Eventually, finally, Christmas Eve comes around. And amid all the disorder, it even manages to settle some things.
Lomunno looked around, and for the first time the interior of his shack seemed a little less squalid.
He’d managed to find a couple of candles and a tablecloth, and the money he’d earned at the market had helped him to put something on the table that was a little better than their usual fare. And to reward him for his hard work, the merchant had given him some fresh fish.
The children were eating hungrily; every so often, for some reason known only to them, they laughed together. Just like they used to do, in that other life, a thousand years ago, when Christmas was a celebration for another family, a family that no longer existed.
Lomunno decided that the human mind was a very odd thing indeed. He’d never have had the strength to take revenge on Garofalo: the fear of what would have become of his children, left on their own, would have stopped him every time. But the knowledge that the man was still alive, enjoying the comforts he’d stolen from him, that he was laughing and growing fat without a twinge of trouble from his conscience, had been ruining Lomunno’s life.
Now that the man who had devised his ruin was dead, maybe the time had come to think of something else: how to reconstruct a life for himself, for instance, and a decent existence for his children.
Lomunno reached out his hand and caressed his daughter, who stood up with a serious expression on her face and kissed him on the cheek.
Sometimes, Lomunno thought, good can come from evil in this life. And after all, today is Christmas Eve.
Christmas Eve comes around and it has fun putting together things that couldn’t be any more different one from another.
Dr. Modo dried his hands and turned to Vincenzino’s parents.
“The fever has subsided. No question, this child is weak; but as the inflammation recedes, little by little, he’ll regain energy and, I assure you, appetite. Boccia, I think you’re going to have to redouble your fishing from now on; this little wolf is going to devour a lot of food, to catch up on lost meals.”
“Dotto’, believe me: I’ll empty the sea of fish for my little Vincenzino,” Aristide answered passionately. “I thought we were going to lose him. You can’t imagine how many of our children we lose around here to illnesses like these.”
“I believe you. As damp as it is, and the food the poor creatures have to live on, only the strongest ones are likely to survive. But our little Vincenzino, here, is strong indeed.”
Angelina turned around, stopping her stirring of the pot on the fire for a brief moment.
“Dotto’, if I may? This evening, on Christmas Eve, where are you going to eat? Are they expecting you at home?”
Modo sighed as he put on his jacket.
“No, no, Signo’, no one’s expecting either of us, neither me nor the dog, here. We’ll go for a nice walk and see if we can find a trattoria, we’ll have a little wine, just me, not the dog, and then we’ll go to sleep. That is, if they don’t keep us awake with this idiotic custom of shooting off Christmas firecrackers, a custom that does no good except to fill the hospitals with mutilated citizens.”
The woman shot her husband a glance and signaled to him imperiously with her eyes. He turned and said:
“Dotto’, if you’re not offended by my asking, why don’t you stay and eat dinner with us? It’s a custom with us to cook everything we didn’t sell at the market, and luckily it’s not that much this year, and we eat it all together with the families of the others in the crew. Then we play a little music, we dance, and we laugh. We’re penniless, but we have a good time. What do you say, would you care to honor us with your presence?”
Modo pushed back his hat and scratched his head. He looked at the dog, curled up at the threshold with one ear cocked.
“What do you say, dog? Do we want to spend Christmas Eve with these new friends of ours?”
The dog barked just once, and wagged its tail.
“It’s his decision. Thank you, glad to accept. And what are you making that will no doubt be so delicious?”
Christmas Eve comes around, and it fills all the seats.
Maione had said nothing all morning, and Lucia was worried again. She hoped with all her heart that her husband had forgotten once and for all about his plans for revenge, which, she felt certain, would ruin their lives for good. She’d already lost too much, in terms of happiness, hope, and a future. She wasn’t willing to plunge back into a nightmare. She knew Raffaele, she knew that if he acted according to a moral code any different from his own, the best possible outcome would be that he’d be tormented by his conscience for the rest of his days.
At a certain point, as if he’d finally come to an irrevocable decision, he’d gone out, saying that he needed to get something he’d forgotten. She’d done her best to keep him at home—the idea of him leaving just a few hours before the meal she’d put so much work into preparing; the idea of leaving the children—but he’d smiled at her and left.
Lucia had clung to that smile for the next two hours while she waited for him to return, and the time had stretched out until it seemed like two years. Then she’d heard the sound of the key in the lock, and she’d braced herself for anything and everything: except for what greeted her eyes.
Standing next to Raffaele in the doorway was a person, a little person. With her little hand in his big paw, her face red from the cold, and two braids poking out of her little wool cap, was a girl wearing a bewildered expression.
With his eyes, her husband signaled to her not to ask him anything. He summoned his eldest daughter, just a year older than their diminutive guest, and told her to take the girl to her room and show her her dolls. Only when he was sure he wouldn’t be overheard did he speak to his wife.
“Luci’, I couldn’t celebrate Christmas with this thought on my mind. In just a few days, this little girl has lost both her parents and now her aunt; she has no one left. She’ll have to stay at the convent, for now, then they’ll see. But the thought of her spending Christmas Eve all alone, surrounded by nuns, just made me feel bad. I talked to the mother superior, and she gave me permission to keep her here with us until after the holidays. Forgive me for doing it without telling you.”
That was Raffaele Maione all over: the man she’d fallen in love with, the man she’d married, the man she loved. The father of her children. A man who was such a father that he even felt he was the father of other people’s children.
She stroked his broad, worried face.
“You did the right thing. Exactly the right thing. In fact, let me tell you this: that empty chair at the table, from now on we’ll make sure that there’s always someone sitting there at the holidays, at Christmas, at Easter. The good fortune that this family of ours enjoys, we’re not going to keep it all for ourselves. That wouldn’t be right. And you’ll see, the original proprietor of that seat will be glad.”
Christmas Eve comes around, and it tosses everything in the air.
When he realized he was the last one at the office, Ricciardi decided it was time to go home for the night.
He shot a look out the window: the piazza below was practically deserted by now. Every so often the boom of a firecracker would resound in the distance: they were test-firing the fireworks that would inundate the air at midnight, to greet the birth of a Child who they hoped would bring them peace, health, and prosperity. That’s a little too much to ask, the commissario mused, from someone so young.
He headed off, walking at a fast pace along the sidewalk finally clear of stands and stalls and beggars. Everyone had found somewhere to spend those hours, many of them with someone to embrace.
He thought of Rosa and her shaky hand. For the first time in his life he’d felt a twinge of anxiety as he glimpsed the specter of a future of loneliness, deeper and darker than the loneliness he felt now. He should
have demanded that she take better care of herself; it was his duty to protect her, as she had done for him from the day he was born.
Now there was no one left on the street but the dead, and their unexpected, painful last thoughts; them and the occasional hurrying straggler, racing against the clock.
At the corner of the archaeological museum, where the road started uphill toward Capodimonte, Ricciardi heard the sound of his name coming from a car.
“Ciao, handsome detective. Can I offer you a ride home?”
The interior of the car was nice and warm. Livia’s scent washed over him.
“I happened to be passing by police headquarters. The sentinel told me that you’d just left. I know the route you take to go home, and here I am. Don’t get ahead of yourself, eh? I went out because I chose to, I had invitations from my friends, since it would never occur to you that I’m all alone on Christmas.”
Ricciardi fumbled for an excuse of some kind.
“I assumed you’d go to Rome, or to be with your parents. I had no idea you were still here.”
Livia laughed.
“What would you have done otherwise, would you have invited me home for dinner? Come on, Ricciardi, don’t make me laugh.”
“Livia, you know my situation: I live with my tata, she’s an old woman and she’s not really well. And anyway I’ve told you before, you shouldn’t expect the same kind of behavior from me that you get from . . . from other men, the usual kind. I’m always happy to see you, but I have my own life and my own things, and they’re not the sort of things you can easily share.”
The woman’s tone of voice shifted, suddenly turning softer.
“I know that that’s what you think. And deep down I also know you’re wrong, that all you’d have to do is open the door a crack and let me in, and it would make you happy and me happy, too. There are two reasons I wanted to see you tonight.”
They’d already covered the short distance to Ricciardi’s home. The driver pulled over in front of the street entrance.
“And just what would those two reasons be?”
From the slats in the shutters over a certain window, two eyes, which had been waiting, saw what they wanted to see.
“First of all,” Livia replied, “I have to tell you that for the first time in my life I’ve lost all confidence. I’ve always believed, ever since I was a young girl, that I could get anything I wanted from men. Then I met you, and it was like knocking my head against a brick wall.”
She looked to Ricciardi like another woman entirely: her lower lip was trembling, and it was obvious that she was making a tremendous effort to keep from crying. She clenched her hands in fists in her black velvet gloves, and resumed in her normal tone of voice.
“Second: yes, I could have left town. But I’m happy even just to be in the same city as you. That’s enough for me. For now, it’s enough.”
In the darkness, her dark, liquid eyes glittered from their veil of tears.
“Merry Christmas, Ricciardi.”
She leaned forward and kissed him.
The eyes that had been watching dropped from the shutters to the front door of an apartment building. From the black clouds that had continued to grow heavier and darker all day there fell, swirling slowly, a single snowflake. Then another, and another still.
The car door opened, and a man stepped out and headed toward the apartment building across the way. The car drove off.
As he was searching for his keys, Ricciardi sensed a movement behind him.
He turned around and froze in astonishment as he saw Enrica walking toward him.
From her stride it seemed that she had lost every trace of uncertainty; she wore neither overcoat nor hat: the flakes of snow, which were coming down faster now, were falling in her hair. Her eyes, behind lenses that were slightly fogged from the chilly air, glittered like black stars.
Ricciardi understood in a flash that she couldn’t have missed the sight of Livia bidding him farewell with a kiss. He felt himself die a little bit. He shut his mouth with a loud snap and tried, desperately, to come up with some way to keep from losing her yet again.
“Signorina, I . . . I don’t know what you think, but you have to believe me: that car didn’t . . .”
Enrica walked right up to him and stopped just inches away. She took his face in both hands and gave him a long, passionate kiss.
Then she turned around and went home.
Ricciardi stood there in the snow, with his keys in his hand and an earthquake in his heart.
All around him, the city was an immense manger scene.
A MEETING WITH ENRICA
by Maurizio de Giovanni
It’s no simple matter for a man to be allowed to speak alone, unchaperoned, with an unmarried young woman from a respectable family these days. You run the risk of looking like a fool, and, even worse, of putting her in a gravely awkward position. People will talk and they want nothing so much as an opportunity, an excuse to stick a label of flighty flirtatiousness on some young woman; for the neighborhood gossips, an irreprehensible reputation is no fun at all.
I was therefore compelled to get in touch with her in the only way I knew how that would shield her from nosy neighbors, while also allowing me to explain the reason I wanted to meet her: I wrote a letter.
Even this wasn’t easy. What I had to do was tickle her curiosity, making her understand that I wasn’t entirely a stranger, that I had some insight into certain matters concerning her but that I wouldn’t meddle, that I wanted to know more about her and that I’d like to meet her, perhaps to offer some advice. I was cautious, straddling a narrow boundary line, well aware that all it would take was a single word too many to frighten her off, and one too few to leave her indifferent. Last of all, since I could hardly ask her to write back, I had no choice but to suggest that we meet at a certain time and place without having any way of knowing whether she’d come.
Enrica, as I’ve learned from writing about her, is far more unpredictable than one could imagine. Her lack of inclination to indulge in spectacular gestures, her quiet nature, her calm manners, the measured way she has about her all give only a partial and incomplete idea of her true personality. She can be instinctive and abrupt, and without raising her voice, she can even be quite cutting. And like many women, she takes odd approaches to expressing herself, with some surprising results.
And so I’m relieved, though hardly astonished, when I see her walk into the waterfront café where I asked her to meet me. I already know that among the few customers on this chilly January afternoon there’s no one who might recognize her. Outside the waves and the wind are quarreling, with the sound of a mournful symphony. The summer heat and the street urchins leaping naked from the rocks of Mergellina seem like a distant island, the product of a storyteller’s imagination.
I bend briefly over her gloved hand, she pulls out the hat-pins and removes her hat. Her cheeks are bright red, perhaps from the cold outside or possibly from the emotion of the meeting. She peers at me through her spectacles, fogged from the warmth emanating from the ceramic stove, and her gaze is level, her eyes curious.
“Here I am. I came, as you can see. Tell the truth: you didn’t think I would.”
I try to look at her objectively, as if I didn’t know certain of her thoughts, or her recent personal history. A young woman who tries to undercut her excessive tallness by wearing flat shoes, dressed nicely, if a little somberly, in good clothing that makes her seem a bit older than her actual age. Her features are symmetrical, perhaps a little nondescript but still pleasing. Her hands are long and lie motionless in her lap, folded over her handbag. Her head is cocked slightly to one side, and her dark eyes glisten with a faint spark of curiosity. One of those women who seem more appealing every time you look at them, if you’ll only give them a second look.
“I’m delighted you came, Signorina. A st
range appointment, with a stranger who can’t tell you much about himself, or about how he knows what he knows about you.”
A sudden dazzling smile lights up her face.
“I know, I understood that. Perhaps I sensed it. But from your letter I could tell that you know a great deal about me, more than my own parents do; and that you want to know even more. And you promised me that after this one meeting, I’ll never see you again, even though we’ll still be in contact in some fashion. That caught my interest and made me want to know more. All right then: what would you like to know?”
I study her. Agreeing to meet a stranger, in an out-of-the-way place. Once again, she has surprised me.
“You just mentioned your parents. Do you talk to them much? Which parent are you closer to?”
“They are two very different people, my mamma and my papà. I think I’m like my father, at least that’s what everyone tells me; my mother says it quite a lot when she gets angry and accuses me of never telling her what I think, what I feel. With papà . . . well, we just understand each other at a glance. We don’t even need to speak. That’s how it’s always been, ever since I was little. He doesn’t pry, he minds his own business, and I know that he’ll be there if I ever need him. He’s a safe haven in my life, and we get along very well.”
“What about your mother?”
She shakes her head.
“My mother, she . . . What she wants is for me to find a man and settle down; she’s afraid I’ll wind up an old maid. She’s constantly reminding me that when she was my age she had two children already, that my younger sister has been married for years and already has a son, that my aunt had her first child when she was just seventeen, that the lady who lives on the fourth floor and has three children is the same age as me . . . I’ve gotten very good at pretending to listen to her while thinking about the things I care about. Still, of course, I love her dearly. And she teaches me lots of useful things. She’s a sorceress in the kitchen.”
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