No Mortal Thing

‘We weren’t grand enough.’


‘I think he would have done well with Wilhelmina. I reckon she was ready for him.’

‘Bastard. He’ll go through the mill now.’

‘We never knew him.’

‘Right. Never did – he wouldn’t let us.’



It was their sacred home. His grandmother, had she been there, and his mother, would have bent the knee, kissed crucifixes and muttered prayers. They had come down the steep road, leaving the hillsides of rock and scrub high above them, and were beside a dry stream. The scooter was parked and the kid drank fruit juice.

The sacred home of the ’Ndrangheta, certainly for the clans on the eastern coast, was the shrine at Polsi, dedicated to the Madonna of the Mountains. It was regarded as holy and valued. Marcantonio had just travelled from Berlin, where there was no rubbish, no filth, no litter. This was a precious site. He saw the weeds between the cobbles, the carpet of cigarette ends, the fast-food wrappers and the booths where souvenirs were sold. Mass would be said in the morning at the church, but his grandfather and Stefano would duck their heads in sham respect at the outer door and not enter. They sidled into the shadows thrown by the early sunlight. He followed. He had been away for six months but took no liberties with his grandfather. He hung back and would come forward when called.

A guide was leading the first pilgrims of the day on a tour and told them that initial Christian recognition of Polsi’s significance had come from Roger II of Sicily, in the twelfth century: he’d had three wives, ten children by them, five more from his mistresses, and had begun the veneration of the Madonna here. The guide added that there had been pagan ceremonies on the site linked to the goddess Persephone and fertility, but it was too early for the pilgrims to chuckle.

Marcantonio had been brought here a month before the killing of Annunziata, and his grandfather had taken him to a ramshackle café above the church. They had had a lunch, cooked in primitive conditions, and planned how he would deal with his aunt, then go to Germany. Nowhere in Germany, in any Italian restaurant, had he eaten such superb goat’s cheese, neck of pig and stomach wall, or strawberry grapes. The woman who had cooked for them had looked hard at him, then said, ‘I hope the Madonna will help you. If you touch her heart, you will come back.’ That day they were not in Polsi to linger.

It was important to be there, to be seen. In days past, the principals of all the families had met at Polsi to share business, examine procedures and settle disputes. Men came from Australia, Canada, Germany, Holland and northern Italy, and followed the instructions of the elders. Years later, when he was in his early teens, men had been photographed by an undercover carabinieri officer, with a camera strapped to his belt and a lens hard against a fake button in his coat. The big groups no longer came. Because of undercover efforts, many had gone to gaol, but Polsi was good for small meetings.

His grandfather met two men in shadows against a wall. He gestured Marcantonio forward. Two cold faces, two forced smiles, two iron handshakes. He was looked over as if he were an unbroken horse – perhaps promising, perhaps not, perhaps good for a marriage, perhaps not. He was waved away. If his grandfather felt disappointed or annoyed at his dismissal, he did not show it. For fuck’s sake, he had been up early, left the girl, had dressed and shaved, than sat in that car. Had he come all this way to be ignored? He bowed and moved back graciously, giving no hint of his irritation. Marcantonio understood the powers that existed in the mountains and did not challenge them. His time would come. His grandfather was frail, heavy on his feet, and breathed hard when climbing steps. His time would come soon.



The man had dozed and dawn rose over the gates of the city’s premier public gardens.

The movement of their car alerted him. The engine was switched on and the lights of the dashboard brightened. A high performance vehicle.

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