But it wasn’t summer anymore. Now the summer was nothing but a distant memory. Now, at the dawn of this new ice age, the gentle breeze off the hillside had become a vicious, cutting blast of wind that practically kept you from walking at all. You had the sensation that from one moment to the next, your ears were going to turn to glass and fall off, shattering on the pavement.
All the same, Lojacono managed to convince Alex to eat lunch there. The fact was that he hadn’t talked to Letizia in more than ten days, and he wanted to ask her a favor, a rather personal one.
The lieutenant had met Letizia when he’d first come to the city and a lovely friendship had soon blossomed. He had entered the restaurant because he’d been caught by a sudden downpour while returning home, and as long as he was there he decided to stay for dinner. Letizia’s curiosity had immediately been stirred by that man with the almost Asian features, tall and athletic, who had sat down at a small corner table and had immediately dug into everything that the menu of the day had to offer, ravenous as a wolf. And so, afraid that her regular prices might frighten him away, when she brought him the check she had offered him a substantial discount, practically half price, astonishing her staff.
But she was the proprietor of the establishment, and she could do exactly as she pleased.
Letizia’s trattoria was one of those places that, while still apparently modest and unpretentiously local in appearance, become quite fashionable on the strength of the kind of strong word of mouth that makes the number of tables available inadequate to the press of requests. The food was excellent, the service was prompt, and certain dishes, the specials or reliable warhorses of the house, were the causes of devoted pilgrimages on the part of the city’s more dedicated gourmets. A couple of high gurus in the temple of gastronomy, having heard rapturous praise of the food from reliable culinary cognoscenti, had come to dine there incognito and had written glowing reviews in specialized magazines and webzines, as well as dining guides.
If the quality of the cooking hadn’t been reason enough, there was also another good incentive to frequent the restaurant: Letizia herself. She was an attractive woman in her early forties with a nice figure and an open, infectious laugh. She did her own shopping and took painstaking care of every detail, combing the markets and choosing the raw materials with as much attention as any mother would devote in choosing groceries for her own family. Then she got the day’s cooking started, only to leave it in well trusted hands and dedicate herself to the work of being the restaurant’s hostess and impresario, with a sincere and affectionate cordiality that enchanted her clientele. It wasn’t uncommon, at the end of the evening, for her to get out her guitar and sing one or more of a repertoire of songs in dialect, showing off a voice that would have drawn an ovation at the opera house. The lingering customers stayed on in part because they hoped they’d be able to hear her perform.
Lojacono had no idea of the privilege he enjoyed. And for that matter, he hadn’t realized what was crystal clear to everyone else, from the assistant chef to the busboy and every last waiter: that Letizia liked him, a lot. The woman, who wasn’t in a relationship, was courted by any number of men, and to each of her suitors she offered a smile and a slice of Neapolitan tart, but never so much as a glimmer of hope. Lojacono, on the other hand, who was the focus of special and doting attention, hardly even seemed to notice. The corner table was always empty, in spite of the line winding out the door; on it was a card, hand-lettered, reading “Reserved,” and a small crystal vase that always had a fresh flower. Letizia’s mood turned dreary if too long a time stretched out since his last visit, as had been the case lately. Some form of contact with the smoldering and handsome lieutenant was still assured her by Marinella, Lojacono’s daughter, with whom Letizia had established a very discreet relationship of feminine complicity. She was easily able to pry news from the young woman about her father’s life, and especially about the worrisome shadow cast by Piras, the magistrate who required no excuse to call him on the phone, something that instead Letizia was cautious not to do.
When the door swung open and Lojacono and Alex stepped in, practically frozen solid, Letizia’s heart leapt up in her chest. If she had chosen to listen to her womanly instincts, she would have swung over and stood right in front of him, her eyes flaming as she stared him in the face, asking him the reason for his silence and the table left empty evening after evening. Instead, she glided toward him, beaming.
“Well, well, look who’s here, Lieutenant Lojacono! What foul wind brings you up here, may I ask? And for lunch, what’s more. You, night owl that you are.”
Lojacono, who wasn’t stupid, detected the spite behind the irony.
“You’re right, I haven’t been around for a while, but these have been tough days. And after all, cold as it is, I just wanted to go home and sleep. But here I am, you see? Speaking of winds, good or bad, I hope you appreciate the effort: there’s a blustering north wind out there that grabs the breath right out of your mouth.”
Letizia greeted Di Nardo.
“Ciao! You’re a member of the team, aren’t you? I saw you when you all came in to celebrate a few months ago, at dinner. Let me see if I can remember . . . Alessandra, right?”
“Alex will do just fine, thanks. I can testify that Lojacono insisted on coming here, even though we’re short on time.”
“Never fear, we can get the food on the table in minutes, there isn’t much of a crowd in the middle of the day. Especially not in this cold. Certainly, if Peppuccio had thought, just this once, to call ahead . . . Please, sit right down.”
“Peppuccio?” Alex murmured, as she sat down.
The lieutenant threw his arms wide. Only Letizia had called him that since he had left Sicily. One time, when the woman had noticed that he was particularly down in the mouth, she had asked him what friends and family called him and he, with some shyness, had told her.
Alex leaned forward.
“Let’s settle on a figure: how much will you pay me to keep this from Aragona?”
Letizia came to Lojacono’s rescue with two steaming bowls of rigatoni al ragú, while a waiter trailed after her with a bottle of red wine and a pair of glasses.
Lojacono objected.
“Have you lost your mind, pasta with meat sauce for lunch? You know, we have to work afterward, it’s not like we can go take a nap.”
“As if I didn’t know you, you’ll gobble it all down in two minutes, and then you’ll be clamoring for more. As for Alex, here, she strikes me as one of those girls who are skinny as a rail but eat like wolves. Am I right?”
Di Nardo had shoveled the first forkful of pasta into her mouth and was already melting into a state of ecstasy.
“Mamma mia, Signora, this is delicious. Better than my mother’s.”
“That is quite a compliment. Well then, Peppuccio, what’s new? Is Marinella doing well?”
“She’s doing great. She just loves this city of lunatics, for her it’s just a never-ending vacation. She even fits right in at school; there aren’t any problems I can see.”
The woman, standing beside the table, watched the two cops eat, and felt the surge of satisfaction that comes only to those who cook with love.
“She’s a smart young woman, that Marinella. I knew she’d do well: it’s the city that needs to worry about her, not the other way around.”
Lojacono seized the opportunity. He wiped his mouth with the napkin, took a sip of wine, and said: “Listen, Leti’, I wanted to talk to you about Marinella, in fact. I want to ask you a favor.”
“Go right ahead.”
“Tomorrow evening I have an appointment after work. As you you know, I hate to leave her alone, but I definitely can’t bring her with me. Do you mind if I send her here for dinner? I’ll come get her as soon as I’m done. Then, worst case, if I really run late, I’ll call you and maybe she can spend the night at your place. You know that
you’re the only one I can trust.”
Letizia hesitated, and Alex, and Alex alone, noticed that her expression had hardened. It was only for an instant, and her face relaxed immediately.
“Certainly, Peppuccio, don’t worry about it. You know it’s a pleasure for me. Tell her to come on by any time she likes, or bring her by yourself, if you’d prefer.”
Lojacono stood up and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
“That’s a load off my mind, thanks. We need to run, now, what do I owe you?”
“If you had come in alone, I’d have willingly punished you for this long absence by charging you a hundred euros for two bowls of rigatoni; but since I’m happy your likable partner’s come by, it’s on the house. Now get out of here, we need to get ready for our paying customers. Ciao, Alex, hurry back. It was a pleasure.”
The two cops thanked her, left the restaurant, and started off downhill, hunched over in the chilly wind.
Letizia found herself thinking that, in all likelihood, this was all in preparation for Lieutenant Giuseppe Lojacono’s first big date since he’d first arrived in the city, though not one that was going to feature her in the role she might have wished for.
She felt her heart sink, and yet at the same time she was surprised to feel a rush of unexpected determination: she, Letizia Piscopo, wasn’t going to resign herself; some magistrate from Sardinia wasn’t about to rob her of the first man to arouse her interest in a long time, far too long a time.
The war, my dear Dottoressa Piras, has only just begun.
Singing happily, she headed back into the kitchen.
XXV
Cute. They’re cute.
Some of them are even very cute. But then there are ugly ones, too: it’s incredible how people manage to get such a distorted view of themselves. One time, in fact, I heard that a young woman came in who tipped the scales at 200 pounds. I was told about her, because they never let her get all the way to me. They know I wouldn’t have been especially courteous.
Not that I have anything against the ugly, heavens no, and for that matter, if there weren’t any ugly people, how would we ever be able to appreciate beauty? The ugly are a necessary evil. For the most part, they’re well aware of the way they look, and they keep to themselves, lurking in the shadows. When they can, they conceal their appearance with appropriate clothing, or else they devote themselves to intellectual pursuits.
I’m obsessed with beauty. Or actually, I should say, with elegance, which is something quite different from beauty. When it comes to elegance, I’m quite a stickler. First and foremost, let it never be said in my presence that elegance is a way of covering up ugliness. That’s not the way it is. As if elegance were just a matter of dresses and shoes, as if all that were needed was a designer handbag or silk scarf to make up for an asymmetrical face or a wart on the nose.
The distorted use of words is one of the ills of our century. She’s elegant, we say. Or, even worse, we say: at least she’s elegant. As if we were talking about something to make up for a shortcoming, a crutch. Since I have plenty of money, some think, I can use elegance to conceal the sweepings of ugliness under the carpet of beautiful accessories.
Elegance is quite another matter. Elegance is beauty worn proudly, a natural grace in one’s movements, a fierce attitude visible in one’s limbs. Elegance is symmetry. It’s more, it’s harmony. A classical statue is elegant, as is a Mozart sonata and a Matteo Thun sofa. A red rose is elegant, as is an Afghan hound. Elegance is the immediate sensation that you are in the presence of a possible perfection. Elegance is a trace of the presence of God in His creation.
So many women come in here, fully convinced that beauty is all that’s needed. They’re not entirely wrong: come to think of it, people are crude, and they’re glad to settle. I see posters on the walls, magazine covers, advertisements, television commercials: tits and asses, slutty faces. The appeal isn’t to the heart, to the mind, but directly to the genitalia. And so, if you so much as say to them: You know, you really have a nice ass, they immediately get it into their heads that they can become runway models, or have a top photographer take their picture, they think they have the world in their clutches, that they can win over anyone, with the scent of what they have between their thighs, they can hook some rich fat cat and drive him crazy with their allure.
And then they show up, they knock at the door, they sit down and cross their legs and look around: here I am, the queen has arrived, make way. Horrible, ignorant southern bumpkins, these women; half-baked, vulgar fishwives. They don’t know that their smooth, ivory hips, their gravity-defying breasts, will soon be sagging burdens, defeated by ill-advised diets and a natural propensity to become, every last one of them, useless cellulite-ridden creatures that finally just plop down in front of the television set. Like their mothers.
Of course, I accept some of them. I mean, we have to work somehow, don’t we? If I were to indulge my criteria wholly and in every decision, this place would have shut down years and years ago, and I’d be working in finance or selling vacuum cleaners. Instead, we’re actually growing. Even though I can sense the uneasiness of certain customers. They confusedly realize that I’d actually welcome a different sort of request, not just: So listen, Dotto’, find me two girls with big titties, because this ad is for a food shop and pictures of anorexics tend to make you lose your appetite.
There’s no problem, they’re perfect for their purposes. Good-looking girls, young and well nourished, and you throw some clothes on them, get them ready, and have a competent photographer do a shoot. My photographers are the best around, and when you take a look at the final product, you might even be tempted to believe that the model is something other than a small-town girl who can’t open her mouth and produce an articulate sentence.
But true elegance is an absence that hovers in the air. What we do is construct a simulacrum, a pale imitation good enough for a posed picture or a stroll down the catwalk in a pair of heels so high that they determine the gait and the stride, not the girl wearing them.
No one should think for a second that things are any different in Rome or Milan. I go there every season, and what I see is atrocious. They think it’s enough for a girl to weigh ninety pounds, stand six feet tall, and have a demented glint in her eyes to be elegant. There too they’ve forgotten the meaning of the word, and in fact the clothing has become horrible in a desperate attempt to be special. There was a time when it was the models who held up the clothing, and now it’s the other way around. It’s unmistakable.
Another truth that I bitterly and belatedly learned, to my regret: it’s possible to lose that elegance. It’s not like a surname, or the color of your eyes. The passage of time, sheer excess, the cruel blows of fortune can deprive you of proportion and confidence, two necessary components. I’ve seen plenty of women who were once the quintessence of elegance turn into parodies of what they used to be.
My wife, for instance, was elegant. I could sit there for hours on end, admiring the position of her hands, the way she sat on the sofa with her legs tucked up under her: a feline creature, ready to pounce. She was the epitome of elegance. Then she started drinking. Now no one could detect or even guess at the echo of a stride and a gait that once caught me and refused to let me go, not under those varicose veins and that hint of a bulging tummy.
You can miss elegance, the way you might miss a beloved person who is no longer with us, the way you can miss your own youth. I’ve stopped chasing after it, I’ve resigned myself to remembering it.
Then I saw her.
I saw her far from here, not among the lines of young women eager to do a test shot or add to their book; or even among the would-be prostitutes who are convinced that the agency is just a cover for an escort business, girls who would rather be an escort than get a university degree. I saw her on the street, no different than a thousand others: discount jeans, canvas shoes, a shapeless bag with who know
s what inside it, and a pair of earbuds in her ears.
She was walking.
I came dangerously close to running into the car ahead of me, so hard was I staring at her. I slammed on the brakes, people turned to stare when they heard the screeching rubber, but she didn’t, because she was listening to her music. I double-parked my SUV and hopped out; everyone behind me was leaning on their horn, freaking out, but I would have done the same thing if I’d been on the highway, if I had had to.
She was walking.
No, it’s not quite right to say that she was walking: she was dancing. I know the score of the way she was walking the way a choreographer knows the score of Swan Lake: muscles pulling taut beneath her skin, as she sailed through life with the certainty of someone who has charted her course.
What’s more, she was beautiful. That wouldn’t have been necessary, the way she walked was more than enough, but she was also beautiful.
I stopped her without any real idea of what I was going to say to her. And she, with surpassing grace, took the earbuds out of her ears and stared at me with those immense eyes. She emanated a curiosity devoid of any mistrust.
I was completely intimidated, I felt unworthy to speak with that goddess.
All around me, the symphony of car horns went on, I wouldn’t be able to stay there much longer. I asked her—or really perhaps I should say that I begged her—to take a moment to talk to me, just a brief instant. I felt like Doctor Zhivago as he watches Lara go by and fears that he might be about to lose her again.
Once again, I was in the presence of true elegance. I had it before me again, just when I was starting to think that I’d lost it once and for all. I could sweep away the fear that I’d only ever imagined it after all, the fear that it had never existed.
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