Back to Bologna

by Michael Dibdin

  The housemaid turned to him with horrified eyes.

  ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph!’

  She came back up to where Zen lay and bent over him solicitously. He moaned and groaned a bit, then smiled and clambered unsteadily to his feet with the air of one bravely making light of a harrowing experience. Faking pain came easy after the crash course in the real thing that he had so recently undergone.

  ‘Are you all right?’ the donna cried.

  ‘Nothing broken!’ Zen replied, with a transparently faked if gallant attempt at jaunty humour. ‘I’ll be fine in a moment. But…’

  He looked her in the eyes.

  ‘What’s your name, signora?’

  ‘Carlotta.’

  ‘Would you mind taking my arm as far as the bottom of the stairs, Carlotta?’

  ‘Of course, of course!’

  ‘It’s disturbing, suddenly losing your balance like that. Makes you think about the day when you’ll lose everything else too, eh?’

  ‘Eh, eh!’

  The two of them proceeded cautiously down, step by step. At the foot of the stairs, Zen did not withdraw his arm, nor did Carlotta release it. They shuffled back along the ground-floor passageway to a door at the far end that stood open into a dimlylit, low-ceilinged area filled with odours and warmth. Leaving Zen to stand alone for a moment, Carlotta pulled over a chair and eased him into it.

  ‘Now stay there,’ she admonished him. ‘I’m going to prepare a tonic. It’ll make you feel much better.’

  She bustled rapidly about the kitchen, opening cupboards, extracting containers, measuring ingredients, and then pouring, grinding and stirring. Carlotta’s domain was evidently the one remaining original section of the house, saved by the cost factor–no need to impress the servants–from the upwardly-mobile renovations of some two centuries earlier. Although spotlessly clean, every surface looked worn, uneven, imperfect, and somehow denser than its actual physical consistency. The single fifty-watt bulb had no doubt been imposed by her employers for the same reasons of economy that had preserved the integrity of the whole space, but the gentle ingratiation of its dim glow, reflected back up off the worn flagstones, was beyond price.

  ‘What’s this?’ Zen asked when Carlotta finally brought him a tumbler full of some brownish liquid.

  ‘Just drink it down. All in one go, mind.’

  He did so. Once the initial shock of the alcohol had subsided, he vaguely identified nutmeg, orange zest, cardamom and raw garlic. He nodded several times and handed the glass back, beaming at her.

  ‘You’re a wonder, Carlotta!’

  ‘Now stay sitting where you are for five minutes, and you’ll be as right as rain.’

  She took the glass to the sink, shaking her head sorrowfully.

  ‘I blame myself! To think that I’d polished those steps only five minutes before you arrived.’

  ‘No, no, no!’ Zen insisted. ‘It was all my own fault, not looking where I was going. And these old leather-soled shoes are as smooth as…’

  Their increasingly intimate colloquy–Zen was starting to think that he might well be able to get some interesting information out of Carlotta before he left–was interrupted by a dry, metallic snap in the resonant distance.

  ‘That’ll be the signora,’ the maid declared. ‘You stay here. I’ll settle her down, then announce you as though you’d just arrived.’

  She went out to the hallway, from which a duet of voices drifted back to where Zen sat idly waiting. Carlotta’s he could recognise. The newcomer indeed sounded feminine, but there was a feeble, plaintive tone to the voice which ill suited the mental image he had formed of Signora Amadori. The words themselves were alternately ballooned and baffled as if by contrary winds, but they grew ever louder and closer until Carlotta reappeared in the kitchen, accompanied by a young man whom Zen didn’t immediately recognise.

  ‘Well, you should have told me!’ the housemaid was saying. ‘How was I supposed to know you’d had a nosebleed? I assumed it was a wine stain. If you’d told me it was blood then naturally I’d never have washed it in hot water, but how was I to know?’

  ‘Why didn’t you ask?’

  ‘Don’t you talk like that to me, Vincenzo! I’ve cleaned your nappies in my time, never mind your designer shirts. Take your precious stuff to a laundry if you’re going to be so fussy.’

  She broke off, realising that the young man had noted the police officer’s presence, but seemed unable to come up with a satisfactory solution to this unforeseen social conundrum.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Vincenzo demanded, advancing threateningly on Zen.

  His intentions were clear enough, but his execution let him down. His voice was still modulating from the plangent whine he had employed with the housekeeper to his peer-speak stadium bark, and when he reached the chair where Zen was seated he stopped short, seemingly uncertain how to follow through. Zen ignored him.

  ‘That medicine of yours really did the trick,’ he said to Carlotta, getting to his feet. ‘I feel even better than when I arrived!’

  Vincenzo swung round on the elderly donna.

  ‘What’s he doing here? What the fuck’s going on?’

  ‘You mind your tongue!’ Carlotta fired back. ‘Such language, and before a guest in your parents’ house!’

  Zen glanced at his watch.

  ‘It’s beginning to look as though Signora Amadori must have been delayed, and I’ve got other business to attend to. The matter’s really of no urgency.’

  ‘Just a moment, you!’ Vincenzo shouted aggressively, although keeping his distance. Carlotta stood looking from one of them to the other, understandably out of her depth. Zen grinned at her roguishly.

  ‘In fact, it might be better if you don’t mention that I came at all,’ he confided in a low voice. ‘You know what lawyers are like. If Avvocato Amadori finds out that I fell on those slippery steps, he might lie awake at night worrying that I’m going to sue him.’

  ‘Hey, you can’t get out of it that easily…’ Vincenzo began.

  ‘As for you,’ Zen cried, deigning to regard him for the first time, ‘treat your mother with a little more respect!’

  Vincenzo and Carlotta answered in chorus.

  ‘She’s not my mother!’

  ‘He’s not my son!’

  Zen sighed, then shook his head in evident bafflement and walked out.

  18

  Gemma Santini reached the Bologna trade fair complex forty minutes before the event was due to begin, assuming that this would allow ample time to pick up her reserved ticket and get seated. She was wrong.

  The area around the row of ticket booths was packed with people, some of whom gave every impression of having been there all night. Most were waiting their turn in a more or less orderly way for the strictly limited number of free passes being handed out to pack the hall, but a few had resorted to what Gemma privately called Neapolitan granny tactics, screaming their needs, demands and special circumstances at the attendant in the hope that they would be given what they wanted just to shut them up and get them out of there.

  The moment she had learnt about the cook-off between her favourite TV personality and the awe-inspiring Edgardo Ugo which was to take place in the very city to which she was going anyway, her thoughts had turned to Luigi Piergentili. Although now a moral and physical wreck of the kind that dear Aurelio fondly imagined himself to be, in his former capacity as the dominant consigliere at the Monte dei Paschi bank Luigi had wielded a power in Tuscany and beyond second only to the equally fond imaginings of certain now-forgotten politicians. His own season of influence had been brought to an end–not entirely fortuitously, some held–by an unpleasant hit-and-run accident which had left the victim addicted, as he freely admitted, to a powerful morphine-based painkiller. Unfortunately, all of the many doctors he had consulted ultimately declined to continue prescribing this medication, citing normative pharmaceutical criteria, contra-indicative long-term health risks and, above all, a fear of lo
sing their licences to practice medicine. It was at this point that Signor Piergentili had appealed to Gemma.

  Luigi had been far too canny to make this appeal to her pity, or even her venality. Instead, with a shrewdness she had appreciated almost as much as the implicit delicatezza, he had murmured over tea at the Caffè di Simo that a very close friend of his, a professor at the University of Florence, had happened to mention to him that Gemma’s son Stefano was studying engineering there.

  ‘How is he doing?’ he added, with a serene Etruscan smile.

  The answer was spectacularly bad, but the smile made it clear that Luigi’s friend had also mentioned that. Moments later, a mutually advantageous marriage of convenience had been arranged. Both parties had thus far remained faithful, but following Stefano’s graduation cum laude Gemma, while duly grateful for the intercession concerned, had become the creditor in the relationship. She had therefore felt no qualms about phoning Luigi the day before, and telling him to work his network of contacts and fix her up with a comp ticket for the culinary showdown between Lo Chef and Il Professore. He had called back at dawn, after ‘a blissfully dreamless night, thanks to you, my dear’, with the news that she need only present herself at ticket counter 7 of the fiera compound in Bologna the next morning, and all would be taken care of.

  This turned out to be true enough, as far as it went. What Gemma had not taken into account was the sheer crush of humanity attracted by this unique event. She didn’t mind waiting, but like everyone else she was aware that since this event was being televised live, timing was of the essence. Once the broadcast began, the doors would be closed and locked, and even Luigi’s pull wouldn’t be able to get her in.

  In the end, with a discreet elbow jab here, a piscine slither there, and a good deal of old-fashioned argy-bargy, she made it to the threshold of the hall with about a minute to spare, only for her mobile phone to go off. It was Aurelio, blathering away about something or other. She dealt with him very summarily and then processed into the arena with the other latecomers.

  There must have been at least five hundred people present, Gemma estimated. Many of them wore identifying badges and name-tags on a cord round their necks, and busied themselves with tape-recorders, cameras and notebooks, but many were ordinary citizens who had queued up since dawn for a ticket to a contest that had been the talk of Italy ever since it had been announced. Her seat turned out to be a good one, about a third of the way up, with an excellent view of both kitchens and of the central dining area.

  At ten o’clock precisely, the house lights went down and a man wearing shiny shoes, tight black trousers and a patterned silk shirt open to the navel, revealing a gold necklace nestling in his spectacular chest hair, stepped forward to the edge of the stage. With no particular surprise, other than the fact that he was so much smaller than she had imagined, Gemma recognised him as the presenter of a TV variety show broadcast on the same channel as Lo Chef Che Canta e Incanta. He proceeded to welcome the audience effusively, and then introduced the event and the participants in his usual bombastically jokey manner. Gemma noted, however, that once he got down to business the text of what he was evidently reading off a screen beneath one of the on-stage cameras had been very carefully scripted indeed, and almost certainly with a team of lawyers representing each party in the room.

  In brief, it stated that Professor Edgardo Ugo, the noted Bolognese academic and world-famous author, had inadvertently written something in his column for Il Prospetto which might conceivably have been construed by the inattentive or ill-intentioned as casting doubt on Romano Rinaldi’s culinary abilities. Such a thing had of course never remotely been Professor Ugo’s intention. His comment had been made purely from a humorous and–the next word seemed to cause the presenter some trouble–metonymic perspective, and he unconditionally rejected any literal interpretation that might be placed on it. Nevertheless, to settle the matter once and for all, and also celebrate the glories of Italian cooking and the prestigious Bologna food fair, the two men would now ‘meet as equal slaves over a hot stove [pause for laughter] before you all gathered here today and watching at home’ in order to put a definitive end to any unpleasantness that might mistakenly have been perceived to have arisen.

  ‘And now please welcome…’

  The presenter gestured towards the kitchen area to the left of the stage as Edgardo Ugo walked in from the wings. The professor was wearing an English style tweed jacket, khaki cords, a rumpled dark-green shirt and a clashing lime-green tie, and looked as though he couldn’t care less about the whole event. Acclaim from the audience was respectful but subdued.

  ‘And in the opposite corner…’

  Clad in his trademark white uniform and toque, Lo Chef made his appearance at a leisurely, relaxed pace, grinning confidently and waving to the crowd. The applause was tumultuous and so prolonged that after a considerable time the presenter was forced to appeal for silence.

  The judges then filed in and were briefly introduced as leading chefs, cookery writers and culinary experts before taking their places at the dining table in the central section. After that the presenter began to explain the rules of engagement, and Gemma felt her interest slipping away. It was all about food, and she didn’t feel in the least hungry, not least because it brought to mind Aurelio, whom she had unwisely contacted in a moment of elation the evening before with a virtual invitation to lunch and an implied reconciliation. She now felt very dubious about both, besides which she had been invited to dinner by Stefano and Lidia, who would be sure to take any lack of appetite on her part personally. Flicking idly through the brochure covering the Enogastexpo fair that she had been handed along with her pass, she noticed an advertisement for what sounded like a fashionable snack bar right in the centre, and texted Aurelio the name and address. That was the solution, she decided. A meaningless encounter, a quick bite, e poi via.

  On stage, the presenter flung his arms wide, his expression one of astonishment and awe.

  ‘And now, let battle commence!’

  Gemma put the glossy brochure down and studied the two very different contestants. To the left, Edgardo Ugo had clearly resigned himself to his inevitable defeat. He sloped confusedly around his kitchen set under the brilliant TV lights in his pathetically homely garb like a parody of the drab, ineffectual bachelor wondering where everything was and what to do first.

  Romano Rinaldi could not have presented a clearer contrast. From the very first moment, it was clear that he owned the space he had been allotted. He glanced at the display panel, then moved rapidly to turn up the flame under a pan of water for the pasta before turning his attentions to the ingredients and the chopping board. While Ugo pointedly ignored the onlookers and the cameras, turning his back all the time and never saying a word, Lo Chef romanced his audience constantly, chatting aloud, sharing his thoughts and cracking jokes.

  Then he suddenly froze rigid for a long moment, as though struck by a spontaneous inspiration.

  ‘Ci vuole una cipolla!’ he proclaimed. ‘I know it! How do I know it? Because the onion is calling out to me!’

  Launching into ‘Recondita armonia’, he sloshed copious quantities of his name-brand olive oil into a pan and set it on a high flame. The pasta water was now rising to the boil. Still singing and grinning, Rinaldi poured in the spaghetti and swirled it about a bit with a wooden spoon before seizing an onion from the array on the counter. He skinned and chopped it, then turned dramatically to the audience and walked downstage.

  ‘The onion has spoken to me,’ he said softly, wiping mock tears from his eyes. ‘And what it has to say makes me weep.’

  This provided an irresistible segue into Donizetti’s ‘Una furtiva lagrima’, during which the pot of pasta boiled over, flooding the right side of the stove and extinguishing the flame.

  Rinaldi proved unable to relight the burner, despite hammering away repeatedly at the spark lighter function and then looking around in vain for matches. Meanwhile, on the other side of the sta
ge, Edgardo Ugo was lumbering about like the caged bear he rather resembled, adding something to the sauce, keeping an eye on the pasta, and generally displaying complete indifference to whatever might be happening elsewhere. Eventually a businesslike woman of about thirty came running on to Rinaldi’s kitchen set, moved the pasta pan to a different burner and ignited the flame before hastening off-stage. Lo Chef turned to the audience, showing his teeth in a huge smile above his bearded chin.

  ‘What a thing it is to have a woman around!’ he declared in a tone at once humble and triumphant.

  The audience burst into laughter and applause. Rinaldi acknowledged their appreciation of his wit and poise with a rendition of the famous aria from Rigoletto, changing the lyrics to ‘La donna è mobile, ma indispensabile’. This led to still more applause. Keenly in tune with the mood of his public, he proceeded with the rest of the piece, interpolating or altering lyrics as he went, before ending on a high and long-held note at the very edge of his vocal range.

  It was at this moment that the pan of oil on the stove behind him burst into flames.

  19

  Tony Speranza made his way jauntily along Via Oberdan, a satisfied smile and a smouldering Camel on his lips. Passing a rather chic bar where he was known very well indeed, he turned in and ordered a double espresso and a whiskey. This fine establishment stocked not only Jack Daniels but also Maker’s Mark, and on this occasion Tony decided to indulge himself with a large glass of the latter, even though designer bourbon was a little prissy for a true investigatore privato, strictly speaking.

  But he had done the job, even if he hadn’t yet been paid. This was becoming something of a sore point, particularly given the expense of replacing the miniaturised camera that had been stolen along with his beloved M-57 pistol back in Ancona. Nevertheless, he had got the photographs, which was the main thing. The digital shots of Vincenzo and his associates that Tony had taken in the café after the Curti memorial service the night before had been printed up on heavyweight A4 paper first thing that morning and delivered by hand to the client together with an itemised bill.