“And if they don’t give him house arrest, how long will he have to stay inside?”
Once again I had the same strange feeling I’d had before. The feeling I didn’t quite understand the real reason for the question. Did she want to know how long she would be separated from her husband, or did she want to know how much time she had at her disposal?
How much time we had at our disposal.
Was she really asking that or was I projecting it onto her?
Because I was certainly wondering it myself. I can see that clearly now: at the time I was aware of it in a vague kind of way – although clearly enough to feel a mixture of shame and longing.
Longing for her – Natsu – and for the child. For the family I didn’t have. The family of a man who was in prison, a man I should be protecting and defending.
The longing of a thief.
“It’s hard to say right now. Even after the sentence has been made final, it’s still possible for there to be some reduction, time off for good behaviour, day release. It depends on a lot of factors.”
I paused.
“Certainly it’ll be a few years, even with the most optimistic forecast.”
She didn’t say anything. I couldn’t figure out the expression on her face. I was searching for the words to say that we could see each other again. Outside the office. Like last night. Go for a drive, listen to a little music, talk. Other things.
The longing of a thief.
I couldn’t find the words. My hypocritical phrase about the most optimistic forecast was the end of the conversation, and of our encounter.
When Natsu left, I told Maria Teresa that I didn’t want to answer the phone for half an hour, let alone see any clients who dropped by, as sometimes happened, without having an appointment.
Then I went back to my chair and took my head in my hands. The situation was out of my control, I told myself.
18
By the time I closed the office, Maria Teresa had been gone for a while.
I got home, took some ice cream from the fridge, ate it, spent half an hour with the punchball, did push-ups until my arms were numb, then got into the shower.
I wondered where Margherita was at that moment, what she was doing, but I couldn’t imagine it. I probably didn’t want to.
I dressed and went out. Alone and without an aim, as was happening more and more often.
I had the impulse to call Natsu and ask her if she wanted me to drop by and see her.
I didn’t do it. Instead I walked around the windswept city.
Something strange and unpleasant was stirring inside. Maybe what had happened when Sara left me was about to happen again: insomnia, depression, panic attacks. The idea was a worrying one, but no sooner had I thought it than I realized it wouldn’t happen.
I was a permanent misfit now. I had secured a stable, mediocre unhappiness for myself, I thought. I’d insured myself against overwhelming unhappiness by settling for a permanent feeling of dissatisfaction and unmentionable desires. Then I thought, no, these were banal, pathetic musings, I was just feeling sorry for myself. I’ve always hated people who feel sorry for themselves.
So I decided to go and buy some books.
At that hour – it was eleven-I would find only one place open where I could buy books and also chat. The Osteria del Caffellatte, which in spite of its name is a bookshop.
It opens at ten o’clock at night and closes at six in the morning. The owner, Ottavio, is a former schoolteacher who suffers from chronic insomnia. He hated his work as a teacher all the years he was forced to do it. Then an old aunt, who didn’t have any children or any other relatives, left him some money and a small building right in the centre of town. A ground floor and two apartments on the upper floors, one on top of the other. It was the opportunity of a lifetime, and he jumped at it. He moved into the second-floor apartment and converted the ground floor and first floor into a bookshop. As he couldn’t sleep at night, he came up with those unusual opening hours. Many people said it was a ridiculous idea, and yet it worked.
There are always people in the Osteria del Caffellatte. Not many, it’s true, but there are people there all the time. Obviously, there are some strange characters among them, but most are normal people. Who must be the strangest of all, if they’re out buying books at four o’clock in the morning.
There are three small tables and a small bar counter, if you want to drink something or eat a slice of one of the cakes Ottavio makes in the afternoon before he opens. Early in the morning you can have breakfast with the same cakes and a caffe latte. If you’re in the shop when it closes, he offers you any left-over cake, says see you tomorrow, closes the shop, and then stands in front of the entrance and smokes his only cigarette of the day. Then he goes for a walk around the awakening city, and just as other people are starting work he returns home and goes to sleep, which is something he can only do by day.
Inside the bookshop, there were three girls sharing a joke. Every now and again they looked in my direction and laughed louder. So, I thought. My trajectory is over. I’m a ridiculous man. Or more likely, I’m just terminally paranoid.
Ottavio was sitting at one of the little tables in the tiny bar area, reading. When he saw me come in, he waved and then went back to his reading. I started walking around between the counters and the shelves.
I picked up a copy of Musil’s The Man without Qualities, leafed through it, read a few pages, and put it back. I’ve been doing that for some years. Forever, in fact. With Musil, and above all with Joyce’s Ulysses.
Every time, I’m confronted with my own ignorance and I tell myself I ought to read these books. But I never even get as far as buying them.
I don’t suppose I’ll ever know first-hand the adventures – if that’s the right word – of Stephen Dedalus, Leopold Bloom or Ulrich. I’ve resigned myself to that, but whenever I’m in a bookshop, I still leaf through those volumes, as a kind of ritual of imperfection. My own.
After a little more wandering, I was attracted by a beautiful cover with a very beautiful title. Nights in the Gardens of Brooklyn. I’d never heard of the author – Harvey Swados – or the publisher – Bookever. I read a few lines of the introduction by Grace Paley, was won over, and decided I’d get it.
A young policeman came in. He went up to Ottavio and asked him something. There was a police car double-parked outside.
I spotted a book called Nothing Happens by Chance. I decided it referred to my case – whatever my case was – and I’d get that one, too. The policeman went out with a book in a small bag. It’s a kind of bag you only find in Ottavio’s shop. On one side there’s a drawing of a steaming cup of caffe latte, a blue cup without handles, and the name of the shop. On the other side, printed on the plastic, a page of a novel, a poem, a quotation from a sage. Things that Ottavio likes and wants to pass on to his nocturnal customers.
I already felt much better. For me, bookshops are a tranquillizer and an antidepressant. The girls had left without my noticing. Now Ottavio and I were alone. I went up to him.
“Hi, Guido. How’s it going?”
“Fine. What did the policeman buy?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Try me.”
“ Uninterrupted Poetry.”
I was surprised. “Paul Eluard?”
“Yes. You must be one of the three or four lawyers in the world who know that book. And he must be the only policeman.”
“He won’t get far.”
“I agree. What are you getting?”
I showed him the books I’d chosen and he approved. Especially the Swados.
“And what are you reading?”
He was holding a small book with a cream-coloured cover, from another publisher I didn’t know: Botanical Editions.
He handed it to me. The title was The Manumission of Words. There was a subtitle, Notes for a Seminar on Writing. No author’s name on the cover.
I leafed through it and read a
few paragraphs.
Our words are often devoid of meaning. This happens because we have worn them out, exhausted them, emptied them through excessive and above all unwitting use. We have turned them into empty shells. In order to tell stories, we must regenerate our words. We must give them back their meaning, texture, colour, sound, smell. And to do this we have to break them into pieces and then rebuild them.
In our seminars we give this process of breaking and rebuilding the name “manumission”. The word manumission has two meanings, apparently very different. The first meaning is synonymous with tampering, violating, causing damage. The second, which derives directly from ancient Roman law (manumission was the ceremony at which a slave became a free man), is synonymous with liberation, redemption, emancipation.
The manumission of words encompasses both these meanings. We take words to pieces (we manumit them, in the sense of tampering with them, violating them) and then we put them back together (we manumit them, in the sense of liberating them from the bonds of verbal conventions and meaningless phrases).
Only after manumission can we use our words to tell stories.
“Is this your only copy?”
“Yes, but you can have it, if you like. Why are you interested in it?”
Yes, why was I interested in it?
I have an old wish that I recently expressed, and a friend has assured me it’ll come true. The wish is to become a writer, and seeing this book I thought I’d do a bit of studying. Just to make things easier for the department responsible for magic lamps, four-leaf clovers and falling stars.
I fantasized a little about these paragraphs and about other things. Without replying to Ottavio’s question. He respected my silence, and didn’t speak until he was sure I’d come back down to earth.
“You’re not crazy about your work, are you?”
I gave a kind of sneer. It was true, I wasn’t crazy about my work.
“And if you could change professions, what would you do?”
This is getting to be an epidemic. Everyone’s asking me about my wishes. Come on, out with it, you’ve been ganging up on me behind my back.
“I’d like to be a writer. I like books more than anything else. I like reading them and I’d like to write them, if I can. Of course, I don’t really know if I can, seeing as I’ve never had the courage to try.”
Ottavio simply nodded and said nothing. I like people who don’t make stupid comments. And sometimes the best way not to make stupid comments is not to say anything at all.
“How about a drink?”
“Sure.”
“Rum?”
“Rum would be fine.”
He took a bottle from the bar counter and poured two doubles. We drank and chatted for a while about a whole lot of things. From time to time people came in. Some bought books, some just browsed.
A man of about fifty, in a jacket, tie and coat, slipped into his trousers a copy of The Trilogy of the City of K., buttoned up his coat and headed for the exit. Ottavio noticed, asked me to excuse him for a moment, and caught up with the man at the door.
He said he would like to be able to give books away. But unfortunately he couldn’t. He was obliged to make people pay for them. He said this without a hint of sarcasm. The man stammered a few words, something to the effect that he really didn’t know what he, Ottavio, was talking about. Patiently, like someone who’s said the same thing many times, Ottavio told him there were two options. Either the man paid for the book and took it away – he could even have a discount – or else he could put it back on the shelf, go home to bed as if nothing had happened, and come back whenever he liked. The man said all right then, he’d buy it. And in an extraordinary, surreal sequence he went to the cash desk, pulled the book out of his pants, paid – getting the discount – took his nice little bag, bade everyone goodnight, and left.
“Some people are completely shameless,” I said.
“You have no idea. But somehow I can’t get angry with people who try to steal books. I’ve stolen so many myself. How about you?”
I said I’d never stolen a book. Not physically stolen. I’d read lots in bookshops, without buying them. Not in his shop, I hastened to add.
Then I looked at my watch and realized how late it was. I had to be in court the next day. I asked him how much I owed him.
“The drinks are on the house. The books you have to pay for, because, as I told that man, I’m really not able to give them away.”
19
I had only just got in to the office when Maria Teresa put through a call from Colaianni.
He didn’t beat about the bush. He had to talk to me, he said, but he’d rather do it face to face.
Usually after a sentence like that, I would have made a joke about magistrates always thinking their phones were tapped, but something in his voice stopped me. So I simply asked how we could talk face to face, seeing that he was in Rome and I was in Bari. He said he was going to be in Foggia in two days’ time, to visit someone in the prison there. If I could get there after he’d finished, we could meet, have a bite together and talk. OK, the day after tomorrow. Bye, see you then.
After putting the phone down I felt strangely euphoric. After so many years of being a defence lawyer, for the first time I had a sense of what detectives feel when an investigation produces results. Because there was no doubt about it. Colaianni had some information about the lawyer Macri. Some important information.
My first impulse was to call Natsu.
Hi, Natsu, I wanted to tell you there’s news. What news? Well, to tell the truth I don’t know, but I’ll know the day after tomorrow in Foggia. Oh, by the way, what are you doing tonight?
My mental ramblings were fortunately interrupted by Maria Teresa, who put her head in through the door and told me Signora Pappalepore and her daughter had arrived. New clients. They had phoned the day before and had made an appointment. I told her to send them in, but as soon as they crossed the threshold a neon sign saying “Watch out” started flashing frantically in my head.
The younger of the two women was about fifty, all dolled up as if she was still a girl, with ridiculous red glasses, Seventies-style clothes, bright red lipstick and yellow hair. The other one was an elderly lady, wearing the same lipstick and glasses as thick as the bottoms of Coca-Cola bottles.
I asked them to take a seat. The younger one helped the elderly one to sit down, then sat down herself and gave me a somewhat disquieting smile.
“How can I help you?” I said, smiling affably and a bit stupidly.
“Who is this young man?” the old woman said as if I wasn’t there, looking at her daughter.
“He’s the lawyer, mother. You remember we came about the lawsuit?”
“Is he Raffaele’s cousin?”
“No, mother, Raffaele’s cousin died ten years ago.”
“Oh…” She seemed to calm down. A few moments of silence followed and I started to get worried.
“So…” I prompted them, smiling as stupidly as before.
“Avvocato Guerrini, we have to bring a lawsuit. Something serious is going on.”
I was going to point out that my name was Guerrieri, not Guerrini, but decided there was no point.
“There’s a conspiracy against us in our apartment building.”
Oh, great, I’m crazy about conspiracies. These two mad-women were all I needed right now.
“Who is this young man?” the old woman said, looking into empty space now.
“Avvocato Guerrini, mother. For the lawsuit, don’t you remember?”
“Is he married?”
“I don’t know, mother. That’s his business. Do you want a sweet?”
The old lady said yes and the younger one took a bag from a pastry-shop out of her handbag. She took out a red sweet, unwrapped it and put it in her mother’s mouth. Then she asked me if I wanted one. I smiled again, through pursed lips, and said no, thanks.
“Some very serious things are happening, Avvocato Guerrini. Th
e people in our building have got together to destroy us. It’s like a kind of… what do you lawyers call it?”
Yes, what did we lawyers call it?
“… a Mafia-style organization.”
A Mafia-style organization. Of course. Why didn’t I think of that?
“They attack us every day and now we’ve decided to bring a lawsuit against them.”
“But is this young man Marietta’s son?”
“No, mother, Marietta’s son lives in Busto Arsizio. This is the lawyer.”
“Whose son is he?”
“I don’t know, mother. He’s the lawyer, we’ve come about the lawsuit.”
At this point, the old lady suddenly decided to address me directly. “Young man, are you Signora Marzulli’s nephew?”
“No, signora,” I replied politely.
“This is the lawyer. Signora Marzulli’s nephew is a male nurse.”
“A lawyer. And so young. But he must be Raffaele’s…” Cousin? No, signora, I’m not Marietta’s son, who seems to be living in Busto Arsizio, I’m not Signora Marzulli’s nephew, a male nurse apparently, and I’m not even Raffaele’s cousin, who for all I know may have been a lawyer although he’s dead now. I’d also like to get rid of you and do a bit of work, but I realize that’s an unlikely prospect.
I didn’t say that. In fact I didn’t say anything, because I noticed that the old lady had started to sway slowly to her left, leaning on the arm of the chair. For a moment, I had the impression she was falling. Maybe she was having a heart attack or something. I imagined all the logistical problems that would arise, getting the body removed. This wasn’t my lucky afternoon, I told myself.
But the woman wasn’t dying. After swaying for about thirty seconds, almost hypnotically, she straightened her skirt and became still again.
In the meantime, her daughter had continued telling me about the Mafia-style organization that had taken over their apartment building in the Via Pasubio.
This criminal gang had been intimidating them through such things as hanging out their washing contrary to housing regulations and illegal possession of stereo units, not to mention what Signor Fumarulo the surveyor got up to. Fumarulo lived alone and was always bringing women home with him, even in the evening. Once, meeting him in the lift, she had told him that he ought to stop doing it. He had told her not to be such a pain in the arse – as if it was all her fault. She had retorted that he should be careful about what he said, and that she would sue him along with all the others.
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