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“How so?” I asked, genuinely curious.
“The Sicilians and Calabrians used to control much of the cocaine and heroin coming in from Europe. Now the syndicates from the Balkans and old Soviet countries are taking over. They’re smart about things like technology and cryptocurrency and they’re more organized.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I read the news. I am very informed.”
“Of course. Right.”
But then she added almost shyly, “We’re all a little obsessed with the Cosa Nostra. The Brits have their royals. You Americans have your reality television stars and the Aniston to gossip about. We have the Mafia. Don’t even get me started on what I know about their wives.”
“But the Mafia didn’t steal my passport?”
“No, no. Some young dumb boy probably did. People are desperate. Passports can be sold to the migrants for a lot of money these days, especially someone who looks like you with dark hair and dark eyes.”
I thought about whoever was desperate enough to pay for my identity and the disappointment they’d face once I reported it missing and they got arrested at one of the borders.
We strolled past whitewashed cliffs with small squares cut out of them, almost like windows.
“What are those?” I pointed to them.
“Tombs,” Giusy said. “Sican necropoli. The Sicani were the first people here. Our first people. They dug funeral cells into the rocks to suspend the dead above the earth, keeping their bodies in the void between here and the other place.”
“There’s bodies in there?”
“Everything buried in those holes is long gone, eaten by animals, pillaged by looters. They are empty.”
“That’s sad.”
“We all disappear eventually.”
I thought of teetering on the edge of the roof; I thought of the cemetery, of Serafina’s missing grave, and mentioned it to Giusy.
“They wouldn’t have buried her in sacred ground,” Giusy said with certainty. “She was believed to be both an adulteress and a witch, a pagan. I don’t know which was worse in the Church’s eyes.”
“So what happened to her body?”
“I couldn’t tell you,” Giusy said. “I don’t know what they did with bodies of heretics back then. Burned her, fed her to the animals, threw her in a cave.”
My stomach roiled at the nonchalance in Giusy’s tone.
“I am sorry, Sara. That was rude. I honestly do not know. I wish that I could tell you more.”
“Do you want to be buried there? In that cemetery by the church?”
“I once read a story about a company who will send your ashes on a rocket deep into the ocean,” Giusy said. “Maybe I want that.”
She paused. “Sometimes I want to be as far away from here as possible. Other times I want to crawl into this earth and stay forever.”
The two of us turned a corner to find a small business district, a path lined with shops.
“The office is in here.”
We entered a narrow storefront wedged between the pasticceria and a tambourine shop.
The first thing I noticed about Signor Raguzzo, the notaio, were his braces. It was impossible not to stare at them. They were the kind of ancient metal braces that Carla and I had as teenagers, not the near invisible modern version that kids and vain housewives get today. He was my age, maybe slightly older, and didn’t seem at all shy about showing off his mouth full of silver as he smiled wide when we walked in.
“The American!”
