The Bottom of Your Heart

by Maurizio de Giovanni

  Ricciardi started walking again: “Let’s just do this, Brigadier Maione: you didn’t tell me anything, and I can’t remember seeing any jewelry in the professor’s office except for Signora Iovine’s ring. In fact, remind me to arrange to inventory everything that’s in that office, so that the victim’s property can be made available to the widow and her son, along with the apartment in Vomero that has, until now, been occupied by Sisinella. All right?”

  Maione touched his fingers to his visor. They’d reached the front entrance of police headquarters.

  “Yessir, Commissa’, at your orders as always. Best regards then, I’m heading home. Tomorrow, I’m taking the day off: I’m going to take Lucia and the kids to see the burning of the bell tower, like every year. You have the day free too, don’t you?”

  “Yes, Raffaele, I do. Garzo gave me the day off for Livia’s party; apparently the whole city is talking about nothing else. Right now I’m going to write my report, and then I’ll go to the hospital to see Rosa until Bruno kicks me out: he just keeps telling me that I’m not allowed to stay in a women’s ward.”

  Maione, in an unusually personal gesture, laid a hand on Ricciardi’s shoulder: “Commissa’, I’m the last person who’d want to say this sort of thing, but the thing is, Signora Rosa . . . do you really think that we ought to wish for her to go on living much longer in this condition? We don’t know if she’s suffering, if she’s in pain, if she wants to move but can’t, wants to talk but is unable. I’m so, so sorry for her. And for you, too, Commissa’. Sir, I wanted to tell you . . . I’ve been thinking about this for several days now: you aren’t alone, Commissa’. No, you aren’t, even if Signora Rosa does go to heaven. You aren’t alone, as long as there’s a Maione family in Piazzetta Concordia.”

  Ricciardi looked the brigadier in the eye: “I know that, Raffaele. I know. All the same, I can’t imagine living without her. Now you go home, and make your children laugh; they have every right, and so does Lucia. These are festivals for a family, and you have a wonderful one.”

  LXX

  Baroness Marta put down her sewing again, and sat listening. She giggled, her fingers covering her mouth like a little girl.

  Rosa asked her: “And now why are you laughing, Barone’?”

  Marta shook her head, as if caught red-handed: “No, it’s just that people, seen from here, can be hilarious sometimes. You’ll see for yourself, once you’re ready and I’m done embroidering this romper for you. They really can be amusing.”

  Rosa thought to herself that, in the long days they’d spent together when she was alive, the baroness had never confided in her so freely. There had always been a shadow, some hidden grief in her enchanting green eyes; and the same was true of her young master, who so closely resembled his mother.

  The thought of Ricciardi shot a piercing pang through her consciousness; she wondered how he was, who was looking after him now.

  Marta giggled again: “You see? You’re doing the same thing. Just like all the others.”

  “What is it I’m doing, Barone’?”

  The woman looked at her tenderly, and put the romper, the needle, and the thread down in her lap.

  “You do one thing and you think about something else entirely. Instead of worrying about what’s really important, you think that something else is what matters most, usually something that is quite insignificant. The world forces you to do that, it must be the air or the scent of the flowers.”

  Rosa tried to concentrate, but she couldn’t seem to understand what Marta was saying. She shot a worried glance at the figure in the shadows, the Baron of Malomonte, but he didn’t stir.

  “Barone’, forgive me, but I don’t understand you. Maybe if you could give me some examples . . .”

  Marta laughed again, and taking up her work again, she said: “Look, tata. Just look out the window a little. Maybe, even if you’re not ready yet, you can start to get a glimpse.”

  In the heat of the July night, Peppino the Wolf thought about Rosinella as he listened to his baby girl.

  She was crying. She cried all the time. And deep inside of him, he felt those wails were guilt, guilt for having killed her mother. For having taken away his future, his happiness.

  And whoever had murdered that worthless man, the professor, had denied him the possibility to in some way make up for his wife’s death.

  Of course, it would have done nothing to bring her back into his arms.

  Of course, it wouldn’t have given him back her laughter.

  Of course, it wouldn’t have given him back the smell of her skin, on hot nights like this one, nights that seemed never to end.

  But at least it would have soothed his rage, the immense crashing wave of rage that never subsided.

  Still, the professor wasn’t the only guilty party.

  The sobs that came from the next room, the small thin wails that never seemed to subside: the confession of the other guilty party, the one who had first begun to kill Rosinella.

  He got out of bed. His powerful body, his abdominal muscles quivered beneath a veil of sweat. It was hot. So hot. The inferno is hot.

  His mother was a little hard of hearing, and she slept heavily. The wailing of the baby girl wasn’t enough to awaken her. He opened the door and approached the crib that he and Rosinella had prepared, months ago. When the future still existed.

  She didn’t have a name yet, the baby girl. She hadn’t been baptized. No one had dared to suggest it, at least not as long as the Wolf had forbidden it. What do I call you? he wondered, standing in the heat of the July night. Who are you?

  Maybe I’d be doing you a favor by suffocating you with this pillow, he thought. Maybe I’d just be sparing you a life with no mother and a crazy father. Without brothers or sisters, in an empty house without laughter. What kind of life awaits you? Perhaps I’d be doing you a favor by killing you here, in your crib. So many babies die in the first few days.

  Maybe I’d be helping you, by turning you into an angel.

  Maybe you’d go to your mother, and let me get some sleep.

  The baby girl sobbed and sobbed.

  The Wolf reached out a hand toward the crib.

  In the heat of the July night, Guido Ruspo di Roccasole watched as his father struggled with death.

  He’d never seen anyone take so long to die, he kept telling himself; and yet he was studying medicine, and he was the part owner of a nursing home that often tended to the incurably ill. But no, he’d never seen anyone take so long to die.

  Guido wondered why his father was fighting so fiercely. If it had been him, the minute he saw the first signs of the disease he would have killed himself to escape the pain, the crippling effects, the madness of an atrocious, irreparable suffering.

  In the heat of the July night, Guido Ruspo di Roccasole felt a shudder run through his enormous body at the thought of what becomes of one’s internal organs as they are devoured by cancer. He’d seen so many, during the long anatomy lessons at the university, as he stood with his colleagues in a white lab coat around the autopsy table; eaten up from within, lesions of an unhealthy color, tortured to death by the unstoppable enemy.

  Guido loved his father, unconditionally. His sweetest memories were of his father’s aristocratic, sensitive hands tousling his hair, the low, courteous voice, his arms, strong and yet also delicate. The man had been father and mother to him, friend and advisor. For his son, in an attempt to help him, he had even done something mad, written to Iovine, and he’d found himself on his deathbed answering questions from the police about a past that ought to have been dead and buried, even if it could never be forgotten.

  He’d been a great man, capable of overcoming immense challenges: the ruin of his university career, the death of his wife, which left him with a small child to look after, the financial difficulties that had followed his grandfather’s poor business decisions. Eve
ry time, he’d managed to get back on his feet, stronger than ever. A great man.

  And now here he was, thought Guido as he sat in the shadows: wheezing in his sleep, his organs devoured by the beast, suffering agonies so unspeakable that he had to kept sedated.

  His heart clutched in a fist, in the heat of the July night, Guido Ruspo di Roccasole wept for his papà.

  In the heat of the July night, Livia couldn’t get to sleep.

  By now she’d done everything to prepare for tomorrow’s party. She was going to dress as a siren, a mermaid. It seemed in keeping with her job: she was going to sing.

  She’d practiced, shut up in a little room overlooking an interior courtyard, to make sure she wasn’t treating the entire neighborhood to her scales and vocalizations. Her voice was a first-rate musical instrument, but it was rusty from long disuse and years of suffering; it needed to be buffed up to a shine, painstakingly prepared, and carefully tuned: and that’s what she’d been doing continuously over the past few days.

  Livia had even made up her mind to return to her career as a singer, however things went the next day. Music was too important to her. She’d missed it so much, and that had become clear to her as soon as she had set her mind to trying out a melody.

  She’d even begun taking language lessons, because she wanted to do full honor to the song—the Neapolitan canzone—that she would be singing. Don Libero, Ernesto, and Nicola, who had composed the melody and written the lyrics to the song, had instructed her and tactfully corrected her inevitable errors of phrasing. They’d had fun, they’d laughed, they’d pretended to tear their hair out in despair, but in the end, at the last rehearsal, they’d all looked at each other and embraced. Everything was going perfectly.

  In the heat of the July night, Livia wondered what Ricciardi would think when he heard her sing. She’d tended carefully to every detail, selected a pattern for the dress that she’d had a seamstress make for her, adjusted the voice and the expressions she’d put on when she sang, identified the exact spot where she’d stand on the terrace, all just for him.

  She wondered if he’d remain indifferent that night as well, when the long scaly mermaid’s tail would give way to a layer of voile that would speak eloquently of her flesh, and the corset that barely managed to contain her bosom would magnetically attract his gaze, leaving him unable, this time, to resist.

  She wondered whether her voice would charm him, or whether the magnificent words of suffering and hope in Don Libero’s canzone might drop into the void, fail to enchant him as they would everyone else, with the aromas of food, the sea, and love that would be filling the air.

  And she wondered, for the thousandth time, in the heat of the July night, whether Ricciardi would come to her party.

  In the heat of the July night, Enrica watched the spectacular show the stars were putting on outside her window. She was terrified.

  Tomorrow night she had a date to see Manfred alone.

  This wasn’t the first time they’d spoken: but by day, just a short distance from the children who were playing or splashing in the water, during breaks from their work, things were different. Nothing could happen, in those conditions. A conversation couldn’t even take a particular turn.

  She liked Manfred; she had to admit it. He was a very handsome man. His clear, light-blue eyes, his thick blond hair, his well-tended athletic body; and even his voice, soft and deep, with that odd, sharp accent that made his way of speaking so attractive. She sympathized with Carla, whom she still caught, every so often, gazing at him, enchanted, a foolish half-smile stamped on her face, her eyes glistening and darting away the instant she realized that Enrica was watching her.

  He had finally shown her the canvas he’d been working on since the day she’d met him. He’d taken her to see it that very afternoon, holding her hand to help her climb up the slope, until they reached the easel overlooking the sea and the laughing children.

  With a theatrical gesture he’d yanked off the cloth that had concealed the painting from the curious eyes of Carla and the children of the summer colony, and even from her own; that was when Enrica, with a mixture of surprise and secret pleasure, discovered that the canvas depicted her and her alone, sitting in profile and looking out over the waves of a blue, foam-dappled sea, her eyes lost in the distance.

  It was a rapt but characterless gaze, the one depicted on the unsuspecting model on the canvas. Manfred hadn’t captured—and how could he have?—Enrica’s misery every time she sought two green eyes from across the sea.

  In the heat of the July night, Enrica felt a tug at her heart as she thought of Ricciardi. The separation that she had imposed on herself hadn’t eroded by so much as a gram the feelings that she had for him. She understood now, on the eve of a meeting with a man who had everything that should make a woman fall head over heels for him, that she would much rather be many miles away, busy embroidering by the window, waiting to feel a pair of eyes on her.

  In the heat of the July night, Enrica wept with sorrow.

  With two green eyes at the bottom of her heart.

  In the heat of the July night, Livia smiled as she dropped off to sleep.

  With the verses of a song that she’d sing for the whole world, and for just one man, at the bottom of her heart.

  In the heat of the July night, Guido Ruspo di Roccasole stood, picked up the pillow, and, with tears in his eyes, put an end to Francesco’s pain.

  With the memory of a lullaby sung by his father many years ago, at the bottom of his heart.

  In the heat of the July night, Peppino the Wolf picked up his baby girl and rocked her gently to sleep.

  With the thought of Rosinella at the bottom of his heart.

  Marta di Malomonte smiled at Rosa’s smile, and went on with her embroidery.

  LXXI

  Modo came looking for Ricciardi at the usual hour, when he always ordered him out of the room and off the ward. It had become a sort of ritual.

  “If I’ve told you once I’ve told you a hundred times, Ricciardi: I can’t let you stay here after visiting hours are over. You’re a little boy, I’m told; at least you look like one, even though Thunder Jaws and his hangers-on claim that any men not married after a certain age are in all likelihood homosexuals. So out you go.”

  The commissario couldn’t take his eyes off the bed in which Rosa lay breathing deeply. Sitting with her back to the wall, a yard from the bed, as always, was Nelide.

  “Bruno, I understand that I need to leave. But what can you tell me about her? Isn’t there any improvement, didn’t you notice any signs of reawakening, or . . .”

  The doctor threw his arms wide: “I can’t believe that you’re still asking me that question. Don’t you listen when I talk to you? I’m sorry to say that there have been no improvements and we can’t reasonably expect any. The situation will remain stable, until . . . well, you know until what. And it’s not especially useful for you and the woman of marble here to stay and watch her sleep. I know that I can’t stop her from doing it, but I can stop you, and I have every intention of doing so.”

  “Bruno, you know very well that I can’t bring myself to leave her. If you only knew how many times she was at my side while I slept, when I was little. I used to have throat troubles, I was a sickly child, and every winter I’d suffer from terrible fevers. Who do you think worried about me, who do you think stayed by my side? Now I owe her the same.”

  Modo went over to him and forced him to get up out of the chair.

  “No, I’m going to have to disagree with you. She wouldn’t want you here, watching her sleep. She’d want you to clean yourself up and go out for a relaxing evening. I know that you’re invited somewhere, tonight. Go to that party: doctor’s orders. I promise you that I’ll stay here, with Rosa. With Rosa and with that statue of a young woman from Cilento, seated in that chair. I couldn’t tell you which of the two is livelier. At
least I can hear Rosa breathe.”

  Ricciardi shot a look out the window. Livia’s party, right. It was tonight. And tonight was also when Enrica had her date with the man she’d met on the island, out there across the sea. And there was Rosa, in a bed, fighting a battle that he couldn’t help her win.

  He felt alone, now more than ever. Out of place wherever he turned. He stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled out the note that Enrica’s father had given him, containing an address and a time. And his thoughts went to Coviello, the poor humpbacked goldsmith who dreamed of taking a ship he’d never boarded. The bottom of your heart, his phantom had murmured, its black tongue protruding between its teeth. The bottom of your heart.

  Take a ship, or not take it. And die for not having taken it.

  He felt his heart thud to a halt, and then resume beating.

  He looked at Rosa, let his fingers brush her hand.

  Cold. How cold she was. He couldn’t leave her, he decided. Ship or no ship.

  “You need to leave, Signori’.”

  Nelide’s words, spoken in an undertone, almost whispered, exploded in the silence. Ricciardi and the doctor turned to look at her as she said again: “You need to leave. If Aunt Rosa were awake, she’d slap you silly and send you packing. I’ll stay here. You need to leave.”

  Modo made a face: “So if she says you have to go, you really have to go. Otherwise, I’d bet she’ll slap you silly; on her aunt’s behalf.”

  Livia’s party was a decided success.

  Walls and furniture had been abundantly decorated, in hues of white and navy blue, with draperies of silk and other expensive fabrics to simulate waves and salt spray on the rocks, but also with splotches of dark red here and there, standing in for coral.