This morning he came to offer us some chocolate that he had brought with him as a snack. I said no, but the little girls, dear papà, you should have seen them! They swarmed like bees attacking the leftovers from a picnic lunch, and, laughing, he broke the chocolate bar into little pieces and made sure that every girl got some. It happened just when Carla was away, because she had taken the boys for an outing. I thought it decent, just good manners, to ask after his health, and dear papà, what a story he told me!
He’s a cavalry officer, and he was in the war, but the treatments he’s taking here on Ischia with the mud baths are not the result of any battle wounds, but an ordinary fall from a horse while training. You might not believe it, but he actually blushed when he said it: as if he were mortified at some confession.
He has a special love for this island because a great-aunt of his, who owned a house here, was killed during the earthquake of 1883. He says that when a member of your family is buried somewhere, you have a duty to go back there from time to time.
He’s thirty-eight years old, and he lives in a small Bavarian town called Prien, if I understood him correctly, on the shore of a lake. Since he’s an amateur painter, he described it to me as if it were a picture: slate roofs, balconies full of flowers, artisans in their workshops, bicycles, women in their traditional garb. I admit that it was fun to hear him talking about his people in that strange accent.
He hinted that this stay in Italy was turning out far better than he’d expected: he likes the excitement he senses, the yearning for a better future that the people display by working hard. He made me proud of my own country, for once.
Then Carla returned, and it seemed to me that she was unhappy to find me conversing with Signor Manfred; but after he left, I explained to her that I certainly hadn’t encouraged that meeting. Quite the contrary. I told her everything that had happened and fortunately, in the end, we were better friends than ever. The last thing I want is to fight with Carla, especially over a man who doesn’t interest me in the slightest.
From here, my bedroom seems so small, and the window across the street so distant. At night, though, before I fall asleep, my mind always flies to him and to those sad green eyes that look at me from the darkness as if crying out for help, and a kind of weakness presses hard in my chest. Enchantment and desire.
I still don’t see a future for myself, at least not an emotional one. But here at least I can live each day to the fullest without the anxiety of time passing while I build nothing.
I love you dearly, my beloved papà, and the idea of being able to hug you again helps me to think of my return without fear.
Yours,
Enrica
XXX
Ricciardi listened carefully to the information that the brigadier had collected from Bambinella, but he continued to wonder just what might be bothering Maione. The twist in Raffaele’s mouth, the crease at the center of his forehead, his veiled gaze, all spoke of some very serious worry.
“Well, now we have a name, Commissa’: Teresa Luongo, also known as Sisinella. She lives on a cross street of Corso Scarlatti, in Vomero. It shouldn’t be difficult to track her down. I think it’s worth going to talk to her, because among other things the fact that she seems to have a secret boyfriend might lead to interesting possibilities.”
Ricciardi thought it over, his fingers knit together, his chin resting atop them.
“Yes. And whatever the case, Sisinella might be able to tell us about anything that was worrying the professor: threats he’d received, or even if someone had attacked him. Men will tell their lovers things they’d never confess to their wives.”
Maione, stung to the quick, blurted out: “Don’t get me started, Commissa’. Maybe wives tell lies, too. And maybe the husbands, fools that they are, fall for them.”
The commissario detected the bitterness, but he preferred to pretend he hadn’t. If Maione chose to open up to him, he’d certainly listen, but he didn’t intend to force his hand.
“Certainly. But it’s the professor we’re interested in now, right? So let’s go meet her, this Sisinella. Then we’ll go look into the Wolf and the doctor from Mergellina.”
“Sure we will, Commissa’. But I wouldn’t overlook the pianino player, either, the lover’s lover, in other words. Someone who’s capable of betrayal is capable of anything.”
The words resounded in a silence that lasted several seconds. Then Ricciardi said: “Raffaele, if you need to take a day off, go ahead. I can go on my own to question this Sisinella. You go home and spend some time with your children, your wi—”
Maione interrupted him: “Commissa’, just drop it: right now, the way I feel, the less time I spend at home, the better, trust me. And after all, work helps take my mind off things, you know it. Let’s head off to Vomero, maybe it’ll be a little cooler there.”
They took the Central Funicular. The inhabitants of the city looked on this remarkable rail system as a novelty, even though it had been up and running for four years. It was that screeching and rattling railroad, shuttling incessantly up and down the hill, that had made it conceivable for the city to grow upward, onto the hillsides that had long been good only for summer vacationers and vast broccoli plantations. Now the new hillside quarter was synonymous with modernity and cool air, concepts that the Fascist regime imposed on the country’s culture, art, and general mind-set. Theaters, movie houses, and cafés were opening at a furious pace, and a number of prominent but less well-to-do families had moved to higher elevations using the abundant fresh air as an excuse.
Ricciardi and Maione chose to purchase round-trip tickets for one lira each. They took a seat on the wooden benches and noticed that, even though it was not the hour when people came back from shopping or from their offices, and even though the fare wasn’t cheap, the funicular cars were packed.
As they emerged from the station at the top of the hill they immediately breathed in cleaner, sweeter-smelling air; the vegetation of the park of Villa Floridiana, the fact that there were fewer engines and factories, and the absence of crowds made for immediate relief. Newly built apartment houses alternated with older ones, erected in a late-nineteenth-century style, as well as with construction sites for buildings that would soon be rising. Work hummed in all directions, and many young couples smiled in greeting as they crossed paths.
Ricciardi thought to himself that it was logical to expect a man like Iovine to put up his lover in a place like that. It was close enough to reach in short order both by funicular and by car, thanks to the roads that had been improved to encourage the growth of the new sections of the city, but also distant enough to forestall undesirable encounters. The elegance of the shops and the gardens had no doubt played a crucial role in persuading the girl to move.
Maione asked around a bit; as was sometimes the case, luck would have it that his uniform functioned as a kind of pass, allowing him access to the information he needed. Signorina Luongo, according to the proprietor of a water and lemon kiosk, lived just a few dozen yards away, in a brand new apartment building on Via Kerbaker. From the sly expression on the man’s face, it was clear that Sisinella’s profession was an open secret among the locals.
They were greeted by a very skinny, argumentative doorman whose dark eyes were continually darting about. Maione inquired whether Signornia Luongo were home, and the doorman replied in a scratchy voice: “How am I supposed to know? Who do you take me for, the lady’s butler?”
The brigadier was in no mood for smart answers: “Listen, friend: I asked you a question politely, and now I’m going to ask you again. Is Signorina Luongo at home by any chance? Now, either you respond appropriately and tell me your name and what I want to know, or first I’ll kick your ass downhill, and second I’ll throw you in jail for failure to cooperate with an officer of the law. Is that clear?”
Ricciardi scrutinized him uneasily; it was very rare for Maione to behave l
ike that. In any case, his harsh tone had the desired effect. The man took a step backward, as if expecting a smack in the face, and said: “Forgive me, Brigadie’. It’s just that with this signorina it’s a constant procession. Don’t take it the wrong way. My name is Firmino. Yes, the signorina is in, the man just left . . . in other words, she just had some visitor. Go on up: she’s on the second floor.”
The apartment building’s staircase was brightly lit by large windows and gave a sense of freshness and coolness unknown to the austere buildings in the center of the city. A goldfinch was trilling from a terrace nearby and children could be heard playing in the courtyard. There were two doors on the landing, one of which bore a plaque that read “Luongo.” Maione rang the bell.
After a moment, a voice asked from inside: “Who is it?”
“Police.”
The door swung open, but only a crack. They could make out one wide eye and a long lock of curly black hair.
“And what do you want here? I haven’t called anyone, and no one has done anything wrong.”
Maione leaned forward and stared straight into that one eye: “Signorina Teresa Luongo, I would recommend you let us in, and right away. It’s not in your best interests for us to get into a shouting match out here on the landing, is it? Or do you really want us to announce, at the top of our lungs, why we’re here and what we want to know?”
The young woman unhooked the chain.
They were ushered into a luminous parlor which opened out beyond the small front hall. Signorina Luongo really was pretty, and was maybe a couple of years older than twenty. She was rather tall, well built in a simple but tasteful dress, with fashionable shoes and heavy makeup. The colors she chose and her facial features denoted a strong and unmistakable personality: her black hair, dangled curly around her neck and on either side of her forehead; her eyes were a deep blue, and her lips were full, painted dark red and twisted in a mistrustful grimace, doing their best to conceal her youth.
So this is the famous Sisinella, thought Ricciardi. No question about it, she’s someone a man could lose his head over, the professor just like anyone else. He spoke to the woman: “Buongiorno, Signorina. I’m Commissario Ricciardi, and this is Brigadier Maione. You are Teresa Luongo, correct?”
The alleged Signorina Luongo had not invited them to take a seat or shown them any courtesy whatsoever. She watched them with a level, insolent gaze, practically a look of defiance. This is someone accustomed to dealing with the police, Maione told himself.
“Yes, that’s me. And I ask you once again: what are you doing here? And what do you want from me?”
The brigadier decided to make things clear from the start: “Listen, gorgeous, you’re in no position to play the indignant mistress of the house, believe me. You know perfectly well why we’re here. So stop trying to get in our way and let us do our jobs.”
In the small room Maione’s thunderous voice rang out like a gunshot. The girl’s eyes opened wide in a surprised expression that, in spite of the makeup, made her look her true age. Ricciardi didn’t much like these methods, but he had to admit that they were effective. Teresa raised a trembling hand to her chest, then waved them toward the sofas: “Yes. Please, have a seat. Do you want . . . may I make you some coffee?”
Ricciardi raised one hand: “Grazie, no. Do you know Professor Tullio Iovine del Castello?”
“Of course I do. And I also know . . . I know what happened. If you’re here, that means you know all about me . . . about us. This apartment, the furniture . . . in other words, yes, I knew him. We knew each other very well.”
Maione continued staring at her with hostility: “When did you last see each other?”
Teresa returned his level gaze: “He came here Wednesday night.”
“At what time?”
“Just after midnight. And he left around six in the morning.”
The two men sat in silence. Then Ricciardi asked: “Did he call you before he came? Or did you have an appointment?”
“He was . . . he always did the same things. He came here three or four times a week, at night, if there were no emergencies at the hospital; and if he could get free during the day, he’d call me on the phone. He never showed up without advance notice.”
Maione asked: “And was he supposed to come Thursday night?”
“No. Thursday nights he stays at the hospital . . . or he stayed. He spent the night with me on Fridays, and on Saturdays and Sundays we never saw each other.”
Ricciardi tried to read the emotions on the young woman’s face, but she was impenetrable, cautious, perhaps frightened by Maione’s aggressiveness; she was probably afraid of contradicting herself, because she chose her words haltingly. Still, whatever emotions she might have felt toward Iovine, she didn’t let them show.
“How did you meet the professor? How long had you been seeing each other?”
Maione shot a glance at Ricciardi. Why waste time asking things they already knew?
The girl stared into the empty air, then turned and addressed the commissario.
“I used to be a working girl, Commissa’. I imagine you already know that, and if you don’t I’m telling you now. I wasn’t even seventeen years old and I was already working in a bordello. I was pretty, and my mother told me: get out of here, out of this town. There’s nothing here but hunger. Some guy will come along, get you pregnant, and ruin your life. That’s what happened to her. I got sick, it was nothing serious, but if I couldn’t work I wouldn’t eat, so I went to the hospital for a cure. And I met Tullio.”
Outside, the children all burst into shouting laughter together. I wonder what game they’re playing, Maione thought to himself, and he felt a sudden groundless burst of sadness: he missed his children and his wife.
Teresa went on: “He was kind and gentle. Maybe that’s because he’d never seen me up in the bordello. Up there, Commissa’, we all look the same: young, old, pretty or ugly. People come up, do what they need to do, pay, and leave. In the hospital he saw me as pretty as I was back in my hometown. And he wanted to see me again. I don’t know why, but I waited to tell him that I was in a bordello. I’d see him somewhere else: in a café, in a bar. I really liked the way he treated me. He’d hold the door for me, he’d pull back my chair for me to sit down. Who’d ever been given this kind of attention?”
The cries of the children and the goldfinch’s song formed a background to the young woman’s words.
“It was strange for me, and it was strange for him. I wasn’t Sisinella the whore, he wasn’t a gentleman and a professor. It was like being in another world, you understand, Commissa’? Another world. He was a genie who granted wishes, you know the fairy tale? We spent five months like that, seeing each other out on the street. Sometimes he’d take me to a hotel and . . . and we’d make love. But that wasn’t the most important thing. The most important thing, with Tullio, was that he wanted to take care of me, and that I wanted to be taken care of. If you ask me, it was a need we both felt.”
She sat in silence, lost in her recollections. A vague smile played over her face, but her eyes were veiled. Like a father, thought Ricciardi.
“Like a father. A sort of father, at least, I think so,” she said. “One time I saw a convertible, with a lady inside who laughed and laughed. He noticed that I was looking at her, and the next week he came to see me with a car just like it. That’s the way Tullio was.”
Maione coughed, then he spoke. And his voice was kinder this time.
“Then he took this apartment and set you up here.”
Sisinella nodded: “That’s right, after Christmas. He liked the neighborhood, and he said it would be a good investment. He bought it and moved me in.”
“And you accepted in a hurry, didn’t you?”
“What else was I going to do? Should I have told him no and stayed where I was? Brigadie’, with all my respect, you have no id
ea what it’s like to have all those people on top of you, from dawn to dusk: men who are filthy, or stinking, or drunk, or violent, disgusting old men, crazed little boys; their dirty hands on your flesh and . . . and everything else. It ages you early. It ages you fast. If I’d stayed there another year, I wouldn’t even have recognized myself in the mirror. Tullio saved my life.”
Ricciardi shot a glance at Maione, who had been profoundly struck by Sisinella’s speech. Then he asked the girl: “Do you have any idea of who might have had it in for the professor? Did he tell you about any quarrels, any threats, or anything of the sort?”
Sisinella calmly gazed at the commissario, her blue eyes focused on his green ones. Ricciardi thought about love, and the thousand rivulets in which it runs.
“No, Commissa’. When he was with me, he left ugly thoughts outside the door, that’s what Tullio used to say. I remember him happy and smiling, that’s how I remember Tullio, and that’s how I want to remember him. I know that it’s all over, that I’m going to have to move out of this apartment, sell my jewelry and clothing and shoes and all, but I don’t regret a thing: I always knew it wouldn’t last forever. And the finest gift he ever gave me is that I’ll never go back to the bordello. No way, nohow, I’ll never go back there.”
They remained silent, for a while. Then Maione said, in a subdued voice that differed sharply from the tone he’d used until then: “Signori’, do you have someone? Another man, in other words?”
Ricciardi noticed that Maione had gone back to the more respectful plural form of address. Sisinella seemed oblivious to the fact.
“Yes, Brigadie’. I was waiting for the right time to tell Tullio about him. A good boy, he works as a strolling vendor. He’s more or less the same age as me. We’re in love.”
Maione sighed. “We’re in love.” As if that’s all it took.
“So the professor didn’t know about the existence of this gentleman, who I’m guessing is from the neighborhood, am I right?”
The Bottom of Your Heart Page 17