Blood Curse

by Maurizio de Giovanni

  A hoarse sound issued from her throat; even Ricciardi, a man accustomed to horrors of all kinds, would never forget the words that emerged, loud and clear, from the deformed mouth of that girl who had never spoken in her life.

  “’O Padreterno nun è mercante ca pava ’o sabbato.”

  God Almighty’s not a shopkeeper who pays His debts on Saturday.

  All the spectators had turned to look in her direction. There was even a small ripple of applause from people who thought that this was some new element of the play itself. The actors on stage exchanged startled glances.

  Romor took a step forward, squinting and shading his eyes with one hand against the glare of the spotlights as he peered into the orchestra seating. He said: “Mamma? Is that you?”

  Ricciardi stared, petrified, at the ghost of the old woman, reproduced to perfection by Antonietta. He felt something clamp down on his lungs, expelling the air out through his mouth and leaving him breathless.

  There was a violent shout, like the voice of an outraged child. Attilio lunged off the stage and into the audience, eyes bugging out of their sockets, upper lip curled back in a snarl to reveal teeth like those of a ravenous wolf.

  “Damn you, you’re not my mother!”

  Maione leapt up from his seat with surprising agility and seized the actor’s legs, bringing him down face-first. But in spite of the brigadier’s considerable weight, the man continued to claw his way toward the girl, with his fingers curled like talons and a roar issuing from deep in his chest and out his twisted mouth. Antonietta for her part stared at him, repeating Calise’s last words over and over. It was not until Ardisio and Cesarano had piled on as well that Attilio stopped struggling and burst into tears.

  LXII

  Don’t try to tell me that’s my mother. Damned witch, filthy whore. Don’t tell me that she’s blood of my blood.

  I remember my mother perfectly. She might have been older than the mothers of the other children in the poorhouse; but she was also smarter. She used to tell me, I have to work, you can’t stay with me. But I’ll give you everything, much more than the other children who have just a single outfit, a single pencil, a single notebook. Not me . . . My mamma showered me with things. And you know why? Because I’m handsome.

  The nuns like me, the schoolteacher likes me. To hell with my classmates, who locked me in the bathroom that one time and covered me with bruises, kicking and punching me on the body but not the face, knowing that otherwise the bruises would show and they’d get in trouble. To hell with them.

  The bigger I got and the handsomer I became, the more things my mamma gave me. She used to tell me that I was all she had in the world, that she had to make sure I had everything I wanted. And everything is exactly what I wanted, because a person gets used to having fine things. And if I wanted it, Mamma would get it for me. She told me that I was born by accident; not even she knew exactly how it happened. One day, my father would be a sailor who had left us; another day, if I’d been a good boy, he’d be a nobleman; and on yet another day, if I’d made her mad at me, he’d be a stinking drunk. Now that’s my mamma.

  Now I’m grown up and I want to be an actor. Because I’m handsome, did I mention that? Plus I can sing and dance. And if they say I can’t, it’s because they’re jealous, because they’re not as good as I am. Mamma tells me that I can’t let anyone know that I’m her son, otherwise the people won’t pay, and she won’t be able to give me the money. And I go to see her secretly, at night, so she can tell me what it is I need to do. The money—who knows where it comes from? Mamma tells me that the porter woman, the idiot girl’s mamma, is putting her money in the bank for the idiot girl. And she told that lady that they’re equal partners, each one for her own child. But that lady didn’t understand; maybe she’s just as much of an idiot as her idiot daughter. Not me. I’m handsome, Mamma looks at me and smiles. And she tells me what to do, what to say.

  So don’t try and tell me that witch is my mamma.

  I remember what my mamma told me. And I do it, word for word. When I can’t talk to her, that’s when I get mixed up. And I get things wrong.

  With Emma, I did everything that my mamma told me to do. She’d been looking for her for such a long time: a suitable lady. Then one day she told me that she had found her, that a cousin of mine I’d never met had brought the lady to her, a cousin who doesn’t even know I exist. And Mamma prepared everything, down to the last detail, the way she always did. And she told me where I was supposed to wait and what I was supposed to say. And that I should be even more careful than usual, because Emma could never knew who I was—that I was my mamma’s son, in other words. Because, as you know, we only have one mamma; if you need help, she’s the one you turn to. Otherwise, what are mammas for?

  So then I become Emma’s lover. That’s something I know how to do; it’s something that comes natural to me. Every night I go to Mamma’s place. She leaves the door open for me, I climb the stairs after the porter woman has doused the lamp, which I can see from the street. And she tells me what to do next. Emma falls in love with me. She can’t live without me anymore. I make love to her; that’s something I like. Mamma makes the other arrangements, making sure Emma takes care of the money and her stupid old husband, too: we’ll take everything but his underpants, Mamma tells me. We’ll be the winners of this card game. And we’ll take all their money and run, Mamma says.

  Emma is a man-woman, Mamma says. She drives and she smokes; she could easily get into an accident in that red car she drives. For now, let’s just get the money and get out of here. We’ll see about that accident later.

  Mamma laughs and caresses me. I like it when she laughs. It means everything’s okay.

  Then one night Emma comes to the theater, all puffy from crying. That’s it, she says, it’s over, I can never see you again. I hardly know what to say to her; it’s the kind of thing Mamma usually explains to me. I need to go see her, but then I can’t because the porter woman doesn’t turn out the lamp. That idiot daughter of hers must have gone to sleep late. I tell myself I’ll go the next day and ask Mamma what’s happening. She’ll explain, wait and see, that mamma of mine is so smart. That’s just how we are, the two of us: perfect. I’m handsome, she’s smart.

  But when I get there, who do I find? This old witch. She looks just like my mamma, true, but it can’t be her because instead of talking about me, her son, she starts talking about Emma’s baby. She says that where she was unable to succeed with me, she can make it work with the baby, make sure he lives a rich life with an important last name. And I say to Mamma, to this witch, I say: But why? Are you saying I can’t have an important last name? That I can’t become rich and famous? And she tells me no, that fate pays you back sooner or later. Those who do evil sooner or later are paid back for it, by God.

  And she tells me, me of all people, that the baby is more important, that my father told her so in a dream. You understand? My father! In a dream! And now you have the nerve to try to tell me that that was my mother? The woman who gave me a different surname so that I could grow up to be famous? Never! That’s not my mother!

  And I ask her what I’m going to get out of it. This time, nothing, she answers. And she’s weeping as she says it. Maybe another day. Maybe we’ll find another one like Emma. After all, Naples is full of bored wealthy women looking for a lover to keep. God Almighty, she tells me, isn’t a merchant who pays His debts on Saturday.

  And I kicked her out, kicked that witch right out, out from inside my mother. I split her head open, to let the evil out. And I kicked her all around the room. The damned witch. That blood, all that blood: not the blood of my blood. My mother always thought only of me. That couldn’t be her, not if she now preferred an unborn bastard to me. Now I’m waiting. You’ll see, sooner or later my mamma will come back and make everything right. That’s right, she really is blood of my blood.

  LXIII

  It took a good long time to make Garzo understand what had happened. They found
him out of breath in the courtyard of headquarters, accompanied by his clerk, Ponte, with an even more anguished look on his face than usual. He’d hurried downstairs to find out more about Romor’s arrest, news of which had beaten them back there. And Garzo wasn’t alone; a small crowd had gathered in the street, in front of the entrance, to get a glimpse of the actor and murderer who had brought the play at the Teatro dei Fiorentini to a halt.

  The deputy chief of police displayed a level of theatrical skill that Ricciardi would never have suspected: he shifted in a few seconds from worry to relief, and then to astonishment at the sight of the Serra di Arpajas, who had followed the police patrol in the same car, and finally to anger with the look he shot at the commissario.

  Maione did a brilliant job straightening things out, even as he was dusting off his trousers following the struggle with the killer.

  “Everything’s fine, Dotto’. This gentleman here is the murderer in the Calise case. We owe a debt of thanks to the professor and the signora, who went to the theater tonight expressly to corner him.”

  Garzo went through one last lightning-fast change of expression, now displaying a look of authoritative satisfaction. With a slight and still circumspect bow to the Serras, he turned and addressed the two policemen.

  “If you please, in my office, Ricciardi and Maione. Then I’ll bid Signore and Signora Serra di Arpaja a good night, if they’d be so kind as to wait just a few minutes.”

  Perfect manners, as always, thought Ricciardi with a twinge of admiration. The beginning of the conversation was stormy: Garzo wanted to know why, after he had given explicit orders that all contact with the Serra di Arpaja family was to take place only and exclusively through him, he found them in the courtyard of police headquarters so late at night. Involved in a police operation, what’s more! What if the professor or, worse, the signora had been hurt?

  Ricciardi, with an Olympian show of calm, replied that every detail had been planned out in advance, and that the plan had been designed to clear the professor’s name once and for all. That he had come to an understanding with the professor that laying the blame on Iodice would have lent support to theories of the family’s involvement in Calise’s murder, which is how the press would see it as well. A suicide, after all, was not the same as a confession; and the dead woman’s most assiduous visitor had still been the Signora Serra di Arpaja, as everyone knew. And since Ricciardi had come to the conclusion, as the result of an interview, that Emma’s lover, Romor, knew more than he was admitting, they had decided that if they subjected him to a state of particular tension, he might well betray himself. Which is exactly what had happened.

  Maione and Ricciardi had concocted this whole song and dance that morning, as the early morning sun illuminated the piazza beneath the office window and the factory workers headed for the buses that would take them to work in Bagnoli. They had no backup plan. Their only hope was that this first one would succeed.

  And just what had this Romor said, during the interview? What exactly, Garzo asked, had made Ricciardi suspect him?

  The commissario described with honesty his conversation with Attilio the night before. The fact that he knew that Calise had been murdered at night, something that the press had never reported. And Calise’s propensity for speaking in proverbs, despite the fact that Emma had never told him about it. And how had he, Ricciardi, come to know these things?

  In his mind’s eye, the commissario once again saw the broken neck, the crushed cranium, the streak of blood. But it was the memory of Antonietta’s voice that made him shiver. Petrone had told him everything, he said. He felt a sharp glance from Maione on the back of his neck and hoped that the brigadier wouldn’t ask him for an explanation afterward.

  Garzo was finally placated. He smiled and said: Nice job. We did it again. Meritorious action. If it hadn’t been for the deadline I imposed on the case, we’d still be here frittering time away thinking that Serra di Arpaja was the killer. You’re talented, no question about it, but you need direction.

  Without looking at him, Ricciardi was able to forestall Maione’s vehement and indignant reaction by laying a hand on his arm and asking permission to head back to his office so he could collect and transcribe Romor’s full confession. Garzo got to his feet gleefully and, amid the scent of fresh flowers, which he always made sure to have on his desk, he went to welcome the Serra di Arpaja family.

  “Commissa’, I bring you the best wishes of the two Iodice women. They were in the crowd outside, but I know you don’t like that sort of thing. I told them they should go home rather than sticking around, that you’d be working late. The wife said that you’re a saint, that her husband’s soul sends you benedictions from the afterlife and so on and so forth—the usual things, in other words. The mother sends her wishes for your well-being; she said that in her opinion you’re unwell or perhaps you have some inner pain, that God Almighty helps people like you, if they’re willing to let themselves be helped.”

  Ricciardi grimaced, without looking away from his office window.

  “Thank you for sparing me another lecture. I think we’ve had quite enough fate for one evening, don’t you agree? Listen to me: fate doesn’t exist. What exists are men and women and the sheer courage it takes to go on living or choose to quit this life, the way Iodice did. And those who live in a sort of dream state, letting the currents carry them where they will. That’s what exists.”

  Maione shook his head.

  “What a shame, though, Commissa’, to hear you talk like that. Not even solving a case and sending a stinking lunatic to the criminal asylum is enough to bring a smile to your face, is it?”

  Ricciardi didn’t turn around.

  “Do you know the one thing you can take away from a man who lives on what he sees when he looks out the window? The only thing you can take away from him?”

  “No, Commissa’. What’s the one thing?”

  A brief sigh.

  “The window, Raffaele. You can take away his window.”

  Garzo was relieved, and more than just a little, by the demeanor of the professor and his wife. They looked tired, tested by the experience. Witnessing such a violent scene had probably proved to be more harrowing than expected, the deputy chief of police thought to himself. But they’d soon get over it.

  Actually, what Garzo wanted first and foremost was to be sure that the influential academic wouldn’t be lodging any complaints with the authorities that he regularly had dealings with. If complaints were likely to ensue, then Garzo would distance himself from Ricciardi’s initiative; otherwise he’d make it his own and take full credit for it himself.

  All that Serra di Arpaja wanted, for his part, was to get out of there as quickly as possible and begin forgetting. His wife, in the face of Romor’s violent outburst, had stepped backward into the darkness of the box and she had bumped against him as he stepped forward to protect her. She’d stood alongside him and squeezed his hand. It wasn’t much: just a beginning. He had used the handkerchief that he was pulling out of his pocket to dry her tears.

  The same pocket in which he was carrying both his pistol and the weight of the decision he’d come to: if Emma did decide to run away with Romor, he would shoot himself in the head, right in front of her. And then they’d see how easy it was to build a new life together, a life built on the foundation of his blood. This was the desperate last act he’d planned, for when all other avenues had been exhausted and he had nowhere else to turn. He remembered his visit to Calise, to try to persuade her to free Emma from her obsession. He remembered the open door, all the blood spread across the floor, his headlong flight, hoping that no one had seen him go in; the certainty that it was all over now, that there was no more hope.

  But now he and Emma were going to have a child; perhaps, for the good of the baby, she’d once again begin to appreciate the security that only he, and their lawful matrimony, could provide her.

  His wife’s thoughts were far, far away, mulling over the days she’d spe
nt believing that she couldn’t live without a man who had revealed himself to be a criminal lunatic. She doubted herself, and her judgment. Calise and her son had taught her, with their tragedy, just how much sheer damage motherhood can inflict.

  She brushed her belly with one hand, while that idiot functionary whose name she couldn’t even remember yammered on with her husband about some uninteresting acquaintance they had in common. But what if the child inherited its father’s defects? And had the grandmother’s actions been acts of love or extreme selfishness?

  She saw it all in a flash. Emma suddenly understood that the old woman’s blood, spilled with such brutal fury, was the same blood as that of the child she now carried in her womb. In a certain sense, blood of her blood.

  Perhaps, she mused, her unanswered questions were her punishment, the price she’d have to pay. A life sentence.

  LXIV

  Once he’d concluded an investigation, a sense of emptiness always lingered in Ricciardi’s heart. For days the thought of the murder, the grief-stricken indignation of the murdered soul, the various possible solutions to the case invaded his thoughts, his every breath. The commissario, without realizing it, never gave up, not even when he was eating or sleeping or washing or having a bowel movement. It was a noise that became the background of one’s very existence, like the wheels of a train or the rhythm of a horse’s hooves; after a while you can’t even hear them anymore.

  When the enigma was solved, it left a crater behind, a crater that he circled warily, having lost the thing that allowed him to distract himself from his solitude. That was when he took refuge at the window, watching the everyday miracle of a left-handed embroidery stitch, or that same left hand preparing dinner; dreaming of a different life, fantasizing about a different self, a self that might have waved or even chatted through the open window.