Tina, Mafia Soldier by Maria Rosa Cutrufelli

Author:Maria Rosa Cutrufelli
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Soho Press

IT WAS THE LAST “crazy escapade,” as she would say afterward. The last action taken recklessly, with no aim other than the affirmation of her existence. For some crazy fun, capricious exhibitionism.

The intention was that the gathering was supposed to be a kind of party. Like all parties, a lush meal was planned. In the countryside, on a Sunday. Nele had assured them he’d participate. He would come with a guest of respect, a mafioso. A promise that had electrified the boys, determined to show off, to do cartwheels in front of the two men. Fast on their motorcycles, experts with knives and guns; there were a lot of them and they were talented. Their skills had to be displayed. A competition in order to get themselves noticed by the two adults.

Ultimately though, neither one nor the other showed up.

The farmstead belonged to a family of shepherds who were connected to the man of honor. Tina knew that for months, two armored cars had been hidden in the stable.

“A hundred million lire each.” Nele had spelled it out, rubbing together his thumb and index finger to mean in cash. But in that moment the stable was empty and the farmstead unused. The boys had the all-clear.

There were forty of them, perhaps more, all male. They ate roast chicken and pizzas bought in town, because they were used to delis and fast food. They were boys, not men like Nele and his friends who wouldn’t give up eating roasted mutton and prepared it with their own hands, during those meetings where they didn’t want even one woman under foot. They were boys. And they’d go even a hundred kilometers there and a hundred kilometers back for a dinner at McDonald’s or any other fast-food restaurant that was in fashion at the moment.

The farmstead was sunken in the basin of a valley. Pastures in front of it, pastures behind. On the sloping hills the deep, dull green of the almond trees mingled with the shining gray of the olive trees.

The boys were eating and taking turns playing chicken on the dirt path. They took off at full speed on their souped-up motorbikes, from opposite ends, hurling themselves one against the other and dodging away at the last second. The tires raised the dust, veiling the path in an artificial haze that made it more difficult to calculate distance and when to dodge. And it made the final impact still more natural and more probable.

This game bored Tina. She would never have wasted her beautiful Yamaha with its rounded sides and flawless chrome plating on an empty thrill.

Miserable, like a poisoned beast! Nele not showing up wounded Tina’s pride. It was a source of anguish, of apprehension, revealed by the red blotches that broke out on her face at every appointment he missed. She knew how risky it was to relax or simply let one’s guard down now that the relations between clans and even between men in the same mafia family had become a continual war.

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