“And the tennis player?” Giulio would ask her.
“Is that what this is about, Giulio? Your biggest issue is Maccari? If you ever found the time to be honest with yourself, as ruthless with yourself as you know how to be with everyone else, whose flaws you never forgive, by the way, then maybe you’ll realize Maccari wasn’t the reason I left you. But you won’t do it, will you? You prefer to go digging around in my emails for answers, browse through all my messages, consoling yourself with the illusion that the explanation, the sense of it all, is hidden somewhere else.”
Giulio angrily snaps the laptop shut.
I was only trying to understand, I don’t need any consolation.
It’s not the gnome that has the power to disappear; it’s the forest that helps him do it. Because it’s the forest that protects him.
Amanda had chosen the wrong day to take the bus. A bridge is like a picture hanging on the wall that comes down one day and ciao ciao. You turn away for an instant and the person you’re talking to is gone. One day someone tells you that from now on your life will be completely different. And you can sink or swim. Adapt or die.
Giampedretti emailed his report to Patrizia three days before she disappeared. Three days before the night of that damned March 11, when a man who, according to the prosecution, answers to the name of Giulio Rodari attacked her in that alley without realizing that the image was reflected in a window in view of a surveillance camera. And maybe Patrizia really had been working all those times she didn’t respond to his calls and brushed him off with a text: “I’m working, let’s talk tomorrow.” With the clarity Giulio believes he’s put together in this moment, perhaps he might be willing to believe that they weren’t just excuses, even if Maccari had been writing things like “Don’t you think you should move on from this story sooner or later?” The story, the only story. Bridge Day. The investigation. Patrizia couldn’t pull herself away. Persecuted by her ex, in his deranged stalker state, she kept working because she wanted to reopen the investigation.
Giulio feels a dim light come on in the dark.
Patrizia had commissioned a hydrogeological study to piece together elements that would convince the judge to reopen the investigation. Elements that were supposed to demonstrate the clear and objective responsibility for the deaths of seven people.
It’s a weak light. But it’s there.
Patrizia receives the report from the expert in charge. And after three days, she disappears.
Giulio approaches the laptop and opens it again. The Gmail screen reappears. The connection had been interrupted because he had let it idle. Procolharum.
The investigators’ inquiries focus on her turbulent ex. The press calls it a “crime of passion,” as if the feeling behind it made it better somehow. Sure, he killed her, but he loved her. But what if that’s not how it went? What if her turbulent ex, whose memory sports a gaping hole of about four hours long, stayed home and the aggressor in question was not overwhelmed with passion for his victim?
An attorney wants to reopen an investigation into neglect and manslaughter. She commissions a study from a geologist. The report comes in, but the attorney disappears.
Giulio opens Giampedretti’s email again.
Dear Patrizia,
As I mentioned, no new elements emerged regarding the calamity in question. In the sense that the recent discovery I mentioned to you does not relate to that specific event. However, it’s still a notable finding and should be brought to the attention of the appropriate parties. I’ve attached the report and remain at your full disposal.
Kind regards,
Giampedretti
A discovery that had nothing to do with the event but still needed to be communicated to someone.
The new adventure of Teo the gnome would have to wait. Giulio decides he can allow himself to read the report. He takes the laptop, rests it on his legs, downloads the file, and begins to read.
EIGHT
Someone has decided to get involved.
Katerina has just gotten back in the car. She’s emerged from the house of the man who promised her a better future without even one little gift. It’s the first time her little puppy has broken a promise. But it’s not his fault. Someone else has gotten in the way. Someone who obviously doesn’t have anything better to do than trample people who are trying to realize their dreams.
As soon as she entered her little puppy’s house, she dropped her purse on the floor and began to unbutton her jeans, when she realized that he was sitting on the couch, still dressed, with a yellow envelope next to him.
Inside, photographs that someone left in the mailbox. Photographs that captured the two of them, in the car, in a position that was truly impossible to mistake for anything else. And the real problem is that the account with all the money they were going to use to escape to Sosúa Bay, with its palm trees and the Caribbean Sea kissed by the Antilles sun, that damned account that burns like an ember of hope, is in his wife’s name. The rest is rather logical, because if his wife ever found out about the little bunny and her puppy, they’d be in real trouble. Not so much because of the money that has already arrived, unbeknownst to the wife, in the account under her name, but because of the funds that are yet to come, whose destination can’t be changed without setting up a foreign-to-foreign transfer, which presents its own challenges. Not to mention that the little wifey, according to the little puppy, is starting to suspect something. She’s not sure what, but half a word too many could, at this point, be enough to make a big mess for them.
Katerina hopes that this someone with their photos and their request that could ruin the bunny’s plans with her little puppy keels over with diarrhea. Also because, just as a precaution, they had to cancel today’s appointment, and instead she’s decided to have some fun without him, because that’s how she keeps him in her power. And she needs to feel powerful, because she’s tired of dreams that are never anything more than half-baked.
The inexperienced Buraco player makes their moves based on their hand. They think about their next play and plan which cards to drop. The expert Buraco player, on the other hand, moves according to the others: their companion and their opponents. The inexperienced player focuses on their own cards; the expert player considers the cards they don’t hold. The expert Buraco player knows that the winner is the one who can understand and anticipate their opponent’s move first. The inexperienced player is gullible and tends to keep all their good cards in hand in order to drop them at the perfect moment, to the dismay of their opponents. They think of their own move, always. They read the world from their own point of view. They might have six-card sequences in hand, one card away from Buraco, savoring the joy of their triumphal moment that sadly never comes. Buraco isn’t a hard game. Technically, it’s about ceding and attacking. But empathy with your partner makes for the difference between winning and losing. When two players sing the same song, the music is heavenly. But if everyone tries to play their own song, then it’s a mess. And according to a Buraco player, experienced or not, the wrong song is always the one their companion chooses. That’s why even the deepest friendships can be severely tested at the Buraco table. Because Mirna in this moment believes it’s clear, as clear as a mountain stream, that if she throws down everything she has and remains with a single card in hand and a satisfied smile, it’s because the card she’s holding closes the game and she only wants her companion to have one chance to drop everything but her winning card, since the glutton has already taken two rejects and hasn’t even dropped a run of three. And considering she needs two hundred points, only an idiot would snatch up the scraps instead of dropping their run.
But Adele does precisely that.
Mirna’s first instinct is to send the table into the air and pounce on her companion. Strangle her. Or, even better, choke her by shoving one of those cards she’s holding on to down her throat. But when Mirna realizes that Barbara has understood what she’s thinking, she realizes she needs to be a better actr
ess. The one who first understands their opponent’s move wins. Never give your adversary the chance. Especially Barbara, who, with this committee, thinks she’s more important than the mayor. Everyone in town hanging on her every word, everyone turning to her when they have a problem, when instead they should consult the mayor’s wife. But nobody knocks on her door. Barbara’s there when someone has a problem. It’s Barbara who organizes the Evening of Bread. Because if Mirna fired up that gorgeous wood-burning oven behind her house, only demented Adele would show up to bake her bread. But the day of vengeance always comes for those who know how to wait. And when the old woods Barbara loves so much becomes home to a brand-new waste treatment plant, the Gherarda will finally close its doors forever.
Dorina closes. Adele pays three hundred points and concedes the second game to her two enemies. They’re two and zero. A quick win.
Mirna tries to force a smile, but when she realizes she’s only grinding her teeth, she takes to sipping her tea.
“I had all the game in hand, gosh darn it,” Adele says. “Another turn and I would’ve dropped my whole run.”
“Maybe you should have done it sooner, my dear,” says Mirna, with all the venom she can muster without throttling her outright.
“We still have half an afternoon left,” says Dorina, exalted by her winning move and the three hundred points her cousin had to pay. “How about a second round?”
Of course. Because when the wind is blowing in one direction, it doesn’t just switch all of a sudden. Today Adele isn’t fooling anyone; maybe she has a hint of Alzheimer’s that disappears whenever she’s at the card table. The second round would be worse than the first, and besides Adele, everyone knows it. That’s why Dorina proposed it, and Barbara has muttered her unassuming “All right, why not?” leaving Mirna with no alternative but to say, “I need to get back, Eugenio’s not feeling very well.” A retreat. With dignity. When you can’t win, it’s the only alternative to defeat. And to enjoy vengeance, you must preserve yourself long enough to see it.
“I’ve noticed poor Eugenio has been a little worried lately,” Dorina says. “Is it this business about the waste plant permits? I guess it’s not easy for him to find a way to stop it.”
“If it’s not so easy to stop it,” Mirna says, “maybe that’s because it shouldn’t be stopped.” She understands too late that it’s dangerous to expose her stance. She should have tempered her anger, but the recent card debacle, inspired by Adele’s inadequacy, which after years of Buraco she hasn’t managed to repair, has worn her down.
“What was that again, dear?” Dorina asks.
“Exactly what you heard, darling. Maybe we’ve been wrong about it from the beginning.”
“You’re not trying to convince your husband, are you?”
“Eugenio doesn’t need to be convinced. He’s the mayor, my dear.”
“Yes, but what you’re saying, Mirna dear . . . is that why you didn’t come to the committee?”
“We didn’t come because I had to buy a new electric oven, I told you, darling.”
“But . . .” Dorina can’t find the words and turns to Barbara. “Aren’t you going to say something? Didn’t you hear what she said?” And it’s in that moment that her face flinches as if it had been hit with an intuition. “You have it out for her because people listen to her. You’re jealous, and it kills you because you know she’s the only reason you’re the Misericordia president.”
“Dorina, that’s enough,” Barbara interrupts.
“No, no, let her finish,” Mirna says, crossing her arms.
“You know I’m right,” says Dorina.
“Ladies, please,” Adele says. “Let’s try to remember that Buraco is how we distract ourselves from this kind of unpleasantness. Especially now that Giulio . . . well, in short, it mustn’t be easy for you, Barbara. It’s normal for you to be on edge.”
“She’s not that on edge,” says Dorina, “if you haven’t noticed.”
“I wasn’t talking to you, tightwad.”
“Tightwad?”
“You know . . .”
“It seems to me we’re all a little on edge,” says Barbara. “Maybe we should put away the cards and have some cake.”
“Have a biscuit, Dorina,” Adele says, gesturing toward the unopened packet.
“I’m leaving,” says Mirna.
Dorina will pay for what she said. Even if she has to eat every one of those disgusting tea biscuits Adele insists on bringing with her every time.
Farewells become a rushed formality. Mirna and Dorina don’t even look at each other. Adele and Dorina stare each other down.
Outside the Gherarda, the temperature descends with the sun. Mirna gets in the car in silence. Dorina’s words are still rumbling in her head, and she’s too busy thinking about what she should have said to notice that Adele is crying. She only realizes once they’re on the road and she hears Adele blow her nose.
“What’s wrong?”
“No, nothing, I was just thinking . . .”
“Really, nothing’s wrong? What were you thinking, dear?”
“I was thinking about Barbara. Her son up in that room, and we didn’t even thank her.”
“For what?”
“She hosted our Buraco game, Mirna. She has all these problems, and she hosted us all the same. It’s so touching.”
“Are you sure there’s nothing else, Adele? You’re not thinking about that thing, are you?”
“What if I did the wrong thing?”
“Adele, darling, nobody knows you did it, and the cards are so mixed up now that nobody will ever know. You don’t have to worry about it, you don’t have to worry about Barbara or her son, you don’t have to worry about anyone or anything. Think about relaxing, and above all, come to me if you need to talk. It’s not healthy to carry all that around in your conscience. Remember how you felt before you told me all those things?”
“But you didn’t tell Eugenio, did you? I don’t know if I should have told anyone. He said that—”
“Honey, we’re friends, remember? Is there anything stronger than friendship?”
“No, Mirna.”
Adele should be locked up in a home, that’s the problem. By now it’s clear that she’s losing her mind. She would have been better off with the kind of quick blow that reduced her husband, Marcello, to a human larva. This is the first time they haven’t spoken about the game on their journey home. When she gets out of the olive-green Panda four by four and walks up the driveway, Mirna realizes that she’s still grinding her teeth. She doesn’t know if she’s more annoyed by the things Dorina said or by the fact that she was right.
From the window, a flickering light. Eugenio has lit the fireplace.
C1P8 is hidden on the other side of the street. Lilith, before starting its sound tests, has another job to do, and it’s important that the drone, equipped with a video camera, patrols the area. Arturo’s mother, Mrs. Assuntamaria Novelli, has never dropped her habit of popping in at random intervals with sandwiches and pizzas as if it were a twelve-year-old’s birthday party. And there are certain things that Arturo’s mother, Mrs. Assuntamaria Novelli of the Novelli Pharmacy, should not see.
“These are really good,” Diego says of the images flicking across Arturo’s twenty-seven-inch monitor. Diego is holding a long pipe that he puts in his mouth from time to time.
“We’ve got him,” Arturo says. The camcorders had been his idea. Lilith was born from the myth of that forest. It was Viola who introduced the group to all those old stories about the spirits of the people in the country who went into the woods to find themselves, like the characters in Spoon River. It had something to do with that boy, Michele, who had taught her to play the guitar and who had given her the Fender she still played. Perhaps she needed to know that her friend was still there in order to feel safe. The whole idea of composing that piece, Lilith’s first and last song, was born from the need to tell that story, because for Viola, telling it was the only way to ma
ke it last forever. The recordings, Michele’s track, it all revolved around that magical place at the heart of the woods.
But then GeoService showed up. It seemed the story would proceed. Suddenly the locals knew that a part of the woods, right near the Crow’s Rock, had been sold and would be destroyed so they could build a plant. They needed to rethink their strategy. The threat of the plant required targeted action. And after a quick consultation, the band decided that Lilith would create the Spirits of the Woods to defend it.
Born as the spin-off of the main project, the Spirits would avenge every tree, every bush, every fragment of that place. And since the first move in a battle is to know the enemy’s first move, Arturo cooked up a video surveillance system that was connected to a central computer at their center of operations. They would spy on them. They would watch every move they made. And this would allow the Spirits to move safely during their sabotage operations. But those cameras had picked up a lot of things, all around those homes that, like all homes, hide the most inconceivable secrets, providing the Spirits of the Woods with an unexpected weapon.
“Of course we got him,” Viola says. “As long as he doesn’t go to the carabinieri and send my mother after us.”
“You wanted to get him in trouble,” says Arturo. “When we decided to do this, we knew we’d have to do dangerous things. Now he has to decide what he wants to do, and the committee will meet in a few days.”
“But,” says Diego, taking his pipe out of his mouth and caressing his long beard, “I don’t really see him running to the cops and disgracing himself on his own accord. This material is great, seriously.”
“Thank you, my associate,” says Arturo. “But we have another issue.”
The drone. The other night, when the Marshal and the other guy arrived at the GeoService cabin and almost caught all three of them, Arturo was the one who had flown it, doing a lot of tough maneuvers through the trees, in the dark, to activate the green laser and distract the cops. The plan went better than he thought it would, in the sense that he had planned to distract the cops long enough for them to get away, but Diego and Viola acted quickly and found the composure to complete the mission. The only problem was that the drone got caught in a tree and lost its connection with the tablet Arturo was using to control it. They couldn’t go back and get it that night, as the device no longer emitted a signal, and so they decided to postpone the retrieval to the next morning. Viola had been on her way to get it when she spotted the patrol car and had to change her plans, taking refuge in Giulio’s room. Arturo was the only one out of play: no child of the Novelli family, of the famed Novelli Pharmacy, could ever dream of skipping a day of school. That left Diego. But when he went back, the drone wasn’t there.
The Hawthorne Season Page 14