In Sicily by Norman Lewis

Author:Norman Lewis
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780312290481
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

10

MANY PLACES OF special interest to me were in the less accessible west of the island, which through poor communications was little influenced by the outside world. An immediate problem arose. It is an area more or less dominated by Corleone - the only large town - and its sole hotel, recently opened, had only stayed in business a few months before being closed down. There were several small towns in reach of Palermo to be visited - one of these, San Giuseppe Iato, was currently filling the newspapers with accounts of its bloody feuds - but we were put off making short trips from the capital by the traffic jams that imprisoned cars entering or leaving Palermo both in the morning and evening.

A solution was proposed by Marcello’s sister-in-law, Gabriella, in a suggestion put rather cautiously as if she was not quite sure that it should be made. Renowned in Palermo as the leading artist in the creation of theatre backgrounds and effects, Gabriella lived alternatively in the heart of the city and in a forest retreat on the margin of the famous and somewhat sinister Ficuzza wood, some twenty-five miles from the capital. This was the only woodland to survive in Sicily since the island’s deforestation by the Romans and such was its reputation that when on a previous trip I had mentioned to Marcello my intention of visiting it he had emphasized the necessity of my employing an armed guard.

Gabriella was by nature adventurous. Ficuzza, she said, defeated the tameness of normal existence. She knew of a place nearby where we could find a room. ‘It’s rather private. All the people who go there know each other. They don’t take to outsiders. But if you feel like staying there I’ll do my best to arrange it. Just keep on going until the road stops, and you’ll see it where the trees begin. It’s very small and quiet. We call it the kingdom of silence.’

‘Sounds just what we’re looking for,’ I said, and we set out.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.