He brought it back to the desk and said proudly, “My family photographs.”
He opened the cover and pointed to a somewhat faded black-and-white photo that dominated the first page. It showed a score of heavyset middle-aged and older men, ten of them, sitting in straight-backed wooden chairs and the other half standing behind them, all in dark suits and shoes and white shirts.
“These are the padrones,” Nola said. “The leaders of Porto Empedocle.”
Canidy thought, Jesus Christ, that is one tough unattractive crowd.
“This was taken about five years ago. Some are still there.”
He pointed to two of the men standing. They were a bit taller and far more slender than most of the others. They resembled Nola.
“This one is my father,” he said. “And next to him, his brother, my uncle Ignazio, who was on the town council.”
He pointed at a very fat, very gray-headed man seated in the middle chair. “This was the mayor, Carlo Paglia. A very wise man.”
And looking mean as hell, Canidy thought.
“The Nazis took Mayor Paglia and Uncle Ignazio off to prison. Some of the others fled to Tunis, but most stayed.”
He sighed and turned the page.
Nola went through the album, describing each photograph, where it was taken, and pointing out that location on an admiralty chart—or, if in Tunis, on the 1935 tourist map of Tunisia that he had produced—then writing down names of who was who. He set aside duplicate loose photos for Canidy to keep.
The majority of the images showed Sicily. It clearly was a more robust and happier time. The towns built along the hills were busy. The people looked full of life. They ran their businesses and raised their families. They swam the clear turquoise waters and played on the beaches of pebble and sand, strolled the crowded palazzos and shopped the open-air markets that offered plentiful meats and vegetables and fruit.
That likely was not the case now, not with everyone forced to work for the war effort. The Germans also took the majority of their food production and shipped it to feed others elsewhere. Rationing was widespread—not to mention discontent with Mussolini and fascism.
After two hours, Canidy and Fulmar felt that they knew the extended family of Francisco Nola and the families of the padrones damned near intimately. Both those in Porto Empedocle and Tunis.
Nola folded the sheets of paper, then handed them and the photographs to Canidy.
“Thank you,” Canidy said.
He put them in his attaché case.
“Frank, how soon do you think you will be able to leave?”
Nola looke
d back at him blankly.
“Leave?”
“Yes. Leave. You are going with me, right?”
“That was not the plan,” Nola said.
“Well, then it is now.”
“No, it is not possible for me to go with you.”
Canidy exchanged glances with Fulmar, then looked back at Nola.
“Why the hell not?”
“I cannot say.” He glanced at the folded papers. “Once you locate my family, the letter of introduction will do the rest. You will have many people.”
Canidy started stuffing the books and charts back in his attaché case.