‘Dude!’ he cried.
Tom lay on the bed staring up at an intricate pattern of cracks on the ceiling. They resembled a river delta seen from space, a satellite photograph of somewhere he’d never been, some remote place where the people had retained their traditional customs and cuisine, a lost heartland where life made sense the way it was supposed to.
The room to which he was confined was slightly larger than Rocco Battista’s cell, but not much cheerier or better furnished. There was a narrow bed, a chest of drawers and some bare shelving. The window was locked, the shutters closed and the conditioned air chilly and synthetic-smelling. Outside the door, which was also locked, stood an armed policeman who admitted nurses and doctors as necessary, gave Tom his meals, accompanied him to the toilet and then locked him up again. He responded to the patient’s Italian as though it were Japanese, occasionally shaking his head or shrugging his shoulders, but never uttered a word.
The exact time of day or night has little significance in a hospital, and it was not until a doctor came, examined the wound, checked Tom’s pulse and blood pressure, gave him a tub of painkillers and pronounced him fit to depart that he discovered that it was in fact four o’clock in the afternoon. His clothing was returned and the taciturn policeman escorted him to a car parked in a quiet courtyard within the hospital complex. They drove north to an apartment block between Piazza Loreto and Piazza Europa, in the unprepossessing modern suburbs of the city. Tom asked several times where they were going, but the policeman either ignored him or just shook his head in the contemptuous and utterly final Calabrian manner.
They parked outside a charmless structure dating from the 1970s or 1980s and remained in the car for at least five minutes while Tom’s escort scrutinised the comings and goings on the street. When he was finally satisfied, he got out, flung open Tom’s door and scurried him inside the apartment block like a movie star’s minder dodging the paparazzi. The scene within, however, was not a luxurious night-club or glittering awards ceremony but a dingy foyer with bad lighting, bad paint and seriously bad smells. The policeman spent another nervous minute while the lift trundled lethargically back to the ground floor and then conveyed them, equally lethargically, to the seventh. By the time his escort unlocked one of the doors in the corridor, Tom’s wound had started to ache quite painfully.
Behind the door was a narrow passage lined with coats and books and umbrellas. The policeman looked inside one of the rooms to the left and gestured sharply to Tom that he should enter it. It was almost a replica of the one he had just left at the hospital, only with more dust and lots of cardboard boxes filled with files and papers scattered all over the floor. The only decoration was a large rectangular photograph of uniformed men and women standing in three neatly aligned ranks in ascending levels. Some graduation ceremony, it looked like. He had to move some of the boxes aside to get to the bed, and on top of the pile of documents in one of them he noticed a certificate from a police academy stating that Mirella Kodra had excelled in the firearms training course she had taken two years previously.
So this must be the spare bedroom in her apartment. No unmarried Calabrian woman would dream of letting it be known that she had allowed a man to spend the night in her home. Therefore Tom was not categorised as a man by Mirella. He was a problem, a job, a parcel that had to be passed around like in that kid’s game. He was not a guest, still less a potential lover, just a displaced person who must grudgingly be housed and fed until he got well enough to do everyone a favour by pissing off back to where he came from. He slumped down on the bed, feeling utterly lonely and exhausted and bereft. What a fool he’d been, with his big ideas of rediscovering his Calabrian roots and opening una vera trattoria americana autentica! It wasn’t so much what he didn’t know. Given time, he could learn that. It was about what he did know and would never be able to forget, stuff that was inappropriate here, behaviour and habits and ideas that were alien, maybe even offensive. But how could he pretend to be ignorant of those things? How could a person ever unknow anything? He swallowed two of the capsules he’d been given – without water, to avoid appealing to his swinish guard – then lay down again, gasping at the pain, drew his knees up into a foetal crouch and went to sleep.
He was awoken by voices he couldn’t recognise or understand, a man and a woman, perhaps arguing. The room was in complete darkness. At length the voices fell silent and a door slammed somewhere. Footsteps came and went gently for some time, and then the door to his room opened and a figure in silhouette broke the rectangular panel of light. Mirella.
‘How are you feeling?’
‘I’m feeling fine. You know why? Because I’m homeward bound, homeward bound. Do you know that song?’
‘You told me the other evening that this was your home.’
‘I was misinformed.’
‘Not by me.’
Tom shifted position on the bed. Those painkillers really mellowed you out. Once his eyes had adjusted, he could just about make out Mirella’s face.
‘And how are you, signorina?’ he asked with some asperity and using the third person mode of address.
‘Tired. There’s a big operation in progress. They’re hoping to arrest the man who killed your father. They needed help with setting it up but don’t want me there when it happens. That’s why I’m late, and tired. When it comes to the crunch, it’s pretty much boys only. That tires you, after a while.’
Silence fell.
‘Why are you addressing me formally?’ she said.
‘Just trying to be polite. I know almost nothing about you, and most of what I thought I knew turns out to be false. You told me you were a pen-pusher and call-catcher for the local government, but apparently you work for the police.’
Mirella sighed.
‘I’m sorry, Tommaso.’
He didn’t reply.
‘I’ll make us something to eat,’ she said.
‘I’m not hungry.’
‘You must eat.’
‘Forget it! I’m not accepting charity from some soup kitchen set up to save immigrants like me from starving to death and making you guys look bad.’
In the doorway, strongly shadowed, Mirella turned.
‘I am also an immigrant.’
‘Oh sure.’
‘It’s true. I’m arbëreshe. Five hundred years ago, when the Turks conquered our country and burned our cities, my ancestors emigrated from Albania to a town just north of here, San Demetrio Corone. In our language, Shën Mitër.’
‘Whatever you say, signorina,’ Tom replied coldly.
The next thing he knew, she was leaning over him and shouting angrily.
‘I wouldn’t do this for just anyone, you know! You could be shut up at the men’s barracks with a truckle bed and food fetched in from the canteen. I invited you here out of the kindness of my heart and you treat me as disdainfully as you would a whore!’
Her fury astonished him.
‘I’ve never been with a whore,’ was all he could find to say.
‘You’re impossible!’ she cried and stormed out, slamming the door behind her.
Pots clanked and thudded, water ran, there was the crinkle of a plastic bag. Tom got painfully to his feet. Stay mobile, the doctor had told him. Don’t bend or stretch or lift anything, but keep moving as much as you can. Just normal movements. He walked through to the kitchen. Mirella wasn’t there. He leant back against the doorpost exploring the messages that his body was sending him. The first twenty-four hours will be the worst, the doctor had said. Pleasure is a fleeting illusion but pain never lets you down. It’s the real deal. On pain, you can always count.
‘Excuse me, please.’
Mirella brushed past him. She had showered and changed into a crisp white blouse and black pants.
‘What are you making?’
‘A pasta sauce. I also bought a roast chicken and some salad.’
‘Sounds great.’
‘No, only adequate. My mother is a wonderful cook. I
take after my father.’
He watched her fingers working on the wooden chopping board, the spreading stain of the onion’s white blood.
‘Italian-Americans are always bragging about how great their mother’s pasta sauce is.’
‘Then it’s good that you’re homeward bound. Over there you can live your dream of Italy. Here we have to live with the reality. My father would kill me if he knew that you were spending the night here. But you can forget the idea of talking your way on to that business jet with your employers. One is dead, the other has fled the country.’
‘What? How?’
She streamed pasta into the boiling water.
‘They were dumping a crate at sea from a helicopter and something went wrong. Never mind, there are plenty of commercial flights from Rome. Go! Leave! The people who return don’t fit in. They’re an embarrassment, like house guests who’ve outstayed their welcome. They think they’re family here, but they’re just another kind of tourist. Chine cangia a via vecchia ppe’la nova, trivuli lassa e malanova trova.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘You see? You don’t even speak the language! It means that changing your old way of life for a new one removes minor problems only to create newer and bigger ones. You have to have been born and raised here to be Calabrian, but these people think they’ve inherited the title like some baron in the old days. A friend of my father who lived abroad for many years said that America nourishes your body but eats your soul. Maybe it eats your brain as well.’
She added chunks of raw, lumpy, hunchbacked tomato to the simmering onions.
‘And you accused me of being cold,’ Tom said.
‘I’m simply a realist. You Americans are idealists, and when reality doesn’t measure up to your expectations you turn brutal. You invented your own country and think that gives you the right to invent everyone else’s, even though you know nothing about their history or traditions. Why should you bother? History and traditions are the consolations of the poor. Rich people like you don’t need them.’
She turned away from the stove and started to lay the table.
‘I apologise. I invited you into my house and now I’m insulting you and your culture. That’s unspeakably rude. I don’t know what’s the matter with me tonight.’
‘I don’t care. Just keep talking. I like listening to your voice.’
She glanced at him sharply.
‘You mustn’t fall in love with me, you know.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because you’re homeward bound, Tommaso.’
‘I am home.’
‘Don’t start that again! It’s just expatriate sentimentality, and sentiments are of no importance here. All that matters is power. Sex may matter. Pregnancy and marriage certainly do, because those things have consequences. But don’t imagine for a moment that anyone gives a damn about your feelings. Or mine, for that matter. The pasta’s ready, let’s eat.’
They ate in almost complete silence. Tom felt totally exhilarated and utterly crushed. He’d never been talked down like that in his life. Mirella said nothing more, and he was afraid that anything he said would sound stupid. But he couldn’t take his eyes off her. He remembered now something that had been submerged by the shock of what had happened in that alley, when she was taking his attacker down with her feet and threw her hands up to maintain her balance and he’d seen the tufts of hair in her armpits and realised that she wasn’t a brunette but a redhead who dyed her hair to blend in on the street. An Albanian redhead, at that. The prospect was challenging, but he couldn’t take his eyes off her, couldn’t wait for her to speak to him again, couldn’t wait to suck the sweat off those hairs, to lick the tender hollow beneath and inhale the sweet, gamy essence of her flesh.
When the meal was over, Mirella brusquely rejected Tom’s offer to help with the dirty dishes.
‘That’s woman’s work. Go and lie down. You need rest.’
‘So do you.’
‘It’s quicker and easier if I do it myself. After that I’m going to watch TV. Later on, I’ll come and check the dressing on your wound.’
‘Are you a doctor as well?’
‘No, but I’ve got excellent first-aid skills. We have to take basic training and then refreshers every year. Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing and it won’t hurt.’
She piled up a stack of plates and dishes and set them in the sink.
‘And then, if you’re not too tired, we might fuck.’
Clatter, bang went the pots and pans.
‘I don’t know if I’ll be able to move much,’ Tom said.
‘That’s all right, we’ll work something out. It’ll help you sleep.’
‘And you?’
She shrugged.
‘I like being manhandled once in a while, and opportunities for casual sex don’t come along often in Calabria. Besides, since you’re staying here everyone will assume we’ve done it anyway, so I’d be a fool not to take advantage. But if you don’t want me …’
‘Are you crazy? Of course I want you!’
‘Then there’s nothing more to say. Go and lie down.’
Tom stood there uselessly, taking up space in the tiny kitchen, getting in Mirella’s way. He had no idea what to say or do, so he asked the question that was uppermost in his mind.
‘May I kiss you, Mirella?’
‘No, that’s too intimate.’
Once again he was tongue-tied and ended up speaking the truth.
‘You’re the most extraordinary person I’ve ever met.’
Mirella laughed dismissively.
‘Nonsense, I’m very normal and boring. But I’ll try not to bore you tonight, and tomorrow I’ll take you to the hospital for your final check-up and then pack you off on the plane home to your American beauties with their stainless-steel teeth.’
Tom met her eyes.
‘You can’t get rid of me that easily, Mirella. I do have to go now, but I’ll be back. I may not qualify as a Calabrian in your eyes but even you can’t deny that I’m an American. We don’t quit just because the going gets tough.’
Mirella held up her right hand and extended the little finger and thumb.
‘What’s that?’ demanded Tom angrily. ‘Some superstitious gesture against that thing you believe in here …’
She flashed him a mischievous smile.
‘Cuntru l’affascinu? No, I’m not that fascinated by you. Not yet, at least. Anyway, that sign is made with the forefinger, not the thumb. All I meant is that I want you to phone me while you’re away. Now go to bed and get some rest, because that’s not the only thing I want.’
The trap was set. There had been no phone calls to any of Nicola Mantega’s numbers, but piecing together the previous evidence, including the recent delivery and return of the genuine Roman gold artefacts, Aurelio Zen had concluded that Giorgio was now on red alert and communicating only in writing. The team watching Mantega had therefore been instructed to keep a close eye on possible maildrops.
Shortly after six that evening, a roughly shaven individual of about thirty with the piercing gaze and rolling gait of the mountain folk had walked down the block of Corso Mazzini where Mantega’s office was situated, entered the building and emerged precisely six seconds later. He was followed back to his car and at a hastily improvised road-block near Camigliatello he was pulled over by the Polizia Stradale and arrested for drunk driving, even though his blood alcohol level was in fact zero. Long before that, Nicola Mantega’s compartment in the letter boxes mounted on the wall just inside the entrance of the office block had been opened and the plain brown envelope inside extracted. This was rushed to forensics for tests, then opened, the contents copied and replaced, the envelope resealed and replaced in Mantega’s letter box.
The allegedly drunk driver had meanwhile used the one telephone call he had been allowed to make to contact the house in San Giovanni in Fiore which was the incoming conduit for Giorgio’s communications network. Shortly afterwards, Dionis
io Carduzzi was observed leaving his house and walking up the long, twisting main street of the town to Via del Serpente, part of the slum area of apartment blocks built illegally in the 1970s, many of them unfinished and unoccupied and all lacking double glazing and insulation and improperly positioned to face the full blast of the Siberian winds that dragged the temperature far below zero for much of the winter. Dionisio had entered the unit that contained Silvia Fardella’s address of official record, but his visit was a short one. No sooner had he stepped back on to the street than Nicola Mantega’s mobile in Cosenza rang and a woman’s voice said, ‘Check your mailbox.’ The yob who had apparently passed out in a shady corner of the entrance hall, clutching an empty bottle of limoncello, confirmed a moment later on his encrypted mobile that Mantega had done so. What il notaio didn’t do was inform the police of these interesting developments, but Aurelio Zen already had a copy of the missive in question in his hands. Stripped of its many orthographical errors, it read as follows:
I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE NICOLETTA BUT IT’S TOO RISKY COME TO THE DAM ON THE MUCONE RIVER AT EIGHT THIS IS URGENT AND I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE
Zen smiled unpleasantly as he put the note down on his desk. Right now Nicola Mantega must be wondering how in the name of God it had come to this, running his mind back over each of the steps which had brought him to where he stood now, on the brink of a precipice, yet unable to fault himself for a single one of them. It had all made complete sense at the time, so how on earth had he ended up having to drive off after dark to a rendezvous on a remote country road up in the Sila mountains with a drug-addicted psychotic who would slit his throat if he found out what Mantega had been up to in his collaborations with the chief of police and the late Martin Nguyen, and for that matter might very well slit his throat anyway? But Mantega would go nevertheless, because he knew that if he didn’t then sooner or later Giorgio would come to him. Better to calm him down now, deny Rocco Battista’s absurd allegations and press a large bundle of banknotes into Giorgio’s hand with the promise of more to come.
End Games - 11 Page 29