ch.6 The ferry to Palermo

Vito was sitting on a rusty iron bench at the port of Cagliari, the warm late-April sun warming the back of his neck without burning it. Few passersby: an old man fishing with a line, a couple of German tourists with backpacks, a stray dog ​​sniffing a bag of chips. The Tirrenia ferry to Palermo was docked at Pier 3, the gangway already lowered, the engines roaring softly like an expectant heart.

He had money from the tobacconist and the hardware store, but he didn't want to use it all. Not yet.

He spotted the souvenir shop twenty meters away: a glass cube with the sign "Souvenirs Sardinia - Low Prices!" Inside, a young woman—twenty years old, black hair tied in a ponytail, a T-shirt with the Sardinian flag—was arranging cork figurines and magnets. She was clumsy: she left the cash register open, turned to pick up bags, and forgot her phone on the counter.

Vito stood up. He walked slowly, hands in his pockets, hat pulled down. He entered.

"Good morning," the girl said, smiling nervously.

"I'm looking for a map," Vito replied, his voice low and polite.

The girl turned toward the shelf.

In a second, Vito leaned over the counter.

He grabbed a block of cork figurines—small, lightweight, perfect for resale—and two road maps of Sicily. He slipped them into the canvas backpack he kept hidden under his blue jacket. No sound. No sudden movement.

The girl turned.

"Here, the map costs three euros."

Vito paid with a two-cent coin and a one-cent coin.

"Keep the change," he said.

He left.

On the ferry, he took a seat on the lower deck, near the stairs.

A group of Calabrians—four men, shirts open, thick accents—were playing cards on a plastic table. Vito sat down next to him.

"May I?" he asked, pointing to the deck.

One of them, with a gray beard and a faded tattoo on his arm, nodded. "Sit down, buddy. Where are you from?"

"Piedmont," Vito lied. "But I have roots in the South."

His Italian came out polished, clean, with that Turin accent he'd learned as a young man, when—at twenty, penniless—he'd worked as a waiter in Turin, sleeping in the station, stealing from the markets. Those years had made him invisible.

He played three hands.

He won two.

The Calabrians laughed. "Cards are in your blood, buddy."

"I have something else in my blood," Vito said, smiling faintly.

The ferry departed.

The sunset lights exploded on the sea: orange, purple, blood red. Sardinia was receding, a dark shadow on the horizon.

Vito went up to the upper deck.

Alone.

He looked ahead.

Sicily appeared slow, like a promise.

The lights of Palermo flickered in the distance.

More than a year had passed.

A year in prison, of shit, of humiliation.

A year of silence, of suppressed rage, of stoicism.

But now the past was behind him.

Now the sea was his and it seemed to hiss loudly.

He had missed the island like the air.

Time had been lost like a fading memory.

I will return, he repeated to himself.

And not as a prisoner.

He touched his pocket.

The cork figurines.

The maps.

The knife.

Tools.

For a return.

For a boss.