The Silence of the Wave

by Gianrico Carofiglio

  “No, thanks, I can go by myself.”

  That “No, thanks” brought a pang to his heart. Roberto had to make an effort to hold back his emotions, as well as any questions about what had happened and how it had started, and why. Those kinds of questions were someone else’s job.

  “All right, we’ll see what we can do, you just have to be a little patient.”

  And then, after a pause, lying and feeling ashamed of himself: “In a little while, you’ll be able to go back home, even alone, if you prefer.”

  “But I have to go now. If it gets too late my parents start to worry.”

  “Keep calm, we’ll inform your parents.”

  But she wasn’t calm. She wasn’t calm at all, because gradually the situation was becoming clearer in her head.

  “You’re not going to tell them …” She couldn’t find the words. “Please let me go home.”

  Roberto would have liked to give her a hug and tell her not to worry, that her parents would understand and would help her, and that the world was not inhabited only by people like those three, or those two, or all those—God knows how many—who had handled her body.

  Except that of course he couldn’t give her a hug and he wouldn’t even have the courage to give her any guarantees on how the world was populated, or on what her parents and all the others would understand.

  “Don’t worry, there won’t be any problem with your parents. In a very short time you’ll go home and everything will be over.”

  And then, thank goodness, Carella arrived with four other carabinieri, three men and a woman. They had been really quick, even though it seemed to Roberto that an interminable length of time had passed. Apart from Carella, the others were young, and there was something about their way of moving, of behaving, of occupying the space, that gave Roberto the clear sensation that he himself belonged to another time.

  From that moment, things moved much more quickly.

  Roberto explained what had happened. He told almost the whole truth, remaining vague only about the source of his information. He alluded to an informant inside the school but didn’t give any further details. His colleagues were professionals—you don’t ask a professional for details about his informant—and didn’t ask any questions.

  The young woman carabiniere took charge of Ginevra and led her away. She seemed to know what she was doing, and Roberto felt relieved at that.

  The others dealt with the boys. The one caught on the bed with the girl was still crying, the second one had a large dark patch on his trousers and stank of urine, and the leader was very pale. He was still putting on airs and trying to act in a way he thought appropriate to his role, but he too seemed on the verge of breaking down.

  Carella informed the deputy prosecutor at the juvenile court. He said he had received an urgent and extremely reliable tip-off about the presence of a large quantity of drugs inside that apartment, and that he had proceeded to search it for drugs—on the basis of the very rule that Roberto had mentioned to the old man with the revolver—and had come across something more serious than a simple case of drug dealing.

  When he had finished talking on the phone, he turned to Roberto. “So, Marshal Marías, you’re back at last?”

  Roberto shrugged his shoulders and gave an embarrassed smile. Carella smiled too.

  “Do you want to sign the documents? We need to find a way to justify your presence here, but we’ll think up something. This may be a good omen. When you get back on the force you can come and work with us.”

  “No, let’s not cause needless problems. I’m going now. Maybe later we’ll talk on the phone and you can tell me what develops.”

  Carella did not insist. “All right, when we’ve finished I’ll call you.”

  * * *

  When Carella called, late that evening, his voice sounded tired.

  “We’ve finished now. The next time you come across something like this, please call the police.”

  Then he told him how it had gone. Luckily, the deputy prosecutor was on the ball and had immediately ordered the boys’ homes to be searched. The result had been what might have been expected: porn videos and photos, hashish, a whole lot of money, and actual, if rudimentary, accounts with the names of the clients—all between thirteen and sixteen years old—the amounts paid, the services received. The three boys had been questioned that same afternoon and had confessed everything, or at least enough to reconstruct the modus operandi of the gang and identify the other members. The girls were approached in discos or at private parties, the sexual acts—sometimes consensual, sometimes not—were filmed, and then the videos were used to blackmail them into prostituting themselves.

  “How’s the girl?”

  “So-so. Her parents are taking her out of that school—that’s obvious—but it’ll take time for her to recover. Some of the videos we’ve found are pretty disgusting.”

  “Go to bed, you sound terrible.”

  “I’m going now. Oh, obviously there’s no mention of your name in any of the paperwork. You were never in that apartment.”

  31

  The door opened immediately, and by the time Roberto got to Emma’s apartment she was waiting for him in the entrance. A day had gone by.

  “Come in, Giacomo’s still with his grandparents,” she said, her expression a mixture of anxiety and a touch of surprised admiration. “Would you like a coffee?”

  They had coffee in the kitchen and Roberto told her everything he had only hinted at over the phone. When he had finished, Emma stood up, opened the window, picked up an ashtray, and asked for a cigarette. After giving it to her, Roberto lit one for himself. He did it slowly, almost as if he wanted to be conscious of every single moment, to stamp it in his memory.

  “I think I’m going to quit tomorrow.”

  Emma looked at him as if she hadn’t heard.

  “How did Giacomo know what was happening?”

  Roberto stubbed out his cigarette, breaking it as he did so, and shifted on his chair.

  “What do you mean?”

  “How did he know? Please tell me he wasn’t involved.”

  Roberto looked at her in surprise. He hadn’t immediately grasped the reason for the question. “What are you talking about? Of course he wasn’t involved. We already talked about it: there were rumors about all this at school and he heard them, like everyone else. Maybe in the toilets, maybe someone boasted, or one of the girls blurted something out.” And then he added: “Maybe it was actually Ginevra who confided in him to get it off her chest. Who knows? Right now it doesn’t matter anyway. The important thing is that everything has … resolved itself. So to speak.”

  “And why did he tell you that story about the dream if he had nothing to hide?”

  “Because maybe he really did dream that she was asking for help. Through the dream, his unconscious was telling him he had to do something. Why don’t you ask the doctor what he thinks?”

  She looked him in the eyes for a long time. “I already have,” she said at last. “I phoned him before you arrived.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “The same as you.”

  Roberto tried to appear nonchalant, but without much success.

  “How did you find the place? How did you happen to get there just at that moment?”

  “Oh, a bit of professional skill, a bit of luck.”

  “Luck? Bullshit, luck doesn’t exist and you’re a strange man, signor detective. There are a whole lot of things you ought to tell me, never mind about luck.”

  You’re wrong, Roberto thought, luck definitely does exist. And bad luck too, while we’re about it.

  At that moment Giacomo arrived. Roberto stood up to shake his hand. Emma looked at the two of them, said she was going to have a shower, and disappeared.

  “You know what happened, don’t you?”

  The boy nodded, looking Roberto straight in the eyes, just as his mother had done a few minutes earlier.

  “People will take care
of her now. Of course she’ll be changing school. It’ll take time, but she’ll get over it.”

  Actually, Roberto didn’t know if the girl would get over it. Nobody knows in cases like that. But it seemed to him that Giacomo had the right to hear him say these things.

  “You were the one who saved her,” he added.

  Giacomo continued to look at him and Roberto became aware of the incredible melancholy in those eyes, which were so similar to his mother’s.

  “I’m very sad,” Giacomo said.

  “Why?”

  “Because I’ll never see her again.”

  Roberto made an effort to swallow. Then, without even realizing what he was doing, he went to Giacomo and gave him a quick hug.

  “See you again maybe,” he said, after a few moments, when they had separated.

  “I’d like that,” the boy replied simply.

  Then he got up and went out, leaving those last words hanging in the air and Roberto sitting in the kitchen as it got darker.

  Giacomo

  For at least two hours I listened to the collection I made for Ginevra and will never give her. It finished and then I started it again from the beginning, and then again and again, and it seemed to me that all the words and all the notes of the songs had a special meaning created just for me.

  It’s strange how the same thing—listening to music—can be something you really like and at the same time something that really hurts you.

  Only a few days have passed since the last time I wrote in this diary and it seems as if years have passed.

  Even after making the decision it wasn’t easy to talk to my mother, for a whole lot of reasons. Among others, I was almost certain she wouldn’t take me seriously.

  But that’s not how it went. She listened to me—really listened, without that unbearable attitude that adults sometimes have—in other words, she didn’t treat me like a child.

  It was a surprise, and one thing really amazed me: when I asked her if she could put me in touch with a policeman she didn’t object and said she would try to introduce me to a friend of hers who was a carabiniere. I was amazed that she had a friend who was a carabiniere, but of course I said yes and the next day she brought him home.

  He was different from the way I’d imagined a carabiniere. I don’t know if I can explain it properly, but I immediately liked him. He seemed like the kind of person you would like to be friends with even though he’s a man of more than forty and you’re a boy of almost twelve.

  I know I’m saying something absurd but in a way Roberto—that’s his name—reminded me of Scott.

  Roberto must be really good at his job, because in only three days he found out what was happening to Ginevra and arrested three guys, a student from my school who’s been repeating a year and two older boys who went to secondary school.

  I say went, because now I think they’ll have to attend school in juvenile prison. Even though, to tell the truth, I don’t know how these things work and maybe they’ll come out soon and be able to go back to a normal school.

  Ginevra will also change schools and I don’t think I’ll ever see her again.

  The thought of going into class every day and not seeing her makes my heart burst with sadness. This thing about sadness bursting is a phrase I heard in a song and I can’t find a better way to say how I feel.

  * * *

  It was several nights since I’d last seen Scott and I realized I won’t be dreaming about him anymore.

  Then it occurred to me that if he was created by my imagination, I could ask my imagination to let me see him one last time and say good-bye. Even without sleeping.

  So I lowered the blind, lay down on the bed, closed my eyes, and concentrated with all my might.

  After a while I succeeded, and Scott appeared. He was sitting there, calm and serious, beside my bed.

  “Hi, Scott, it’s good to have you here.”

  It’s nice to see you too, chief.

  “We’re saying good-bye, aren’t we?”

  I’m afraid so, chief.

  “Why? Why can’t we still see each other in the park, at least once in a while?”

  You don’t need me anymore, chief. My task is complete.

  Those words made me angry. I wanted to tell him that it was one of the stupidest things I’d ever heard. Who gave a damn about the task? Couldn’t we still see each other just for the pleasure of being together, of running in the park, of swimming in that lake with the turquoise water? Why did everything have to have a reason and a purpose?

  That wasn’t what I said.

  “I’ll never see you again and I’ll never see Ginevra again. I’m so sad.” I was sniffing, trying hard not to burst into tears.

  You did what needed to be done, chief. I’m proud of you and your father would be too.

  I sniffed again, but that sentence had sent a quiver through me and made me feel better.

  “When I have another dog I’ll call him Scott—you know that, don’t you?”

  I felt him lick my hand, but he didn’t say anything.

  “Scott, did you hear me?”

  He didn’t answer me.

  Then I opened my eyes and saw that he had gone away forever.

  32

  The car was moving slowly, so that they wouldn’t miss the badly signposted turn-off for the beach. The sky was becoming lighter, and through the lowered windows a sharp breeze came in, penetrating their light clothes and making them shiver. It was bound to be hot later, but right now the air was still cool and sharp. It was the perfect moment that precedes the arrival of certain summer days.

  Emma was driving and Roberto was looking at the road. He was aware of the changes inside and outside himself; he registered them, and let them happen. Just as the doctor had taught him. Images from his past—or maybe sometimes from his imagination—succeeded one another, passed by, and disappeared. Every now and then a wave of fear arrived, but it passed quickly and turned into a kind of tingling of the soul.

  They had left Rome very early, to be at the sea before the sun rose. The forecasts had said storms at sea. Santa Marinella isn’t Dana Point, but that day there would be some very large waves. Exceptionally large for the Tyrrhenian Sea and for the month of July.

  Together with the waves, an extraordinary influx of surfers was predicted, so it was vital to get there very early, or else the beach would be too crowded and the sea impenetrable.

  They parked in an open area where there were already a few cars. Roberto had the feeling that his strength was abandoning him completely. He had the impression he was moving laboriously, almost in slow motion. He got out of the car and stood there, motionless, unsure what to do.

  “Are you planning to go in the water fully dressed?” Emma said, a mixture of irony and apprehension in her voice. Maybe she was wondering if this had been a good idea. The last time this man had surfed had been more than thirty years earlier. What was to say he’d be able to do so again? He turned his gaze toward the sea. It was an expanse of foam, illuminated by the pale, uniform light of dawn.

  Without saying anything, Roberto got back in the car to change. He came out in his bathing trunks, an old T-shirt, and old blue-and-white tennis shoes. He took the surfboard from the roof rack, put it under his arm, and looked at Emma.

  “Roberto, if you don’t feel up to it …” The hint of irony had disappeared.

  “Let’s go,” he said, and they walked toward the sea.

  On the beach they glimpsed a few boys and a few surfboards planted upright in the sand. Nobody seemed to have gone into the water yet. A northwesterly wind was blowing, not too strong, but dry and full of dangerous promise.

  You won’t make it, Roberto said to himself as they walked down onto the beach. That feeling of sluggishness wouldn’t let go of him.

  There’s no way you’re going to make it. You’re old and you’ve forgotten how. How old were you the last time? When was the last time? You can’t even remember. Did that period ever exist? It’s not
just remote, it’s in another world. Would you be able to say how you can tell memories from dreams? Those waves you remember are silent, just like dreams. So maybe they aren’t real.

  You won’t make it.

  What was that sentence the doctor had quoted? It’s one thing to wait for the wave, another to get up on the board when it arrives. Precisely.

  Emma was walking behind him. For a very long moment, Roberto thought—really believed—that she was his mother and he had the impression he was in another place and in another life that could have been and hadn’t been.

  The wind again carried the salt smell. The same as so many years before. He took off his shoes. His feet sank into the cool sand. On his face, on his body, on the surfboard, he felt the eyes of the boys who had already taken over the beach. Gazes first of hostility, then, after getting a proper look at him—an old man—full of scorn.

  One of the boys stood up and took a few steps toward him. Maybe he wanted to tell him something. Maybe he wanted to tell him that this beach, at least at this time of the day, was their property. It was their place, not his. Or maybe he didn’t want to tell him anything and had stood up only to stretch his legs. What was certain is that the boy’s eyes and Roberto’s met just as the sun was rising. Then the boy looked away and decided to turn back and forget about whatever it was he had thought of doing.

  He sat down again on the sand, near the boards, exchanging embarrassed jokes with his friends, laughing a bit louder than necessary, making sure he was heard.

  But Roberto did not hear him. He stopped for just a few seconds to listen to the roar of the waves. The sun was rising behind him, casting his long shadow onto the beach, as far as the water and down into the sea.

  At that moment, as he was looking at his shadow mixing with the foam, he remembered something he had read years before.

  In the early nineties a merchant ship carrying a cargo of toys from Hong Kong to the United States was caught in a terrible storm. Thanks to the very high waves, a dozen containers ended up in the water and broke open, spilling into the ocean tens of thousands of yellow plastic ducks, the kind you give to little children to play with when they have a bath. It was—it seemed—an ordinary shipping accident, to be filed away in the insurance company’s records.