In fact, I dedicated myself to the only real passion I had left: women. Any woman, of whatever kind, race, or age, so long as she was good-looking and didn’t waste my time with the usual runaround. I was voracious; I wasn’t looking for friendship, intrigue, or protection. They lasted so little time that I didn’t take the trouble to learn their names. I only needed to know them in the most thorough way possible, something not too difficult for a young good-looking police officer of a certain rank. Hic et nunc was the way for Michele Balistreri; nothing of sin, confession, regret. I was one of the elite—those the world doesn’t understand, those who don’t give a damn what the world thinks of them. Nor what God thinks, either.
As Alberto used to say to me, and I used to echo, this was only a moment to reflect, a little bit of rest, sailing slowly along a quiet river, carried along by a gentle current. After the turbulent years I’d experienced, this was exactly what I needed: solitude, a cushy day job, eating well, screwing a lot, playing poker, thinking about nothing at all. It was a delicate balance between pleasure and boredom. No emotional ties. Love was a country where it had rained salt, and it had turned into a desert.
But I told myself over and over I would leave as soon as I could. I’d never become a senile old cop, stuck at a desk and serving a cowardly and corrupt state. I’d go back to Africa to hunt lions and leopards, far from false and sanctimonious Italy. Far from everything I detested. Far from the battles I had lost.
. . . .
A few days after our first encounter, Dioguardi readily agreed to play poker with me and two of my friends in the police. This was odd, because we’d only just met and I myself would never have risked putting my money on the table with three strangers who knew each other well. But, as I came to find out, Dioguardi was the opposite of me in many ways—and one was being able to trust his neighbor.
We played until two in the morning in the back room of a piano bar near Piazza di Spagna. In less than half an hour, I realized he was a world-class player. He had technique, imagination and daring. After two hours he’d won a pile of money. Then, in the following hour, he lost more than half of what he’d won.
“You lost on purpose,” I said, after the other two had left.
He shook his head, embarrassed.
“I was doing a few experiments, things I could use to improve. I do it when I’m winning comfortably.”
“As in a preseason friendly game against a bunch of amateurs.”
He smiled. He admitted that he played rarely, and only then with wealthy old boys. He won a lot of money, but he was a little ashamed of it and never boasted. I discovered later that he donated all his winnings to charity. His fabulous bluffs in the game were little sins for him, something that—along with his Catholic ethics—was nothing to be proud of.
We went into the crowded bar. A group of young men were singing to the piano music, led by a beautiful black woman.
As soon as she spotted him, she called out, “Angelo, Angelo, come over here!”
He tried to wave her away, but she kept calling him. In the end he went over and the girl pressed his lips to hers. I saw him blush and step back. Then she raised his arm, as if declaring him the winner, and turned to the crowd.
“This is my friend Angelo, the best undiscovered vocalist in Rome, who will now sing for us.”
In the field of singing, too, he was in a class by himself. He performed every song the crowd requested and ended with a rendition of “My Way” almost worthy of Sinatra himself. After his performance, he introduced me to the woman, then left us alone just long enough for me to get her phone number. He’d figured me out.
It was after three when we left.
“Michele, let’s go to Ostia.”
“Ostia? It’s January. What would we do at the beach?”
“There’s a little bakery there. At six they bring out the best pastries anywhere near Rome.”
He wanted to talk. Me too. This was really strange because, over the years, my desire to socialize with other men had worn off. We went in his beat-up Fiat 500, and half an hour later we were parked on the promenade. The stars were out. It was cold, but there was no wind. We opened the windows to smoke. The sea was a millpond; we could smell the sea air and hear the waves lapping a few yards away from us. There was nobody around.
Unlike me, Angelo was always willing to talk about himself. He was born poor in a Rome where everyone except his parents was getting rich, some legally and some less so. He’d grown up in the poorest area of Rome. He was the son of a small-time singer and a fortuneteller, two starving wannabe artists who later moved to the country; two failures, at least by societal standards, both dead from cirrhosis of the liver when Angelo was still a teenager. But he said they had both given him a great deal. His vocalist father had given him his singing voice, and from his fortunetelling mother he learned to bluff and think on his feet.
In time he had gained two things: a well-off girlfriend, Paola, who worshipped him and would marry him within the year, and a small real estate business, thanks to her uncle, Cardinal Alessandrini. The cardinal was just over fifty and was responsible for arranging housing for the thousands of priests and nuns who came to Rome to study or else a few days of pilgrimage and sightseeing. The Vatican owned hundreds of convents, hostels, and apartments and their running had been entrusted to Angelo Dioguardi who, although he’d given up on his education, was a good Catholic and was obviously to be the husband of the Cardinal’s niece. Although Angelo was manifestly unsuited to an office job, he applied himself with dedication and energy—exactly the opposite of how I handled my employment. And he was the opposite of me when it came to women, too. He knew a lot of them, but he never took advantage because of his unshakeable loyalty to Paola. In love, he was an idealist in search of the single perfect relationship. This would turn out to be the ideal situation for someone like me, who was always on the prowl: Angelo drew them in, and I closed the deal.
“Are you really completely faithful to Paola?” I asked. I was expecting him to give a speech on love in reply, but Angelo surprised me.
“She’s beautiful, kind, smart, rich, and the niece of a cardinal who gave me a job, and I’m a poverty-stricken nobody who didn’t finish school. I can only be thankful; I’ve no right even to desire anyone else.”
We were still there at dawn. We got out to stretch our legs. The bakery was closed, but the lights were on and it was emanating a yeasty smell. I took a cigarette from my second pack. I offered him one, seeing as he’d finished all his.
“No thanks, Michele. A pack of Gitanes every two days and no more.”
“You’re too strict with yourself, Angelo. You should let yourself go once in a while.”
He ran a hand through his wavy blond hair, then pointed to the water.
“How about a dip?”
“Are you crazy? It’s January and dawn.”
“You won’t feel cold once you’re in. And it’ll give you a perfect appetite.”
That’s exactly what he said—a perfect appetite. He switched on the Fiat’s headlights and directed them toward the few yards of sand that separated us from the water. A minute later he was stripped down to his briefs.
“Come on, let yourself go, Michele,” he said.
Then he ran to the water and dove in. I saw him swimming furiously in the beam of the headlights. I don’t know what came over me—something I hadn’t felt for many years. A minute later I was in the water, too. The cold took my breath away, but the more I swam to warm myself up, the more I felt a joy I’d forgotten, brazen, irresistible, that took over my whole body.
As promised, the pastries, still warm from the oven, were perfect.
. . . .
So I began to get to know Angelo better. Underneath that affectionate, sunny, and angelic face lay a heart left on its own too soon and seeking a safe and permanent harbor. Love and work were a refuge for him. No strange ambitions, no adventures: a more or less regular life. No more than ten Gitanes a day, no more than
a couple of glasses of whiskey. That way he stayed clear-headed when he played poker. Every time we went into one of Rome’s piano bars—something we did often in the following months—the same thing happened. The singer knew Angelo and called him on stage. The female singers always tried to take him home, but he was incorruptible. In this he was truly my opposite, or perhaps he was what I could have been. Angelo was unassailable.
He laid down strict rules for us when it came to poker. Spots were limited to a certain number, and at the end of the evening the jackpot was divided according to the number of chips we had. He almost always won, and the few times he lost I was sure he’d lost on purpose, just as he’d done during our first game. In the beginning we played with my brother, Alberto, and another engineer, a colleague of his. They tried to persuade Angelo to use their high salaries and stocks and shares to bankrupt a casino but, ever in line with his Catholic morality, Angelo wouldn’t do it.
We saw each other almost every evening. The standard routine was pizza for four: myself, Angelo, Paola, and my girlfriend of the moment. Then came a short stroll through Trastevere. We’d stop for a smoke, and drink one last beer in the splendid piazza by the church of Santa Maria. At that point, there was a choice: either I went off with my girlfriend or, with Paola’s blessing, Angelo and I would say good-bye to the two of them and ride around Rome in my Duetto or his Fiat 500. (This usually happened when I was no longer interested in sex with that night’s companion.) We would stay in the car and talk. Unending icy winter nights with the windows down to let out the smoke. Warm spring nights when we squashed the first mosquitoes. Our conversations ranged from chat about sports and politics to deeper existential problems. Despite not having finished school, Angelo was a great debater and could defend his Christian vision of the world divided between good and evil.
We were inseparable on those magical metaphysical nights that filled our lives for no apparent reason whatsoever.
May 1982
ANGELO’S OFFICE WAS LOCATED in the residential complex where Cardinal Alessandrini lived. There were low-rise buildings, each three stories high, surrounded by a park, on Via della Camilluccia in one of Rome’s greenest residential areas. Alessandrini lived on the top floor in one of the buildings and had given the other floors over to Dioguardi for his offices. The third floor was used for administration; the second floor was open to the public—that is, priests and nuns looking for accommodations.
On one of my days off, a Saturday at the beginning of May, I went to meet him there. It was a glorious morning—the skies clear, the sun already warm. In my old Alfa Romeo Duetto, I crossed the historic city center crowded with tourists. Every so often I slowed to admire a young female visitor. Near the Colosseum I saw a German blonde with huge tits and the words Über alles printed on her T-shirt. In Piazza di Spagna, American girls in shorts were sitting on the Spanish Steps, and in Piazza del Popolo, where the bars were already full, two gorgeous Japanese girls were taking turns photographing each other. Eventually I drove up the winding slopes of Monte Mario and came to Via della Camilluccia. A huge green gate barred the entrance to the park where the two low-rise blocks were situated, separated by a huge fountain, a tennis court, and a swimming pool. It was a little corner of paradise allowing some privileged people to live a separate life, far above that wonderfully chaotic city crawling with people and traffic.
I drove the car up to the gate. A severe-looking woman in her sixties came out of the gatehouse. She looked me up and down skeptically, unable to decide whether I was an encyclopedia salesman or some lackey of one of the rich people around there. I stared back at her with one of my own surly looks, a gift that came naturally to me.
“Can I help you?” she asked with a Southern accent.
“I’m a friend of Angelo Dioguardi’s.”
“You’ll have to park outside. Only the residents can park inside.”
She saw me surveying the handful of vehicles parked on the enormous grounds. Among them was a stupendous Aston Martin, Angelo’s Fiat 500 and, gleaming in the sunshine, a Harley-Davidson Panhead.
“The Count doesn’t want nonresidents’ cars past the gate. And if it was up to him, you know, nonresidents wouldn’t even be allowed in on foot,” the concierge added with a note of disapproval, whether for the nonresidents or the count I couldn’t decide.
Fortunately, parking on that quiet green road was no problem. The residents all had garages, and there were no stores or restaurants around, only trees, well-tended flowerbeds and Filipino au pairs pushing strollers carrying the children of the wealthy. Their parents were off having coffee in Piazza Navona or out on the golf course.
“You have to walk to the far end of the grounds. Go around behind the pool and the tennis court, and you’ll get to Building B. You can see the balcony from here; you can’t miss it,” she explained, as though talking to a small child.
As I passed Building A, the one nearer to the gate, I felt I was being watched. I turned upward and caught sight of a reflection on the third-floor balcony. Someone was spying on visitors through a pair of binoculars. I stopped to admire the Aston Martin parked in front of the entrance to the building. The Harley stood beside it. I went around the large fountain and onto the pathways between the tennis court and the swimming pool; tall trees prevented me from making out Building B.
I came across a lanky and energetic young man. Thick red curls, blue eyes, freckles, probably not more than twenty. He was wearing a priest’s cassock.
“Are you lost?” he asked in a thick American accent.
“I’m not sure. I’m looking for Angelo Dioguardi in Building B.”
“You’re not a priest,” he said, smiling as though he’d said something witty. He explained, “Only priests and nuns come to see Angelo. I’m Father Paul, assistant to Cardinal Alessandrini.”
He accompanied me to Building B’s front door.
“Angelo is on the third floor. Call me if you decide you’d like to become a priest. Maybe I can help.”
He really was a bit too much of a joker for a first encounter. I recognized it instantly as a way of covering up his insecurity—and Father Paul’s insecurity exuded from every pore.
I went up on foot. As I was going past the first floor, a girl with the features of a young goddess came out of a door. She was wearing a long white nurse’s coat, and I would have considered feigning illness on the spot. That kind of a uniform tends to disguise the figure, but no kind of dress could have hidden that curvaceous outline.
She stopped dead, her eyes lowered. “Please, go ahead,” she said, pausing to let me pass. Her voice was soft and childlike, a little dreamy, like her smile. Her arms were full of ring binders.
“Can I help you?” I offered. She kept avoiding my eyes and shook her head, distracted. A ring binder fell to the tiled floor. While I was bending down to pick it up, I caught the scent of her soap. “I’m really sorry,” she said, absurdly overapologetic.
I couldn’t persuade her to give me any ring binders, and we went up to the second floor in silence. She ushered me through a small door into a long corridor with several doors leading off it.
“Mr. Dioguardi’s office is at the end,” she said. She hadn’t once met my eyes, and she quickly disappeared into the first room on the right.
I found Angelo behind a desk, buried under papers, ring binders, and folders of every kind. Behind him hung a huge photo of the Pope. I almost laughed at the sight of him in that setting. In the workplace, his complete inability to keep things neat was striking.
“I know, Michele—your brother looks the part behind a desk, but I look silly. Worse, here I am making a mess in a job that demands organizational skills.”
“At least you’ve got some good-looking coworkers,” I said, gesturing toward the corridor.
“I guess you saw Elisa,” he replied, laughing.
“If that’s the kind of young goddess you have carrying your bits of paper . . .”
He explained that Elisa Sordi had been th
ere for two months as a weekend assistant; she was in college, studying to become an accountant, and would be taking exams in June. She was only eighteen.
“And from whence does this manna from heaven descend on you?”
“Paola’s uncle, Cardinal Alessandrini. Our illustrious neighbor the senator, Count Tommaso dei Banchi di Aglieno, introduced him to Elisa. The cardinal and the count do favors for each other, even though their morals and their politics are polar opposites: the cardinal’s a Catholic democrat, and the Count’s an anti-Church monarchist despot.”
“I think they’ve done you a favor this time, Angelo. Sure, she’s a bit young, but you know I don’t hang about . . .”
He shook his head with a smile.
“She’s not your type, Michele.”
“And why not?”
“She’s awkward, incredibly shy, and a very devout Catholic—someone like me, who really believes.”
“Is that what you think of me, Angelo Dioguardi? That I’m only a collector of fucks from cheap sluts?” I asked in a tone of obviously feined disdain.
I expected him to laugh but instead he made a face. It was the noise of ring binders falling to the floor behind me that made me realize what was happening. Blushing, Angelo rose to help the girl gather them up. I turned round with my most innocent smile. Elisa was standing there with a stunned expression on her face, a look of shock in her eyes. Not having the gift of invisibility at my command, I excused myself and went to the men’s room, where I remained for a long time, cursing myself. The face I saw in the mirror was that of a vulgar idiot who had just made a complete fool of himself.
I went back into Angelo’s office only when I was sure Elisa would no longer be there. He gave me a sardonic grin that made me furious.
The Deliverance of Evil Page 2