Big Italy

by Timothy Williams

  “Commissario, I need your help on the Turellini affair. It’s important.”

  Trotti looked at the younger man. “Important for you.”

  “With your help, we could identify Turellini’s murderer in next to no time. You’d be paid—you’d be generously paid. Turellini’s family wants the killer identified and they don’t mind paying good money.”

  Trotti set the paper down on the table without looking at Bassi.

  “Good money you can buy the best hens with.”

  Trotti stood up. He had not finished his drink.

  “Best goats and best hens and best goddamn pigs to sniff out the truffles up in your hills.”

  Trotti placed a five thousand lira note on the table.

  “You’d better have a look at this, Trotti,” Bassi said testily, snatching up the magazine and stuffing it into the pocket of Trotti’s jacket. “Might find it interesting.”

  Piero Trotti pulled on the coat in silence. At the bar, several men turned to look at him. The barman nodded and gave a faint smile.

  Brushing past the private detective, Commissario Trotti went out into the cold night and the fog of the city.

  3: Magagna

  “A SOUTH AMERICAN transvestite, for God’s sake, a Peruvian, and I was getting a hard-on. In the sidings behind the Stazione Centrale.”

  “A transvestite almost got elected Miss Italia,” Trotti said without taking his eyes from the colander of pasta and the steaming water that poured through the holes into the flat sink. “Anyway, I never told you to go to Milan, Magagna.”

  “Twenty years ago, Italians would go to Amsterdam or New York, and they’d say it could never happen here, people shooting up in the street. Not in Italy—good food, good wine, good women. And we’re all Catholics. Who needs drugs?” Tenente Magagna was sitting on one of the upright kitchen chairs, his folded arms on the table.

  “Who needs AIDS?”

  “Heroin. Milan’s one of the worst damn cities in the world, Trotti. Two thousand declared cases of HIV. Declared—that’s not counting the addicts that are dropping off like flies at Porta Ticinese. You’d think the bastards’d have the sense to leave their veins alone. Dream on. No crack, no cocaine. It’s heroin.”

  The kitchen window misted with rising steam.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if the city of Milan subsidized the war in Beirut. Heroin, Trotti.”

  “You sound like a manifesto for the Lega Lombarda.”

  “Enough heroin to buy a Kalashnikov for every ayatollah.”

  “I didn’t tell you to go to Milan, Magagna,” Trotti said, concentrating on preparing the meal. “You were doing good work here.”

  “I should never have left Pescara.” The younger man caught his breath. “Pescara—I sometimes wonder whether I’ll ever get back there.”

  “You have a holiday due.”

  “Get back to living, commissario. Not for the holidays but forever. Take the wife and the boys.”

  “You think things are better in the South?”

  “I should never have come to Lombardy.” Magagna rapped the Formica table-top with his knuckles. “And to think I voted for the League at the last election.”

  “You’re a Southerner.” A pained sigh.

  “Pescara’s not part of the South.”

  Trotti briefly ran cold water on to the tight coils of spaghetti. “Milan’s part of the South, Magagna. Italy’s the South—ever since we kicked out the Austrians.”

  “You voted for the Lega, too, commissario?”

  “I gave up voting years ago—and never noticed the difference.”

  Magagna shook his head. “Italians just can’t enjoy themselves anymore. Money, drugs, sex—whatever happened to the old pleasures?” He got up from the chair and turned on the television.

  “Like starving, Magagna?” Trotti went to the stove, gave the tomatoes a final stir before tipping the spaghetti into a glass dish.

  “Your problem, commissario, is you’re too …”

  “My problem’s I don’t have any problems.” Trotti winced. “I’m happy.”

  “Happy?”

  “Another ten months and I retire.”

  “Happy? You’ll be bored out of your wits. Are you going to live with your daughter?”

  “Her husband’s looking for a job in Milan.”

  “Must be mad.”

  “Worse places than Milan, Magagna.”

  “I can only think of Sarajevo.” The large face clouded. “If I have to get out of Lombardy, it’s for my boys.”

  “Come back here. You were happy here. And from next September I’ll be out of your hair.” Trotti nodded to a parcel on top of the old Zanussi refrigerator, next to the noisy clock. “There’s a little present for Mino.”

  “If I didn’t know you, I’d think you were human.”

  “How’s Mino?”

  “Eight years old and he thinks his parents were born yesterday.”

  “I’ve always thought you were born yesterday.” Trotti took dishes from the oven. “And his little brother?”

  Magagna smiled proudly. “An angel.”

  “There’s a bottle of wine from the hills in that cupboard. Instead of telling me about your voluptuous transvestites, perhaps you could remove the cork.”

  “Wanted to whet your appetite.” Magagna shook his head. “I swear to God, Trotti, I’d never’ve guessed it was a man. For heaven’s sake, I saw the nipples.”

  “And nipples still get you excited?”

  “You don’t have a libido, commissario?”

  Trotti frowned.

  “And you’re going to get excited over goats and chickens in the hills?”

  “I’m a happy man.”

  “You could’ve fooled me.”

  “Peace of the senses, Magagna.”

  “You’re a miserable old bastard. You’ve always been miserable, you’ve always complained. You’ve always been an old man.”

  “Every morning I wake up and I’m glad to be alive apart from the occasional toothache. I’m smiling as I make my coffee.”

  “The last time you smiled was during the Rome Olympics.”

  Trotti laughed. “One of the best, Magagna.” Uncharacteristically, he slapped him on the shoulder. “I never understood why you wanted to leave this place, damn you.”

  “A wife, a child, commissario. Promotion—a man needs promotion to survive.”

  “I don’t need any of that. I don’t need transvestites. I don’t need AIDS. I don’t need being told what to do by younger men.” He laughed. “And I don’t need nipples.”

  “Not sure I approve of your peace of the senses.”

  “I’ve been like a mouse running after cheese. And now I discover there’s no cheese. No cheese and no mousetrap.”

  “You’ll die of boredom.”

  “I’ll be free.”

  “You’ll die of boredom in the hills, with just your animals to talk to,” Magagna said. He had set the labelless bottle between his thick thighs and now the cork came out with a noisy pop. “I think I’ll stick to Peruvian transvestites.”

  4: Sandro

  “I WAS BORN in Acquanera but I went to school in Santa Maria. We used to see the American bombers on their way back from Milan.”

  “They didn’t try hard enough.”

  “From the hills we could see Milan burning. Castellani was telling me over eighty percent of the buildings in Milan were hit by bombs or incendiaries. Didn’t try hard enough? Consider yourself lucky you’ve never lived through a war, Magagna.” Trotti made a gesture of irritation. “I lived in Santa Maria for eight years with my aunt and my cousins Anna Maria and Sandro. We were poor, but there were no bombs.”

  “That’s where you intend to spend the evening of your life? In Santa Maria?”

  “The afternoon of my life.”

  Magagna had turned on the old television set to catch the local news on RaiTre. The volume was low and the picture flickered, unwatched by the two men at the kitchen table.

>   “With Sandro,” Trotti said. “Together we’re doing the old place up. There’s an architect he knows in Brescia. We should be able to make something really beautiful. An old house—the foundations are more than three hundred years old. On the edge of the town, in a grove of chestnut trees. It’s where our grandparents used to live. And it’s where I spent the happiest years of my life—despite the war.”

  “You’d be a lot happier on Lake Garda, commissario, at your villa.”

  “The Villa Ondina belongs to my wife.”

  “You’re not divorced.”

  Trotti replied simply, “I want a place of my own.”

  “I thought you loved Garda.”

  “I’ve spent some glorious times on the lake.” Trotti ran a hand across his chin. The wine had tinted the corners of his lips. “When she was a little girl, Pioppi always loved the Villa Ondina. Still does. Last summer she brought Francesca. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Pioppi quite so happy.”

  “Why on earth go off into the hills of the OltrePò? Stay with your daughter—and with your granddaughter.”

  “I need a place to myself.”

  “Your daughter needs you.”

  “She has a husband and a family of her own. Why does Pioppi need me? I’d only get in the way.” The rigidity in his face softened. “Pioppi’s taken to being a mother like a duck to water. She doesn’t need an old man getting between her feet. She has her own life to lead. She’s radiant now.”

  “Pioppi always was lovely.”

  “Radiant—but that’s why women are luckier than us, Magagna. What satisfaction do we men have? We have to work for it—power, wealth, fame, success. And once we’ve got what we want—the cheese in the mousetrap—it seems to crumble through our fingers.” He added, his eyes on Magagna, “Pioppi’s even overweight.”

  “You’ve always worried too much about your daughter.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “You don’t have confidence in other people.”

  “I still worry about her.”

  “You worry about everything.”

  “Pioppi is a lovely girl.” Trotti nodded proudly. “She has a good job in Bologna—but her real interest in life is her family. Her husband and her little girl. And soon there will be a new one.”

  “If I didn’t know you, commissario, I’d think you were beginning to doubt your own immortality.”

  “You sound like my wife.” Trotti raised the glass of Sangue di Giuda to a picture frame on top of the refrigerator, beside the small parcel.

  The photograph was of a middle-aged woman holding a little girl and smiling with unrestrained delight into the camera.

  “The woman I married—and now she’s a grandmother.”

  “Self-doubt, Trotti?”

  He turned fast. “What makes you say that?”

  “I don’t think self-doubt can be very good for you. It makes you human.”

  “Scarcely.”

  “Tell me about your granddaughter.”

  “Francesca?” Trotti put his glass down, stood up and took the photograph. “The reason I’m happy every morning as I prepare my coffee.”

  “Happy?” Magagna shook his head doubtfully. “Wait another ten months.”

  Trotti raised his hand and stroked the photograph with the tips of his fingers. Then he set it back on top of the refrigerator.

  “Still see your wife?” Magagna asked.

  “Sandro says he’ll stay on in the clinic in Brescia for two more years. Then he’ll come to Santa Maria.”

  “With his family?”

  “Sandro never married.”

  “Why not?”

  Trotti shook his head. “We were like brothers, Sandro and I. Slept in the same bed. He always accused me of farting but he never stopped. With the diet of those war years, it’s no real wonder.”

  “I can see why he never married.”

  “Sandro’s a couple of years older than me. In 1944 he went off to fight with the partisans. Nearly got hanged by the Fascists.”

  “Didn’t you once tell me Sandro gave you his bicycle?”

  Trotti dipped his head in admiration. “You’ve got a good memory, Magagna.”

  “Or perhaps you like to repeat the same things over and again.” Magagna added, “And your cousin Anna Maria went and married a Dutchman, just to get away from pedaling in the hills.”

  “When on earth did I tell you that?”

  “Many, many years ago.” Magagna sighed.

  “Sandro’s done well for himself. Went back to study after the war and got his high school diploma. Goodness knows where he got the money from, but he went on to study medicine. Probably from Piet, the Dutch brother-in-law.” He added, “Must be fifteen years since I last saw Piet.”

  “You could always go to Holland when you retire.”

  “In ’56, my cousin Sandro set up his little clinic in Brescia.”

  “But he never got married?”

  “Have some more wine, Magagna.”

  “I’m driving home in this fog.”

  “Some grappa, then?”

  “Why did your cousin never marry, commissario?”

  “Who knows?” Trotti sipped some more wine, running his tongue along his teeth. “It was Sandro who told me my brother Italo had been killed.”

  Magagna looked at his hands in silence. It was warm in the kitchen in via Milano and Magagna had undone his collar and tie. He lolled back on the upright chair, an arm looped over the back rest.

  The television droned on, ignored.

  “It’s all so long ago.”

  “Sangue di Giuda makes you maudlin, commissario.”

  Trotti clicked his tongue in irritation. “Sandro’s always had money. A nice car and a villa near Rimini. There was a time, twenty—twenty-five years ago, when he would take a different girlfriend there every week. He had a red Alfa-Romeo Spider coupé and for some reason, he was always with a blonde. He liked the Nordic type.” Trotti made a gesture of impatience. “Sandro’s so stubborn.”

  “At least you’ll have someone to quarrel with in the hills.”

  “If you think I’m irascible, you haven’t met Sandro. Stubborn—we’re all stubborn in the hills. It was a hard life and without that stubbornness we’d never have survived. Sandro was always a lot more ambitious than me. I sometimes wonder if it’s because of his pride he never found the right girl. Was looking for perfection—but I suppose it’s not too late.”

  “They say if a man’s not married by the time he’s forty he’s not going to marry at all.”

  “Sandro has a lot of qualities—qualities that are common to us mountain folk.” Trotti glanced at the television. “He’d have made a good father.”

  After a short silence, Magagna asked, “You really think you can leave this city?”

  “Why not?”

  “You only pretend to dislike people.”

  “I dislike people?”

  Magagna coughed politely.

  The kitchen windows were misted. Occasionally there was the distant rumble of a bus along via Milano. The clock on the refrigerator ticked noisily. The parish news sheet had been tucked behind the alarm clock, forgotten there since Pioppi had visited her father in August and had persuaded him to take her to church.

  “You know, I saw a private detective this evening. Like everybody else, he wants me to stay on in the city.”

  “Private detective?” Magagna raised an eyebrow.

  “Fabrizio Bassi. Used to work in the Questura.”

  “After my time.”

  “And now he’s set up his own agency here in the city—Fabrizio Bassi Investigations. He wants me to work on the Turellini affair.”

  “And you’re going to?”

  “I’m not paid to moonlight, Magagna.”

  “I hope you made your deontological position quite clear.” Magagna paused. “Bassi—why did he leave the police?”

  “He was thrown out and now he hopes I’m going to help him.”

  “Thrown out?”<
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  Trotti raised his glass. “He thinks he and I could go into partnership once I’ve retired.”

  “Bassi? Wasn’t Bassi the fellow who was having an affair with a politician’s wife?”

  “The only partnership I’m interested in is with my goats and hens in Santa Maria.”

  “You came out in support of this Bassi. I heard how you almost came to blows with some of your colleagues in the Questura. He’d been sleeping with the mayor’s wife.” Magagna smiled. “Good luck to him.”

  “You’ve got a good memory.” Trotti shrugged.

  “Why don’t you want to work with him?”

  “Magagna, I don’t want to work with anybody.”

  5: Domenica Del Corriere

  THERE WERE ALREADY several copies of Vissuto by the telephone, left there by the cleaning lady who believed Trotti might find solutions to his own inquiries.

  (The cleaning woman had been Pioppi’s idea. The first time Trotti’s daughter came with the baby, Francesca, she was horrified by what she called the squalor. “You need a woman, Papa.” Trotti said nothing, but he acquiesced when Pioppi found a home help for him, an old, kind woman who methodically went through the house twice a week. The woman rarely spoke and when she did, she grunted unintelligibly in a Veneto accent. She wore black and she was probably a lot younger than Trotti. She had cooked for him once or twice, but her cooking was unsatisfactory. A predilection for polenta that reminded him too much of his diet during the war years.)

  When Magagna had left, Trotti bolted the door, stacked the plates in the sink and then heated some water in a saucepan as he washed the dishes.

  (Pioppi had told him to buy a dishwasher.)

  He made an herbal infusion of chamomile and waited for the water to cool.

  It was nearly ten o’clock.

  The television still flickered softly. Trotti glanced briefly at a Gina Lollobrigida film with Enrico Maria Salerno that he had seen thirty years ago at the cinema, then pulled the plug from the wall. The image vanished and Trotti sighed.

  He got ready for bed. It was as he was hanging up his jacket, still damp with fog, that he remembered the magazine. It protruded from the side pocket.

  Vissuto.

  Trotti leafed through the copy of Vissuto. It was, Trotti realized, an updated version of Domenica del Corriere, which had been so popular in the fifties before the advent of television, in the years before Berlusconi. Now there were photographs instead of the old penciled sketches, but otherwise the articles were all very similar and had scarcely changed over the intervening years. Mothers in Naples, Genoa, Rome and Trieste complaining about the Camorra, the Mafia, the ‘Ndrangheta, complaining about the drugs circulating in the schools, about the inadequacy of the hospitals. Mothers with cancer, dying so that their unborn babies could come healthy into the world. A mother committing suicide because her son had died in a car crash. Other mothers arrested for selling their daughters into slavery, for trading in human organs, for usury.