicily. This was my first encounter with such a powerful man, and, wishing to

make a good impression, I searched for something to say. "Signor Cataldo

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returned to our village the year before the war started," I told Luciano. "He

was in America for twenty years and came home a wealthy man. He owns a _car_."

"Uh-huh."

He was clearly unimpressed. I decided not to mention the _signore's_

other fabulous possessions, and said only, "He has told us many tales about

you."

"Oh?" Luciano didn't bother to look at me, but I could tell he was

interested now. What great man does not enjoy hearing his own legend repeated

and embellished?

"Signor Cataldo says that by the time you were eighteen, you were

already a man of respect. He has told us stories of the Night of the Sicilian

Vespers and other great victories. And once, your enemies attempted to kill

you, but by a miracle of God, you survived; the knife left a scar on your

face, and you bear a new name in honor of it. It's... an American word."

"Lucky. Charlie Lucky Luciano."

"Yes. Signor Cataldo says that while still a young man, you organized

all the... the friends in America, and you became the most powerful man in the

whole country."

He grinned. "Not quite, kid. Just the most powerful man among my

friends."

"Oh." I frowned. "But why did the Americans drop you out of the sky?

Don't they want you anymore?"

He actually laughed, and the expression on his face made me remember

the tales Signor Cataldo had told of Luciano's legendary charm. Finally, still

looking amused, he said, "They sent me to do a job for them, a job nobody else

can do."

"You're going to kill the Nazi _capo_!"

"Hell, no. That kind of thing is for soldiers -- jerks who run around

happily killing each other for a dollar a day."

"But if anyone could kill him, _you_ could," I insisted, forgetting my

manners, relishing the thought. How I hated the Germans!

He shook his head. "We don't need to kill no Germans, kid. The Allied

soldiers are coming here to do it for us. Soon, too."

I sat down on a rock, not sure what to think. The old men in my village

had argued ferociously about this for months. Some longed for the invasion we

all believed the Allies were planning, for Sicilians had suffered under the

Fascists and Nazis for so very long. But, officially, we were Italians, part

of the Axis, so the Allies were our enemies. Moreover, the Nazis and Fascists

would not give up Sicily without a fight, and many of us might well be killed

in the battle the great powers would wage for control of our country. Given a

choice between the invaders who ruled us and the invaders we awaited, who

could say which was the greater evil? We all knew that Roosevelt and

Churchill, like Mussolini and Hitler, made their plans without concern for us,

our families, or our empty bellies.

I asked the only important question. "Will this end the war?"

"The invasion?" Luciano shrugged. "They expect it to, but not right

away. This is still a long way from Rome, kid. Not to mention Berlin."

"My mother says that Rome is on the other side of the moon."

He squinted against the harsh sunlight and looked around. "She's

right." His voice was bleak.

"So if you're not a soldier, why are you here?" I had by now asked him

more questions in a few minutes than I had asked anyone else in a year.

"The Allies want to save their strength for the mainland battles

they'll have to fight. They want a warm welcome here, so they won't lose too

many soldiers at such an early stage. The Americans sent me because they want

help from my friends."

"But such friends are..." I tried to think of a phrase that would not

insult him. It wasn't easy, for power is everything to such men, and theirs

had been stripped away like flimsy garments. "Many such friends have been

jailed, and others, though they are respected, have little, um... The Fascists

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changed many things here," I concluded awkwardly. "Your friends may not be as

influential as they once were."

"So I've heard. But nothing ever changes _that_ much. Especially not

here."

"So you are going to Villalba to see Don Vizzini?"

He looked at me thoughtfully. "You know him?"

I shook my head. "But everyone knows _of_ him. A man like you would

have no other reason to go to Villalba."

"Toto, do you know someone reliable? Someone who can take me to

Vizzini?"

Suddenly excited, imagining myself in a heroic scene, I said, "I can

take you!"

"Forget it. You're a kid. Anyhow, you've never been to Villalba."

"You'd have trouble finding anyone in Serradifalco who's older than me

and younger than my grandfather. Trouble, too, finding anyone in my village

who _has_ been to Villalba."

"What will your mother think when you don't come home?"

I had thought he would ask, since no man, not even a man like Luciano,

ignores his mother's wishes. "When I come home, she will be proud if I can

tell her I helped you."

"But think of how she'll suffer until then."

"She has suffered before," I said with the callousness of youth.

"Since she lives here, I don't doubt it." He rose to his feet. "Are you

sure you can take me to Villalba without getting caught?"

"For three years I have stolen fuel and meat from the soldiers without

getting caught. I've smuggled cheese and grain through these mountains to my

family, and I've traded on the black market." Pleased that he seemed to take

my accomplishments seriously, I concluded, "I can get you to Villalba safely."

He agreed to let me guide him, and we set off toward Villalba. As the

hours passed, I discovered that he enjoyed conversation, though he preferred

to ask questions rather than answer them. I explained that, when he appeared,

I had been on my way to the estate of a _latifondista_ -- a landowner -- to

steal a sheep.

"Of course, many _latifondisti_ are not as wealthy as they once were,"

I said as we followed a dry riverbed through the hills, heading north. "First

the Fascists, then the war... Still, they are richer than we are, and I think

this one can certainly spare one sheep for my family."

"There's just you, your mother, and your grandfather now?"

"Yes. And my grandfather is very ill, so it's my duty to make sure we

have something to eat."

I could see that he was no longer a young man, and he obviously wasn't

used to hiking through rough terrain, but he didn't complain or ask to rest.

Nevertheless, out of respect, I slowed my pace when I saw he was tiring. We

stayed far from the roads, of which there were very few anyhow, and

encountered no soldiers. When the sky began to darken, we decided to find

shelter. Whenever I travelled by myself, I slept outside and ate what my

mother had packed for me, since no one would want to shelter or feed a strange

boy from another village. But sheltering a man like Luciano would obviously be

another matter.

"We will stay the night with _contadini_," I said. "They will give us

something to eat."

"Peasants? Do you think they'll _have_ anything to eat?"

"For you, they will find something," I said with confidence.

Just as night descended, we stopped at a stone dwelling perched atop a

parched and stony hill. As we approached it, the door opened and a man greeted

us with a _lupara_. My blood ran cold as I looked down its barrel and thought

about how a simple movement of his finger could rip open my flesh. But the

man, whose name was Piersanto, put aside the _lupara_ when Luciano spoke. His

words revealed nothing, except that we needed food and shelter and could pay

for it. But his tone, his proud stance, his aura of command... Well, even in

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