by Marco Vichi
As he was falling asleep, a bird took up position on a tree outside his window and started singing. It had a thousand different calls, changing register every two or three seconds … Cheep cheep … Tststststststs … Fiuuuuuu … Trrrrrr … Kew kew kew … Cheecheecheechee … and other vocal about-faces that sounded like music … In his half-sleep he imagined the bird as his mother … She’d come to say hello … to tell him the living and the dead were not so far away from each other … The loving senses’ correspondence …12
As he drifted into unconsciousness he started reviewing all the women he’d ever fallen in love with … Starting with Rachele, a beautiful little girl who, unbeknown to her, had made him lose a year of schooling …
He parked in front of the contessa’s castle, next to an old black Mercedes. The moment he got out, the great door opened, and on the threshold appeared an elderly housekeeper with a feather duster in her hand. He went up to her, saying he had an appointment with the contessa. The old woman nodded without a word and gestured for him to come in. Bordelli found himself in a monumental entrance hall, with tapestries on the walls, ancient armour, precious vases, and mirrors with ornate gilt frames. An immense staircase in pietra serena led through the penumbra to the upper floors. The housekeeper motioned for him to follow her, and she hobbled her way down a long corridor that began to one side of the staircase. She opened a door for him and then closed it unceremoniously after he went in. While waiting, Bordelli started pacing across the room’s carpets, looking around and sniffing the air, which smelled of ancient books. On the walls not covered with bookcases hung some large oil portraits, elderly men with monumental moustaches, portly women with generous eyes and a small animal in their arms, young men and young ladies looking fresh and haughty. At the back of the room was a great stone fireplace with the family crest, a two-headed wolf with a rather angry look, sculpted on it. Majestically placed here and there on various furnishings were a number of precious objects, bronze statuettes, fine candelabra, a magnificent table clock under a bell jar.
The large windows afforded a view of the hills, and Bordelli could make out his own house down below, which looked tiny. He peeked behind the inside shutters and, as he expected, found an iron crossbar hanging from an iron ring.
He went and sat down in a small, satin-covered armchair, and it creaked under his weight. He leaned forward and ran his fingers over the top of a lovely wooden table with an inlaid chessboard … At that moment the door opened and the contessa appeared in an elegant but sober house-dress. Bordelli stood up, and to put her at her ease, bowed as if to kiss her hand.
‘Good morning, Contessa.’
‘Can I get you anything?’
‘Please don’t bother.’
‘Please make yourself at home.’
‘Thank you …’
They sat down facing each other, and the contessa fixed her eyes on him as though trying to read his mind.
‘Have you discovered anything?’
‘You’ll have to forgive me, but for the moment I’d rather not talk about it,’ said Bordelli.
The contessa shuddered slightly.
‘You said you wanted to visit the castle.’
‘If it’s not an inconvenience …’
‘Come.’
They left the room and the contessa became his guide. Salons, sitting rooms, parlours, the billiards room, paintings with hunting scenes and mythological characters, a great cloakroom that smelled musty, the consummately dignified servants’ quarters, a vast kitchen in which the housekeeper was already bustling about with pots and pans.
Bordelli repeatedly inspected the windows, and found them all to have massive inside shutters equipped with iron crossbars. Maybe the killer had escaped up the chimney, like Santa Claus?
Along one corridor the contessa indicated a closed door, saying that it couldn’t be opened. She’d lost the key.
‘What’s in it?’
‘It’s empty.’
She stopped in front of a small door camouflaged to look like the rest of the wall and asked whether he wanted to see the cellars.
‘There’s no need, thanks.’
They went up to the first floor, which was thoroughly carpeted and more austerely furnished. A reading room lined with bookcases stuffed with books. A grand, empty salon with, on the wall, an enormous seventeenth-century painting depicting the conversion of St Paul on the road to Damascus. Other rooms with antique furniture and paintings from a variety of epochs …
‘And this is Orlando’s study,’ said the contessa, pushing open a door.
The room was dark, the window closed. When she turned on the light Bordelli immediately noticed the wrought-iron chandelier and couldn’t help but imagine Orlando with the cord round his neck. The desk was almost directly beneath the chandelier. To hang himself, all he would have had to do was to climb up on it.
The study was not very big, and looked lived in. Yet another bookcase, stretching to the ceiling and packed with books. On the clay-tile floor, in the middle of the room, was a beautiful carpet in which the colour blue dominated. On Orlando’s desk lay some files, scattered papers, an old, solid-black Olivetti typewriter, a packet of cigarettes, almost empty, a gold lighter, and a few other objects. A dark jacket hung on the back of the chair. It was anybody’s guess where the safe was.
‘I’ve left it the way it was. I only had the cord removed and had it tidied up a little. And I have it dusted once a week,’ said the contessa, standing immobile beside the door. Orlando’s study had become a temple of remembrance.
Bordelli circled round the desk and on it saw the note left by Orlando: Forgive me. Inspector Bacci must have been firmly convinced it was a suicide to have left the note here. Otherwise he would have had it catalogued and made available to a judge.
He looked around for another piece of paper with handwriting on it, to compare the two. The hand was indeed the same, even if it looked more indecisive on the suicide note. Was this due to nervous tension, or was Orlando, as the mother maintained, forced to write it under threat? He went and moved the curtain, noticing that the cord was still missing.
‘I keep the cord upstairs. Would you like to see it?’ asked the contessa, who’d intuited his thoughts.
‘That won’t be necessary, thank you.’
‘I’ll take you upstairs.’
‘You’re very kind …’ Following the contessa through the doorway, Bordelli was still trying to imagine where the safe might be hidden.
On the second and third floors were the bedrooms, of varying dimensions and with different styles of furnishings. Canopy beds that had survived the centuries, time-worn wrought-iron bedsteads, monumental armoires and beds, marble-topped chests of drawers, and more paintings, carpets, and ceramics … Bordelli couldn’t take any more. He felt as if he was in a museum. It was all very beautiful, but he could never live like that.
The contessa had saved Orlando’s room for last. On the third floor, and occupying a small corner of the castle, it was the most austere and pleasant of them all. Not very large, with only a few elegant but simple furnishings. That room, too, had been left as it was fourteen years earlier.
‘Every so often I have it dusted,’ said the contessa.
Some clothes thrown over the back of an armchair, two pairs of shoes in a corner, old, yellowed newspapers on the table, books on the nightstand … From the window one could see the bell tower of Impruneta in the distance, and a little farther to the left, mounted high in the sky atop a pylon, the red star of the Casa del Popolo,13 which would light up at night to remind the wretched of the earth that there was hope.
They went out into the hallway, and the contessa stopped at the bottom of a narrow wooden staircase that rose steeply and vanished into the shadows.
‘Are you interested in seeing the attic?’
‘I think that’s enough for now, thank you.’
‘If you want to visit the tower you’ll have to go alone. The spiral staircase has seventy-two steps,�
� said the contessa, indicating a studded door.
‘Perhaps another time …’
‘And you have nothing else to tell me?’ the contessa asked impatiently.
‘Please give me a little more time.’
‘Do you need anything else?’
‘If you don’t mind … I would like to be left alone in your son’s study for a little while,’ said Bordelli.
The contessa frowned, but for only a second. She led him down to the first floor and stopped outside the study.
‘You can take your time.’
‘Thank you …’
‘If you need me, you can find me in the sitting room where you so patiently waited for me,’ said the contessa, and she headed for the staircase.
Bordelli went into the study, wondering how Orlando had managed to live alone in that gloomy, enormous castle. It was probably even haunted …
He began inspecting the room inch by inch. He peeked behind the paintings, moved the lightest pieces of furniture, slid the books off their shelves and felt the wood-panel backing with his fingers, but found nothing. Did this safe really exist? He stuck an unlit cigarette between his lips and started inspecting the room all over again, more carefully this time. He got down on his kness and looked everywhere, checking every detail, even the clay-tile floor … And at last his perseverance paid off. Running his hand behind one foot of the bookcase, he discovered a small switch. As soon as he pressed it, he heard a low buzzing sound, and looking around he noticed the wooden backing of one shelf sliding off to one side, revealing a small safe built into the wall. Three numbered knobs … A … I … S … That is, 1 … 9 … 17 … From left to right or the reverse? He tried from left to right, and nothing happened. Reversing the order, he heard a click … The combination had not been changed. Opening the little door, he felt as if he were violating the intimacy of Orlando’s secrets, but he was doing it for him, after all. For him and his mother. He took everything he found inside it and sat down at the desk. A small box, two envelopes, and a notebook. In the larger envelope were a number of photographs: a severe-looking man holding a little boy in his arms; other shots of the same boy at different ages; another of Ortensia, young and beautiful, posing in front of a fountain, smiling happily … On the back was the dedication: To my beloved Orlando, your Ortensia. In the other envelope, the smaller one, were some letters from Ortensia, spotted with mildew. Bordelli skimmed them quickly; they were love letters. In the little box he found some jewellery: a large gold ring with the family crest, a pair of antique earrings, a small pendant with the Madonna and a date inscribed on the back: 12-10-1928 … It must have been his date of birth. Apparently the safe was used to store mementoes …
He opened the notebook and started reading. On the first page was a poem …
27 October 1951
To my father
I was unable
to hold your hand
in mine
as you were dying,
to feel from the grip
that you were leaving
to wait for me elsewhere.
I was unable
and would have liked
to feel inside me
the surge of blood,
the new movement,
to follow your veins
now motionless
and remember forever
your last breath of goodbye.
And I’ll never know
if in that final second
you opened your eyes again
seeking
and not finding
inside you
the last drop of light for the journey.
Perhaps a stranger
seeing you there
and barely sighing
– dead, he too –
closed your eyes for you
depriving me
of one last look
at your gaze.
A few yards away
beyond two walls,
beyond the distance
of an injunction,
looking up at the sky
awaiting and hoping
your awaiting
imagining what follows
come what may.
You died alone
and I didn’t see you
and you didn’t see me.
In life at least
there’s dream
which disregards distance
with never an injunction
and returns to our side
the beloved and the dead.
Bordelli felt moved. He thought of his own father, who had died suddenly. And of his mother, at whose death he’d been present …
He kept thumbing through the notebook. Scattered thoughts, reflections on the great questions of life, a few muddled love sonnets to Ortensia. Then he found what he was looking for …
5 June 1953
A few days ago, purely by chance, I discovered that the lawyers Giulio Manetti and Rolando Torrigiani, proprietors of the law firm where I work as an assistant, have taken advantage of their role as estates’ administrators to embezzle vast sums of money by subtle, illegal means. Amounts embezzled in 1952: 7,200,000 lire from the Budini Gattai family; 12,800,000 lire from the Magnolfi Bianchi Camaiani family; 5,700,000 from the Baldovinetti della Torre family …
Orlando had written everything down, in great detail. If not for the subject matter, it seemed like the diary of a little boy … He recounted his discovery of the swindles carried out by the legal partners, the phone call he’d secretly listened to, the financing intended for subversive activities, the mysterious offer they would make to him the following Monday … The last sentence certainly made an impression: I fear for my life … They didn’t sound like the words of a man who had decided to hang himself, even though one never knew what sorts of things might be going through the mind of a suicide … On the following page there were only two lines of verse:
Love, in your eyes my own time
becomes no time in God’s eternity.
All the other pages were blank. Apparently Ortensia was wrong; there was no other woman in her boyfriend’s life.
He put everything back into the safe. Quite likely no one would ever find it again. He pressed the button behind the bookcase, and the wooden panel closed with the same hum as before. Putting his unsmoked cigarette back in its packet, he left the study and went to look for the contessa. He heard her authoritarian voice in the kitchen, and poked his head inside.
‘I’m all done, thank you.’
‘I invite you to stay for lunch,’ said the contessa.
‘Thank you so much, but I was thinking I—’
‘I won’t accept any excuses,’ the contessa cut him off, and after whispering something to the lame housekeeper, she led the way. Bordelli followed her into the dining room, where a long table had already been set for two. Embroidered white tablecloth, silver cutlery, fine china and crystal goblets that sparkled under the chandelier. In the middle of the table were a bottle of red wine and a pitcher of water.
‘Please sit down,’ said the contessa, taking her place at the table.
Bordelli sat down at the other end, unable to refuse so peremptory an invitation. The contessa shook a small bell in the air, and a few seconds later a very thin man in livery appeared, with a long white face and a proud gaze that clashed with his role as servant. He greeted Bordelli with a slight bow of respect, went up to the contessa and served her an ever so noble bowl of vegetable soup. He also filled the guest’s bowl, and after filling their goblets with wine and their glasses with water, he left the room with an elegant step.
They began eating in silence. The only sound was the ticking of the pendulum clock, which grew louder by the second. The soup was excellent, and Bordelli thought he would like to ask the lame housekeeper for the recipe.
Setting down her spoon, the contessa rested her hands on the velvet arms of her chair.
‘If you tell me my son killed himself, I promise I will believe you.’
‘May I ask why?’ asked Bordelli, sincerely surprised.
‘No.’
‘Well, thank you for your confidence just the same …’
‘I can read people’s eyes,’ the contessa said enigmatically.
As he was going back down the castle driveway in his Beetle, thoughts of the lunch he’d just had with the contessa filled his head. He’d felt a bit uneasy being served by a waiter in uniform with gilded buttons and white gloves, but the roast beef and potatoes were magnificent, the Barolo was worth centuries in Purgatory, and the pudding was peerless. For a lunch like that, he could put up with anything …
It was almost three, and he finally lit his first cigarette of the day. There were still a few things left to be done before he closed his private investigation. He pulled up outside the first farmhouse he saw, just a few hundred yards from the castle. There was the sound of a tractor in the distance. He knocked at the door, but nobody answered. Circling behind the house, he walked down a path that descended through the olive trees towards the tractor. For days he’d been thinking that the contessa was simply a poor old madwoman, and now he was starting to have doubts. Maybe the old madwoman was right. Whatever the case, he’d certainly unearthed more than enough motives for murdering Orlando …
He approached the field that was being ploughed and found an old peasant atop a Caterpillar tractor. He was one of the few. A great many still hitched the plough up to a couple of oxen, as in Fattori’s paintings.
Bordelli waved to get the man’s attention. After casting a glance in his direction, the old man turned off the motor and sat there eyeing the intruder. Bordelli approached.
‘Could I speak with you for a moment?’
‘About what?’
‘Do you remember the tragedy that happened in the castle in ’53? The contessa’s son …’
‘Of course I remember.’