He asked himself what had brought him back there again. And he was reminded of the doctor’s frank and boisterous laughter, his hat pushed back on his head, the shock of white hair uncovered, the doctor’s hand on his shoulder. Right, that’s what he was doing there.
The housekeeper had come back to say that the Signora wasn’t well, and he’d felt as if someone had clutched his heart in their fist. He’d insisted. The woman had told him to wait there.
And he’d been waiting for a good ten minutes, when the door swung open and Livia walked into the room.
XLV
With a stab of emotion, Ricciardi found himself face to face with a woman quite different from the one who had fled Gambrinus just two days ago.
Livia wasn’t made up and her hair had been swept back hastily. She wore a dark red dressing gown, tied at the waist with a sash, and a pair of low-heeled shoes. But her clothing, the absence of the usual care she put into her appearance—these weren’t what struck the commissario to his very soul.
It was her eyes.
The woman’s gaze was blank.
He was used to seeing cheerfulness, passion, confidence, and even sudden bursts of anger in those eyes. He knew her look of defiance, her look of unease. But to see those eyes drained, weary, devoid of hope hit him like a punch in the nose.
They stood face to face, and gazed at each other for a few seconds. Then Livia waved him to an armchair, perching gracefully on the corner of a sofa, at a safe distance from him.
“What a surprise. I have to say I hardly expected to see you today. To what do I owe this visit?”
Ricciardi lacked the courage to speak. To see her in this state was more than he could handle: he was accustomed to defending himself from her, to erecting barriers against her impulsive passions, and now there she was, chilly and remote.
In the face of his silence, Livia said:
“Forgive me for receiving you looking like this. I have a terrible migraine that’s been tormenting me for . . . for two days, and this is the first time I’ve been out into daylight since it first hit. I’m not exactly the ideal hostess today.”
Ricciardi shook himself.
“No, you should forgive me, actually. I show up here without any advance notice—not even on the job do I burst in on people like this. But I needed to . . . I need to speak to you, Livia. About a very important matter.”
There wasn’t so much as a flicker of interest on the woman’s face.
“I’m all ears. I have to imagine that, for you to come here, it must have been pretty urgent.”
The commissario ignored the irony that dripped from her words. He clutched once again at the picture of his friend and worked up his nerve to go on.
“You’re right. And you have every reason to be angry with me: my behavior the other day was inexcusable. I can’t even explain it to myself and, believe me, I’ve done my best to try to understand what came over me.”
Livia gazed at him without expression.
“Don’t worry about it. I didn’t think it was particularly strange; perhaps the only novelty was that there was a third party present, but the behavior was the same you’ve always shown me. As far as that goes, I have no cause for complaint: you’re a perfectly consistent man.”
“That’s not true. I’m only sorry that you should think such a thing, which couldn’t be further from the truth. I understand that it might seem that way, but you must believe me: it isn’t true. It’s just that I . . . I’m a strange person, that’s all. I don’t open up. I can’t open up, not to anyone. Much less to a woman, and a woman like you, who would have every right to happiness. If I hold you at arm’s length, I do it for your own good.”
She laughed with bitter irony.
“Just who do you think you are, to claim the right to decide what’s best for me? God almighty, perhaps? Forget about it, Ricciardi. I’m old enough to understand when a man doesn’t like me, without further humiliating myself in his presence. But listen, why don’t you tell me why you’re really here? I have no doubt it’s a serious matter, otherwise you’d never have come.”
Ricciardi heaved a deep sigh.
“Yes, that’s right. I have a reason, and it’s a very serious one. And in fact it has to do with the person who was with us the other day; the man in whose presence I stupidly insulted you.”
Livia furrowed her brow.
“The doctor? Why, what’s happened to him?”
The commissario told her what had happened, leaving out nothing. He told her what Maione had been told by his wife and by Bambinella, and he told her about the call he paid on Pivani.
“. . . it was him, confidentially, who told me that the only person I could turn to is you. And so here I am, precisely to ask for your help.”
Livia had listened with growing interest, and now she was positively fuming.
“Why, who do you take me for? Do you think I’m, I don’t know, a spy for the Duce or a Fascist functionary? I’m very sorry for the doctor; I like him and he struck me as a nice person, but what the devil do you think I can do to help?”
Ricciardi bore that dressing down the way you would a summer cloudburst.
“I know perfectly well you have no political connections. That’s why what I said the other day was just an idiotic joke, and one uttered by a fool. But this Pivani told me that you, most likely without being aware of it, are very dear to someone important in Rome; and that for this reason you have been assigned, for your safety, an agent who works for the same branch that is about to ship Modo off to internal exile.”
Suddenly, before Livia’s eyes there appeared the image of a distinguished-looking man, middle-aged, carrying a leather portfolio. She muttered under her breath:
“Falco.”
That was the name he had given her, along with an address where, if she ever needed help, she could arrange for an envelope containing a sheet of white paper to be delivered. She was afraid of the man; behind that nondescript exterior lurked a cold, dark mind, as well as a perfect catalogue of information about her that not even she knew. It was from him that she’d learned all about Ricciardi, unable to resist the temptation to learn whatever she could, even though she instinctively wanted to keep that strange man as far away from her as possible.
Ricciardi nodded.
“I’m begging you, Livia: I’m begging you. If it were for me, I swear to you, I would never have come here; but Bruno is a wonderful human being, who does more for his fellow man than all the Fascist officers in Rome put together. We can’t—you can’t let him be thrown who knows where just because of the ideas he has. I’m begging you.”
None of the ice in which Livia had shrouded herself melted. But the woman said:
“I doubt I have the power you attribute to me; the Roman friend to whom your Signor Pivani was probably referring is a person with whom, for the most part, I talk about clothing and jewelry, with a little gossip thrown in about which of our friends in common have new boyfriends. And yes, it’s true that on several occasions I’ve seen a man—I don’t even know whether the name he told me is actually his Christian name, his last name, or a nickname—and he mysteriously seems always to be perfectly informed about everything.”
“And would you know how to get in touch with him? There is no time to waste; based on the information we’ve received, the ship is sailing on Sunday. Easter Sunday.”
Livia retorted bitterly:
“That ship won’t be the only one leaving Naples on Easter Sunday. I’ve decided to leave town too. You’ll be rid of my irritating presence once and for all.”
The news washed over Ricciardi like a gust of icy wind. He understood instantly that he didn’t want Livia to leave.
“You . . . if you’ve made that decision for your own reasons, then there’s nothing I can say. But if you’re leaving on my account, don’t do it. Don’t do it. I . . . I
really don’t know what to say, but I’m begging you, don’t do it.”
Livia looked at him for a long time, baffled. Trying to understand whether what her heart was telling her was the product of what she was hearing or the product of what she wanted to hear.
Then she said:
“I’ll try to get in touch with him. I’m doing it for the doctor, because of the impression I had of him and because of what you’ve told me about him. I very much doubt I’ll be able to do it, but if I am, you’ll have two reasons to rejoice: first because your friend will be set free, and second because it will mean that the other day at Gambrinus you were right.”
Ricciardi ran a hand over his face.
“I thank you. This matter now takes precedence for me over everything else. But if this is resolved, as I hope it will be, I’ll come and talk to you, I promise. And I’ll try to persuade you that I never believed those words I said, that I’m nothing but a stupid idiot. And that I know how to appreciate a fine sensibility and a good heart, the few times I find them.”
Livia said nothing, struggling to tamp down the excitement she could feel clutching at her throat. God only knew how many times she’d dreamed of hearing those words, of having at least the shadow of a chance with that man. But the wound was still too fresh.
She stood up.
“Don’t think twice, it has nothing to do with the two of us. You asked me for help, and I’m willing to do what I can. I hope to have news for you soon, in which case I’ll give you a call. You just be ready.”
Ricciardi stood up too.
“Whatever the result, I thank you, Livia. You could have kicked me out without a second thought, and I would have deserved it: for me to come here, after insulting you, to ask you to help me by reaching out to the very same friends my stupid insult was aimed at. And instead you decided to listen to me all the same. I won’t forget it.”
He started to leave, but then halted on the threshold and said, without turning around:
“And I haven’t forgotten a single moment of what happened in this house the last time I came to see you. Nothing. This is the second time that I’ve found, inside these walls, a hope that I lacked when I arrived.”
And he left, leaving Livia caught uncomfortably between the past and the future.
XLVI
You look the night in the face, Doctor.
You can tell that a few people around you are actually sleeping. You’re always amazed when you see what human beings can get used to; what they can put up with.
You look the night in the face, and it looks back, impassive. The night is accustomed to more than this, after all. It’s moved over more serious misery, it has covered up far worse yearnings.
There’s a high school teacher, over there, a Calabrian. He’s a homosexual, that’s why he’s here. He says that he has no political beliefs, but for all you know he’s actually a Fascist and they took him anyway. He won’t say how they caught him, but from a few of the hints he’s dropped you think that it must have been with a student, in the toilets. He sleeps and he snores, mouth open. As the saying goes: the sleep of the righteous.
And there’s a university student—you did your best to treat a nasty gash on his forehead—who speaks in monosyllables.
And there’s a shepherd from Avellino who cursed at the dedication of a statue of Old Bull Head, as they call the Duce.
And others, who have thoughts that now constitute crimes punished by exile in a concentration camp.
Because, you tell the night, that’s what we’re talking about: a concentration camp. And you’re about to be shipped to one of those camps.
Who knows when you said something out loud, who knows what you did and when, within hearing of vigilant ears which hurried off to report. Perhaps it was just the other morning, at Viper’s funeral, when you spoke to those four drunken thugs. The good you’ve done doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter who you’ve been or who you are.
Do you remember the night, Doctor? Do you remember it on the Carso, when the chilly morning sunlight found new corpses strewn on the ground, when the mortar marked time with greater precision than your wristwatch? Perhaps the night was less frightening then.
At least then you knew who the enemy was, and you fought him. Now someone out in the street might perfectly well tip his hat as you go by and then turn around and report you.
Someone’s crying softly. Wives, children: at least you don’t have that regret. At least you’re not leaving anyone behind.
For some reason you find yourself thinking about the dog, Doctor. And you hope that Maione will take care of him, as you had the good sense to ask him to do.
Maione, Ricciardi. Sunshine and people.
God, how you miss your life, Doctor.
Now that they’re taking it away.
You think you’re close to the water, you can smell it in the air. The air also smells of diesel fuel from ocean liners, and every so often you hear voices calling. The port, probably. So it’s going to be a ship that takes you away, along with the high school teacher, the shepherd from Avellino, and the other poor bastards.
For no good reason, you think back on Viper, on her laughter and her beauty, lost now. Seven days ago you were at Il Paradiso, drinking and laughing and playing cards, and she walked past and you blew her a kiss. Too bad about her, and too bad about you.
How you miss it.
How you miss a world you never thought you loved so much.
The night, Doctor.
The night that won’t end.
XLVII
Livia sprang into action immediately.
She didn’t want to think about the personal implications of what Ricciardi had said, nor did she wish to cultivate hopes that might have to be crushed underfoot as soon as they germinated; but she did sense a new euphoria washing over her.
And after all, she’d told the truth: she liked the doctor. She’d liked him instinctively the first time she’d met him, with Ricciardi, in the aftermath of her husband’s murder, and that opinion had been reaffirmed in the few minutes she’d spent with him during that unfortunate episode at Gambrinus.
Livia didn’t think of herself as a Fascist, or for that matter as an anti-Fascist. Politics, as she had said on that occasion too, was of no interest to her; anytime she was at a party or at the theater and her companions started arguing about politics, she lost interest and thought about other things. Still, she was convinced that there had to be something wrong if a man like Modo, open-minded, intelligent, and, as Ricciardi said, kind to his fellow man, were to be incarcerated, sent into internal exile, or whatever it was they had in store for him.
She’d taken an envelope, written her own name on it, and inside, in accordance with the instructions that she had been given, she placed a blank sheet of paper. She handed the envelope to her housekeeper and told her where to take it—a nearby apartment house, where she was to give it to the doorman.
Then she went to the mirror: she was greeted by a sight that filled her with horror. She immediately set about fixing her appearance, hardly suspecting that Ricciardi had never before found her so beautiful.
Not even half an hour had gone by when she heard her housekeeper knock at the door again. There was a visitor, and the gentleman had declined to give his name.
She found Falco standing by the window, looking down into the street. When she walked into the room, he said without turning around:
“How beautiful springtime can be. Even in the city, the air is fresh and you can sense it. It’s the smell of hope, don’t you agree?”
Livia sat down in an armchair.
“Buonasera, Falco. Thank you for coming immediately; not that I had any doubt you’d be prompt, of course.”
The man bowed his head. He was of average height, well and soberly dressed in a dark double-breasted pin-striped suit; he gave off a faint whiff
of lavender. His thinning salt-and-pepper hair was combed back, and he seemed to be freshly shaven.
“Signora, of all the tasks that my job requires of me, your summons is certainly the most welcome. And let me take the opportunity to compliment you on your new hairstyle, which highlights the loveliness of your features.”
Livia, in spite of herself and in spite of the tension she felt, burst out laughing.
“Careful, Falco! I see a bit of gallantry peeking through the chinks in your armor! I’ll wind up thinking you’re human.”
Falco sat down across from her.
“At last, I’m tempted to say. It doesn’t happen often, sadly, that anyone takes us for human. In any case, to what do I owe the invitation?”
Livia waved her forefinger:
“I should scold you, though: you don’t seem to be worried in the slightest, in spite of the fact that this is the first time we’re meeting at my request. I might have needed you for some very ugly reason, no?”
The man shook his head.
“The last report was from the day before yesterday, and you came home by car without any problems. At the very worst, you might have been feeling uneasy, but nothing serious. Am I wrong?”
Livia changed demeanor, her face darkening.
“I don’t like to be reminded of the fact that I’m constantly being watched. Nor is it particularly nice of you to remind me.”
“You’re quite right. But it’s also true that I take special care of you, and I only wanted to reassure you: nothing bad can happen to you, as long as we discreetly watch over your well-being.”
Unfortunately that’s not true, Livia thought. But she said:
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