by Marco Vichi
And if we’re not like you
there must be a reason
and if you don’t know it
what fault is it of ours?
He opened an eye in the darkness and, hearing the dull sound of the rain, huffed in annoyance. He was surprised to see thin shafts of light filtering through the cracks in the inside shutters. It couldn’t possibly be morning. How long had he slept? Twelve hours at the very least. He hadn’t slept like that since childhood. He felt a mountain of blankets weighing down on him and smelled a strong odour of sweat from the night. Groping beyond the edge of the mattress, he found the lamp switch and pressed it, but there was no light. As usual, he didn’t have any spare bulbs and would have to unscrew one from the light fixture in the entrance hall. He didn’t feel like turning on the overhead light. He couldn’t stand bright electric light right after waking up. Without sitting up, he opened the drawer in the bedside table and pulled out an electric torch. He always kept it within reach, a habit he had picked up during the war. Turning it on, he lit up the clock. Twenty past eight. He thought he heard someone talking loudly in the street. It was strange, on a holiday like that.
He still felt weak, but the fever seemed gone. He reached out and grabbed the thermometer, which he stuck under his arm, then lit up the ceiling with the torch. He knew every single crack and little stain in the plaster. They hadn’t changed for years, and were like unshakeable certainties. Little by little, something began to surface from the dark well of his memory, a long night of rain during the war, inside a tent with three men from his battalion, drinking cordials and talking about women. Never had so many lies been told in a single night, but it was merely a way to keep the thought of death at bay.
Thirty-six point seven. He’d done it. He’d beaten the fever. And it had taken only one night. He was a sapper from the San Marco, after all. That must be worth something. He turned off the torch, rolled on to his side and closed his eyes. Perhaps it was best to wait for it to stop raining before sticking his nose outside. He could hardly rush off to Piazza della Signoria for the commemoration ceremony. Any doctor would have forbidden it. He would sleep for a few more hours and then dawdle about the flat, enjoying a bit of dolce far niente as he hadn’t done for centuries. A nice cup of coffee, a few phone calls, a hot bath … It would be interesting to see what was on the telly in the morning. He imagined these trifles with great pleasure, like a child waiting for his mother’s goodnight kiss. He remained in bed, snug and warm, head full of hazy memories ceaselessly overlapping. In his drowsiness he thought he heard an explosion in the distance, but decided he’d probably dreamt it.
Before long he got tired of lying in bed and decided to get up. Setting his feet down on the floor, he yawned with gusto. He felt much better than he had the previous night. When his eyes adjusted to the penumbra, he finally stood up. Taking his trousers from the chair, he slipped them on, staggering. He went over to the window to open the blinds, then peered through the slats in the shutters … and his jaw dropped. Where the street had once been there was now a river of muddy water coursing fast towards Piazza Tasso. Throwing open the window and the shutters, he saw dozens of people looking out of their windows, wrapped in overcoats. Incredulous like him, staring at the flooded street. The rain was still falling just as forcefully as the night before. The water was almost high enough to cover the front doors of the buildings, flowing swiftly and carrying with it cars, trees, broken furniture …
He looked at the spot where he’d parked his Beetle, but it was gone. Why hadn’t anyone called him from headquarters? He ran to the phone and picked up the receiver. It was silent. Then he remembered unplugging it. He plugged it back in, but there was still no dialling tone. He tried turning on the overhead light. Nothing. All power had been knocked out. He put on his coat and returned to the window.
‘It’s still rising,’ he said to himself out loud. The turbid river was swelling before his eyes, carrying debris away and staving in shutters and doors. A number of women wept in silence, scratching their cheeks with their fingers. Small children looked out, wide-eyed and bewildered. One storey below him, old Signora Cianfroni was leaning out over the windowsill with her little dog in her arms. Somewhere a newborn was screaming desperately.
‘The shop … the shop …’ whimpered a man above him whom he couldn’t see. The water continued rising. Bordelli lived on the third floor. The water could never rise that high, he repeated to himself.
‘Down there … a dead body …!’ a woman cried.
And indeed, a stiff corpse floated by on the water, one arm extended over its head. Bordelli realised it was only a mannequin washed out of a shop somewhere but said nothing. He didn’t feel like talking. He went into the bathroom with the torch and set it down on a shelf. After flushing he turned on the tap, but only a dull gurgling sound came out. Cursing, he went back to the window. The water had risen even more. Seeing a man at the window smoking a cigarette, he went to look for his own. He quickly counted how many he had left in the packet. Just six. He would have to make them last, not knowing how long he would be held prisoner by the flood. He lit one and rested his elbows on the windowsill to smoke it, resigned to waiting. The smoke fluttered indifferently in the air, swirling and vanishing. In the distance he heard the melancholy sound of a helicopter.
He smoked till his fingers burned and then tossed the butt below. Touching the radiator, he found it almost cold. The water had flooded the basement and the boilers were no longer functioning. With the window open, his flat was getting cold. He thought of Botta in his basement flat. If he’d gone home last night, had he managed to escape in time? Or had he been overwhelmed by the mud in his sleep? At any rate, the few things he owned were lost by now. Poor Ennio. He also thought of Rosa, who lived almost right next to the Arno, in a ‘hole’, as the Florentines called it. He imagined her looking out from her little terrace, which gave on to Via dei Neri, eyes downcast and puling while the cats played in the sitting room. She was in no danger on the fifth floor. Diotivede likewise was safe. To reach as high as l’Erta Canina where he lived, the water would have to submerge the Palazzo Vecchio. Piras lived on the third floor in Via Gioberti, and by that hour should already have been on duty at the station. He thought of his cousin Rodrigo. He’d never seen his new place, but had heard that it was at the top of a hill. Zia Camilla, Rodrigo’s mother, lived in Via Boccaccio, almost at San Domenico, where Dante watched over Florence from the hilltop.
Bordelli heard the sound of a few transistor radios and remembered he had one. Turning it on, he went back to the window, holding it close to his ear. They were saying that the Arno had burst its banks in Florence and the city was under water, isolated and cut in two …
Suddenly the water sort of hiccupped and started rising even faster. Ten minutes later it had come up another two feet, coursing ever faster and bubbling, dragging away everything in its path. Cars crashed against buildings, banging into one another, knocking down street signs. The helicopter was still flying over the city, but nobody could actually see it. A Volkswagen Beetle floated by like a boat. After uprooting a street sign it went and smashed into the corner of Via dell’Orto before continuing on towards Piazza Tasso. It was probably going to keep his car company, Bordelli thought, suppressing a desire to light up another cigarette.
After the initial shock and despair, a sort of feeling of resignation settled in. Nobody was talking any more. It was as if a community of ghosts had come to watch the end of the world. The only sounds were from the rain and the swashing of the mud. The level continued to rise. Good thing the fourth of November was a holiday, Bordelli thought. If this had happened on a regular workday, the city would have been full of people, cars and parents taking their children to school …
Time seemed to have stopped. The only thing moving was the sludgy mass flowing through the streets, gaining inch after inch on the façades of the buildings. There was nothing to do but wait and watch the muddy monster as it swelled between the blocks of fl
ats. One man started taking photographs and was soon imitated by others.
Over the radio the reporter Marcello Giannini, trapped inside the RAI offices in Via Cerretani, lowered a microphone out of the window so that listeners could hear, live, the sounds of the river of mud coursing towards the railway station. It was announced that Mayor Bargellini would speak, and everyone brought their portable radio closer to their ears. A hollow-voiced Bargellini asked people to remain calm and wait for the rescue teams. Whoever owned any kind of floating craft was requested to bring it as soon as possible to Palazzo Vecchio. The news programme continued with lists of other areas of Italy hit hard by the bad weather. Everywhere landslides, floods, isolated towns. There was also mention, of course, of the Victory Day celebrations. Government politicians were busy with the ceremonies all across the country. Bordelli turned off the radio so as not to use up the batteries. He stuck a cigarette between his lips but didn’t light it. He had only five left.
Long hours of waiting and cigarettes passed, and around two o’clock it finally stopped raining. The water had risen halfway up the first floor of the buildings, but the current had slowed. Everything imaginable had floated by, including a coffin lid with a large crucifix on it.
The radio said that an emergency rescue centre was being set up in Campo di Marte, which the flood waters hadn’t reached and couldn’t reach owing to the high wall of the railway. Emergency rations, mineral water and medical supplies were being collected. Amphibious vehicles and tankers were soon to arrive from nearby cities unaffected by the flooding. All the doctors in the province were requested to go to Careggi hospital, the only serviceable facility in town. It was announced that Aldo Moro and Minister Taviani were out of Rome to celebrate Armed Forces Day, the former in Gorizia and the latter in Bari. They were informed at once of the disaster and were already busy coordinating a massive relief effort. It was also reported that over eighty inmates had escaped from the Murate prison and were moving across the rooftops and through dormers and windows opened for them by the inhabitants of the quarter. Some were dangerous criminals, and citizens were advised to use extreme caution.
And so the hours, minutes and seconds went by. People were powerless to do anything except watch the putrid water flow down the street. A nauseating smell festered in the air, and many had covered their faces up to the eyes with handkerchiefs and scarves.
Round about five o’clock the sky started to darken, and the people at their windows gazed upwards in dread. Others crouching on rooftops looked like huge frightened birds. In the gloomy glow of sunset, the river of mud assumed a terrifying aspect, and one could not help but think of the rivers of Hell mentioned by Dante … They course from rock to rock in this valley, / form the Acheron, the Styx, and the Phlegethon39…
Then night fell. Dozens of candle flames appeared on the windowsills, and the perspective of buildings became the columbarium of an enormous cemetery. The river of mud slowed down further, lapping softly against the walls of the buildings. Then suddenly it stopped altogether, and a tomblike silence descended on the neighbourhood. It was the same oppressive silence Bordelli used to hear during the war on certain winter nights.
He stuck a cigarette in his mouth but didn’t light it until he couldn’t hold out any longer. It was the last but one. The smell of heating oil and sewage was by now familiar to him. He couldn’t stand looking out of the window any more. One could only imagine the chaos at the police station, the traffic police command, the carabinieri headquarters, the fire station, the Comiliter, the Prefecture and Palazzo Vecchio … and there he was, stuck at home doing nothing, with no water, electricity or telephone line.
He dropped the cigarette butt, following it with his eyes until it was swallowed up by the water. He closed the window and went out on the landing, torch in hand. He shone its light down the stairwell, illuminating the motionless surface of mud below. It would be impossible to go out. He felt trapped. He went down to the floor below and knocked on the Macciantis’ door. The husband came and opened up, candle in hand, wrapped in a red jacket. His eyes were ringed with dark circles and he was unshaven. His little workshop in Via dell’Orto had surely been destroyed.
‘Have you got an extra candle, by any chance?’ Bordelli asked.
‘Come in …’ Maccianti said gloomily. He was a small man with little hair on his pear-shaped head and always gave off a faint smell of machine oil. Bordelli followed him into a dining room with dark furniture. A number of candles burned in the room, their flames long and motionless. Maccianti’s wife and two children were standing at the window huddled tightly together. Seated around the table were the first-floor tenants, a retired labourer with his wife and mother-in-law. Bordelli made a gesture of greeting, which was returned in silence. Faintly visible in one shadowy corner were two large suitcases, bulging like those of refugees. Maccianti rummaged through a drawer.
‘I can give you these,’ he said in a whisper, handing Bordelli two candles.
‘Thank you so much, it’s more than I could have hoped for,’ the inspector said in relief. A few hours earlier a couple of candles meant nothing, but the Arno’s fury had inverted the order of meaning.
‘My wife buys them by the box, for the little statue of the Blessed Virgin we have in our bedroom.’
‘I’ve got an extra bedroom and a sofa, if anyone needs a place,’ said Bordelli, saying goodbye to the people gathered and going back upstairs.
He had a hole in the pit of his stomach. He hadn’t eaten for almost a day. He went into the kitchen to see what there was. All he found was a small piece of pecorino cheese, some old bread and half a box of biscuits. He also had a bottle of water on his nightstand. He couldn’t sleep unless there was a bottle of water on the nightstand. He ate standing up, having laid the torch down on the table. He thought of the poor wretches who had lost everything, and he felt lucky. Until yesterday, living on the upper floors of a building without an elevator had always been a nuisance.
He went back into the bedroom, lit both candles and lay down in bed with all his clothes on. The flames flickered ever so gently, casting tremulous shadows. A thought resurfaced in his mind. Giacomo Pellissari. Whoever killed him could only benefit from this disaster. The flooding would occupy the authorities’ attentions for a long time, and everything else would fade into the background. He thought of Via Luna, wondering how high the waters had risen in that neighbourhood. The mud might have even destroyed the apartment, wiping out all traces of evidence and washing away the only hope there was of making any progress in the investigation. The case of the boy’s murder was in serious danger of being shelved.
There was only one cigarette left. He preferred holding out to being left without, but he would have to distract himself in some way to avoid smoking it. He picked up the torch and went into the dining room and cast the light on the spines of his books. He saw several volumes of Herodotus’s Histories. They were a present from a woman some years ago, but he’d never read them. He took the first volume back to the bedroom, set the torch down on the bedside table, stuck two pillows behind his head and started reading …
The book was quite engrossing and almost made him forget about the flood. He kept reading for a good while, suppressing the desire to smoke. Particularly amusing to him was learning about the customs of certain ancient peoples. The Babylonians, for example, had to pay a tax before they could marry a beautiful woman, so that only the rich could afford to do so. The money was then allocated for dowries for ugly or disfigured women, who obviously were married off to commoners … Who knew how much he would have had to pay, in Babylon, to wed the beautiful salesgirl of Via Pacinotti?
Around ten o’clock he went and looked out of the window again. Candles flickered gloomily on many windowsills. In the half-light he saw ghostly spectres leaning on their elbows, the incandescent tips of cigarettes glowing bright as they took deep drags. He turned the torch beam downwards and couldn’t help but smile a little. About a foot and a half above the waterline on
the building façades was a thick line of black oil dripping down. The waters had begun to recede, flowing slowly back towards the river. If they kept up this pace, in a few hours he would be able to go out. He had no desire to remain there counting the minutes and inches. He shut the window and went back to bed. Pulling up a few blankets, he rearranged the pillows and resumed reading.
He woke up with the book on his chest. When he exhaled he could see his breath. It was very cold, and the room was flooded with daylight. It was almost 8 a.m. He’d read late into the night and then nodded off. The candles were guttered, their dried wax running down the side of the nightstand. He went and opened the window. Under clear skies the spectacle was even more dismaying. The mud was almost all gone, leaving behind shattered cars, broken doors and gutted shutters, all manner of debris brought there by the fury of the current. A thick, still-damp ring of oil marked the walls at a height of over ten feet. In the distance he heard the melancholy wail of numerous sirens and the even whirr of helicopters. The ghosts of the night were beginning to come out of their homes, pale, exhausted, incredulous. They swashed around in the muck in boots or shoes wrapped in plastic bags fastened around their ankles, looking around with sleep-deprived eyes. Every so often a siren would rise above the chorus and seem to draw near before continuing on in another direction and blending in again with the rest.
He went into the kitchen to load up the coffee pot, blessing the gas cylinder and the half-bottle of water he had left. He felt decidedly better. Perhaps the emergency itself was the cause. He changed his clothes but still smelled bad. Searching around in a storage cupboard he found a pair of rubber boots in good condition. The coffee tasted better than ever before.
Putting his torch and transistor radio in his coat pockets, he ventured down the stairs. As he descended, the stench got stronger and stronger. The last two flights were quite slippery, and he very nearly fell. One wing of the double front door hung from a single hinge, while the other had come off and was floating in the entrance hall. He pushed it aside and went out into the street, where the water came almost up to his knees. The air was unbreathable. The human figures moving about amid the piles of debris looked like the damned. At the bottom of the street, towards Borgo San Frediano, a tree had got stuck in the entrance of a building. It all felt like a city after a bombing raid. The modulating sounds of sirens merged together into a single distressing wail.