Understand that I’ll stop at nothing. At nothing, I tell you.
Guido will come to see you outside of your usual office hours, far from prying eyes. You two will decide on the questions together, and you will let him pass the exam. He will take his degree and you will safeguard your reputation, because he will bring you, in the same meeting, the documentation concerning your bungled operations which I had to remedy surgically, in some cases leaving the patients sterile.
I’m sure that only fear can persuade you to give in. I know you.
I’ll wait for your response, and then I’ll let you know when my son will come to see you. I imagine that late at night might be best, at your office. And if you fail to ensure that you are alone when he comes, then I’ll take it that you’re not interested in this trade, and I’ll take action accordingly. As the saying goes, let Samson die with all the Philistines.
With my very worst regards,
Francesco Ruspo di Roccasole
Ricciardi handed the sheet of paper to Maione so he could read it, and turned to look into Maria Carmela’s pale face. Extortion, no doubt about it. And a tacit threat: I’ll take action accordingly.
So there was more than one person who had it in for Iovine. The image of the professor that was emerging was quite different from that which had at first appeared.
“Signora, do you know the man who sent this letter?”
“Yes, Commissario. I know him, but I haven’t seen him for more than twenty years. He’s the director and part owner of the Villa Santa Maria Francesca nursing home, the one in Mergellina.”
“And do you know what he is referring to when he speaks of your husband’s alleged unethical behavior toward him?”
“I do remember that he was competition with Tullio for a position as university assistant, and that my husband was selected, and he was not. But I couldn’t tell you why, nor could I say why Ruspo was denied a career at the university.”
Maione, who was done reading, turned to the woman: “Excuse me, Signo’, but did you receive this letter? Did you read it first and then talk about it with your husband?”
The woman stared at Maione. Such direct questions irritated her, but she had to answer them.
“Yes, Brigadier. I received it. I thought it must have been . . . I thought I’d received it by mistake, that it had been sent to the wrong address. My husband never receives correspondence at home. Never. I read it and I waited for him to come home. I was upset. He skimmed it and told me not to worry. He started laughing.”
Maione exchanged a glance with Ricciardi.
“He started laughing?”
“Yes. He said they were the ravings of a man on his deathbed, but that out of respect for days gone by, he wouldn’t report the matter to the police or to the council of the physicians’ guild.”
Ricciardi pressed on: “So he didn’t seem worried to you? You didn’t get the impression he was afraid?”
“No, Commissario. He didn’t give any weight to the matter at all. But I wasn’t as calm as he seemed to be, and I urged him to be careful. And as you can see, I decided to hold on to the letter.”
Ricciardi nodded.
“I’m going to have to ask you to let us take it. I assure you that, once we’ve checked it out thoroughly, we’ll return it to you.”
“Are you going to talk to Ruspo? You’ll need to investigate in depth, I’d imagine . . . But if it were to turn out that my husband . . . anything that might sully my husband’s memory . . . Certainly you must understand, I have a child to protect, if his father’s integrity were called into question . . . I’m all alone now, I have to look after him.”
Ricciardi reassured her: “Signora, the only thing we want is to find out whether someone is responsible for the professor’s death. Anything not directly related to that matter is of no interest to us and will not be divulged. Not by us, at least.”
After a moment’s silence, Maione said: “Signo’, forgive me, but we do have to ask you this. Where were you yesterday evening? Could your husband have tried to contact you by phone, or I don’t know, might somebody else have tried to contact you on his behalf?”
“I went to dinner with my son, here in the building, at the home of my cousins. I go quite often, when my husband doesn’t come home. We stayed out late, listening to a program on the radio. We didn’t get back until after midnight. As of eight o’clock, when we left for dinner, no one had called; and if someone had called after that, my housekeeper would have come to inform me. So I’d rule out that possibility.”
The last few words were uttered in a whisper; the woman’s gaze was wandering around the room as if this were the first time she’d seen it. Ricciardi and Maione knew that expression, they’d seen it many times before on the faces of family members of people who had met violent deaths: they didn’t understand right away what had happened, then the reality began to lap against them like a series of waves, until, like a tsunami, the awareness of their loss buried everything, stripping away rational reasoning and mental equilibrium.
Signora Iovine’s lips began to quiver; she put her hand on her forehead.
Ricciardi asked: “Do you need anything? Can we do something for you?”
She emitted a long racking sob and covered her face with both hands. After a moment, she recovered and, apparently calm now, stared at the commissario.
“We had plans, my husband and I. We had plans. In August we were going to the countryside, where it’s nice and cool. The countryside is so good for the boy. He’s delicate, extreme heat isn’t good for him. We had a new car, did you know that? You can put the top down. Federico couldn’t wait to go on vacation in a convertible. I don’t know how to drive. Now how can I take him to the country? I’ll have to learn to drive, won’t I?”
Ricciardi dropped his gaze to the carpet. Maione coughed softly. At last, Maria Carmela Iovine del Castello began to cry.
XIV
Nelide was making ciccimmaritati. It was Rosa’s belief that if a woman of Cilento had any pride in her birthplace, that dish had to form part of her repertoire, and she intended to put her niece to the test. No one could ever have guessed that there was satisfaction in the way Rosa watched her, because she resembled nothing so much as a pillar of salt. In fact, truth be told, her expression was more of a frown than anything else.
For that matter, Rosa had no particular reason to be cheerful. Alongside the usual worries provoked by her young master, who seemed unwilling to settle down and start a family of his own, now there was a new problem on the horizon.
Her own state of health.
Rosa had no fear of dying. She was a pragmatic person, a farmer’s daughter, raised in a sunbaked, hostile land. She knew that death was part of life, that in fact it’s as necessary as the seasons; it comes so that the new can take the place of the old. But could anyone really take Rosa’s place?
Nelide hesitated as she ran her rough hand over the formica counter, so smooth in comparison with the coarse wood to which she was accustomed. Rosa appreciated that mistrust in the presence of such a highly unnatural material, and she was pleased when she saw that her niece immediately found her footing and returned to the gestures of that ancient ritual, arranging the ingredients on the table: dark durum wheat, corn, fava beans, grass peas, round white scarlet runner beans, tabaccuogni beans, small and brown, chickpeas and mimiccola beans, and finally lentils. Each heaped in a separate pile, to make sure the quantities were correct. A bowl held the janga chestnuts, previously dried and peeled, which would serve to give the soup its sweetness, an essential function.
Nelide worked neatly and methodically. She might perhaps have moved a little faster, but that would have been at the expense of precision; speed would come in time. After all, the girl was just seventeen, though at first glance you’d say she was anywhere between sixteen and thirty. A solid, healthy Cilento woman, from Rosa’s point of vie
w.
Ricciardi’s elderly governess had eleven brothers and sisters, and more than seventy nieces and nephews. And though every one of her siblings had baptized one of their daughters Rosa—in honor of the one sister who hadn’t produced children, and who had always helped out by sending small sums of cash, gifts her young master permitted with a disinterested smile—when the time came the niece that Rosa picked was Nelide, the third-born child of the seventh-youngest sibling, her brother Andrea.
Alongside the small piles of beans and grains, the girl arrayed spices and condiments: garlic, olive oil, salt, the absolutely necessary papaulo—the fiery-hot dried chili pepper—as well as the tomato purée spooned out of the buatta, the metal can that stood, covered with a rag, on the highest shelf in the pantry. Now I want to see what you can do, thought Rosa from the chair pushed against the wall in which she sat, her fingers knit over her ample belly. Up till now, the girl had remained safely within the bounds of strict orthodoxy, but the time had come for a personal touch. Either you have it or you don’t.
Nelide had been to the city other times to visit her aunt. Ever since she was a little girl she had proven to be much more similar to Rosa than were those female cousins who bore their aunt’s name. Almost as wide across as she was tall, extremely strong, she was stubborn, resolute, and taciturn, with a perennially scowling face; she was neither a model of attractiveness nor particularly good company. She could barely read and wrote only with great difficulty, though she did have an extraordinary, instinctive familiarity with numbers. To make up for whatever qualities she may have lacked, she possessed others that Rosa considered absolutely essential. She was loyal and obedient: when she took on a task she gave herself no peace until she had completed it. She was tireless, indifferent to the time of day, incapable of distraction. She was honest and hard on herself, clean and a homebody. Rosa had tested her, setting small traps every time Nelide visited, visits she encouraged using as an excuse events for which she would need the girl’s help. And meanwhile, she had introduced her niece in all the shops and the market stalls where she did her shopping. The young woman had proven herself alert, quick to learn, with a sharp, precise memory. Even Ricciardi had gotten used to having her around, and was happy that, thanks to Nelide, his old tata was having an easier time of it.
Toward the young master, Nelide felt a mixture of fear and veneration: precisely what Rosa wanted. On her niece’s rugged, square face, marked by narrow lips under a faint mustache, she could see the germ of the same protective sentiment she felt toward that melancholy, unhappy man, whom she had looked after for a lifetime with a missionary zeal.
Now, therefore, yet another of the countless examinations to which Rosa subjected her unsuspecting niece was underway: the Cilento cooking test. Rosa was convinced that tradition was crucial to a healthy stability, and she stubbornly continued to cook according to the rules she’d learned from her mother and grandmother, and that she had absorbed from the very air she’d breathed as a child and as a young woman.
Nelide wiped her palms on her apron. She stared grimly at the piles on the tabletop: everything was there, but she still wasn’t satisfied.
Good, thought Rosa. Her left hand, fingers knit, sensed the tremor in her right hand. It was as if, every so often, it went to sleep. She knew what this was. She knew because this was how her father had died, growing weaker day by day and then falling asleep, until he finally just stopped breathing. She hoped that it would be as gentle for her, but that’s not what scared her.
Her biggest worries were for Ricciardi. What fate awaited him? Who would look after him? Nelide was certainly fine when it came to immediate necessities: seeing that he ate regularly, pressing his clothes. But relations with the sharecroppers, making sure that payments were collected as they came due, managing the family’s estate? The young master had never taken any interest in such matters, and if it were left up to him, the entire estate to which he was sole heir would dwindle away.
Her thoughts went to the Baroness Marta di Malomonte, Ricciardi’s mother. Ah, Baroness, she thought, you too spoke so little. Why didn’t you explain to me what your son is like? Why didn’t you tell me how I ought to act with him?
Nelide scratched her cheek. Perhaps, Rosa thought to herself, she ought to place her trust in this young woman. Perhaps Nelide could take over from her. After all it was a simple matter of sticking to certain deadlines and picking up the threads of what she had done month after month for many years. She had more confidence in that grim-faced seventeen-year-old than in all the men she’d met in her lifetime.
Of course, it would have been preferable to hand over her responsibilities to a woman who had entered the family by the front door, not the service entrance. She had hoped, she had insisted, she had begged her young master to open himself up to the natural evolution of a man, to an engagement followed by a wedding.
That Enrica, the daughter of the Colombos, had struck her as the perfect one. She had a kind heart, she was gentle and sweet but also, and Rosa had sensed this intuitively, determined and strong. What’s more, she was in love.
The absurd thing, to Rosa’s uncomplicated mind, lay in the fact that Ricciardi, too, beyond the shadow of a doubt, was in love with Enrica. And yet he hadn’t lifted a finger since the day he realized he was losing her, that she was distancing herself from him. For that matter, how could she blame Enrica? The years pass and a girl has a right to a future.
One thing was certain: if he wished to set up housekeeping and start a family, that woman from the north, the one with a car and a driver, wasn’t right for him. She was fine if you wanted a good time, perfect for going out to the theater or the movies, but not as the mother of his children.
Who could say, perhaps they’d find each other again, Enrica and her young master. Only then it would be too late for Rosa to pass along her knowledge.
Nelide nodded vigorously, as if someone inside her head had just given her a peremptory order. She headed to the pantry, grapped a jar, and added to the concoction a tablespoon of pork lard. Yes, now all the indispensable ingredients for making ciccimmaritati were present, and she could proceed to cooking. She glanced at her aunt for her approval, then grabbed a cookpot.
After all, Rosa decided, Nelide deserved a chance. She was a reliable young woman.
And there wasn’t time to come up with any other solutions.
XV
Ricciardi and Maione returned to police headquarters after receiving confirmation from a mistrustful female cousin of Signora Iovine that the professor’s wife and his son had both been her dinner guests the previous night. This woman too had been told, only hours before, of the professor’s untimely death.
“I just can’t get over it, Commissa’,” said Maione as he slammed his fist down on the desktop, “the way that everybody around here seems to know about things even before they happen. What do they have, a wireless network in constant operation? Now, for instance, if we were heading out to arrest a murderer or a thief, the guy would already know hours in advance that we were on our way, and we’d come up with a great big handful of nothing.”
Ricciardi threw the window open to let in a little air and flopped down in the chair behind his desk.
“You’ve been too touchy for some time now. Hasn’t it always been this way? And remember, this is how you manage to get all that information from your secret girlfriend.”
“Commissa’, you’re just playing with me, and if you want to play, let’s play. My secret girlfriend is actually my secret man-friend, or not even that, what are you tricking me into saying, she’s nothing to me. She’s a femminiello, a transvestite who I decided just once, out of pure pity, not to throw in jail, and ever since she’s shown her gratitude by telling me the gossip that she hears.”
“You see how on edge you are? Will you tell me what’s got into you?”
The brigadier heaved a deep sigh.
“What can
I tell you, Commissa’: I must be a little tired. I do work too hard, I know that, but we need the money, with all the kids I have at home.”
Ricciardi turned serious: “Raffaele, you aren’t short on cash, are you? I have plenty of my own, if you want I can . . .”
Maione held up a hand. “Why no, Commissa’, if you start talking like that you’ll offend me, and I won’t even be able to tell you anything anymore. I earn a good salary and I have no trouble making ends meet. It’s just that now we have the little girl from Mergellina, you remember her, Benedetta; and Lucia and I would like to adopt her. We could use a bigger apartment, too; we have little boys and little girls living together in the same room, and now that they’re growing up, they’re going to need a place to study. So I’m setting aside a little money so we can move in a year, that’s all.”
Ricciardi decided to explain his intentions: “Please don’t be offended. I have a good salary, you know that, and aside from Rosa I have no family. You have children, and what you’ve done for Benedetta is admirable and does you honor; you ought to let your good friend help you out. Have you talked it over with Lucia?”
“Good lord, no! She’ll immediately start worrying and we’ll never hear the end of it. No, no, I’ve just been doing a little budgeting, that’s all. But Lucia doesn’t know a thing, and I don’t want her to know a thing. As for you, Commissa’, thanks, but it’s really not necessary. After all, since you stubbornly continue not to get married, you already pay the mother-in-law tax. How much has it risen to by now?”
The reference to the ironic name given to the tax on unmarried men that had now been in effect for five years made Ricciardi shake his head: “I’m more than happy to pay that tax. I already have Rosa who serves simultaneously as both mother and mother-in-law: however substantial the cost, I avoid much worse consequences. Still, all kidding aside, promise me that if you are ever in need you’ll let me know. Don’t give me something else to fret about.”
The Bottom of Your Heart Page 8