The House at the Edge of Night by Catherine Banner Page A

the swamp—not a child’s succumbed to malaria since! Why, your own wife would be dead now, d’Isantu, and your newborn boy, if it weren’t for Amedeo Esposito!”
    With a great banging of doors, the men of the council emerged into the dusty half-light of the entrance hall. Amedeo got to his feet. For the first time on the island he felt stooped, wrong-footed, as though his great height made him vulnerable to attack. The priest was red in the neck, his soutane flying. “They’ve stripped you of your duties!” he said. “The damn outrage of it, the indecency! I’ll deal with these
stronzi
no longer!”
    Arcangelo came forth, bearing an oily apology. “As deputy mayor it falls to me to inform you that you have been suspended from your offices as doctor and public health officer. The good character of the public officials in a town like ours, you must understand, is of first importance.”
    Amedeo began to sweat, as though stricken with a fever. “Give up my duties? But nothing’s been proved against me! I’m accused of no crime!”
    “Even so,” said Arcangelo. “There have been suspicions.”
    “And what about the patients I’m in the middle of treating? The Dacosta girl, Agata, and Pierino’s nephew’s broken leg, which I was to take out of its cast tomorrow afternoon so he misses no more of the tuna fishing season?” Stupidly, he thought also of the Mazzus’ goat. In three days, its eye would again need lancing.
    “How long am I to be forbidden from carrying out my duties?”
    “All I know is, we can’t allow you to occupy a position of trust in this town without further consideration.”
    Amedeo, shamefully, asked, “And what about my pay?” For his savings had been depleted since the wedding with Pina, and the baby was ten days old.
    “That also will be suspended,” said Arcangelo. “My best advice would be to look for a position beyond the shores of this island. We’re all very grateful for what you’ve done here, but better to leave without causing a scandal.”
    This island was the first place he had loved. But he saw now that it could also be a small place, a mean place. How could they remain, unless by some miracle of Sant’Agata they learned to survive on its sunlight and its water? Amedeo walked home by a long route. He could no longer imagine a life away from this place.
    “There may be hope,” said Father Ignazio that evening. “For Lord knows it was difficult to find you, Amedeo. There may not be anyone else willing to take the post. An island so cut off from the modern world, so inward looking. Not everyone could survive here.”
    But the count disappeared to the mainland on “political business” the following afternoon, and returned six days later with a spectacled youth, pale as an Englishman, who had been found to take the post of doctor, temporarily, until a new physician could be appointed. This young doctor had a certificate from the university in Palermo, and was the son of a friend of the count’s who had once been a kind of duke in Punta Raisi. He was installed in an empty house on Via della Chiesa, and instructed to take over Amedeo’s duties at once.
    For five days, Amedeo remained in his house, existing on the food the widows of the island brought him, and the four chickens the Rizzu family had sent as payment for the curing of the children. Pina still talked of leaving the island. But she was kind at heart; she could not help being so. Seeing how he moped and suffered, she relented and began to allow him at least to see the baby, whom she had named, at last, Tullio. During these days, he became inseparable from the boy. He carried him everywhere, curled against his shoulder or folded in the crook of his arm. In the face of their misfortune, Pina seemed to straighten the way she had after the war. On the sixth day, she summoned their friends to the house: Father Ignazio, Rizzu, even the disapproving Gesuina. (“I don’t support your carryings-on,
dottore,
”