The danger was still clear and present, thought Rosa as she washed the dishes; but there was at least at little hope.
Ricciardi had retired to his bedroom, resolute that he wouldn’t look out his window, even by chance: he didn’t want to suffer the disappointment of once more seeing the shutters across the way closed. Of course, his determination faltered, and he sat in the dark watching the little corner of the Colombos’ drawing room that could be glimpsed from his bedroom window. He saw the infamous young man, by now comfortably ensconsed on the sofa, drinking an espresso; indignantly, he wondered whether the man ever planned to go home, if indeed he had a home. Across from him sat Enrica, hair neatly gathered in a bun, eyeglasses, hands in her lap. She was smiling at him, or at least that’s how it looked to Ricciardi.
Until recently, and every night for many months before that, he’d seen the figure of a woman who had hanged herself on the floor above Enrica’s apartment. Every night, as he looked at the sweet image of Enrica embroidering, he’d had to behold the chilling contrast with this body dangling lazily from a rope tied around the hook holding up the chandelier. Rosa had told him that the woman was a newlywed who’d discovered the truth about her unfaithful husband; when she’d furiously confronted him, he’d beaten her and then abandoned her.
Ricciardi had seen, all too clearly, the neck stretched out by the dislocation of the vertebrae, the blackish tongue, cut halfway through by the final spasm of the jaws, dangling out of her mouth, the bulging eyes, protruding from the sockets; the large stain of urine and feces released by the sphincter onto the white wedding gown, which she’d insisted on wearing for this last macabre dance with death. The woman had repeated to Ricciardi, every night, her invective against the woman who had stolen away her husband. Against the other woman, and not against the man who had betrayed her:
“You damned whore, you took my love and my life.”
She again came to mind now, nearly three months after she’d slowly dissolved into the night, leaving behind only an aura of sadness at first, and then, finally, nothing. She came to mind as he watched Enrica smile at her man and then look away, perhaps thinking of the future they might have together, their children and, someday, their grandchildren: the future that his fundamental nature, however, made impossible for him.
He felt the now familiar stab of pain in his stomach and a powerful surge of nausea. He thought of the hanged woman and himself, two fates not really as far apart as one might think. And the new pain, the dull and selfish suffering that now had a name he couldn’t even bring himself to utter.
The summer night was busy with the buzz of people talking in the street, sitting in front of the doors to their ground-floor bassi, to escape the heat. Somewhere a piano was playing, and he could hear singing, but he couldn’t make out the words. The music was heartbreaking, perfectly suited to Ricciardi’s sorrow. He looked at the man drinking coffee in Enrica’s home, unsuspecting, all smiles: and for the first time, he hated someone with every fiber of his being. He hated that man because the place he was sitting belonged to him, just as the woman that he was smiling at belonged to him; that life, and that normal world, those dreams and that future all belonged to him, too.
He coldly contemplated that hatred, as if it were a strange animal he’d never laid eyes on. A disease that could prove fatal. A disease that could make you kill.
Suddenly, in the heat of the night, surrounded by the sound of faraway music, Ricciardi understood who had killed Adriana Musso di Camparino. And why.
XXXVII
Capece felt the stabbing pain of jealousy as he dreamt of the young man who’d smiled at Adriana at the theater, and he woke up with a jerk. He looked around and for a long moment had no idea where he was: odd, considering he was in his own home.
My home, he thought bitterly. This isn’t my home. This isn’t my place. Everyone has a place of their own, he thought, the kind of thoughts you have when you first wake up, lazily, hovering between your last dream and the reality that filters in a little at a time: and this isn’t mine. My place is close to Adriana, close to my love: if she’s no longer part of this world, then I no longer have a place where I belong.
The night before he’d stayed out on the balcony for hours, until his wife figured out that he didn’t want to talk to her and retreated into her bedroom. Then he’d stretched out on the sofa and had fallen asleep, overcome by the rapid succession of events and the traumas of the past few days, plummeting into an unrestful, agitated slumber. He couldn’t remember what dreams he’d had except for the one right before awakening, the glance that he’d intercepted between his lover and her young admirer at the theater, the glance that had unleashed the last, furious fight. As dawn crept into the bedroom with its promise of another day of oppressive heat, Capece experienced for the thousandth time a stabbing pain in his stomach, a surge of blood to his head, and an uncontrollable wave of fury. A blind will to wreak havoc, to destroy and kill.
In the dim light, he looked at his hand. And he started to weep, silently.
As the first rays of sunshine extended across the piazza across from city hall and through the glass panes of his windows, flooding the office with bright light, Ricciardi was already sitting at his desk. He’d hardly slept a wink, with the crashing waves of conflicting emotions inside and the new understanding he’d gained of the Camparino murder; and so he’d risen from his bed while it was still pitch black out and had made his way to the empty police headquarters building, with the cop at the front entrance snoring away—he hadn’t even seen him go in; there was no one about but the two dead men on the stairs, engaged in their perennial portrayal of grief, greeting him as always; but he paid them no mind.
He was waiting for Maione, so that they could agree on a strategy. They couldn’t get this wrong: one reckless move would prevent him from obtaining the evidence they needed. The brigadier, too, was an early riser, though perhaps not to the same degree as his superior officer, and Ricciardi would have enough time to give him the instructions he had in mind.
He whiled away the time by catching up with the paperwork he’d been neglecting for the past few days; he was raptly compiling a report when he heard a knock at the door. At last, he thought. He called out:
“Avanti, come in!”
The door opened just a crack and to his immense surprise, Ricciardi found himself gazing admiringly upon Livia, even more seductive than usual, smiling at him from the threshold and holding up a brown paper package.
“Good morning. I’m here to bring breakfast to a certain Commissario Ricciardi, who I’m told is the most charming man at police headquarters. Would you be able to point me to his office, by any chance?”
She wore a light jacket that was reminscent of a sailor’s blouse, dark blue with white cuffs; the skirt echoed the same motif, rode tight around her hips, and hung knee-length, revealing the white-silk stockings that sheathed her legs. Her blouse, open at the neck, revealed the woman’s magnificent décolleté; her cunning little cloche hat partly concealed her short hairdo that framed her lightly made-up face, which, at that moment, was illuminated by a stunning smile.
Ricciardi, who’d sat there breathless for a moment, got to his feet and waved her in. After he recovered, he said:
“What are you doing here, and at this hour of the morning? Aren’t you on vacation?”
Livia laughed, sat down in the chair facing the desk, and started to open the package.
“Vacation? Believe me, when you’re dealing with someone like you, and you’re trying to make friends, there’s no time for leisure. You’re a man who needs to be chased, because if I sit down and wait for you to come to me, there’s a considerable risk I’ll just get old and unsightly. I don’t have much time left to me, you know.”
Ricciardi wasn’t accustomed to this sort of gallant fencing, and he was clearly out of his element.
“It’s just that it doesn’t strike me as quite right, that you should come here to police headquarters. It’s not a very
nice place, for a lady. There are criminals and policemen, and I couldn’t say which of the two is worse. And after all, it seems to me that it will be a long, long time before you become ugl . . . an old woman, I meant to say.”
Livia opened her eyes wide and raised one hand to her throat, feigning scandalized surprise:
“But what do these ears of mine hear? Is it possible that Commissario Ricciardi, the least gallant man in all of Southern Italy, has practically just paid a compliment? Surely that cannot be: no doubt I haven’t yet awakened and I’m merely dreaming.”
Ricciardi shook his head and smiled in spite of himself.
“Well, all right then: anyway, you always do whatever you please. And about the other night: you can’t say that I didn’t warn you, that being around a man like me can be a dangerous thing. Anyway, they were just four hotheads who . . .”
Livia stopped him, by putting one hand on his. The contact, warm and seething, was anything but disagreeable to Ricciardi. Looking him right in the eye, she said:
“You don’t have to say a thing. I’m a grown woman, and what I want or don’t want to do, I decide for myself. And don’t think for a second that it’s any different where I come from: these days, the criminals are commiting their crimes under a flag. Don’t worry about me at all. If anything, I’m worried about you. If you like, I can make a call to Rome and speak with . . . let’s just say that I know people who are, ah, quite influential. I can arrange to have you left alone, now and for good. You need only say the word.”
Ricciardi replied firmly:
“Don’t even think of it. Aside from the fact that I have nothing to fear, I can take care of myself very nicely, thanks. I’ve already taken my own countermeasures; nothing else is going to happen.”
Livia sighed, reassured.
“Then I have nothing else to worry about, just keeping your stomach full; look here what I’ve brought you: four puff pastries, sfogliatelle the way you like them, piping hot. The little shop on the corner, what’s the name again? Ah, that’s right, Pintauro. It’s even open at this time of the morning, did you know that? And I wasn’t even the first customer of the day, from what the cashier told me, along with a stream of compliments. Here, have one.”
Maione stuck his head in the door just as Livia was handing a steaming hot, odorous pastry to Ricciardi, who was standing right next to her. His eyes widened as he stared at Livia, the puff pastry, Ricciardi, and again the puff pastry. Then he snorted and extended his arms.
“No, really, this is verging on harassment! In this city everyone seems to be eating from dawn to dusk, the minute I show up! When on earth have you ever eaten anything, Commissa’, in this office at this time of the morning? And you, too, Signo’, forgive me, but do you really think it’s right to send the aroma of sfogliatelle wafting down the staircase and into the courtyard? I thought I was having hallucinations, I was sure of it! Don’t take this the wrong way, but we’re here to work, you know!”
Livia looked over at Ricciardi, still holding the sfogliatella in midair, caught off guard by the brigadier’s furious outburst. The commissario shrugged his shoulders.
“Ah, Maione, at last you’re here. No, the signora here just happened to be passing by and dropped in to say hello. In fact, here’s what she’d just got through saying: ‘When will Brigadier Maione be coming in, I brought a sfogliatella for him too?’ And I’d just told her that you should already have come in by now.”
Maione looked at Livia’s hand and the sfogliatella as if he were about to lunge and tear them both off in a single ravenous bite.
“No, grazie, Signora, I couldn’t think of eating at this time of the morning. My stomach wakes up long after I do, if you want to know the truth. And forgive me for what I just said, but in this heat I don’t sleep well and I’m always on edge. Did you have any orders, Commissa’?”
Ricciardi had walked around the desk and taken a seat at his usual place.
“Stay just another moment or two, Raffae’; it might be that the Signora Livia, here, can lend a hand. Come in, and take a seat, please.”
Maione sat down next to Livia, who was looking at Ricciardi, clearly electrified at the idea of being made privy to his thoughts. The harder she found it to tune in to that mysterious man, the more irresistibly she was attracted to him.
“All right, Livia, listen carefully. Imagine that you’re head over heels in love with a man. And you think that he’s yours, all yours, for all time. Then, all of a sudden, you witness something, a glance, a word: something that makes you think you could lose him, see him leave with another woman. What would you feel, what would you do?”
Maione looked curiously at Ricciardi. He immediately guessed that he wanted to reconstruct the situation Capece had been in at the theater. It wasn’t a bad idea, he thought, to ask Livia: what they needed was a person from that milieu, that world of luxury where hunger was unknown, to understand how the journalist might have reacted in the face of the prospect of losing the woman he loved.
For her part, Livia felt her heart racing: at last, Ricciardi was speaking of love. Admittedly, this was hardly the ideal place for it: she might have hoped for a candlelit dinner, in a restaurant down by the water, for example. What’s more, they were in the presence of a witness, that hairy brigadier with his peculiarities. All the same, he was talking about love, and perhaps he’d chosen that setting because it made him feel safer, less vulnerable. She smiled at him.
“I’d be willing to fight with every weapon at my disposal, for him. I’d fight with my whole being: I’d never declare a truce—never.”
Ricciardi looked her in the eye.
“That is, if you had the time to think it over, of course. But then and there? If you realized that all that stood between you and happiness, between you and love, in other words, was another person? And if it occurred to you that, if you could only get rid of that person, you’d have your love back and no one could ever take him away again?”
There was a moment’s silence. Maione was trying to imagine Capece that night, at the Salone Margherita, in the very instant that he slapped the duchess in front of everyone and then tore the ring from her finger. That scene spoke eloquently of a loss of control and a new determination: a new desperation.
For her part, Livia decided that Ricciardi wanted to understand what she was made of: whether her aristocratic and modern appearance concealed the strength and spontaneity of a woman of the south, the kind of women he was accustomed to. She didn’t want to disappoint him, but as far as that went she knew that she had a fiery and passionate nature: and so she had no difficulty being sincere. She lowered her voice and narrowed her eyes slightly as she said:
“I imagine that I’d be capable of doing anything, for the man that I loved. Anything. Even the worst things imaginable. Even murder.”
The word fell between then and made a tremendous noise. They sat there in silence, weighing Livia’s phrase from differing points of view. After a few seconds, Ricciardi spoke to the brigadier:
“Maione, I’m going to have to ask you to go get changed, one more time. I need you to go someplace in civilian attire, and when you come back here I’ll tell you where. To pick up a package.”
Maione stood up, made a slight bow to Livia, and left the room. Ricciardi spoke to the woman:
“Thank you, Livia. You’ve helped me a great deal, you can’t imagine how much. But now I have to go: I have urgent business to attend to, some very important things to take care of.”
The woman sighed as she got to her feet.
“I get it, you’re sending me away: as usual, for that matter. But don’t think for a moment that I’m a woman who gives up easily. And it’s not something that happens often, that I want to get to know someone better. So, once again, resign yourself to it: I’m not easy to get rid of.”
Having said that, she left. Through the open door, Ricciardi caught sight of a lawyer who, craning his neck to see her better, tripped and fell in a cascade of files and docume
nts.
XXXVIII
Sofia Capece decided that her husband would have to resign himself to it: she wasn’t going to be easy to get rid of.
She’d gotten out of bed repeatedly during the night, to go watch him sleeping on the sofa in the drawing room. It wasn’t like having him in her bed again, but she was a woman who knew how to wait: she’d already waited so long, she certainly wasn’t frightened at the idea of the few days that still separated her from a return to normal life. Because that was one thing Sofia was sure of: it was only a matter of time.
Mario had been sleeping fitfully: she’d heard him murmur, toss and turn, and sigh. At a certain point, she’d even had the impression that he was weeping. To her way of thinking, this was a good sign: it meant that deep inside he was conflicted, that a battle was being fought within him, and that she, Sofia, was sure to emerge victorious. As far as that went, the other woman was dead. She no longer existed.
Truth be told, this was not the solution that she would have hoped for: all too often she’d dreamed that her husband, recovering from the spell under which he’d labored for so long, would return home on his own two feet, contrite, begging forgiveness for the wrong he had done her. In her imagination, she saw herself as accommodating, sweet and gentle as ever, happy to take him back into her home and her bed, to offer him that domestic warmth that he might have forgotten by now, a warmth he was surely beginning to miss, as reluctant as he might be to admit it. She was still, in spite of everything, his wife. She’d sworn before God that she’d love him and honor him for the rest of her days.
She smiled as she fluffed the cushion and placed it back on the sofa. Mario had left the apartment before dawn, she’d heard his footsteps on the stairs and then out on the street. But he’d be back, she could tell. And after all, where else would he go? This was his home, this was his family. Her son came over to her to give her a kiss and say goodbye, he was going to school for the summer preparatory course; he was a boy any father would be proud of, and Sofia decided that the boy resembled his father more every day. Just one more reason for the man to return home. She told him not to stay out too late, because his father might be home in time for lunch.
Everyone in Their Place Page 27