The Measure of Time

by Gianrico Carofiglio

  Some young boys were playing football in the pine grove. There was one who was younger than the others and looked like a real talent. He moved naturally, almost lazily, and nobody could stop him: the ball seemed glued to his feet. Like in that old song by Francesco De Gregori. I calculated that the twelve-year-old protagonist of the song – if he had ever existed – would now be pushing fifty.

  At this point, I decided this might be long enough.

  I returned home, walking fast, and greeted Mr Punchbag. He grasped that something wasn’t right and didn’t say anything. I put on my trunks, bandaged my hands, put on the gloves and started to box. Ten rounds, maybe. Maybe more. I only stopped when I was completely exhausted. My legs and arms were shaking, my heart was beating wildly, and my face was as red as if I was sunburned.

  Think what a pathetic end that’d be if they find you here on the floor, struck down by a heart attack because you’ve been too stupid not to realize that some things are not done. They’re never done, let alone at your age.

  The call from the clerk of the court came when I’d just got out of the shower and was about to have something to eat.

  “Avvocato Guerrieri?”

  “Yes?”

  “Moretti here. The judge says they’ll be ready in three quarters of an hour.”

  “Thank you.”

  It was ten past five. They had been out for six hours.

  28

  I phoned Annapaola and told her that I was on my way to court and that the verdict would be announced soon. I asked her to inform the others, including the defendant’s mother, and to please make sure my robe was brought to me.

  I was silent for a moment, almost as if I’d been on the verge of saying something and had thought better of it at the last moment.

  “All right,” was all she said. “See you in court.”

  She sounded serious, which scared me, like a bad omen. It was stupid, of course. What other tone could she have just before a grave, uncertain event like the pronouncing of a verdict on a charge of murder? And yet it gave me the feeling – as absurd as it was persistent – that she knew something I didn’t. Something she didn’t have the guts to tell me.

  I put on a new blue suit that I’d never worn before. I knotted my tie, telling myself that if I didn’t have to repeat the operation, that is, if the knot came out well at the first attempt, it would be a good omen. So I concentrated, as if the outcome of the appeal, the destiny of Iacopo Cardace, really did depend on it.

  The knot came out well. Symmetrical, snugly fitting the collar of the shirt. And I took heart. A little.

  In the street I had to stop myself indulging in those obsessive practices of mine, those examples of magical thinking like not stepping on the kerbs, avoiding the gratings of cellars, touching the wing mirrors of red cars.

  Things I used to do as a child and which every now and again re-emerge at times of tension, like the impulse to retch.

  In court hearings – in all of them, but particularly the most difficult ones – it would be a healthy thing to lose interest in the result once everything possible has been done.

  I knew that perfectly well. I know it perfectly well.

  It would be a healthy thing to do, but it never happens.

  As I entered the courthouse, I looked at my watch. Ten more minutes and the judges and jurors would be coming out, according to the clerk of the court, Moretti.

  The building was half-deserted, like every afternoon. Now even those who had been doing overtime in the offices had left. The very few still there seemed out of place, alien to the building even though they worked there every day. There was an unpleasant sense of transience in the air.

  As I climbed the stairs, my thoughts became clear and distinct for a few moments. I wanted Iacopo – strange, I always thought of him now by his first name, not his surname – to be acquitted, and I wanted to know he was innocent. Both these things. A dangerous desire because, at least when it came to the second of them, I might never be certain.

  I entered the courtroom. There was nobody there. A few dozen seconds later, as if at a signal, as if they’d been waiting for me to arrive, they all appeared. The clerk of the court, Assistant Prosecutor Gastoni, Annapaola, Consuelo, Tancredi.

  Lorenza.

  I put on my robe and, in the ghostly silence, I thought I heard a buzzing, a kind of muted alarm signal.

  The bell rang, and the court emerged. First the presiding judge, then the associate judge, then the jurors with their sashes and their inscrutable faces.

  They walked to their places, moving in a way that struck me as awkward. A sign of embarrassment – that wasn’t a good thing.

  Marinelli put on his glasses and cleared his throat; either he was hoarse, or it was again a reflection of unease.

  “In the name of the Italian people, the appeal court of Bari, having read articles 592 and 603 of the code of criminal procedure, confirms the ruling of the high court of Bari on 15 May 2013 in the case of Iacopo Cardace and orders that he remain in prison. It further orders that the new ruling be filed within sixty days and that a copy of the trial transcript be sent to the Prosecutor’s Department. Court is dismissed.”

  Confirms the ruling.

  As Marinelli uttered these words, I realized that up until a moment earlier I’d been convinced they would make the opposite decision. I’d been convinced that I would hear different words: rejects the previous ruling and acquits Iacopo Cardace, etc.

  I’d been so convinced, I hadn’t wanted to admit it, even to myself.

  For fear of feeling the way I felt now.

  The judges and jurors left quickly. Only the young woman lingered for a few moments, and our eyes met. I didn’t know if she was trying to tell me something or if she was just curious to see a reaction on my face. I didn’t know if she wanted to let me know that she was sorry, that she had voted against the verdict, or else the exact opposite.

  Something like: Justice has been done, Avvocato.

  29

  I’d like to be able to say that after the verdict of the appeal court I took the case to the Supreme Court and won. That there was a new hearing, that Iacopo was acquitted and that he was free again, ready to put his life back together.

  I’d like to, but it didn’t go that way.

  I did, of course, take the case to the Supreme Court. Although by that point, I didn’t really hold out much hope.

  The Supreme Court doesn’t go into the substance of the verdict, it doesn’t say if a witness is more or less credible, if a reconstruction is valid or questionable, if a particular piece of evidence has been evaluated with due thought, whether or not the investigations were carried out with the necessary care.

  To obtain an annulment from the Supreme Court, there needs to have been a serious violation of procedural rules, and in this case there hadn’t been any violations of that kind. Or else the verdict needs to be compromised by a total lack of grounds or by grounds that were manifestly illogical.

  I did try this. It’s the final attempt, when a hearing has been conducted in the normal way. You maintain that the grounds for the ruling are lacking at some fundamental points or are so wrong as to be manifestly illogical.

  In reality, that rarely happens. You just have to be a decent servant of the law to write a ruling that may be shaky from a theoretical point of view, weak from a grammatical point of view, even very questionable as to its ability to do justice, and yet free of the defects of an absence of motivation or a manifestly contradictory motivation.

  The appeal court’s ruling, as written by Associate Judge Valentini, was more than decent, and certainly not characterized by “lack, contradictoriness or manifest illogicality of motivation”, as article 606 of the code of criminal procedure puts it.

  I made an effort to find something to cling to, exaggerating the flaws that definitely existed in the ruling, in order to try to obtain an annulment, along with a deferment that would allow me to take my chances in a new appeal hearing. But I was the
first to admit that a favourable outcome was unlikely. If I’d been in the shoes of the judges in the Supreme Court, I would have rejected my appeal.

  Lorenza came several times to the office to keep up with developments. First for the filing of the appeal court ruling. Then the writing of the appeal to the Supreme Court. Then the date set for the hearing. She was strangely calm. I think she kept telling herself she had done everything possible to help her son and that, at least from that point of view, she had nothing to reproach herself for.

  She was calm, and almost old.

  Ageing isn’t a linear process. Just as time isn’t a linear entity. It isn’t a comprehensible entity. Nobody really understands it. Nobody can define it. Try to talk about time without using metaphors, says a famous linguist. You’ll come away empty-handed. Would time still be time for us if we couldn’t waste it or schedule it? All we can really say is that it basically goes in one direction and that the final destination is well known.

  Lorenza had aged in the many years during which we hadn’t seen each other and had aged even more in that year and a half that had passed between the moment she’d come into my office to ask me to defend her son and the moment I called her to tell her that the Supreme Court had rejected our appeal. She greeted even that news without visible upset. She’d expected it, she said.

  A few days later, she came to the office with an envelope full of banknotes. She wanted to pay me for my work.

  I told her I didn’t want to be paid.

  For once the words meant exactly what they said.

  I didn’t want to be paid.

  I didn’t want the money and I didn’t want to argue about it. I was blunt, maybe even brusque, and she didn’t insist.

  She put the envelope back in her bag and left. Outside, it was raining hard.

  It was raining again that afternoon two years later when Tancredi came to the office with the news. He arrived about seven. The days were getting longer, and it was still light outside. Light and rain.

  He had a strange expression on his face.

  “I have something to tell you.”

  “What’s happened?” I pushed my chair back and stretched my legs.

  “Maybe it’s best we go out and walk a bit.”

  “Walk? It’s raining.”

  “Let’s go and have an aperitif or whatever you like.”

  There was a hint of impatience in his tone. Something that meant: Don’t ask pointless questions.

  “All right.”

  I grabbed my jacket and an umbrella and we walked down into the street. A few minutes later we slipped into the Laterza bookshop.

  “Why all this mystery? Are you afraid our phones are being tapped?”

  I said it as a joke, then realized I’d hit the nail on the head. He’d wanted to come outside in order not to run the risk, even if it was a remote one, that our conversation might be listened in on.

  He shrugged. “Don’t be alarmed. I don’t think – I don’t have any reason to think – that you have bugs in your office. But you never know.”

  “You’re making me nervous, Carmelo.”

  “The Flying Squad is mounting a big operation tonight. I didn’t get this information legally. I shouldn’t know about it. And you definitely shouldn’t.”

  “Why should we be so interested in this information?”

  “Because basically they’re arresting the whole Amendolagine clan.”

  It took me a few seconds to remember and to put things together. “Amendolagine… That Amendolagine?”

  “That one.”

  I felt a shudder go through me, the kind you get when you have a high fever and you can’t think any more, you can’t read, you may even rant and rave a little. It happened to me sometimes as a child.

  Within a few hours there would be thirty-six arrests. Thirty-six men would be remanded in custody for Mafia-style association, and association for the purpose of trafficking in narcotics and extortion.

  And four homicides.

  “Four homicides…”

  “Three men have turned state’s evidence. One of them is the man who carried out the Gaglione murder.”

  “Has he claimed responsibility?”

  “Yes. They’re arresting Amendolagine tomorrow, partly as the instigator of that murder.”

  We stood there like that, surrounded by books.

  I should have been pleased, instead of which I had a sense of defeat and futility.

  “We’ll have to put in a request to reopen the case,” I said slowly.

  Tancredi looked at me in surprise. “Hey, this is good news. What’s got into you?”

  “It’s true, it’s very good news. I don’t know what’s got into me.”

  “Anyway, the request to reopen the case will be made by the prosecutor in the next few days. It’ll be filed as soon as the custody orders have been notified. Along with a request to suspend the sentence. In a couple of weeks maximum, the kid will be out.”

  “Have you read the papers?”

  “Some. You did a good job.”

  “Were we also right about the ways of getting into the building?”

  “No. The killer, who did only plan to kneecap Gaglione, came in through the front door, even rang the bell. Obviously Gaglione wasn’t as cautious as all that. Maybe he thought Cardace had come back.”

  “I have to call Lorenza.”

  “Not now. Wait till tomorrow morning, we don’t want the information to get out. A few hours won’t make any difference.”

  He was right. That evening or the next day, it was all the same.

  “He did six years in prison,” I said after a while, as if talking to myself.

  “It’s a nasty business, you’re right. But he’s still young, he has time to rebuild his life. Let’s look on the bright side. Why don’t we go and grab a nice bottle of wine? Let’s call Annapaola and tell her to join us and then we can tell her all about it.”

  Grabbing a nice bottle of wine was the best plan possible, I said. I was starting to feel better already.

  Without even opening the umbrella, we walked out into the rain. In the meantime it had dwindled to a drizzle and made you feel almost cheerful.

  30

  The next day, at eight in the morning, after checking that the first news had appeared about the Flying Squad operation, I phoned Lorenza.

  “Guido?”

  “Hi, are you busy?”

  “I’m at home. I don’t have a lesson until hour 3. What’s happened?”

  “Nothing. Well, that’s not true, something has happened, but nothing negative. In fact, it’s very positive.”

  “Is it about Iacopo?”

  “Yes, there’s good news. If it’s all right with you, I’d like to tell you in person.”

  There was a long silence. So long that I thought we’d been cut off.

  “Lorenza?”

  “Yes, I’m sorry. I’ll come to your office.”

  “No, I’ll come to you.”

  Another pause. Then I remembered the exact address, near the Russian church. I took my bicycle and twenty minutes later I was there. She answered the bell almost immediately.

  “Second floor,” was all she said.

  It was an early-sixties apartment block. Ordinary and a little sad. As I climbed the stairs I could smell home odours – food, coffee, washing machines, detergent – as well as dust and a sense of modest, slightly stale well-being. Lorenza was waiting in the doorway. She looked like a frightened little animal.

  The apartment was her parents’, and clearly hadn’t changed much since their day: old furniture, old ornaments, old rugs. The place she had run away from when she was a girl and had come back to, the culmination of a sad orbit around her own dreams.

  “We can go in the kitchen, if you don’t mind. I’ll make coffee.”

  The kitchen was the same as the rest. Old.

  “What’s happened?”

  I told her. Anyone watching the scene without sound, just looking at her face, wo
uldn’t have deduced that she was happy: she seemed terrified. She didn’t ask me any questions. When I’d finished speaking she pulled the soft packet of MS Blondes from a pocket of her cardigan, took out a cigarette with a meticulous gesture and put it between her lips. Then she got up and went and threw the packet with all the remaining cigarettes in the rubbish bin. She came back, sat down again, lit the one she had in her mouth and breathed it in almost angrily.

  “I’d promised I’d quit smoking as soon as I found out.”

  I nodded. It made sense. Maybe I was about to say something, but she didn’t give me time.

  “As soon as I found out Iacopo was innocent.”

  I took me a while to understand the significance of her words.

  She hadn’t said: As soon as I found out Iacopo had been acquitted, or something like that.

  No.

  She’d said: As soon as I found out Iacopo was innocent.

  But she should already have known that Iacopo was innocent. She had been at home when her son had come in about 7.30, she’d testified to that. The murder had been committed less than twenty minutes later, so it couldn’t have been him.

  “I’m sorry, Guido. I’m so sorry,” she said, drawing me from my thoughts.

  “What time did Iacopo get home that evening?”

  “I don’t know. After eight for sure. Maybe 8.15, 8.20. A quarter of an hour later he went out again.”

  “So he would have had time to commit the murder.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you decide by yourself?”

  “With Costamagna. He said things were looking bad and we had to at least try something. But we needed an alibi. I had to say something that didn’t fit the prosecution case, or it would be no use.”