by Marco Vichi
‘I can scrub your back for you. Would you like that?’
‘Yes.’
Annina leaned over him, smiling. She began running her hand up and down his back, all the way up to the nape of his neck. He felt the waves of warm water on his skin and closed his eyes in pleasure.
‘Do you want the sponge?’ he asked.
‘No, I don’t need the sponge,’ she said, letting her soapy hand slide over his little neck and shoulder, over his chest and then down, under the water, over his belly … And this became a little game … Who knows how it started, or why … a shudder down his spine and butterflies in his stomach. Then he arched his whole body so that his little thingy came out of the water, and he held it with his fingers so that it would stand up straight.
‘Look! There’s an enemy periscope!’ he shouted. She laughed and reached into the water.
‘I’ll take care of it,’ she said. And she took the periscope between two fingers and squeezed it gently. He shuddered and plunged back into the water, feeling as if the space around him had expanded.
‘Do you want to see it again?’ he asked in a daze.
‘No need. I know where to find it,’ she said, smiling. And she rolled up her sleeve and immersed her arm in the water to look for the submarine. She found it at once, and with a complicitous smile she splashed all about down there. He just stared at her, not moving, as his periscope began to change form. It became hard and straight and almost hurt at the tip. He couldn’t see it, but could feel its weight. It had grown so huge, it seemed to him, he was afraid to look at it. At last a flash of heat burned his neck, and his lips started trembling, hot and tingly. The periscope turned red hot and seemed to explode, and he started bucking like a colt with a strength completely unfamiliar to him, splashing water all over the floor. Annina was laughing for joy. She continued fondling the submarine for a few more seconds, then took her hand out of the water and caressed his wet hair.
‘Did you like that?’ she asked, drying her hands on her skirt. She had a face like the Blessed Virgin. He looked at her with eyes half shut and a great desire to sleep. She put her hand on his head, shaking it affectionately.
‘Hey, little submarine, don’t go telling your aunties about this, or they won’t let us play any more. It’s a secret, okay?’
He nodded yes and grabbed the rim of the tub to keep from sinking into the water.
‘I mean it, okay? Don’t tell anybody.’
‘I promise,’ he said, finger over his lips. Annina blew him a kiss and opened the door to leave.
‘Annina!’
‘What is it?’
‘Can I ask you something?’
‘Make it snappy.’
‘Can I take a bath every day?’
Annina burst out laughing.
‘Well, won’t that make your aunties happy!’ she said. She blew him another kiss and left, singing to herself, leaving him to dream about the new game he had just learned.
As of that day, he started bathing very often, and his aunties were indeed happy.
‘What a good little man, always so clean,’ they would say.
Annina would slip into the bathroom and play the periscope game with him, her hand under the water and a smile on her lips. Afterwards, he would kiss her cheek, or bury his face in her blonde hair, breathing a scent of sun and the kitchen.
One evening he lay in bed, unable to sleep because that morning Annina had whispered into his ear: ‘Tonight I’ll come and see you in your room, and I’ll read to you. Would you like that?’
He lay there with his head under the covers, listening to every sound. It seemed an eternity. When at last he heard the door open, a cold shudder ran up the back of his neck to his head. Someone sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled back the sheets. He felt the touch of coarse linen on his face and then, in the shadow, saw Annina’s smiling face, a restless glint in her eye. A blonde braid brushed his ear. He pulled himself up and leaned back on the pillow. Annina was wearing a white, almost glowing nightgown.
‘Let’s be quiet.’
‘Okay.’
‘So, what shall I read you?’
‘Ahhh, I dunno!’
She held a half-broken book in the air.
‘Do you know Moby-Dick?’
‘The whale?’
‘Would like me to read it to you?’
‘Yes.’
Annina rested the book on her lap, holding it still with her open hand. With her other hand, she went searching under the covers for his periscope and started playing with it with her fingertips. After she had read barely a page, she stopped.
‘Can I come into bed with you?’ she said. He nodded yes.
Annina dropped the book on to the floor and jumped into bed, lying down beside him and pulling the covers over her.
‘Come on, little torpedo, come on top of me so we can cuddle.’ And she slipped a hand under his back and gently rolled him on to her. He nearly sank into that large, female body. Burying his face under Annina’s chin, he felt his lips against her smooth collarbone. A hot vein in his neck was throbbing fast. Anna was fiddling with his periscope, doing something he didn’t understand, and then he felt her other hand slide down to his bottom and pull him towards her. His periscope plunged into a warm sea, and it felt as if his whole body were submerged in a hot tub. Annina began to move about and breathe heavily, then grabbed his hips and made him move with her. Raising his head, he saw her smile, eyes closed, as she stroked his hair and arched her head backwards. Her braid lay across the pillow beside her face.
‘Kiss me, kiss me,’ said Annina, pulling him by the shoulders. He thrust his lips forward and covered her cheeks with kisses.
‘Yes, yes, lots and lots of kisses, kisses, kisses, kisses …’ He kept kissing her, on the nose and eyes, then the ears, mouth and chin. His periscope aflame, all at once he felt a hot wave run deep through his flesh from the lower back to the nape of his neck, then many waves all together, rapid and deep. He grabbed her tight, almost in fear, fast exhaling all the breath he had left in him, as she pulled him tightly towards herself and whispered words he couldn’t understand into his ear, caressing his head with both hands. He felt so good he almost wanted to cry.
Then peace.
‘Now sleep,’ said Annina. He collapsed on top of her, sinking into that vast, scented sea. Still feeling a few shudders under his skin, he fell into a deep sleep until morning. Waking up, the first thing he noticed was the smell of Annina’s skin on the sheets.
A few days later, Annina was summoned home by her family.
They had found her a job with a seamstress in a town near by. He stood in the doorway of her room, watching her pack her suitcase. Every so often she would turn round and make a face.
‘Little monster,’ she said to him in play.
Before she had finished, he ran away, into the garden and under the pergola where his aunts were taking tea. Annina then came down carrying her suitcase and bowed faintly in greeting. The aunts, however, all stood up together and went to kiss her.
‘Dear Annina, we wish you all the very best, do stay in touch …’ He stood there beside them, not moving. He felt strange. The world had changed. Annina bent down to say goodbye to him, kissed him on the cheek and, before raising her head, whispered in his ear:
‘Bye-bye, little torpedo.’ Her lips were so close that her words echoed in his head, and he was worried that his aunts had heard. He blushed and stood there as Annina walked briskly away. He followed her with his eyes, waiting for her to turn round again, but she never did. The last he saw of her was the blonde braid bouncing on her bare neck.
‘A registered letter for you, sir, from Rome.’
‘Thanks, Mugnai, just set it down here. Do you know where Piras is?’
‘I’ll send him to you straight away, sir. I saw him just a moment ago.’
Mugnai disappeared and Bordelli opened the letter. As he leaned back in his chair to read it, his fingers searched his pocket for his cigarettes. H
e’d just been promoted to chief inspector. Old Giuseppe Ierino had reached the end and was retiring. Bordelli chased away a fly that kept trying to land on his wrist, then lit his cigarette and, with a wrinkle of concern on his face, picked up the intercom to the office of the Assistant Commissioner.
‘Dr Cavia, this is Bordelli.’
‘Hello, Bordelli, did you get the news?’
‘I certainly did.’
‘You deserved it, don’t you think? You can move straight into Ierino’s office this morning, if you like.’
‘Well, that’s what I was calling about. I’d rather stay where I am.’
‘Why? Ierino’s office is bigger and brighter, and gives on to the street.’
‘I’d rather stay where I am, believe me.’
‘I really don’t understand.’
‘I don’t either, but that’s my preference, I assure you.’
‘As you wish, Inspector — I mean, Chief Inspector.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
As Bordelli was crushing his cigarette in the ashtray, there was a knock at the door.
‘Come in.’
‘You asked for me, Inspector?’
‘Sit down, Piras. We need to take stock of the situation.’ A wisp of smoke rose from the not quite extinguished cigarette in the ashtray, and Piras looked at it with concern. Bordelli noticed and snuffed it out. As he was about to speak, he slapped himself on the forehead.
‘Damn!’ He’d just remembered Rosa’s flowers. He sprang to his feet and spread his arms. ‘I’m sorry, Piras, but I have to go somewhere very quickly.’
They left the room together. In the doorway, Bordelli turned round to look at what had been his office for the past fifteen years. By now it had become his home. He could eat and sleep there as easily as in his apartment. Not even a salary increase could persuade him to move upstairs. Let alone the fact that it would have disturbed him to see someone else sitting at his desk. It would have made him feel old.
‘I’ll see you later, Piras. Meanwhile, give some thought to our next move.’
‘My brain is mush today, Inspector, but I’m not giving up. I can sense that we’re close.’
‘It’s always good to be optimistic. See you later.’
Bordelli ran out, hopped into his Beetle and raced to Rosa’s place. He could already see the devastation, the plants withered all the way down to the roots after a long agony. He imagined Rosa’s expression. She certainly wouldn’t start yelling, since that wasn’t her style, but she would wear a long face for quite a while.
He parked on the pavement in front of Carlino’s bar, to pick up the keys. Carlino Forzone had been a resistance fighter in the Piedmont with the azzurri and had met Beppe Fenoglio. After the war he had seen things he didn’t like, and had placed a few ‘righteous’ bombs here and there — that is, bombs that didn’t kill anyone — just to let people know that not everyone was ready to take it up the arse.
Even before getting out of the car, Bordelli saw him through the window, leaning over the bar, reading the newspaper with a butt between his lips, hollow cheeked, fingers yellow with nicotine, an old partisan always ready to rant polemically against the Christian Democrats and just about everyone else. The inspector entered the bar and raised a hand in greeting.
‘Ciao, Carlino. Rosa was supposed to have left you the keys for me.’
Carlino guffawed and clapped his hands above the newspaper.
‘You’re just the man I was looking for, Inspector. Listen to this: the minister asserted that we need to forget the past … the country needs a positive response … Italy has emerged, with some effort, but with head held high, from a fratricidal war … and all that matters now is the future … he praised the industriousness of all categories of workers, who in only a few years … tremendous growth for the country … prosperity … a home … I am committed to enforcing respect for … and blah blah blah blah blah … I’ve heard this claptrap before, been hearing it for years, an’ it makes my hands itch so bad that if I start scratching I’ll scratch myself down to the bone.’
‘Stop tormenting yourself, Carlino. We’ve already done our part, now it’s time to let the young people try. You’ll see, sooner or later the bad guys’ll get a spanking.’
Carlino rolled up the newspaper and went over to the espresso machine.
‘Coffee?’ he said.
‘No thanks. I’ve already had two.’
‘The young are only interested in having fun, Inspector. What the hell do they care about the blackshirts and the war?’
‘Don’t take it personally.’
‘They only see us as senile fools with a nostalgia for bombs.’
‘They may be right, Carlino.’
‘I’d like to see these brats fight the Nazis and the Black Brigades, for Christ’s sake!’
‘Sooner or later they’ll learn what happened, you’ll see.’
‘At least one of those pricks up there needs to have the balls to tell the truth, Goddamn it all! After the war was over they let all the Fascists out of jail only to make room for us partisans. Don’t you think it’s time they explained why?’ He took Rosa’s keys out of a drawer and walked round the counter. ‘Goddammit! If we don’t change this world, we who have seen what we’ve seen … if we don’t do it, then nobody will. I’d bet my family jewels on it.’
Bordelli smiled.
‘I’d love to change the world,’ he said. ‘But I can only change it by doing my job well.’
Carlino gave him a funny look.
‘Sometimes I wonder how someone like you manages to stay in the police force, in the service of those guys.’
Bordelli sighed.
‘I’m not in anybody’s service, Carlino. I’m a policeman. I try to find out who killed whom. Politics has nothing to do with it.’
Carlino shook his head.
‘Wrong. Everything is political, Inspector, even … even taking a piss,’ he said. He dropped Rosa’s keys into Bordelli’s hand.
‘Well, Carlino. I’ve really got to go now.’
‘Take care, Inspector. And drop by some time.’
Bordelli left the bar and walked briskly towards Rosa’s building, as if getting there a few seconds earlier might save a few plants. He climbed the stairs, opened the door and rushed through the sitting room towards the terrace, but then stopped halfway. He had clearly heard a noise coming from Rosa’s bedroom.
‘Anybody here?’
He heard a door creak. He cautiously approached the room and turned on the light. Everything looked to be in order, but one of the wardrobe doors was ajar.
‘Is that you, Rosa?’
He turned off the light and went back into the hall. He reopened the front door and then closed it again, remaining inside the flat. Then he tiptoed into the kitchen and waited, looking towards the sitting room through the half-open door. About a minute later, there appeared a short, thin man with the sad face of a comic from a warm-up act for a variety show. The stranger tiptoed his way towards the front door. Bordelli came out of the kitchen and walked up to him, shaking his head.
‘Canapini! What are you doing here?’
The little man’s jaw dropped, and he nearly fell from fright.
‘Inspector … it’s you!’
‘Yes, but you still haven’t answered my question.’
Canapini stood there in the middle of the room without moving. He threw up his hands, his face turning sadder than ever. Bordelli flopped into an armchair.
‘How can you possibly be so unlucky, Canapini? A lady friend of mine lives here.’
The burglar grew animated and ran up to Bordelli.
‘I swear I didn’t know, Inspector. Anyway, all I took is this.’ He removed a small statuette of yellow glass from his pocket, dusted it on his shirtsleeve. ‘An’ I’m going to put it right back.’ He set it down on a console. ‘There,’ he said. ‘I swear I didn’t know.’
He looked at Bordelli with the expression of a beaten dog.
‘
At ten in the morning, Canapini!’
The little man shrugged.
‘I’m in a bad way, Inspector. If I don’t find something to sell to Zoppo today, I won’t eat.’
‘When did you get out?’
‘Yesterday, Inspector. This is the first flat I’ve broken into.’
Bordelli stood up, knees cracking, and headed towards the kitchen.
‘Give me a hand watering the plants,’ he said. The little burglar followed Bordelli on to the terrace, which looked out over the roofs of Santo Spirito, and together they gave drink to the thirsty — geraniums, azaleas, tulips, rosemary, lavender, and all the other species of plants and flowers Bordelli didn’t recognise. Luckily they had survived the heat, and the moment they felt the water, they began visibly to revive.
‘Canapini, let’s not beat about the bush. First of all, strike this address from your list.’
Canapini was about to promise, but Bordelli raised a hand as if to say he took his word for it.
‘Secondly, take this … and I don’t want any fuss.’
He put a ten-thousand-lira note in the little man’s hand and then put his finger over the other’s mouth.
‘Don’t say anything, Canapini. I just got a raise today.’
‘But I can’t accept this, Inspector.’ He had tears in his eyes, holding the note with two fingers, as if it were diseased. Bordelli lost patience.
‘I don’t want to hear about it, Cana. Take it or I’ll arrest you, and I’m not joking.’
Canapini wiped his eyes with his fingers.
‘Thank you, Inspector. If all policemen were like you …’
‘You’d be out burgling every single day. Is that what you were going to say?’
Canapini blushed and twisted up his mouth. He seemed on the verge of sobbing. Bordelli put his hand on the man’s neck.
‘That’s enough, Canapini, for Christ’s sake! You’re the unluckiest burglar I’ve ever met! Why don’t you change professions?’
‘What would I do?’
‘Listen, why don’t you come for dinner at my place tomorrow evening? I’ve invited a few friends. Botta’s doing the cooking.’