Death in Sardinia

by Marco Vichi

  ‘You win some, you lose some, Totò. But if all the Southerners who came here were like you, we’d all be fat.’

  ‘And what are you gonna do when you find the killer, Inspector? Kiss him on the forehead and slip him a few ten-thousand-lira notes?’

  ‘I see it the same way as you, Totò, but we can’t always do as we please. There’s the law.’

  ‘Oh, don’t give me the law, Inspector! When I was a wee lad this big, there were a couple of those gentlemen in town and an uncle of mine ended up shooting himself. I remember it like it was yesterday …’

  ‘Drink with me, Totò,’ Bordelli interrupted him. The cook filled the two little glasses with grappa and made a sad face.

  ‘To my uncle Nicola whom I loved like a father, Inspector, maybe even more. He used to take me with him night-fishing and poaching in the game reserves, and I would practically pee my pants for happiness. And then, one day … boom! He shot himself. Back home they show little kids the dead, you know, to teach them about life. Zio Nicola’d shot himself in the throat with his boar rifle, and they’d stitched him up as best they could …’

  ‘How old was he?’ Bordelli asked.

  ‘Same as me now … an overgrown kid. They’d laid him out on the bed, all dressed up, with black socks on his feet and a white rose in his hands. I just looked at him and wondered why he wouldn’t talk. I was just a nipper and didn’t know a bloody thing, but I could tell it wasn’t a happy occasion. At one point I heard a buzz of voices and in comes Don Vito, the loan shark who’d ruined him. He was a guy who owned a lot of land, and cows and pigs, but it was like he never had enough money, and so he would lend out money at really high rates of interest. He was wearing a fancy black suit with a gold clasp as big as a smith’s pliers. He’d brought a couple of his lads with him, and everybody knew they were armed to the teeth. Everybody was too scared to breathe a word. Nobody’d ever heard it so quiet. You could hear the flies shitting. I can still see the brute now, in his big black overcoat, with his big fat face that shook when he walked. Little kids remember those kinds of things. Don Vito didn’t have to push anyone aside to make his way through the crowd. Everybody’d already stepped aside ‘cause they didn’t want him to touch them, and that was fine with him. When he got to the coffin, he took off his hat, prayed for a few seconds, made the sign of the cross, and even kissed my dead uncle’s face. Before leaving, he also kissed my auntie, Zio Nicola’s wife. Said some nice things about the deceased, and she thanked him. That’s how they do it, down in our parts, Inspector. First they kill you, then they come to pay their respects. But everyone knew Don Vito had come to make sure my uncle was good and dead and hadn’t just pretended to die to screw him. Afterwards, it was down to my family to pay the rest, all of it … I swear, Inspector, if I ever found your killer, I’d give him free lunch and dinner for a whole year, wine included, without asking him for a single lira …’

  ‘What a sad story, Totò.’

  ‘I’ve got many more just like it, Inspector, each more disgusting than the next. Down south people don’t joke around. The worst you’ve got here up north is sissy stuff compared to us.’

  To Totò, anything above Rome was the ‘north’, and he talked about his native Apulia as some sort of mythical Far West.

  ‘To the Milanese, my dear Totò, Florence is already the south.’

  ‘And the rest of us are Africans, I know, but they’re just envious. All the beautiful things we’ve got down there, they can take ‘em and stick ‘em straight up their arses, those polenta fiends. Eh, Inspector … Boy, would I love to see olive and orange groves right now. And the peppers! Up here you haven’t got the kind of peppers I need, the long, green kind … And the sausages? You ever tasted a ginger sausage with sun-dried tomatoes?’

  Having just eaten, Bordelli wasn’t exactly in the mood to hear talk of sausages and peppers, but there was no stopping Totò.

  ‘You take the peppers, punch some holes in them with a fork, then roast them over hot coals …’

  ‘They’re calling for you, Totò,’ Bordelli said. A waiter had stuck his head inside the serving hatch but said nothing, out of respect for the inspector. Totò gestured for him to wait. In the kitchen, he was the boss.

  ‘To cut it short, Inspector, if my relatives ever bring me any peppers, I’ll put one aside for you, and hopefully they’ll even bring some sausages … Now there’s some flavour with balls!’ he said, clenching his fist and walking away, grieving for the lost beauty of the south. He exchanged a word with the waiter, then sent him away with a wave of his hand. Opening the refrigerator, he took out a piece of dark, quivering meat that seemed to be still bleeding. It must have been liver. The cook cut two slices with a very sharp knife, then put the meat back into the fridge. Yuck, thought Bordelli. Liver was one of the few foods that disgusted him. Olives were another. The mere thought of them could make him vomit. Once, when he was a boy, four of his friends had decided to stick an olive in his mouth as a joke. When they tried to restrain him, he ended up unintentionally breaking three or four of their ribs and two noses. The struggle had left blood on the ground, but the five of them just kept on laughing like bollock-brains. One of the noses belonged to Binazzi, a great big lad full of energy and socialistic ideas who was a couple of years younger than him. He died in Spain fighting the Falangists in ’39. It all seemed like centuries ago. Things had changed more than in the previous hundred years … Look where a disgusting piece of liver has led, thought Bordelli. As he watched the liver slices being covered in flour and lowered into the skillet, he still had Binazzi’s face before him. Totò began to fry the meat in boiling oil; he let it brown, then turned it over, then lowered the flame and covered the pan. Tearing a clump of sage from a fresh plant in a carafe, he chopped the leaves very fine and left them on the cutting board. When he turned towards Bordelli, he saw a grimace of disgust on his face.

  ‘Too bad you don’t eat liver, Inspector, you’re missing a bit of heaven,’ he said with compassion.

  Bordelli threw his hands up. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever go to heaven, Totò.’

  ‘Another grappa, Inspector?’

  ‘Thanks, Totò, but I have to go,’ Bordelli said, standing up. His head was full of old memories, and they weighed on him more heavily than Totò’s wild boar.

  ‘One of these days I’ll take you for a spin in my Six hundred, Inspector. I’ve had the engine souped up by a friend who makes Abarths …24 On the motorway to the shore I can get it up to ninety miles an hour! Damn!’

  ‘Be careful, Totò.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing.’

  ‘Happy Christmas, if I don’t see you before.’

  ‘You too, Inspector, take care of yourself.’

  When he got to the office he could still smell the grappa on his breath. Flopping down in his chair, he set a cigarette down on his desk. He swore not to light it before an hour had passed. Above the blazing radiators one could actually see the dust dancing. He picked up the phone and rang his home number.

  ‘Ciao, Ennio, how are things going?’

  ‘Your kitchen is a disaster, Inspector,’ Botta said gravely.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘There’s nothing here … I had to go home and get pots and pans from my place.’ It was as if someone had asked him to build a bridge out of playdough, and he had to explain why that wasn’t appropriate.

  ‘All taken care of now?’ asked Bordelli, to move on to positive matters.

  ‘Of course … But now I have to go, or else I’m going to burn the onions.’

  Ennio hung up without another word, and the inspector was left there holding the phone. He glanced at his watch and thought he would ring Dante Pedretti to invite him to Christmas dinner. It had been a while since he’d last talked to him. He’d liked the old giant since the first time he’d met him a couple of years before. Dante lived at Mezzomonte in an old turreted house and spent his days in the basement, inventing complicated and mostly useless gad
gets.

  The telephone rang for a long time, but there was no reply. While he was at it, Bordelli decided to phone some relatives to wish them a happy holiday: aunts, great-aunts, first cousins and second cousins. All of them people he never saw. He saved for last his cousin Rodrigo, a chemistry teacher at the liceo and a pedant by nature. They had never spent much time together, and in the last two years had entirely lost track of one another – ever since, in fact, Rodrigo had found a woman who had changed him completely, a woman Bordelli had never met. Perhaps the poor thing had even managed to make Rodrigo less boring, though this was hard to believe. He’d talked to her only once, over the telephone, and had liked the sound of her voice. Maybe she would answer the phone this time, too, he thought. But no.

  ‘Hello, Rodrigo, I thought I’d call to wish you a happy Christmas.’

  ‘All right, then do so.’

  ‘I thought I just did.’

  ‘I hadn’t noticed.’

  ‘How are your students doing?’ Bordelli asked, to drop the subject as quickly as possible.

  ‘I’m sorry to let you go, but I have a lot of things to do,’ said Rodrigo.

  ‘Homework to correct?’

  ‘If I say I have a lot to do, it probably also means I don’t have time to say what it is I have to do, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘If you’d answered yes or no, you would have saved time,’ Bordelli said playfully.

  ‘I’m going to hang up …’ Rodrigo said gloomily.

  ‘All right, then. See you soon.’

  ‘I really don’t see why.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘About why we should see each other soon.’

  ‘It’s just an expression, Rodrigo.’

  ‘People who use “expressions” like that have nothing to express.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t go that far …’

  ‘I would. Sorry, but now I must go.’ Rodrigo hung up without adding anything else, not even a burp. He had never been an easy person to talk to. But deep down Bordelli found it all rather amusing, a bit like going to the theatre. Apparently the mysterious woman had not succeeded in completing the transformation. She had either already dumped him, or Rodrigo had become even more of a bollock-brain than before. Bordelli tried ringing Dante again. He waited a long time, and in the end he heard someone pick up.

  ‘This is Dante,’ the old man said in his basso voice.

  ‘Dr Pedretti, do you remember me?’

  ‘Greetings, Inspector! It took me a moment to answer because I couldn’t find the telephone.’

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘Like the leaves on the trees. And you?’

  ‘Not bad, thanks. What are you doing for Christmas?’ Bordelli asked.

  ‘I haven’t given it any thought yet.’

  ‘Would you like to come to my place tomorrow evening? Ennio will be serving French dishes.’

  ‘I couldn’t ask for anything better.’

  ‘Then I’ll expect you tomorrow evening around half past nine.’

  ‘À demain, Commissaire.’ Only two days remained until Christmas. Streets in the centre of town were full of people and money. Bordelli still hadn’t found a present for Rosa and was beginning to feel a little anxious about it. He told her he’d already bought it, when in fact he was still at sea and simply couldn’t think of anything acceptable. He’d thought of getting her a new blender, but it seemed to him like the sort of gift a husband would give. A pair of slippers? Perfume? The ring of the telephone interrupted his meditation. It was Piras, speaking softly and seeming excited.

  ‘What’s happening, Piras?’

  ‘Nothing serious yet, Inspector. But I’d like you to do me a favour.’

  ‘Why are you speaking so softly?’

  ‘I don’t want my parents to hear.’

  ‘What do you need?’

  ‘I need some information on a man. I want to know everything you can find about him.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘It’s a bit too complicated to explain, sir, and anyway, I can’t really talk.’

  ‘Hang up, and I’ll call you back, so your parents won’t have to pay,’ said Bordelli.

  ‘Thanks.’ Piras hung up and the inspector called back immediately.

  ‘How long do you think it’ll take, Inspector?’ asked Piras.

  ‘I’ll get on it straight away. What’s the man’s name?’ Bordelli asked, searching for a pen.

  ‘Agostino Pintus. He’s an engineer. Born at Custoza di Sommacampagna, Verona province, on 16 July 1912, but his parents were Sardinian. He now lives in Oristano, at Via Marconi 33 bis.’

  ‘Don’t you want to tell me even a little about him?’ Bordelli asked, his curiosity aroused.

  ‘Wait just a second,’ Piras whispered. He left the phone on the little table and went to see where his parents were. His father was already out in the field, and his mother was in the courtyard behind the house, washing sheets. In winter she couldn’t go down to the river, and it was a rather long operation in which she had to wash the linens with ash in a large earthenware washtub. Going back to the phone, Piras thought that one day he would buy her a washing machine. He picked up the receiver.

  ‘Here I am …’

  ‘Don’t start me worrying, Piras.’

  ‘Have no fear, sir.’

  ‘Who’s this Pintus?’

  ‘It’s a long story.’

  ‘I have all the time in the world, Piras,’ the inspector said, suppressing the desire to light a cigarette.

  ‘He’s an engineer who wanted to buy a parcel of land from Benigno. They were negotiating but hadn’t yet agreed on the price …’

  ‘Nothing strange about that.’

  ‘Wait. I went to talk to the lawyer in charge of the negotiation. He’d just succeeded in arranging a first meeting between Pintus and Benigno the same Sunday as the suicide, a few hours before Benigno killed himself. And he told me something …’ Piras then told the inspector what he’d learned from Musillo, repeating all the details of that failed encounter. ‘The lawyer told me that Benigno had seemed to be in a good mood when he arrived, and that the moment he saw Pintus, his expression changed.’

  ‘As if he’d recognised him,’ said Bordelli.

  ‘Well, if that’s the case, they could not have been very good friends.’

  ‘I’m starting to get curious myself, Piras …’

  ‘I have to find out who this Pintus is as quickly as possible, Inspector. Something might turn up.’

  ‘I’ll send out some telexes straight away.’

  ‘Thanks, Inspector, and happy Christmas, by the way.’ Piras hung up, and when he turned round he saw his mother standing in the kitchen doorway.

  ‘Has something happened?’ Maria asked, brow furrowed.

  ‘No, no, nothing’s happened,’ said Piras, hopping towards the clothes stand.

  ‘What are you doing, Nino? Has something bad happened?’

  ‘No, Mamma, stop worrying.’

  ‘You must never hide anything from me, Nino,’ said Maria. The matter was taking a dramatic turn. Piras put on his coat and smiled.

  ‘I’m just trying to help a friend find a job, up in Florence. But I’m trying to keep it quiet … there are certain things a policeman isn’t supposed to do.’

  ‘That’s all?’

  ‘That’s all, Mamma.’

  ‘Swear it,’ said Maria. Piras looked her straight in the eye.

  ‘I swear,’ he said, thinking that any god would have forgiven him. His mother went up to him and stroked his face.

  ‘I only want what’s best for you,’ she said with a sad smile. Piras couldn’t stand that whingey tone of hers. He sighed.

  ‘Apart from these crutches, I’m fine, Mamma. Don’t make that face,’ he said with irritation. Then he felt guilty and kissed her forehead.

  ‘God bless you,’ she said.

  ‘I’m going out for a walk,’ Piras said. He went out of the house and headed in the direction
of Milis. Trying at first to advance on one crutch alone, he decided it wasn’t time yet. The usual children were playing in the road. There weren’t many of them in Bonarcado. Almost all the young people moved away to work in the cities or in Italy proper. There weren’t even many people around the age of forty. Many had died in the war and in German labour camps.

  Round about three o’clock, Bordelli parked in Via dei Benci, near Rosa’s. He’d already had telexes sent to the police headquarters of Verona and Oristano, and only had to wait for the replies. A fine rain was falling, but to the west the sky was clearing. The medieval façade of San Miniato, at the top of the hill, looked as if it were lit up with floodlights.

  The inspector hardly ever called on Rosa at that hour, but that day he had a good reason. He hadn’t yet bought her a present, and he had to come up with something quickly. It was a serious problem that had to be resolved before evening. He hoped that going to see her might suggest something to him, perhaps when he saw what she had in her flat, or if she mentioned something she liked. But he had to take care not to show his hand. It was a difficult mission.

  Before going up to Rosa’s he stopped to have a coffee at the bar next door, which belonged to Carlino, a former partisan fighter who was still angry at the way things had turned out.

  ‘Ciao, Carlino.’

  ‘Eia eia alalà, Inspector.25 I feel like I’m back in the old days,’ said Carlino, hands on the counter. Two big hands full of ‘Fascist scars’, as he called them.

  ‘I wouldn’t paint it so black,’ said Bordelli.

  ‘It’s blacker than a coal miner’s lungs, Inspector. The other day in the newspaper I saw the picture of an MP from the MSI, and you know who it was? A little Fascist from Salò who used to shoot women and shake his bum behind Pavolini … And now I see him in the paper making speeches about social policy.’

  ‘What’s so surprising about that, Carlino? We’ve had Almirante since ’46.’

  ‘We should have killed them all on 26 April, Inspector.26 Fuck the so-called pacification. Togliatti was a bleeding fool.27 The bastards will be back sooner or later, and they’ve already tried several times. One fine day we’ll find the doors to Parliament locked and a general on the telly …’