Black August

by Timothy Williams

  “You don’t answer my question.”

  She laughed. “I used to teach Asian languages at the university, but my job was cut. They probably needed the money for something useful like nuclear physics. Or international relations. And so I work at home. I was offered a job at Trento at the university there, but it would’ve meant spending three days a week away from the children . . .”

  “The children are on holiday?”

  “I’m driving down tonight to join them. My family has a little place in Viareggio.”

  “Viareggio?”

  “I’m from Volterra.” The shadows on her face moved as she smiled. “My father has a business in alabaster.”

  “And that’s how you got interested in Chinese?”

  “You’d’ve preferred I worked in the quarries?”

  The gassy water jumped at his lips, tickling his nostrils.

  “Giorgio said that Rosanna’s alive, hommissario.”

  Trotti said, “And so, rather than go to Trento, you prefer to stay in the city?”

  “Rosanna is alive?”

  “I certainly hope so.”

  She looked at him—he saw the glint of the dark eyes. “Hommissario, I married late—at a time when I never thought I was going to marry. When a woman has her first child at thirty-five, motherhood for her is something very special.” She paused. “I have two very lovely children. The joy of my life. There is nothing that I won’t do for them.” She shrugged, placed the cigarette in her mouth. “When I met Giorgio, I never suspected that I could feel this way about children. Product of the sixties, I was very much a revolutionary. A Maoist, a structuralist. And a feminist. I never burned my brassiere but I wore bell bottoms, tight sweaters and platform shoes. And in my time I’ve made my share of Molotov cocktails.” She laughed. “My present way of life—at that time I’d never’ve dreamt I could be happy. But I am. Happy and terribly bourgeois. Happy because I have a family of my own. Giorgio is a good father and although he doesn’t have a regular salary, we have never gone hungry.” She inhaled deeply and then sent the smoke from her mouth to the ceiling. “Rosanna is really alive?”

  “Your father isn’t poor?”

  “We prefer to get along by ourselves. Papa has promised to pay for the girls’ education.”

  “I have a daughter,” Trotti said and smiled.

  “Why won’t you give me a straight answer when I ask whether Rosanna is alive?”

  “I think she is.”

  “You think?”

  “I have good reason to believe that Rosanna Belloni is alive.”

  Signora Boatti gave a sigh. “Thank goodness for that.”

  “You don’t sound particularly relieved.”

  “Relieved for myself.”

  “Meaning?”

  “If you want more water, hommissario, serve yourself.”

  “You don’t like Rosanna?”

  “Whose body was it that my husband found downstairs?”

  “In all probability it’s her sister, Maria Cristina, who was murdered.”

  The woman allowed herself to lean back against the settee, her head resting backwards while she blew smoke into the air. For a few minutes she did not speak. From time to time, the tip of the cigarette glowed as she inhaled and the cool room filled with the combined smell of burning tobacco and the cooking sfrizzoli in the kitchen.

  She had pretty, tanned legs. There was a long scar beneath the left knee. Signora Boatti was not wearing shoes; beside her feet were the two flat pieces of cloth that served as slippers. In this part of the city, there was little noise from the street.

  Somewhere, over towards Borgo Genovese, an imprecise church bell chimed.

  She leaned forward to tap cigarette ash into the ashtray. “I grew up very rich. Rich and not very pretty, but fascinated in languages. I was a good pupil at the liceo classico and I was always top of the class. All the best prizes—but never a boyfriend.” She raised her shoulders. “I didn’t mind too much. I never really liked it when I had to dance with a boy and his hands would start wandering. It’s not that I found it revolting or anything. It’s just that it all seemed so silly. Then at seventeen I fell in love. A teacher of Greek at the liceo and I thought he was God. But he wasn’t God. He was a married man from Ferrara.”

  “Ferrara,” Trotti repeated.

  She smiled to herself. “There was nothing between us—nothing. Once in class his hand touched my cheek—by accident. And another time—it was at the end of the lesson, and I invented some silly question about Aristophanes or something—we were alone in the classroom and I touched his hand. He didn’t stop me. His name was Mario Siccardi and I liked to imagine he was unhappy with his wife. There was nothing between us, nothing—but it took me more than ten years to get over him.”

  “And that’s when you met Giorgio?”

  Her cigarette was stubbed out in the ashtray. “Giorgio is eight years younger than I am. When we met, I was already teaching at the university. I wasn’t a virgin anymore—but I wasn’t a liberated woman, either. A feminist of course, but I can’t say I was liberated. Not interested in men.” She sipped her whiskey. “Or rather, I thought I wasn’t interested in men. Then one day . . .” Trotti heard her laugh to herself. “One day I overheard one of the Oriental Library staff referring to me as the spinster. Spinster?” She shook her head. “I was thirty-one years old and I knew I wasn’t very pretty. But a spinster? Never being married, never having children. That evening, I can remember so clearly, I went home—I had a little flat at the back of the town hall—and I looked at myself in the mirror. I stood naked and I looked at my hips and at my breasts that were beginning to sag.”

  “And?”

  “What do you think?” She looked at Trotti and her smile revealed the brightness of her teeth. “I wept.”

  Downstairs there was the sound of a car engine. “A few weeks later, I met Giorgio—he was in my Cantonese beginners’ course and within the year we were married. It took me another four years—and a couple of miscarriages—before I managed to have my first child. Giorgio still can’t speak a word of Cantonese. And Rosanna . . .” She stopped.

  “And Rosanna?”

  “You are quite sure she’s alive, hommissario?”

  “We don’t know where she is—but there is no reason to think she’s dead.”

  “I’ve always been jealous of Rosanna. Very jealous.”

  “Rosanna never had children.”

  “That didn’t stop me from being jealous.”

  “Why?” Trotti raised his shoulders in surprised amusement. “Rosanna is a lot older than you. Scarcely a rival, I would’ve thought.”

  “She was Giorgio’s friend—a friend of the family. That’s how we got this flat. Rosanna was—is a lovely woman, I’m sure. She’s kind and she’s generous.”

  “Why jealous, signora?”

  “Why?” She laughed. She made a dismissive move with her hand.

  “What could a young woman like you be jealous about?”

  “A woman has her intuition—there are little things that she sees—that she understands.”

  “What things?”

  She was lighting another cigarette. Her hand trembled slightly. “You see . . .”

  “Yes?”

  She raised her glance to look at him. “There are times when I have thought that Giorgio preferred Rosanna to me. Between them there has always been something—a kind of intimacy.” She shook her head. “Giorgio says she’s like a mother to him—but it’s more than that. I don’t know what it is between them—but for me, it is quite palpable.”

  Trotti could hear Boatti coming up the stairs.

  “I’m very jealous. This unattractive, middle-aged woman sitting in front of you, chain-smoking, is capable of tremendous jealousy. Blind jealousy, Hommissario Trotti. I love my husband very much. Very muc
h. To you he may not appear the most wonderful man in the world, but you don’t know him. For me he is the most wonderful man. I love him. Like the stupidest woman in a fotoromanzo, I love my man, heart and soul.” An apologetic smile. “I think there are times I could have killed your Rosanna Belloni. The blind stupid jealousy of a woman who loves her man—and who refuses having to share him with any other human being. Giorgio is mine . . . and mine alone.”

  36: Cost of Living

  “When I was a student at the university here, I never smoked Nazionali.” Boatti appeared more relaxed than earlier. He was no longer sweating. The round face smiled comfortably. “They cost too much.”

  “I didn’t know you smoked.”

  (The television was on, but the sound was down. Lilli Gruber mouthed in silence the telegiornale on RAIDUE. Pictures of the Middle East, more ’Ndrangheta murders in Calabria, the stock market dropping in Milan, Maradona back from a holiday in Argentina, Antibo running the ten thousand meters.)

  “I don’t,” Giorgio Boatti said. “And I wish my wife didn’t. I managed to get her to stop during the two pregnancies.”

  Signora Boatti was in the kitchen, tidying the plates into the dishwasher. “Amor, dammi quel fazzolettino,” she quietly sang to herself.

  “But once the little girls were born, she started again worse than ever. Now she’s back down to a packet and a half a day.”

  “Nazionali?”

  “Why Nazionali?” Boatti laughed. “Marlboro. It’s people like you who can still get hold of Nazionali.”

  “I gave up smoking years ago.”

  “That’s why you eat so many sweets, Commissario?”

  “In the last ten years, I’ve smoked three cigarettes.” As if to prove his point, Trotti took a sweet from his pocket and popped it into his mouth. “I need the sugar.”

  “My wife seems to think you’re very nice.”

  “So much for feminine intuition. She doesn’t work with me. Nor does she want to write a book on police procedure.”

  “Back in the early seventies, there were Alfa and Sax and Calipso that we students used to smoke. Straw and dung, but they were cheaper than Nazionali and they gave you a decent nicotine level in the blood.”

  Trotti nodded.

  “Then the government put filterless Nazionali—along with bread and coffee and all the other prime necessities—on to the cost of living index.” Boatti grinned. “And to keep the inflation figures down, they kept the cost of Nazionali down at a time when prices were soaring. Nearly fifteen years now that Nazionali have cost less than three hundred lire a packet—scarcely the cost of a phone call. And so, of course, Nazionali’ve virtually disappeared from circulation. Too cheap. You never see them in the tobacconist’s. Nearest thing is Esportazione. And Esportazione cost fourteen hundred lire.”

  “It’s only people with friends in the state tobacco monopoly or people who work for the Customs who can now get hold of Nazionali.” Trotti poured himself some more water. He felt sleepy. “Thank goodness I can get by on sweets.”

  “Your sweets have made you bitter, Commissario.”

  “I’ve lived in this country too long to be bitter.” Trotti added, “I’m sorry about the book, Boatti.”

  “Cynical, then.”

  “If you’re not cynical, you can’t keep your head above the water. Not in Italy—not where there is a political or vested interest behind every action. Even behind the price of cigarettes.” Trotti paused. “What’re you going to do about the book?”

  “Book?”

  “If Rosanna’s alive, there doesn’t seem to be any point in your police procedure book. Must be a bit of a disappointment.”

  “I’ll be happy enough just to see Rosanna alive and well.” A disarming smile. “And there’s nothing to stop me writing a book about a policeman—a successful commissario coming to the end of a long and fruitful career.”

  “You haven’t received a card or anything from her, Boatti?”

  “A book about a man and about a provincial city.”

  “Rosanna hasn’t contacted you?”

  The smile vanished. “I told you that she rarely wrote to me when she was on holiday.”

  “But she’d phone?”

  “No.”

  “Then why would she write to Signora Isella?”

  “They’re friends.” Boatti looked at Trotti. “You still think she wanted to build herself an alibi?”

  “The postcard—and the post date—they could be construed as evidence of her not being in the city at the time of her sister’s death. Very useful.”

  “You honestly seem to believe that Rosanna is capable of murdering her sister?” Boatti shook his head. “You really are too cynical—or perhaps you just don’t know her well enough.”

  “You yourself said that she hated Maria Cristina.”

  “Not to the point of smashing her sister’s head.”

  “Being cynical—that’s the price I pay for my job. Always assume the worst in people—until it’s proved to the contrary.” Trotti snorted. “And it rarely is.”

  “Thanks for the compliment.”

  Trotti bowed his head.

  “You knew Rosanna, Commissario.”

  “I’m not sure you can ever know anybody. Other people are a cipher, an iceberg, and you can only see the tip. The rest is assumption. We’re alone, Boatti—all of us. You don’t seem to understand that. But then you’re young.”

  “Because I’m younger than you, you think I haven’t suffered?”

  “We are born alone, Boatti, we die alone—and we go through life thinking—hoping that we can make ties. Solid ties. But even the most solid of ties are transitory. Only separation is for good.”

  “Your job makes you so jaded? It really is time you retired.”

  “Retire to do what?” Trotti shook his head. “Write a book?”

  “You’ve never made solid ties in your life?”

  Trotti laughed. “I thought I knew my wife, Boatti. We lived together for more than twenty years. A beautiful wife, a beautiful daughter—I honestly believed we were all happy together.” He clicked the sweet against his teeth. “My wife now lives in America. Happy? Perhaps she’s happy now, but now I realize she was never happy with me.”

  “You must’ve realized that at the time.”

  “I chose to believe what suited me.” Again Trotti rattled the sweet against the back of his teeth. “A book about a policeman? Not very interesting, I should think.”

  Boatti gestured to the bookcase. “I always have several projects. And the case isn’t yet closed.”

  “Not for you, perhaps, Boatti. For me it’s closed.”

  Boatti glanced sideways at Trotti, raising an eyebrow.

  “Loyalty, friendship—I think I’ve done my bit for Rosanna Belloni. I thought she was dead—and I was misled. Perhaps even deliberately . . . I don’t know. I do know, though, that I’ve put enough people’s backs up. Not least the questore’s. It’s time I took my holiday. That’s what everybody’s been telling me—and that’s what I feel like doing.” Trotti yawned and only belatedly put a hand in front of his mouth. “Would you mind if I lay down for a few minutes on the couch? It’s hot.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Your wife is an excellent cook.”

  “If you wish, you can go into the girls’ bedroom. It’s cool there.”

  “I shouldn’t have drunk the Grignolino. Red wine always puts me to sleep.” As an afterthought, Trotti added, “I still don’t understand the card.”

  “The postcard, Commissario?”

  “Normally Rosanna doesn’t write.” Trotti shrugged. “If she doesn’t write to you, I imagine she’s not likely to write to anybody else. Not even to Signora Isella. There’s something artificial about the card.”

  “Rosanna’s a bit of a poet, you know.” />
  “If Rosanna wanted to wax poetical about the beauty of the Po delta, she’d’ve written a letter. But her card . . .” Again he yawned. “It’s like something copied from a TCI touring guide.” Trotti shook his head. “A five-minute catnap. This heat . . .”

  “Commissario, Rosanna would never have murdered her sister.”

  “So you tell me.”

  “I know her well.”

  “If she’s alive she’ll turn up. Sooner or later. All the sooner if Maria Cristina’s death gets into the national press. And when she turns up . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “You can be sure Rosanna’ll have an alibi. She’ll have rock solid proof she was somewhere else at the time of her sister’s death.”

  37: Triads

  A brief siesta and then a shower.

  At half past four, Trotti left San Teodoro.

  Boatti, who wanted to go to the editorial offices of the Provincia Padana, agreed to accompany him as far as Corso Cavour. “What are you going to do now, Commissario?”

  Trotti smiled. He unwrapped a rhubarb sweet and put it in his mouth before answering. “Do?”

  “Rosanna’s alive and well and probably somewhere in the Po delta. As you said, sooner or later she’s going to turn up.”

  “I’m going to phone my daughter in Bologna to see how she is—she’s expecting her baby any minute. Then I’m going to tidy up my desk in the Questura, say goodbye to my friends. This evening I’ll go out for a meal, perhaps even a film. Long time since I’ve been to see a film. And tomorrow I’ll have a little holiday. Time I got away from this city—that’s what everybody’s been telling me. I’ll get my car out of the garage, put oil in the engine and check the tires. And at six tomorrow morning, before the build-up of holiday makers on the autostrada, I’ll drive up to Gardesana.”

  “Where?”

  “My wife has a villa on Lake Garda. I need a rest—and I need to get away from this . . .” He glanced at Boatti. “From this equatorial heat.”