The woman watched, petrified in horror, as the policeman threatened the safety of her Saint Joseph.
“Commissario, what are you doing? Put Saint Joseph back immediately! You have no idea how much that piece is worth!”
Her voice had become even more shrill than before; it was if the nun had shards of glass in her mouth.
“What would you think of me, Sister Veronica, if I were to hurl this statue to the ground and shatter it into a thousand pieces?”
“Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare! You don’t even have the right to touch it! Put it back this second!”
Ricciardi didn’t bat an eye.
“But that’s exactly what I intend to do. I can do it, seeing as you did it yourself.”
The nun, her face disfigured by rage, emitted a high-pitched scream that sounded like a sharp blade scraping across a slab of sheet metal. With a sudden lunge, she grabbed a long, well-honed knife from the workbench and drew it back to launch herself at Ricciardi, but a strong hand seized her arm.
She turned around and found herself face-to-face with two hundred and sixty-five pounds of out-of-breath police brigadier.
“I wouldn’t do that, Sister. If I were you, I wouldn’t do that.”
LV
Now she’s calm. She’s talking, and her voice and her thoughts are at cross purposes, and they echo in the minds and hearts of Maione and Ricciardi.
I didn’t break it! I didn’t throw it to the floor, you understand? I’d never do such a thing, and since then I’ve prayed day and night that no one up in Heaven should ever think that I did it intentionally.
To break a sacred image, me of all people—why, I’d never do such a thing. It fell, I dropped it, because of these cursed hands of mine. It slipped through my fingers, it hit the ground, and it broke, may God in Heaven forgive me.
Only for that one thing do I ask the Lord for forgiveness. Not for the rest. The rest was justice. The rest was the right thing to do. The Madonna in person told me so; even with all the pain from the swords in Her heart, She told me Herself that the time had come to do it.
You must listen to me. I have to tell you everything, down to the last detail. I’m not interested in your forgiveness, let me be clear about that: or even your comprehension, as far as that goes. I just want to tell you my story so that you understand what happened, so that you learn how a respectable person ought to behave.
Because I’m a nun, you understand? I’m Sister Veronica. I’m the nun who makes the manger scene, the little nun with the big brassy voice like a trumpet; I’m like a fairy godmother, the children all adore me. And I adore them back. Children are my mission, that’s why the Madonna summoned me in the first place.
Suddenly, her face is transformed; it becomes sweet and devout, like the faces of the saints on the saint cards that women kiss and men keep in their wallets.
I wanted children of my own when I was young. I wanted a family, with lots of children, born of true love. And I waited to meet the right man, I wrote poetry in my diary, and I even drew pictures of him, as best I could imagine him, because I dreamed about him from sunrise to sunset.
My mother always used to tell me, wait and you’ll meet him, the father of your children. I’d say to her, Mamma, tell me, how will I know it’s him when I meet him? And she’d say, don’t fret, you’ll hear a little voice inside you that’ll tell you: it’s him, he’s really the one.
I waited. I spent every day preparing myself to be a good wife, learning to sew, wash, iron, and cook. If I never found him, I wouldn’t settle for anyone else. I’d much sooner have no one at all.
My sister, on the other hand, thought only of herself; she brushed her hair and strutted around in front of the mirror like a peacock. That’s the way she was, my sister.
And then one day I met him. My father worked at the port, he had a small company, I used to take him lunch when he couldn’t get away to come home to eat; and that day, talking to my father in his office, there he was. Emanuele.
Ricciardi sees her regret, her melancholy. And he sees love, the ancient enemy.
He was an official with the port authority; the militia wasn’t something they’d dreamed up yet. He was so handsome, you know? So handsome. He looked at me, I looked at him, and I heard that voice deep inside me, the little voice that my mother told me I’d hear: it’s him, the voice told me. It’s him, I said to myself.
My father didn’t like him, he thought he was just a grabby careerist and a social climber. That he seemed far too comfortable handling other people’s money. But I’d heard that voice inside, and from that day I thought of nothing else.
We would meet in secret. He’d tell me that I seemed like a little girl, and he’d smile. I was happy, like I’d never been before, like I’d never be again.
Then one day I came down with a fever. My sister went to take lunch to my father that day.
A cloud passed over her face. Not remorse, not displeasure. Annoyance, rather. A bump on the road, an inconvenient mishap. The vain sister, the stupid sister. The sister who won in the end.
I don’t know what happened. I hadn’t told anyone about him, because my father was opposed to him. My mother didn’t know, my sister didn’t know. But he knew, he knew perfectly well. But he pretended not to. He avoided me for the next couple of months, and then one night there he was, at the dinner table: my sister’s fiancé.
I’d always said it: either the man that fate had chosen for me, or no one. The next night, as I lay in bed sobbing, I heard a voice deep inside me saying: then come to me.
It was the Madonna. That was Her voice: now I knew. She wanted me, even if no one else did, She wanted me. I entered the convent as a novice just a week later, and my parents put up no objections. But my sister had plenty to say: Didn’t you want lots of children? she asked. And I told her: Yes, and in fact, I’ll have lots of children. Lots and lots.
She was scary now, with that shrill little-girl voice and a grim expression, like a hundred-year-old woman. A shiver ran through Maione, who was standing behind her, ready to immobilize her again if necessary.
Several years went by, at least five. I went to their wedding, but I never went to see them. To see them happy together—no one could ask me to do that, except the Madonna, but She never did. My father died, my mother fell sick, but we nuns say that our family is the convent.
I learned that my sister was expecting a child. I went to see her. She was annoyed, angry, worried. She told me that she would turn into a cow, and that her husband’s eye would wander, that he’d find someone else. That was all she cared about.
I told her that she’d surely end up in Hell, thinking and talking that way. That a child is the greatest possible blessing, that it was sheer sacrilege to complain. And she said: Fine, if you like children so much, why don’t you raise it. And I said: Of course, I’ll be happy to raise her. Because I knew she would be a little girl, and so she was.
The smile, a chilly, frightening smile. Or perhaps it’s just the lights of the manger scene which looks like a distant city, and the air that’s growing colder minute by minute.
It was a little girl, sure enough, and from the very beginning she spent more time with me than with her mother. My sister, you see, wasn’t born to be a mother. She would always smile, she was courteous, and she liked to look at herself in the mirror, but she was good for nothing else.
You’ve seen Benedetta. She’s like me. Serious, well-behaved, intelligent. She’d rather be here than at home; that’s what she always tells me.
Everything was all right, no problems. I saw him only rarely, he pretended not to see me, the only reason he even said hello to me was to keep my sister from getting suspicious. Once or twice she told me: My husband doesn’t want the girl to spend all her time at the convent. But he was working all the time and she was happy to be able to have the hairdresser come over or to go out window s
hopping.
Do you know that song, the one that talks about toys and perfumes, Balocchi e profumi? The one that makes everyone cry when they hear it? My sister was like the mother in that song.
But in the song, the little girl is alone and she falls sick, but I’m there for Benedetta. And so everything was all right.
Until, in mid-December, that devil in human form gets it into his head to make a manger scene.
She looks at Ricciardi, as if that were an explanation. As if that were enough to explain all that blood, all that pain. As if that were enough.
The manger scene, you understand? The manger scene, in that home. A depiction of the family in its holiest form, a depiction of faith and love, right there in that apartment. I said: A manger scene? Why on earth a manger scene?
My sister laughed, she laughed right in my face. She said: You’re asking me why, you who spend the whole year thinking about nothing else, going around begging for donations, you who build yours piece by piece? And anyway, it’s your fault that we’re doing it, the girl is so in love with your manger scene at the convent that Emanuele has finally decided to put one up here. In fact, he told Benedetta that he’s going to buy her one even more beautiful than yours.
She’s started crying, a terrible sight. The tears are streaming down that face of an aged little girl, reddened and furious. Her voice continues scratching the blackboard.
*
I waited, and I prayed to the Madonna to pardon this blasphemous act. How could a man like him depict the Holy Family, a man who had discarded me, who had brought a daughter into the world who he didn’t care about, a man who pretended he had forgotten everything that had happened between us? How could he? I prayed for her to forgive him, to forgive them. Believe me, I really wanted to save them. But one night the Madonna told me no, that the sin was too great. That the world couldn’t be soiled like that, that the world had to be cleansed.
Here we go again, thinks Ricciardi. Here we go again. Love, the old enemy, degenerates and turns into madness.
I waited till Saturday, when he goes to work a little later; I know their habits. I went in the morning to pick up Benedetta. I hoped that that drunk of a doorman would be at the tavern as usual, but instead he was in his booth, in the lobby, half asleep at his desk.
My sister was getting ready to leave; he was still in bed. I told her that I was running late, I took the girl and left. When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I pretended to realize how strong and cold the wind was blowing, and that I’d forgotten the child’s hat and gloves.
Then I left her in the entryway and I went back upstairs.
Ricciardi feels a surge of anger at himself for not having figured it out right away. Ferro had remembered how lovely the little girl’s braids had been that morning because he’d seen her without a hat; the image of the murdered woman was saying: Hat and gloves? not because she was asking for them, but because she was offering them, the hat and gloves of her daughter; and she was looking down either because her sister was so short, or else because she was looking for her daughter. I’m an idiot, a miserable idiot.
The Madonna had told me to do it, but I didn’t know how. Then it occurred to me to bring the knife I used to cut the cork with me, the one that’s razor sharp. The minute she opened the door, handing me the little girl’s hat and gloves, I grabbed them from her and I did it. One blow, a single slash. That was all it took. I just wanted to make sure she stayed quiet.
One blow, a single blow. From right to left, just like the doctor said, with strength and determination. The Madonna had told her to do it.
And then I went inside, to the bedroom. With the knife in my hand. I had to be quick, because the child might catch cold, without her little hat and gloves. She’s very susceptible, you know that? Her throat is delicate. Every winter she gets a fever, at least once.
He was sleeping peacefully. I placed the tip of the knife right over his heart, and I waited. At a certain point he opened his eyes. He didn’t say a word. Maybe he thought it was a dream; maybe he’d been dreaming of me, the way I still dreamed of him, after all these years.
You have to get rid of the manger scene, I told him. You owe me that.
He made a cruel face, and he said . . .
I don’t owe a thing, not a thing, he said. And I thought he was talking about money, thinks Ricciardi.
. . . that he didn’t owe anyone anything. And then I sank that knife deep, into that heart black with sin. And I stabbed him, I stabbed and stabbed and stabbed. His protector was Saint Sebastian; perhaps he wanted to die that way. My hand, my hands get sweaty, they never stop sweating. And when I’m nervous they sweat even more. I switched to the other hand, and I kept stabbing. He needed to be punished, he had to go to hell. And he had to go there by my hand.
There were two hands, the doctor had that right, too, thinks Ricciardi; with different degrees of strength because of the sweat and the different angles. The murderous hands. And the blood that sprayed in all directions remained invisible because the nun’s habit is black. The only way to leave without attracting notice while covered with blood. And the murderous hands.
Then I wiped the knife on the sheets: I still needed it, you understand. I still needed to add a hill, over there, you see it? There’s still moss to be added. I needed the knife.
But before I left, there was one thing left to do, and so I went into the other room. I wanted to take away the Saint Joseph, because a figurine like that didn’t belong in a home like theirs. A father who lives for his child’s sake: the complete opposite of that man. I grabbed it, but it slipped out of my hand; did I mention that sometimes my hands get a little sweaty?
That’s why I suddenly understood. Rosa told me, when she dropped the Christ Child, and then there was the eel, the way it slithered through the fingers of all the hands that were trying to catch it. The Christ Child fell; it wasn’t hurled to the floor, it wasn’t shattered intentionally. And the eel was wet and slippery, just like the knife in the murderous hand. He had to die, she’d said. By my hand.
You have to believe me, I’d never have intentionally broken a sacred image. You can’t think that of me, please. Tell me that’s not what you think. I would never break a sacred image, never. The Madonna wouldn’t talk to me for two whole days, even though She knew that I hadn’t done it on purpose.
I kicked the broken pieces, I kicked them under the tablecloth. I just hoped no one would see them. I couldn’t touch them, not with hands that had just done what my hands had done.
Tell me that you believe me, I beg of you.
You do believe me, don’t you? Do you believe me?
LVI
Eventually, finally, Christmas Eve comes around; and after all the waiting it still catches everyone slightly unprepared.
The dining room tables seem a little inadequate to the mistresses of the house, always a little barer than they’d imagined when they’d planned the meals; the gifts never seem quite abundant enough, you always seem to have forgotten an uncle, a good friend’s wife, or one of the nephews; you worry that there aren’t enough pastries and candy, but with what they cost, you certainly couldn’t have bought any more.
In the morning, the fireworks start going off, at regular intervals, as if marking the hours left to go till midnight, when the city will explode like a giddy powder keg of happiness, inundating the streets with smoke and light. And the hospitals will overflow with men wounded in this war of happiness; a couple of fingers gone, a missing eye—just so many souvenirs to remember the holiday by.
Eventually, finally, Christmas Eve comes around.
Deputy Chief of Police Angelo Garzo looked around, satisfied only in part.
He’d so badly wanted to host that Christmas Eve dinner at his home, and he’d invited a number of prominent individuals, but almost no one had taken him up on it, understandably preferring to remain at home with their own fam
ilies. But it didn’t matter, because a few people had come and he felt gratified by those who had.
His wife, with the help of their maid, had laid a beautiful table, with flowers, candlesticks, silverware, and crystal. The manger scene, a small one but an antique, had been given the place of honor, under a bell jar.
Among his guests, in fact, was none other than Duke Freda di Scanziano, the consul of the second legion of the port militia. He at least could hardly refuse the invitation, after Ricciardi brilliantly solved the murder of that centurion, whose name Garzo no longer remembered. A solution that had not implicated any other militiamen, an outcome that Rome had been dreading.
The deputy chief of police had adroitly taken advantage of the thank-you phone call to extend an invitation to the consul and his wife that night: what a windfall.
Certainly, as soon as Epiphany was over, Garzo expected a phone call of complaint from the bishop for the rude and unannounced incursion into the convent, even though the nun had ultimately confessed. But what could he do about that?
Of course, a nun: damn that Ricciardi, never once could the man catch a criminal who looked like a criminal. But he’d worry about that after the holidays; right now he needed to tend to his very important guest. One day, sooner or later, he’d turn out to be useful to his career.
He walked over to him and said, with that dazzling smile he’d tried out a thousand times under his new mustache:
“Consul, care for another roccocò?”
By My Hand Page 29