Vicious Minds (Children of Vice #4)(2)
“Aren’t you tired?” I tried to remind her. I knew she was tired because just a second ago she was asleep in my arms.
“One story please!” She clasped her hands together and closed her eyes like she was praying with all her heart.
The irony…bedtime stories were meant to help kids go to sleep and yet she was determined to tell me one.
“Okay. Tell me the story.” I smiled, tucking her in a bit more and giving her my full attention.
“Once upon a time,” she started again, speaking gently, I suppose copying whoever told her the story to begin with. “There were four kingdoms, Sicily, Naples, Calabria, Puglia, and they fought all time. They fought over food, land, and water. If it could be used by people, they fought over it. At first each kingdom only wanted to protect themselves from all the bad people in the world trying to steal their stuff. The kings of the four kingdoms tried to protect them on their own, they made small armies, but those men needed to take care of their families too before they could take care of others, so the four kings told their people if they wished to use their armies, they would protect them from the bad people who were attacking them. All the people loved their kings and wanted to be safe, so they gave their money.”
This is a child’s bedtime story? I thought, eyebrow raised as I watched her tell it to me seriously.
“They called the king’s men the Mafia. It was a word that meant ‘acting as a protector against the arrogance of the powerful.’ The people in Sicily would proudly proclaim ‘I Mafiusi della Vicaria!’ That means—”
“Heroes of the Reformatory,” I whispered in sheer astonishment, not believing what I was hearing.
She grinned wide, sitting up more if that was possible. “Yeah, Papà! You do know the story? Did your mama tell it to you too?”
I knew because it wasn’t just a story, it was history. From her question I understood that her mother told her this…her mother had made her bedtime story the history of Italian mafias?
What kind of woman would do that? One insane enough to have my child.
“My mother did tell it to me.” But not as a bedtime story, it was an actual lesson. It was so long ago I’d almost forgotten. And yet listening to her tell it I could remember as clear as day my mother doing what I was doing now.
“I Mafiusi della Vicaria!” She threw her fist out and then giggled to herself some more. “The Mafia caught the bad guys and protected their people. Everybody was happy. The four kingdoms stopped fighting…because of that, the people of the four kingdoms thought they could stop paying. But the kings wouldn’t let them. The people turned on their kings because they were mad. Then the kings stopped protecting all the people who didn’t pay, so the wars started again. Brothers fought brothers, sisters hurt sisters, and the four kingdoms sought to take over each other again. It was worse than ever before and to be in the Mafia was bad now. Now everyone hated them. Even the kings were sent to sleep, and so new kings had to come, but people couldn’t tell who the real king was because the fake kings started to turn up! All through the land, there was chaos and people didn’t know what to do. Isn’t that sad, Papà?”
“Very,” I answered, both amused and amazed at the fact that the history of the Italian mafia was now a children’s story…one she seemed to really enjoy telling. Her eyes were wide, and her smile seemed permanently stuck on her small little oval face.
“I think so too.” She leaned in as if she were going to tell me a secret. “It’s okay because one day, the head of the Giovanni family, Giovanni-Giovanni, had enough. He wanted all the fighting to stop. He wasn’t part of any of the four kingdoms, he was from Bosa, but grew up in Basilicata, and there he was surrounded by all four kingdoms. So, he and all the people there would get hurt from all sides. Giovanni-Giovanni joined the Calabria, and after 15 years working for bad king after bad king, he took over the Calabria. He had become a king!”
A Don. But king was close. She went on as if she wasn’t the one who needed to sleep.…but strangely enough I wanted her awake. I wanted to know how much of this story she knew.
She took a deep breath and rubbed her nose, laying back on the pillows.
“It took another six years for him to take over the kingdom of Puglia, and another three to take over Naples. Giovanni the Giovanni…he was the king of three of the four kingdoms, and he dreamed of uniting all them into one. But he got sick and before he went to sleep he left this mission to his son, Ignazio Giovanni, but his son couldn’t make his daddy’s dream come true, and he got sick and went to sleep too and left it to his son, Francesco Giovanni, but he went to sleep after a long war, leaving the only one Giovanni left…Orlando, Francesco younger brother. No one believed Orlando could do it, and everyone was scared because the three kingdoms tried to break away from them. Orlando was scared and alone he went to the church where all his family laid sleeping, got down on his knees and asked for strength. He threw his hands up in the air and said, ‘Oh God, make my hands strong as iron, so I can pull all of Italy together,’ ” she yawned so wide I could see down her throat. Her eyes were heavy, and she was fighting with all her might to keep them open. Sitting up, I lifted the blanket back over her.
“That’s enough for now…”
“That’s all I know.” She yawned again, rolling onto her side, rubbing her eyes. “Mama hasn’t finished telling me the story yet. She tells me a new part every time she comes back. But I want to know now. You know the story, right, Daddy? Does Orlando become king of them all?”