I Hadn't Understood (9781609458980)
Page 33
The landing filled up with neighbors, but no one had the courage to go in.
“She didn’t want me to eat meals with her,” he told the policeman who asked him why he’d done it.
Then he asked for me.
“Are you Counselor Malinconico?” the policeman asks me when I walk into police headquarters.
“Yes. Did I talk with you just a few minutes ago?”
“Yeah, that was me you talked with. Come on.”
And he accompanies me into the room next door.
Giustino is sitting in a chair, hands between his legs, in silence, like any ordinary person waiting their turn. For an instant I see him again, sitting at the notarization window, courteous to everyone, with a ready smile.
We walk over to him. The policeman places a hand on his shoulder with a gentleness and delicacy that makes me think: If only this guy was going to be your judge.
“Here’s your lawyer, Talento.”
He doesn’t react.
The policeman says he’ll wait outside.
I sit down next to Giustino.
“What have you done?” I say to him.
He looks at me, but I’m not sure that he sees me.
“What happened to you?”
I put a hand on his shoulder too.
“I’m sorry I didn’t pay attention to you. I just didn’t want to, I didn’t feel like it.”
Body motionless, gentle eyes wide open. It’s like talking to a dog.
I take a deep breath.
“Listen. I’m nothing special, but for now, we’re not even trying to win a case. We’ve already lost. All we need to do is defend ourselves.”
He grips both knees with his fingers, probably doing his best to ward off an anxiety attack.
I touch him on the shoulder again.
“I’m happy you called me. We’ll get through this, you understand?”
His fingers relax.
He just told me yes, in some way I can’t describe.
I leave my details with the policeman. I ask him to call me as soon as the ADA sets a date for the judicial interrogation, any time of the day or night.
Then I head home.
In the street, I think: I hadn’t understood a thing.
I’m forty-two years old, two children, I live alone, my wife left me for an architect, I waited and waited for her, now that she wants me back I don’t want her; I don’t earn much, my career hasn’t gone well; and none of this hurts me anymore.
In the front hall, there’s a red wheeled suitcase.
I don’t own a red wheeled suitcase. Neither do my kids.
I hurry into the bedroom. There’s no one there.
I pull open the closet, nothing in there.
In the bathroom.
In the living room.
In the kitchen.
I open the refrigerator, God knows why.
My scanty array of provisions are lined up on the top shelf. On the middle shelf, there’s a bottle of prosecco and, next to it, a baking pan full of lasagna covered with plastic wrap. On the plastic wrap is a note stuck on with a piece of scotch tape.
I pick it up.
I’LL BE HOME AT TWO.
DO YOU THINK YOU COULD AT LEAST GET THE BAKING PAN INTO THE OVEN FIFTEEN MINUTES BEFORE I GET THERE?
KISSES,
LATER, ALE
I close the refrigerator door.
I read the note over and over again until Alessandra Persiano’s words on the paper have become an incomprehensible scribble.
I lean against the window, clutching that scrap of paper in my fingers as if it were a patron saint prayer card.
Aw, go to hell, I think to myself.
That’s what I think.
Those are the words that come to you when you feel happy, an unexpected wave of happiness crashing over you, without warning.
AT LAST
At last. This is where I can say at last, since we’ve come to the end.
I’d like to thank Gianfranco Marziano, whose speculations about modernity and the unstoppable neo-oafishness of our miserable times can be found sprinkled throughout this book; Counselor Massimo Ancarola of the bar of Salerno for a pointer in criminal law that would never have occurred to me, and Aldo Vigorito for his gift of an off-the-cuff piece of advice during a reading at which he was accompagnying me on the double bass. Thanks also to Paolo Nori, Hamid Ziarati, and Uncle Flash. And to Dalia, as always.
Now, it hardly seems necessary to point this out, but this is a novel, so the first and last names, the events and circumstances found in this novel have no actual or intended connection with people who happen to share those names and who might happen to have been involved in events and circumstances even remotely resembling those described and recounted.
While we’re on the subject, let me take this opportunity to say that there are lots of people you meet every day whose lives would make a good novel. The thing is that you can’t just sit down at your desk and write other people’s lives. Or at least, that’s what I would say, if anyone were ever to ask me.
D. D. S.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Diego De Silva was born in Naples in 1964. He is the author of plays, screenplays, and six novels. I Hadn’t Understood was a finalist for the Strega Prize, Italy’s most prestigious literary award, and winner of the Naples Prize for fiction. His books have been translated into eight languages. He currently lives in Salerno.