by Tobias Jones
I walked away, feeling out of touch with my fellow countrymen and women. I walked to the other side of the square, past outside tables were people were peering over their papers to look at the circus on the other side.
‘Coglioni,’ I heard one man mutter under his breath. He was shaking his head disparagingly. I don’t know why, but it made me feel better to think that at least one other person felt the same as me.
I only realised I was walking over to Chiara Biondi’s flat when I was half-way there. It wasn’t a conscious decision but something that seemed to happen by itself, almost as if I was asleep and unable to control my actions. I was approaching the familiar metal gate outside their block of flats when I saw her and Simona walking arm and arm along the pavement.
They stopped in front of me, smiling but saying nothing.
‘What is it?’ Chiara asked, looking mildly irritated.
‘I told Simona’s father,’ I looked across at the young girl, ‘that I would introduce her to him. If she wants.’
‘Absolutely not,’ Chiara said firmly. Her face looked pained by the expression.
‘He was on his death-bed the last time I saw him. If she doesn’t see him now, she probably never will.’
Chiara was shaking her head. Having spent years not having her daughter to herself, she didn’t want to share her now.
‘More secrets?’ Simona asked with evident resentment.
‘No secrets,’ Chiara said quickly. ‘I just want to protect you.’
‘Protect?’ Simona said scornfully. ‘Protect seems like a synonym for deceive.’
‘Not deceit, not any more,’ Chiara said, shooting an angry stare at me. ‘I just don’t think it’s appropriate.’
‘Appropriate?’ Simona’s sarcasm was returning with full force. ‘You don’t think it’s appropriate? You obviously thought this man appropriate when you were my age.’
Chiara closed her eyes as if pleading for patience. ‘Do whatever you want,’ she said.
‘Come on,’ Simona said.
‘I’ll bring her back shortly,’ I said. Chiara still had her eyes shut and was nodding now, nodding slowly like she had lost interest in everything.
Simona and I walked in silence towards my car. We both felt bad about leaving Chiara there, but we had our own motives for wanting to see the old man. When we were getting closer to the car, I told Simona what to expect: that he was close to the end and that she shouldn’t expect an emotional reunion. He could be cantankerous.
‘Probably where you get it from,’ I joked.
She looked at me and smiled briefly. ‘Who is he?’
‘A businessman,’ I said vaguely. ‘He’s called Giorgio Gregori.’
We parked up and walked around the inside of the courtyard to the right door. The old-fashioned brass button gave a loud ring that made the button vibrate as I held it down. Gregori’s sister came to the door and looked at us with suspicion.
‘He’s not even dead yet,’ she whispered, ‘and you’re coming round here hoping for a slice of his estate.’
‘Signora,’ I said gently, ‘this is your niece, Simona Biondi.’
She looked at Simona without offering her hand. She turned to stare at me then back at Simona. ‘What is it you want?’
‘I want to meet my father,’ Simona said.
There was a long pause, as Mariangela Gregori saw herself being replaced in her brother’s affections. Perhaps she saw her inheritance shrinking too. She turned round, leaving the door open so we could follow her. I shut it behind me, following the two into the dark corridor outside the old man’s room.
‘He’s very weak,’ Mariangela said, frowning anxiously. She opened the door and we saw Gregori sitting up in bed, wheezing in his sleep. His skin was white and the whole room smelt of imminent death: you could almost smell flesh that was rotting in the heat. There was the rancid, sad scent of mortality.
His sister walked up to him and squeezed his hand. He blinked his eyes a couple of times before focusing on her.
‘Giorgio,’ she said, ‘this young woman claims to be your daughter.’
He rolled his head on the pillow and stared at Simona. She held out a hand, but he didn’t seem to have the strength to raise his, so Simona ended up waving at him.
‘I’m Simona,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ he said softly, ‘I see. You’re like your mother.’
There was an awkward silence. They didn’t seem to know what to say next.
He turned to me. ‘This is the girl you were looking for?’
I nodded.
‘She OK?’ he asked, as if she weren’t there.
‘She’s OK,’ I said.
He rolled his head back towards her, looking her up and down. ‘You still at school?’ he asked.
‘No, I’m going to work in television,’ she spoke eagerly, like she wanted to impress him.
He grunted with disappointment.
‘I’ve been promised a position in the line-up for one of the TV Sogni shows.’
‘Why would you want to do that?’
She seemed surprised that he didn’t understand, shaking her head quickly and trying to smile. He turned back to me as if their conversation were finished.
‘She’s the girl you were looking for?’ He sounded confused, like he didn’t remember he had just asked me the same question. He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘I remember when she went missing. All hell broke loose, eh? There were all those newspaper articles about, about what’s he called?’ He shut his eyes in frustration that he couldn’t remember the name. ‘About Di Angelo. They said she had secrets about his businesses.’
‘I think you’re confusing two different cases. This is Simona Biondi. You’re talking about Anna Sartori.’
‘That’s it. Anna Sartori.’ He looked at Simona again, not hearing me. ‘Anna Sartori.’
‘When did you last see her?’ I asked. He was still staring at the young girl, seemingly surprised by how young she looked. He had a strange, ethereal smile on his face, as if he had entered a different time zone, one where a missing girl in her twenties could reappear two decades later as a teenager.
‘That man called me.’
‘Who? Di Angelo?’
‘That’s the one. Called me to say she was a loose cannon, to prepare myself for some unpleasant revelations. He said she was going to the hotel, the hotel where he organised those parties. He urged me to contact that young woman I was seeing, Anna’s friend. That girl . . .’ He lost his thread again, staring, his two fists holding the sheet like they were handlebars.
‘Chiara Biondi? You called Chiara Biondi?’ I asked.
‘So I called her, told her to talk to her friend, to this Anna,’ he looked over at Simona. ‘I told her Anna was going to go public with everything. That she should persuade her to take his money and go quietly. I said it would ruin her reputation if everything came out. She would be publicly humiliated.’
‘Did you tell Chiara that Anna was going to be at the Hotel del Fiume?’
He looked across at me sharply, as if he didn’t understand the question. I repeated it, and he gave a faint nod. ‘That’s where they said she would be. I told Chiara to go round there and sort it out. I always thought something had happened to her, but here she is.’
‘This is Simona,’ I said slowly. ‘This is Chiara’s daughter. Your daughter.’
‘Eh?’
He was completely confused now about who was sitting at his bedside. And yet he seemed lucid about the distant past. It was as if he couldn’t understand where he was now – lying above the trapdoor to eternity – but was able to recall precise details from long ago. I looked at him once more. He was sitting there, still gripping the sheets. His skin was pale but bruised, with soggy veins like converging rivers on his thin arms.
I got up to go, leaving him alone with Simona. The old woman followed me out into the corridor.
‘Is this true?’ she asked. ‘Is that girl really his?’
I just nodde
d, not wanting to tell her the whole sordid story.
‘What does she want?’ she asked with suspicion.
‘Nothing. Just to see her father once before he dies.’
‘That’s it?’
‘Wouldn’t you?’
I peered round the door to look at Simona and Gregori. They were sitting there in silence. It looked like he had fallen asleep again. I walked back in, put a hand on her shoulder and suggested we leave. She stayed where she was, looking at him the way a mother watches a sleeping baby.
When we got up to go, he opened his eyes. Simona took his hand and squeezed it. Then she leant forward and kissed him on the forehead. She was crying as we walked back towards the car.
Chiara was sitting on a bench outside the block of flats when we got there. She stood up immediately when she saw us and Simona walked over to her, crying again now. They hugged and Chiara looked at me, over her daughter’s shoulder, with reproach.
‘I forgot to ask you one thing,’ I said. She nodded, looking mildly irritated. ‘When was the last time you saw Anna.’
‘Anna?’ She paused. ‘Anna Sartori?’
‘Sure.’
She pulled away from Simona and stood in front of me with her hands on her hips. ‘Can’t you leave us alone now?’
‘One or two more questions and I’ll be gone. When did you last see her? Anna Sartori?’
She stared at me with disgust. Then looked down at the pavement, lost in memories. ‘We met up in some bar shortly after the station had dropped her. She was in pieces. They had been about to give her what she longed for. She was going to get an on-screen role. And then it was all taken away from her by that man.’
‘Mori?’
‘Sure. You know what happened. They dropped her like that. Finished.’
‘And how long was that before she went missing?’
‘A few days.’
‘And then Gregori phoned you to tell you to meet her at the Hotel del Fiume? Told you to talk her out of going public?’
‘No.’ There was a simplicity to her contradiction. No defensiveness, no exaggerated protest.
We looked at each other, trying to gauge something hidden. Simona was watching us, sensing the tension.
‘Gregori said he called you, told you to persuade her not to create a scandal.’
‘No. No he didn’t. I don’t think he ever called me. It wasn’t,’ she said quietly, ‘that sort of relationship.’
‘He never called you about Anna, tried to persuade you to talk to her?’
‘Never.’
I shut my eyes and tried to concentrate. Gregori had seemed surprisingly lucid. He was convincing when recalling the past, like he was almost making a death-bed confession and wanted to express himself clearly. He floated from that clarity into confusion, but I could tell the difference. I knew when he knew what he was talking about, when he didn’t have the energy, or probably the motive, to lie.
‘We’re going inside,’ a voice said from far away. ‘Please leave us in peace to let us rebuild our lives.’
The voice was very familiar, but with my eyes closed it gave me a start. There was an edge of resentment or self-pity in the voice, a certain huskiness brought on by cigarettes or sadness. I opened my eyes and saw Chiara looking at me, holding out her hand as if she wanted to shake and be done with it. Her voice, I realised, sounded almost exactly like her mother’s.
‘Good luck,’ I said, shaking her hand. ‘Look after yourself,’ I said to Simona. I watched them walk along the concrete path together, through the cypresses and into the lobby of the building.
‘Biondi?’ I said into the intercom.
‘Yes.’
‘It’s Castagnetti. It’s time to settle up.’
He buzzed me in, holding open the front door as I walked up the familiar gravel drive. I felt like I was coming for my thirty pieces of silver. I knew what I was about to do, but I needed to be paid first.
He led me into his study, a smart room behind the living room. It was lined with books that looked like they had never been opened. They were there as wallpaper rather than literature. He flicked on a green light above his desk, opened a drawer and took out a chequebook.
‘So,’ he said wearily. ‘How much?’
‘I’ve got a few receipts here. Expenses.’ I passed over a dozen small slips of white paper. ‘Can you do the maths?’
He looked at them with disdain and pulled out a calculator from a drawer. I watched him tapping the numbers in. ‘It’s quite a bargain.’ He started writing, then ripped out the cheque and passed it over. ‘A few hundred euros to lose a daughter.’
‘Simona wasn’t your daughter.’
He stared at me like I was as bad as Mori. ‘You took her away from me.’
‘She took herself away. The same way you took yourself away when Anna was born. That’s what happens in families. Some people decide to leave. You left. Then Simona left. There’s some kind of justice there somewhere.’
‘Get out,’ he said fiercely, standing up and moving round the side of his desk.
‘I’ll say goodbye to your wife first.’
‘She’s sleeping off another session,’ he said.
‘Where?’
‘What do you mean, “where”? She’s asleep.’
I turned to walk out of the study, pacing through the living room and toward the wide staircase.
‘Where are you going?’ he shouted after me.
I took the steps two at a time, not wanting him to reach me before I reached her. I remembered the first floor from when I had first been here, when Chiara and I had looked at young Simona’s room. That room had been on the left, so I turned right, and went into each of the rooms: there was a wardrobe the size of a small room, a luxurious bathroom, an empty bedroom. Eventually I found the woman: she was in a large double bed, propped up on pillows and gently snoring. I could hear Biondi’s footsteps behind me.
‘Signora,’ I said loudly.
She raised her head slowly from her shoulders as I said it again, her eyes still closed. She opened them slowly and fixed them on me, staring without moving. Her face looked stony, as if she had woken up to reality and didn’t like the look of it.
‘I knew you would come,’ she said in an ethereal voice.
‘Why’s that?’
‘I knew when I first saw you that you would be coming after me.’
‘Why would I do that?’
‘Don’t be sly.’ She smiled slightly, one side of her mouth rising minimally into a tired gesture of amusement.
‘What’s going on?’ Biondi barged in, looking at the two of us. Neither of us spoke. ‘What’s all this about?’
‘Why don’t you tell my husband, Mr Castagnetti?’ Her voice was strangely serene, as if she were enjoying this last moment of revelation and the power it gave her over her husband.
‘Your wife,’ I said slowly, staring at her while addressing Biondi, ‘was the last person to see your daughter, Anna Sartori, alive. The last person to see her alive and, I’m guessing, the first person to see her dead.’
I turned to look at him to check that he had understood. His wide, disbelieving eyes were fixed on his wife. From having been weak, she suddenly seemed strong and spirited.
‘Tell him,’ I said to her, bouncing my head towards her husband.
She smiled again, enjoying the endgame. ‘All I did was answer the phone. As soon as I picked it up, a man started telling me that that girl was threatening to go public, to blurt out to the whole world what he and Chiara had been up to and why. I didn’t know what he was talking about, but as he went on I could work it out. Chiara had been paid to . . .’ She couldn’t bring herself to say the words. ‘She had been his little plaything, and now he wanted her to keep everything quiet. He thought I was Chiara. He was urging her to go and talk to Anna, to persuade her to take Di Angelo’s money and run. “Go to the Hotel del Fiume and talk some sense into her,” he kept saying, “otherwise your reputation will be ruined. Your name wi
ll be all over the papers and everyone will know what profession you’re in.” I didn’t know what he meant at first, but he made it pretty clear. He was talking so much I barely spoke. And as I was listening I could see Chiara’s future possibilities, all her hopes and ambitions, melting away.
‘That girl,’ she sneered as she said it, her top lip tightening over her teeth, ‘that girl had come into this happy family and turned it upside down. She had taken away your affections, Fausto, and, with Mori’s help, your money. That was all fine. I could live without your money, and I hadn’t seen any affection since soon after Chiara was born. That was all right with me. But then that girl started to take away our daughter.’ She was getting impassioned now, working herself up into a self-righteous temper. ‘At the start of that summer our daughter was a young, innocent girl. She had only just left school. By the end of it she was out until dawn every night, had a drugs habit and was pregnant. That’s what that girl had done to this family.’ She stared at me with wild eyes. ‘I was protecting my daughter. That’s all I was doing. I was protecting my daughter.’
‘By killing mine?’ Biondi was out of control now. His face looked crazy, as if he were capable of anything. ‘All this time you’ve lived here, drinking yourself stupid every day, and all along you knew where my precious little girl was?’