Advertisement
Published: November 23rd 2012
Edit Blog Post
demo in Catania
Worker demonstrate over low pay Armed with our
Rough Guide to Sicily we make our way to
Cataniain the south. Our hearts may be young but we belong to the Grey Pound brigade enjoying a late SKI holiday (spending our kids inheritance), and we have no intention of roughing it, and we are booked into the city’s only four-star hotel.
We are alarmed though at the number of abandoned buildings we pass en route. Our guidebook describes Catania as lively and vibrant. That's code, as far as we are concerned, for danger: you do not walk the streets at night.
The Excelsior hotel does not disappoint. It’s modern, and well appointed. Most of the guests are Japanese businessmen and we appear to be the only British people there.
Our bedroom looks towards
Mount Etna, now bathed in early evening light. The balcony is an extra and I am glad to see that M. has not skimped on this luxury, knowing his parsimonious nature. (Yorkshire men, and he is one, have been described as Scotsmen with the generosity squeezed out). I open the sliding doors on to the balcony and immediately feel disappointed. The city centre square is nothing but a giant car park
workers demonstrate
Low paid workers with some of the people they care for- blind, wheel-chair bound- in demostration in Catania apart from some trees on one side.
For a country steeped in history, as
Sicily is, this is disappointing but not surprising since the Mafia has controlled it for almost 100 years though the guidebook had assured us their influence is declining. As for the traffic the noise is deafening.
I shut the door and turn up the air conditioning. There will be no sitting out there enjoying a drink and watching the sun set over Mount Etna. Now the room is soundproofed against the cacophony of traffic.
At around 4 o clock next morning we are jolted awake. The whole room seems to shake and vibrate. My first thought is that a helicopter is landing in the square.
There is a terrific racket coming from outside, engines of some sort, a grinding, whirling noise. The noise is familiar yet I can’t pinpoint it.
" My God! What is it?” M switches on the light.
He opens the balcony door. Now the noise is ear piercing.
“What’s going on?”
“There are two men in yellow hats. They are standing under the trees with chainsaws… They look as if they are about to
Sicilian woman begging
Very few street beggars in Sicily. start work. One of them is waving his chainsaw about. They are going to cut down trees.”
“Cut down trees! at four o clock in the morning?”
We are faced with a surreal,
Kafkaesque scenario. What possible explanation could there be?
" Lets ring reception.” " They don't speak English,” M reminds me. Well, they do, but only a little. Sleep is out of the question even with the balcony door closed.
We go through various scenarios, all of them unpalatable. "Maybe some developer wants that ground. Maybe the hotel is objecting.”
"Mafia" I say burying myself under the blankets. I've lived in Chicago. I recognize the whiff of corruption and intimidation. M. disagrees but then he has a gentle disposition and more trust in human nature than me.
" You're exaggerating." " Then what possible explanation is there?” He does not answer.
" Someone hasn't paid his prezzo, his protection money. Or some business deal has reached a sticking point. It's a reminder."
I think of all those Japanese businessmen in the hotel. What’s going through their minds? But then they have their own
Yakuza, organized crime mobs.
Suddenly after
Catania fish market
early morning in the fish market ten, or maybe fifteen minutes, the noise stops. M opens the balcony door. “They’ve gone.”
He goes back to bed. I say nothing determined to will myself to quick, sharp sleep. I resist the temptation to tell M yet again about my misgivings over the choice of Sicily, the home of the Mafia, for a late holiday.
Next morning I approach the reception desk determined to get an explanation. "Noise in the night?" the young Sicilian man looks at me totally expressionless.
He shakes his head. " I do not understand." he looks at this colleague. They shrug their shoulders." Nobody complains about noise in the night."
" Someone must have reported it.” I looked helplessly around for support. The reception staff exchanges looks and glance behind me to the next waiting guest.
A cold chill goes down my back: is this
omerta, the
Mafia wall of silence. Later we check under the trees. Nothing had been cut. Just a warning.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.143s; Tpl: 0.02s; cc: 9; qc: 48; dbt: 0.054s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb