Involuntary Witness

by Gianrico Carofiglio

  Then we heard some of the habitués of the Duna Beach establishment. They knew Abdou, some had bought things from him, all of them remembered that from time to time the Senegalese stopped to chat with them on the beach. They said that they had also sometimes seen him talking to the little boy. I asked them how Abdou behaved, and they all said he was always friendly, that he had never behaved oddly. As for him and the boy, they had almost seemed to be friends.

  We were to have heard the police doctor who performed the autopsy, but he wasn’t there. He had sent a justification and asked to be heard during a later hearing. The judge was not sorry to get away a little earlier than expected. The trial was adjourned until the following Monday.

  My fear was that by then, alas, the heat would have started. We couldn’t always be so lucky with the weather, not in June.

  25

  A couple of weeks had passed since that evening with Margherita. In the interim we had neither seen nor spoken to one another. A strange thing had happened to me the following morning: I had felt guilty. Towards Sara, I think.

  It was a strange thing because it was Sara who had left me and had been living a life of her own for over a year and a half. And yet, absurdly, for the first time I felt I had betrayed her. For the sole reason that I had enjoyed myself that evening in Margherita’s company.

  When we were married and living together I had done a lot of rotten things. They had made me feel uncomfortable, sometimes they had caused me to despise myself. But they had never really made me feel guilty, as I did after that evening.

  I have often thought back on this phenomenon. At that time I didn’t understand it. Now perhaps I do.

  One grows fond even of grief, even of desperation. When we have suffered a great deal on account of a person, we are shocked by the fact that the grief is growing less. Because we think that means, yet again, that everything, really everything, comes to an end.

  It isn’t true, but I was not yet ready to understand this.

  And I had not called Margherita. I had not called her because I was afraid of losing my grief. What strange creatures we are.

  However, it was she who called me. I was in a bookshop at about half-past two in the afternoon, my favourite time. There’s never anyone around, one can listen to the music and, with no people there, even catch the odour of fresh paper.

  When I answered the mobile I was giving a quick reading to an essay. An old technique I acquired when I didn’t have the money to buy all the books I wanted.

  What was I doing? Well, I was in a bookshop. Would I care to have a cup of coffee with her? Yes, I would. In just the time it would take me to get home from Laterza’s. About ten minutes. No, I didn’t want the decaffeinated, a proper coffee would be fine. See you soon. Yes, I’m glad to hear from you too. Really glad.

  While I was – without realizing it – hurrying home, it occurred to me that I didn’t remember giving her my mobile number, that I didn’t recall having talked about my sleeping problems and the decaffeinated coffee. And that I was glad she’d called me.

  She greeted me by taking my hand, pulling me gently towards her and kissing me on both cheeks. A friendly, almost comradely greeting. Yet it gave me that certain feeling in the pit of my stomach, and I blushed a little.

  She had me sit on the terrace, which was north-facing and therefore cool and shady. We drank our coffee and lit up cigarettes. She was wearing faded jeans and a short-sleeved T-shirt bearing the legend: What the caterpillar thinks is the end of the world, the rest of the world calls a butterfly. Lao-tzu.

  Her face was tanned, and so were her arms, which were shapely and muscular. She had read about Abdou’s trial in the paper, where it was, as they say, prominently featured. She had read that I was counsel for the defence and had called me because she wanted to know all about it. I had a slight pang of disappointment. She had called me only to learn about the trial, because she was curious. For a moment I had the temptation to stand on my dignity. It passed swiftly, I’m glad to say.

  I told her. What was in the prosecutor’s documents; the fact that it was a trial based on circumstantial evidence, but lots of evidence; of how I had been appointed, of Abajaje and all the rest of it.

  I was expecting the question, and sure enough it came.

  “Do you believe this young Senegalese is innocent?”

  “I don’t know. In a certain sense it isn’t my problem. We have to defend them as best we can, whether innocent or guilty. The truth, if it exists, has to be found by the judges and jury. Our job is to defend the defendant.”

  She burst out laughing.

  “Bully for you! What was that, the introductory lecture to a course on ‘The Noble Profession of the Law’? Are you thinking of going into politics?”

  I sought an adequate answer and failed to find one. She was right, and I asked myself why I had talked in that high-falutin’ fashion.

  “Hey, don’t tell me you’ve taken offence? I was joking.”

  She peered into my face, craning forward and invading my space, and I realized that I must have kept silent more than was fitting.

  “You’re right, I was ridiculous. I do believe that Abdou is innocent, but I’m afraid to say so.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I think so on the grounds of an intuition of mine, a mere fancy. I like him and therefore I think he’s innocent. Because I want him to be innocent. And then, I’m afraid that he’ll be found guilty. If I’m too convinced of his innocence and he’s found guilty – and he probably will be – it’ll be a bad blow for me. Well, an even worse one for him, of course.”

  “Why do you like him?”

  I surprised myself by answering without thinking. Discovering the answer at the very instant of uttering it.

  “Because I recognize something of myself, I think.”

  The answer seemed to strike her, because she remained silent, looking at some spot below her on the left. She was rummaging in her thoughts, I imagined. I sat there watching her until she had finished, until she spoke again.

  “I’d like to come and watch the trial. May I?”

  “Of course you may. The next hearing is on Monday.”

  “May I read the papers first?”

  I couldn’t help smiling, I don’t know why. I don’t know why, I thought she didn’t miss a trick. Always bang on. I remembered those manuals on martial arts she had on her bookshelves. I hadn’t asked her why she had them, whether she practised one of those disciplines, and if so which. I did so now.

  “You can read them whenever you like. I can bring them here, but perhaps it would be better if you came to the office. There’s quite a pile of them. Why have you got all those books on martial arts?”

  “I do a bit of aikido. Ever since I stopped drinking.”

  “What do you mean by a bit?”

  “I’m a black belt, second dan.”

  “I’d like to see you at it.”

  “All right. Come inside.”

  We went in, she fetched a cassette from a cupboard, switched on the video and told me to take a seat.

  The video opened with a shot of an empty gymnasium in the Japanese style, with a green tatami. I heard a voice off, saying something I didn’t understand. Then into the picture came a girl in a white kimono and wide black trousers. Her hair was gathered in a ponytail. It took me several seconds to recognize Margherita. She was looking at a point outside the picture. From that point entered a man, in the same gear. He grabbed her by the lapel of her jacket, she took his hand and swivelled on her feet. She appeared to be moving in slow motion, but I still didn’t understand how it was that the man was thrown with a slithering sound onto the tatami. Without pausing, but rolling onto his feet and turning, the man attacked again. His open hand chopped down towards Margherita’s head. Another turn, another incomprehensible movement and the man flew into space again, his wide black trousers describing an elegant arc. There followed other sequences, in which the aggressors had sticks or knives, or attacked in pairs
.

  It was a hypnotic spectacle, lasting about twenty minutes. Then Margherita removed the cassette and restored it to its place. All that time she had said nothing. Even afterwards we both said nothing for I don’t know how long. And yet, perhaps for the first time in my life, silence did not make me feel ill at ease. I didn’t feel the urge to fill it in some way, with either my voice or some other noise. I had the impression of intuitively grasping its theme, flowing and delicate; its music, is what I thought at that moment.

  When the time came for me to leave I realized that all the while, before and after the cassette, I had been looking mostly at her arms. Looking at the golden, luminous skin, the long, strong muscles. I had looked at the light blonde down on her forearms and how it was slightly ruffled when there came a gust of cooler air out on the terrace.

  “You have very beautiful arms,” I said when we were at the door. Then I felt I couldn’t leave things halfway, as I usually did. So I said the rest.

  “You are a very beautiful woman.”

  “Thank you. And you’re a very handsome man. You don’t smile very often, but when you do you’re beautiful. Your smile is like a child’s.”

  No one had ever said anything like that to me.

  26

  Scheduled for the following Monday were the depositions of the sergeant-major who had drawn up the reports on the most important inquiries, the police doctor who had performed the autopsy and, above all, the owner of the Bar Maracaibo. The man who said he had seen Abdou pass his door shortly before the boy disappeared. It was a vital hearing, if not, indeed, decisive, so I had spent the Saturday and the morning of Sunday examining statements and consulting textbooks on forensic medicine.

  On the Saturday morning I had also visited a stationer’s where they made colour photocopies. The proprietress gave me a rather odd look when I told her what I needed.

  However, when I left I was pleased with the job she had done and what I was taking away with me. It seemed to me that I had a few cards to play.

  Margherita had come to the office on the Friday afternoon. She had read documents for more than three hours, alone in the room where we held meetings. She had asked a very puzzled Maria Teresa for a few photocopies, then at about nine o’clock she looked in to say hello. She would be away Saturday and Sunday.

  With whom? I thought, though only for a second.

  We’d meet on Monday morning, at half-past nine in the Court of Assizes. Love and kisses, she said as she left. Love and kisses, I’d have liked to reply. But instead I only gave her a wave, and then sat there watching her, slowly closing my hand in mid-air when she had left the room.

  The weekend was still fairly cool, luckily, so working wasn’t too irksome.

  At about one-thirty on Sunday I thought I’d done as much as I could and decided to take a jaunt. At that time of day I could go to the sea. With the city deserted and the roads empty I could get anywhere I wanted in next to no time. I fetched a knapsack, put in a towel, bathing trunks and a book, and set off.

  The city was really and truly deserted and in only a few minutes I crossed the whole centre and cruised along the seafront, passing the old Albergo delle Nazioni. The Mercedes purred smoothly along and I arrived at the motorway almost without realizing it. When I left home I’d intended to stop about twelve miles out of Bari, perhaps at Cozze or, at the farthest, at Polignano. But on the way I changed my mind and trod on the gas as far as Capitolo.

  It was less crowded than I had feared, and I easily found a space in the car park of a bathing establishment which – it occurred to me as I was getting out of the car – must have been less than a mile from where the boy had disappeared.

  I paid the ticket that covered parking and entrance fee, took off my shoes and set out across the sand. A strange feeling came over me. A year had gone by since the summer when I thought I was going mad. That year I had detested the blinding sunlight, I had detested the beaches, the people who seemed so relaxed while I was such a misfit wherever I went.

  Now I felt like a convalescent. I looked at the people, the sea, the sand which I had detested the year before, and I was amazed that it didn’t hurt me just to look at it all. I felt a kind of sweet indifference and had some difficulty in imagining how, less than a twelvemonth ago, I could have been so sick.

  It was a strange sensation, rather melancholy, but good.

  I changed in a communal changing room, hired a deckchair and had them put it really near the waterline. The sea was just how I like it. Calm but not absolutely flat, with a breeze lightly ruffling the surface. It was fine in the sun, the heat just right for closing one’s eyes and going to sleep with a book on the sand near the chair. Which is what I did, with the voices on the beach blending into the strange well-being which had enfolded me.

  I dreamed, in the way one does dream in that peculiar halfway house between waking and sleeping, or else sleeping and waking.

  I met Sara in the street near our home, or rather what had been our home but now was hers. She came up to me, put her arms round me and kissed me on the lips. I embraced her too, but was embarrassed. After all – in the dream – we hadn’t seen each other or spoken for four years. I somehow told her this. She gave me a look and asked if I was mad, but her face was scared, as if she were about to burst into tears. I said again that we hadn’t seen one another for four years and at this she really did burst into tears, desperate tears. She asked me why I said something so spiteful, and I didn’t know what to do, because she seemed really and truly distressed. I grew sad, but thought that it was only a dream and wanted to open my eyes. But for an indefinite length of time I couldn’t do it, and there I remained, half way between the dream and the voices on the beach.

  Then I felt splashes of water on my face and chest, and heard a voice I recognized at once. Elena.

  “Guido! Guido, it’s been such ages!”

  “Elena, what a lovely surprise ...”

  Liar, you miserable liar, was my actual thought. I had always detested Elena. Her and her beastly husband and her group of beastly friends. She had gone through secondary school and university with Sara, and was convinced of being her best friend. Sara was not of the same opinion, but didn’t like to be rude. We were therefore periodically forced to accept dinner invitations from Elena, and sometimes even to ask them back.

  Bending down to embrace me, she immersed me in a cloud of Opium. Wearing Opium on the beach? I felt sure that after the separation she had said a lot of things about me, none of them very flattering. Now, perfectly in keeping with her character, she embraced me, kissed me and asked what I’d been doing in all that time.

  “Guido, how well you look! Have you been going to the gym over the winter? Are you alone or with a girlfriend?” Here she winked, as if to say: You can tell me all right, I’ll confine myself to putting a notice in the paper and pasting up a few hundred posters around the town.

  “Yes, you bitch, I’m alone and I want to stay that way. However, since you’ve turned up to get on my tits I’ve got something to say to you, so lend an ear. Your dinners were always a torture and, most of all, the food was vomit-worthy. I know they all said you were a great cook, but that will always remain a mystery to me. Your husband is, if possible, worse than you are. And your friends are, if possible, worse than him. One time they even suggested I join the Rotary Club. I want to tell you that I’m a Communist. That at so many dinners for so many years you were entertaining a Communist. Got that?”

  These and other things I would have liked to say. But obviously I replied with nauseating courtesy. Yes, I was alone; no, I had no girlfriend; yes, I really meant it; no, I had not seen Sara for quite a while. Ah, she was here at the sea on her own, was she? Were she and Mario having problems? Who wouldn’t have troubles with Mario. With her too, come to that. We ought to get together one of these evenings. Her and me? Certainly, why not? Did I have her mobile number? Yes. I’m pretty certain. Ah, but I couldn’t because she had a new one. Then she’d have to give it me. So,
I’d call her? She could count on it? Of course she could. Of course, of course. Ciao, see you soon, kiss, Opium, kiss again and Grand Finale with a wink.

  I took a dip to see how the water was and to wash off the Opium. The water was really cold. After all, we were only in mid-June and the weather had never got really hot. I swam a few strokes, felt that for my first bathe of the season that might be enough, and decided to take a stroll along the beach, by the water’s edge.

  The beachball players were there, but not so many of them as in July and August. I would have liked to kill them but, seeing that it was early in the season, I was willing to concede them a quick death. In July or August I would have wished them a long and painful one.

  I detest beachball players, but as I walked – doing my best to get in the path of the ball as often as possible – I saw a species of creature I detest even more than beachball players. The beach-haunting pipe smoker.

  I’m not exactly mad about pipe smokers anyway. I get a bit prickly when I see someone smoking a pipe in the street. I get really prickly when I see someone – as I did that afternoon – smoking a pipe on the beach, looking around him with the hauteur of a Sherlock Holmes. In bathing trunks.

  As I was turning over these ideas about pipe smokers and beachball players, it occurred to me that I must really be a lot better if I had regained a little of my healthy intolerance.

  At that moment there entered my field of vision a young black man with goods of all sorts hung on a kind of flexible rod balanced on one shoulder and in a large, tattered bag hanging half open. He was wearing a colourful ankle-length kaftan and a little drum-shaped hat. I stopped with my feet in the water for several seconds before I realized why I was looking at him.

  When it had dawned on me, without having any particular aim in view, I decided to pay some attention to the way he worked and moved around the beach. Naturally I had no precise idea in mind. It occurred to me for a moment to ask him if he knew Abdou. But I dropped that and confined myself to watching him.