Love and Omerta in Sicily

“The Turks had conquered Sicily,” our waitress says. We’re in the vaulted crypt of a church in Noto, Sicily at a table next to the wine cellar. There’s a mustachioed head on our table which Mary has asked about.

“One of the Turkish soldiers fell in love with a beautiful Sicilian girl whose husband had recently died (the story or at least the waitress doesn’t say how). The time had come for the Turk to leave; she thought she would go home with him. But she learned that he had a wife and children back in Turkey.

“However, they spent a wonderful night together,” our waitress continues. “In the morning, she reached back to her shoulder, pulled out a…” the waitress pauses for effect and to find the right English word.

“Dagger,” I supply.

“Yes, a dagger.”

“And stabs him?” asks Mary,

“Cuts off his head. In the morning people see the bloody head on the balcony of their room. She put it there as a warning that no man should ever do anything like that again to a Sicilian woman.”

“That’s quite a story,” I say. “What was her name?”

“My name is xxxxx,” the waitress says,

“No, her name.”

“I don’t know… I’ll ask my colleague who knows much about stories.” After a few minutes she comes back. “No one knows her name.”

Of course not.