Everyone in Their Place

by Maurizio de Giovanni

  Livia had asked the carriage driver to leave her at the Largo della Carità: she wanted to take a stroll and take in the city.

  Even the brief ride in the open carriage had been exciting, she’d pulled up her veil and the breeze on her face, with the smell of salt water and flowers, had been an unexpected, priceless pleasure. It was very hot, but it didn’t bother her: she’d waited too long for this morning to let minor considerations such as the weather ruin it for her. Before long, unless unforeseen developments intervened, she’d be looking at the reason she’d come back to this city.

  She’d calculated her timing carefully: she wished to run no risks. She’d make sure she got to Gambrinus ahead of the usual time when, as she remembered perfectly, Ricciardi came in to eat his quick and solitary meal. This time, she thought to herself, even if he wasn’t expecting it, he’d have company. The street was just as she’d remembered it, broad and crowded. A number of dark, ragged children clustered around her, begging for coins. Laughing, she reached into her clutch bag and grabbed a little small change; then she flung it far away, the coins landing in a tinkling cascade, glinting in the sunlight; like a school of fish chasing a chunk of bread, the scugnizzi leapt at the coins with a collective shout.

  Along the way the woman, striking and elegant as she was, attracted the attention of at least four men, who whistled after her and tossed off admiring comments. She was accustomed to attracting attention, but the explicit approach, so typical of the Neapolitans, amused her. And she also liked the sober elegance of the women that she saw on the street, even those who were less well-to-do but still strove to present a pleasing appearance. Not all of them, of course.

  In particular, when she was already quite close to Piazza Trieste and Trento, and Gambrinus, she crossed paths with a tall young woman wearing tortoiseshell glasses; the young woman was walking briskly and she crossed the street ahead of her; she noticed that she had a natural elegance and a nice body: she could guess it from her long legs. Nonetheless, Livia decided, she wasn’t making the most of what she possessed. She’d undermined her best qualities with an antiquated dress, an old woman’s hairdo, and especially with a grim expression that didn’t suit her at all. Idly, she guessed that the young woman had some reason to be irritated.

  Not Livia: she felt perfectly happy, and at peace with the world. She smiled at the sunlight and walked toward the Gambrinus and its café tables.

  XVIII

  Enrica had just stepped into her father’s shop, and she greeted the salesclerks and her brother-in-law; because there were a few clients choosing among various styles of hats, she prepared to wait for Giulio to have a chance to talk. She loved him very much and she was truly sorry to have to ask him for an explanation of what had happened, but she had no doubt that it was necessary. She couldn’t allow her tendency to avoid conflict to be mistaken for a blank check that meant her parents could decide her life on her behalf.

  Her inborn discretion made it imposible for her to confide in her parents that she was already attracted to a man, much less a complete stranger; not to mention the fact that, finally, she had a regular date with his glance after more than a year of being aware that there was someone at the window across the way, every night.

  It was out of the question even to think of talking about it with her mother, who was notoriously obstinate; she’d only intensify her efforts to drag her daughter out of that romantic fantasy that was bound to lead nowhere. She could just hear her now, going on and on about turning twenty-five and heading for a future of poverty and loneliness. She didn’t care what others thought, not even her parents: she’d wait for him, if it took a hundred years.

  Because there was one thing she knew with absolute certainty: for Luigi Alfredo Ricciardi there was no one on earth but her. He only needed to realize it, and make up his mind to speak.

  Just as she was waiting for her father to be done talking to a fat matron who couldn’t make up her mind which imitation cloth fruit to put on her hat, the bell on the door rang, announcing Sebastiano Fiore’s entrance into the shop.

  Ricciardi arrived at Gambrinus in a noticeably worse mood than he’d been in a few minutes earlier, when he parted ways with Maione, who was heading back to police headquarters. There was a good reason.

  He had just been covering the last part of the way, where the Via Toledo runs into the Piazza Trieste and Trento, when the man responsible for his sleepless night stepped out of the front door of one of the shops. Truth be told, he was only one of Ricciardi’s preoccupations, and at that moment not even the foremost: but he was still one of the most significant. To make a long story short, bidding his unseen mother goodbye, and therefore looking into the shop as he stepped out of it, the selfsame young man Ricciardi had seen whispering into Enrica’s ear the night before turned and crashed right into him.

  He was tall, much taller than he’d seemed from a distance, and heavy, as well; the impact almost knocked Ricciardi over. He glanced fleetingly into Ricciardi’s face with a few hasty words of apology, and he found himself staring into a pair of eyes that scrutinized him coldly, without expression. He apologized again, somewhat worried this time, and moved away, stepping through the front door of the store next door.

  The stabbing pain right behind Ricciardi’s stomach returned instantly, savage and excruciating. To Ricciardi the man appeared devastatingly handsome, athletic and well dressed. His eye, professionally trained to pick up even hidden details, noticed the silk shirt, the two-tone shoes with the perforated toe caps, the gold tie clip, and the wafting cologne. Neither did the gardenia in the buttonhole nor the straw hat escape the commissario’s notice, and he would have been able to draw up a complete description of the individual without any effort.

  The most immediate effect of that encounter, which should perhaps have been described as a clash, was the distinct sensation of his own devastating inadequacy; Ricciardi understood that in the eyes of any healthy woman that man would be a hundred times prefereable to him. For the first time he took in his own external appearance, and saw himself for the skinny, drab, poorly dressed individual that he was: hatless, shoes dusty from long walks, an old skinny tie without a tie clip.

  And he felt only irritation with himself, for having thought of that man as a rival in love. He hadn’t the slightest intention of even entering the competition, especially because he realized that his unlikely victory would only bring pain and sorrow to the woman who became his companion in life: a portion of his curse. And so, he thought again, so much the better. Better for everyone if Enrica found a handsome, well-mannered, well-to-do gentleman, who would certainly make her happy.

  The thought of course brought him no comfort: when Ricciardi walked into the cool shade of Gambrinus he was a man on the brink of despair.

  The Livia who was waiting, sitting at a carefully chosen table, was a woman filled with hope. She hoped, first and foremost, that Ricciardi would arrive, and that he wouldn’t be late, because the pressure of her aspiring squires was becoming oppressive. When she’d decided to smoke a cigarette to kill some time, five little hovering flames had immediately been lit before her, like votive candles in front of a sacred image; there was one contender in particular, dressed entirely in white, who was staring at her with clear intention, convinced that he was irresistible. At that point, she, who had certainly been in a similar situation many times before, started staring right back at him, until he got to his feet and came over, asking her:

  “May I sit down?”

  Whereupon she promptly responded:

  “Absolutely not.”

  The man was flummoxed. It was hardly a common occurrence to see such a beautiful woman sitting alone in a public place, and the opportunity seemed too delectable; for that matter, it was unthinkable to ruin his reputation as a womanizer, built up over so many years of honorable activity, by retreating immediately. And so he decided to persist:

  “Signora, you’re much too beautiful to be sitting alone. I can’t stand by while that
happens. So I’m going to sit down no matter what you say, and if someone has to leave, it will eventually have to be you.”

  Livia looked toward the door: at that exact moment she saw Ricciardi come in.

  With a luminous smile on her face, and without ever taking her eyes off the commissario, she said:

  “I wouldn’t recommend you try that: the person I was waiting for has just arrived.”

  Sebastiano Fiore walked into the Colombo family shop, straightening his tie, still a little unsettled by the odd look that the stranger had given him; what on earth can that be about, he thought, I barely grazed him. Thanks to his mental inclination never to focus too long on a single thought, he immediately regained the frank and jovial smile he’d been sporting until just a few seconds earlier.

  At first he’d put up some resistance when his mother had ordered him to come to dinner at the Colombos’; he’d planned a night out with his friends at Scoglio di Frisio, the famous restaurant. But when Mamma got something into her head it was best not to resist with too much determination, otherwise the economic retaliations she was capable of unleashing could create serious problems, especially now that he was losing at cards and he’d piled up some debts that were even bigger than usual. And so, he’d decided, let’s go ahead and sacrifice a night out on the altar of sheer necessity.

  Then, to his surprise, the evening with the Colombos had produced an unexpected and quite agreeable piece of news: the girl that he was being introduced to proved to be anything but unpleasant, with an attractive—if somewhat infrequent—smile and a long pair of legs. No doubt, she dressed like a fifty-year-old and wasn’t quite as smitten with him as she ought to have been: but this might yet prove to be beneficial to his plans. In fact, Sebastiano had a very precise strategy in mind: he meant to go on living comfortably on his wealthy parents’ backs, without changing his social rounds and routines in the slightest.

  In order to pull that off, however, he’d have to go along with his mother’s ambitions, at least formally; and what better way than to get engaged with a girl like the Signorina Colombo, who was discreet, quiet, and anything but intrusive? His mother would be pleased, and she’d resume his allowance, in fact, she’d increase it, because getting engaged meant spending money on gifts, flowers, and so on and so forth; the theory of merging the two businesses was a very appealing one; and most important of all, the future operation of the business could be delegated to the bride, and he could go on living the way he always had: without working.

  For that reason, the minute he saw the nondescript girl arrive at her father’s shop, he’d immediately combed his hair and started off after her, intending to seize this opportunity to invite her out for a cup of coffee.

  At Gambrinus, of course.

  Ricciardi had changed his habits, though only by a little. For the past month, he’d stopped sitting at the inside table that faced the plateglass window overlooking the Via Chiaia and instead sat outside, under the awning.

  The reason for the change had nothing to do with the arrival of the brutal summer heat: it had just happened that, exactly a month ago, in fact, a husband whose wife was cheating on him had decided to take justice into his own hands by murdering his wife’s lover with a bullet to the head. At the moment of his premature demise, the unfortunate victim, a young lawyer, had been sitting with a newspaper in his hands and a cup of coffee on the table in front of him, right next to the table where Ricciardi usually sat to consume his rapid daily lunch. The commissario hadn’t been present when the horrible scene unfolded, but that did nothing to interfere with his clear and unmistakable view of the lawyer, who went on reading his newspaper, with half his face reduced to a pulpy mess of blood and bone fragments, and repeating:

  “Now how long is it going to take her to get free of that stupid chump and come join me?”

  But instead of her getting rid of him, once and for all, now it was the allegedly stupid chump who was sitting in a dark jail cell somewhere, mulling over such issues as faithfulness and vendetta.

  Since the sight wasn’t particularly appetizing, Ricciardi had decided to migrate to an outdoor table which, for a habitudinarian like him, had not been a pleasant experience. But that day, the tables on the sidewalk were all taken and he was forced to venture back inside. He hoped that he wouldn’t be forced to share a table with the dead man: he didn’t want company at all, much less the company of such a monotonous conversationalist.

  As soon as he stepped through the door he caught a whiff of perfume. His sensory memory was faster than his conscious one, so he glimpsed the lithe figure, the limpid eyes, and the catlike stride even before he thought of Livia, immersed in that exotic spicy scent. He looked around and there she was, smiling, sitting in the corner opposite the dead man but like him, waiting for someone to arrive. Standing next to her was a man in a white suit, one hand resting on the back of a chair, in a friendly pose.

  Ricciardi took in the situation at a glance: the man’s stance and attitude immediately suggested an idea of unwanted intrusiveness; Livia in contrast was looking in his direction, with a radiant smile on her face, in an implicit call for aid. On impulse, he headed straight for the table and, before he could get a word out, he once again heard Livia’s voice, just as harmonious and musical as he remembered it:

  “There, you see: the person I was waiting for. I’m here for him, and only for him.”

  The walk to Gambrinus with Sebastiano was surreal: Enrica had gone to the shop in the first place to tell her father in no uncertain terms that she never wanted to see the young man again, and now she was going with him for a cup of coffee, like a pair of lovebirds on their first date.

  When Sebastiano had come in, with the paltry excuse that he needed change for a large bill, she’d been left aghast. When he invited her to the café, she’d launched Giulio a pleading look, but he’d given his permission with a fatherly smile, in part to stave off the inevitable quarrel with his daughter; and now here she was walking the short length of sun-drenched street in the least desirable company imaginable. Moreover, she’d been unable to refuse the man’s arm, which he’d offered with that stupid smile of his the minute they stepped out of the store.

  She was furious with herself, for having lacked the courage to simply refuse the invitation or at least the promptness of mind to invent a serviceable excuse; furious with her father, for allowing that idiot to dare to take such liberties; with her mother for having woven the web in which she now found herself tangled; and with Ricciardi, for taking so long to make his intentions known.

  She just hoped that she didn’t run into anyone she knew.

  XIX

  Livia and Ricciardi sat looking at each other, in intense silence. The woman could not have received a more definitive answer to her doubts about what she would feel at the sight of him: she experienced the familiar but almost forgotten hollow pit in her stomach, her heart had begun to race, and she could sense that her face was red with pleasure and embarrassment. The man in white had withdrawn, foiled, once he saw that the unmistakable electric charge between the two of them firmly precluded any chance for a rival.

  The commissario was tangling with a distinctly new sensation, and he decided that he had encountered a greater variety of strange new emotions in the past two days than in all the rest of his life. To see Livia there, so far from where he’d assumed she was, and even more beautiful than he remembered her, had made a deep impression on him. He didn’t know what to say. As in a trance, he’d sat down at her table and now he was watching her as she smiled at him, as if they’d only been apart for a moment. The last time they’d looked each other in the eye, a rough wind was tossing the waves off the Via Caracciolo, blowing her hair and streaking her face, along with tears of grief and frustration. Going against his own deepest instincts, perhaps, Ricciardi had said farewell to her, certain that he’d never see her again. He felt sure deep down that, even though he was probably going to live the rest of his life alone, if there was a place in his heart,
that place belonged to Enrica.

  But now he had to admit that he was happy to see her, smiling and beautiful as she was; but he was also vaguely worried, because of the twinge of danger and instability that the woman had always radiated.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Livia’s smile didn’t once fade as she looked deep into those wonderful green eyes that had stirred her so powerfully all those months ago. She was searching for a spark of pleasure, a modicum of cordiality on his part: but she saw nothing. Not yet, anyway. But she had no intention of giving up easily.

  “I could tell you that I’m here to do some sightseeing: this city of yours is famous around the world, isn’t it? I could tell you that I’ve come to make peace with a place that brings to mind sad, painful situations. Instead, I’ve decided to tell it straight: I’ve come to see you. To see you again.”

  The grand piano in the lobby was playing a song about an ungrateful heart and the dead man on the other side of the room kept asking when his lover would get there. The waiter, recognizing Ricciardi, had brought a sfogliatella and a coffee to the table without his even ordering it. Ricciardi know how to interrogate suspects and arrest criminals, he knew how to interpret the dying words of ravaged corpses; but he didn’t have the slightest idea of how to respond to Livia. It suddenly dawned on him that his mouth was hanging open and he snapped it shut with a faint pop. He said, in a much brusquer tone than he intended:

  “You could have asked first, maybe written a letter. Why are you so sure that I wanted to see you again?”

  Livia laughed, as if Ricciardi had just made a joke.