by Marco Vichi
‘One fairy draws another,’ said another, as the others laughed.
‘There’s plenty for you too, Gramps.’
‘Show us how you bugger each other,’ said the leader, swaggering towards Bordelli. ‘Gramps’ dropped his little umbrella and punched him square in the face, sending him rolling on the ground. The other four hesitated, full of rage. Bordelli looked each one of them in the eye. They were well dressed, with clean faces. Rich kids.
The ringleader got up slowly, trembling, his jacket covered with blood and a hand over his mouth. The inspector thrust his hands into his pockets with self-assurance. He felt like the good-looking hero of the film he’d seen at the Gambrinus. He was well aware that if they all jumped on him at once, he was screwed. He had to play the fear card, but he wanted to do so without pulling out his badge.
‘I’ll give you guys two seconds to disappear, and then we start counting teeth,’ he said, pulling his fists out of his pockets. They all gave a start and looked at one another. One step forward was enough … The boys jumped on their scooters and were off at full speed, shouting insults and laughing.
Finally Bordelli went to help the victim, who was still on the ground, from where he’d witnessed the scene. His face was bleeding, and he was breathing heavily. The inspector had seen him walking about the neighbourhood in the past and had immediately understood that he didn’t like women.
‘Everything okay?’
‘To be honest, I was feeling better before,’ the man muttered, slurring his words. But he managed a smile. He looked to be about the same age as the inspector. He was thin, with a long, gaunt face, and two watery eyes like a beaten dog’s. The orange silk scarf around his neck was blood-stained, like his shirt and jacket.
‘Would you like me to take you to Casualty?’
‘Do you really not recognise me, Bordelli?’ said the man. The inspector took a good look at him, and suddenly remembered.
‘Don’t tell me … you’re Poggiali …’ he said.
‘Or what’s left of him,’ Poggiali said, smiling. He got to his feet with Bordelli’s help, and then leaned against the wall to keep from falling.
‘It was the same story even at school, remember?’ Poggiali touched his teeth to make sure they were still all there.
‘My memory’s a bit hazy,’ said Bordelli, shrugging. In truth he remembered his school days perfectly well, when the Fascist regime glorified the sort of masculine man who impaled women. Even in middle school the boys used to make sport of queers and sometimes even beat them up, although many of them used to follow them into the bathrooms and let them masturbate them for a few cents.
‘You pack quite a punch,’ said Poggiali.
‘I used to box a little as a kid.’
‘God bless boxing.’
‘I live just round the corner here, come and tidy yourself up,’ said Bordelli, picking up Rosa’s umbrella.
‘I live nearby too, why don’t you come to my place?’
‘As you wish,’ said the inspector, curious to see where Poggiali lived. They started walking down Via Maggio side by side. Poggiali was still wiping the blood off his face, limping almost like Piras.
‘Only you and a couple of other friends used to leave me alone,’ he said.
‘I have to confess that at the time I didn’t have much sympathy for people like you.’
‘What about now?’
‘Good question …’
‘What exactly is it about us poofs that bothers you all so much?’ Poggiali asked, with a frankness that made Bordelli smile.
‘It’s not an easy subject for people of our generation,’ the inspector admitted.
‘Nor for today’s youth, apparently.’
‘There have always been idiots and there always will be.’
‘You should all be happy to have fewer rivals hunting for birds, no?’
‘I’d never thought of it that way.’
‘In other words, what do you care if we like men?’ said Poggiali, turning on to Sdrucciolo de’ Pitti. Bordelli didn’t know how to reply, and his old school chum smiled.
‘Whenever you see a queer you immediately think of some perversion, something sexual and nothing else. You imagine the sight of two men fucking and it disturbs you.’
‘I suppose you’re right,’ said the inspector, realising that Poggiali’s orange scarf had immediately made him think of the boy who’d been raped and murdered.
‘And yet I assure you that we homos have the same full range of feelings as you humans,’ Poggiali said blithely.
Arriving at a door with the paint peeling off, he pushed it open and they climbed the stairs to the fourth floor. Poggiali’s flat didn’t look very big, but even the entrance had something elegant and unusual about it. They went into a small sitting room cluttered almost obsessively with statuettes, theatre masks, ceramics, crazy paintings, terracotta animals, busts of generals and ephebes, and bouquets of dried roses. Two walls were covered with bookshelves up to the ceiling. Poggiali opened up a little bar lined entirely with mirrors on the inside.
‘Help yourself, I’m going to the bathroom to freshen up a little,’ he said, leaving the room.
Bordelli calmly rifled through the bottles and found a French cognac. He filled a small glass to the rim, then flopped on to one of two sofas upholstered with imitation tiger skin. He’d never seen a room like this before, and his gaze got lost in the countless different objects vying with one another for space. There were a great many turtles of every shape and size. One was on the floor and must have been over a yard long, while the smallest was ridiculously perched atop a Fascist fez. A strange, miniature museum where one would have needed a whole afternoon to examine each piece … The exact opposite of Bordelli’s place, which was bare and disorderly, even sort of lugubrious.
‘Here I am, good as new,’ said Poggiali, in a fluttering purple dressing gown and slippers. Despite his swollen lip and a cut on one cheekbone, he looked untroubled.
‘I guess you like turtles,’ said Bordelli.
‘It’s a question of affinity. In the face of danger, they withdraw into their shell, like me.’
He made himself a martini and sat down on the other sofa, facing his guest. Surrounded by his inanimate objects, he looked like a monarch in a gloomy fairy tale.
Bordelli realised he was fighting off unpleasant thoughts of the sort that Poggiali had been talking about. It had even flashed through his mind that destiny had brought him to one of Giacomo Pellissari’s killers … Simply because Poggiali was a homosexual.
‘So, how’s life?’ he asked, to avoid thinking about it.
‘I don’t want for anything. I’m retired and own another apartment that I rent out.’
He went on to say that he’d held a number of different jobs, from postman to manual labourer, and that when his parents died he’d inherited the two flats.
‘Mine are dead, too,’ Bordelli muttered. He already knew that sooner or later he would ask Poggiali what he thought about the murder of Giacomo Pellissari, but he was waiting for the right moment.
‘Every now and then I see your name in La Nazione … Inspector here, inspector there …’
‘Until you see it in an obituary, everything’s fine.’ Bordelli refilled his glass and asked Poggiali what he’d done during the war.
‘I didn’t fight, I was rejected for service. Officially for respiratory insufficiency, but you can imagine the real reason. I stayed in Florence the whole time, keeping far away from the stinking Fascists.’
‘And after the eighth of September?’11
‘I escaped to the hills and almost ended up by chance in Potente’s band.12 I saw my share of corpses, dear Bordelli. I even fired a gun a few times, but that’s not my cup of tea. Even among those valiant lads there were a few who couldn’t bear having me around. But I also spent some rather eventful nights with a few others,’ Poggiali said, with a smile between naughty and nostalgic.
‘Don’t tell the communists, they’ll bur
n you alive.’
‘I think I’d ask to be hanged first, like Savonarola.’
‘Have you heard the news about the little boy who was raped and murdered?’ Bordelli asked, no longer able to put it off.
‘Poor thing …’ Poggiali said, nodding.
‘Mind if I ask you a question?’
‘You can even ask me two, if you like.’
‘I’m just curious … Since you know about these things … Yes, well … Is it normal for a homosexual to be sexually attracted to children?’
‘Of course, just as it’s normal for all Jews to be money-lenders, all Neapolitans pizza-makers, and all women whores.’
‘I didn’t mean to offend you.’
‘I’m not offended. I just happen to know that you normal people think that way. I’m used to it, my friend.’
‘I can’t blame you, but maybe it’s not entirely our fault.’
‘Tell me something. Do you sleep with ten-year-old girls?’ Poggiali asked, sitting up from the sofa.
‘Do I have to answer that?’
‘That’s exactly my point. I like young flesh, like everyone else. But it’s nothing to do with children.’
‘Do you know anyone who sees things a little differently?’
‘I know every kind of person, fags and non-fags. There are some who like to watch other people fuck, there are others who like to have people piss in their mouth, others who masturbate while licking a woman’s stockings, and others who fuck animals … I really don’t give a damn about what people do for pleasure, unless they’re making somebody suffer for it.’
‘I’m just trying to understand what kind of people would rape a child.’
‘Well, don’t expect them to be monstrously ugly like the ogres in fairy tales. People who do that sort of thing are sick in the head, but they could easily be your friendly dentist or your neighbourhood baker. People who lead perfectly normal lives. The worst perverts I’ve ever met were rich bourgeois with spotless reputations,’ said Poggiali, emptying his glass in one swig.
‘Thanks for the cognac.’ Bordelli sighed, getting up.
‘Already off to bed?’
‘It’s late …’
‘Worried I might molest you?’ Poggiali asked, faking a woman’s voice. The inspector smiled.
‘You know what I’ve always thought? That if I’d been born a woman, I would still like women.’
‘You’re an incurable male, but at least you’re not a policeman.’ Poggiali laughed. He saw Bordelli to the door, and they shook hands.
‘Good luck, Inspector.’
‘I’ll need it … See you around, Poggiali.’
‘Goodbye,’ said Poggiali, more realistically.
The inspector slowly descended the stairs. As soon as he was outside, he lit a cigarette. He too knew that they weren’t likely to see each other again soon. He couldn’t picture himself inviting Poggiali to dinner or for a stroll about town. Even though he felt deep down that they could have become friends. The old poof actually seemed like a lovely person.
The rain had started falling hard again during the night and still showed no sign of letting up. When Bordelli pulled into the station courtyard it was past nine. He’d been stuck in traffic for a good half-hour. He got out of the car with his overcoat pulled up over his head and ran to the main entrance, dripping wet. Rinaldi came up to him with dark circles under his eyes and a pale face, to bring him up to speed on things. Panerai had gone out at ten minutes to eight that morning and taken his Lancia Flavia. He hadn’t gone to the butcher’s shop, but had stopped in Via Lungo l’Affrico near Via d’Annunzio to pick up three men who’d been waiting for him under their umbrellas. The Flavia had left the city and gone south, past Pontassieve, Rufina and San Godenzo, and had just taken the road to Muraglione.
‘Who’s in the unmarked car?’ Bordelli asked, heading for the radio room with Rinaldi at his side.
‘Piras and Tapinassi, sir,’ said Rinaldi, suppressing a big yawn.
‘Go and get some sleep,’ Bordelli advised him, patting him on the back.
‘I’m not tired, sir …’ the policeman said, shrugging. When they entered the radio room, the inspector immediately got in touch with Piras. The connection was bad, and Piras had to repeat himself several times in order to be understood. It was raining where he was, too. The butcher and his friends were proceeding at moderate speed. They’d stopped only once, to have breakfast and get petrol, just before San Godenzo.
‘Try not to lose him,’ said Bordelli. He got a long crackle by way of reply, faintly modulated by a metallic-sounding voice. A few seconds later they lost the connection, thanks to the Apennine mountains.
‘Call me as soon as you hear something,’ Bordelli said to the men in the radio room.
He went up to his office, took off his wet raincoat and opened the window to air the place out. It was raining cats and dogs and seemed as if it would never stop. He lit a cigarette and smoked it with his elbows on the windowsill. The passing cars raised great bow waves.
Piras wasn’t able to re-establish contact until another hour later, and Bordelli dashed at once to the radio room. Now the Sardinian’s voice came in loud and clear. He named the towns they passed through along the trunk road: Il Poggio, Il Bagno, Bocconi, San Benedetto, Rocca San Casciano, Dovadola, Pieve Salutare … Panerai’s Flavia forged on without hesitation, as though the butcher or one of the passengers knew the route well.
‘Where the hell are they going in this rain?’ the inspector asked under his breath, running a hand over his face.
‘They’ve turned right,’ said Piras. When the unmarked police car reached the intersection, the Sardinian read the names on the road sign: Fiumana, Trivella and … Predappio, Mussolini’s birthplace. So that was where they were headed.
‘Today’s the twenty-eighth of October, Inspector,’ Piras croaked over the radio waves.
‘A leopard can’t change its spots …’ said Bordelli, disappointed. Panerai’s and his comrades’ nostalgia was pathetic, but it certainly didn’t make them guilty of the murder of Giacomo Pellissari.
‘What should I do, Inspector?’ asked Piras, equally chagrined.
‘Stay on his tail.’
Bordelli leaned back in his chair and lit his umpteenth cigarette of the day, as Piras continued chronicling his journey. After a series of gut-wrenching bends, the road became straighter, and at San Lorenzo in Nocento the butcher turned right again. Fiumana, Trivella … and, at last, Predappio. Duce, Duce, eja eja alalà!13
The inspector pressed his eyes hard with his fingertips and heaved a desolate sigh. He was well aware that many of the functionaries whose paths he crossed daily were nostalgic for the old regime, including the commissioner. He thought sadly that Carlino, the former partisan fighter who owned the bar near Rosa’s place, was right: deep down, the Italians were incurably Fascist. Children in need of an authoritarian father so they could feel protected, so they could hear somebody tell them: Sleep easy, I’ll take care of everything. The important thing was to sleep, eat, have an easy job, a quick tongue, and money to go to the beach. A nation of poor bastards seeking redemption in dreams of power. This wasn’t the sort of Italy for which Franco Bordelli had shot all those Nazis …
Piras got back to the station late that afternoon, having followed Panerai’s car all the way back to his house and been relieved by another unmarked car. He limped up to Bordelli’s office, collapsed in a chair, and began recounting their pleasant outing to Predappio in the driving rain. In some of the shop windows they saw busts of ‘Bighead’,14 lictor’s fasces, the symbol of the regime, death’s heads of the 10th Assault Vehicle Flotilla,15 black T-shirts with the words Me ne frego! written on the front.16
A few hundred people, mostly men, had gathered in the monumental piazzetta Mussolini had built in front of the modest house he was born in. They included not only people who had lived under the regime, but also youths who had only heard tell of that period. Piras and Tapinassi had mixed in with the c
rowd, always keeping an eye on the butcher and his friends.
Fascist songs, battle cries, tears, banners, signal flags, eja eja and choruses of alalà … It was all there. Round about noon the butcher and his mates had gone to the San Cassiano cemetery to visit the sacred tomb of Il Duce in the Mussolini family chapel.
‘People younger than me were kneeling down with tears in their eyes, like they were thanking the Madonna for miraculously curing them,’ Piras commented, a half-smile playing on his lips.
‘Mussolini made Italians dream far more than the Madonna ever has,’ said Bordelli, getting up and thrusting his hands in his pockets, waiting to hear the rest.
‘At lunchtime … hunger won out over devotion,’ said Piras, who just couldn’t take that pathetic gathering seriously. A convoy of cars had come down from Forlì and the restaurants had been taken by storm. He and Tapinassi managed to find a free table in the same trattoria as Panerai and his comrades, which was mobbed with ‘pilgrims’. Gnocchi, tortelli, lasagna, tagliatelle, strozzapreti, pork, stews, rivers of Lambrusco, laughter and songs from the good old days. To avoid attracting attention, he and Tapinassi had joined the chorus, pretending to know all the words. The restaurant owner smiled at the thought of all the money he was making. For the occasion he’d put a bronze bust of Il Duce, with a fez on his fat head, on the bar in full view. When the time came for grappa, a little man of about fifty and half-drunk stood up and made a speech, a garbled panegyric of the Duce and his noble deeds. He concluded with a rousing shout of Boia chi molla!17 To deafening applause, followed by more songs …
‘An unforgettable day,’ said the Sardinian. Around four o’clock the butcher and his confrères got back on the road in the driving rain and returned to Florence. Panerai stopped in Via Lungo l’Affrico to drop his friends off and then went home. The shop had remained closed all day. On the rolling metal shutter was a sign with the words: Closed for family reasons.
‘Devotion works miracles,’ said Bordelli, realising that the butcher had sacrificed a whole day’s earnings just to go and pay homage to Papa Mussolini. He obviously hadn’t felt confident leaving the shop in his old assistant’s hands.