In spite of himself, a smile appeared on Ricciardi’s lips.
“I think I can safely rule out that likelihood, both because I have no charm to speak of, and because it’s impossible to imagine you ever becoming ugly.”
“My goodness, Luigi Alfredo, did you just pay me a compliment? I can’t believe my ears, I must have had too much too drink. Even though they haven’t yet served us a drop.”
The commissario shook his head.
“That was no compliment, Bianca. It was the truth, pure and simple. Which is just one more reason that I’m sorry to see you in this plight. You really could have anything your heart desires.”
The contessa turned serious and brushed her gloved fingers over his hand.
“Listen to me, please. I bless the day I decided to come pay a call on you. If it hadn’t been for you, and what you did for me, I’d be in utter despair right now, shut up in my house, in the throes of doubts and insecurities. And oppressed by grim poverty, because I’d have felt obligated to live my life bound up with my husband’s debts. It was you who made me see just how absurd the life I was leading had truly become, and I’ll never be able to repay my debt of gratitude. You gave Bianca Borgati back to me, after I thought she was long dead. You brought me back to life.”
Ricciardi listened in silence, then said: “And if it hadn’t been for you, I’d be exiled now on some godforsaken island off the coast, with no idea why or who to blame. And therefore, my dear contessa, it is I who is grateful to you.”
Bianca lightly clapped her hands.
“Well, in that case we’re reciprocally grateful. Now let’s just appreciate the fact.”
Ricciardi was about to reply, but Bianca stopped him.
“Truth be told, I also owe a debt of gratitude to Carlo Maria Marangolo. With the flimsy excuse that it would come in handy in these little amateur theatricals of ours, he sent me this stunning dress and accessories, which I never would have accepted before. I went to see him, you know? Lately he’s bedridden, at least for now. The new treatments are quite debilitating, it seems. But if you only knew how it amuses him to hear my accounts of the way they react in our circles. From the dizzying heights of his wealthy and his venerable name, he looks down on them with utter disgust. He says that they’re all unseemly and provincial.
Ricciardi said: “I’m grateful, very grateful, to him too. If he hadn’t obtained that information, if he hadn’t decided to use his contacts in my favor . . . ”
Bianca gave him a smile: “I will admit that when he told me that it would be necessary to make a certain number of public appearances in order to buttress my testimony, that we would be placed under surveillance for several months, I actually wondered if I was up to it. It’s one thing to have a private chat in the rooms of an abandoned factory, in the presence of a few Fascist officials I’ve never met in my life, it’s quite another matter to take on all of this city’s high society, a world like this one. I thought that standing up before such a vast tribunal, ready to judge us at the drop of a hat, would be too great a challenge.”
The commissario shot a fleeting glance around the room: “You’re telling me. I’ve never been one for social life, I’d rather stay home and spend time on my own. I don’t like going out, attending the theater, or dining at deluxe restaurants like this one. But I can’t ruin what you and Marangolo did to help me. To follow his advice, taking advantage of your generous cooperation, is truly the least I could do.”
The woman laughed, as if she’d just heard an amusing wisecrack. The people at the tables around her exchanged meaningful glances.
“It will end soon enough, never fear. Even the ones who are ogling us will get tired of it eventually and move on. In spite of his infirmity, Carlo Maria is keeping his ears open wide, and he’ll keep us posted if there are any eventual shifts in temperature. The thing is, your accusers don’t like being made fools of, but they understand when they’re beaten. We’ll both just have to go against our shy and retiring natures for a while, and try not to make the whole ordeal too tedious in the meantime. And that’s that.”
As he was listening, Ricciardi couldn’t help but think back to an older couple he had spotted on their way in, sitting at a table in the opposite corner of the dining room. The woman, who was rather corpulent and wore an unlikely feather on her head, was noisily slurping away at a bowl of soup while casting curious glances in Bianca’s direction. The man, much further along in years than the woman, was staring at the contents of his plate with some bafflement, unable to screw up the courage to sample it; he had the look on his face of someone who was secretly dreaming of gnocchi and mozzarella while cursing his spouse’s social aspirations; she had no doubt pressured him into ordering snails and other bizarre concoctions. Sitting beside them was an invisible fellow diner; the commissario’s eyes had discerned the figure of a slender man in formal attire, slumped across the table as he vomited a greenish foam and murmured farewell, farewell, sweet scent of the sea. That spectral image was the real reason that Ricciardi had chosen to turn his back to the dining room.
He spoke to Bianca.
“As far as you know, did someone kill themselves in here? I think I remember something of the sort.”
She nodded, eyes widening.
“You do remember rightly, it was this summer. A lawyer, by the name of Berardelli, poisoned himself. It was over debts, I think. They say that he loved to dine here, because he always said that he loved . . . ”
“ . . . the smell of the sea,” Ricciardi concluded pensively.
Bianca stared at him.
“That’s right . . . the smell of the sea. It’s been the talk of the town, and it didn’t do the restaurant a lot of good in terms of publicity. Luckily, they found his suicide note, otherwise people might have thought there’d been some sort of problem in the kitchen. Listen: now that we’re officially lovers, why don’t you tell me a little something about yourself? You’re an odd duck—it’s as if I can hear a noise coming from your head, as if you were always distracted by something. Why don’t you tell me about it? After all, we’re both alone, we need someone to confide in.”
The commissario had a weary look on his face.
“Who knows, maybe some day we can talk. For now, let’s just say that I suffer from migraines. And that perhaps I devote too much of my time to my job to be able to hope I could keep a lover as clearly intelligent as you are. But for now, just concentrate on your omelette, otherwise all your friends around you will worry that you’ve lost your appetite.”
Bianca looked at him for a moment with her unlikely eyes, then started eating. Ricciardi heaved a sigh.
Everyone else in the dining room was scrutinizing them curiously, all except for the one man who was busy saying farewell to the scent of the sea.
IV
He stared at her the whole time.
Without shyness, without shame. Without the slightest concern for those sitting around him, without any fear that his staring might be noticed. And indeed, it was noticed by the many people were in turn staring at him, however covertly.
He had entered his expensive box, low to the ground, well before the performance began, when the house lights were still on and the red of the drapery and the gold of the stuccoes were glittering with luxury and refinement. He was accompanied by an elegantly dressed, blonde young woman, probably a foreigner, and a man with a horrifying face, covered with scars, who looked as if he had been sketched by a modern, abstract artist in the mood for follies; this fellow followed a few steps behind the man wherever he went, and it was his job to fend off rubberneckers. Upon his arrival, at the foot of the grand staircase, there had even been a little bit of a skirmish with a couple of photographers who had set off their camera flashes. The disfigured guy had asked them, very politely, not to bother them, but one of the photographers had managed to sidestep him and get in close. Without any apparent effort, as the man continued up the stairs with the blonde, he had stretched out his arm, knocking the photographe
r down several steps—the camera had fallen and broken into several pieces. The disfigured man had helped the unfortunate shutterbug to his feet and had put a wad of cash in his hand worth twice the damage, or close to it.
By that point, however, even those who hadn’t noticed the man at first recognized him now, and his famous name was passed around by word of mouth, as if beeping urgently over the telegraph wires.
When his gaze, bored and slightly dulled by the alcohol he’d quaffed in order to bolster the courage it had taken him to come there tonight, started crisscrossing the orchestra seating, those in his field of view had immediately looked down and away, eager to avoid meeting those eyes. His face betrayed no emotion, expectation, or curiosity. The blonde on his right, on the other hand, was smiling as enthusiastically as a little girl in a pastry shop. She wore her hair short and perhaps a little too much makeup, but she was very pretty. She was wearing an extremely fashionable ivory-colored dress, cut on a bias and with a plunging back. She too was the focus of considerable interest, though exclusively male and different in nature.
Then, just a few minutes before the show began, a couple had made its entrance into the orchestra seating, taking their seats in the tenth row on the opposite side of the room. There was nothing notable about the new arrivals, and yet the man who had knocked the photographer to the ground looked as if he’d just received an electric shock. He leaned forward, grabbing the parapet with both hands and gazing feverishly, eyes wide, staring at the two of them, while they remained blithely unaware. The disfigured man put a hand on his shoulder and tried to get him to settle down; but the man ignored him, remaining motionless in that position as if attracted by some irresistible force. The blonde was disoriented, but before the veil of a profound sadness could descend over her face, the lights went down and the performance began.
Never once, during the performance, did the man take his eyes off the couple. Completely unaware, they watched the play, laughing, tearing up, and applauding just like the rest of the audience. By the dim light reflecting off the stage, which only allowed him to glimpse the faintest of features, the man tried to imagine their expressions, and studied their clothing. His mouth wrinkled in what looked like a smile, as if he were recognizing, little by little, a well known and much beloved panorama that he had been unable to admire for far too many years now.
When the lights came up for the intermission, the fact that the celebrity present in the theater was obsessively focusing on the couple could no longer go unnoticed. The curiosity grew disproportionately, and soon the names of the couple were also being telegraphed. Inevitably, they too began to notice.
The woman turned, blinking rapidly, and saw him.
For a fraction of a second, her face turned pale, as if in the presence of a ghost; the wing of a long-ago, unforgotten sorrow passed over her handsome features, and she felt the flutter of a long-sleeping heart. She immediately turned her eyes back straight ahead of her.
Her companion, in contrast, kept his eyes on the box, compressing his lips and gnashing his teeth, his jaw working as his mustache quivered with indignation. On all sides, the buzzing of voices grew louder.
Luckily, the intermission came to an end, just in time to break a level of tension that had come dangerously close to the snapping point.
The second act had a distracted and talkative audience. What relationship could there be between the individual in the box and the couple in the orchestra seating? Why that reaction from the couple? And why did he continue to stare at them?
Don’t you know them? He’s Irace, the proprietor of the fabric store. And she is his wife. Normal people, no one has ever had a bad word to say about either of them. No, not a breath of gossip. Certainly, she’s perfectly ordinary; cute, sure, but not even close to that girl up there, the blonde. Could he have taken her for someone else? Then what does he want with her? Nothing, can’t you see that he’s drunk? They say that he drinks a lot, that he drinks constantly. Of course, back where he comes from that’s normal, haven’t you noticed it in the movies? They’re always standing around with a glass in their hand. But wait, I don’t understand, is the blonde his wife? No, he’s never been married. I think it’s his secretary. Sure, I bet, since when do people in his line of work need a secretary? She must be his lover. Personally, if I had a lover like her, I wouldn’t stick my nose out of the house. Anyway, lover or not, he doesn’t give her so much as a glance. His eyes are glued to Irace and his wife. Who knows why.
Who knows why.
When the performance ended, the man leapt to his feet and left the box, followed by the woman and the disfigured man. The audience flowed rapidly out of the theater, limiting the number of curtain calls. The actors displayed their baffled disappointment, and the lobby filled until it was packed, by an audience eager to witness an unexpected but more than welcome extension of the evening’s entertainment.
Their hopes weren’t disappointed.
The Iraces, man and wife, had been among the last to leave the orchestra seating, and they now found themselves the object of hundreds of pairs of eagerly staring eyes. The woman was white as a sheet, clinging to her husband’s arm; he was a tall, powerfully built man, in his early fifties, with a brash demeanor, clearly accustomed to being in charge. He couldn’t quite figure out what was happening, but he certainly wasn’t about to be overwhelmed by events.
On the other side of the theater, the man who had watched them throughout the entire performance was motionless, in a state of expectation. His male companion with the horribly deformed face was gripping his left elbow with one hand, as if trying to make his support felt; but also, perhaps, so that he could restrain him if that proved necessary. The blonde woman stood to one side, near the door, with a melancholy grimace on her lovely face. There was a very strange silence in the air.
The facial features of the man in the box had been altered by an absurd, incomprehensible joy. He seemed to have gone mad. The skin on his face was covered with a light veil of sweat; his black eyes glittered in exaltation, as if lit up by some inner fever. His lips were wide open in an estatic smile. His hair hung messily over his forehead.
He opened his mouth and shouted, indifferent to the crowd around him: “Can’t you see me? It’s me! Me! I’ve come back, just as I promised you. I’m back.”
Everyone turned to look at the couple. The woman kept her eyes turned down, pretending nothing was happening, and did her best to drag her husband toward the exit. The one thing was that they would necessarily have to brush past the man who stood shouting and now even tried to approach them, held back forcefully by his friend.
Irace could no longer pretend that he hadn’t noticed that the man was speaking directly to his wife. He coughed to clear his throat and said: “Who do you think you’re addressing, Signore? You must be mistaken, perhaps you’re confusing us with someone else. I do not know you.”
The man went on without deigning to glance in Irace’s direction: “Didn’t you hear me, last night? That was me. I know that you heard me, Cetti’. It was me, and I was singing to you.”
A dull sound spread through the air, like the buzzing of a swarm of insects: everyone, their eyes glued to the events that were unfolding, was commenting to their neighbor.
The woman hunched her head slightly, pulling it down between her shoulders as if she’d been caught off guard by a sudden thunderclap. She tried to drag her husband away, but the man remained firmly in place, feet planted akimbo. He clenched his jaw and pulled out of his waistcoat pocket a monocle that he screwed into his eye as if to get a closer look at some insect.
After a long pause, his voice could be heard, low and grim.
“Ah. So that was you. I thought I’d seen you before . . . And you,” he added, speaking to his wife, “you told me that you had no idea who might be singing the serenade.”
The man who had unleashed all that havoc took a step forward, restrained by his friend, who tightened his grip on the man’s elbow: “It was me, it was me! M
e and nobody else. I’ve come back home, Cetti’. I’ve come back, and now no one can separate us, you know that. Do you remember the oath we swore?”
The woman looked up. But she didn’t turn her eyes on him or on her husband. She simply stared straight ahead of her. And she replied, in a calm voice: “I never swore any oath, except for an oath of faithfulness to my husband. Costanti’, I want to go home now. There’s nothing more for me to do here.”
She had almost whispered these words, at a volume that was scarcely perceptible, and yet everyone present had heard her clearly. The onlookers’ eyes swiveled to the recipient of that definitive rejection, the man in the box, who stammered: “But . . . you can’t talk like that, Cetti’. You know who I am . . . And you know who . . . ”
Irace let go of his wife’s arm and took a step forward.
“Now enough is enough. You need to stop. My wife just informed you in no uncertain terms that you need to stop bothering her, and I’m telling you the same thing. Unless you want me to have you arrested, apologize immediately.”
The man turned to look at him, with a very slow movement, as if he had just noticed his presence for the very first time.
“Shut your mouth. Just shut up. You’re no one and nothing. Shut up!”
A dark red flush rose from his neck to the businessman’s face. His eyes bugged out and with a roar he lunged forward.
“You filthy dog!”
Those who happened to be between the two men lurched out of the way, crashing into their neighbors. Cettina emitted a scream and tried to restrain her husband, but she was roughly shoved and fell to the floor. The other man hardly seemed to notice that he was under attack, only the fact that the woman had fallen. He shouted in turn and started leaning down to help her, but he was struck in the face, and the fist knocked him off balance. He shot to his feet instantly and hurled himself at Irace, who was standing in a posture of defiance.
[Ricciardi 09] - Nameless Serenade Page 4