Death in Sardinia

by Marco Vichi

  He walked briskly towards the little blue Murano horse, dodging all the bodies coming at him from all sides. But then he turned round and stopped dead in his tracks … And he smiled … At long last he knew what to give Rosa for Christmas … To hell with the little horse …

  The red Porsche looked like a sculpture that had fallen out of the sky into the piazza. It was freezing outside, but the north wind had carried the rain away. Bordelli walked up to the Porsche and reached for the keys, which he still had in his pocket. He felt slightly embarrassed to be seen in a rocket like that … And it was the newcomer’s car to boot. In the end he got in and closed the door. He started studying the steering wheel, the instrument panel, the gearstick, the seats. Classy stuff, he thought. At last he started it up. The mere sound of the engine spoke volumes. He turned on the headlamps, and the dashboard lit up with a restful green light. He had a little trouble finding reverse, but in the end he manoeuvred out of the car park and drove off. He immediately liked the feel of all that power under his bottom. Working his way to the Viali, he turned towards Porta Romana. He got there after getting stuck in a couple of jams, and then took the avenue up to the hills. The moment he found a little breathing space, he stepped on the accelerator. It was like grabbing hold of a passing train. He passed the piazzale and started descending towards the Arno. A few moments later he parked in Via de’ Benci, blocking a vehicle entrance, and went the rest of the way to Rosa’s place on foot. Via dei Neri was also rather crowded. The electricity of Christmas Eve was palpable in the air.

  He rang Rosa’s buzzer, and when the door clicked open, he buzzed another couple of times. It was a sort of signal to tell Rosa that he wouldn’t be coming up. He went into the building’s entrance hall and looked up into the stairwell. A few moments later Rosa’s head appeared over the top-floor banister.

  ‘Aren’t you coming up, monkey?’ As usual, she thought she was whispering but in fact was yelling, and the echo did the rest. Bordelli gestured for her to come down.

  ‘I’ll wait for you,’ he said softly.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Stop yelling, I can hear you perfectly well.’ Rosa changed her expression, thinking perhaps that this somehow affected the volume of her voice.

  ‘Why do you want me to come down?’ she shouted.

  ‘Sshhh! I’m taking you out.’ Rosa got excited and emitted a little scream.

  ‘Yippeee! I’ll be right down!’

  ‘Don’t take too long.’

  Rosa had already vanished. Bordelli knew he had a long wait ahead, and, pacing back and forth in the entrance, he lit a cigarette. He felt he deserved it, having smoked very little so far that day.

  Twenty minutes later, he heard a door close and recognised Rosa’s steps on the stairs. No other woman made the same kind of noise. She arrived, all smiles in her stilettos and wrapped in a violet, hooded cape. She took Bordelli’s face into her redgloved hands and kissed it repeatedly.

  ‘Where’s my present?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s outside.’

  Rosa giggled with curiosity, then stopped in front of the door, waiting for Bordelli to open it for her. She then linked her arm with his and let him lead the way, striding confidently on cigarette-thin heels that even a Parisian stripper would have had trouble walking in. They turned the corner of Via De’ Benci, and when Rosa saw the Porsche, her jaw dropped.

  ‘Ooh, it’s so adorable! Don’t tell me …’

  ‘No, it’s not mine. I’m only taking you for a ride in it. Do you like your Christmas present?’

  ‘Oh, you’re such a dear … And what’s a car like this called?’

  ‘It’s a Porsche.’

  ‘Ah, it’s French …’

  ‘German.’

  ‘How odd,’ she said, unconvinced. They got in and drove off. Rosa pretended not to see the people looking on. She felt watched, and she loved it.

  ‘Where are you taking me, monkey? Look at all those pretty lights …’

  ‘You decide. We have over an hour.’

  ‘Let’s see … First, I’d like to do the entire circuit of the Viali … then we’ll go up to Fiesole, then come back down and make a quick tour of the centre and … we’ll stop at the Giubbe Rosse. I feel like a good cappuccino.’

  ‘The Giubbe Rosse?’ said Bordelli, alarmed, imagining the sea of people who would surely be there.

  ‘It’s my Christmas present, isn’t it? So I decide. You just hush up and drive.’

  ‘Well, I can see you know what you want … And where’s my present?’ the inspector asked, turning down Via Scipione Ammirato.

  ‘I’ll give it to you when it’s time,’ she said. Bordelli downshifted and passed a couple of cars in second gear. It felt as if they were being drawn by dozens of crazed horses. When he slowed down, Rosa let out a little cry.

  ‘Oooh, what fun! I had butterflies in my stomach, just like on a swing!’

  ‘I can do it again, if you like.’ He circled round Piazza Alberti and, when turning on to the Affrico viaduct, executed a nice downshift to second that made the tyres screech.

  ‘It’s a monster,’ said Rosa, pressed back into her seat.

  ‘It’s a work of art.’

  ‘Why don’t you ditch your old heap and buy yourself one of these?’ Rosa asked.

  ‘Better yet, I could get two, in two different colours, to match my socks.’

  ‘Marvelous! I would get one pink, and one baby blue.’

  ‘Perfect. I’ll order them tomorrow.’

  By 7.30 the Porsche was already resting in the courtyard of police headquarters, waiting to be taken to the courthouse depot. Rosa had liked her tour of Florence in the red monster very much. She said it was the sweetest gift any man had ever given her, and after a lipstick-smeared kiss, she had run off to her ladies-only dinner.

  ‘But not all whores,’ she was keen to point out again.

  Bordelli left the keys to the Porsche on his office desk and went back out on foot to fetch his car in Piazza del Carmine.

  When he got into the Beetle it felt as if he were driving a tractor. He turned on to Via Cavour. The same useless question kept popping up in his head: was Odoardo left-handed or not? There was no point in wondering. He simply had to find out. And soon. He parked in front of his block of flats. The usual boys were playing in the crossroads. They turned to face Bordelli and started staring at him.

  ‘If you’re a policeman, why don’t you wear a uniform?’ asked Nino. Rabbit-teeth slapped him on the shoulder.

  ‘I know he’s a copper,’ he said with the air of an expert.

  ‘Not all policemen wear uniforms,’ said Bordelli.

  ‘And what about your gun?’ asked Pippo.

  ‘It’s doing fine, thanks.’

  ‘Could we see it?’

  ‘I left it at the office.’ Rabbit-teeth started sniggering.

  ‘He’s pulling our leg! He’s pulling our leg!’ Bordelli tried to change the subject.

  ‘Aren’t you going to go home and wait for Father Christmas?’

  ‘Not now! He’s not coming till midnight!’ they all said. They heard a window open over their heads, and Bordelli made a gesture of resignation.

  ‘I think it’s time you all went home, boys. Your mamma’s calling you.’ But the voice that spoke sounded quite masculine.

  ‘Is that you, Inspector?’ Bordelli looked up and saw Botta’s face. He looked worried.

  ‘What is it, Ennio?’

  ‘Come up here at once, Inspector, I’ve got a problem.’

  ‘I’ll be right there.’

  ‘Hurry, Inspector, it’s urgent!’ Ennio shut the window with a thud, and the little boys all broke out laughing.

  ‘Hurry up, now, Mamma’s calling!’ they started saying in turn. Bordelli threw his hands up in defeat, waved goodbye, and went into his block. A second later he heard the boys kicking the ball around again. He climbed the stairs calmly, thinking what it might be like to have a son, see him grow, talk to him … But he didn’t have ti
me to imagine anything, because Ennio was waiting for him on the landing with a big carving fork in his hand. The sweet smell of cooked onions wafted down the staircase.

  ‘What’s going on, Botta?’ Ennio’s wide eyes burned a hole in him.

  ‘There’s no nutmeg!’ he said.

  ‘That’s not possible. I bought some last year.’

  ‘Maybe you’re confusing it with coconut,’ Botta said nervously.

  ‘I know I bought some, I’m sure of it,’ Bordelli insisted. They walked shoulder to shoulder all the way to the kitchen. On the table were several platters ready to be eaten, covered with yellow paper. Ennio’s fists were clenched.

  ‘How could I have forgotten to bring nutmeg? Bloody hell!’

  ‘I’ve got some, I tell you. We only have to find it.’

  ‘I’ve gone through everything, Inspector, looked everywhere. There’s everything, there’s even Idrolitina33 … there’s just no nutmeg.’

  ‘Is it serious?’

  ‘Very serious, Inspector. It would be like making spaghetti alla carrettiera without parsley.’

  ‘Will we go to hell …?’

  ‘You can joke because you don’t know anything about cooking, but I can assure you, it’s not the least bit amusing.’

  Bordelli felt more implicated in this drama than he would have liked. He opened every drawer and cupboard in search of the precious nuggets, but almost immediately closed them without even looking. Something told him he would never find them. He clearly remembered the little glass jar with a red cap, with three nuggets inside, along with a little grater. He’d bought it a year ago, he was absolutely sure of it. He even had the impression he saw it rather often.

  ‘You’re going to have to go out at once and buy me some,’ Botta said impatiently.

  ‘At this hour on Christmas Eve?’

  ‘It’s not even eight o’clock yet. If you hurry, you’ll find something open.’

  ‘Wait, I think I know where it is,’ Bordelli said, brightening. He went out of the kitchen in long strides and came back immediately with a smile on his face.

  ‘O ye of little faith,’ he said.

  Ennio snatched the tiny jar from his hands, looked inside to make sure it had what he needed, and kissed it. Then he went over to a large pot gently simmering, raised the lid, sniffed … and grated a hint of nutmeg into it. And that was it. All that pandemonium for three grains of nutmeg, thought Bordelli. But he didn’t dare say anything. He’d realised that cooks are even touchier than corpse-cutters.

  ‘Where was it, Inspector?’ Ennio asked.

  ‘Where was what?’

  ‘The nutmeg …’

  ‘Over there,’ Bordelli said vaguely. He was a little embarrassed by the disorder in his flat.

  ‘Where over there?’

  ‘Over there … in the bathroom.’

  Ennio turned to look at him.

  ‘And what were you keeping it there for?’

  ‘I don’t know. I must have mistaken it for something else.’

  ‘When it comes to cooking, Inspector, you’re hopeless,’ said Ennio, shaking his head. He lifted a lid and a ball of steam came out and rose to the ceiling.

  ‘Have you opened the wine yet?’ Bordelli asked, to change the subject.

  ‘I opened all the bottles this morning.’

  ‘This morning? What kind of bloody wines did you get?’ Botta kept shuffling from one pot to another.

  ‘Let’s just say that the youngest is from ’58,’ he said proudly.

  ‘French?’

  ‘From first to last.’ Botta lifted a dishtowel. Under it were the still-empty vol-au-vents.

  ‘Now please go into the living room, Inspector. Someone like you can ruin things just by looking at them.’

  ‘Let’s not exaggerate …’

  ‘I’m not exaggerating. I actually believe it.’

  ‘I’ll go and watch the evening news,’ said Bordelli. He was still in time to see the national report. When he went into the living room, he found it transformed. Everything served as background for the round table that Ennio had put in the middle of the room. A snow-white tablecloth, dishes and glasses he’d never seen before, embroidered napkins. Bordelli wondered where all that stuff had come from. Atop the radio cabinet were all the wines, resting on a clean dishcloth. The bottles were individually wrapped in newspaper so as not to reveal the surprise.

  Bordelli turned on his Majestic television set, plopped into the armchair and patiently waited for the screen to come to life. He felt he had just the right amount of appetite for a dinner like this and could hardly wait to sit down at table.

  The news report showed how people spent their Christmas in other countries, then broadcast the Pope’s speech, a few items of political news, some sport, and other curiosities … Then came Carosello, the advert sequence. Maybe Virna would be on today, he thought. During the Dindondero jingle, Botta rushed in with the tray of vol-au-vents all ready.

  ‘Do you like the way I’ve arranged the table, Inspector?’

  ‘Magnificent … Where’d you get all these things, Botta?’

  ‘All this stuff is yours, Inspector.’

  ‘Mine? Where’d you find it?’

  ‘I dunno, here and there,’ Botta said a little impatiently. He didn’t have time for small talk. He disappeared again into the kitchen, and the inspector went back to watching Carosello. Calimero turning white, Carmencita amore mio, Mulè with his nightmare belly-ache … but no Virna … In her place was Odoardo with a pair of scissors in his hand … raising them high and lowering them forcefully into Badalamenti’s neck … Shit, what a bore … There was no point in rehearsing that little bit of theatre. One step at a time, all in due course. For the moment it was best to get that murder out of his head and enjoy the Christmas dinner in peace … He could think about Odoardo tomorrow. The blonde in the Peroni spot wasn’t bad, but not worth a fingernail of Virna Lisi. He waited for ‘du du du du du du Dufour’ to end, then went into the bathroom to wash his face.

  At 9.20, the doorbell rang. It was Fabiani. He crossed the threshold timidly, sniffing the air.

  ‘Good evening, Inspector, this is for you,’ he said, handing him a small wrapped parcel with a ribbon on top.

  ‘You shouldn’t have.’

  ‘Oh, it’s nothing.’

  Fabiani took off his coat and, with hands trembling, hung it on the coat rack. Bordelli opened his present immediately. It was Primo Levi’s new book, The Truce.

  ‘You read my mind,’ said Bordelli. After the war he’d bought Levi’s first and found it very moving. He thanked Fabiani and led him into the living-dining room. The television had lost reception and was crackling. Bordelli turned it off. Fabiani noticed the beautifully laid table and made a gesture of appreciation. Ennio came in with a dish full of grated Gruyère and set it down on the table. Fabiani held out his hand to him.

  ‘Not a good idea,’ said Ennio.

  ‘My hands smell like onion.’ And he wiped his hands on his apron. Bordelli glanced at his watch, and at that moment the doorbell rang again. It was 9.26, so it couldn’t be Diotivede. He said he would come at 9.30, as agreed.

  ‘I’m going back into the kitchen,’ said Ennio, running out of the room. Bordelli went to open the door. It was Dante with an unlit cigar in his mouth. He looked taller and fatter than usual. From his coat pocket he extracted a small package about the size of a bar of kitchen soap and rather sloppily wrapped.

  ‘This is a little present for you, but if you don’t mind, I’ll open it myself after dinner,’ he said, putting it back in his pocket.

  ‘As you wish.’

  They went into the living-dining room. Dante and Fabiani greeted each other, and the inventor immediately began to explain to his fellow guest how to stop the electrical meter at his home from advancing. He’d recently invented a simple, sure method for this and was spreading the good news. He said that electricity had long been an indispensable necessity of life and therefore cost too much. Self
-defence was a right.

  At 9.30 sharp the doorbell rang, and Bordelli went to open the door for Diotivede. He waited for him in the doorway, listening to his regular footsteps in the stairwell. When the doctor arrived he wasn’t the least bit winded. He was very smartly dressed in light grey. Seventy-two years old, thought Bordelli.

  ‘Hello, Inspector,’ said Diotivede, with the usual frowning face. He sniffed the oniony air and gave a sort of half-smile. He too had a little present for Bordelli, handing it over to him with the air of someone getting rid of something. Bordelli unwrapped it. It was a fossilised seashell.

  ‘I didn’t buy it; I had it in the house,’ the doctor said.

  ‘Such delicacy,’ said Bordelli.

  ‘I hope you won’t use it to put out your foul cigarette butts,’ Diotivede said in all seriousness, hanging up his coat.

  ‘Let’s eat,’ said Bordelli.

  Dante’s booming voice could be heard all the way from the entrance. They went into the living-dining room, and Bordelli set the seashell down on the television. After shaking hands, everyone sat down at the table. Botta had worked out the lighting arrangement and was now checking the results. The white tablecloth was bathed in restful light, while a lamp in a corner served to give depth to the room. Everything else was in penumbra … Yes, that would do.

  As Diotivede studied the table settings, his eyes gleamed with curiosity behind his round lenses. Fabiani gazed pensively at some invisible horizon. Ennio reached out for the first bottle, removed the sheet of newspaper in which it was wrapped, and showed everyone the label: Saint-Emilion, 1958. Then he served everyone.

  ‘Let us thank God for this French dinner,’ said Dante, proposing a toast. They clinked glasses and took a sip. Bordelli then asked Botta the names of all the dishes they would eat that evening. Ennio couldn’t have asked for more. He stood up and presented the menu in the original language.