by Piero Chiara
They saw each other again a couple of weeks later for a game of tennis. Fumagalli stayed in M—— for the entire summer. The sailing club had been given the go-ahead to begin building a small marina and the engineer, an expert in this type of work, was overseeing the work. As a member of the club, Emilia saw Fumagalli continually during the long summer afternoons, and on one of them they went out sailing for a long time with some friends.
As the boat turned towards the harbour, suspended on the last breath of wind, Emilia, seated at the back, leant her head on the tiller, which Carlo was holding, while the others were all at the prow or else halfway down the boat watching the sunset. Emilia felt something touch her hair. It wasn’t the wind, which had almost dropped by now… it was Carlo, gently winding his fingers through it. She turned to look up at him and smiled. The boat tacked, and a little later let down its sails in the small marina under construction.
The relationship didn’t go anywhere all summer, but just before Emilia began the regular journey to Milan once more, the two bumped into each other one day in the street. Fumagalli told Emilia he’d soon be returning there, and suggested that they could meet some afternoon at a café in via Montenapoleone. Emilia agreed and proposed a day.
They met in the café two afternoons a week. Little by little, Emilia distanced herself from her university friends, becoming solitary and detached like her father. Even in the train, she’d find a compartment at the rear where her companions wouldn’t follow her, excusing herself by saying she had a lot to read.
One evening she found Sciancalepre in that compartment. They made the entire journey together, and for the first time, Emilia spoke about her mother. She’d realized by now that there was something strange about her mother’s disappearance, and she wished she knew what was in her father’s heart. But it was something she’d never been able to ask him because she felt intimidated – or perhaps because she understood it was something they must never discuss.
‘It’s a mystery. A mystery!’ said the Commissario. And he tried to get her to speak, asking what her father thought about it. ‘Did you read the papers?’ he asked.
‘Yes, I read them. But I don’t believe any of their speculations. In any case, as far as I’m concerned, my mother’s dead: I can feel it.’
Truth to tell, Sciancalepre also sensed it, but he didn’t want to think any more about the case. The folder, with the photograph of Signora Giulia fixed to it, was still in his drawer. Formally, the case was still open, but the paper in the file was starting to yellow and surely some day soon one of his successors would send it to the archives. And Sciancalepre was expecting a promotion – which would mean a transfer.
Another spring came along, followed almost immediately by a hot summer.
The marina for the sailing club was now completed, but Fumagalli returned to M—— for his holidays. He spent his days with Emilia at tennis or in the boat, and in the evenings danced with her on the terrace of the Hotel Europa. No one was close enough to Esengrini to be able to tell him how familiar his daughter had become with the young engineer from Milan. But she told him herself in the autumn, after starting her third year at university.
Esengrini started violently, as if someone had prodded him from behind, when Emilia said briefly after supper one evening that she was set on becoming engaged to Fumagalli.
‘No.’ He was firm. ‘I will not give my consent.’
In vain, Emilia insisted that she was serious about marrying. Her father, increasingly obstinate, declared himself absolutely against the marriage. Realizing that it was useless to insist, Emilia stopped talking about it. But she went on seeing her unacknowledged boyfriend. They got together even on Sundays now, since he spent his days off with her on the lake, having settled in the area.
The lawyer didn’t find out a thing, though he couldn’t be sure that his prohibition was being respected. A wall of coldness had arisen between him and his daughter. They almost never spoke any more, and the few necessary words they did exchange took on the tone of reciprocal lashings.
Once, no doubt irritated by the incessant phone calls his daughter received from Milan, Esengrini said, ‘Whoever disobeys me scorns me, maybe even hates me.’
‘Why don’t you tell me where my mother is!?’ Emilia screamed, herself shocked by this unexpected outburst.
After this exchange, the lawyer’s house became a tomb, icy and silent. Emilia went in and out as if it were a hotel, and Esengrini for his part withdrew in the evenings, tired and fed up with everyone who treated him with exaggerated respect while whispering behind his back.
Corrado Sciancalepre knew that Emilia and Fumagalli considered themselves engaged, and would certainly marry just as soon as Emilia came of age, when she wouldn’t need her father’s consent. Probably even Esengrini was aware of his daughter’s intention, but he never gave any sign of having changed his mind about a marriage he didn’t want to hear spoken about. And in fact, no one did speak to him about it, because it was known that Fumagalli had been seeing Signora Giulia and could in some way be connected with her disappearance. Even Emilia knew it; Fumagalli had told her himself to explain her father’s attitude. Naturally, he kept it to saying that he’d known Signora Giulia and that they’d met a few times in Milan – with the result that he, too, had been questioned at the time of her disappearance. But he’d been unable to give the police any leads, since his encounters with Signora Giulia had been casual and innocent. They’d met in a café on corso Monforte where the engineer habitually went for tea at around five and where, by sheer chance, Signora Giulia went too while waiting for the evening train to M——.
By this stage, everyone was waiting for Emilia to announce her marriage as soon as she turned twenty-one, Sciancalepre in particular. He had a funny feeling that this marriage was going to stir things up again, and that something new might surface now, nearly three years after Signora Giulia’s disappearance.
The date both feared and expected approached. Emilia turned twenty-one on the 18th of June but already, a month before, she’d begun requesting the necessary papers for the marriage. It was celebrated first thing in the morning on the 21st in the little church of San Rocco, which sits in the hills above the town of M——. No one was invited to the ceremony and no one was forewarned – except for Sciancalepre, who went on a mission to see Esengrini the same morning at the couple’s request.
The new couple went away immediately following the wedding ceremony. Emilia had spent several days packing a bag for the journey, which she’d sent to a childhood friend so that she could pick it up on her way back from the church. She put it in the boot of Fumagalli’s big car, sat beside her husband and left for a secret destination. A few days later, their closest friends gleaned from their postcards that the couple had gone on honeymoon to Switzerland, to a little hamlet whose very name – Beatenberg – seemed to promise the peace and perfect happiness Emilia craved after the long years of study and solitude with her father. One could see from the postcards that the village was opposite the Jungfrau.
Right after the departure of the two young people, Sciancalepre went to see Esengrini, whom he found in a state of extreme depression. He struggled to get a conversation going.
‘This is the second escape, Sciancalepre,’ the lawyer said, ‘and you had a hand in it yourself this time!’
Sciancalepre explained how Emilia had thought through her decision. And he stuck to the view that under the circumstances, it was the best possible solution, since nothing could be done about the tensions between Esengrini and his daughter, which were by now unavoidable.
Esengrini had known something was going on from the letters addressed to Teresa Foletti by Emilia, and he began to insinuate, in conversation with Sciancalepre, that there must have been a secret understanding between mother and daughter. Perhaps his daughter, if not actually in cahoots with her mother, knew a bit more than he did about her disappearance.
Sciancalepre didn’t accept the suggestion. He discussed the si
tuation that had arisen in the Esengrini household and the new reality that prevailed after Emilia’s wedding, and made it clear to the lawyer that his daughter intended to take possession of the house and its grounds upon her return from the honeymoon. They were now her property, according to her grandfather’s will. In fact, her father’s guardianship was nearing an end, along with his administration of her property, by dint of her marriage and coming of age.
When Esengrini had taken in Emilia’s decision, he realized that his continuing presence in his rooms had become untenable. He had a month before the couple’s return, and he calmly prepared himself to say goodbye for good to the home he’d gone to live in after his own marriage. He bought a large apartment in a new block that rose over the lakeside square and moved there, together with his office, his files and household furniture.
Sciancalepre, following everything in the guise of trusted intermediary for both parties, was in contact with Beatenberg, and when Esengrini had cleared himself and his things out of the old villa Zaccagni-Lamberti, he alerted the couple that they could return.
Fumagalli and his wife came back to M—— a few days later, but only for the short time necessary to begin remodelling and restoring the house, in particular the empty wing where Emilia’s grandparents had lived. For the time being, they were staying in Milan with Carlo’s mother while he went back and forth directing and overseeing the work. The house was ready in a month, and the flat previously inhabited by Emilia’s parents was shut up in its existing state, as well as the lawyer’s office, which faced via Lamberti.
The renovated apartment retained intact its eighteenth-century furniture and overall style; only the bathrooms were modern. The park was left neglected and was now entrusted to the scant attentions of the good Demetrio, who still frequented the house, even though he’d followed the lawyer to his new office, where he continued to act as his secretary. For her part, his wife entered the service of the new signora, and the rhythm of former times was re-established.
The villa’s salons were opened up to guests. On beautiful summer evenings, Sciancalepre went once more with his wife, and so did Commendatore Binacchi with his wife and daughter, by now a hopeless spinster. The neighbouring Ravizza and Sormani families came with their sons and daughters, and the presence of a few young married couples helped to liven things up. At least twice a week, the Fumagalli couple returned the visits, and the life of the small town went back to being as fashionable as its old habits and daring new innovations – television, waterskiing and rock ’n’ roll dancing – would permit.
The marriage was the happy result of a love match, and in common with many other young couples the Fumagalli put off having children so as not to bring too soon an end to the carefree life. They were completely absorbed in their happiness, content with the immense house their youthful enthusiasm had brought to life once more, which they were slowly exploring from cellar to attic. They never felt the need to use the grounds. They looked at the park from the courtyard terrace or their balcony as if it were a body of water, fascinating and treacherous. On moonlit nights, after their guests had left, or on returning from an evening with friends, the two young people stood on the large balcony off the master bedroom, facing the gardens. Leaning on the railing, they looked at the old trees lit up with the moon’s glow, the grown hedges forming an impenetrable thicket, a few milky white spots on the path between the plants, and the two huge magnolias on the first level under the double flights of stairs, their every leaf glittering.
Autumn had begun and one night, home late, they went out as usual onto the balcony and watched the moon throw its light over a park shrouded in darkness, then withdraw it as it disappeared behind a moving cloud formation. The bedroom lamps were off and Emilia stood silent for several minutes, as if drawn by the shifting moon, before abruptly gripping Carlo’s arm.
‘Look! Over there!’ she said. ‘Do you see that shadow stretching along the path?’
‘It’s the shadow of a branch,’ Carlo replied.
‘No,’ she insisted. ‘A minute ago it wasn’t there, and the path was completely lit up by the moon. The shadow moved forward while a cloud went by, darkening the grounds.’
Carlo shook his head, smiling. But just at that moment the shadow moved, reappeared farther away, and then disappeared. A moment later he heard the distant crunch of dry leaves under the magnolia, as if someone were cautiously stepping over them. Emilia shivered again and Carlo led her into the room, quietly closing the shutters. She couldn’t get to sleep, and only much later did she allow herself to be persuaded that the shadow could have been thrown by a bit of cloud, and that a cat had surely made that sound in the leaves.
Two nights later, after turning out the bedroom lights, Emilia felt like going out on the balcony again. Carlo followed her and found her intently focused on that bit of pathway where they’d seen the shadow two nights earlier. The balcony was dark, since the overhanging eaves hid it from the moon’s beams. For at least half an hour it would remain in shadow, invisible from the park.
Though her husband tried to get her to go in, Emilia wanted to stay there till the bitter end, keeping watch below. Eventually Carlo brought her a shawl. As he placed it on her shoulders, he followed her gaze. She started, suddenly more alert.
A black shadow was moving along the path that began at the gate. It came forward, disappeared under an arch formed by branches, reappeared, and again disappeared. Meanwhile, the moon had moved and a band of light now fell across the garden façade of the palazzo. Emilia withdrew, but Carlo remained with the shutters drawn, watching through a crack.
‘Anything more?’ Emilia asked.
‘Not a thing,’ he said.
FIVE
After that, Fumagalli hurriedly wound up his business in Milan and a few weeks later established himself in M——, taking on projects he could carry out by working at home, and going to Milan only very rarely.
He was convinced now that someone was prowling around the grounds at night, and he suspected it was more than a petty thief. He’d walked through the trees, checked the lock on the gate – which seemed to have been shut for a century – inspected the railings and the surrounding walls. Not a sign. He hadn’t even seen anything interesting in the old coach house along the external wall; on the ground floor, where there were a few agricultural tools belonging to Demetrio, he saw the gate key hanging from a nail. Rusty and covered with old spiderwebs, it had certainly not been touched since it had aided Signora Giulia’s escape.
Having made an inspection, he went to tell Sciancalepre about it. The Commissario looked as if he’d been woken from a long sleep. He listened attentively and asked if he could go out on the balcony on the next moonlit night.
A few nights later, just before midnight, Sciancalepre and Fumagalli took up their posts on the balcony facing the park. Emilia had gone to sleep in another room. With a bottle of good cognac and two glasses set out on a coffee table, the two of them cast a glance every now and then towards the moonlit paths. Sciancalepre, fearing the damp, wore his usual black cap pulled down over his eyes. Until midnight he sat smoking, hiding the burning tip of the cigarette in his hand. But he stopped when the hour struck, leant on the windowsill and didn’t take his eyes from the path on which Fumagalli claimed to have seen the shadow.
Suddenly he put his right hand on Fumagalli’s knee beside him. He’d seen the shadow. He followed it as it appeared and disappeared in the moonlight, until it was lost to sight completely in the bushes in the middle of the park. Not long afterwards he heard the sound of the magnolia’s dry leaves in front of the greenhouse. And a quarter of an hour later he saw the shadow again: it stopped in the middle of the path, farther away, and seemed to him to pause there, turned towards the balcony. For a moment he felt as if he were meeting its gaze – the gaze of a man standing down below between the pine and the roundish mass of beech. It headed towards the palazzo like a death ray, making for the balcony and its white curtains, skimmed earlier by the mo
on, behind which the young newlyweds would be sleeping.
Sciancalepre slowly took his binoculars from his pocket and crouched down by the railing to look through them. Fumagalli also crouched down, because the rising moon had begun to illuminate the façade of the palazzo.
Back inside, they went to sit next to a lamp in a room on the ground floor, taking the bottle of cognac along with them.
‘So did you see that it wasn’t an optical illusion?’
‘I did – and I’d say that in my view your nightly visitor is someone we know well, a rather tall man with a dark overcoat and a black cap…’
‘My father-in-law,’ Carlo concluded, his voice low.
‘The same. And I ask myself what he’s doing here in the grounds at night.’
‘Maybe he comes out of nostalgia for this place he lived in for so many years,’ said Fumagalli. ‘Unless he’s drawn here for other reasons…’
‘He’s had enough time in three years to walk around the park,’ said Sciancalepre. ‘If he’s come back, it’s for a reason. Tomorrow morning we’ll take a closer look.’
Early next morning, Fumagalli and the Commissario went into the gardens. They started by visiting the greenhouse, where Demetrio was preparing to put the azaleas and lemon trees for the winter, and continued into the grounds. They found no sign of footprints on the worn dirt paths, nor did the areas around the gate or the old coach house reveal anything suspicious.
In the coach house, the key was still in its place, covered with spiderwebs. They took their time examining the gate, conscious that if it had been opened, it would have left a semicircular track on the ground. They walked along the walls at the property boundary and reached the gate, where a wooden door opened onto the street from between two flaking pillars. Neither one of them had previously noticed this door, but they were sure that no one could have used it, because the lock was fixed on the inside by a wooden stick that fitted through two joints in the wall. There were no possibilities left apart from the hypothesis that someone had climbed over the gate or one of the park’s two boundary walls at the sides. In the latter case, the nighttime visitor would have had to come through one of the two adjacent villas.