Everyone in Their Place

by Maurizio de Giovanni

  Now, as he walked hastily through a veil of heat that made the façades of the buildings shimmer, Ricciardi saw the man standing motionless, vivid, his face swollen with bruises, his shattered forehead dripping blood into his eyes, his teeth broken. From his mouth, a black gash in the middle of his face, came an infinite litany, an endless repetition of a single phrase, surprisingly clear:

  “Buffoonish clowns, you’re nothing but four buffoonish clowns. Four to one, for shame, for shame, you buffoonish clowns.”

  They reached their destination just as the church bells were summoning the faithful to the nine o’clock mass. The little piazza still showed the signs of the festivities that had taken place there the night before, with a heap of burned wood in the center of the square and crumpled paper littering every corner. Ricciardi shot Maione a quizzical glance, and he explained:

  “It was the festa of Santa Maria Regina, Commissa’. It’s a tradition, this is the month for the festas. Look at that, all the brown paper cones, what those scoundrels must have gobbled up last night!”

  Directly across from the church was the front door of an ancient aristocratic palazzo. It was obvious that the crime had taken place there: if nothing else, from the small murmuring crowd that had gathered there awaiting news, as was customary. The church bell went on ringing but no one was moving off to mass. Mass, after all, was said every Sunday, while a murder was much rarer. Perhaps.

  The arrival of the police sent a shiver of discomfort and curiosity through the mass of people; everyone wanted to see what would happen, and everyone had something to hide. Maione went first, pushing his way roughly through the crowd.

  The front door stood slightly ajar. On the threshold, screening the interior from intrusive eyes, stood a little man in livery. As soon as he saw Maione coming, he greeted him with relief.

  “At last, at last, please, come right in, this is where the horrible thing happened.”

  His voice was shrill, almost feminine; from the midst of the crowd a young man imitated it mockingly and here and there people laughed. The man seemed not to notice: from under his oversized hat, which settled down around the crown of his head until it rested on the base of his nose, he was sweating profusely. He looked upset. Maione asked him:

  “And who are you?”

  The man stood to attention and snapped a salute that in any other context would have been comical.

  “Giuseppe Sciarra, at your service, Brigadie’, building doorman, in the employ of their graces, the Duke and Duchess of Musso di Camparino.”

  The effect of the pompous introduction was spoiled by the ridiculous high-pitched voice, once again promptly mocked by the anonymous comedian in the crowd who set off another round of laughter, this time more widespread. Maione spun around with an angry glare:

  “So we think it’s funny, eh? Then let’s see who wants to come down to police headquarters and do their laughing there. Camarda, take some first and last names in that crowd, I’m really feeling like having a laugh myself. And I laugh hardest when I see someone crying.”

  A worried silence fell and a few people backed away. Ricciardi spoke to the little man.

  “I’m Commissario Ricciardi. Let us through.”

  Sciarra doffed his hat, uncovering a thinning head of hair and to some extent emphasizing the prominence of the nose that practically filled his face.

  “Come right in, Commissa’, if you please; in the courtyard you’ll find my wife, the maid, and the housekeeper, and they’ll show you to the place where . . . where it happened, that is. I’ll stay here and make sure no one gets in.”

  But Ricciardi wanted to have everyone present who might be able to provide information.

  “No, I’d like to have you accompany us, actually. Don’t worry, the policemen will stay here, by the front door.”

  The little man made a face; he would gladly have skipped the chance to return to what must have been an awful sight.

  “At your orders, Commissa’. If you please, I’ll lead the way.”

  V

  Water. With this horrible heat the plants need lots of water. All of a year’s work, all the tender care and hard work can be wiped out if you forget to make sure they have plenty of water in these pitiless days. The sun, such a necessary ally in other seasons, becomes your worst enemy: it sucks the life out of the leaves, just as it does out of the muscles of human beings.

  And you, my sweet little friends, can’t cry out for help: if it weren’t for me, you’d die, singed, desiccated, your branches extending toward the heavens and begging for a refreshing drop of rain. It’s been seventy-six days today since it last rained. Seventy-six days that your lives have been in my hands: leaf by leaf, bud by bud.

  I am the one who waters you, and I water you in the morning, before the sun gets too high and starts ranging across the terrace in search of damp spots to bake dry. I wish I could sleep, or even lie sprawled out in my bed, eyes wide open, thinking. Remembering. Planning things that may prove impossible. But I love you, my dear silent friends, and love, as everyone knows, means sacrifice. So I get out of bed, I get the bucket, and with trip after trip down to the fountain, I give you the gift of another day of life. None of you can move, your place is here on this terrace. And I who can move, I take life and give it to you.

  It’s wonderful to see the way you thank me, with new scents and new flowers. And you give life yourselves, just listen to the insects, the festival of buzzing in the air. This is the miracle, life as it multiplies, dividing itself into a thousand parts. Every one of them in its place, every one of them playing its part.

  It’s a marvelous thing to be able to give life. You become God. And you’re God when you take life, too.

  Ricciardi and Maione, after giving orders to Camarda and Cesarano not to let anyone in or out through the street door, followed the tiny doorman into the courtyard. Along with his diminutive stature, shrill voice, and enormous nose, the way the man walked was ridiculous too: he took short, bouncy steps, like a series of halfhearted leaps; his oversized uniform billowed on his back and with every movement his hat slipped to one side or another, only to be straightened with both hands, the tips of his fingers protruding from too-long sleeves.

  The courtyard was hardly as vast as those that Ricciardi had seen in other aristocratic palazzi; then he realized that the space was restricted by a huge flower bed in the middle of it, planted with hydrangeas. Noticing that the policemen were admiring the flowers, Sciarra said without slowing his pace:

  “The flowers, eh? He’s obsessed, the son of the duke . . . that is, the young master is quite fond of them, he insists that we have flowers all year round.”

  Ricciardi took a look around, making a mental note to undertake a more thorough examination of the place later, and noticed four large columns, one at each corner of the courtyard. Quite handy, in a pinch they could offer shade and shelter. To an overheated tradesman, for instance. Or to a murderer.

  On a line with the street door, but at the far side of the courtyard, a broad staircase led upstairs. Just inside the entrance, on the right, was a little doorless room containing a small table and a chair. Maione spoke to the doorman:

  “Is that where you sit, when you’re on duty?”

  “Yessir, Brigadie’, exactly so. Whenever the street door is open, I sit there without fail.”

  At the foot of the staircase two women were walking toward them; one was enormous, both tall and broad, with a white apron over a light blue smock, hair tied up into a bun behind her head. Her face was pale, with a patch of red on her neck, and she was wringing her hands; there was no mistaking the fact that she was overwrought. The other one, younger, was skinny and angular, and she wore the black work dress of a scullery maid; she was sobbing, dabbing constantly at her eyes with a filthy handkerchief.

  “This is Signora Concetta, the housekeeper,” said Sciarra, making the introduction by extending his dangling sleeve in the direction of the huge woman; “and this is my wife Mariuccia, who cleans
house.”

  Maione touched his visor.

  “Brigadier Maione, from police headquarters. Commissario Ricciardi, commander of the mobile squad. Concetta: and your last name would be?”

  The big woman replied in a whisper. She had been instructed always to speak in a low voice in the palazzo and, overwrought though she might be, she could hardly break the habit.

  “Concetta Sivo, at your service. As Peppino just told you, I’m the housekeeper here in the palazzo. Her grace the duchess . . . I was the one who found her, that is, who saw the deed that had been done. The horrible thing.”

  At the housekeeper’s words, the maid burst into another series of hiccuping sobs. Her husband touched her arm, as if to support her. Ricciardi broke in.

  “I’ll need all three of you to remain on call, make sure none of you leaves the palazzo for any reason whatever. By the way, are there any other exits besides the street door? Tradesmen’s doors, cellars, any other points of egress, in other words.”

  “No, no, Commissa’, no other exit. You either leave by the main door or inside you remain. Unless you jump out a window, but the lowest one must be twenty feet off the ground.”

  Ricciardi raised his eyes, and as he looked up the stairs, he sighed imperceptibly.

  “Well, let’s go up. Signora Sivo, show us what you found.”

  The jasmine hedge is a wonderful thing in the summer. It’s not just the perfume, though I could never tire of inhaling it, sweet and light as it is, a smell that stays in your nose for an hour after you’ve left. It’s the color, that dark green punctuated with white, the little pointed leaves. I like the fact that it’s thick, I like that it covers the terrace from view, that it ensures that from the outside world, even from the bell tower of the church across the way, the picture of this house is one of greenery and flowers. That everyone may think it’s a beautiful place. A place without sorrow. That no one may know that this is a place filled with death.

  After the first flight of stairs, there was a gate on the right enclosing the entrance to the main floor, and behind it could be seen the open door. The gate swung ajar, and from one of its bars hung a heavy chain, with a padlock fastened shut at one end.

  On the left, the staircase continued upward. Ricciardi asked: “Where does it lead, this staircase? What’s upstairs?”

  The housekeeper replied under her breath:

  “First there are our bedrooms, mine, then the doorman’s and the maid’s with their children, four little ones. Then above that is the apartment of the young master, the son of the duke.”

  “Then who lives on this floor?”

  “Only the duke and the duchess live here. The duke is bedridden, he’s very sick. His bedroom is at the far end of the palazzo, all the way down, while the duchess’s bedroom is on this side.”

  There was shade on the landing but the heat was intense all the same. The bells had finally stopped ringing; the silence was now broken only by a woman’s voice, singing somewhere in the distance. Ricciardi asked:

  “Where did you find the dead body?”

  At the sound of the words “dead body” Sciarra’s wife sobbed even louder into her handkerchief. Her husband gripped her shoulder with one hand, his hat askew over his forehead. The housekeeper replied:

  “Right here, in the first room. The anteroom, really. On the little sofa.”

  “Have you touched anything? Is it all just as you found it?”

  The woman furrowed her brow.

  “No, I don’t think I did. That is, I touched the duchess, I called her. Then I called Mariuccia, and Mariuccia called Peppino. We tried to wake her up, then we saw . . . we realized . . . well, now you just come in and you’ll see what we saw.”

  Ricciardi looked toward the half-open door. It was one thing to run into the Deed by chance, while walking down the street or by happening to pass by the site of an accident; it was quite another matter to go looking for it intentionally. This was the real sacrifice that he made: choosing to take onto himself all that pain and grief, allowing the last terrible shudder of departing life to coil around him and through him like a bloody mist.

  He nodded to Maione; the brigadier was accustomed to the commissario’s working methods, which never varied. He’d enter the scene of the murder alone, he’d stay there for a few minutes, and then he’d emerge. Simple. As for Maione, he needed only to guard the door, and make sure that no one else came into the room.

  He’d never be willing to be the first to enter the scene of a murder with the commissario; nothing on earth could persuade him to do it. Maione might be a big, strong brigadier who wasn’t afraid of a thing, and he might be fond of his superior officer, but he’d never have the guts. And that was that.

  At the far end of the hall, stretched out in the bed where he’d certainly die before long, Matteo Musso, Duke of Camparino, listened to the silence that was broken only by the rattle of his breathing. It wasn’t normal for there to be all this peace and quiet, not on a Sunday. From the tightly fastened shutters, he should have heard the laughter of the children playing in the piazza, the chattering of the housewives emerging from mass, the shouts of the strolling vendors selling spasso, the blend of walnuts, hazelnuts, and lupini beans that would brighten the dining room tables after Sunday lunch.

  In short, he ought to be hearing the sounds of life. The same life that was abandoning him now. Instead: all this silence.

  And solitude, of course. But that he was used to. Aside from the nurse who came twice a day, to give him those useless injections: as if you could stop death, instead of just putting off its arrival.

  What silence, thought Matteo. The silence of death. Perhaps after all death had come to the house before its time. Perhaps it came in through another doorway: a door that no one expected.

  Wheezing and gasping, the elderly duke smiled an obscene smile.

  VI

  Behind the door was a proper room, not at all the anteroom that the housekeeper had described. It was swathed in dim light, the shutters pulled to, as if to let a sleeper sleep, but the figure that he glimpsed on the sofa wasn’t sleeping.

  Ricciardi stepped forward, shutting the door behind him. He could make out the silhouettes of the furniture, the chairs, a writing desk. Paintings on the walls, a soft carpet underfoot. Odors. Lavender, sweet smelling, a sparkling clean house. But also the smell of cordite: gunshots had been fired in that room. Perhaps just once, the smell wasn’t overpowering. And something else: blood. Clotted blood, that characteristic odor, like rusted iron.

  The commissario gazed at the form of the corpse, which he’d take the time to examine more closely, later, in the light. He identified the direction of the face, well aware that the Deed would set the image in the place where the victim had last looked: this was the strange physics of his power, one of the rules established only to be broken. There was no exception to the rule that time, however: in the corner exactly opposite the couch on which the dead woman lay, perfectly visible to Ricciardi’s mind’s eye, in spite of the darkness, the Duchess Musso di Camparino went on repeating her last living thought.

  She’d been a very beautiful woman: death could not conceal her height, her prosperous shape wrapped in a black silk nightdress. She would have been forty, more or less, but she must have carried her age with all the pride of wealth and the confidence of her resources. The image stared straight ahead, proud and motionless. Ricciardi sensed none of the most common emotions: fear, rage, horror. Instead, he sensed surprise, something approaching curiosity: the woman never thought that she was about to die, right up to the end.

  Still, now she was dead; in fact, to be exact, she had been murdered. At the center of her forehead, sharp and precise, above her half-closed eyes, was a round hole: the entry wound, a bullet hole. Her face was reddened, her black tongue protruded from her lips. But her features were also fine, high cheekbones, dark eyes, a mouth with large, very white teeth.

  As always, the commissario focused his attention on what the Duchess di
Camparino had to tell him, the message that she was leaving; the portion of thought that death had interrupted, the snapped thread.

  “The ring, the ring, you’ve taken the ring, the ring is missing.”

  Like a prayer, murmured endlessly, repeated until it could dissolve into the air along with the simulacrum of a mouth that was uttering it. A simple phrase, as clear as if it had been screamed in silence.

  “The ring, the ring, you’ve taken the ring, the ring is missing.”

  Ricciardi had no need to memorize it: he’d hear those words, and the suffering that lay behind them, over again many times. Head down, he went to open the shutters and let in shafts of pitiless sunlight.

  Maione had stayed outside to sweat with the Sciarras, man and wife, and the housekeeper. Two children had come laughing down the stairs, a boy and a girl, the girl brandishing two large hunks of bread. The brigadier’s love of children was sorely tested by that sight. Sciarra, in a firm voice, hushed them both and halted their progress by seizing each by the nape of the neck, as if they were a couple of puppies. The little boy loudly protested:

  “Papà, listen, that Lisetta took my bread, you tell her to . . .”

  The doorman pried one of the hunks of bread out of his daughter’s fingers and gave it to the boy. The little girl whined:

  “Papà, Totonno ate my cheese, we’d made a trade and now he wants to eat the bread too!”

  Sciarra smacked them both hard and threatened them: “If the two of you don’t cut it out, I’ll take the bread away from both of you and give it to the brigadier, here, and he’ll gobble it up for himself. Now get out of here, and shut the door behind you!”