You, you again, you, you again, once again you, you again.
Who? And why?
He turned around and went on walking, followed in the darkness by an eye or two and by a throttled sorrow.
SECOND INTERLUDE
By now, the night is the mistress of the street, and it’s raining. The old man seems to have finally noticed the chill that reigns in the room, a chill carried by the wind, and he has shut the window. Now he watches the drops slide down the panes, all of them identical but each of them different, marking a welter of independent, tangled paths. The lights of the city track across the ceiling, refracted by the water into a thousand glittering reflections.
The woman came in without warning, as if there were no one in the room. She shuffled along the wall, her slippers flip-flopping from the door to the lamp on the desk, turning it on and then leaving without once looking up. The young man was tempted to say to her: “Hey, did you notice that we’re here? We’re a couple of human beings, not a sculpture or a painting or a musical score or a book. Two people.”
But sometimes the young man has the impression that he’s turned into a ghost, when he’s with the old man. That he too has fallen into an anecdote, become part of a memory or a song, like a verse or a chord. And maybe he has. Maybe the only real person there is the ageless woman, who spends her days caring for an almost forgotten thought, lest that thought vanish into nothingness.
The old man returns to his armchair, the outline of which looms in the cone of dusty light beneath the lamp. He sits down carefully, his deformed hands on the armrests, his bony body creaking like the wood of the chair that supports him.
“Night, autumn, and loss,” he murmurs, continuing the reasoning he had begun on his own, and expecting the young man to follow it. “The serenade, the serenade we’re talking about, possesses all these ingredients, and you need to bring them out. Is that clear?”
“I understand, says the young man, yes, I understand. Night, autumn, and loss. But you, Maestro, you must tell me about despair and hope. Forgive me if I insist, but that is an aspect that remains unclear to me. If there is no hope, what reason do I have to go sing the serenade beneath her window? And what sense is there in lavishing so much attention on her? Why should I take such care not to cause her any trouble, not to use her name, to worry about what other people might think of her?”
His voice was a whisper, and perhaps he even uttered them, those phrases. Maybe he only ever thought them.
Now the old man’s aquiline profile frightens him. He feels as if he’s locked up in a cemetery, as if he had fallen asleep while visiting a relative and startled awake by the flickering light of a votive candle, condemned to await the dawn surrounded by corpses eager to throw open their tombs and dance in the bewitched darkness.
He shivers, he’d like to be outside, even in that weather.
The old man doesn’t seem to have heard a thing. He continues to turn his filmy eyes out past the paths that the raindrops carve into the glass panes.
“You’re right,” he murmurs suddenly. “You’re right. But you’re wrong.”
The young man waits. He’s learned that, behind those oxymorons, generally speaking, there’s an explanation, and that it’s going to be inflicted upon him like a sort of verdict.
“You’re right on the basis of everything I’ve told you so far. You’re right if you add in nothing more than night, loss, and autumn. But we’re missing one factor, don’t you think? We ought to consider another important thing. The most important of them all. Think it over, while I nap.”
He leans his head back against the backrest, closes his eyes, and soon his breathing slows and becomes heavy; his talon-like hands are resting on the instrument that he picked up and placed in his lap like a large pet cat.
The young man is flabbergasted. The old man really has fallen asleep. But doesn’t he know that outside of this cemetery people are alive? That I’m young, that I’m famous, that I have things to do? Doesn’t he know that I can’t just sit here, listening to him snore, reflecting on whatever the devil there is in a song?
And yet, constrained by who knows what impalpable ties, by what mysterious enchantment, he stays there, in silence. And his mind focuses on discovering the most important thing to take into account in order to understand the nameless serenade. After a period of time, he couldn’t say how long, a minute or an hour, the young man thinks: love. Of course, love.
Torment doesn’t exist, without love. Love is the other face of it.
Maybe he really did speak aloud, maybe the old man wasn’t really sleeping, he was just waiting. The fact remains that he turns his birdlike profile and, in the yellowish light, whispers: “Yes, that’s right, love.”
“Love is a cowardly emotion, guaglio’. It’s like a liquid: you think that you can hold it in your hands but instead it slips through your fingers. Love is always in despair, and yet it always has some vestige of hope. Love never gives up. And so, even though he doesn’t want to cause her any problems, even if he thinks he’s lost her entirely, even if it’s nighttime and it’s autumn and there is no boundary line between the sea and the sky, he knows that the rock is there, in its place, next to the water. So he tells her as if he were slapping her in the face, because a slap and a caress are still the same movement, they just are delivered with differing amounts of force.”
As he stops talking, the old man lifts the instrument into position.
Si ’sta voce, che chiagne ’int’a nuttata,
te sceta ’o sposo, nun ave’ paura!
Dille ch’è senza nomme ’a serenata,
dille ca dorme e ca se rassicura!
Dille accussí: “Chi canta ’int’a ’sta via,
o sarrà pazzo o more ’e gelusia.
Starrà chiagnenno quacche ’nfamità.
Canta isso sulo. Ma che canta a ffa’?»
(If this voice, which weeps in the night,
awakens your husband, have no fear!
Tell him that it’s the nameless serenade,
tell him to sleep and to be reassured!
Tell him this: “Whoever is singing in this street,
must either be mad or is dying of jealousy.
He must be weeping or some indignity.
He’s singing alone. But why does he sing?”)
As he listens to his heartbeat soar in time with that ageless song, the young man realizes that it’s raining on his face. Just as it’s raining on the window panes.
XXXIX
When Maione showed up at police headquarters, even earlier than usual, the sleepy sentinel nearing the end of his shift informed him that Ricciardi was already there.
The brigadier hurried up the stairs, without even bothering to bring the usual cup of ersatz coffee; if the commissario had come in this much earlier than usual in the midst of a murder investigation, there had to be a reason.
He stuck his head into the office after knocking, and saw his superior officer standing next to the window, hands in his pockets, eyes focused on the piazza below and on the rain-tossed trees in the chilly light of dawn.
Ricciardi was lost in his thoughts and he didn’t bother to reply to Maione’s buongiorno.
“Commissa’, is everything all right?” Maione asked. “Did something happen? It seems early even for you, this morning.”
At that point, Ricciardi turned around, nodded hello, sat down at his desk, and started reading his notes. After a while, he said: “Raffaele, what do we know? That is, we know about Sannino and Irace’s wife, that’s true. And we know about Merolla and the deal for the fabric shipment. But what do we know that’s really new?”
Maione was perplexed.
“Commissa’, I’ll be sincere: I don’t know what you’re trying to ask me.”
Ricciardi piled up the sheets of paper that lay before him and tapped a finger atop the stack. He had an almost surly look on his face.
“There’s this story of an old passion, and that’s fine; a young boy and a young gi
rl, sixteen years ago. Sixteen years is a long time, and I have no doubt that a number of people knew all about Sannino. Also, this big cloth deal was important, in fact, fundamental. But still, it was a business deal. A deal like so many others.”
Maione struggled in search of a logical thread.
“Sure, Commissa’. Certainly. And so . . . ?”
“So what was there that we can really say was new? Because Irace felt safe, he walked into those vicoli all alone, in the early morning hours, and with a large sum of cash on his person. Why would someone feel so confident and safe?”
Ricciardi got up and started walking back and forth. Maione started getting very uneasy.
“That guy, Irace, was a sort of shark, Commissa’. Someone who wasn’t afraid of the devil.”
Ricciardi nodded, without stopping.
“Yes, yes, of course. With this transaction, he would have forced Merolla out of business. But the night before he’d been threatened.”
Maione shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
“Maybe he wasn’t afraid of Sannino. And after all, he had to continue his work, didn’t he? He’d already made the appointment with Martuscelli, and so . . . ”
Ricciardi halted, as if suddenly struck by an illumination.
“Exactly, Raffaele: he had to continue his work. You’re right! Which means he had to go to that appointment.”
The brigadier felt embarrassed. He coughed.
“Yes, Commissa’, he had to go. But are you sure you feel well? Maybe you caught a little flu, it’s going around this season. Dr. Modo said that . . . ”
Ricciardi spread his arms wide.
“But of course, Dr. Modo! Who ought to be at the end of his shift right about now. Let’s hurry, maybe we’ll still be in time to catch him.”
Modo crossed paths with them in the main entrance, on his way out of the hospital. His face was creased with weariness, and a look of dismay appeared in his eyes. The white-and-brown dog that never left his side came toward the two policemen, eagerly wagging his tail.
Maione stooped down to pet him.
“Ciao, little man. You at least act happy when you see a friend. Others, like your master, just make a face.”
Modo snorted.
“Brigadie’, first of all, this dog has no master. You can see for yourself: no collar and no leash. He’s a friend and we keep each other company. In this miserable country, ruled by the Fascists, he’s the only one to retain a shred of freedom. In fact, if you really want to know the truth, when we’re alone, that’s exactly what I call him: Libero. Free. And he answers to the name.”
Maione roughed up the little animal’s short, brindled coat. The dog shook the rain off him, scattering drops in all directions.
Modo burst out laughing.
“Bravo, Libero, good work. That way maybe you can make them understand that a person might even want to head home to get some sleep, now and again.”
Ricciardi walked over to the doctor.
“I’m sorry, Bruno, I know that you’re tired. But I wanted to ask you just two little things. I won’t waste your time, I promise you.”
Modo spread his arms wide.
“How can I refuse? Come on, dog, let’s go back inside. You weren’t very clever, you’d have been better advised to be friends with an accountant, instead of a doctor. Or even a policeman, so you could sleep peacefully at night and then first thing in the morning come bust other people’s balls.”
When they were back inside, the commissario asked: “Explain one thing to me, Bruno. You said that someone hit Irace in the legs, from behind. Is that right?”
Modo sighed.
“I said it, and for that matter I wrote it on the autopsy report: fracture of the third distal of the right femur and a substantial contusion on the left one.”
“Could it have been a single blow?”
“Certainly, if struck from behind and from the victim’s right side. Which would explain why the leg that was hit first suffered the worst damage.”
“So it’s likely that they used a club, or a bat, or something of the sort?”
“Yes, among other things because the blow was delivered from the side.”
“And the victim must have been standing still, right? If he’d been attacked while he was walking, only the rear leg would have been hit square on.”
Modo exchanged a glance with Maione, who shrugged his shoulders.
“Yes, I think so. I think that Irace would have been standing still. But could you explain what . . . ”
Ricciardi gestured with one hand.
“Don’t worry about it, I’m just trying to imagine exactly how it went. Now I need a second favor: I’d like to take one more look at Irace’s clothing.”
The doctor studied the commissario with a worried look.
“Commissario, are you sure you’re all right? You seem a little out of sorts to me. Why don’t you let me take your temperature? Maybe you have the flu.”
Maione clapped his hands.
“Oh, excellent, Dr. Modo, I said the same thing! The flu is going around, my children just got better, and they’re already starting to get a second case of it. So now . . . ”
Ricciardi interrupted him: “I’m fine, and I have no intention of having my temperature taken. All right, then, can we look at those clothes?”
Modo accompanied the policemen to the room where Irace’s mud-stained and blood-smeared clothing was kept, and Ricciardi started rummaging eagerly through the pile.
Maione tried to break in: “Commissa’, his personal effects were given back to the family. But we have an inventory at police headquarters, already drawn up and confirmed, including the serial numbers of the banknotes and . . . ”
“Here we are. Right here,” the commissario suddenly exclaimed, his eyes gleaming. “Exactly as I guessed. Bruno, could you set these aside for me?”
Modo was disoriented, but he said yes and took what Ricciardi was handing him.
Irace’s trousers.
XL
Out in the street, Ricciardi confidently set off in the direction that led away from, not toward police headquarters. Maione, who had instead turned toward the office, stopped short when he realized that his superior officer was no longer beside him, and ran to catch up with him.
“Commissa’, why this way? Where are we going?”
Ricciardi replied without slowing down: “Down to the port, obviously. Did you think we were going to the shop? No, first what we need to check out is this thing about the appointment.”
The brigadier put both hands on his hips.
“Hey, no, this isn’t what I call working together: you’re not letting me in on your thought process. What do the port and the shop have to do with things, now? And why did you go looking for Irace’s trousers? And what were all those questions about the right leg and the left leg, and whether he was walking or standing still?”
Ricciardi seemed to stop to think it over, then he said: “You’re right, Raffaele, I’m sorry. I was just lost in my thoughts. Come along, I’ll explain on the way.”
And, as they walked, he explained.
What Nicola Martuscelli pompously referred to as “my office” was actually a small room built inside a warehouse where, in the prosperous times of the grand maritime trade with Africa, the animals were held until they could be sent out to the various slaughterhouses around the city. The last steer to have passed through these walls had been sent off for summary execution more than twenty years earlier, but in the air, as if by some scruple of institutional conscience, there still wafted a stench of manure that persisted as an aftertaste to every other smell, triggering a vague nausea in anyone who breathed it in for more than fifteen minutes.
Outside the door to the import-export agent’s private office, there was a short line being managed by an unearthly looking secretary with coke-bottle glasses and mousy brown hair pulled back in a bun. When she found herself face to face, the woman put on a mistrustful expression.
>
“Signor Martuscelli receives visitors only by appointment,” she said, even before being asked. “He’s terribly busy and won’t be able to see anyone either today or tomorrow. If you’d care to leave your name . . . ”
Maione wondered what he could have done wrong in a previous life that he was forced every blessed time to threaten people just so he could do his job.
“Signora, as you may have gathered from my uniform, we’re from the police department. We don’t need appointments.”
She placed her hands on the little table before her and stood up, rearing herself to her full five feet of stature.
“That’s Signorina, if you don’t mind. And I don’t care who you are, Signor Martuscelli receives visitors only by appointment. Let me say it again, he’s terribly busy and . . .
“ . . . won’t be able to see anyone either today or tomorrow; I recognize the refrain. So let’s try this approach: you be so good as to give me your first and last name, all the accounting ledgers, and the copies of the contracts in your files. Let’s find out if you’re in compliance with the customs fees and the health regulations.”
Upon the words, “customs fees,” the waiting room emptied out as if by magic. The brigadier flashed a broad smile.
“I don’t think there’s any more reason to wait, is there, Signori’? If you’d care to announce us . . . ”
She shot him one last aggressive glare, then took three short steps and opened the door, standing to one side. The two policemen were swathed in a cloud of smoke.
Not satisfied with the stench that surrounded him, Martuscelli was smoking a pestilential stub of a Toscano cigar, whose aroma merged with the odor from outside as well as the smells that derived from the scanty hygiene that the man devoted to the room and to his own person; to make the situation even worse, the room had no windows. Maione suspected that it was a tactic to curtail the length of his appointments.
The middleman waved his hand a couple of times before his eyes.
“Commissario, Brigadier, buongiorno. What are you doing in these parts? Any news on the murder of poor Irace? I read that you’ve arrested the boxer, Sannino.
[Ricciardi 09] - Nameless Serenade Page 29