He couldn’t remember where the candles were or the matches. Stefano would have known where they were. Bernardo had an old watch, given him long before by a friend, who had been shot dead in the open market of Gioiosa Ionica. He had had it more than twenty years and it still told good time, but the luminous paint on the arms had faded. He could have had a Rolex, a Breitling, a Longines or an Omega for four or five thousand euros – he could have matched the watch Marcantonio had bought in Berlin. He could have had any watch, and the face would have been lit, the hands clear to see. Teresa had a good watch, and Marcantonio’s was on the chest in his bedroom. Mamma would not part with the one he had given her for a birthday twenty-nine years ago, from a shop on Corso Giuseppe Garibaldi in Reggio. No watch with illuminated hands. No red light on the plug for the small fridge, or for the tworing stove, or for the mini-boiler on the wall. No light at the heater on the floor or the air-conditioner.
If it had been midnight, and he had been in his house and the power had gone, he could have stood at the front door, while Mamma rooted out the candles, the hurricane lamp or the big torch, and looked down and to the east where he would have seen some of the streetlights on the coastal road. There might have been moonlight. Headlights on the roads below the village, and stars above. Some houses in the village had small generators. He had no light to look at. Nothing. It was as the cave had been – but not for Bernardo.
The inner door, if he could find it, led to the tunnel of concrete pipes and was power-assisted. He could open it by hand, but electricity made the job easier. The outer door could be opened only when the power was on. And he didn’t know what he might trip over or blunder into next. The child in the cave had not been able to hurt herself in the darkness because the chain had held her. At the back of the cave, where she had been, where her mattress was and where water dripped from the rock above, there would have been the same black emptiness.
He had been told by Stefano that he might blow the fuse if he overloaded the system – but he had not. Nothing new was plugged in. He had to wait for Stefano – but his driver was far away. If not Stefano, he must wait for his daughter, but Giulietta was tracking the priest whom he had condemned. His daughter-in-law would have had the strength to open the far door from the outside, but she never came to the bunker. She did nothing that might spoil her clothes. Mamma would not come – and she was deaf: she wouldn’t hear him if he shouted when she was next near to the door, feeding her chickens.
The dark was unique to him. He could see nothing. He didn’t want to move for fear of hurting himself. There were times when the leader of a family, the padrino, must show courage, must lead his men of honour from the front, set the example. Now nobody was watching. Nobody cared to see his courage. He had begun to shake, and he couldn’t suppress the tremor in his arms and hands. His legs felt weak. Silence clawed at him. When the child had been in the cave there had been the noise of dripping water, and she had told him tearfully she had heard rats moving. No water dripped in his bunkers and no vermin had found its way in.
He was surrounded by silence, in total darkness, and the shaking in his limbs was worse. He didn’t know when anyone would come, or whether he was forgotten. He thought it pointless to shout: he would not be heard.
Jago sat on the flat surface of the rock, his back against a bank of sparse earth, stones and the network of roots from a birch tree; all of his body was in shadow and he thought himself well hidden.
He had a view he rated excellent – maybe that was what his life had come down to, the rating of a view, not the credit rating of a company or the wealth rating of a potential investor. He could see the porch roof at the front of the house, the parking area where the City-Van was usually left, and down the track to where the men stood guard. The oil drum was lit and threw up sparks; beyond it were the lights of the carabinieri vehicles. He could also see the kitchen door, the patio with the single wooden seat, the yard before the trellis blocked him, the line of sheets and the roof of the derelict shed. Nothing happened, no panic. Only the chickens scratched and fussed in the grit. He wondered how it was in the darkness, what the man was doing.
It might have been a total failure. The old boy could have slipped off his bed or out of his chair, found his way immediately to a shelf, a cupboard or drawer, picked up a power torch, and switched it on. The dark might have been only a minor inconvenience. Jago considered that unlikely. Chaos and confusion, in his limited experience, always accompanied a power-cut, as if the world was ending. Nobody stayed calm when the electricity failed. He expected that Bernardo would appear eventually, stressed, and breathless.
He did not consider his effort worthless. The picture in his mind was of the old man trapped in darkness, afraid. Jago had his knees up and his arms round them. At that moment, with the crows and the pigeons settled in the branches above him, and the light gone, he reflected that he held the power, not Marcantonio’s grandfather. He had, he thought, more power and control than he had ever possessed in his life.
He thought it would play out in front of him that evening. The cool breeze was refreshing. Food would have been acceptable, but in comparison to what he had achieved, and where he was headed, that was a trivial concern. Below him, it would explode, he was sure.