Temporary Perfections

by Gianrico Carofiglio

  “There’s nothing of hers left in the room,” Nicoletta said.

  “Does another girl live in the room now?”

  “No, the landlady hasn’t found another tenant yet, so I’m living here alone.”

  “Then you won’t mind if I take a look.”

  Nicoletta shrugged and stood up without a word. Manuela’s bedroom was halfway down the hall and, I noticed, the door was locked; Nicoletta turned the key in the lock before opening the door. As I walked into the room, I felt my pulse quicken, as if the information that would solve the case was hidden in that room, and I was about to find it.

  But I wasn’t. It was just as Nicoletta had said. Nothing in the room was connected with Manuela. There was a single bed. There was a desk with empty drawers. There was an armoire, which was also empty. A series of small, bad watercolors hung on the walls. They appeared to have been part of the original furnishings of the bedroom and of the apartment.

  “What happened to Manuela’s things?”

  “The Carabinieri came and searched the room and then, a few weeks later, Manuela’s mother took all her things away.”

  I decided that the Carabinieri hadn’t, technically, performed a search. Among other things, there was no mention of a search in the file. They had gone to the apartment and, as so often happens in these cases, they had taken a look around, found nothing useful, and left.

  “Why were her parents in such a hurry to get her stuff out of the room?”

  “The landlady asked them if they wanted to keep paying the rent on the room, and of course they didn’t. So Manuela’s mother, with one of Manuela’s aunts, or maybe just a friend, came and took all her things away.”

  When Nicoletta was done talking, I walked over to the window and looked out. I saw that it overlooked a dirty gray courtyard. I half-closed my eyes and tried to sense Manuela’s presence, her voice. Perhaps, in that slightly dreary seventies-style bedroom, I might receive a message from the missing girl.

  Fortunately, I acted the fool for a few seconds only, and neither Caterina nor Nicoletta noticed anything. Is your brain turning to mush, Guerrieri? Who do you think you are, Dylan Dog, paranormal investigator? I berated myself loudly, albeit internally, as I left the room, upset with myself.

  Ten minutes later, Caterina and I were back out on the street, as darkness fell.

  30.

  “Did you know all of that already?”

  “More or less, though not the details,” Caterina replied.

  “So why didn’t you tell me any of it?”

  We were already in a taxi on our way back to the hotel. Rome’s traffic was at its spectacular worst. Caterina took a deep breath before answering.

  “Try to see it from my point of view. These were things that concerned Nicoletta, and she is a friend of mine, even if we don’t hang out anymore. I did what I could so the two of you could meet and she could be the one to tell you about it. It seemed to me like the best solution.”

  “What if Nicoletta hadn’t told me anything?”

  “I don’t believe that would have happened, but if it had, I would have stepped in.”

  There wasn’t a thing wrong with what Caterina was saying. She’d behaved impeccably. She’d helped me without betraying the trust of a friend.

  So why was I feeling so annoyed, as if we were playing a game and I wasn’t privy to the rules?

  I should have asked her if she had ever tried cocaine herself and if there was anything that she had forgotten to tell me. I was trying to find the words when her cell phone rang. She pulled it out of her pocket but didn’t answer.

  “Go ahead and answer if you like,” I said.

  “It’s a friend of mine. I don’t want to talk to her. I don’t want to tell her I’m in Rome. I’ll text her later,” she said, shrugging as she pushed a button that silenced the phone. I decided I was uncomfortable asking that question, and that it probably wasn’t important. I could ask her some other time.

  “In your opinion, did Nicoletta tell me everything she knows?”

  “Probably not, but she told you what you wanted to know, and I doubt very much that she knows anything specific about Manuela’s disappearance.”

  She was right, I thought, as I looked at her.

  She also had beautiful skin, I thought, as I continued to look at her, until I realized that I had become, shall we say, somewhat distracted.

  “What do you think? Do you think Manuela’s disappearance might have something to do with cocaine?”

  Even though the cabbie seemed to be completely absorbed in a soccer game on the radio and completely uninterested in us, I instinctively lowered my voice.

  “I don’t know. If Michele hadn’t been out of the country the day she disappeared, I’d probably think there was some connection. But since he was, it’s a mystery.”

  She began squeezing the bridge of her nose between her thumb and two fingers. She seemed to be staring at something off in the distance. Then, it looked as if she’d located what she’d been looking for, and she spoke.

  “Can I say something?”

  “Of course,” I replied.

  “Why are we sure that Manuela disappeared in Puglia? Who says that she didn’t come to Rome, that afternoon, that evening, or that night? Why are we ruling that out?”

  Right.

  We had all taken it for granted that Manuela never left for Rome. And we had excellent grounds for doing so, of course. It was the most credible hypothesis. The ticket clerk remembered selling her a ticket to Bari; Manuela had told Anita that she was going to Bari and would leave for Rome from there. So it was reasonable to theorize that the point and moment of her disappearance was somewhere and sometime along the journey from Ostuni to Bari, or else subsequent to her arrival in Bari. Still, there was no evidence that would allow us to exclude categorically that Manuela might have left for and even arrived in Rome. Whatever had caused her disappearance might have happened in Rome.

  Of course, I thought to myself, if Manuela left Bari and then arrived—and later disappeared—in Rome, my entire so-called investigation meant less than zero. Most important: I wouldn’t have the slightest idea of where or how to begin again.

  Caterina must have sensed what I was thinking.

  “Well, we’re not going to solve the mystery tonight. We’ve done what we could. You got all the information from Nicoletta that she could give you. Now it’s a matter of thinking about what we know and seeing if we come up with anything. But we should do that after we’ve had a chance to let it settle, don’t you think?”

  I nodded, but with a dubious air.

  “Have you ever tried Ethiopian food?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I asked if you’ve ever tried Ethiopian food.”

  “A few years ago in Milan. Why?”

  “Did you like it?”

  “Sure, it was fun. You eat with your hands and wrap the food up in a sort of soft flatbread, like a crêpe, right?”

  “Injera—that’s what it’s called. So tonight we’ll go to an Ethiopian restaurant and then we’ll think about all of this tomorrow.”

  We’ll think it over? You and me? What are we now, partners?

  The Ethiopian restaurant was near the main station. The place was crowded with African customers, which gave me the impression the food would be authentic. The waiters knew Caterina. They greeted her warmly and brought us menus immediately.

  “Is there anything you don’t eat?”

  “No, I eat everything. I was in the army,” I said.

  “Okay, I’ll order for both of us. You can choose the wine.”

  Picking a wine wasn’t an especially challenging job, considering the selection. There were four possibilities and none of them was particularly alluring. I ordered a Sicilian Syrah that struck me as the only acceptable choice.

  “You’re a regular here, I see.”

  “When I lived in Rome I came here a lot.”

  “Did Manuela come here, too?”

  “S
ure.”

  It occurred to me that I could ask her to take me to the places that Manuela liked to go when she was in Rome. I could ask around and maybe I’d uncover something. Then it occurred to me that I’d gotten the idea from TV detectives. I changed the subject.

  “So, you don’t have a boyfriend.”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head.

  “Has it been a long time?”

  “A few months.”

  “And why not?”

  “What do you mean, why not?”

  “Okay, that’s not what I meant to ask. You had a relationship that ended a couple of months ago. Was it a long relationship?”

  “Fairly long. It lasted a couple of years.”

  “And when Manuela disappeared, were you still together or was it already over?”

  “We were still together, but it was as good as over.”

  “Then you must have discussed Manuela’s disappearance with him.”

  “Of course.”

  “Am I bothering you with these questions?”

  “You’re not bothering me. Or maybe talking about him does bother me a little. But that’s my problem. Feel free to ask me anything. Don’t worry about it.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Duilio.”

  “Duilio. That’s not a very common name.”

  “No, and it’s not a very nice name either. I don’t think I’ve ever called him by his real name.”

  “Do you think it would be worth my time to have a talk with him, to see if he can tell me anything about Manuela?”

  “I don’t think so. They didn’t know each other at all, except through me. I mean, the only reason they spent time together was because they both knew me.”

  “How long were you together after Manuela’s disappearance?”

  Caterina didn’t answer right away. She rested her face on her right hand and her right elbow on the table. She was thinking.

  “Maybe a month. More or less a month,” she said after a little while.

  I figured Manuela’s disappearance might have accelerated the end of their relationship. I was about to ask her, but then I didn’t. Clearly, she didn’t like talking about it, and I had no reason to insist.

  Just then, the waiter brought our food, a huge tray covered with a sort of soft and spongy crêpe, upon which was arranged a variety of dishes. Vegetables of all kinds, meat, chicken, sauces, spices—especially hot spices. There were more crêpes on another dish. We used those to scoop up the food and eat it.

  For a while we devoted ourselves to the food and the wine, without talking. The bottle was emptying quickly, and it occurred to me that it was our second bottle of wine of the day, and that maybe I should be careful not to overdo it. Then I decided that I’d spent my whole life warning myself not to overdo it and that I was beginning to get sick and tired of my cautious, sensible self.

  “So, are you going to take me on at your law firm as an intern when I get my degree?”

  “Sure,” I said, unable to think of a witty response.

  “I’d really like that.”

  I was about to say something paternalistic and pathetic about the profession of the law, and the sacrifices that it entails, and that you have to be sure it’s for you before you get involved in it. Instead, I tore off another piece of injera and wrapped it around all that remained of an unidentified—but very spicy—meat dish.

  “You took the last of the tibs,” Caterina said in a scolding tone.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, did you want it?”

  “Yes,” she said, with the expression of a little girl used to getting her way.

  I extended the handful of food to her. She didn’t reach for it. Instead, she shook her head. I looked at her quizzically.

  “You were doing something very rude and now, to make up for it, you have to do something extra nice for me.”

  As she spoke these words, she leaned her head toward me and opened her mouth. I looked at her incredulously, gulped, and then extended my fingers toward her mouth. She took the food in her mouth and clamped her lips down on my fingers, looking me right in the eye, with an amused and pitiless expression.

  Part of me was still trying to put up some token resistance.

  Don’t do it, Guerrieri. It’s not right: This girl could be your daughter. And not just biologically. Her mother is only a few years older than you; when you were twenty-one, twenty-two years old, you went out with a few girls older than you. For instance, Giusi was twenty-three and you were twenty. A little accident back then, and right now you’d have a daughter exactly Caterina’s age, with a mother roughly the age of Caterina’s mother.

  That is one of the most demented arguments I’ve heard out of you to date, Guerrieri, replied the other part of me. Biologically, you could have had a daughter at age fifteen. If we apply this line of reasoning and this nonsensical rule—you can’t go out with a girl who could biologically be your daughter—you, my dear Guerrieri, at the age of forty-five, are only allowed to socialize with women over thirty. Have you ever heard anything so ridiculous in your life?

  We told the taxi driver to drop us off in the Piazza di Spagna, which wasn’t far from our hotel. I hadn’t been to the Piazza di Spagna in so many years that I couldn’t even remember how long it had been. As I got out of the car, I experienced a surge of simple, childish joy. We sat down among the crowd of tourists near the fountain, listening to the voices and the water. Then we climbed up the Spanish Steps and I—aware of what a cliché it was and yet cheered by it at the same time—thought how few places there are on earth where you can feel spring arrive the way you do in the Piazza di Spagna and at the Trinità dei Monti.

  We were almost all the way up to the church when a Filipino flower vendor offered me a bunch of roses. I said no thanks and stepped aside to avoid him. Caterina stopped, took one of the roses, and handed it to me.

  A little later we went into a small bar with a sign out front advertising a BLAST FROM THE PAST, a night featuring Italian music from the eighties.

  We stayed in that bar long enough to hear four or five songs, none of which were particularly memorable. Then Caterina asked me if I wanted to go back to the hotel. I felt a slight electric shock run through my body and decided that I was tired of resisting the impulse—if what I had been doing up till now could be described as resistance. I said yes. We got up and left the bar, and ten minutes later we were at the hotel.

  We got the keys to our rooms and I walked her to her room, which was on the floor below mine. She stopped and leaned back against the door.

  She was going to invite me in. I’d accept, and what was about to happen would happen, and who the hell cared, because I was sick of not being able to make a single move in my life without calling up logic and reason and critiquing it in advance.

  “Thanks, Gigi, buona notte,” she said, giving me a kiss on the cheek.

  Gigi? Buona notte? Have you lost your mind?

  I didn’t say that. Actually, I didn’t say a word. I stood there, stock-still, with an expression on my face that I would have found amusing to look at, if it had been on someone else’s face.

  “I call people I like by their initials. G.G. for Guido Guerrieri. Ciao, Gi-Gi, buona notte, and thanks for a wonderful evening.”

  And before I could say a word, she had vanished into her room.

  I quickly got ready for bed. An emotional storm cloud was massing around me, consisting of equal parts embarrassment, annoyance, relief, and other feelings that were more difficult to decipher. I was reluctant, however, to delve too deeply into that combination of factors and their individual measures, so I decided to read my book—a collection of short stories by Grace Paley—until sleep came. That would be a while, I feared.

  For ten minutes or so I read a story that didn’t bowl me over. Then I heard a knock at the door.

  “Who is it?”

  “It’s me. Are you going to open the door?”

  “Just a second,” I called. I was in such a hurry
to pull on my pants that I tripped on them.

  “Aren’t you going to step aside and let me in?”

  I did as she asked, and she walked into the room. As she passed by me, I caught a whiff of leather-scented perfume that she hadn’t been wearing when we were out together earlier. It was a strangely familiar scent, reassuring and unsettling at the same time. I tried to figure out what it reminded me of, without success.

  “Nice t-shirt you have there,” she said, sitting on the edge of the bed. I was wearing a silly t-shirt featuring Lupo Alberto from the comics. The wolf was drawn in a ridiculous kung-fu pose.

  “Well, yeah, I wasn’t expecting visitors.…”

  “You’re terrible, do you know that?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You’re terrible.”

  “Why am I terrible?”

  “At first I thought you’d ask to come into my room. Then I waited for you to knock on my door. Finally, I figured maybe you’d call me. But you didn’t. You’re a hardass, aren’t you, Gigi? I knew from the beginning that you weren’t like other guys.”

  I didn’t have the slightest idea what to say, and my face must have shown it. At least I was confirming her theory that I was different from other guys.

  “Why are you standing there? Come sit down. Make yourself at home.”

  I did as I was told. To keep from coming across as a hardass, of course.

  As I sat down on the bed, I caught another whiff of her perfume.

  And then, her lips, which were warm and fresh and soft and tasted of cherry and invincible youth and summer and lots of wonderful things from years gone by. Things that were there, present and alive.

  Before I let myself go, I heard a line of verse echo through my head.

  Who is she that looketh forth as the morning,

  fair as the moon, clear as the sun,

  and terrible as an army with banners?