The Mammoth Book Best International Crime

by Maxim Jakubowski

  And then . . .

  I won’t say what happened next. Not because I don’t know, but because I don’t want to bore you any further. Considering the intimate details I’ve already provided, I must have heard all about it from one of the parties involved, and since that obviously couldn’t be Cavidan Hanm (though who knows, right?), I must have heard it from Tolga. Perhaps I’m Tolga’s best friend, bearer of his secrets, his lawyer, or better yet, perhaps I’m Tolga himself. If I’m not making all this stuff up, that is. But what difference does it make anyway? Who says these were their real names? I probably changed them, right? Especially since the case still remains to be settled in court! Sharing these experiences with you – even if I don’t actually know you – has, it seems to me, forged a bond between us. And that bond forces me to confess: Yes, I changed the names, and I also changed the professions and the addresses. Unfortunately, these are not real people except for their genders and ages. The only real thing is that everything unfolded exactly as I have told you. Oh, and the wind! It was every bit as powerful as I have said. Really, what a lodos it was!

  Translated by Amy Spangler

  It’s Not True

  Diego De Silva

  Daniele Dalisi wears his fifty years well, with a ruggedly handsome face that appeals to women inclined to complicate their lives. When he takes off his surgical mask and then the white gown, and meeting Sara’s eyes immediately senses her discomfort, the same discomfort that betrayed her at the hospital cafeteria on a Wednesday two and a half years ago, the morning Daniele moved closer to reach for her hand under the table regardless of the people passing by and greeting them, Good morning, Doctor Dalisi, Doctor Vallicelli, while she stared at him appalled and delighted, What on earth are you doing, can’t you see they’re watching us, and he whispered to her just inches from her mouth, You’re trembling, look at yourself, feel my hand, me too; when this moment comes back to him (all they have to do is catch a glimpse of one another, even from opposite ends of the ward, and the bond is tightened before it has even loosened); when acting a role becomes unbearable and he instinctively reciprocates the sense of belonging, convinced that neither of them could ever accept other arms (despite the fact that he has a wife and daughter: Paola’s arms, however, though she is his partner in life, have long ago ceased to compete); when this happens, Daniele cannot keep from smiling: like now, when the assistants are so tired that they don’t even notice (or, if they do notice, they don’t stop and wonder about the intimacy of that smile), unlike the nurse, who as she’s gathering up the instruments turns her back and makes a pouting face, because now she’s certain of it: there’s something going on between the chief surgeon and the young anesthetist whom he so often wants at his side in the operating room.

  “You were terrific,” Sara tells him softly, moving close to him.

  The nurse, just a few steps from them, indulges in a kind of ironic assent which she would probably like the lovers to notice, but Sara and Daniele are too focused on one another to pay any attention to her.

  “You too,” Daniele replies.

  And finally they leave the room.

  As they make their way down the hall, they are greeted by nurses, colleagues and patients. Every so often, someone looks at them sideways, disapprovingly. If Campobasso is a small town, the hospital is even smaller.

  “Come inside . . . a minute?” Daniele whispers to her a few feet from the door to his office. Sara glances around with a certain discomfiture. “Wouldn’t it be better to see each other afterwards?”

  “Please.”

  Sara gives in, flattered by his insistence.

  “I always feel I’ve done so little, after an operation,” she remarks, once inside his office. Daniele follows hot on her heels and closes the door.

  “Don’t be silly,” he says. “You’re the only one I feel at ease with when I’m operating.”

  “It’s the anonymity complex all anethetists have, you know. We go unnoticed on principle. Nine times out of ten the patient doesn’t even know our name.”

  “And you’re complaining? If only you knew how much I’d like to be able to operate incognito.”

  “You say that because you’ve never felt overlooked, from that standpoint.”

  He goes over to her, clearly pretending to continue the conversation, only to change the subject.

  “And me?”

  “What about you?” she replies, playing along.

  “Have I ever overlooked you?”

  “I meant professionally.”

  “I didn’t.”

  Sara is about to let him kiss her when there’s a knock at the door.

  Daniele goes and sits down at the desk. From the other side of the desk, she begins leafing through the patients’ charts.

  “Come in.”

  The door opens.

  “Yes, Giovanna?” Daniele looks up.

  “Excuse me, Doctor, Rotunno is asking for you,” the ward clerk says after acknowledging Sara with a nod.

  “Tell him we’ve just finished in the operating room and we’ll be with him shortly,” Dalisi replies. He gives Sara a sideways look, almost as if he expected to find her put out.

  Not satisfied, the ward clerk lingers in the doorway. “Forgive me, Doctor,” she says, somewhat exasperated, “but he hasn’t given me a moment’s peace all morning.”

  Sara sighs faintly.

  “All right, I’ll be right there.”

  Giovanna breathes easier.

  “Thank you, Doctor. You don’t know how insistent that guy can be.”

  “I know,” Dalisi attests.

  Sara’s reproach comes with impeccable timing.

  “I don’t understand why you’re so accommodating.”

  “It doesn’t bother me all that much,” he says defensively.

  She doesn’t say anything more, disappointed by the diplomacy of his remark. Daniele gets up from his chair. “So, are you coming?”

  “Actually I’m tired.”

  “You know he asked me if he could meet you before the operation.”

  “I’m not required to, am I?”

  “I don’t get it, first you complain that patients don’t even know your name, and now that there’s one who wants to meet you, you hesitate?”

  Sara stiffens. “It must be that I don’t mind the anonymity complex we anesthetists have after all.”

  “Right,” Daniele agrees, as he walks around the desk and goes toward the door, avoiding any contact. “See you tomorrow in the operating room.”

  “That’s it?” Sara says, as he’s about to leave the room.

  “That’s it, what?” Dalisi asks argumentatively.

  “Not even ‘We’ll talk later’, or ‘I’ll see you afterwards’? Just, in the operating room tomorrow?”

  “I’m leaving early today,” he cuts her off, outright distant now, “Mirella is graduating, I told you.”

  “You told me.”

  Carmine Rotunno, approaching sixty, has a sinewy body, coarse features, and small bright eyes that appraise more than just look. Seeing him standing in front of the window in his room, wearing an elegant robe, simply waiting, he appears stronger than his cancer. He doesn’t read, doesn’t watch TV, doesn’t use his cell phone, doesn’t leave his room, doesn’t have any visitors. He has a battle to face, and he wants to be ready.

  Daniele appears annoyed to have answered his summons. “What is it now?”

  “I didn’t see you today.”

  “This attitude of yours is beginning to irritate me.”

  “You have to understand my condition. I have the greatest respect for you.”

  “No. That’s not true.”

  “So I’m a liar?”

  “I don’t care what you are, or who you are. I just want you to get off my back.”

  “I’m a sick man, doctor. I need to see my doctor every day.”

  “Maybe you haven’t noticed, but this place is full of sick people. What do you expect, you think you’re the only one I
should attend to?”

  Rotunno tilts his head a little to one side and raises his eyebrows in a piteous way.

  “Do I have to answer that?”

  Daniele takes a breath and snaps back: “Listen to me. The operation is tomorrow. I will operate on you with the greatest concentration. But to do that I need to stay calm and not be constantly disturbed. I don’t like to operate on patients who make me nervous.”

  Rotunno’s lips twist into a kind of sneer. His beady eyes make a thorough tour of the perimeter of the ceiling, before he replies.

  “A good doctor never makes it personal, doctor. Because then if he makes a mistake, the consequences will cost him dearly.” Daniele’s nostrils flare. He has to make an intense effort to swallow his rage.

  There, now he can turn his back and head for the door.

  The sharpness of Carmine Rotunno’s tone as he calls to him a moment before he goes out has the effect of a conviction notice.

  “Doctor.”

  Daniele turns around. Looks at him.

  “You’re good, aren’t you?”

  “So they say.”

  “And that’s the reason I came here. You’ll remember it, won’t you?” Daniele nods, but holds his gaze.

  “One thing.”

  “Tell me,” Rotunno says, all ears.

  “Tell those two guys to get away from the entrance to the ward. For visitors, there’s a waiting room.”

  Rotunno hesitates, as if intrigued by the squabble’s running into overtime.

  “You don’t like them either, doctor?”

  “Even less. Seeing them upsets my nervous system.”

  “You’re easily rattled, doctor.”

  “Will you get rid of those two, yes or no?”

  There’s a certain admiration in Rotunno’s smile now. He lets the question hang for a few seconds.

  “Okay, done.”

  “Wonderful,” Daniele replies with satisfaction.

  And finally leaves the room.

  Sara is walking across the hospital parking lot toward her car, when she sees Daniele not far away, talking with a man his age, arrogant in appearance, arrogant in style.

  She stops.

  The man with Daniele gives her a vaguely suggestive look. But only briefly, the time it takes to resume his conversation with Dalisi, which Sara, from that distance, can’t hear.

  There is a stylish audience in the graduation hall at four in the afternoon. Mirella defends her thesis adeptly. The professors exchange satisfied nods of consent. In the front row, Daniele listens attentively, pleased with his daughter’s mastery in dealing with such a classic situation. From time to time, Paola, sitting beside him, takes his hand, moved. Daniele meets her eyes and smiles, thinking how strange it is that he misses Sara so fervently at such a moment. Then he looks at the clock and pictures her wearing the tracksuit that he himself gave her, as she runs, light-footed and luminous, along the gardens of Villa De Capoa, and he seems to see her slow down every so often, or stop, bothered by a recurring thought that won’t leave her alone.

  In the waiting room outside the operating theater, Rotunno’s bodyguards wait in silence. Sara is the first to come out. But her face couldn’t be more unsuited to the good news she brings them. She’s never been able to stand the sight of those two; all the more reason she wants them to think the opposite.

  “Successful,” is all she says; and already one of them is moving off down the hall, cell phone pressed to his ear.

  After a while, Daniele finds her at a table in the ground floor cafeteria. She seems to be letting the coffee get cold on purpose. He sits down.

  “Why didn’t you come back in?”

  “We were finished, weren’t we?”

  “You’ve always waited for me at the end of an operation.” Sara remains silent.

  “It’s over, Sara. He’s leaving. Let’s forget about it.”

  Impulsively he covers her hand with his. Realizing his gaffe, he quickly pulls his hand back, as if it had been burned.

  “What’s the matter, are you ashamed?” Sara asks, in an aggressive outburst.

  “What are you talking about,” he replies with a pathetic smile.

  “Do you think they don’t know about us in here? Do you think these things can be kept secret?”

  Daniele’s features stiffen.

  “Lower your voice.”

  “I’ll lower it, I’ll lower it,” Sara says complying with his request, though the defiant attitude she has assumed doesn’t change one iota, “heaven forbid I should cause you any trouble. I’m always on your side, right?”

  Daniele swivels his head around. All of a sudden he feels like everyone is looking at them. He gets up from the table.

  “I have no intention of staying here and putting up with your nerves.”

  He turns on his heel and walks away without turning around or slowing down.

  Sara follows him with her eyes, and for the first time since she’s known him she has the unpleasant impression of having been wrong about him.

  When Daniele gets home, Paola and Mirella, still fresh with enthusiasm over the graduation, both welcome him at the door. They have no gifts, nothing to offer him but themselves.

  With his daughter’s arms around his neck, Daniele finds himself wondering whatever happened to the time when this was all he wanted, and where had he been, when those days ended.

  Mirella’s cell phone rings in the back pocket of her jeans. She pulls it out, reads the name on the display, and announces it as if it were a higher priority.

  “It’s Federico.”

  “The party’s over for daddy,” Daniele says, resigned.

  Paola smiles.

  Mirella smacks a kiss on her father’s forehead and walks off down the hall, head over heels. Daniele takes off his jacket.

  “When does he leave?” Paola asks.

  “Tuesday.”

  “Isn’t it too soon?”

  “He’ll assume the responsibility.”

  “So much the better.”

  “Right. Shall we eat?”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing, why?”

  “You look like you just came from the accountant.”

  “Ha, ha, very funny.”

  “Will you tell me what’s wrong?”

  “You know what.”

  “No. It’s not just the operation. There’s something else.”

  “I’m just tired.”

  Sara is preparing her meal with slow, disjointed gestures. She feels like she’s thinking in slow motion. She knows there’s something wrong inside, she’s acknowledged it. She knows there’s nothing to be done about it. It’s not over yet, but it’s worse. She can only wait, there’s no other way to know how things stand. This is the problem with pain you’re currently experiencing: you can feel it, but you don’t know exactly what it is. She thinks about Daniele. There’s an air chamber, in between. She’s not sure that what she’s feeling right now is his absence. The TV is on, a commentator, her long hair worn loose, is conducting the evening news.

  If the executive were to come out of the Senate ordeal unscathed, what at one time would have been called a shift of gears might occur.

  She listens to every word, and doesn’t understand a thing.

  The following month passes slowly. Daniele and Sara tacitly agree to a hopeful separation. They don’t talk about what happened, they no longer see each other on the sly, they don’t make love. They remain faithful and distant, waiting for it to blow over. Every other day, and sometimes every day, he calls her, frightened and full of hope. Sara always answers him.

  “I’m not going anywhere, remember that,” he tells her one day in the ward, taking advantage of a moment alone.

  The news comes on a Sunday afternoon, while Daniele is shaving in front of the bathroom mirror, barefoot, with a towel knotted around his waist. From the bedroom, Paola shouts for him to come quickly.

  Behind the news commentator appears a close-up of a man described
as a dangerous fugitive, just arrested in France. He’s a Mafia boss promoted in the organization by reason of blood, and his name is Sabato Smeraldo, not Carmine Rotunno, as Daniele knew him. “It appears,” the talking head says, “that the man was suffering from cancer and recently received treatment. Investigators are currently working to reconstruct his latest movements, to determine the connections and fronts which the boss, in all probability, must have benefited from.”

  “ ‘This majority is crumbling along the way’: this is the lapidary phrase with which the spokesman for the opposition noted the diff . . .”

  Paola turns down the TV volume and looks at her husband with dismay. “Now what happens?” she asks him.

  Daniele does not lose his composure. He points to the cell phone lying on the bedside table.

  Paola hands it to him, waiting for him to answer.

  “What’s supposed to happen? Nothing.” And he walks out of the room, as if the news were nothing new.

  Paola, bewildered, remains seated on the bed in front of the screen, staring at the speaker’s lips as they move, saying who knows what.

  Daniele goes back to the bathroom. He locks the door. Taps out a brief message on the cell phone’s keypad: “I have to talk to you.”

  He selects Sara’s number and hits send.

  Then he continues shaving.

  In the morning, the café around the corner from Sara’s house provides three newspapers to read, hung on wooden rods, like shirts. It’s her daily installment before going to work, a private pleasure in a public place that she has allowed herself each day for some years. The barista doesn’t even need to take her order: he sees her come in, waits for her to sit down at a table with the newspaper, and shortly afterwards he serves her. A caffè macchiato and a small croissant.

  Sara leafs through the paper.

  Who knows why, when she recognizes the man in the picture, she feels like smiling.