by Marco Vichi
‘Don’t worry, it’s me … Stop making that face.’
‘You have a very subjective sense of time, Rosa.’
‘Don’t start with your usual male arguments.’
‘It’s ten past nine, but since I’m a gentleman I won’t mention it.’
‘It’s your fault for always arriving on time,’ she said in all seriousness. Bordelli stood there for a moment, open-mouthed, then shook his head and said nothing. They got into the Beetle, and Rosa said she’d reserved a table at Alfredo’s, in Viale Don Minzoni.
The moment they entered the restaurant, the murmur of conversation fell silent. Everyone turned to look at the strange couple: a middle-aged man with a vaguely unkempt air and a flashy blonde wearing too much make-up and piercing the floor with her high heels. The women stared with malice in their eyes, while the men gawked with feigned indifference. Bordelli felt a little embarrassed but didn’t show it. Rosa left to Bordelli the honour of taking off her coat, which revealed to the world a tight red dress that hugged her hips as though painted on. They sat down at a table apart from the rest, and finally the hum of voices resumed. Bordelli took thirty seconds to decide what to eat, then waited patiently for Rosa to overcome her indecision. An impassive waiter with a long, thin face uncorked a bottle of Amarone before their eyes, filled their tulip-glasses and scampered off. Inside their black circles of mascara, Rosa’s eyes sparkled with joy.
‘What shall we toast to?’
‘I don’t really feel like it, Rosa,’ Bordelli muttered, thinking of the murdered boy.
‘Ah, I know what: a toast to the woman who succeeds in dragging you to the altar … Aw, come on, don’t make that face.’
‘I don’t think I’m cut out for marriage, Rosa.’
‘At mass this morning, Father Mauro said some very beautiful things about marriage … It almost made me want to get married.’
‘You go to mass, Rosa?’ Bordelli asked in astonishment.
‘I’ve never missed a single Sunday. Why?’ asked Rosa, seeming almost offended.
‘So you used to go even when you …’
‘Even when I what?’
‘When you worked at the little house?’ the inspector said in a whisper.
‘Ah, you mean when I was a whore?’
‘Sshhh, speak more softly, please,’ said Bordelli, looking around.
‘What’s wrong? Are you embarrassed? Even Jesus Christ was fond of whores, you know.’
‘There’s no need to tell the whole world.’
‘Everybody knows it, it’s in the Gospels.’
‘That’s not what I meant …’
‘Well, whatever the case, all my prostitute friends go to mass, to confession, and even take communion.’
‘I didn’t mean to offend you.’
‘Deep down, we’re all saints. Do you think it’s easy to play mamma to a bunch of overgrown little boys with their brains in their pants?’
‘I’m sure you’re right,’ Bordelli admitted. The waiter arrived with the first course, and their hunger reduced them to silence. A little later Rosa gave a little smile and said in a soft voice that she’d recognised a former client of hers there in the restaurant.
‘The one with the glasses and white hair sitting across from that hag … who’s his wife, actually.’
‘Don’t be mean.’
‘She’s ugly as sin, look for yourself.’
She waited for her gaze to meet that of her former client, then smiled and waved her fingers in the air at him. The man stiffened and, after a few seconds of bewilderment, started speaking rather heatedly with his wife.
‘You’ve ruined his evening,’ said Bordelli.
‘He’s a judge. He always wanted me to pronounce him guilty and spank him. After all the things I did for him, he should be on his knees, kissing my feet, instead of pretending not to know me. Don’t you think it’s funny?’
‘Not for him.’
‘I think it’s funny.’
She waved at the man again, this time winking as well. The judge turned white as a sheet.
‘If you carry on that way, tonight it’s his wife who’s going to be spanking him,’ said Bordelli, smiling.
‘I can’t help myself, I’m having too much fun. D’you know how many of my old johns I’ve run into, arm in arm with their wives? You have no idea of the things they do to avoid being discovered. One guy pretended to faint, another nearly got hit by a car – but the funniest are the ones who throw themselves on their wives and start kissing them passionately … it’s so amusing …’
‘They’re the ones who paid for your flat.’
‘After what I did for them they should have bought me the Pitti Palace.’
She waited for the judge to give in again to the dangerous curiosity of looking at her, and then she shook a scolding finger at him, as if he were a child. His wife realised something was up and turned round to see what was happening. Rosa blew a fire-red kiss at the judge and relished the scene in all its detail: the wife opened her eyes wide, gave her husband a withering look, then stood up calmly, grabbed her coat, put it on, and left the restaurant without turning round. The judge remained paralysed, staring into space. Everyone in the restaurant had witnessed the scene, and silence descended on the room. A waiter went over to the judge’s table to ask whether something was wrong. The judge didn’t answer, then put five thousand lire down on the table and staggered out of the restaurant. A few seconds later, between stares and giggles, the buzz of voices started up again.
‘You’re a witch,’ the inspector whispered, chuckling to himself.
‘And you’re a dear. Any other man would have got angry.’
‘About what?’
‘You’re dining out with a woman who blows kisses at other men.’
‘It’s the least I can do for you.’
‘You’re such a sweetheart …’ Rosa whispered, caressing his cheek.
‘It’s all the Amarone’s fault,’ said Bordelli.
The dinner continued serenely, with the help of a second bottle of wine. Bordelli still had the salesgirl on his mind, but preferred not to bring up the subject. He did, in fact, have a strong desire to talk about her, to describe all her beauties in detail, and even emit a few sighs like the forlorn admirer he was. But he certainly didn’t feel like hearing that he was too old for a woman like that. He was already all too well aware of it.
They ate like pigs, making small talk. And between idle chatter and grappa, it got to be almost midnight, at which point Rosa leapt out of her chair.
‘Oh my God, Briciola! I haven’t fed her!’ she said.
Bordelli asked for the bill and paid without flinching, even leaving a handsome tip. It was money well spent. He’d had a pleasant evening, having managed to clear his mind for a few hours.
They emptied their grappa glasses and stood up, unsteady on their feet. A young waiter helped Rosa to put on her coat, and she thanked him with a lipstick-bright smile. They went out of the restaurant, followed by the curious gazes of the few remaining customers.
‘How nice! It’s not raining!’ said Rosa.
‘I don’t see any stars. I’m afraid it’s going to be the same old story tomorrow,’ said the inspector, his defeatism beginning to resurface. They got into the Beetle and drove off. The wind was blowing, tossing the trees’ bare branches in the air. When they were outside Rosa’s building, the inspector remembered the blouse.
‘I have a present for you, Rosa.’
‘For me? How sweet!’
‘Just a little thing I picked up.’ He searched the back seat for the package with the blouse and handed it to Rosa.
‘You’re such a dear …’ she said, all excited, and unwrapped the package. She tore the paper and held up the blouse. After giving a little cry, her face changed expression, darkening.
‘I’m not twelve years old any more,’ she muttered, frowning as she looked at the blouse.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Can’t you see
how tiny it is?’
‘Don’t you even want to try it on?’
‘How do you expect me to fit into this … this sock?’ said Rosa, dropping the blouse into his lap like some kind of rag.
‘All right, I’ll go and exchange it tomorrow,’ he hastened to say, happy to have an excuse to see the pretty salesgirl again. His enthusiasm made Rosa suspicious.
‘Men normally hate wasting time exchanging articles of clothing, except … I smell a woman in this,’ she said, reading the name and address of the shop on the card inside. Bordelli blushed.
‘There’s no woman …’
‘I know you better than you think, sweetie,’ said Rosa, grinning like a protective mother.
‘What size should I ask for?’ Bordelli queried, to change the subject.
‘What’s her name?’
‘Rosa, there’s no woman.’
‘Liiiiii … ar! Liar!’
‘I’m not a liar.’
‘Careful going through doors with that nose, Pinocchio.’
‘Come on, Rosa, tell me your size.’
‘Well, if it were up to me, I would rather have a red blouse.’
‘And the size?’
‘A thousand dollars, dead or alive.’
He drove down the viali in the rain, blowing his smoke out through the open vent. As if everything else weren’t bad enough, the rain added the finishing touch. There weren’t many cars about, as many Florentines had left town. The long All Saints’ Day weekend had already begun, but not for everyone. The schools would remain closed for the entire week, though many shops were open. But not the one the beautiful girl worked in, unfortunately.
He’d gone that morning, around nine o’clock, to the shop in Via Pacinotti, heart racing. And he’d found a sign on the rolling metal shutter: Closed Till Sunday 6 November. He’d got back in the car with his tail between his legs, tossing the blouse on to the passenger seat. He would have to wait a whole week before he could see the salesgirl again.
He’d even passed by the butcher’s in Viale dei Mille. The shop was open, the unmarked car parked nearby with Piras and Rinaldi in it. They’d greeted him with a look, and he’d kept on going, feeling more and more convinced that the Pellissari file would end up in the archives on the ‘Unsolved Cases’ shelf.
It was a long time since he’d last gone to the cemetery to see his parents. Two days hence the cemeteries would fill up with flowers and black-clad people, and the faded photos of the dead would smile at the relatives come to pay their respects. The Day of the Dead.30 You could also call it the Day of the Living. And Friday would be Victory’s turn to have its day, the victory in the Great War. Another Day of the Dead, actually: half a million of them, buried under flags and medals and so many grand speeches. A war of peasants’ sons executed by their generals because they didn’t want to die for no reason.31
He stopped for a few moments on the Ponte Vespucci to look at the Arno, which was roaring over the Santa Rosa weir like the sea in a tempest.
Minutes later he parked the car near the gate of Soffiano cemetery and got out with an umbrella over his head. A beautiful girl passed him on the pavement, not deigning so much as to look at him, and it occurred to Bordelli that the salesgirl would have done the same.
Entering the cemetery, he walked leisurely until he came to his parents’ tomb. His father looked more nineteenth-century than ever and seemed to be smiling. His mother instead stared at him with concern … And he looked back at her in turn, at her well-combed hair, her sad eyes, her tight-lipped mouth that looked as though about to utter a cry. He relived the moments of her death, when he held her hand and smiled for her.
‘May God forgive you, Franco …’ his mother had whispered one evening.
‘Forgive me for what, Mamma?’
‘All the men you killed …’
‘It was war, Mamma.’
‘You took the life of other men and must repent.’
‘Mamma, you have no idea of the things I saw … If you’d seen what I saw … It was war, Mamma.’
‘The laws of Heaven are different from those of the earth … I’m very afraid for you, Franchino.’ She was dying, but she was afraid for him, for his soul.
‘I do repent, Mamma. I’ve already repented many times over. God knows me well …’ he said, so that she might die in peace. His mother smiled.
‘Go now, you have so many things to do. Don’t waste time on me.’
‘I don’t have anything to do, Mamma. It’s nice just being here with you.’
‘I have to die just to have you beside me …’
‘Don’t say that, Mamma.’
‘I’m sorry, that was mean.’
‘Do you want me to read you something, Mamma?’
‘Read me something, Franco …’
At that moment Franco had wanted to cry. But he didn’t cry when, a short while later, his mother died, and he didn’t cry when he threw the first handful of dirt on her coffin. Only then, at her bedside, had he felt like crying. But he’d smiled instead, got up, and gone to look for a book to read to his mother. He found a very old edition of d’Annunzio’s Alcyone, its pages spotted with mildew. To bring back memories of school days, he started reading the famous poem ‘Rain in the Pine Grove’, relishing its sublime, empty music … Through the branches / one hears not / the hiss of the rain, / silvery, cleansing, / the whisper that varies / branch by branch, / now denser, / now finer … And while he was reading, his mother died. She died with a smile on her lips and her eyes shut, accompanied by D’Annunzio’s crisp lines. Her hands on the blanket looked still alive, like the hands of a woman asleep. He had a feeling of infinite emptiness, and liberation as well, and guilt, and shock, all sweetly, agonisingly mixed together. He looked at his mother, expecting her to open her eyes and talk to him, even though he knew she was dead. He wished she would open her eyes and ask him about the war, wished she would ask him what the war had meant to him. He knew she was dead, and yet he expected her to open her eyes. He would have listened to his mother’s questions and replied by looking into her eyes. He would have said: Mamma, those who fought in the war, those who killed in the war, continue to see, for the rest of their lives, bellies torn open, heads blown apart by bullets, arms and legs severed from bodies, children crushed by rubble, women raped, eyes wide open, corpses covered with worms, and to them, every flag is stained with blood, even the flag of victory. When those who have killed in war see people walk by on the street, women, men, children, boys, girls, they see dead people walking, people who are dying, who are about to be killed, stamped out, slaughtered. They see this and try not to think about it, not to believe it, try to see luminous women, cheerful children, smiling men, but they see only the death that has generated that light, that cheer, those smiles. They cannot forget what they have seen, for the rest of their lives their eyes will be full of the war dead, those they killed and their friends who were killed, there is no difference, they’re all one great mountain of corpses they’ve had to climb over to get to the other side, and no flag, no love of country, no medals of valour, no official speeches or solemn commemorations can erase this memory. Killing in wartime is a curse that lasts a lifetime, killing in wartime is normal, if you kill in wartime you’ve done your duty, and that is what is impossible to forget. I would have told you this, Mamma, but you died before I could tell you. While you were alive I was afraid that sooner or later, in a moment of weakness, I would tell you all this, but now you’re dead and I’m no longer afraid. You were good to me, Mamma.
He’d turned out the light a good hour earlier, but was unable to fall asleep. The very air weighed down on him. The sound of the rain lashing the street kept him company. It hadn’t let up all day.
For dinner he’d finally eaten Panerai’s steak, prepared by the peerless Totò. A steak the shape and size of a 45-rpm record, and four fingers high. He’d washed it down with a flask of red and then hung around chatting with Totò till one in the morning, with the help of a bottle of
grappa.
Back at home he’d looked at old family photos, still drinking. Without realising it, journeying through the past he’d finished the bottle … Then why couldn’t he fall asleep? As he lay there immobile in the dark, he felt a thin veil of death enfold him. Even when he moved and changed position, he felt the delicate veil of death enfold him again.
To forget his anxiety, he tried to imagine the beautiful salesgirl lying beside him … He even invented a whole story about her … They’d just finished making love for the fourth time … She’d fallen asleep like a stone and was breathing softly, so softly he couldn’t even hear her … There she was beside him, naked, warm, pleasantly exhausted … If he reached out he could touch her, caress her belly, breast, face … But he didn’t want to wake her …
He began to take it so seriously that he found himself wondering apprehensively whether she really loved him … If he wanted to stay awake all night, he was on the right track. He had to find another method. He started telling himself the story of Little Red Riding Hood and fell asleep right before the wolf ate Granny …
When he woke up it was almost ten, and yet he felt as if he’d slept for only a few minutes. He staggered to his feet and went and looked out of the window. The sky was still dirty with clouds, but it wasn’t raining.
He had no desire to shave and wash, and had to force himself. He didn’t want his mood to get the better of him. Personal care was very important, especially at certain times. So he’d learned from Capo Spiazzi at the time of Monte Cassino. Spiazzi demanded that all the men on the front lines look smart: close-shaven, clean uniform, buttons sewn on tight, boots polished. It was just stupid military zeal. He’d understood that strict formality helped keep morale high. After an absurd war ‘alongside our German ally’, everything had been suddenly turned upside down. Italy had already lost the war, and now she had to keep on fighting to pay for her disastrous choices. Winning a lost war was the best that one could hope for. It was a humiliating situation. Maintaining one’s appearance between bombings helped to keep oneself focused, to preserve, at least, a shred of personal dignity.