[Ricciardi 09] - Nameless Serenade

by Maurizio de Giovanni

  The disfigured man, however, got between the two of them and immobilized his friend in a clinch. He spoke to him in English, with a pleading tone, while the man continued to shout, foam spewing from his lips and his eyes bugging out of their sockets.

  “I’ll kill you! You damned coward, I’ll kill you! She belongs to me, do you understand that? She’s mine, and she always has been. Anyone who tries to get between us, I’ll kill them, even if it means my own death.”

  Irace, with a deranged smile on his face, replied: “Come on then, you miserable son of a bitch, come on. Do you think you scare me? Common criminals far tougher than you—I eat three of them a day! Come on, let’s go!”

  A few audience members, having recovered from their astonishment, had broken away from the crowd and were now restraining the insulted husband. One of them, who seemed to know him, said: “Cavalie’, forget about it. These aren’t people for you to care about, they’re from outside, from away. That’s enough. Don’t get involved.”

  Cettina had stood up. In tears, biting her lower lip, she leaned against her husband and touched his arm.

  “Costantino, let’s go. I went to get out of here.”

  Then, with a wobbly but determined step, she moved through the crowd and left, without looking at anyone.

  Irace shook off the hands restraining him, smoothed the lapel of his overcoat and turned to follow her.

  Above the packed crowd that was blocking his movements, his rival shouted after him: “I’ll kill you, do you hear me? I’ll kill you!”

  The blonde girl, in her corner, started sobbing.

  V

  That night he had managed to find an unoccupied corner at the far end of the long room that contained the bunks. He needed to change the place he slept on a regular basis in order to avoid being found by the two seamen who came belowdecks at unpredictable intervals in search of stowaways.

  A couple of days after they set sail, he had seen them capture a stowaway. The man had given himself away, because when he spotted the two uniformed men, he had leapt to his feet and tried to get away by melting into the crowd, but he’d headed off in the wrong direction and in short order he’d found himself with his back to the wall and no way out. A rapid check of his identity papers, an exchange of questions, and he’d been hauled off.

  He had been told about the brig, a locked cell on another deck that could house a dozen or so people; if you were put in there, then you’d be sent back upon arrival. Some of the passengers, with a hint of irony, said that such a fate would certainly better than the horrible stables they had been packed into.

  Vincenzo thought that he had been ready for steerage. His friend, the one who had brought him belowdecks after the standard boarding operations were complete, after sunset, had warned him that it wasn’t going to be easy. But he hadn’t expected anything like this.

  Steerage seemed like one of the circles of hell. People were crammed in everywhere, with the household possessions they had been allowed to carry with them; two, three passengers per bunk. Besides those who had run up debts or sold everything they owned to pay for their tickets, there were many others who had slipped money under the table to a sailor, an agent, or some con artist who had nonetheless managed to get them on board. If nothing else, Vincenzo was one of the lucky few who hadn’t had to spend a red cent.

  Still, the risk of being caught was a real one, so he had to sleep with one eye open, awake to every slightest sound, any movement out of the ordinary that might point to an inspection by the watchful crew.

  They could feel the seas pitching and rolling. The ship jerked over the waves and the chilly October winds allowed only a few minutes of air, in the early morning, when the dormitories were emptied so that sawdust and disinfectants could be scattered over the floor stained with puddles of vomit and other leavings of the night. There was not a single moment when the crying of children and the laments of the elderly fell silent. An elderly woman who had felt unwell had been taken to the office of the ship’s doctor and had never been seen again. The next morning, a seaman came below to summon her daughter and son-in-law; the couple had followed him out and then returned in tears. No one had had the courage to ask them what had happened, though it wasn’t very hard to guess.

  Curled up on his straw pallet under a filthy blanket, Vincenzo wondered how many of the hundreds of people who were sharing that desperate journey with him had left with the idea that they would never return. The truth is, he thought, that the families, with their children, their bundles, their mattresses, their caged chickens, had left nothing behind them—except for their lightless ground-floor apartments, their bassi, though those had certainly already been occupied by others—along with a vague memory among the neighbors. That the future, for them, was that night. They lived from day to day, and the one thing that kept them going was the conviction that nothing, in the new land of promises and illusions, could be worse than the atrocious poverty they were running away from.

  Vincenzo knew that abovedecks there were people, seated comfortably at white-tableclothed banquets, dining agreeably to the sound of an orchestra, who traveled for amusement or for business; rich people for whom it didn’t much matter where they were in the world, whether Europe or the Americas.

  Then there were people like him. He could recognize them by the way they leaned over the side of the ship during the brief moments they spent on deck, their eyes lost in the distance, looking back in the direction from which they had come. Unaccompanied men, for the most part, driven by the need to distance themselves from some dark chapter of their past, or driven by a need for redemption, with no desires other than to return home and resume their rightful lives.

  Yes, I will return, he told himself over and over again, trying not to smell the acrid odors that surrounded him, and not to slide out of the comfortable cranny he had won for himself, in spite of the ship’s rough yawing. I will return.

  I will find a job. Then I’ll find another, and another still. I’ll earn money, I’ll set it aside, even if it means not eating. And I’ll return home. I’ll take back my life.

  As always, he took refuge in his mind, in the picture of Cettina’s face. He thought he could feel the skin of her face on his fingertips, like that one time that, in the middle of a conversation, he had been unable to resist and had reached out to caress her. He remembered the glint of surprise in her eyes, the way her breathing had betrayed her racing heart, her embarrassed smile.

  Vincenzo felt certain that his destiny and Cettina’s were one and the same. He had sensed it at the exact instant he’d first glimpsed her emerging from her father’s shop on the Corso. Since then, every single day, he had taken up a post outside the place, partly hidden, just so he could watch walk the five hundred feet to the entrance of her apartment building. It had taken him two months to cook up some excuse to meet her, and another six months before he could spend a moment alone with her. It hadn’t been easy, because her brother and her cousin were always buzzing around her.

  He didn’t want to risk losing her, Cettina. On the other hand, if he’d remained in that city, with its absence of jobs, ekeing out a paltry living on piecework and poverty, he’d never be able to approach her parents to ask for her hand in marriage.

  Now, as he lay in that foul-smelling space, little better than a cargo hold, squeezed between an old man who slept, mouth agape, and an iron wall, it dawned clearly on Vincenzo that the war had nothing to do with his departure. He hadn’t left his home out of fear he might be shipped off to the front; it had been to escape his lack of hope. America was a lottery ticket, an illusion of blessed fortune.

  He had a thousand fears bound up with what awaited him. How would he be able to express himself? Where would he stay, once he’d reached port? And what if he was caught as a stowaway and they threw him in jail?

  His greatest fear, though, the one that crushed his heart beneath a massive burden, was the fear of failure. The anguish of having to return home in defeat. Of finding himself
back in the middle of the street, staring at that shop with the sure knowledge that he would never walk through its front door, never as a customer, much less as the proprietor.

  What hopes could he cherish if he had no one to help him, to take him in, or even just to lend a hand by teaching him what to do, how to get around? His decision had been sheer madness. He had set off, abandoning everything he loved, in order to chase after a mirage. Still, if he’d stayed behind, he would have come up emptyhanded, of that much he felt certain. He didn’t know how to be a criminal, he wasn’t willing to give up the honesty his mother had taught him, but then, he had no notable skills either. He was neither a nimble-fingered craftsman, nor a cook, nor a mechanic. He wasn’t even an artist; he neither knew how to play an instrument nor how to paint, even though he did like singing to Cettina, who would tell him, with a laugh, that he had a fine voice. What he did have, though, was strength, rude health, and determination. With his skinny, sinewy body, with his powerful, callused hands, he could load and unload ships down at the port for sixteen hours a day, taking on a workload that would have kept two men scrambling.

  So that’s it: in America he’d find a humble occupation, a job requiring dull and deaf and blind effort. He’d break his back and his arms. And somehow or other, he’d scrape together sufficient savings to return home and, once back there, start up an honest and profitable business. Maybe right across the street from Cettina’s father’s fabric shop, so that she, once she was his wife, could conveniently tend to both businesses. And she would be content, Cettina would. Every evening he’d see her smile in enchantment as he sang her his songs.

  He’d return home, if not a wealthy man, at least one who could offer her something. A man capable of holding his head up, without being forced to lower his gaze before the family he so eagerly wished to join.

  And he’d return, no doubt about it. He wasn’t like those people around him, laden with dreams but remarkably light when it came to their pasts, people who wanted to remember nothing lest it force them to weep. He, in contrast, would cry a few tears every day, maybe squeezing out just a single tear. Because if you cry, he told himself, it meant you hadn’t forgotten.

  I swore an oath to you, Cetti’. I will return. And you’ll swear the same oath to me, won’t you, that you’ll wait for me? I can’t believe that you’d even think of a life without me. I know that we share the same destiny. There’s no two ways about it. You and I have the same destiny.

  The man next to him started awake and started vomiting.

  I will return, Cetti’.

  I will return.

  VI

  Deep down, Brigadier Raffaele Maione didn’t really mind the night shift.

  And now that half of his progeny—including little Benedetta, who had come to live with his family almost a year ago—were in bed with the flu, it was hard if not impossible to get much rest at home, what with cough syrups and mustard plasters and glasses of water to take to this one or that one: Papà, Papà, please come here, I’m thirsty. Not that he really minded, he was a father through and through, right down to the marrow of his bones, and if one of his children needed something he was the first to get out of bed and come running, but he was also a policeman, and he needed at least a few hours of sleep every night. Never fully falling asleep for fear he might miss a call for help wasn’t really the ideal approach.

  “You can take anything away from me you want,” Maione liked to say, “with one exception: my sleep. I can go without food or even drink for a whole day, if I’m on a stakeout in an apartment building atrium, for instance. I can go without using the bathroom, holding it in for hours and hours. I can stay on my feet, without sitting, for any indefinite period of time. But keep me up all night and you’ll reduce me to little more than a mappina”—using the Neapolitan dialect term for a rag. “I get the feeling I have a steel band around my head, I become irritable and argumentative, and I have overblown reactions. Just let me sleep, that’s all I have to say.”

  Which is why, while he hadn’t exactly been lobbying to get assigned to ’a nuttata, which is what they called a night shift for brevity’s sake, he also hadn’t made any special efforts to dodge it, even though his senior rank as an elder brigadier (“how I hate that terminology, Commissa’,” he would say to Ricciardi, shaking his oversized head) assured he enjoyed first rights of refusal when it came to shift assignments. There at police headquarters, he’d be able to luxuriate in at least two hours of at least relatively uninterrupted sleep, on the uncomfortable office cot, though only after making an undisguised death threat to the sentinel on duty if he dared to wake him up for anything short of a multiple homicide.

  Around midnight he made a last tour of inspection to check the sentinels standing guard. In particular, he wanted to make sure that everything was in order at the front entrance, where, obviously enough, the guard was absolutely forbidden any relaxation. And so he sent up a silent prayer that he would find capable people working this shift with him.

  He opened the door, and that hope was instantly, unceremoniously quashed. It was, in fact, Amitrano who was on duty.

  One of a brigadier’s fundamental responsibilities, Maione believed, was to train his staff. Those who worked at police headquarters were called upon to maintain public order, and nothing could be more important than that. In order to be a good cop, you had to possess a set of fundamental qualities that all coexisted in perfect equilibrium: common sense, intelligence, honesty, a sense of duty, and a spirit of service. Moreover, in a city like that one, a good dose of mental elasticity and promptitude. Amitrano was a glowing example of the utter lack of all those qualities.

  Oh, he was honest enough, that much he had to admit. And he was a hard worker, too, an officer who was never dismayed if it turned out he’d have to stay on at the office for a couple hours of extra duty. The real problem, though, was that police officer Amitrano, Giuseppe, age twenty-four, on the force for three years now, was an idiot. His abject terror of Maione’s wrath led him to do everything he could to placate and please him, and as a consequence he often wound up making such a hash of things that he covered himself in ridicule. For instance, when the brigadier entered the little booth from which he was assigned to keep an eye on the main street entrance of the building, Amitrano was reading a newspaper, sprawled out in his chair, both feet propped up on the table. And since he hadn’t even noticed his superior officer come up behind him, he went on, undeterred, sounding out the words, moving his lips as he read, eyes wide open in labored concentration.

  Maione coughed softly, and the resulting effect was spectacular: Amitrano tried to leap to his feet, but instead he overturned his chair and tumbled ruinously to the floor. The newspaper fluttered through the air and landed on his face. He tore it away, crumpling it furiously, tried to get up but only slipped and fell again, cursing under his breath. At last he got back up, smoothed his uniform, and reached up to pat his head, whereupon he realized he wasn’t wearing his police cap. He looked around wildly, in a desperate search for the missing article of apparel, and saw it on the table; he tried to grab at it, but it sailed out of reach of his trembling fingers. He managed to get hold of it, swearing even more. He put it on, wrong way round. Then he snapped to a perfect attention, clicking his heels and raising his hand to his brow in a snappy salute, but found no visor to meet his hand. He cursed for the third time, and hastily brought the visor around to his forehead. At last, he saluted properly, saying: “Buonasera, Brigadie’. Everything’s under control down here.”

  Maione had stood there watching him for the entire duration of that dance, slowly shaking his head, arms folded across his chest.

  “Amitra’, you’re not a cop. You’re the most pathetic scum of the cops. Do you think that’s how you’re supposed to stand guard at the front desk, can I ask you that? What if the chief of police had happened along instead of me, and found you sprawled out on the table?”

  Amitrano, red as a ripe tomato, tried to fumble some form of de
fense.

  “Brigadie’, I wasn’t actually lying down on the table, I’d just propped my feet up on the table because I have swollen ankles. I ought to inform you that I live pretty far away. I have a bicycle, but today I had to take it in to get it fixed because the chain is making noise, so I had to walk I don’t know how many miles to get here and . . . ”

  Maione shouted: “Do you seriously think I give a damn whether or not you had to walk to work? Shut your mouth, and take the time to present yourself the way you ought to, understood? Anyone who comes in here, the first person they see is you. The one good thing is that after that, things can only go uphill.”

  Amitrano ventured a timid smile.

  “Well, at least that’s one good thing, right, Brigadie’?”

  Maione stared at him, nonplussed.

  “The only good thing is that for once I’m not going to choke the life out of you, Amitra’. At this hour of the night it would be too much trouble to rustle up a replacement. But do you mind telling me what you were reading that was so captivating, seeing that you didn’t even hear me come in?”

  Amitrano hoped to placate the brigadier’s wrath by appealing to his sense of curiosity.

  “There’s an article about the boxer, Sannino. You know the one, the world champion, the one who beat a Negro to death during his last bout. Apparently, he came back by ocean liner. They tried to interview him, but he wouldn’t make any statements. Still, there is a picture of him, if you want to take a look . . . ”

  He leaned over to pick up the crumpled newspaper, which had found its way under the table. Maione stopped him.

  “For God’s sake, forget about the newspaper. Instead, just listen to what I have to say: I’m going to take a short nap in my office. You can only come and wake me up if it’s something serious. But when I say serious, I mean really serious, is that clear, Amitra’? Because when someone comes and wakes me up, my immediate first thought is to kill them, so if you’re willing to run that risk, make sure you’re running it for a good reason. Is that clear?”