Epilogue

November 1950

Cu campa si fa vecchiu.

Those who live grow old.

—Sicilian proverb

The November of 1950 is a frosty one, swept by a wind that smells of wet soil.

Ignazio shuffles down the concrete path in the Santa Maria di Gesù Cemetery and stumbles. Beside him, Igiea keeps having to

stop and hold him up. Behind them, beyond the gates, there are people, many people. They have come to say their final farewell

to Donna Franca Florio.

"My darling Franca..." he murmurs. Franca died, at the age of seventy-six, just a few days ago in Migliarino Pisano, in

Igiea's house, where she had been living. Ignazio refused to see her. In his increasingly frail, hazy mind, Franca will always

be the young woman in the straw hat and white cotton dress he met in Villa Giulia.

He looks up. The imposing Florio chapel looms above him. The wrought-iron gate is wide open, and just behind the marble lion

sculpted by Benedetto De Lisi stands a dark coffin covered with a large wreath of flowers. An explosion of life in the midst

of all the grayness.

Igiea shakes him gently and he looks at her, as though surprised to see her next to him. Under the veil, his daughter's face

looks exhausted, her eyes red from crying.

"Would you like to say goodbye to her, Papà ?"

He shakes his head vigorously. Igiea sighs. I thought you wouldn't , she seems to say. She turns to the young woman behind her, her eldest child, Arabella. "Keep an eye on Nonno ," she says, stepping aside to allow her to take his arm. Then she walks up the short path between the graves and up the small staircase to the chapel, where her husband, her sister Giulia, and her brother-in-law Achille Belloso Afan de Rivera are waiting for her.

Ignazio looks at his daughters with wistful detachment. Yes, he knows they think his mind is in a muddle, lost in a past that's

more imagined than real, and that they blame him for having made their mother suffer. And they're right.

Igiea and Giulia are grown women. They have their own lives, their own families, their own places in the world. They don't

belong to Sicily anymore, and no longer bear his name. The only one who could have borne it is here, in the very chapel about

to receive Franca.

He has often wondered in the past if he was afraid of death. Now he has the answer. No, he isn't afraid of it. He's had a

full life and for a long time didn't deprive himself of anything. But now he's tired—tired of outliving all the people he

loved, of being a dam that stems the tide of destiny while others are swept away.

Ignazio walks over to the foot of the embankment where the chapel stands. This is where the crypt is. "Where are you trying

to go, Nonno ?" Arabella asks, almost holding him back.

He simply indicates the small, black iron railing, opened for the occasion. "There."

It's even colder in the crypt. The tuff walls are cracked, coated with a layer of mold, and the iron chandeliers are bent,

corroded by damp and the passing years.

And yet the two white sarcophagi in the middle of the crypt seem immune to the damage of time. The one where his father lies is covered in dust. Ignazio approaches and wipes it with his hand. As he does so, he scrapes the family ring against the stone, producing a hissing sound that makes him yank his hand away. The other sarcophagus, a monumental one, is that of his grandfather Vincenzo, whom he never knew. Next to it lie his mother, Giovanna, and grandmother Giulia, as well as his great-grandfather Paolo and great-uncle Ignazio, who came to Palermo from Bagnara Calabra and owned the wretched putìa where it all began. His great-grandmother Giuseppina, Paolo's wife, is with them.

All the Florios are here.

They all had a future, someone to whom they could leave not just money but businesses, buildings, a name, and a history. And

one flagstone after another, just like a road, this name and this history have come to him.

There is no one left now to keep their memory. This thought makes him so unbearably dizzy that he closes his eyes, as if ignoring

the abyss is enough to stop him from falling into it. That's why he didn't want to watch Franca's funeral. Because up there

in the chapel, next to her, lie his young brother Vincenzo and three of his own children: Giovannuzza, Baby Boy, and Giacobina.

The dizziness doesn't go away even when he leaves the cemetery and gets into Igiea's Alfa Romeo. Palermo rushes past his eyes,

indifferent. Ignazio gives a start only when they drive past Palazzo Butera, devastated by bombs in 1943. His sister, Giulia,

witnessed that atrocity, the death of her oldest son, Giuseppe, and of her husband, Pietro. She died only three years ago,

on Christmas Eve 1947.

Ignazio looks down at the family ring. The ruin of Casa Florio is something distant now. When he remembers it, he feels a

vague unease, but not grief. Even his dependence on his daughters and brother leaves him indifferent. He doesn't have a penny

left, even though Casa Florio never officially went bankrupt. What racks his soul is the knowledge that with him a name will

be lost. A history. Their history, stored in that little gold circle that has grown thinner over the years.

Igiea parks the car outside Villa dei Quattro Pizzi. Ignazio hardly notices. He's staring into space, lost in thought.

" Papà ... We've arrived at Uncle Vincenzo's," she says. "I'll go up and say hello to him and Aunt Lucie but won't stay for lunch."

She walks around the car and opens the door for him.

Ignazio gets out and points to the beach. "Wait," he murmurs. "Let me go look at the sea." He smiles at her, as though apologizing

for his request.

They walk with difficulty, their shoes sinking in the sand, between the tiny pebbles that lie at the water's edge. Ignazio

suddenly gestures to the tower on his left. "You know, your mother didn't like it here..."

Igiea points to the right, at a large green patch overlooking the sea. A small temple is discernable through the foliage.

"I know; she preferred Villa Igiea. She stayed there for as long as she could." There's a hint of sadness in her voice.

Ignazio's eyes focus on the horizon, on the buildings of the shipyard, and beyond, on the outline of Palermo. "Look, leave

me here for ten minutes," he says, indicating a flat rock not far from the side entrance of the villa.

Igiea is puzzled. "It's cold, Papà ." The sea is swelling, splashes of foam flying in the air, filling it with brine. "Don't you think you'd be better off in

the warmth?"

"No, no. Leave me here." He squeezes her arm. "Go say hello to your uncle and aunt."

Igiea nods, gives him a glance that's a blend of pain and understanding, then walks away.

Left on his own, Ignazio stares for a long time at the waves—indifferent and fierce—that come crashing against the cliffs.

Villa dei Quattro Pizzi, built by his grandfather; Villa Igiea, his and Franca's creation. His entire life and that of his family is contained in those two buildings.

Palermo. The sea.

They had been the absolute masters of Palermo. And many years ago, in Favignana, his father told him that they had the sea

running in their veins.

The dizziness returns, violent and aggressive.

It'll all be forgotten , he tells himself, unable to restrain a sob.

He closes his eyes, then opens them again when he hears someone calling him.

"Don Ignazio!" An old man with tousled hair is coming toward him, holding by the hand a little girl with long black braids.

" Assabbinirìca , Don Ignazio. I'm Luciano Gandolfo—do you remember me?"

Ignazio looks at him, frowning. "You used to be one of the servants at the villa, weren't you?"

"Yes, that's right. I was here even as a picciriddu , when your father was still alive—bless his soul. I was fifteen when he died. Me and my family have always served the Florios."

The man leans forward. "I heard about your wife. She was such a beautiful woman, recamatierna . And you're here now, at Don Vincenzo's, right?"

Ignazio nods. He's a guest at his brother's—he who once owned houses everywhere, who reigned over the Olivuzza.

Next to them, the little girl starts picking up shells. She suddenly plucks up and stares at Ignazio with dark, intense eyes.

"So you're Don Ignazio Florio, are you?" she asks.

Ignazio looks at her and nods. She must be ten or perhaps slightly older.

"Then you're Don Vincenzo's brother, Don Vincenzo with the cars! My father often goes to talk to him when they bring us American engines for the motorboats."

"This is my granddaughter," the old man says. "My son Ignazio's daughter." He takes her by the hand and draws her closer.

"My son's a mechanic."

Ignazio struggles to his feet. "Your son..."

The old man nods. "I named him after your father, because he was always so generous to us. And her, too." He indicates his

granddaughter. "Her name's Giovanna, like your mother, who was so kind to us all, always."

The child smiles: she's clearly proud to be referred to by name. "I know all about you, Don Ignazio. My grandfather tells

me and my brothers so many things... And my schoolmates, too... Their grandparents tell us all about the tonnara and Casa Florio." She pauses, looks at the shells in the palm of her hand, picks one, and gives it to him. "Everybody here

knows who you are."

Ignazio takes the shell. "Everybody knows... really?" he asks in a faint voice.

The little girl nods. The old man adds, " Caciettu . Everyone knows your history, Don Ignazio. Yours, your brother's, your family's... There have been so many rich and important

folk in Palermo, but no one like you. You're the Florios."

Ignazio looks up at the horizon, a lump in his throat. In the distance, amid the waves, there's a small boat with a white

lateen sail. It looks like a traditional Sicilian schifazzo.

"True." He turns and smiles at the child and the old man. "The others are the others. We are the Florios."