by Marco Vichi
‘Thank you ever so much. If I need to talk to you again, I’ll let you know.’
‘Throw them in jail, both of them,’ said Maria, looking him in the eye.
‘We will arrest the killer, I can assure you of that.’
Maria came up to him and clutched his arm with both hands, imploring him.
‘Inspector, please do your best to find out whether Signora Pedretti died by the hand of God or by.…’ Chin trembling, she didn’t finish her sentence. The inspector put his hand on her shoulder.
‘Sleep easy, Maria, that’s my job.’
‘She was so alone, so very alone … And those four rascals …’
‘Please don’t worry.’
‘Those disgusting …’
‘I promise you that if they are guilty, they will not get off lightly.’
He accompanied the woman to the exit, then turned her over to a uniformed officer who would drive her home. Before she left, he asked her one more question.
‘Aside from Signora Pedretti, who else had keys to the villa?’
‘Nobody, Inspector. Signora Pedretti couldn’t bear the thought of someone entering the house without her permission.’
‘Not even Dante?’
‘I have no way of knowing. But if Signor Dante does have them, I am sure he has forgotten where he put them.’
‘Is he absent minded?’
‘He is a very strange man.’
‘Thank you again for your patience, Maria. Now go home and rest.’
‘Mr Inspector, please, don’t forget.’
‘You can sleep easy,’ Bordelli repeated, unable to think of any variations.
It was already seven o’clock. The inspector went back into his office and decided to call Dante, the brother, at once. The telephone rang for a long time. Bordelli was about to hang up when he heard someone pick up. A deep, warm voice replied.
‘Dante here.’
‘Signor Pedretti, please forgive me for calling at this hour.’
‘Why? What time is it?’
‘Just after seven o’clock.’
‘A.M. or P.M.?’
‘A.M.’
‘Go on.’
‘This is Inspector Bordelli. I have some unpleasant news for you.’
‘Not over the phone.’
‘When could you come in?’
‘I’d rather you came here.’ He gave Bordelli the address and hung up without allowing him time to respond. He had a beautiful voice, but perhaps Maria was right: he must be a bit strange. Bordelli thought that, in the end, a little drive in the country might not be such a bad idea. He scraped together all the cigarettes he could find in his drawers and left the station. He no longer felt tired; on the contrary, he seemed to be bursting with energy. The same thing used to happen to him during the war, when he was forced to stay awake for two or three days in a row. He kept going on nerves alone, relying on those mysterious powers that come into play when you least expect it. If he went home now, he wouldn’t sleep a wink; he would only spend hours and hours tossing and turning in bed, sweating in the dark, in the clutches of the usual sad memories.
He got into his Beetle and calmly crossed the city, which was slowly repopulating. At Porta Romana, he turned on to the Via di Pozzolatico, which would take him up towards Dante’s house. He drove slowly, enjoying the landscape. Mezzomonte was a tiny outlying ward on the hillside opposite the one where Signora Pedretti-Strassen lived. It was fairly wild countryside there. There were a few large aristocratic villas, but the rest were peasant houses, some still inhabited by old farmers, others half ruined and abandoned. The young were all fleeing the countryside to work in the city. Nobody seemed to want to live any more between the soil and the cow pats.
Bordelli pulled up in a clearing of beaten earth in front of number 117, Via Imprunetana, and got out of the car. He found himself in front of an open, rusty gate. On one of the gate’s pillars was an old, terracotta plaque with the name: Il Paretaio, ‘The Bird-Trap’. If this was the right place, Dante’s house could just barely be glimpsed from the road, at the end of a grassy lane, hidden among the cypresses of an utterly neglected garden. Bordelli continued on foot and entered the garden, walking along a path of trampled grass which cut feebly through a jungle of shrubs and wildflowers. It was a two-storey house, but very broad. A sort of cross between a peasant house and a landowner’s villa. On one side a sort of small, rather shabby turret had been built, apparently outfitted as a dovecote. Seeing the state of abandon of the entire property, it was hard to imagine it was inhabited. But that was the address. Bordelli approached the front doorway, which was open and as dark as a wolves’ den, and pulled a sort of handle that looked in every way like a doorbell. In fact it was a mechanical ringer. He heard a clanging far off inside the house. By way of reply, he heard a muffled yell that sounded like it came from underground.
‘It’s open!’
Bordelli entered and proceeded in darkness along a disjointed floor. He didn’t know what to do; he could see only one step ahead. He called Signor Pedretti loudly, then heard the same voice as before, shouting from inside the earth.
‘Turn right, and at the end of the corridor you’ll see an open door. Go down the stairs, but watch your step.’
The inspector followed these instructions and, groping along, came to a half-open door. He pushed this and found himself in front of a steep staircase that led below. At the bottom of the stair was a faint, flickering light. He descended the stairs, stepping carefully, and ended up in a vast, rectangular room the size of the house’s entire floor plan. The walls were lined with old shelves full of books. Practically everywhere shone the flames of countless candles in large candelabra. At the back of the great room was a tall, fat man in a yellowish smock covered with stains. A white, woolly mane enveloped his head like a cloud of smoke. He was standing, busying himself over a long wooden workbench cluttered with a chemist’s glassware and a thousand other strange tools and objects, including a pair of jugs with steam rising from their mouths. The workbench was at least ten metres long and one metre wide, but in that great space it looked like a pack of cigarettes on a desk.
‘Are you Dante?’ Bordelli asked, though there was no need for the question.
‘I am.’
The inspector advanced, looking all around the room. It was as if he had entered another world. The floor was made of large wooden boards that creaked with every step. Dante didn’t look up at the inspector until the last moment. After wiping it on his smock, he held out a gigantic hand to him, almost too big to shake. He had a broad, joyful face, like an enthusiastic baby’s, with eyes ever so slightly veiled by sadness.
‘Candlelight is so much more restful,’ he said in his powerful voice.
‘I agree.’
Dante looked at him as though sizing him up, from his height of six foot three inches.
‘So you’re a police inspector,’ said Dante.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you. What were you doing?’ asked Bordelli, to buy time.
Upon hearing the question, Dante became as excited as a child.
‘I am creating a substance that will revolutionise the world,’ he said, smiling, as if he were talking about chocolate. Curious, Bordelli asked him what this substance was. Dante pulled a half-smoked cigar out of the pocket of his smock and lit it on a candle. He sat down slantwise on the workbench.
‘It’s a substance that will make mice happy,’ he said with satisfaction.
‘Mice?’
The inventor bared his huge teeth in a gargantuan smile.
‘I love mice. I don’t like that people kill them simply because they prowl in kitchens and frighten women. The powder I am creating will make them immune to all poison.’
‘I see.’
‘No, you don’t. I can tell that you, too, think mice are trouble and full of diseases.’
‘That’s what we were always taught.’
Dante pointed a gnarled index finger at Bordelli.
‘Would
you like me to call them?’ he said.
‘Call whom?’
‘The mice.’
‘The mice?’
‘But keep very still. They don’t know you and might get anxious.’
Though Bordelli was already thinking that this man was simply mad, he felt perfectly at ease in that great, candlelit room. Maybe I’m mad, too, he thought.
‘How many of them are there?’ he asked.
‘Don’t worry. They’re friends.’
Dante made some strange noises with his mouth, and a few seconds later the floor started to fill up with dark little creatures advancing with caution, sniffing the air in fits and starts. They approached the inventor. There were at least twenty of them. Dante knelt down and started whispering to them. The mice walked over his shoes without a care. He touched them with one finger, calling them each by name: Jeremiah, Attila, Erminia, Achilles, Desdemona.
Bordelli couldn’t restrain himself.
‘How can you tell them apart?’
Dante bit his cigar and spat out a wad of tobacco.
‘To us the Chinese, too, look all alike,’ he said. He took a piece of chocolate out of his pocket and started crumbling it on the floor. The mice ate the bits and went quietly home. Dante bid them goodbye in his basso voice, then turned to Bordelli.
‘Coffee, Inspector?’
‘I’d love some.’
‘It’ll be ready in an instant.’ He went over to the workbench and began fidgeting with an alembic with a coiled pipe. He lit a flame under it and poured a handful of coffee grounds into it.
‘A patented system,’ he said. ‘The fats evaporate and only the best part remains.’
Bordelli looked at the workbench, fascinated. It was crowded with incomprehensible gadgets, cogs and scattered test tubes. He had never seen anything like it in his life.
Dante put his big hands in his pockets.
‘We inventors devote our lives to improving the lives of everyone. But I must admit we also have a lot of fun.’
There was a buzzing sound: the coffee was ready. Dante poured it into two strangely oval espresso cups.
‘Another invention of mine,’ he said proudly.
‘I figured as much.’
‘These cups are adaptable to every kind of mouth. Try drinking from it.’ The inspector took a sip, and a large drop of coffee fell on to his shoes. The inventor frowned at him.
‘You must turn the cup until you find the right place for your mouth,’ he said.
The inspector spread his feet and tried again. He gave it his best, but it seemed impossible to drink from the cup without making it rain. And the coffee was bad into the bargain. The only thing special about it was that it had a strong taste of liquorice.
‘I’ll have to try again another time,’ said Bordelli.
‘Perhaps I need to modify the design,’ said Dante, face darkening, and he started examining the cup from every angle, trying to find the defect.
‘Signor Pedretti, as I was saying on the phone, I have some bad news for you,’ said Bordelli.
‘Tell me.’
‘It’s your sister.’
‘Dead?’ said Dante, staring at him.
‘Yes.’
Dante did not react. He went over to a candle and relit his cigar, taking many consecutive puffs. Bordelli started to feel tired again and collapsed into a large armchair. The inventor remained standing.
‘How did she die?’ he asked.
‘At first glance, it looks like a violent asthma attack; but we’ll have to wait for the post-mortem to be certain.’
‘So why are the police involved?’
‘Because there’s something fishy about it.’
Dante spread his legs and crossed his arms over his belly.
‘Well, I can tell you now, I don’t want to see her,’ he said.
‘You’re under no obligation.’
‘It’s not that I would be shocked or upset. I am old, and I’ve seen my share of dead bodies. But I have no desire to see my sister for the last time on a slab at the morgue, sewn back up like a stuffed fish. I wouldn’t like that. Another coffee?’
‘No, thanks.’
Dante went and poured himself another cup, then continued.
‘Life’s funny, don’t you think? I spoke with my sister by telephone just a few hours ago. She seemed rather well, in good spirits.’
He knocked back the coffee the way Russians do vodka. Then he tossed the empty cup on to the workbench and took a long, slow walk round the room, hands thrust deep into his pockets, making the floorboards suffer with each step. Slowly he came back to the inspector, eyes staring at an imaginary horizon.
‘We are like the leaves on the trees in autumn … Who wrote that? Quasimodo or the other one … Ungaretti? Yes, it must be Ungaretti.’
Dante’s voice was soothing, and his white, vaporous hair gave one a sense of peace, like the hair of the angels in heaven. Bordelli felt good, relaxed. The only thing missing was a bed. Dante stopped directly in front of him, looking bewildered, lips jutting out like Mussolini’s.
‘Dead … from an asthma attack …’ he said softly. He stood for a moment in silence, head hanging on his chest. Then he raised it slowly, squeezing his eyes shut as if trying to remember something.
‘Dead,’ he repeated. Then he walked round the room again, making the floorboards groan. He came to a stop again in front of Bordelli, who was practically falling asleep to the rhythm of Dante’s footfalls.
‘I know it’s of no interest, but the same thing could have happened to me, you know. I think it was about a month ago, perhaps two, or maybe even last year-’
‘Do you also suffer from asthma?’
‘It’s nothing to do with asthma. Do you want me to tell you about it?’
‘Please.’
All of a sudden they heard a rustling noise. Dante opened his eyes wide and put his forefinger over his nose and lips.
‘Shhh! Come,’ he said very softly. Taking Bordelli’s arm, he led him to the middle of the room, then brought his mouth to the inspector’s ear.
‘Close your eyes, Inspector, it’ll be another few seconds.’
‘Then what?’
‘Shhh! Close your eyes.’ The inspector obeyed, shuddering with excitement. Dante squeezed his arm.
‘Now, Inspector! Keep your eyes closed and tell me what you feel.’
Bordelli sniffed the air and pricked his ears.
‘What am I supposed to feel?’
‘Shhh! Speak softly. Just tell me what you feel.’
Bordelli waited some more. He forced himself to feel something, but there was nothing. So he gave up.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t feel anything,’ he said.
Dante was very pleased.
‘Precisely. You feel nothing. And yet there is someone in this room, flying around us.’ Bordelli thought Dante really was insane, and opened his eyes. All he saw were shadows chasing one another high up the walls and on the ceiling, and he instinctively lowered his head. Dante squeezed his arm again.
‘Look over there, Inspector,’ he said, pointing at a moving shape. A large bird was flying silently along the walls, without flapping its wings, creating as many shadows as there were candles in the room.
‘What is it?’ Bordelli asked.
‘Isn’t that a marvellous spectacle?’
‘What is it?’ Bordelli repeated, himself fascinated. Dante let go of his arm, still watching the animal, and raised his voice.
‘That’s Agostino, a barn owl full of gratitude. Three years ago, I put his broken leg in a splint and fed him for nearly a month. From time to time he comes to see me.’
Bordelli continued to follow the perfectly silent flight of the owl, which, after circling endlessly round the room, began to approach them. Dante raised his forearm, and the bird alighted on it. The owl wiped its beak two or three times on Dante’s shoulder, then took flight again, circling the room once more before veering into the stairwell and leaving.
‘Rebecca also loved animals,’ said Dante, heading back to the workbench. Bordelli followed behind him and collapsed in the chair again. He felt a bit dazed. Dante relit his cigar on the nearest candle and put two fingers to his forehead.
‘Now, what was I saying?’
‘You were telling me about something that had happened to you.’
‘Ah, yes. I had been working for several days on a revolutionary new detergent that would allow you to wash dishes without rubbing them, simply by immersing them in water. It’s been an obsession of mine for many years. The challenge is to create a product that isn’t poisonous, unlike DDT.’
Bordelli leaned forward.
‘DDT is poisonous?’ he asked, worried.
‘Extremely poisonous.’
‘I didn’t know.’
‘Now you are the second to know, I being the first. Who knows when everyone else will be told?’
Bordelli thought of the aerosol bomb he had on his bedside table, and how often he had inhaled its contents. Resigned, he lit a cigarette.
‘Signor Pedretti, what do you do to keep the mosquitoes away?’
‘I’m working on a device for that too, but it’s going to take time. For the moment I use basil.’
‘Does it work?’
‘Not really, but I like the smell.’
‘So, anyway.’
‘Yes, I was talking about the detergent. After working out the formula, I was about to enter the experimentation phase. Do you know much about chemistry?’
‘All I know is that water is written H2O.’
‘Then I shall skip the details and stick to the concept.’
‘Thank you.’
Dante took his time, as if trying to find the right words.
‘Let’s see if you can follow. One night I lit the fire under the coil tube. I’ve always had a passion for mixing substances together; it’s like glimpsing the secrets of the universe. I can only imagine what fun God must have had playing around with matter for those seven days …’ Dante stopped short, his face turning serious. He started searching his pockets, then pulled out a folded piece of paper and a pen and began scribbling something.
‘Sorry, but I have to make a note of something, otherwise I’ll forget it.’
‘By all means.’