The Namesake

by Conor Fitzgerald

‘I am not sure I like it. I would have preferred to choose from the menu.’

  Blume stripped a crust off a piece of bread and crunched it between his teeth. ‘No menu here.’ He pressed the flat of his knife on the mozzarella, bleeding milk across his plate.

  The waiter came back, stared wordlessly at Konrad, then removed his mozzarella and tomato. The next course was homemade pasta and San Marzano tomato sauce with plenty of basil.

  Once again, Konrad sat immobile, ignoring his food.

  ‘No wonder you’re thin,’ said Blume. ‘What’s wrong that you’re not eating your pasta?’

  ‘I must not be hungry.’

  ‘Then leave the fucking bread alone.’

  Konrad took his hand out of the bread basket and tucked it guiltily under the table.

  ‘That’s better,’ said Blume. ‘Now eat up. And let’s get some business out of the way.’

  ‘What business?’

  ‘Your colleagues saw you in the company of an Ndrangheta boss. Domenico Megale, to be precise.’

  Konrad looked so utterly shocked that Blume burst out laughing. ‘I can’t quite work out when you’re trying to be funny, but there’s no mistaking when you’re shocked. It seems you wore a disguise so bad they want to use it as a sort of reverse example.’

  ‘As soon as Weissmann called me, I realized there was a good chance they had seen me.’

  ‘Why the look of shock, then?’

  ‘I am only very surprised they should have told you this. After all, who are you?’

  ‘Don’t try to turn the questioning around.’

  ‘Are you particularly expert?’

  ‘No,’ said Blume.

  ‘Then you must have a direct interest in this. What is the link between you and Megale?’

  ‘The questions are still flowing in the wrong direction, Konrad. I have already levelled with you. Time to reciprocate. Give me something I can put in a report.’

  ‘I am observant,’ said Konrad. ‘I saw immediately that you have no ring on your finger, but you have a girlfriend.’

  ‘She is above all a colleague,’ said Blume.

  ‘Tell me about your relationship with this woman.’

  ‘Fuck off.’

  Konrad blinked a few times as if he was trying to compute something. His long nose, pointed chin and sad mouth gave him the appearance of a mistreated horse. Eventually, the cogs of his logic stopped whirring and he delivered his finding. ‘If there is a woman in your life, then you must be happy,’ he told Blume. ‘But you are running away from her.’

  The suddenly personal turn in the conversation disconcerted Blume. The least he could do was regain his function as the person asking the questions. ‘Do you have a girl?’

  It was unlikely, surely, but women were strange. Sometimes they became overwhelmed with such intense feelings of pity for spectacularly ugly men that they ended up marrying them.

  ‘Not any more,’ said Konrad. ‘Not for a long time.’

  ‘That can be good. It gives you time to concentrate on your work,’ said Blume. He did not believe this for a moment. All the extra hours made available by not being in a relationship were filled obsessing on what was so wrong with you that women could not bear to be near you. Then as soon as you found someone, you began to long for the solitude you thought you hated.

  Blume steered the conversation back towards pertinent issues. ‘Have you found some connection between the Camorra and the Ndrangheta? Is that what this is about? They both specialize in poisoning the earth, which is your area of expertise, right?’

  ‘It is one of my areas of expertise,’ said Konrad. ‘I have been engaged in a long investigation into toxic dumping, and that involved the Camorra, of course. The investigation is now over, prosecutions have been made. I am an acknowledged authority by now. There is talk of me writing the preface to Saviano’s next book. As an expert in Italian crime, I obviously know a good deal about the Ndrangheta, but I have no evidence of a direct connection between the organizations.’

  ‘What about the visit to Megale’s house?’

  ‘Did they see me leaving or entering?’

  Blume racked his brain. He couldn’t remember what he had been told. ‘Both, I imagine.’

  ‘But you don’t know. I will admit that I have been privately studying the Ndrangheta a little, and maybe talking with an exponent of that organization.’

  ‘Well, that’s a start,’ said Blume.

  ‘I am very surprised at what I have found.’

  ‘And what is that?’

  ‘It is a very effective and quiet organization and extremely efficient. I thought Italians could never be that organized.’

  ‘That’s because you’ve been dealing with the Camorra. They are chaotic,’ said Blume. ‘With 100,000 men they can’t control Naples, but with around 30,000 the Ndrangheta controls Europe, Australia and fifteen African states as well as Central and South America, and has a turnover about the same as the GDP of Slovakia, or Slovenia . . . or Serbia. I can never remember which.’

  ‘The obvious conclusion is that Italians are organized only in crime,’ said Konrad. ‘I think that is undeniable.’

  ‘That sort of facile conclusion is why you Germans are so useless as investigators,’ said Blume. ‘The Ndrangheta has taken over East Germany better than the Soviets ever did. They own all the seafront houses in the Baltic, they control half the municipalities in the Ruhr valley and all the drug money in all your cities except for Berlin where they allow the Moroccans to sell hashish, on a franchise basis. They import metals for your industries, take out the waste, and clean the money. They mediate between the Russians and your industries, and they help capitalize your banks. They know how to wait, to accept sacrifice, to tough it out, to hide wealth, to remain mute, help each other, bide their time. They can do that better than any German criminals, and they can do it better than your politicians and businessmen. They own you.’

  ‘You sound almost proud of what they do.’

  ‘Italians are better at self-sacrifice, discipline and savings than anyone else in Europe and, above all, they – we – are extremely organized. The problem is that we divide into units that are too small. We organize into families instead of neighbourhoods, neighbourhoods instead of towns, towns instead of provinces, provinces instead of regions, and regions instead of a country. The same goes for our industries. They’re always too small. We have the same problem in the police. Basically, we should have just one force. But we are an organized people. Just look at an Italian travelling. Neat, clean, everything planned, budgeted. The northern Europeans are chaotic, dirty, dishevelled, lost, drunk, loutish . . . As for your police and their efforts to stop drug smuggling, words fail me. Eat your lunch, what’s the matter with you: are you some sort of fucking anorexic?’

  ‘Dioxins,’ said Konrad.

  ‘What?’

  ‘This food. It is probably all poisoned. We are in Campania. I know about this region. People burn rubbish in the streets and fill the air with dioxins from burning plastics. The Camorra has filled the land with heavy metals and maybe even nuclear materials. You keep telling me the food was produced locally. But I don’t want to eat produce grown from the toxic soils of Campania. These are filthy people, ein Dreckvolk, and I do not want their food.’

  ‘You ate the bread.’

  A gratifying look of panic crossed across Konrad’s face.

  The waiter, who had taken back Konrad’s untouched plates one after the other, now came over to find out what was going on.

  ‘Non si sente bene,’ Blume explained. ‘No, figurati, il cibo era ottimo. Poi, è un tedesco, quindi non capisce un cazzo né della buona cucina, né delle buone maniere.’

  Konrad had pulled out a notebook and was writing something down. In the middle of all Konrad’s extravagantly curly hair was a great bald patch where the freckles looked like liver spots. From above, Konrad looked like an old man, and this pleased Blume immensely.

  Konrad paused in his writing for a mome
nt to look up and smile at Blume, saying, quite mildly, ‘You forget I understand when you speak Italian and insult me to the waiter.’

  ‘I didn’t forget. I just wanted to make sure the waiter understood. What are you writing?’

  ‘Some of what you said is interesting. I am making a note. One of the reasons I am good at my job is I am willing to learn.’ Konrad put away his pen and notebook.

  ‘Konrad, just tell me why you visited that Ndrangheta boss. Personally, I don’t give a damn. In fact, if it leads to your imprisonment or death, that’s fine by me. It’s between you and your superiors. I just need something to take back so it looks like I did some work here. You get that, don’t you?’

  ‘You are so full of suspicions but do you . . . do you know anything about me, Commissioner?’

  ‘I am rapidly forming some ideas.’

  ‘Years ago I was on my way to becoming a professor or an archaeologist,’ said Konrad, ‘but I switched universities and became a federal policeman instead.’ He downed a glass of wine, then cleared his throat. ‘My Latin and Greek are excellent,’ he continued. ‘My Latin professor once asked me to explain my method for learning vocabulary so fast, so that he might teach it to his other students.’ He paused and peered at Blume, then shook his head sadly. ‘I don’t think you have the right sort of mind for my technique. You lack patience and humility, as well as a classical background, of course.’

  ‘You’re making me feel really small.’

  ‘But I think even you may know that Ndrangheta is a Greek word, it comes from andrangathos, which means “courageous man”.’

  ‘Are you absolutely sure about that?’ said Blume. ‘You’re convinced you are not talking bullshit?’

  ‘Of course I am sure. Calabria was part of Magna Graecia and ancient Greek words are still spoken there.’

  ‘So you’re telling me Ndrangheta is an ancient name?’ asked Blume.

  ‘Yes. I am assuming you have not studied these things. Obviously, you have no knowledge of ancient Greek.’

  ‘Italian kids still do Greek and Latin, at least if they go to a Liceo Classico, which I did. There’s nothing ancient Greek about those Calabrian thugs. Don’t believe anything they say. Even their name is a lie. The organization you have placed back in the mists of time basically came into being in 1975. So, once again, you have understood nothing.’

  ‘I hate to correct you . . .’

  ‘Then don’t. It’s all made up. There’s no ancient custom. When I was a student, the name was hardly even used. It doesn’t date back much further than the War – you know, the one you guys started and lost.’

  ‘Italy lost first,’ said Konrad.

  ‘Italy was misrepresented by its leaders, and changed sides. And I was speaking as an American there.’

  ‘I have studied the rites of the Ndrangheta. Some of them are based on ancient custom.’

  ‘It’s all bullshit,’ said Blume. ‘All those rites are taken from the Freemasons, another bunch of bullshit artists. This Ndrangheta mythology was basically invented yesterday. Like I said, until the 1980s they were just called the Calabrian Mafia. For a while it was called the Maffia, with two “f’’s; before that, people just called them the Camorra, or bandits.’

  ‘So they do go back in time.’

  ‘Sure they go back in time,’ said Blume. ‘Everything and everyone goes back in time. We all come from somewhere.’

  23

  Locri

  Robertino awoke as his mother was making lunch, and, noting she was not within touching distance, began to make his displeasure known through a mixture of griping and straining efforts to escape from the trap of his baby bouncer.

  His mother seemed to be more stressed than usual by his antics, and sensing this, the child raised the stakes, adding cries to his grunting efforts to break free.

  ‘Please, not now. Ruggiero!’ she called. ‘Come in here! Pick up your brother. Keep him quiet for ten minutes, would you?’

  Despite arching his back and going red from the strain of trying to break out of his bouncer, it turned out the last thing in the world Robertino wanted was to be removed from it, at least not by his brother. Griping became screaming.

  ‘Shut that child up!’ shouted his mother. ‘Get him out of here.’

  ‘But he’s hungry,’ protested Ruggiero.

  ‘What the hell do you think I am doing, standing at this stove for the fun of it?’

  Ruggiero eventually found a game that Robertino liked, which consisted of singing pee-poh-pah-dah on a sliding scale and touching him on the forehead, nose, chin and tummy, over and over and over again. By the time lunch was ready, the infant had dissolved into peals of laughter, which quickly became infectious and lifted the mood.

  As she finished spoon-feeding Robertino a pap made out of meat stock and semolina, his mother said, ‘Your father will be here in a few days. He can’t say when. He’ll sort things out, if anything needs sorting out, of course.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Because something is going on. Yesterday Zia Rosa was in a panic about Enrico not coming home. I tried not to let her infect me with her fear, but I was worried, too.’

  When Ruggiero had arrived home the evening before, this mother had been studiously casual about his temporary disappearance. He had been at once hurt by her indifference and proud of her strength.

  ‘It was bad for Enrico. Not me.’

  ‘Was it?’ His mother was fond enough of Enrico, though she tended to use him as a yardstick with which to measure the superiority of her own son.

  ‘Who else was there?’ asked his mother.

  ‘Pepè, Luca, Giovanni and Rocco.’

  ‘What did they tell you?’

  ‘Nothing, Mamma. It was all about football.’

  ‘You say they treated you well and Enrico poorly? Who is “they”?’

  ‘The others. My friends,’ said Ruggiero.

  ‘Friends,’ she said contemptuously. ‘The only friend you should trust is an ex-enemy, because then you have the measure of him. What was said?’

  ‘Nothing was said.’

  ‘Did you feel isolated?’

  ‘A little. But that’s just part of being a Curmaci, isn’t it?’

  His mother spooned up semolina from Robertino’s chin and deftly dropped it into his mouth. Robertino made slow fish-like movements with his mouth, still tasting the semolina broth, interested in, but wary of, the flavour. ‘One day, you’re at the market buying some fresh spinach, and you see someone you sort of know, and you suddenly realize he is standing on his own in the middle of the crowd. The flow of people past him divides too early to avoid him, as if he were a large obstacle rather than a single person.’

  ‘Who are we talking about, Mamma?’

  ‘Someone you never knew. But it could be anyone. Then as you watch him, you realize no one has mentioned his name in weeks. Then, one day he’s gone, and you are not surprised. Either his body is found in Filadelfia with no face left on it after a shotgun blast, or he disappears from the face of the earth. You wonder why he didn’t see it coming, but the answer is that he did. But he could not think what to do, and could not imagine leaving.’

  ‘Papà is not like that.’

  ‘Of course not. He’s far stronger.’

  ‘I don’t think I’d be like that either,’ said Ruggiero. ‘I’d fight rather than wait like a lamb for the slaughter.’

  ‘If you couldn’t fight, what then?’

  ‘Would I run?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘My last phone call with your father was . . . strange.’

  Ruggiero shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He wanted to hear, but she was drawing him into the intimate sphere of husband and wife, a place he had not been before. It sounded like she was looking for advice, and he was not sure he could give it.

  ‘We have a sort of code . . .’ She took his arm and stroked it. With a smile to lessen the significance of his action, he drew hi
s arm away.

  ‘Sorry. You’re getting too old for my caresses,’ she said.

  ‘It’s just that . . . Tell me about your code.’

  ‘There isn’t much to it. Papà said all we needed were a few key words and a tone. The words themselves don’t matter. For instance, if he mentioned the toy box in Robertino’s room, it indicated urgency.’

  The box had used to be his, and before that his father’s. It was bright red with sharp edges, and it snapped shut like a shark over bait whenever you leaned into it to pull out a toy.

  ‘Did he mention the box?’

  ‘Yes. And he warned me both about the authorities and about our neighbours. But then he reminded me he was on his way down in a few days. He said that plainly. Then we spoke of meals in a way that made it sound like code, but it wasn’t. In the end the messages were so mixed I couldn’t understand what he was telling me.’

  ‘Anyone listening in will have picked up that he was coding messages, even if they didn’t understand the meaning,’ said Ruggiero.

  ‘Listen to you, the expert,’ said his mother with affection, instinctively reaching out to caress his arm again, then stopping herself. ‘He often has fun like that, teasing any judicial police that might be listening in, but in this case he wanted anyone, not just the police, to be suspicious and confused.’

  ‘So his message was that he can’t pass on messages.’

  ‘Which means he’s worried about more than just the police, and he wants us to be, too. And then yesterday, you . . .’

  ‘That was nothing, Mamma. But he’ll be here soon. All we have to do is wait.’

  Ruggiero trusted his father, and believed in his strength, but sometimes had to concentrate a little before he could call up a clear picture of his face. When his father did come home from Germany, he was always an unhealthy white colour. His clothes smelled foreign, and he sometimes seemed to have a slight difficulty with speaking Italian, exaggerating the dialect when talking to Ruggiero, but soon running out of things to say. Then he would start talking about the funny things the Germans said and believed, and he would praise their cars and roads. His father and mother would retire into their bedroom, speak in private tones, then the volume would drop still further, and yet he could still hear them hushing each other and stifling sounds that were already muted.