Supernotes

by Agent Kasper

  It’s been some time since they last scheduled a couple of days off just for themselves and picked a city to explore. Two wives and mothers released on bail and well aware that this weekend will pass quickly.

  They should escape more often, they think.

  They’ve discussed Kasper extensively. Barbara’s told Giulia the whole story, first of all because she’s a trusted friend, but also because she’s married to a pretty prominent American businessman.

  A man with influence, as is said in such cases.

  If the right Americans exist, Giulia is without a doubt the best connection Barbara has. Her friend’s husband is part of the liberal establishment, newly energized with Barack Obama settled into the White House. It’s no coincidence that one of the new president’s first actions was to announce the closing of the detention camp at Guantánamo Bay. Perhaps the U.S. government will no longer tolerate the existence of other such institutions elsewhere in the world.

  “My God, what a horrendous business,” Giulia says indignantly. “I can’t even imagine such a thing. I’ll talk to my husband about it. You’ll see, in a few days I’ll give you the name of the best person to contact. Meanwhile, don’t worry. This story’s going to find its way to whoever needs to hear it, and very soon.”

  As she prepares to go back to Rome on Sunday evening, Barbara finally feels as though she’s close to a concrete result. On the plane, ready for departure, she checks to make sure her cell phone’s turned off and puts it back in her bag. At that very instant, Manuela Sanchez is sending her a message.

  But several hours will pass before Barbara reads it.

  —

  She sees her coming up from the subway in Piazza della Repubblica.

  It’s Monday morning in Rome, and her ivory trench coat blends into the crowd. Barbara doesn’t move; she stays where she is, next to her car.

  Manuela’s instructions were pretty simple: “I’ll find you.”

  And so Barbara’s waiting.

  Not many minutes later, they’re heading toward Piazza Venezia amid the heavy traffic of Via Nazionale. “Where shall we go?” Barbara asks.

  “Let’s wander a bit.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Let’s drive around. Don’t stop anywhere. If you have enough gas.”

  They slowly pass workers who are repairing the pavement by replacing the sampietrini, the black basalt stones. “Look at what a good job they’re doing,” Manuela says. Their movements are precise and methodical, the signs of a skill steeped in history. The tick-tick of the hammers flies in the face of modernity.

  “Some professions will always be around,” Manuela observes. She shrugs and takes out a cigarette but doesn’t light it. “Some professions tell you the story of a world. Take the world of drugs, for example.”

  “The world of drugs…”

  “Exactly. Maybe drug laws will be liberalized someday. Think how many jobs would be lost. Masses of people and rivers of money would have to find new reasons to exist and new purposes to serve. Men who risk their lives every day, on one side or the other, would be forced to find themselves a different line of work.”

  “You miss that world, don’t you?”

  Barbara’s question is sudden, deliberately abrupt, but Manuela doesn’t blink. She shakes her head slightly. “No, I don’t miss it. I’m convinced I made the right choice fifteen years ago. I miss the adrenaline, though. I do miss that. The taste for risk that made every day different from the rest. Today, every day is the same. It’s hard to get used to.”

  “But you take care of others. You do volunteer work with prisoners. You help out sick people. You—”

  “It’s not enough. It’s not the way I’d like it to be. But the past doesn’t come back. Not even if you’ve got two assholes on your tail following you wherever you go.”

  “When did that happen?”

  “It’s happening now.”

  “Excuse me?” the lawyer asks, getting agitated.

  “It means they’ve been following me for days. They’re behind us right now. But don’t worry. Drive just the way you’ve been driving up to now. You may as well make them go in circles. When we’re finished, take me back to Termini. I have a train in two hours.”

  —

  They could be from the FBI, the CIA, or some other American agency. They could be Italians working with the Americans. Or they could even be independent contractors. Manuela’s probably not the only one of Kasper’s contacts who is under surveillance.

  Barbara drives past the Baths of Caracalla, downshifting as the road gets steeper. “Are you telling me they’re watching me too?”

  “There’s nothing more likely.”

  “Shit.”

  Manuela points to a street up ahead. “That goes to Garbatella, right?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “I used to have a boyfriend in that part of town, many years ago. Let’s drive around there.”

  They head down Via Cristoforo Colombo, among the thousands of vehicles traveling between Rome and the Lazio coast at that hour on a Monday morning. In such a river of traffic, it’s not at all easy to tell whether they’re really being followed or not. But as soon as they turn off onto Via delle Sette Chiese and enter the Garbatella quarter, with its characteristic pink buildings, a greenish Hyundai comes zipping out of nowhere, like a lizard from between bricks.

  “Jesus Christ! There they are, I know that’s them,” Barbara blurts out.

  “Pay no attention.” Manuela gives her directions. They drive into a labyrinth of narrow streets, past the distinctive little houses and squares of a part of Rome where the city suddenly turns into a village. Manuela seems to feel right at home. “There you go, park over there,” she says.

  Barbara looks up at the edifice and the sky-blue sign on its façade. “But this is the police station!” she objects.

  “Damn right. This way the guys following us will have something interesting to write in their little report.” Then she adds, “It’s not a bad thing to have been a cop’s girlfriend. Especially if you happen to become a criminal later.”

  —

  Kasper’s situation has gotten completely out of hand. Manuela summarizes it for Barbara in a few words. She’s been able to talk to Kasper for a few minutes on the phone. He sounded desperate and determined, she says. Two states of mind that don’t go together very well, unless…

  “Unless what?” Barbara asks, a second before she guesses the only possible answer.

  Manuela tells her about the letter to Kasper from his girlfriend Patty.

  “Does Kasper’s mother know?”

  “I told her myself. I had to. She wasn’t the least bit surprised. Her comment was something like, ‘I understand her, poor girl.’ Then she added that everyone lives with at least one ghost, and Patty has found hers.”

  “That letter must have seemed like a dagger to Kasper.”

  “I don’t know. I got the feeling he was expecting it. It was like he was waiting for something like that so he could make the decision he’s been moving toward for months.”

  “Are you saying that—”

  “I’m saying he’s planning his exit from the scene. Not by suicide, at least not by what a normal person would think of as suicide. He’ll go down fighting. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s got it all organized….”

  She pauses and opens her leather bag. She takes out two little notebooks with thick black cardboard covers. “There’s another reason why I think we’ve reached the end of the line,” she explains. “These were delivered to Kasper’s mother’s house yesterday. Brady sent them.”

  “What are they?”

  “Diaries and memoirs. Kasper’s writing. He’s recalling things and telling his story. It’s all in here. But maybe some more will come. He wants his lawyer to wait for the right moment and then hand the notebooks over to the big newspapers. And so…”

  Manuela gives Barbara the two little volumes.

  Barbara clasps them tight. “The ri
ght moment,” she murmurs. “And how am I supposed to know when the right moment comes?”

  “That’s easy. It’ll be the day you learn he’s dead.”

  28

  Mr. T

  Prey Sar Correctional Center, near Phnom Penh, Cambodia

  February 2009

  There are only eight of them in here. The privileged prisoners of Prey Sar.

  “Not to worry, it didn’t cost me very much,” the Chinese boss reassured him. “I opted for a lump sum contract,” he added with his usual irony as he was introducing Kasper to his new quarters and his new companions.

  Besides Victor Chao, there are two former police officers, a tax official, and three common prisoners. People with money to spend. One of them is Mr. T.

  They aren’t very closely monitored, and there are even times when it’s possible for them to use cell phones. They can also prepare their own food, and they have a bit more space at their disposal. Not a lot more, of course, but in any case more than any of the other prisoners have.

  As far as Kasper’s concerned, his new accommodations offer numerous advantages. There’s only one downside: proximity to a giant black man who hates him.

  Mr. T isn’t happy to have the Italian as a roommate and immediately made his feelings known: “What the fuck is he doing here with us?” As he said this, he stroked the handle of a machete hidden inside his blanket.

  Victor Chao intervened to make peace. Later he advised Kasper, “If he provokes you, pretend not to notice.”

  No problem. He doesn’t consider Mr. T an enemy. With Kasper so close, Mr. T’s grudge does seem a little more intense. Nevertheless, Kasper gives him no encouragement. In fact, he considers him a resource that could, at the right moment, turn out to be useful.

  In the meantime, Kasper is writing. He has already filled two notebooks, which with Chou Chet’s help he managed to get to Brady and on to Manuela in Italy. At the right moment, she’ll be the one who makes sure his lawyer makes proper use of them.

  The right moment’s not far away.

  Two days ago Kasper received a visit from one of the Comboni Fathers. Just before his capture he was able to get several wealthy Westerners who live in the Cambodian capital involved in their work. He and Patty organized their distributions of food and clothing to the desperate masses on the outskirts of the city.

  The padre who comes to see him in Prey Sar explains that the Comboni Fathers, on the other hand, can do very little for him. His situation is so complicated!

  But Kasper makes no objection. He has only one request: “I’d like to receive extreme unction.”

  The priest looks at him as though he’s just asked for a mortgage. “What are you saying, my brother?”

  “I’m asking you for the only thing you can give me. You can’t refuse, Father.”

  —

  Mr. T has his cooking done for him by an inmate. Another comes twice a day to do the cleaning. They’re his slaves and are treated as such.

  From outside Prey Sar, his family is providing for him. His wife often comes to visit him and brings with her all sorts of good things to eat, which he gladly shares with his fellow prisoners. With all of them, except the Italian.

  Kasper’s resigned to missing the treats. He spends his days writing in his notebooks and talking to Victor Chao. He’s able to use the new Nokia Chou Chet procured for him, so he can call home almost every day. He’s tried to reestablish contact with Patty, but without success.

  That afternoon, Victor Chao comes in with a gift for him. An inflatable air mattress.

  “Look, I have no plans to go to the beach,” Kasper jokes.

  “With all the pounding you’ve taken, you can’t keep sleeping on concrete,” says Victor. “Please accept it.”

  Kasper takes the mattress. That night, he sleeps on a softer surface than usual. But the change is short-lived. The next evening, when he returns to the room, the inflatable air mattress has been reduced to limp strips. Not far away, Mr. T is polishing the blade of his machete and seems to be in a particularly good mood.

  Kasper rolls up what’s left of the air mattress and makes it into a sort of pillow. He doesn’t say anything. His prison mates exchange alarmed glances. He pretends not to notice them, but he understands their meaning. Mr. T is a pretty turbulent giant, but the Italian’s no wimp either. The temperature in those few square meters of space is liable to rise dangerously, and so it’s best to avoid those two.

  But Kasper doesn’t react. Not this time. He rests his head on his former mattress and concentrates on his writing.

  Victor Chao loves to write too. “Tell me if you like what I’ve come up with,” he says. “This is the result of deep reflection.”

  His tone is solemn. His expression is serious and focused. He clears his throat and says, “It’s called ‘How to Get Up Better After You Fall.’ ”

  “I’m listening.”

  The former commander of Eagle Force reads Kasper his composition:

  “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.

  When the road gets tough, only the tough can travel it.

  He who knows how to take a punch will last longer.

  He who can fall gracefully will live longer.”

  Victor stops and looks at him. “What do you think?”

  “Well, those seem like…interesting thoughts.” Kasper nods, drawing on the small store of tactful Florentine diplomacy still at his disposal. He approves decisively. “All good common sense.”

  “I knew you’d like them. Listen to the others:

  “The right direction isn’t always the fastest.

  The integrity of the inner spirit must never be destroyed.”

  He pauses, scrutinizes Kasper, and announces, “Now listen to this one.” He inhales as though he’s about to dive into deep water. Then he reads, “Our weaknesses are the real enemy. Fight them every day.” He fills his lungs again for the conclusion: “By the fallen Victor Chao, drummer commander of Eagle Force.”

  He gives Kasper the sheet of paper. “It’s yours. In memory of these days.”

  “You keep it. You can give it to me when you get out of here,” Kasper replies.

  “No, my friend,” the smiling Victor says. “You’ll leave before me. I dreamed it last night.”

  —

  The cell phone vibrates just as Kasper’s finishing dinner. He answers and recognizes her voice at once.

  Patty.

  “Hang on a minute, please,” he says, heading for the farthest corner of the room. It’s just a few meters away, but the distance gives the illusion of an acceptable level of privacy. He turns his back on the others and bends over, making himself small. The phone makes his ear hot.

  Patty explains that she couldn’t leave him with just a letter. She tells him she loves him, but she can’t handle it anymore. Not the way things are. She repeats the things she wrote in her letter: family, friends, the environment she lives and works in—it’s all unbearably difficult.

  Patty talks, he listens. Word after word, pauses, sighs. And he thinks his girlfriend’s right. He thinks everything she’s saying is true. It’s all ruthlessly logical, pitilessly fair.

  He asks only that she give him some time. “Don’t make any rash decisions. Let me resolve this thing. Give me time to get out of here. When I get back to Italy, I’ll explain everything. I’ll leave this world behind me, I swear I will. I want kids too. I want a home and a normal life….”

  For the first time Kasper has the courage to admit the possibility of becoming a different man. A normal man. Who comes home in the evening and sits at the table with his family. Who helps make dinner, run the household, plan budgets and holidays. A man like so many other men, not an explosive military device with delusions of invulnerability.

  “That’s not true, I don’t believe it. I don’t believe you.”

  “Just give me a chance.”

  Patty starts to cry. A chance. What chance? What solutions is he talking about? Her desperate weeping, thous
ands of miles away, is the sound track of his failure.

  Kasper recalls the day he told her, “I may suddenly disappear one day. But wait for me. I’ll always come back.” How vainglorious, reckless, selfish. Now it’s easy for him to point the finger at himself. At his own faded superman image. In the mirror misted over by the breath of misfortune, what he now sees is the profile of a ghost, ever more fleeting. “That’s what I am from now on,” he says aloud. “A ghost and a memory.”

  But Patty has to be free to go if she wants. Free to live her own life.

  “Maybe you’re right,” he suddenly says. “Maybe we should both find our own way. At the moment, mine goes nowhere. Listen, let’s end it here. Don’t call me again. Delete this number. Delete me.”

  He ends the call and squeezes the cell phone shut with both hands, as though he wants to crush it into a mound of dust. He bows his head between his knees and puts his arms around them in a resigned embrace.

  Kill me now, God, is his silent invocation. Strike me with something swift and definitive. With a meteorite, say, a direct hit on Prey Sar, a direct hit on my head.

  —

  And the meteorite promptly arrives.

  —

  “What’s the matter, Italian, your girl left you?”

  Mr. T’s voice quiets the murmur of the other prisoners. The ensuing silence is gaping.

  “Don’t let it get to you. She must have finally realized you aren’t worth a fuck.”

  “You’ve got that wrong, shit-ball,” Kasper replies, getting to his feet.

  His movement is decisive but slow, slow enough for him to spot Victor Chao, who raises both hands to stop him, signaling that he shouldn’t respond to this latest provocation.

  Too late.

  The time has come for Kasper to settle his accounts. All his accounts.