Five Urban Stories

by Thomas Dalcolle

  I’d even walked inside the park for a few minutes, and then Sofia suddenly had shown herself. But only to me. Later she had pretended to fear an ambush just to make me hold that knife in my hands; a knife with a blade ten centimeters long. I also recalled that she had held it in such a way as to avoid leaving her fingerprints on it.

  That knife, which I took from her bag and then let fall inside her bag again, had my fingerprints on its surface. And for sure, the police would easily detect also invisible blood traces on it, of the victim's blood.

  If that knife ended somehow in the hands of police, and somebody suggested them to check on me, I would have a hard time proving my innocence.

  Yes, Sofia had plenty of reasons in suggesting me to keep quiet and not trying to involve her in the killing of Fulvia.

  I realized that I’d spent the night in the company of a stone-cold killer, who could have killed me but had decided not to. Instead, she’d almost killed me with lovemaking.

  The whole situation was making me feel sick. I had thought to play a love game with two provincial girls, while a pitiless killer just played with me at her will, sparing my life for some unknown reason.

  I'd keep my mouth shut as she wanted, hoping to come out of this nightmare once for all. Yet, I wasn't entirely sure all that intrigue was real. Had I imagined all, misunderstood the facts and the words?

  I didn't want to call Sofia to ask her for an explanation. At that point I had an idea. I could check something that, maybe, could give me the final confirmation.

  I switched on the engine and drove back towards the Castelli. Luckily, the traffic flow was mainly towards the city center, and I reached quickly the provincial street leading to my villa.

  I slowed down, observing carefully, looking for the place where I thought Sofia had thrown that paper bag.

  I was figuring now what I would find inside it. At a break of the curbside, I parked the car, and I continued walking. After some hundred meters, I saw something white and gleaming in the middle of the bushes.

  I rushed through the grass still wet with the morning dew. It was the paper bag. I took it and opened it carefully, as if a bomb was inside. And I found what I expected.

  It contained a pair of disposable rubber gloves. They were the gloves that Sofia had used to hold the knife when she had stabbed the man.

  But, when I tried to examine them, avoiding touching them with the fingers, they appeared clean, with no visible blood stains.

  Probably a careful analysis with adequate technical instruments could reveal invisible blood traces on the external surface, together with Sofia's fingerprints inside.

  This discovery convinced me that Sofia had killed the man. I wasn't dreaming.

  But I still couldn't understand why she’d committed the mistake of throwing away the paper bag in my presence. I remained lost in thought until I reached a reasonable conclusion. She wanted to give me the proof of what she had made, but without allowing me to corner her.

  Actually, at that point, I had no chance to corner her without involving also myself in the investigation. These were a pair of gloves, not the deadly weapon, and they weren't on the crime scene.

  In the best case, it would have been her word against mine. Who could prove that I hadn't prepared those gloves to accuse her of something I was the one to have committed, with several other kinds of proof against me? I appeared to have been on the crime scene; she didn't.

  No, it was just a way to give me a final confirmation of what she had done and of how seriously she had compromised me.

  She knew that if I recovered that paper bag, the gloves inside it would just make me sure of the risk I was running, in case I refused to obey her will. They wouldn't give me any real opportunity to discharge myself from a murder accusation.

  I reached the car, and I slumped inside the seat with a deep sense of discomfort. I was in a trap and felt powerless.

  I could only hope that everything went smoothly with Sofia's interrogation and that she wouldn't decide to involve me in Marco's murder, and also that she wouldn't ask me something more to keep both of us safe from incrimination.

  Yet, there was still something unclear, a flaw in Sofia's explanation, some asymmetry, and something inconsistent with the perfect symmetry of our foolish game.

  *

  About ten months later, everything was going reasonably well in my life, the only exception being that I hadn't yet the heart to engage in another relationship.

  Hence, I used to spend too many evenings with old friends in front of extra-large beer mugs, or at home with the oldest and most faithful of them all: the whiskey bottle.

  I took care to balance these bad habits by doing sport for two evenings a week except tennis.

  I ended up accepting the invitations of some ex-colleagues of my first job, partners of an architectural study, those who enjoyed the claustrophobic folly of squash.

  After a while, I learned the tricks of the game, and I discovered that I enjoyed it, too.

  There’s nothing in it comparable to the continuous, nerve-wracking sequence of tennis deuces.

  As for the work, it couldn’t have been better.

  After my first contract, I accepted two other commitments in similar engineering projects. They were funded by a business consortium, led by the dear friend of mine who had appointed me for the first project, pulling me out from the manure.

  I still regretted the impossibility of investing my money in that flourishing business, but the compensations were plentiful and allowed me to respect my payback schedule with the bank, without personal risks.

  The police investigation of Fulvia's case had caused no problem. The police had called me as a person informed about the facts because my number appeared on Fulvia’s phone call record. I plainly admitted that we had a relationship, but with no exclusive commitment, and I confirmed my alibi, which was unquestionably true. In the end, I concluded that I had no suspicions about anybody and that I ignored her private life and acquaintances in my absence. The story ended there.

  They never asked me about Sofia, nor did they connect me with the unsolved murder at Caffarella Park.

  I only could guess that Sofia's questioning went as smoothly as mine because the police never incriminated anybody.

  Sofia never called me after that night. This increased my old doubts about her partial version of the events.

  I was definitely sure that, in a way or another, she had been the first person responsible for Fulvia's death and not Marco, as she’d suggested. That's why she was so interested in avoiding the possibility of having anyone doubt her. She didn’t have a strong alibi, one that could stand a careful investigation.

  But then, accepting these assumptions, why did she kill Marco, too? Only to keep me under the threat of being accused and force my silence about our mutual relationship when the police questioned me?

  No! Killing a person to get my silence? That seemed too much.

  Marco had to die for some more important reason. I concluded that Marco must have had proof of Sofia's guilt in Fulvia's murder.

  Then, perhaps Marco was blackmailing Sofia for forcing her to stay with him, because Marco had a fixation with Sofia and not with Fulvia, as Sofia had stated. That one was just a story that Sofia tried to sell me.

  Hence, in that scenario, Marco wanted to keep Sophia for himself by threatening her to reveal the facts he knew.

  In fact, Sofia had admitted she wanted to end up with me…but I’d preferred Fulvia in the end. Fulvia was in the middle, between Sofia and me, and Marco too…

  Yes, that made sense!

  However, that hypothesis still had one problem.

  Why, when everything seemed to have gone smoothly the way she wanted, Sofia had never tried to take further advantage of me? Leaving me alone and in peace, without even calling me once.

  It was a matter of fact that she’d wanted to spare me. Otherwise, she could have gotten rid of me that night, gaining the full certainty of my silence.
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br />   She had even come near to doing it without needing a knife or any other weapon. Without marks on my body, it would have appeared that I’d collapsed due to overexerting myself.

  But she’d wanted to spare me.

  So again, why had she spared me, but she had never tried to take any advantage of me nor to pull me to her in the end? She could suggest that I had everything to gain and nothing to lose by accepting her invitations. If she had done it with due care, I could have been fool enough to accept it.

  Perhaps because of my prolonged loneliness, I was even closer to regretting the eerie excitement she knew how to provoke, the total control she held over our bodies, driving us with firm mastery towards the seamless border of pain and pleasure.

  Memories that pushed me to imagine those bodies of the ceased spirits again.

  One evening, I was at home, and I was rightly musing on those matters when I received a message on the phone. It was a Telegram message, one of those that vanish after a user-defined amount of time to avoid backtracking.

  I had created my Telegram account just one week ago, and the message came from someone who wasn't in my directory.

  It was a picture of Sofia breastfeeding a newborn with an expression of blissful delight on her face.

  The facts connected in my mind, I counted the months, and I felt like I was melting. The words that accompanied the image cleared any doubt.

  "This is my child, for sure the best job I've ever done! Now I'm at the Sofitel of Milano. Call me if you wish. Cheers."

  While I was wondering how she knew my new Telegram account, the message and the image disappeared after fifteen seconds.

  Now I understood why she hadn’t called me again after that night. She had to wait and bring to reality all that she wanted from me, and nothing else.

  Now that her child, not our child, was born and healthy, she didn't need me again. I guessed if I had accepted to meet her, she would finish her job with me, to make sure I’d be silenced—forever.

  I had no real proof in this story. Not even the gloves could be used to confirm my version of the facts. It was only my conjectures against her words. But I felt sure of one thing: Sofia had to be a psycho of the most dangerous kind.

  "Always remember that the world is full of weird people."

  And, in a lifetime, the odds are that you will meet one.

  4. Dish Washing with Daria

  It’s a hot August again. The children are here, playing together, after the extravagant dinner I’ve prepared for them.

  Soup made with Maggi concentrate, stewed meat with tomato sauce of the day before yesterday, steamed green beans emerged from the fridge after x number of days, Simmental meat cans, these just opened, Coca-Cola and ice cream.

  My sister came to visit after work, and now she’s peering over my shoulders while I wash dishes, with the attitude of control, as if to say that I could do it as well as she could.

  And this evening too, as soon as I bend down over the low sink and I see the white foam of soap submerging the residuals of oil and sauce, without a logical connection, the same images and the same person emerge clear in my mind.

  The bizarre thing is that she is someone I never, never, think of during the whole day. I can’t remember if I’ve ever dreamed of her.

  We met a few years ago, in those days when I had wholly lost any residual hope to recover my previous normality.

  I was falling down without finding the ground under my feet, without even an idea if there would be a bottom to touch or an endless sinking.

  Anyway, I’d sworn that I would have faced it at any cost; and it had to be so.

  Daria has been the first woman who looked into my eyes and saw someone, or something, that no one had seen before in me.

  It happened one morning, just after we’d met by chance, for the first time, twenty minutes before, in a fast-food restaurant, and then we walked together towards her office.

  Maybe there is a kind of fascination in decay, in someone who no longer takes themselves seriously.

  It is a fact that, since I stopped to value myself very much, often women award me the silent privilege of that astounded glance.

  In that period, I had a consultancy contract with a firm whose offices were near to that fast food place and there, some days later, I met Daria again.

  After lunch, we had coffee together in a near bar. That day, she had her car and wanted to take me for a ride in the surroundings.

  We talked for a long time of the good and evil in our battered lives, like forests under an unexpectedly harsh storm, without the concern of hiding anything.

  Then Daria stopped the car in a lonely terrain in front of a building under construction and looked at me again with that weird glance. We hugged each other as if we had felt there wasn’t anything else to say. And we just cried on each other’s shoulder.

  My consultancy assignment ended that day, so I had no more reasons to reach that part of the city, and have lunch again in that fast-food.

  I’m not sinking anymore, but the water surface still seems far away, high over top of me.

  I stopped sinking when I realized that water surface doesn’t really exist, that it’s just an illusion, a glare reflected from the past because the actual reality now is all here.

  Beautiful white foam over dirty dishes and pots that I flush with a warm water jet, and it goes away. It all disappears in a vortex, anyway.

  5. The First Bus Stop

  The bus was empty because the regular commuters had already gone on their way about one hour earlier.

  I chose a place of convenience at about half the length of the car, and I dumped my backpack on the seat next to mine, sure that no one would complain because I occupied an empty place. I took my notes out of the bag and looked at them.

  When the bus made its first stop at a central square of the city, I picked my head up from my papers.

  I recognized Sonia, who had just boarded the bus and was now walking along the narrow aisle in my direction. She was looking for a place as if commuters had crowded the bus, but we were the only passengers at the moment.

  She looked glowing, joyful and charming; her face seemed to shine with satisfaction and appeared smooth but firm.

  A plowed field, I thought in a flash, a mocking allusion that in our places men use to depict a woman made beautiful by lovemaking. One who has been making love at will and with full enjoyment.

  I knew the effect that lovemaking had on Sonia.

  Sonia and I had been dating for about four years, experiencing highs and lows, sometimes with long pauses following some of my disappointments because of her not showing at some date, a nasty habit that made every appointment with her a gamble.

  But every time, when I pushed myself to call her again, she had promptly accepted my invitation, and the strange affair had resumed as if nothing had happened, and with no explanation on her side, apart from the daftest excuses that meant, “Don’t ask, that’s none of your business.”

  However, since she had started a new job in a restaurant, about two months ago, right in the small town where the bus was taking us, the pattern had definitely changed.

  In the last two months, I had the privilege to meet her only twice, and only after her calls. Then, she’d called me a few other times, but I missed those calls, and when I called back, she never answered.

  Same result when I had called her directly, except for once, when I set the phone on covered number mode, and she replied in a low voice, then telling me she was at work and closing the line.

  Well, that music meant she had started some sort of relationship with the restaurant owner, as it had happened other times with some of her previous employers.

  I knew the man, who seemed like a dirty old pig, so I was almost sure of that, and I decided to wait for when Sonia would get tired of him and of working at his place.

  I had other resources to solace her absence, so I sent her a message saying more or less, “Okay, if you want to put all your eggs in
one basket, I will look for other eggs. The Beast to you!”

  After that, three weeks had passed, and now here she was, walking toward my seat as if not seeing me.

  When she stopped and put her bag on a seat about four rows ahead, I waved at her, and chirped, “Hey, beautiful! Come have a seat near me!”

  She eventually recognized me, and with a hesitant smile, came over and took the seat next to mine, on the other side of the aisle.

  “How come you’re on a bus?” she asked me with a surprised expression.

  “Oh, today my son needed the car, and I have to reach my house over there. I need to be in a quiet place to concentrate and finish something urgent.”

  In fact, I needed to work hard on an important project which required urgent and careful reflection. It meant using the most deceptive branch of contemporary math, one in which entities could morph one into another yet keep separate and distinct. That’s why I thought I’d better face the riddle sitting at my quietest working location.

  That place was a lonely house at a comfortable distance of twelve kilometers from the city. By chance, it happened to be in the same small town on top of a peaceful hill where Sonia was working.

  Again by chance, that day my son needed the car for an undeferrable issue, as he said, which could only be addressed in the capital.

  I felt full of self-loathing for not having wasted money in buying him a personal car before he earned his own money. I couldn’t refuse his request, hence, I had taken the bus to reach my favorite thinking place. The first outcome of that had been stumbling into Sonia. Not bad at all.

  Sitting down, Sonia’s short skirt—a smart piece with a black and white pied-de-poule pattern—uncovered the tanned skin of her fit, lean legs.

  “Oh, but you’re adorable and elegant today,” I said with my best smile. Then I felt the need to understand more. I couldn’t believe that the old owner of the restaurant had made her shine like this!