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“I've never been to Amalfi, to be honest”, Giorno commented, his eyes on the road.
Mista didn’t know exactly what to say about the city. Naples, Amalfi, Matera, Sorrento... There wasn’t much difference between one city and another in that region, facing the ocean and watched in the distance by Vesuvius. It had been so many years since the gangster lived in Naples that the city seemed to be the universe itself in a particle, as any other city in southern Italy was just an alternate little Naples. Maybe the same could be said about any city in the world: poor people, rich people, homeless people, crime, prostitution, honest workers, dishonest rulers, school, market, the church. People suffering. People smiling. People born and dying. People passing through the city. After all, a city is only a chaotic set of bizarre interventions of human action over Earth's surface without its people living in, to give soul to the place. Mista didn’t remember how the people from Amalfi was like anymore. He didn’t feel Amalfitan anymore.
The green mountains rose and fell in sheer shapes from the view from the passenger seat window. Mista was aware that he hadn’t answer Giorno's comment, but it wasn’t as if the blonde had asked a question in a strict sense. The young Don wasn’t the kind of person to make comments just to be amiable, especially to his subordinate, friend for so many years, and something else that Mista didn’t have an appropriate definition. Not that it was necessary. The gunslinger was almost sliding on the passenger's leather seat, peering at his illustrious driver with the corner of his eyes. Giorno was an unusual man, which was neither good nor bad, but interesting. Mista couldn’t tell if it was a hobby, but as long as he could remember, the other man had that soft spot for driving, something about commanding his destiny, maybe. And he was there, letting Giorno drive the car: it felt good, it felt natural, the trip was never monotonous. The Don shifted the gear, handling the manual armored gearbox, and accelerated. The sea breeze mingled with the scents of the mountain herbs was almost a natural tranquilizer, and the curves in the road became more sinuous. Mista didn’t want to think too much about their trip’s destination, so he just pulled his beanie over his closed eyes, and crossed his arms over his chest. He didn’t sleep, thoughts wandering about Amalfi city.
It was strange to be a tourist in his hometown. They left the car parked in an alley at an old neighborhood, and the children playing soccer in the street, barefoot and shirtless, stopped their game to admire that vehicle in golden paint. The shooter, for a moment, was assaulted by the sight of himself, jumping out the window of an old house with a half-stitched ball in his arms, waving to several infant familiar faces on the street. They exclaim 'Guido, you're late', 'I'm not going to be a goalkeeper again', 'Guido, your sister is flirting behind the church, she'll get talked about'... Children aren’t playing soccer in front of him, instead, they are poking each other and whispering at the expensive vehicle parked in front of them. Mista turned his attention to the aforementioned car, a luxury sports one, his boss's third favorite. The gunman had no passion for cars because he considered them just four-wheel bathtubs - they had utility and were comfortable, and that was enough. In the underground garage, in the building where the Underboss now lived, the only vehicle he had was a custom motorcycle, which Mista drove infrequently, and when he drove it, it was always alone. Giorno didn’t seem to pay attention to the children’s curious glares to his flashy toy, but he gave them a charming smile and put on his sunglasses, like a truly old fashioned movie star. Mista couldn’t avoid the corner-of-mouth smile.
The two gangsters walked down a narrow staircase and a block and a half until they stopped in front of a family trade cafe. The buildings on either side of the narrow alley had all at least two floors, heaped together; some were made of stone, others were made of concrete, rare were the wooden buildings. A cluster of white houses clinging to the cliffs, as if holding up so they don’t fall into the ocean ahead. Those houses had as many little windows as stars in the night sky. Aloft, occupying the minimal spaces between neighboring buildings, ropes crossed the air, supporting pieces of clean clothes to dry in the warm morning sun. Winds from the coast grew faster, mixed the salty air with lemon accents, and their strength made the coffee waiters ran to hold paper napkins and chairs in place. Rebellious blond strings of hair move in the gust of the wind as pale fingers tried, in vain, to regain their locks. Mista felt that the god Eolo himself was jealous of that young man's beauty, and, in all honesty, the shootist couldn’t blame him for this.
A mochaccino rested in the hands of his partner, while Mista felt the aroma of his corretto . This wasn’t even the kind of coffee the town's people liked the most; the Underboss didn’t fit into that village at all. To his delight, Giorno lowered his cup and read aloud the words of a local tourist pamphlet. “Amalfi, rich in history and culture, so much that it identifies the entire coast with its name...” the blonde took another sip, briefly mute. Mista smirked, one of his fists resting his chin on one arm of the table. Then, he rolled eyes. Foolish sightseeing wasn’t his goal for that morning. His Don continued reading aloud. “A Mediterranean commercial center, in the Italian maritime republics period…”, and again, the blond became mute, seeming to run with his eyes at the ill-described historical information. Mista caught the aquamarine irises glittering with something from the paper, and immediately the voice was audible again. “Amalfi’s cathedral, a mix from the Lombard and Norman style with the Saracen’s one on its cloister, as Saint Mary's Church, the Cloister of Paradise, Saint Andrew's Fountain and the Arsenal of the Republic, represent the best places to admire the testimonies of Roman influences and barbarians in this territory.” Giorno rose his eyes from the pamphlet to stare at his Underboss and gifted him with a smile of pure childish curiosity. Mista knew that whatever the younger man would ask for – because that was the look of request, not order –, he couldn’t deny.
“I've been to these places dozens of times, but I must warn you that it's easier to get there on foot.” Although it was true, a part of Mista wanted, with that, to make Giorno give up going to the Cathedral. The effect, however, seemed to be even more motivating. The blonde finished his mochaccino cup quickly, and waited, with contained anxiety, for the Underboss to finish his coffee. Mista sighed and regretted that he had done so, for it aroused in Giorno's face one of those devilish smiles, the kind of smile that shouldn’t be stamped on a face like that. The kind of smile that always lets the man's heart skips a couple of beats or three, and then accelerates in a mad jog in the chest. “Whatever, Gio. Let's go back to where we parked. The cathedral is on the opposite side, going up the hilltop stairs.”
The children were no longer at the alley. It was already midmorning, women were walking up the street with fresh food from the fair in their arms, an elderly couple chatting on the porch of the house, a girl on a bicycle. Again, Mista saw before him a little film from the past. The sister had quarreled with her mother and stepfather, again, because of one gossip spread by the neighborhood. 'I don’t have a boyfriend', but the old man, drunk grouchy, banged the dinner table, yelled 'bitch', 'worthless', 'dishonor to this house', 'burn in Hell'. The mother, so handsome but so aged by the work as an untiring washerwoman, only shrank in a corner of the kitchen, 'the neighbors will hear', 'please stop with this scandal.' The boy hid behind the torn sofa, hugged the baby on his lap, 'don’t cry, don’t cry'. The girl pushed the drunken stepfather, disengaging herself from the man's slapping attempts. She ran to the porch, picked up the bike from the floor. He watched her pedal down the slope. Where she went... Mista never knew, never saw her again. Suddenly he saw a small frog jumping. His eyes followed, intrigued, the leaping path of the amphibian, which finally hid in Giorno's shell-shaped hands. The car, Mista supposed. "I think dogs aren’t welcome inside the cathedral, but no one wrote a restriction on frogs”, the gunner tried an open grin. Giorno had been looking at him for some time, showing his usual poker face. He knew he had stopped in the middle of the street, just like an idiot, remembering the past, but just wished Giorno didn’t ask about it. What, for Mista’s relief, Giorno didn’t.
The two men climbed the stairs and soon found themselves in the historic downtown. The piazza was full of tourists and shopkeepers, enjoying the sunny late-spring Saturday. People were speaking different languages excitedly, with lots of bags, hats, and cameras. The ocean could be seen in the background, turquoise blue as Mista remembered. Tourism boats and fishing boats slowly crossed the still waters, no different from Naples Bay, however, it wasn’t the same either. The local saying is that a dive in that sea could do well for the weary spirit. Mista could suggest to his boss, although they didn’t bring any suit appropriate for bathing. In addition to the historic buildings and temples that surrounded Piazza Duomo and the ocean itself, there weren’t many other tourist attractions. Amalfi was as old as it was small. Like other cities in the area, it had its beauties and sorrows, facing the afternoon sun and living in a temporal intersection – or trying to keep the past so alive that the future seemed to be nonexistent. The young people were leaving town. Like Mista did once.
“The aesthetics of this temple is quite different compared to the Neapolitan cathedral.” Giorno climbed the stairs much more slowly than his subordinate, absorbed in all the architectural details of the imposing building facade. Saint Andrew's Cathedral was markedly different from the great temples at Rome, Venice or Naples. The exuberant geometric forms denounced the Arab influence and the iconic colorful formats resembled the Byzantine Empire. When they reached the main door, made of bronze, Giorno was delighted to study the exploit of the millenarian medieval metallurgy, half green, beneath a fresco of the patron saint, still opening and closing for the visitors of the Cathedral. Mista was accustomed to his boss's interest in Italian historical architecture, still, the gunman had to hold the urge to smile. Sometimes, Mista could almost forget that Giorno hadn’t Italian ancestry, weren't for the shape of his beloved Don's eyes a constant reminder of his half Japanese origin.
The two gangsters circled by the temple interiors, observing columns and paintings of saints, adornments carved in stone, wood, gold, and bronze. They stopped in front of a statue of the patron saint of Amalfi, St. Andrew, carved by some Michelangelo’s pupil. Said stop lasted what Mista thought more than twenty minutes, waiting for Giorno to observe every detail as if filming a documentary about the masterpiece with his bright blue eyes. That look was so intense and dedicated that Mista felt a little jealousy of St. Andrew: a feeling so absurd that the Underboss giggled to himself. This finally brought the blonde's attention to him. Not so bad. Mista wasn’t sculpted by Michelangelo or his pupils, but at least he could change his pose.
Finally, the two men reached the inner shrine. Giorno commented about the traces of baroque heritage in the carvings that adorned the historic walls of the Cathedral at that point. From there, looking up, he and Mista could admire the highest point of the nave, which had four great paintings. The Underboss stood with eyes pinned on top, staring at those old images. The scents of peeled layers of paint, the cool air between the stone columns, the shape with the outer lights breaking in bundles in different directions at that exact point in the ceiling... His mind was clouding again. He was inside the shrine, stealing donations from the church. The vicar recognized him by the red beanie. The boy had that hat as a treasure, and one of the few pieces of clothing he brought with him when he ran away from home. The vicar didn’t comment on the petty theft, only offered a piece of bread for the boy, 'at least attend to the Holy Mass', the old man said. Mass is understandable, but the boy liked to look at the paintings on the walls. He could see God, humanity, demons, angels. It was magical, and the boy loved magic. He believed in angels, those little creatures flying in golden lights with halos over their heads. The vicar taught that every son of God has a little guardian angel to take care of them and that the lucky ones have more than one guardian angel. The kid asked, 'could bad boys have guardian angels too'. The old man answered, smiling, 'they're the ones who need it the most’.
Giorno's voice reached Mista's brain, suddenly very close to his ear. “I didn’t know you'd like these paintings so much.” The older man looked away from one of the little angels in the painting of the ceiling and turned his eyes to the angelic face framed by a golden halo at his side. There were so many things the gunslinger wanted to say to his Don, but they were all unnecessary and repetitive. If all feelings could be translated into words, human beings could become books and be separated from each other, organized on shelves, for no process of understanding would be more needed. That wouldn’t be God's plan; He couldn’t be that boring. It would be God's plan to Mista left Amalfi, wandering the coastal towns, been arrested in Naples and entered the Mafia; all of this to be right there, today, to serve to the purpose of the actual Passione’s Don. Bad boys also have the right to have a guardian angel.
“When I was a kid, I came here a lot”, the gunman started, feeling, after all, the need to share something about his connection with that place. “I was sure that someday I would get married here”, he continued, looking around with a smile of nostalgia and noticing Giorno arching one eyebrow. “I… I was a kid, so it made sense for me to imagine something like that.” He scratched behind the back of his neck and gave a short laugh, almost forgetting the silence that a visit to a temple demands. His partner didn’t smile; on the contrary, his expression had traces of grief. “I'm sorry, Giorno, I let the guffaw escape”, then Mista turned his hands in a gesture of exaggerated reverence to the altar. “My bad, Saint Andrew!”
“If you lived a life of an ordinary citizen, by now you could be getting married, maybe in this place. I see you would be a great family man.” Despite the sweet words, Giorno's voice tone held traces of pain. Something bitter, but not about the idea of Mista getting married and having children in Amalfi. The brunette realized what disturbed the Don: the fact that this wasn't possible in Mista's life.
“Yeah, perhaps, but it’s no use thinking of what didn't happen. The fact is that I’m here and I am who I am. I know it was my destiny.” Mista turned his eyes to the paintings in the dome above them. “None of this is your fault. Even though you gave me the choice to serve you, I chose it in my heart long before you ascended your actual position.” The Underboss fully turned his body to face the younger man, gave him a brief smile, and sought his right hand, bringing it with his pair. For a moment, Mista admired the contrast between the skin tones, and the emerald gleaming in the mafioso 's ring. Briefly, he gently kissed over that emerald, in a sign of loyalty. “There’s no changing of labor camp once you join the Mafia. Either you ascend, or you gain new gangs, or you die. I hope to do a lot of the first two things before the last one.”
Mista believed in angels. He believed for so long, since childhood, without blinking. This belief rooted in his mind made his wanderings and misadventures through the streets of the coastal cities be possible, even at a young age. It wasn't the fool's courage, it was the courage to face the world head-on; not much heroic, only human. Mista felt ready for any destination. He knew his luck was great. He knew that he must be one of the lucky bad boys who had more than one guardian angel, as the vicar said once. Mista knew the vicar was right when he gained his Stand: Sex Pistols guarded him with primacy, ridding their User from certain death more times than the number of fingers that Mista (incredibly still) had in his hands. And as if Sex Pistols weren't more than enough, God sent another angel into his life. Mista had no doubts about how lucky he was. Or blessed. Or both.
“Giorno Giovanna, you brought me here because you thought it would make me rethink my activity in Passione. You thought it was kind to give me the chance to ask for retirement. Amalfi doesn’t have the same meaning it had so many years ago. I don’t have a home here. I don’t have regrets in life. And if you don’t give up on your dreams, don’t expect me to give up on mine.”
Not caring for the few tourists passing by, Mista continued to hold Giorno's right hand and, staring into his eyes, knelt on his left knee. "Giorno, I'm yours forever."
[LA FINE]