Pliny's Warning

by Nicholson, Anne Maria

  ‘Merda!’ he yells, and people at adjoining tables stare at him.

  Camilla puts her hand on his. ‘Calm down. I’ll try to help you.’

  He points to the names at the bottom of the report. ‘Frances Nelson. Isn’t this the foreign woman who was at the dinner?’

  She nods.

  ‘Too clever for her own good. She clearly doesn’t understand how we do business here. And who are they?’

  ‘Riccardo Cocchia, an Australian-Italian, and another member of the team. Marcello Vattani is a troublemaking archaeologist.’

  ‘When did you get this?’ His eyes are narrow and angry.

  ‘A few days ago. I’ve been trying to bury it but Alfonso…’

  ‘Fuck Alfonso! You must make sure this doesn’t see the light of day.’

  Camilla smiles at him. ‘It’s not that simple.’

  He raises an eyebrow questioningly.

  ‘I would be risking everything. In particular, my position at the university and my reputation as a scientist.’

  Umberto raises his hands in a gesture of exasperation. He pulls his plate towards him and starts to eat, quickly ploughing the spaghetti and seafood into his mouth.

  Camilla waits until he rests his fork on the plate. ‘But there might be a way. Alfonso is retiring soon and he is grooming his nephew, Luigi Paoli, to take over. Paoli is of the same mind.’

  ‘What are you getting at?’

  She holds up the report. ‘Alfonso doesn’t have a copy of this and I can keep it to myself for a time, certainly until the appointment of his replacement. And I will be putting myself forward to take over from Alfonso. The decision will rest with the board and you are the chairman…’

  Umberto laughs, his face lighting up, his eyes now amused. ‘So this is your price?’

  She doesn’t reply but coolly meets his gaze.

  The waiter clears away their plates and they order coffee.

  ‘And what do you propose to do to shut your scientists up?’ Umberto continues.

  Camilla shrugs. ‘I can muzzle them and disband the team.’

  The coffee arrives, two espressos. Umberto stirs three spoons of sugar in his and sips it. ‘You take care of Alfonso, and I will take care of you, my dear,’ he says. ‘And if the scientists don’t listen to you, they can answer to me.’

  ‘Just let me do it my way. They might be creating waves but I don’t want them harmed.’

  He shrugs and raises his hands, palms facing up.

  ‘I mean it,’ she says.

  As Mario drives her back to the university, she asks him to stop a few blocks away. ‘I have to do some shopping,’ she tells Umberto who sits in the back with her, his hand on her knee.

  ‘Can I visit you tonight?’

  ‘Of course. I’ll look forward to it.’

  She walks briskly now, crossing a busy street and heading for the small square. The door of the music shop is locked. She steps back and peers through the window at the rows of instruments, then hears footsteps behind her.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ the proprietor greets her as he opens up after his lunch break.

  Camilla glances over her shoulder then follows him inside.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  The day of the civil protest against the garbage crisis starts like most others for Pasquale: three hours of solid practice of the Bach suites, an hour’s break and another three punishing hours.

  Pasquale puts his cello aside, stands up and stretches his fingers, in and out, in and out. His left hand throbs and his shoulders and back don’t feel much better. He checks his watch and remembers he has to meet the others in less than an hour.

  The hot shower soothes his body and for a moment he wants to fill the bath, sink into it and forget the protest altogether. But the gruesome sight of the mutilated bodies of the farmer Paolo and the campaigner Leonardo, lying like discarded dogs on the street, haunts him. He remembers Paolo’s wounded eyes at the meeting as he described the destruction of his land and his life by toxic waste, recalling that same defeated expression on his father’s face, just before he was killed.

  Scumbags! Pasquale dries himself roughly, cursing the corruption that still seeps through his childhood village and continues to sap the city.

  A text message beeps on his mobile phone. ‘Waiting at the bar. Satore.’

  Pasquale throws on his clothes and runs up the two flights of stairs to Frances and Riccardo’s apartment. He knocks loudly but there is no answer, and when he comes downstairs to the courtyard, both motorbikes are gone. A cold wind sweeps him along Corso Vittorio Emanuele. The platform of the station is packed and when the funicular pulls up, people flow onto it like a wave. He finds a place to stand and in a few minutes is whisked down to the city.

  The bar is crowded. He orders a beer and takes a large sip. He hasn’t eaten all day and orders two arancini, one filled with aubergine and the other with spinach and ham. The pyramid-shaped rice savouries arrive quickly and he devours them.

  ‘Over here!’ Satore calls out to him from a table in the far corner. Riccardo and Poppaea are with him, and a pale young man with red hair, sitting close to Satore.

  ‘This is Rufus. He’s on exchange from Ireland,’ Satore says jumping up to greet him. ‘He’s an amazing bass player and an equally amazing blogger.’

  Pasquale shakes his hand. His grip is surprisingly strong, defying a rather fragile appearance. ‘Good to meet you, I’m sorry I couldn’t get here earlier to help.’

  ‘You’re exempt. You have to keep up the practice,’ Poppaea says. ‘Are you OK? You look tired.’

  ‘Too much Bach.’ He squeezes in next to his sister.

  ‘I sympathise,’ Rufus says in a soft brogue. ‘I prefer jazz to classical, there’s more room to improvise.’

  Satore puts his arm around his shoulders and Pasquale realizes he’s the newest boyfriend.

  ‘We’ve had a big day getting the banners ready and we’ve all been blogging furiously to try to get a crowd,’ Poppaea tells him.

  Riccardo is on his other side, unusually quiet and edgy. Since the murders, Pasquale has felt a bond with his neighbour, cemented by their ride through the night, away from the horror on the streets. He nudges him. ‘Everything all right?’

  ‘A bit nervous. I’m addressing the rally about the threat from the volcano and I’m right out of my comfort zone,’ he confesses. He brightens suddenly. ‘Ah good, they’re here.’

  He waves to Frances and Marcello. As they cross the bar to join them, Pasquale sees the strain etched on their faces. ‘Ricky, we’re not convinced you should do this,’ Frances says, as soon as she reaches his side. ‘What happened to the journalist? Did you give him the report?’

  ‘Of course, but there’s a massive cover-up. The journalist wrote the story but the newspaper wouldn’t publish it.’

  ‘What do you expect?’ Marcello shrugs. ‘We don’t have a free press in Italy. The mass media is controlled by a handful of powerful men and they muzzle journalists.’

  Satore nods. ‘We couldn’t get the newspapers or television to report on the rally either so we’ve bypassed them. We’ve got a huge blog site and people are responding by the thousands. This is the new politics. We will force the politicians to listen or make them irrelevant.’

  ‘And I’m so angry I’m prepared to speak up,’ Riccardo says.

  ‘Bravo! Bravo!’ the others say.

  Pasquale notices that Frances and Marcello are quiet. ‘You have to be careful,’ he hears her says. ‘Remember Solfatara.’

  Satore stands. ‘Time to go,’ he says.

  The crowds are gathering by the time they reach the huge open square of Piazza del Plebiscito. Remnants of a winter sunset illuminate the massive dome of the Church of Saint Francis on the far side. They push through large groups alongside the walls of the Royal Palace to a stage set up in the centre.

  ‘We can collect signatures for the petitions here beneath the galloping Bourbon King,’ Satore says, leading them to a row of
tables beneath a statue of a massive equestrian.

  More and more people are flowing into the square. Some carry huge colourful banners condemning the building of a massive incinerator outside of Naples. Others have caricatures of government ministers, their heads poking out of mounds of stinking garbage. Posters portraying Paolo and Leonardo dressed as medieval martyrs adorn the stage.

  Poppaea hugs Pasquale. ‘It’s working. The blogging is reaching people.’

  ‘I hope so. I’m so disillusioned with our democracy,’ he replies. ‘When you lose faith in your own government, it’s like finding out your father has been cheating on your mother. You can’t believe the betrayal.’

  ‘Mmm. I don’t think that happened. Do you?’

  Pasquale sees his father’s image sharply. But he struggles to remember his mother, even the fuzzy photos of her holding him as a child before her accident.

  ‘Probably not.’ He leans down to kiss her forehead. ‘But we’ll never know, will we?’

  Riccardo is in a huddle with Frances and Marcello. He breaks away and comes over to Pasquale. ‘Hey, can you mind this for me?’ He passes him his backpack. ‘I don’t want to have it on the stage.’

  ‘Of course.’ He tucks it next to his own bag behind the table and reassures him. ‘You’re doing the right thing.’

  ‘I hope you’re right.’ Riccardo climbs onto the stage and sits with the other speakers.

  By now the crowd has grown to such an extent they are totally hemmed in. The piazza is almost full, from the grand church on one side to the palace on the other.

  ‘Buona sera. Good evening and welcome!’ The voice of Doctor Fabbiana Masina fills the square, slightly distorted by the radio microphone. ‘On my way here I passed kilometre after kilometre of rotting garbage filling our streets. I saw rats, flies and other vermin that pose a serious health hazard to all of us.’

  The wind gusts through the piazza, blowing her scarf as she speaks. It does nothing to distract the crowd, quiet, listening to every word.

  ‘Perhaps more seriously, we have new evidence that the dumping of toxic waste throughout Catania has already taken a huge toll. Cancer rates have soared by five hundred per cent; brain tumours, leukaemia and a host of other diseases.

  ‘Heavy metals and poisonous chemicals are polluting the groundwater, farmland and the food chain. Farmers have had to destroy thousands of sheep when it was discovered their milk was full of dioxin. We are here today to demand that our government acts. And we also call on the central government in Rome to make sure it intervenes if our local government fails to act. What we don’t want is an enormous incinerator pumping more carcinogens into the air we breathe.

  ‘But importantly, all of you must increase the pressure on the authorities. Please sign the petitions and maintain the anger. We are fighting criminal corruption. We don’t want heroes like Paolo and Leonardo to have died in vain. We have the truth on our side.’

  Roars of approval rumble across the square and people surge towards the tables to sign the petitions.

  Riccardo rises to speak.

  ‘He looks nervous,’ Frances whispers to Pasquale.

  Riccardo clears his throat too loudly and it reverberates around the square. He struggles to win the crowd’s attention as people chat and have started to drift away.

  ‘I have come here today to warn you of an apocalypse,’ he says loudly. ‘Please listen. Our garbage crisis is a scandal. But there is an even greater danger to our wellbeing.’

  The crowd is silent again.

  ‘You know about the destruction of Pompeii, but do you know that the people of Naples and all the towns around Vesuvius face an even greater threat? Millions of lives are at risk. We have scientific evidence that Vesuvius is active again and the next eruption could well be a super eruption. And…’

  Suddenly, the sound cuts out. Riccardo continues speaking, not realizing that nobody can hear him.

  ‘We’ve got to help him.’ Frances turns to Pasquale, who suggests they check the sound. At the far side of the stage they pull aside a black panel concealing the audio booth. There’s no one there. Pasquale picks up a bunch of electrical leads, wrenched out of the sound deck.

  ‘Look!’ Frances yells. Two policemen are escorting Riccardo off the stage.

  Some booing and hissing starts up near the front. Others join in, crying out to let him speak. But the police ignore the protesters and as they disappear with Riccardo, the crowd loses interest and starts to disperse.

  ‘C’mon! We’ve got to get to Ricky.’ Pasquale follows Frances but it is impossible to penetrate the wall of people between them and the steps off the stage where he was taken.

  ‘Satore!’ Pasquale cries out over the heads of the crowd. But his voice doesn’t carry and his friend doesn’t see him waving for help. They push through arm in arm. When they finally reach the steps there is no sign of Riccardo or the policemen.

  Pasquale sees Marcello a little way ahead and calls out to him. ‘Where has he gone?’

  Marcello shrugs his shoulders. ‘I’ll go to the police station,’ he yells back. ‘I’ll phone you when I have news.’

  Pasquale sees Frances is pale and teary. ‘Riccardo hasn’t broken any laws. I’m sure he’ll be fine,’ he tells her, his voice betraying his own doubt, his knowledge that Naples’ law is a law unto itself.

  ‘Should we go to the police station too?’

  ‘No. Leave it to Marcello, at least for now.’

  Lines of people are signing the petitions and Pasquale joins the others behind the tables. ‘I’ll help out here a bit longer. Best for you to go home, Frances. Could you take Riccardo’s backpack? I’ll come and see you when I get home.’ He watches her walk away, her usual optimism in retreat.

  Yet few of the onlookers seem aware of Riccardo’s abrupt disappearance. Pasquale senses the rally has buoyed the spirits of his fellow citizens queueing to express their anger against their weak government and officials. For a moment at least, they can taste a modicum of the empowerment they had all but lost to the bullies of Il Sistema. But all of his friends are on edge, their euphoria dampened by concern for their colleague.

  The day has all but disappeared and as night falls, the crowd tails away. Noisy chatter fills the piazza as Pasquale and the others pack up the tables, concealing a new sound. The buzz of motorbikes surprises them. Around a dozen riders circle them, acceleration cracking the air. As Pasquale looks up, a white spray smacks his face. He hears Poppaea scream. Each rider has a pillion passenger holding a fire extinguisher who all spray bursts of chemical foam onto the volunteers.

  ‘Vaffanculo! Get fucked!’ The riders yell abuse. ‘Mind your business or the next time we’ll spray you with bullets,’ one of them shouts as they circle one more time then roar away across the cobblestones.

  The foam stings Pasquale’s eyes and he desperately wipes it away with his sleeve. Poppaea has dropped to the ground and is clawing at her face so he seizes one of the banners and goes to her. Gently he wipes away the foam. He pours water from a bottle in his bag and washes her eyes.

  ‘At least it’s not acid,’ he says helping her to her feet. ‘You’ll be fine.’

  ‘Where are the carabinieri when you need them?’ Satore asks bitterly. He and Rufus are covered in the white foam, along with a dozen or so other volunteers. When a van pulls up they quickly load the tables and banners.

  ‘We’re going to a club. We need a beer after all this,’ Satore says. ‘Coming, Pasquale?’

  ‘No, I’m going to check on Riccardo and then I’m going home.’

  ‘Tell us when you hear and let us know if there’s anything we can do.’

  Pasquale takes Poppaea’s arm and walks her to a bus stop. He relishes being able to protect the sister whose life has revolved around him. Sweet Poppaea. Her eyes are red and sore but she forces a smile. ‘Be careful,’ she warns, before climbing on the bus.

  Pasquale’s hot breath streaks the cold air as he cuts through back streets. He passes the
university and as if his legs were on automatic, he finds himself walking to the music shop. He crosses the little square to gaze through the security bars that guard the window at night.

  The instruments still stand to attention, a soft light reflecting on each. His eyes go immediately to the cello on the right. At first he thinks the spray has affected his vision. The cello looks different. He rubs his eyes hard. He looks again. Disbelief spreads through him. It’s gone. The cello he has craved for so many months has disappeared. The replacement is an ugly imposter.

  Pasquale turns away, his stomach sinking. It’s just a couple of blocks to the main police station yet exhaustion stalks his every step. Soon the white headquarters of the carabinieri tower over him. As he nears the entrance of the brightly lit building, the familiar figure of Marcello is coming down the steps. Even from here he can sense there is something wrong.

  He calls out and, as Marcello turns, he sees he is talking on his mobile phone. ‘They claim they never saw him,’ Pasquale hears him say, his voice agitated.

  He finishes his call and embraces Pasquale. ‘You heard? I was just telling Frances. The police say they didn’t arrest Riccardo. They don’t seem interested and are not trying to help.’ Marcello trembles, a dark duet of frustration and fear playing in his veins. ‘Pasquale, I don’t know what to do!’

  They sit together on the steps, Marcello resting his head on his knees. Pasquale rings Riccardo’s number, never expecting a reply.

  ‘Si?’ The voice of a child answers.

  ‘Who is this?’ Pasquale stammers.

  ‘Carmine.’

  ‘Where did you get this phone, Carmine?’

  ‘I didn’t take it. I found it. Promise.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In the gutter. Near my house.’

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Eight-and-a-half.’

  ‘Can I talk to your parents?’

  ‘Am I in trouble?’

  ‘No. You’re not in trouble. It’s just that this phone belongs to my friend. And we’ve lost him. So we need to get the phone back. Carmine? Carmine?’

  She doesn’t answer. Pasquale’s eyes lock with Marcello’s but they daren’t speak.