PALERMO LETTER:A ONE-eyed man stands next to the severed head of a swordfish on a stall near the sea. The crumbling region of eroded abodes and people standing around is delineated by a flow of dangerous traffic.
As leather-faced rag-and-bone merchants prop themselves on folding deckchairs by stacks of second-hand toilet bowls, chipped-clean wall tiles and other reusable debris from houses pulled apart, it is impossible not to dramatise a link.
In a city of salt and sea, it is difficult not to imagine a fight between man and fish.
A sticking plaster covers his eye socket and curbs the radius of his view as he pulls live lobsters from the boot of a beat-up car. In the bar behind, they’ve been shouting for hours. It’s just past four in the afternoon.
Up past the desolate coach depot, there’s a dirt track that cuts down to the shore and a view of ships steaming in from Naples and Tunis.
A 55-year-old man with a paper bag from a pharmacy walks along the dirt track slowly. His teenage son gathers a fistful of filthy stones.
A discarded syringe lurks in the grass, next to the torn clothes and strewn prophylactics.
The court house is a modern building protected by a deep moat and array of strong glass shields to limit the access of cars driven at speed with the intention of destruction.
A litany of law enforcers have died for their beliefs – most famously, perhaps, the magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, the two men after whom the city’s main airport is named. Both grew up in the Sicilian capital. They were killed by car bombs within months of each other in 1992, following their work five years earlier on the “Maxi Trial”, in which several hundred mafiosi were found guilty.
Palermo has a population approaching three-quarters of a million people, with up to 4,000 believed involved in organised crime. Much of the criminal activity is said to revolve around funds for building projects.
A short step from the high-end shops of via Ruggero Settimo and via della Liberta, humble and earthy street-warrens suggest the economics that come with a gross domestic product per capita of just over €17,000, two-thirds the EU standard.
Wander around the Vucciria or the Capo markets and drown in the hubbub of fat market traders yelling about their squid, tomato or olive wares. Stocks depleted, the empty crates are stacked into impressive 10ft-high cubes and stashed neatly off via Cassari. Waste sculptures, they resemble libraries of wood.
At night at the piazza Beati Paoli, a motorbike is used to raucous effect. It bears huge crystal-clear speakers and supports their extreme amplification.
Noise terrorism is the guy’s technique as he pushes it around, belting out fragments of the Macarena at annoying and conversation-stopping volume.
His genius is to give people eating on restaurant terraces neither the pleasure nor pain of the recital. After a few bars, he abruptly shuts off the volume, creating a tense and unpredictable assault as couples pay him to move on to torture others elsewhere.
In the Chiesa di Santa Caterina, a striking sculpture by Giovan Battista Ragusa shows a struggling man disappearing into the waves as a huge whale stalks him.
The stern of the ship, the face of Jonah and the gaping mouth of the sea beast jut out from the wall – the Old Testament tale of man and fish told in vivid early 18th-century 3D.
A black-shawled woman sits at a street corner across from the Teatro Massimo. Like the swordfish seller, she is missing an eye and wearing a similar patch of sticking plaster. Hand outstretched, she fails to notice a small donation as a coin lands in the plastic tray beyond the margins of her vision.
A stage has been constructed behind her on the piazza. A band waits, taut strings set to play as soon as the crowd-warming politician stops talking.
He speaks of a campaign to combat corruption on the island. The word “Mafia” rings out.
At an idiotic level, it sounds reassuring. This is Sicily: this is what cartoon culture leads you to expect.
