Valeria exhales a long stream of smoke at the ceiling, “Yes, he was politically shrewd right from the start: he knew which of the intelligentsia to suck up to. That was something else which drew me to him, his perfectly amoral immorality. The writers, the directors, the actors, they all thought Girolamo Candela the perfect standard bearer for the red flag. He came from a poor background, so he was not one of those rich kids passing through the tunnels of their political adolescence. He was sufficiently unsophisticated for the cognoscenti to find him engaging and he was ruthless in his quest for campaign funds.”
“Did you donate?”
Valeria pouts, as though he should know better than to ask, “My first husband was a studio producer; he donated. In fact he donated so much that the studio fell into bankruptcy and he committed suicide.” She quiets.
“Because of the bankruptcy?”
“No, because even though I was much older than him, I had an affair with Girolamo Candela and my husband found out. The bankruptcy may have encouraged him to draw his sword, but my infidelity forced him to fall upon it.”
Now Valeria is back watching him again, waiting either for his sanction or his censure.
“Is that why you changed your mind about Candela?” Ric asks. “The last time we spoke about him I remember you weren’t exactly enamoured of him.”
She teases her thumbnail with her teeth, as if she is trying to make up her mind about how best to answer.
“No,” Valeria replies. “And yes. Perhaps this was a part of it, although I could hardly lay the blame for my infidelity at Girolamo’s door. It was, in the first place, my idea: I seduced him, not the other way round. Remember, Ric,” she smiles, a salacious, lustful smile, a turning of her head and the raising of her eyebrow, “my best years may have been behind me, but youth will never lose its appetite for certain fruits. A precocious young man he may have been, but I knew what I wanted from a political Adonis like Girolamo.
“Oh, don’t look so disapproving, Ric. You British can be such prudes.”
“Sorry to disappoint, Valeria, but you read me all wrong. I’m trying to figure out what else he did that turned you against him?”
Valeria frowns, playfully, “Ric, this constant need for answers is most unbecoming in you. Can’t a woman simply fall out of love with a man?”
Ric shakes his head slowly, without losing eye contact with her, “Not far enough to want to murder him, no.”
She laughs, sitting back and roaring with an abandon he would not have imagined. But her laughter is not attractive; she cackles like a witch, her tone thin and sharply pitched.
“You think I shot Girolamo Candela? You must be out of your mind, Ric. Women of my years don’t exact vengeance on disenchanted lovers.”
“You weren’t home when I dragged myself out of the sea the evening Candela was shot,” Ric states. “So what did you want from him? Were you going to ask him to return all the money you had donated to his cause?”
“I don’t need that kind of money, Ric. As I have already told you, my second husband had more money than sense.”
“And so, it would seem, did you by that time. Or were you still donating to Girolamo’s campaign coffers at that time?”
“No,” she shouts, her voice seething with protest. “After that, I never gave the bastardo any more money.”
“After what, Valeria? After what?” he whispers. “What did he do to you that made you hate him?”
She stares him down the way he imagines she will stare down her God when he admonishes her for her sins. Her poise suggests she is defiant and stubborn and not to be bullied, and yet Ric is still suspicious of her motive. Somewhere deep in the locked vaults of her past he feels there is a darker secret waiting to emerge. Valeria is consumed by a resentment and guilt she will not permit herself to recognise.
“After what?” he asks again.
Finally, her face crumbles and her previously belligerent pose wilts, like a delicate flower surrendering to the needle-chills of autumn. She rests her head in her hands and whispers, “After I got rid of his child.”
But for the waves beating the shoreline beyond the walls of the little cottage, the silence is deafening and extends until it is disturbed only by Valeria’s weeping.
“I am sorry, Ric. This episode in my life, I have never told a soul of this before. It has always been too painful to recall.”
“No one?”
“I said, not a soul. After my first husband’s suicide, I could not bear to have the baby. The child would have been too much of a reminder of the consequences of my infidelity.”
“Your husband knew?”
Valeria nods. “He could not deal with the shame and, after he died, I could not come to terms with what I had done to him. I went to Girolamo and told him we were very suited politically. I told him being married to the daughter of Massimo Farinelli would open many doors for him and that we, with our new child, would be good together. But, as San Bartolo is my witness, he just laughed and walked away. As he walked he said the world would not take him seriously if he had to campaign in the company of yesterday’s actress, a woman old enough to be his mother and a woman with a child some thought belonged to her dead husband.
“I found a doctor in the backstreets of Naples and paid him a handsome price for his silence. It was so much easier back then.”
She dries her eyes. “It was only later, when my mother told me how she had run away to Baarìa and married a man to save me from being born illegitimate, that I understood exactly what I had done. I had killed my child, something my mother would not do. She left me with no place to hide from my conscience.”
Ric fills her glass and pushes it towards her. She looks, now, even more reduced and though he feels oddly rewarded for listening to her confession, he feels guilty that he has had no other alternative than to extract such painful memories from her.
“So you sent Candela a letter asking him to meet you in the Maddalena near where Edda Ciano lived. Your sense of theatre should have forewarned him, but I don’t suppose he could have refused, knowing what had gone on between you. You were the only person on the island who had the power to lure him away from his bodyguards.”
“I did not kill him,” she protests.
“Valeria, face it, you took the gun from the Mara and shot Candela,” he both accuses and pleads. “What beats me is why you threw the gun in the sea at Portinente. Without it, Commissario Talaia would not have connected me to Candela’s murder and without it my guess is you probably wouldn’t have killed Candela. In which case, I must wear some of the blame.”
She looks up and tries to smile at him, but her tears have swept away her defiant veneer in much the same way as the salt-water smoothes the stones of the beach.
“No,” Valeria whispers, “you must believe me, I did not kill him.”
Ric looks deep into her cold grey eyes and remembers what Camille wrote in his letter and what Nino pointed out to him and Talaia not a couple of hours before; that Valeria is, or was, an actress.
“That night,” she begins, “when I heard his speech up in the Mazzini, I learned the difference between man and god. You see, Ric, if you place all your faith in one man, it is inevitable that you will be disappointed. They are, after all, only flesh and blood and therefore prone to weakness. God, on the other hand, is not made of flesh and blood: we construct him in our minds and make him as perfect as we want him to be. We, on the other hand, are imperfect. We only have ourselves to blame.” Her voice cracks and dries; she sips her Averna.
“I hated Girolamo Candela for how he treated me and I swore I would never forgive him. But, after some water had passed under the bridge, I found I was prepared to forgive him in a small way. Why? Because I believed in his dreams and his aspirations for those who could not afford to feed their children.
“I had heard the stories about how he had moved to the Socialists and how he was getting money from the Mafia, but I ignored these stories, hoping he would never change hi
s ideology. So when I listened to that speech about the brave new world in which the people of Lipari would be bribed like Judas to allow this hotel to be built, I realised Girolamo had ransomed his soul, just like all the others. This was when I made up my mind that I had to tell him I would go to the papers with my story. If it was going to be the last thing I could do before I die, I wanted to have the satisfaction of going to my grave knowing that I had destroyed his political career. I thought that in the same way I had rid the world of his child, I would rid the world of his ambition.
“You see, Ric, Girolamo Candela had already destroyed my life once and by coming here and building this hotel, he would destroy the only life I have left: this island, the family I should have belonged to and the father I never knew. To preserve all this, I had to destroy him.”
“You said Candela knew your father’s identity?”
Valeria looks down at the floor; a child accused of talking out of turn. “Yes. In those days I was both romantic and naive; this was a very poor combination in my character. I should never have told him; I have regretted it ever since.”
Ric sits and watches Valeria. He finds himself swimming in a sea of conflicting emotions, unsure as to whether he should reach out in consolation or scold her for her stupidity.
“So what are you going to do, Ric?”
“About what?”
“About this situation I have caused for you?”
“I don’t know,” he replies. “If the gun really does have my prints on it, then I’m done for.”
Valeria looks horrified. She reaches out and touches his arm, “No, Ric. It would be better for you to leave.”
“Funny, Marcello said something like that.”
She rests her head against her fist and grimaces, “Would it be better that I go to this Commissario Talaia and tell him it was me and not you.” She is Garbo and Bergman both rolled into one: she would give herself up for him, for his cause, for…
Ric smiles, “A noble offer, Valeria, thank you. But that would only confuse him even more. Imagine what a feast the press would make of this sordid tale. Imagine the shame you would bring to the Maggiore family? Would it be worth that much?”
She shakes her head. “The papers don’t need to know about my connection with the Maggiore family and,” she frowns, “I have only a few months left to live. A failed actress who once enjoyed a brief liaison with a dead politician? Hah, they are not likely to condemn me to life in the Ucciardone for that,” Valeria scoffs. “I am sure Commissario Talaia will be only too happy to finish with the case of who killed Girolamo Candela.”
“If only it was that simple.”
He thinks to mention the killing of Claudio Maggiore, but thinks better of it when he remembers the argument he overheard was between two men. And though he now thinks Valeria may possess the requisite hatred for murder, he doesn’t reckon she’d be up for strangling a man and burying his body beneath a pile of rubble.
“So I ask again, Ric, what will you do?”
“I don’t know, Valeria, what do you want me to do? Tell you that you were wrong to lure Candela to the Piazza San Bartolo simply to threaten to expose him? Tell you it wasn’t your fault that someone else was waiting to shoot him? Absolve you of your sin?”
“No, Ric,” she shakes her head, her wavy hair flowing around her, “absolution is not yours to grant. The time for la resa dei conti will come soon enough and only God has the wisdom to decide whether I am worthy of absolution.” She is calmer now that she is ready to depart her confessional. “But, Ric, what happens now is up to you to decide.”
62
Aeolus grows bored with the vicissitudes of the islanders and casts his eyes northwards. Naples, a crowded crucible of discontent slumbering in the shadow of Vesuvius, will provide greater amusement for his capricious energies. He has vented his frustrations upon the steep flanks of the città and once more the cathedral of San Bartolo has withstood his assault.
In the Via Maddalena, the residents have bolted their doors and shuttered their windows, and the Marina Corta is deserted when Ric strolls back through it to his monolocale. Like Aeolus, his thoughts are taken with the constant changes in his fortune and he can see no way out of his maze of alternatives. Tonight though, he does not care if he is being followed through the narrow alleys. Whether it is Aeolus, Marcello or Commissario Talaia who is watching him, Ric is too tired to care.
Once inside the front room, he drops onto the small sofa and falls deeply asleep.
63
Something is wrong. Something is seriously wrong. He cannot breathe.
Ric is drowning. He is deep in the water, in the dark, surrounded by thrashing totani, diving down and down and down. He must get away from the screaming propeller of the launch before it can carve a channel through his skull. His chest tightens and he begins to struggle for air. He is deep and knows it because the sea is always cold when one is down so deep. He is very deep now, too deep and has not allowed himself enough time to swim back up to the surface before his lungs burst and the sea floods in. Ric has made the same mistake once before. How could he be so foolish as to make it again? He stops, suspends in the cool water for a split second, then turns and makes for the surface, his legs kicking wildly like an electric frog. He can’t hold out. He–
“Ric?” murmurs a voice from the darkness.
He opens his eyes: the room is black and someone has their hand over his mouth.
It is the sailmaker. “Per favore, sta ‘zitto, eh? Don’t move for a moment.” Slowly, he lifts his hand away from Ric’s mouth.
“How the hell did you get in here?” Ric mutters under his breath.
“You forget, my friend, this is my house.”
“You and I need to talk–”
“Sta ‘zitto, Ric. Be calm,” Marcello’s breath is hot against Ric’s cheek. “We will talk, but now is not the time. We must leave. Get up and follow me.”
“Give me one good reason why I should trust you, Marcello?” Ric manages to restrain himself from shouting, but cannot keep the anger from his tone.
“A good reason?” Marcello replies, as though he is toying with several ideas and isn’t sure which will best suit his purpose. “Okay, how about if I leave you here, you will either be arrested at sun rise or dead by sunset. Is that good enough? Or are you as dumb as Talaia obviously thinks you are?”
Ric scoffs, but softly, “And if I come with you, how do I know I’ll be any better off?”
“You would trust the little Commissario before me? He is Candela’s man and Candela is dead. If I had wanted you dead, you would already be so,” he hesitates, “and the only way out of here is through the vico.” He waits. “Okay, stay here, you fool.”
For a couple of seconds Ric wrestles with his visitor’s uncomfortable logic. “Well, when you put it like that…”
“Bring what you have,” Marcello whispers as he stands.
“I have nothing. Talaia has my passport.”
“Then bring nothing. We will be quicker.”
“Okay, but there is a policeman outside and probably another at the far end of the alley.”
“It is true,” Marcello murmurs, “the big poliziotto is there, but he is sleeping.”
And it is very possibly the first truth he has been told all day: Officer Paolo is present at the corner of the alley, but he is sprawled unconscious, his arms and legs crooked and limp.
They step deftly to avoid disturbing him. Ric starts to voice his concern, but Marcello hisses at him to keep quiet.
Like thieves, they wind their way through the narrow vicolos of the città bassa. The storm has passed over and the moon and stars shine bright, painting the alleyways in a canvas of sharp contrasts; silver and black flashing over their shoulders as they dash and dodge and duck and dive from one doorway to the next.
A couple of times, Ric stumbles into his guide, so he hangs a pace off Marcello’s back and tries to keep in step.
Marcello holds up his hand as he slows a
nd stops.
Cigarette smoke hangs in the night air.
Two policemen are loitering in the curve of the Via Roma; they are chatting, their voices pitched low.
Marcello turns, raises his finger to his lips, steals across the cobbled street and is gone, swallowed by the shadows.
Ric realises that he only has to step straight out into the street and give himself up to the policemen to make life simple. The idea of putting himself in further danger seems stupid; that is, if he prefers to trust Talaia.
He can’t make out Marcello’s profile at the foot of the steps opposite, but he can feel him. An arm extends into the light as he waves, impatient for Ric to follow.
One of the policemen bends to light a cigarette. Ric knows it is his best chance to get across the street unseen as the flaring light will momentarily blind the two officers. But again, he hesitates: if Talaia believes there is any likelihood of the Beretta being his gun, then surely he would have locked him up in a cell by now? There is too much that doesn’t make sense.
Ric slips as quietly as he can across the street.
Marcello pulls him up the steps, muttering beneath his breath as though tiring of his charge’s doubts.
They slink between the plane trees in the Franza and scurry through the shadows of the Sant’Anna, paying particular attention to their footfall, as the sound of each stone they trip over or kick echoes louder than a gunshot.
It is way past midnight and the town, like those tucked up in bed, is sighing. Away up on Monte Gallina a baby wails and from the flats behind Diana a couple argue as if the lives of their children depend on the outcome of their dispute.
Ric would like to know where they are going, but he has to hurry to keep up with Marcello. Each time he slows and Ric arrives at his shoulder, the sailmaker darts off into a doorway or the shadow cast by a balcony.
The Maddalena, through which Ric walked not a couple of hours before, is cool and peaceful. They relax a little now that they are further from the Corta. At the bottom, where the alley opens onto the little shingle beach beside the Hotel Rocce Azzurre, Marcello stops and listens. Beyond the lapping of the water, the occasional shriek of a cavazza from the cliffs beyond the Punta and the solemn moaning of a fishing smack way out in the darkness, there is no noise that warrants their attention.
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