Badfellas by Tonino Benacquista Emily Read Read Free Book Online Page B

whatever the circumstances? They had been expressly forbidden to mention the Mafia, or its American affiliate that originated in Sicily, the Cosa Nostra. Just for the sake of showing off in class, Warren had probably condemned his family to take to the road again only a month after their arrival.
    “I gather your father’s a writer, and he’s come to Cholong to work on a book about the Second World War? Did he tell you all this?”
    The boy grabbed the lifeline that was being held out; his father had saved his bacon. A father who didn’t know a single date, not those of the Second World War any more than his children’s birthdays, a father who would be incapable of drawing a map of Sicily, or even of being able to say why Luciano was called Lucky. But his status as a self-proclaimed author had pulled his son out of an awkward moment.
    “He tells me some things, but I don’t remember it all.”
    “What became of Luciano after that?”
    Warren realized that there was no escape.
    “He started the great heroin pipeline that still pours into the United States.”

    At the beginning of the afternoon Maggie began gathering her strength to embark on preparations for the barbecue to which Fred had invited the whole neighbourhood. What better way to get to know them, eh, Maggie? To blend in, get accepted? She was forced to agree – going out to meet the neighbours would spare them a lot of mistrust and create a good atmosphere. But all the same she was suspicious that what her husband really wanted was to live out his new fantasy in public – the fantasy of being a writer.
    “Maggie!” He yelled again from the end of the veranda. “Are you making me that tea, yes or no?”
    With his elbows resting on either side of his Brother 900, his chin on his crossed fingers, Fred was ponderingthe mysteries of the semicolon. He knew about the period and the comma, but the semicolon? How could a sentence both come to an end and carry on at the same time? It was creating a blockage in his mind, this idea of an end that could continue, or an interrupted continuity, or the opposite, or something between the two, who knew? Was there anything in life that corresponded to this idea? Blind fear of death mingling with metaphysical hope? What else? A good cup of tea would have helped him to think. Against all probability, Maggie had decided to humour his demand, but only because she wanted to sneak a look at the pages that he had been covering all day. On the whole Fred’s crazes never lasted long and usually vanished as fast as they had appeared; this performance he was enacting to himself was different. Fred decided to try out a semicolon.
    To see an enemy croak is much more agreeable than making a new friend; who needs new friends?
    On reflection, he found the semicolon so unclear, so ambiguous, that he tried to remove the comma with his Tipp-Ex, without touching the period.
    Then he heard Maggie’s terrible scream.
    He got up, knocking his chair over, and tore into the kitchen, where he found his wife standing, horrified, with the kettle in her hand, staring at a thick gush of water from the tap – a brown and muddy liquid, which spread a graveyard stink into the basin.

    At five o’clock exactly, Maggie completed her list of salads and accompaniments for the barbecue. She only had the coleslaw left to do, and the tureen of ziti, without which no barbecue in Newark was worthy of the name. She stopped for a moment, feeling guilty, looked at her watch, and then glanced over towards the house at number 9, directly opposite theirs. An immobile figure stood silhouetted behind the first-floor window like a papier mâché trompe l’œil . She grabbed an aluminium container and filled it with marinated peppers, put a couple of balls of mozzarella in another, and the whole lot into a basket, along with a bottle of red wine, a country loaf, some paper napkins and some knives and forks. She left the house, crossed the road, made a discreet sign