The Bottom of Your Heart

by Maurizio de Giovanni

  Maione burst out laughing: “Don’t you worry about that, Commissa’. Now let’s get busy. Shall we go pay a call on the clinic of this doctor who sent a letter to the dead man’s house?”

  “It’s too early for that, we don’t even know whether he jumped or if someone else helped him out the window. Let’s wait for Modo to finish the autopsy and see if he finds anything. Instead, let’s find out something more about the man who swore he’d kill him, the one whose wife died in childbirth. What’s his name?”

  Maione pulled his notebook out of his pocket and read aloud: “Graziani, Giuseppe. I’ll hurry down to Archives and talk to Antonelli. Shall I bring you an ersatz coffee, Commissa’?”

  “No, no, thanks. With this heat, a disgusting ersatz coffee like the ones we drink here would kill me. Bring me news instead.”

  Ten minutes later Maione had returned: “May I come in, Commissa’? There’s another piece of news that I just got from the wireless telegraph.”

  Ricciardi looked up from the report that he was drafting concerning his on-site examination of the scene of the death at the general hospital: “Well?”

  “There’s a strange guy outside in the hall. He says that he saw the professor last night. And when he heard that he was dead, he came in of his own volition.”

  “You see? It’s not always a bad thing for news to travel fast. Send him in.”

  The man did have an unusual appearance. At first glance he was short, but that impression was accentuated by the fact that he had an unmistakable curvature of the spine; he wore thick-lensed eyeglasses, and his arms and legs were disproportionately long compared with his torso. His hair, thinning on top of his head, grew thick along the sides in tangled curls; his skin was a sickly pale white. He seemed uneasy; he worried the hat he held in his hands, and looked as if he expected to arrested any minute.

  Maione winked at Ricciardi, in an acknowledgment of the odd character.

  “Commissa’, this is Signor Coviello, Nicola by name. Signor Coviello, Commissario Ricciardi, who’s in charge of the case of Professor Iovine. Come right in.”

  The man took a step forward, hesitantly. Ricciardi waited a few seconds then, since the man seemed unable to make up his mind, asked: “Did you want to speak to me?

  Coviello opened his mouth, shut it, and then opened it again, as if he were a fresh-caught fish. At last he said: “Commissa’, buongiorno. I . . . I heard that this misfortune had taken place, that Professor Iovine is dead. That he fell out his office window.”

  Maione butted in firmly: “Excuse me, but how the hell did you know about it?”

  Confronted with the brigadier’s sudden aggressivity, Coviello flinched, almost as if he expected to be punched: “No, you see,” he stammered, “I have a cousin who runs a shop near the general hospital. Since he knows that I know the professor, this morning as soon as the custodian . . .”

  Maione interrupted, in exasperation: “Yes, yes, I understand. You received a paperless telegram. Let’s continue.”

  The other man was now more bewildered still.

  “What telegram? No, Brigadie’, it was my cousin’s son who brought me the news . . .”

  Ricciardi decided to put an end to that unproductive line of questioning: “Forget about that, Coviello. Tell me, why have you come in to see us?”

  The man dragged his foot back and forth across the floor, worrying his cap in both hands all the while; he was already regretting his act of good conscience.

  He spoke in a low voice: “Commissa’, I’m a goldsmith by trade, I have a workshop down in the borgo, you can ask anyone, they call me Mastro Nicola.”

  After identifying himself in this manner, he fell silent. After a short while the brigadier said, impatiently: “Covie’, you came in of your own free will, no one subpoenaed or arrested you; we don’t have a lot of time to waste, would you mind telling us why you’re here?”

  The man seemed to snap out of it.

  “No, it’s just that I was thinking about where to start.”

  “Try starting from the beginning,” Maione suggested.

  “Right. Grazie, Brigadie’.”

  Maione looked him up and down grimly, trying to decide whether the best thing might not be to toss him bodily out the window, and have him meet the same end as the professor had. Luckily for him, Mastro Nicola snapped to. “All right then, as I’ve told you, I’m a goldsmith. A month or so ago, the professor came into my shop, introduced himself, and . . .”

  Ricciardi interrupted him: “Hold on a second: was he already a customer of yours? Did you know him?”

  “No, no, Commissa’, I’d never seen him before. But he’d heard I was good at what I did and told me he wanted to commission two pieces. Actually, at first just one; then, the second time, he asked me to make another.”

  Ricciardi asked: “What kind of pieces?”

  Coviello spoke animatedly: “Well then, Commissa’, this is the way I work: either my clients bring me the material, the stones, the gold, and the silver, or else they commission the items and I ask for a down payment so I can buy the materials I need; or else a little of each, that is, they bring me some old object to melt down, or loose stones to set in something that I make myself, and then they give me the money to purchase the materials, or else . . .”

  Maione snapped: “Coviello, what did you come in here for, to deliver a lecture? Commissario Ricciardi asked you about the professor and how you came to know him, not the story of your life. Go on, and stick to the facts.”

  Ricciardi shot him an angry look, then turned to the goldsmith: “Go on, Coviello. If you please.”

  The man gave Maione a brief glance. His ears were bright red.

  “Forgive me. The professor had no materials of his own, but he wanted to give a gift to his wife, because her name day was coming up. He didn’t even really know what he wanted. I told him that one of my suppliers had a few nice diamonds at home and I suggested a ring. We agreed on a price and he said that would be fine.”

  Maione asked: “Did he haggle?”

  Coviello shook his head, his eyes still fixed on Ricciardi. Maione’s tone of voice clearly made him uncomfortable: “Not much. He said that he’d expected it to cost less, but he immediately gave me the deposit so I could give my supplier a partial advance payment. My suppliers give me credit, because I always settle up on time, so I can . . . in any case, we made a deal. He wasn’t even in a hurry, as long as it was ready in time for the Festival of the Carmine, Our Lady of Mount Carmel; he’d asked me to engrave the name Maria Carmela on the inside of the ring.”

  Ricciardi pressed him: “And the second time?”

  “He came back about ten days later, at night, when I was just about to close up. I work late sometimes in my shop. He said that he needed a second ring, identical to the first. I told him that it wouldn’t come out exactly identical, every stone is different from the others, and he replied: well then, make it better. With a bigger stone. And I need you to deliver them both to me at the same time.”

  The last part of the story was told in a tone of voice that was clearly meant to reproduce the professor’s own: imperious, stentorian.

  “Did you ask him to make a new deposit?”

  “Certainly, Commissa’. I can hardly afford to do the work otherwise. It was a higher price, but he didn’t object. In fact he paid the entire amount in advance.”

  Maione broke in: “And did you have to engrave a name this time too?”

  “‘Sisinella,’ he wanted me to write ‘Sisinella.’”

  “And you didn’t ask him anything? Like just who this Sisinella might be?”

  “Brigadie’, that’s none of my business. If I start asking questions like that, I’m going to scare all my customers away.”

  Ricciardi nodded, absentmindedly.

  “Let’s talk about yesterday. Where did you see him? Did he
come to you, in your workshop?”

  “No, I went to see him in his office. He’d insisted I deliver the rings that day, even late, he’d wait for me. I worked fast, but with precision. You know, that kind of ring isn’t easy to fashion, it’s a labor of love: you have to make a sort of knot in the metal, it symbolizes a union, and in the middle you set the stone. Setting the stone is hard, because the gold doesn’t offer a flat surface, still . . .”

  Maione emitted a muffled snarl. Coviello snapped his mouth shut.

  Ricciardi asked: “So you went to call on him at the general hospital?”

  “Yes, Commissa’. It took me a little while to find him, that place is a labyrinth and at that time of night the custodians had all gone home. The professor had explained that he was on the top floor.”

  Maione cut in: “How did he look to you? Did he strike you as angry, upset, worried?”

  Coviello thought it over, then said: “No, Brigadie’. He was just like the other two times. Brisk, even a little brusque, but calm. I wanted payment in full for the first ring: he inspected my work, read the engraving, and paid. The bigger ring, the one with the engraving that read ‘Sisinella,’ he put in a desk drawer. He set the other one down on the top of the desk.”

  Ricciardi leaned forward: “Do you remember anything particular about the office? Was the window closed?”

  “In this heat? No, Commissa’, it was open. And that high up there was even a bit of a breeze. Climbing the stairs I’d turned into a sweaty mess, and I remember that the five minutes I spent up there gave me a little bit of relief.”

  “And he didn’t say anything to you, the professor?”

  “No, Commissa’. He didn’t even compliment me on the work I’d done. Maybe that wasn’t his style. But he must have been satisfied, because the rings had turned out well.”

  There was a pause. Ricciardi was trying to reconstruct the situation. Then he asked: “What time was it when you left?”

  “Hmm, it must have been ten thirty, or a quarter to eleven. The church bells near my house rang eleven o’clock just as I was arriving; it takes about twenty minutes to get back from the general hospital, so right around that time.”

  “Did you get the impression that he was still expecting someone else?”

  “We just said goodbye, nothing more, but yes, I think so.”

  Maione took a step forward.

  “And what made you think that?”

  “There was someone in the hallway.”

  Ricciardi sat up straight in his chair: “Could you be a little more specific?”

  “I didn’t get a look at his face, it was really dark, the lights were off, but when I walked out of the office he was sitting on the bench. A man, for sure. And a big one, too. He looked like the mountain at night.”

  XVI

  Papà? How are you, papà? I don’t even know if you’re sleeping or you just prefer to lie there with your eyes closed, fighting your battle.

  I don’t know anything. I don’t understand anything.

  You know, papà, I just sit here watching. Watching how useless I am. How helpless.

  Don’t you think, papà, that this is a fine piece of irony? Someone like you, who has always battled against disease, who has conquered it so many times, been beaten only by a few, but who has never given up, never stopped searching for new solutions and new paths, now has to lie here, in the shadows, doing nothing. Nothing at all.

  Motionless, waiting for nightfall.

  I’d like to ask if you’re thirsty, but I hear your regular breathing.

  If you can’t do anything, you who are a genius, the smartest man I’ve ever known, then what use am I?

  Me, I’m nothing, no one. All I know how to do is disappoint you.

  You never told me that I disappointed you. You were stern, no question, you always wanted me to do my best. But I expected you to show me the way, so that all I needed to do was walk.

  Now what should I do, papà?

  I tried. I’m not like you, I’m not a genius like you, but I’m stubborn, and I’m strong. Physically strong, strong in my heart. If I get it in my head to do something, I do it; if you tell me to do it, I do it. With all my self, with all my soul.

  Medicine, for instance, was never easy for me. I don’t understand it right away, I have to read it over and over again. And maybe I could have asked you for some explanations; but you know I would never have done that.

  How are you, papà? I hear you struggling to breathe. Perhaps your lungs are giving out too.

  With all the studying I did, I’d almost made it. God, what I would have given for your last smile. It would have been the best reward; but I just wasn’t good enough.

  Still I tried.

  I burned plenty of candles, studying. When everyone else was out enjoying themselves in bordellos, cabarets, gambling dens, I was studying. When everyone else was asleep, I was studying. When the others were giving up, I kept trying.

  You don’t necessarily have to be a genius, you know, papà? It’s enough to try, and keep trying, and try again and again. In the end, you almost always succeed. Almost.

  I know, there were times when it helped to have your same last name. They all love you, I could tell from the smiles on their faces when my name came up at roll call. All except for one.

  And yet I knew it, papà. From the very first time. I know that it’s the most important subject for me: it’s the area of your expertise. I know that you cared about that subject more than any other, and I knew that you were worried, but you wouldn’t tell me why. I couldn’t understand why he wasn’t satisfied with that answer: I told him what was written in the book, word for word, and he still didn’t like it.

  And he didn’t like it any better the second time.

  Or the third time.

  It was a race between him and your illness, you busy dying and him busy flunking me, a race to see who could hold out longer. I could see the fear in your eyes, and I felt I was losing my mind. I’d have smashed his desk in half, I’d have taken him by the throat in front of everyone. You know it, papà, I’m strong. So very strong.

  The last time, I didn’t even want to come back home. I wandered around for hours. I took a carriage and told the driver: just go. I was sobbing with rage, sorrow, helplessness. The city streamed past me: the sea, the churches, the monuments. I was crying the tears that I didn’t want you to cry.

  For me, the only thing in the world is you, papà. It’s always been just you. I never talked to mamma, I don’t have friends: just you, you alone. And I disappointed you, even if you say that it’s his fault, that there was disagreement between the two of you years and years ago, that he has nothing against me, but against you. But I know it, papà, that if I’d been good, really good, I’d have passed all the same, and you’d have been able to die easy, without fighting, without having to take on this terrible battle, this struggle to last long enough to see me take your place.

  I know, papà. I know I disappointed you.

  To go see him. To look him in the eye, not in front of the other students, not in front of his assistants. Man to man, face to face, force against force. To go see him and ask him why, what do I have to do, what else do I have to study. I’ll paint the sun if he asks me to; I’ll do anything to keep from disappointing you. To go see him and beg him, if necessary.

  Papà? You’ll wake up, won’t you, papà? I’ll be able to look at you and make a sign so you understand that everything’s all right now, that I finally succeeded? That’s the way it’ll go, isn’t it, papà?

  There are times when I think I can hear the sound of the beast that’s devouring you from within. Gnawing, slowly, relentlessly, at your flesh. It’s as if I can actually hear it.

  I don’t know what’s going to happen. If he doesn’t understand, if he doesn’t realize. If it weren’t for him, you know, papà, I’m sure th
at everything would turn out all right. It would be the way it’s always been. All I’d have to do is burn more midnight candles, listening to my classmates call me a crazy elephant, enormous and silent, who doesn’t know how to have fun. They never say it to my face, I know they’re afraid of me, but I can hear them mutter it under their breath as I go by.

  I don’t have time for fun, papà. They don’t know the things I have to do. How I have to work, to keep from disappointing you.

  To go see him, that’s right. That’s what I have to do. Because if it weren’t for him, everything would turn out fine, and I’d be able to see your gaze, contented and reassured.

  And then you’d be free to go.

  I don’t want you to go, papà. But I especially don’t want you to go without having forgiven me.

  And you know that’s why I don’t just press a pillow down on your face, papà. Because before that I want your forgiveness.

  I need to go see him. Talk to him man to man.

  Because if it weren’t for him, everything would be all right.

  XVII

  Cavalier Giulio Colombo was about to do something that went against all his instincts and the core of what he considered to be a businessman’s ethics: he was about to eject a customer from his store.

  To tell the truth, Signora Carbone wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary: when the weather took a turn for the worse, and that morning the July heat really was something fierce, she liked to spend a few hours in the Cavalier’s nice shop, at the corner of Via Toledo and Piazza Trieste e Trento, close to the church of San Ferdinando, a shop which specialized in hats, umbrellas, walking sticks, and gloves. It wasn’t because she had any intention of making a purchase, though there were days when she finally toddled out the front door with a package or two in her hands. It was because she found the Cavalier and his sales clerks to be such lovely company, the finest company a lonely, wealthy woman could enjoy before teatime.