A Woman Much Missed

by Valerio Varesi

  “Maren the baker has gone too,” Angela said, putting her arm through his. “There’s a mobile phone shop there instead.”

  Two eyes in the window gave off a subdued light in the middle of the garish colours surrounding them. Angela and Soneri walked more quickly as though motivated by an urgent need to observe the changes, she to point them out and he to absorb them.

  “Don’t tell me you never noticed before,” she said.

  “I haven’t been down here for some time. I’ve avoided these places, perhaps because I was afraid of seeing what I see now,” Soneri said, stopping in front of a rusted shutter. Above it was still possible to make out the words: PEPPINO’S TASTES BEST!

  As they stood in front of the shop a breeze got up, sending the mist drifting among the houses. A little further ahead, music as full of vibrations as a muezzin’s rhythmic call to prayer blared out from an Arab café. Soneri had the fleeting fantasy that the mist was dust from the desert, the narrow streets the lanes of a Kasbah, and they themselves lost tourists with no idea of the way home, two little Ulysses without an Ithaca. Fortunately the Duomo bell rang out from the darkness to give them reassurance.

  “At least that’s still there,” the commissario said.

  “Cities are like children. They change from one year to the next, so if you don’t see them for a while, you don’t recognise them any more. Some things do stay the same though,” Angela said, starting to move off again.

  They walked down the middle of Borgo Gazzola. Here and there, little red lights, similar to those placed over tombs in cemetery walls, cut into the mist, their flickering lights alerting men that ladies of the night, with their air of brazen indifference, awaited them behind closed doors. It brought back to his mind the “whore whirl”, the licentious baptism of flesh that awaited all first-year students at the university.

  “It’s not for nothing that it’s called the oldest profession in the world,” Angela said, referring to the enduring nature of the street.

  Now it was Soneri who was in a hurry. He wanted to familiarise himself once more with the local geography, get to the very heart of that quarter where he had once been happy and to which he had not wanted to return. So it was that he was glad to stumble across Bettati the barber’s in Borgo del Naviglio, and to see that this shop at least was unchanged. The wide-meshed shutter permitted a glimpse of the same old iron door with the over-ornate handle, the yellowing sinks, the pedal-adjustable chairs and the padded seats. Perhaps he still had in his cupboard the high chair with the horse’s head for children, and the calendar with nude dancers for adults.

  “He’s the only one left,” Angela said, while the commissario entertained an image of Bettati trimming an imam’s beard or tidying up the crow-black hair of a Chinese client.

  Once again, Angela shook him out of his gloomy meditations. “Commissario, everything passes, remember?”

  Soneri gave a wry smile. “You fall asleep a child and you wake up an adult. What happens in between is no more than a fleeting dream.”

  With one of his sudden impulses, he turned on his heel and said goodbye, blowing a kiss in her direction as he went.

  *

  He hurried down Via Saffi like a man fleeing from a danger which is imaginary and therefore all-pervasive. He slowed down only when he was opposite No. 35 to look into the shisha bar, now full to overflowing with men, some dressed in their kaftans. Through the misted-up window they were no more than shadows, a kaleidoscope of teeming, warm, living humanity. He continued on his way, returning to the calm of the streets where the mist had settled, giving the impression of not wishing to move.

  In Piazzale dei Servi he decided to turn back towards the Pensione Tagliavini. He felt drawn to it by the same compulsion felt by many who had once frequented it and who continued to orbit around it at night-time.

  Instinct had taken over from reason and after a few minutes he understood the urgency which had taken hold of him. With the shadows glimpsed behind the windows of the shisha bar still in front of his eyes, he spied another shadow as it crossed ahead of him in the darkness, a shadow in which he made out for a moment a sort of gleam, the faintest of reflections emerging timidly and briefly from the thick depths of the mist.

  He walked more quickly to where the light was stronger, and there in the distance, hazy but recognisable, he saw him: Pitti. His sheer elegance put him in a class of his own, outside any normal category, as did that gleam which Soneri could now distinguish more clearly and strongly, like a pilot-light bursting into flame. He sped up as he passed in front of No. 35, where the mist seemed deeper and visibility more limited. The lamps along the street appeared to set the circle of surrounding vapour on fire, while scarcely illuminating the cobbled road and the walls of the houses. Believing the other man to be close at hand, he pushed forward like a rugby player, stumbling uncertainly towards the junction where the old slaughterhouse stood, but it was like plunging into a dark nothingness. Panting after his exertions, he heard a car speed off with a muffled roar. It was already some way down the road when its tail lights flashed, and by then it was too far off for him to be able to make out the number plate.

  He drew up, cursing, and made his way back up Via Saffi, noting the Pakistani bar-owner pulling down the shutters with a clatter. It was one of the signals which announced nightfall. Behind the curtains of the low houses, Soneri imagined insomniac old men tossing in their beds, counting the passing hours as they vainly pursued sleep. He stopped once more in the centre of the street, lit his cigar and decided to go up to Ghitta’s. The silence of the night, floating on the drifting mist, was making him feel unwell.

  He took up his position behind the window overlooking Via Saffi. Now that the mist had settled, lifting only in fleeting bursts, his range was limited to perhaps twenty metres of the street below. He felt like a voyeur, as Angela often called him, but he saw nothing wrong with that, though he knew it was more than his job demanded. He enjoyed letting his imagination roam free, as he was attempting to do now with the few passers-by. Perhaps by creating a life around the pensione, he might be able to pick up the hint of a lead.

  A piece of the wooden furniture in one of the bedrooms creaked. In that apparent immobility, life continued to leave its imprint on restless matter. The walnut or cherry-tree wood of the wardrobes and the ash of the headboards continued to live even after their death by axe or plane, responding to climate and season by unexpected contractions. Soneri got to his feet and walked along the corridor. The snapping sound had come from one of the rooms next to the kitchen. He opened the first door, revealing an iron bedstead and a varnished cupboard. The next room was Elvira Cadoppi’s. Inside he saw a wooden chest of drawers, which must have been the source of the noise he had heard, before his eye fell on the suitcase he had noticed the previous evening. He remembered that the report drawn up by Forensics had listed its contents: articles of clothing, cosmetic brushes and a pair of winter shoes. The case was empty now, as were the drawers and the wardrobe.

  He took up his position behind the window once more and again observed the motionless scene of the street, interrupted from time to time by some solitary cyclist, but after a few seconds he became aware of the click-clack of high heels even before he saw the figure of Elvira. When he was able to see her more clearly a few paces from the front door, he noted that she had with her another case similar to the one in the bedroom. He waited for her to climb the stairs, and just as she was putting the key in the lock, he switched on the lights.

  The woman seemed more irritated than surprised. “You’d be better off taking a room here. You’d be more comfortable,” she said, with forced irony.

  “I don’t have as many cases as you.”

  Elvira glanced down at the case she had in her hand and for an instant the commissario thought he could detect a hint of embarrassment. “We girls like to change often.”

  “You told me you stopped here only one evening a week.”

  “During the Christmas rush they n
eed us to work a lot of extra hours.”

  “There’s an empty suitcase through there. It was full yesterday.”

  Elvira picked up the tone of hostility in his voice, in spite of his half smile.

  “I took my things to the laundry and I’ve got a change of clothing here,” she explained, picking up her suitcase. Cutting the conversation short, she marched past the commissario and made her way to her room. This irked Soneri, who interpreted it an attempt to escape his questioning.

  He stood in the doorway and noted that the two cases were identical. “You’ll get mixed up,” he said to her quietly and gently.

  Elvira was caught off guard, but only for a moment. “I got them in the department store where I work. They were the last in the line, and they were more or less giving them away. They’re designer goods, see?” She spoke with an urgency in which the commissario could discern an anxiety to get off the subject.

  “I get it. A bargain. Do you know Pitti?”

  Once again, the woman seemed to hesitate before replying. She gave a forced smile. “The man who goes around in the strange outfit?” she said, pretending she was struggling to call him to mind. “Ghitta knew him and told me that he dropped by from time to time. He looked to me like one of those homosexuals who love making a show of themselves in fashionable salons.”

  “Did he come here often?”

  “I couldn’t say. Ghitta didn’t tell me everything. She mentioned him a couple of times, that’s all I remember.”

  “Did she speak favourably or unfavourably about him?”

  “She used to say he was very nice and knew a lot of people. Maybe he was useful to her.”

  “He comes down this way a lot,” Soneri said, using this piece of information as bait.

  Elvira gave him a hard stare as though waiting for some move from him. She was like a boxer squaring up to her opponent, but the commissario had run out of moves and stood there in silence, returning her gaze.

  “If that’s all you want to know, I’ll be off to bed then,” the woman said, with a glint of triumph in her eyes. She took two steps back and closed the door, but not before Soneri had another look at the two identical cases leaning against the wall.

  His ill humour returned and compelled him to go outside. He lit a cigar and began walking in widening circles around the district. He heard the Duomo bell strike every quarter of an hour and he seemed to be at the same distance from it every time. He stopped where Via Corso Corsi joins Via Saffi, and thought he heard a far-off creak. He listened to the noise as it drew closer until he caught sight of a hunchbacked man wrapped up in layers of overcoats pushing a supermarket trolley overflowing with odds and ends. The creaking sound came from the trolley’s unoiled wheels, but at that moment it seemed like a warning, like the bell rung by city guards collecting corpses during an outbreak of plague. Ahead of him, Soneri saw an individual ground down by the trials of life, but behind the long beard and almost white hair he recognised a familiar face. The man must have had the same impression, because there was a flicker in his clear eyes.

  “Ciao, Fadiga,” Soneri said.

  The man looked up, and through the matted hair the commissario thought he made out a smile. He saw him give several nods of the head, causing his white mane to shake.

  “The policeman,” he said before setting off again with his jingling trolley.

  Soneri let him go on a few steps, and as he was about to call out to him he saw Fadiga give him a signal. He followed him to Piazzale dei Servi, where some cars were parked beneath the trees. He kept his distance until the creaking stopped and out of the dark he heard Fadiga summon him in a whisper. His outline was visible behind a boxwood hedge. Soneri lit a match which revealed a cardboard shelter protected by the bulk of a huge magnolia.

  “Is this your home?”

  “When it’s not raining. Otherwise I go to the refuge and hope to get a place there. I usually end up spending the night awake in the underpass.”

  “Rain or no rain, a bed would be better.”

  “And where am I to find one? With all these immigrants around, there’s nothing doing in the refuge, or in the soup kitchen run by the friars. Nobody wants to know about tramps like us. If you’re not careful, you’ll end up with a knife in your back. And then there are those Italians who set fire to you just for fun.”

  “You’re safe here?”

  “You can’t be safe anywhere, but at least here, in all this mist, nobody can see you. But then again . . .” he said, bringing his index fingers together as he spoke, to mimic their face-to-face conversation.

  “What are you afraid of?”

  “They bumped off Ghitta, didn’t they?”

  The commissario lit his cigar and in the match light he noticed Fadiga’s anxious expression. “Who do you think’s going to see us?” he said.

  “When they get to know you’ve been speaking to a policeman, they dump on you the blame for things you didn’t do.”

  He was right. Soneri could think of more than one occasion when a rumour had resulted in violence, even though the whispers had proved unfounded.

  “They used a knife, didn’t they?” Fadiga said, sounding as though he already knew the answer.

  The commissario nodded in the dark. “She’d fallen into bad company,” he said. He wanted to put that as a question, but it came out as a statement.

  This time it was Fadiga who nodded. “This whole district is bad company.”

  “Who was using Ghitta’s as a place to screw?” Soneri said abruptly.

  “I couldn’t give you any names, but there were certain faces I recognised from the newspapers. I live on newspapers. I’ve got a trolley full of them. They’re good for wrapping round my knees when I’m cold, as well as for a mattress or pillow. Newspapers are the uniform of tramps like me.”

  “Which are your favourite ones?”

  “Any I can find. I get them from recycling bins – magazines, newsprint, anything at all, but the dailies are the best. The paper they use is the best for what I need.”

  “And that’s how you saw the faces of some people who frequented Ghitta’s place?”

  “Yes. I don’t just use newspapers to pad out what I’m wearing. I also have a look at them, even if they’re out of date. I’ve plenty of time on my hands.”

  “But you don’t remember the people you picked out?”

  “I’m not interested in the names, only the faces, and I don’t like most of them. The world is a dangerous place, as someone who works as a policeman must know. The fact that they might put a knife in your back is the least of it. Look at what’s happened to me and to many more like me.”

  “You could get out of this life. Get back into society, I mean.”

  Fadiga shook his head. “This life is a pitiless race, and I had the misfortune to get a puncture. I tried to catch up with the leading group, but they were going too fast for me.”

  In the dim light, Fadiga seemed to the commissario to diminish in size as he huddled in his overcoat. Once, when Soneri was a student, he had been one of the best laboratory assistants in the Department of Physics, but his wife left him and psychological collapse was followed by professional disintegration. Eventually, he chose to live on the margins of society in scornful solitude.

  The commissario carried on smoking, concealing his cigar in his cupped hand in the manner of peasants working with hay or soldiers at the front. He was unconsciously affected by Fadiga’s fear of being noticed.

  “How was Ghitta recently?”

  “Like the area she lived in – much changed,” Fadiga said, resting his hand on the handle of his trolley.

  “More reclusive?”

  “She walked up and down here, looking straight ahead, like everybody else. Nobody recognises themselves any longer in this quarter. The world is worse than it was. That goes for immigrants as well, because T.V. led them to believe that even dogs eat well here, and instead they’ve discovered it was all a fraud, and so they go around in a rage.” Fadi
ga gave a deep sigh, and tiny drops appeared on the beard around his mouth.

  “I don’t even recognise the apartment in Borgo Dalmazia where I was born and brought up. They’ve modernised it, redone the toilets and transformed the shops into a garage. My once-upon-a-time wife is still inside, fucking another man. I go past the house only at night, when everyone’s fast asleep, and with the help of wine I live in the dream of an eternal present. Anyway, what else can I think about? For someone like me, it would absurd to think of the future, and it’s too painful to look back.”

  “Do you know Pitti?”

  “Oh, that young damsel! He looks at you with contempt, but it’s better to stink than spend your life as a lackey.”

  “Whose lackey?”

  “Powerful people – members of parliament, industrialists, lawyers. Here too I only know their faces. Several of them used to frequent Ghitta’s establishment.”

  Footsteps could be heard approaching along Via Saffi and Fadiga fell silent, listening until the regular rhythms moved off and faded into the dark gardens of the buildings.

  “What kind of work does he do?”

  “I told you. He licks arses, and maybe other things as well. What kind of police officer are you if you aren’t well versed in these things?”

  “I’ve been away for many years. And I’m not very keen on remembering either.”

  He saw Fadiga nod vigorously and shiver in the shadows, so much so that the wheels of the trolley began to squeak.

  “Exactly, but you used to go to Ghitta’s as well, so you must know how things were,” Fadiga said, taking a sip from a bottle of supermarket wine to ward off both the cold and unhappy thoughts. When he removed the bottle from his lips, Soneri saw a wasted mouth with several gaps among the teeth. It was clear he wanted to end it all and found relief only in alcohol. As he swallowed it down, he added: “She was no saint.”

  Soneri remembered Angela’s unflattering reference to Ghitta, and wondered about memory’s power to soften and falsify reality. Was it really only a dream, and was the human mind a skilled cosmetician with expertise in the game of light and shadow? His mood darkened as he felt many certainties dissolve in a rapid haemorrhage of thoughts.