The Hawthorne Season

by Riccardo Bruni

  “Sir, do you know where I can find Patrizia Alberti?”

  FIVE

  The day will be long. Like everything else. Grazia walks into the minimart to buy sandwiches and drinks. Ever since there have been only two officers at the station, in practice, their shift is a single and eternal one.

  She walks along the aisles, among the biscuits and the fruit juices, and her mind wanders from the dirty dishes in the sink to Viola, who is surely smoking weed; to Rodari’s surveillance, to which she has been added; to the list of other things a squadron of six should be dealing with.

  When she passes in front of the newspaper stand, she looks at the first page of the local paper. The headline is Rodari’s arrest. “Children’s Book Author Accused of Homicide.” There’s a photo of him, perhaps taken from online, holding a book with a gnome on the cover. He looks stunned. When they were kids, in class, he drew constantly.

  “The last thing poor Barbara needed,” Grazia hears someone say. Beyond the pasta section is the food counter. The voice belongs to Fioralba, the owner of the minimart. Grazia stops, scanning the newspaper headlines, in an attempt to eavesdrop.

  “Anyway, that guy was always a little off.” The voice belongs to Mirna, the wife of Eugenio Falconi, the mayor. “He says he doesn’t remember a thing, I read it in the paper. But that’s a strange kind of amnesia if you ask me. And if it really did happen, can he claim he’s innocent? How does he even know?”

  “He never came back to visit his mother in all these years,” adds Adele, her inseparable companion with an olive-green Panda four by four, and her partner in Buraco Rummy.

  The chime of the bell warns everyone that the door has opened. The detergent shelf blocks the newcomer from view. In any case, the voices fall silent.

  “You wanted some bread, Mirna?”

  “Just a sliver, dear, that’ll be more than enough.”

  Dorina comes out from behind the detergent shelf. She’s looking for something in her bag. She pulls out what looks like an acoustic device and places it behind her ear. Only then does she notice Grazia and smiles, embarrassed, before disappearing behind the pasta section to join the others at Fioralba’s food counter.

  Grazia keeps listening. Because she knows them and doesn’t want to miss out on any useful tidbits. Adele’s cousin, Dorina, is Barbara’s dearest friend, as well as her Buraco partner. In the countryside everyone knows the rivalry that divides these two sets of friends. And between Adele and Dorina, in particular, there’s some old dirt that—if Grazia remembers correctly—involves an inheritance from years back. It almost seems as if Dorina came in for the sole purpose of interrupting their ugly gossip about Barbara’s son.

  “Dorina, darling, how are you?” asks Mirna.

  “Splendidly, dear.”

  “How nice to hear that,” says Adele. “What about Barbara?”

  “Busy, I’m afraid,” Dorina says.

  “‘Busy’ sounds like the word, darling,” says Mirna. “And what about her son, has he arrived? Eugenio says they brought him up this morning.”

  “I haven’t spoken to Barbara yet this morning, but if Eugenio says so . . .”

  “When you hear from her, please tell her not to worry about the game. If she wants, we can postpone, and if we can’t do it at the hotel, we can play at mine for once.”

  “No problem, Giulio is in a separate wing of the hotel, in the apartment where he used to live as a boy. We can play at the bar. Barbara will probably appreciate the distraction.”

  “I thought since it was house arrest—”

  “Don’t worry, Mirna. No one will arrest us for this.”

  Grazia skirts the pasta aisle and enters the scene.

  “Marshal, good morning,” says Fioralba. “I didn’t hear you come in. The usual sandwiches?”

  “You’re just the person we needed, Marshal,” says Mirna. “We were just wondering if we could still go to the bar at the Gherarda, since Barbara’s son . . .”

  “The bar is officially closed,” says Grazia. “But Rodari is staying in another wing of the hotel, so it should be fine. Not even the police would dream of impeding the great Buraco tradition.”

  A burst of laughter warms up the minimart, loosening the ancient hostility between the two adverse fronts. But it’s just a temporary truce.

  SIX

  Lilith’s practice room is set up in an alcove. The Novellis of the Novelli Pharmacy have more than one. But this one is exclusively at the disposal of Arturo’s whims, so he can play his drums without frightening guests. The walls are soundproof, and the inside looks like a NASA command center.

  Computers, amplifiers, connectors. Arturo’s drum kit is a wall of tom-toms.

  Viola has turned on the electric stove, and the air is warming up now. Not enough to take off her woolen gloves, which cover only the palms and backs of her hands and allow her to work on the computer.

  She’s already downloaded the recordings she made with her iPhone, and now she’s using a program that links them all together. The software confirms the presence of a sound. Viola connected the laptop to the system and raised the volume to the max, but she still can’t hear a thing. There’s a sound, but it’s silent. It could be an ultrasound, something that the human ear can’t grasp.

  She’s prepping the base tracks for Lilith’s first and last original track. And this is the first element, the first track. Maybe no one will hear a thing, but the breath of the woods is still the starting point for the whole piece. And while the program develops it, Viola puts on her headphones to get the second element from another file. A recording. She made it with her old phone a few years back, but the new software enabled her to clean up all the unwanted noises. A tedious job. One of the many causes of the dark circles that appear under her eyes every morning.

  The file name is a date: 09/09/2010.

  Her fingers swipe the track pad, and the pointer stops a few millimeters from the icon with the white triangle. She can almost feel it, but she doesn’t click it yet. Viola tries to fidget with her earrings, but her headphones get in the way.

  “I heard you in church last Sunday. You played something before Mass.”

  Viola has long hair and the face of a twelve-year-old, still free of makeup. She’s gone over to Michele’s house because she had to bring some baking sheets back to his mother. She’s already rung the bell a few times, but no one has answered. She goes over to the window and sees Michele through the curtains. He’s sitting in front of his keyboard. He’s wearing headphones, so he can’t hear her. But after coming all this way under the summer sun, she has no intention of turning back with the empty baking sheets, which her mother was intent on sending back that morning. It takes her a while to get his attention, but in the end he notices her, takes off his headphones, and opens the door.

  He’s older than she is. He’s already a few years into high school.

  He smiles and invites her in. He has the gentle ways of an old man. He takes the trays, brings them to the kitchen, and asks Viola if she is thirsty. Her throat is parched from the heat, but the only thing she can say is how she had heard him play before Mass. And she realizes at that very moment how much she had hoped his mother wouldn’t be home, just so she would be able to talk to him.

  “Do you like music?” Michele asks.

  “A little.”

  “Do you play an instrument?”

  “I wouldn’t say that.”

  “That’s a shame.”

  Michele approaches the keyboard, takes his headphones, and puts them on Viola’s head.

  He’s about to start playing but stops and turns to her again.

  “It’s an old song,” he says. “It’s called ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale.’”

  Viola closes her eyes. She always closes her eyes when she listens to music. She seems to be able to see it. Now it’s as if the notes coming out of the organ were bright streaks, yellow and red, appearing and chasing each other in the dark. It’s the music she’d heard in church. She only
opens her eyes again when the song is over. She realizes she’s smiling like a little girl. To shift tone she removes the headphones, resuming her serious, mildly sullen expression.

  “What is it?” she asks him.

  “A group, an old one.”

  “They’re not bad.”

  “They’re not bad at all.”

  “But isn’t church the place for more . . . sacred stuff?”

  “I don’t know any of it. The priest asked if I’d play the organ sometimes, and I go to church because they have a fantastic organ. That’s all. Why do you go? Are you a religious type? Do you pray and all the rest of it?”

  “I’ve never given it much thought. I guess I go sometimes because I like to hear you play.”

  Michele seems like he’s thinking. As if he were considering an idea that just popped up in his mind. From this close up he looks so cool. If it weren’t for those thick glasses that make his eyes look like two black dots and that wrinkled shirt hanging open over his white tank top. There really is something old-mannish about his mannerisms, his way of being. Viola realizes she’s staring at him and can’t stop from blushing, like the girl she is.

  “Would you like to learn to play the guitar?” Michele asks.

  “Me?”

  “There are only two of us in this room.”

  “Oh right. The guitar? I don’t have one.”

  “I do. I mean, I have more than one. Let’s say I have one I can lend you, so maybe we can play something together. You can accompany me.”

  After a couple of minutes, Michele bounds up the stairs to the basement with an electric guitar in his hand. The neck is wooden and the body is black. The things Viola will later learn to call pickups, the devices that capture the sound of the strings, are made of steel. It’s wonderful.

  “It’s a Fender. David Gilmour has one like it,” Michele says.

  “Oh.”

  “You know who David Gilmour is, right?”

  “Of course. He’s a guitarist.”

  “Maybe I’ll lend you a few CDs.”

  Viola can’t take her eyes off the guitar.

  “Now. To play it you have to hold it first,” Michele says, handing it to her.

  It’s heavy. She didn’t think a guitar would weigh that much. She rests the body flat on her lap and plucks at the strings with her left thumb.

  “Don’t tell me you’re a lefty . . .”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “I’ll have to restring it. Let’s do this, come back tomorrow, same time, and I’ll have it ready for you, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Will you be serious about learning, or are you going to waste my time?”

  “I don’t have anything better to do.”

  Michele smiles, realizing this isn’t exactly what she meant. Not in that way, at least. He walks with her to the door. She’s about to leave but can’t until she turns back to clarify something.

  “Do you like apple muffins?”

  “Yes, yes I do. Why?”

  “Because I can’t afford to pay you for lessons, but I know how to make apple muffins and a few types of cookies. I can also make cakes, but they never turn out so well.”

  “Apple muffins will be just fine.”

  Viola lifts her fingers from the computer track pad. The pointer freezes. The triangle play button is still there. But every time she listens to that file, she’s overcome with emotion. She needs to breathe a little first.

  Her guitar is here, leaning against the wall, still in the case. She hopes the drop in temperature overnight didn’t affect the pickups, but leaving it was the only way she would get away with working here this morning.

  She unzips the case. Here it is. The same as ever. The same as the first time Michele ever showed it to her. He only realized afterward that he wouldn’t be able to use it after he restrung it. So, after a few lessons, after she gained his trust, he had allowed her to take it home with her to practice. He had other guitars, or so he said. For some strange reason, he seemed to think it was really important to teach her to play it.

  “You can keep it,” he told her one day. “That guitar has a great desire to be played.”

  Viola rests it against her leg, inserts the cable, and turns on the amplifier. And her fingers slide along the strings into the opening arpeggio of “Stairway to Heaven.”

  “Why do you always listen to music that’s so . . . ?”

  “Old?”

  She can tell Michele has been waiting for her to ask that question for a while. They’ve been playing together for a few months now. And in fact, all the songs that he has taught her are older than the two of them put together. They’re in the living room now, where there’s a wall that’s completely occupied by the stereo system, including a record player, and a full wall of records and CDs.

  “Yeah. I mean, I love all the songs we’re playing, but I was curious . . .”

  “It’s the first records I heard when I was little. My father had them. They’re all beautiful songs. Once you learn to play them, you’ll never stop. The songs they make today aren’t like that. You get bored before you know it.”

  “I don’t know my dad.” The words just come out of her, like that, for no good reason. “That is, I know his name and where he is, but we’ve never met.”

  “You’re a little down today.”

  “A little.”

  “So let me teach you a song called ‘Wish You Were Here.’ And you can dedicate it to whomever you’d like.”

  Viola rests her guitar on its case. The computer has finished processing the breath of the woods. It’s time to input the second track of Lilith’s first and last original song. The file is ready. Her fingers touch the track pad again, and this time they click the triangle-shaped icon.

  09/09/2010

  Play.

  “I’m going to play you something I wrote.” It’s the first time Michele has confessed to writing a song, but it’s something Viola has long since suspected. “It’s not really a song yet. Let’s call it a work in progress.”

  “Oh stop, just play it for me. I want to hear it.”

  Michele plays the song, a slow blues in a minor key. It’s almost hypnotic.

  Viola closes her eyes again. The song surrounds her now as it leaves Arturo’s system, closing the gap in time between now and the day Michele played it for the first time. She’s no longer ashamed of her girlish smile, which now opens across a changed face, pale, made ghostly with heavy black makeup, and piercings that sprout from her lips, nose, and eyebrows.

  “It’s beautiful.”

  “It’s just a melody now. I have to develop it.”

  “Do you mind if I record it on my phone? I’d love to have it.”

  “Sure, tell me when you’re ready and I’ll play it again.”

  Lilith’s first and last original song has its second track.

  SEVEN

  The large wood-fired oven is located behind the Gherarda, looking out over the woods. From there a path goes down to the valley. The oven is rarely used, so they have to let the fire warm the stone walls before it can be used. Barbara adds a bit of wood to feed the flame that she lit with the long kitchen matches. She has to prepare for the Evening of Bread, a tradition from times of old.

  The air is cold. Akan shoveled the snow away from the sides of the oven to make it accessible.

  Barbara reaches her hands inside to feel the heat of the flames. She’s not alone. The orange cat jumps from the ground to the flat stone. He’s the largest of the three, the most gluttonous. He felt the heat. He’s come to soak it up.

  “You’re out here too?”

  The cat slinks in front of her, rubbing his tail against her face.

  “Maybe it’s better if you go back inside. It’s cold out here, don’t you think?”

  As soon as the door opens, the cat slips in and bounds up the stairs. Barbara goes back to the barroom to make another cup of tea and warm up.

  “You’ve changed a few things around h
ere.”

  She turns and freezes. Giulio is sitting at a table with a coffee cup in front of him. He’s changed the bandage on his eyebrow. He’s wearing his gray jacket from ski school that she left in his room. His city clothes aren’t well suited to the mountain climate. He’s shaved, and he looks better than before. But his eyes are still red.

  “You scared me to death,” Barbara says, shaking out her shoulders.

  “Sorry. I couldn’t sleep.”

  “Did Akan make too much noise?”

  “No, it wasn’t that.”

  Barbara sits at the table with him. “What changes were you referring to?”

  “Nothing big, I was just saying. There was a photo over there. From New Year’s Eve, if I recall. We were all here: Dad, Amanda . . . I came down to check it out, but it’s not here anymore.”

  “You’re right. It fell and the frame broke. I need to fix it.”

  “Maybe one day—”

  “Giulio, when are you going to tell me what happened?”

  Outside the window, the meadow lies under a blanket of snow.

  “I don’t know what happened. I was out of my mind, I drank a lot. I only remember a few images. And they aren’t good ones.” He smiles as he fidgets with the spoon in his empty coffee cup.

  “You shouldn’t have been drinking. But it will all come back to you, you’ll see.”

  “I don’t know if I want that.”

  “Of course you do, because I’m sure you didn’t hurt her.”

  “Of course I hurt her. In so many ways. I made her life a living hell. Because I wanted her to suffer, you know? I wanted her to suffer with me. It’s all so confusing, it’s like a part of me I didn’t know existed just took over. Whenever I go over it in my mind, it feels like I’m thinking about someone else. That time I broke into her house at night and started screaming like a madman . . . I don’t want all that to come back to me.”

  “Do you want another coffee?”