By My Hand

by Maurizio de Giovanni

  And so there they were, father and daughter, behind locked doors in their shop, the metal roller blinds lowered halfway, Giulio counting articles and Enrica checking off the stock numbers of each product on a list. The real reason they were there, though, as they both knew without ever putting it into words, was to escape the relentless nagging of Enrica’s mother, Maria, who never tired of her one obsessive topic.

  As Giulio well knew, Enrica had a very particular personality. The reason he knew this was that she was identical to him. Sweet-natured, courteous, never overemphatic, never raised her voice, never threw tantrums; but also stubborn, determined, neat and orderly to the point of mania, clear and precise in her ideas and in her movements. She was twenty-five years old now and not getting any younger, and still no fiancé, no young men asking her out or even asking her father permission to ask her out.

  Not that she wasn’t agreeable to look at, in her way, thought Giulio as he glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. But she discouraged any and all would-be suitors with a smile and a “No, thank you.” This was something that drove her mother crazy, convinced as she was that by Enrica’s age a woman ought to already have a home, children, and most of all a husband. She reiterated this concept an average of ten times daily, in the entire spectrum of tones, ranging from supplicating to imperative.

  Enrica’s reaction was to retreat into her shell. She would respond in nothing more than monosyllables, and went on doing her household chores or preparing lessons for the boys she tutored at home, prepping them privately for their school exams.

  Giulio had a great deal of faith in his daughter. If she wanted to wait, then let her wait. If she wanted to spend the rest of her life living with him, so much the better, as far as he was concerned. Her younger sister, married to an enthusiastic young Fascist who held a position at his store, already had a child, and didn’t she still live at home with them, too, after all? What would be so different? Times were hard, there’d been a war not that long ago, and the government’s attitude was increasingly militaristic, as the liberal and well-read Giulio could hardly fail to notice. He felt more comfortable with the idea of his daughter living at home with her family than with some fanatical extremist, and there was no shortage of those around these days.

  “Men’s hat, felt, dark gray, with a black silk band,” he said to his daughter, as if the words were actually “I love you.”

  “Article 15-26, one unit,” Enrica replied, writing a check mark on the list. As if she’d replied, “And I love you.”

  Ricciardi had made a rough calculation: if he devoted his Sunday to interviewing Don Pierino and Dr. Modo, he’d get ahead in terms of timing. The priest and the doctor were the only people he needed to interview who saw one day of the week as pretty much like any other; that was the way Ricciardi saw things, too, for that matter.

  As best he could tell, the personality of the late Centurion Garofalo was taking on unexpected and mysterious dimensions. The incorruptible straight-arrow militiaman who refused to take gifts from fishermen and projected an image of perfect family harmony to his neighbors was showing himself to be an unscrupulous careerist, a man who hadn’t thought twice about ruining the life of his superior officer in order to take his job and his promotion.

  This was hardly unusual; after all, they lived in a time when informers and spies reaped rich rewards. That’s the way things worked at police headquarters, too, from what he’d been able to gather as a dispassionate observer, indifferent to the paths of ambition as he was. But it was one thing to steal a march on a rival by leveraging family ties or influential friends; it was quite another to send a man to prison for eighteen months and drive his wife to kill herself in shame.

  As he strode down a Via Toledo that had been transformed into a teeming market, heading for the church of San Ferdinando, Ricciardi visualized the nativity scene in the Garofalo home: the shattered statuette of Saint Joseph, clumsily concealed under the linen, and the one of the Madonna tipped over slightly, leaning against the statue of the ass. While reaching for the husband, they’d felled the wife. Too perfectly symbolic to have been pure chance. He miraculously managed to dodge an oncoming city bus, which emitted an indignant squeal of its klaxon. He was reminded of the phrase that Garofalo’s shade kept uttering, his last thought: I don’t owe anything, not a thing. What had the murderers demanded of him, what had the centurion refused to give them? The visit to the barracks had increased, rather than decreased, the array of hypotheses. Money, property; but also stolen years.

  He needed to wait for news from Maione, about where this Lomunno might be, since he was certainly someone who had every reason to hate the victim. He wondered whether the brigadier would succeed, on this holiday Sunday, in tracking down his omniscient informant.

  His thoughts went to Maione, and to his newly regained family harmony. Ricciardi, who’d been in constant contact with Maione’s grief over those last few years, was happy for him. He knew how important the brigadier’s family was to him, and he’d been gratified to see the smile slowly return to Maione’s broad face.

  Family, love. Enrica. The association of thoughts, as he pushed his way through the crowd in the vicinity of Piazza Trieste e Trento, was almost excessively linear. He knew that her father had a haberdashery and hat shop, and he remembered seeing her enter the establishment, somewhere in this very neighborhood. Maybe it was even the place with the roller blinds half-lowered. Hat and gloves? Signora Garofalo’s corpse had asked, smiling with a downcast gaze as the black blood pumped out of the gaping wound in her throat. Perhaps the murderer or murderers to whom she had posed that question were customers of Enrica’s father; they might even have been served by the hands of the woman he loved. Fate doesn’t exist, Ricciardi told himself. But if it did, it would have a grand old time, pulling stunts like these.

  He had reached the church, from which a stream of the faithful were emerging, following the ten o’clock Mass. He waited for the crowd around the entrance to dwindle and went in, continuing to think about fate, nonexistent though it was, and about Enrica.

  Enrica was thinking about fate, and about Ricciardi.

  To be exact, she was thinking how bitter it was to wait for months for a meeting and then, just when everything seemed to be moving in a positive direction, to lose him. Fate could be cruel.

  She remembered for the thousandth time how happy she had been when she received the letter from the man for whom she’d waited for a lifetime, the man she’d fallen in love with from afar; and her interactions with the man’s tata, his nanny, that rough-hewn but kindly woman who lived with him, and who had actually invited her into their apartment. She remembered the rooms in that apartment, how clean and tidy the place was, a strange scent that might have been his aftershave; the half-closed door to his bedroom, where he watched her from his window every night, during their regular evening appointment.

  And then, when the natural next step was a tête-à-tête, a smile, their hands clasped together—the accident. As she checked off the articles on the list while her father dictated them to her, her mind found itself back in the hospital waiting room, with the slabs of stone that formed the pavement outside being pounded by the rain, on that Day of the Dead. It seemed a hundred years had gone by, but it hadn’t even been two months.

  She’d thought that he was about to die. She’d seen that beautiful woman, with her exotic accent, pacing back and forth, smoking and sobbing, perhaps every bit as heartbroken as she was. She’d felt like the wrong person in the wrong place. And she’d asked the Madonna of Pompeii to spare his life, vowing in exchange never to see him again. A moment later, the doctor had come out smiling; and it had also stopped raining.

  Enrica had never been particularly religious, but that had struck her as an unmistakable sign. She’d leaped to her feet and left almost at a run, while the strange lady, the tata, and the strapping brigadier all rushed into Ricciardi’s hospital room to see him
breathing. She’d left with her heart torn between joy and despair; the joy had faded soon after, and the despair had been her constant companion ever since.

  She’d never worried too much about her future, Enrica. She’d always believed that if there was someone she was destined to be with, sooner or later he’d appear and she would understand at first glance. If he never appeared, she wasn’t interested in settling for someone else. She’d sooner have no one at all.

  A romantic idea, a little girl’s way of thinking, perhaps; but it was what she believed, and she clung tight to it. It had been confirmed for her when she realized that there was a man watching her, standing at the window across the way, more than a year ago: it was him, it was really him. He’d finally come.

  But now she’d lost him. She’d cast him aside, of her own free will, delivered him into the talons of that beautiful outsider, without even putting up a fight.

  For an instant her sense of frustration was overwhelming, and her eyes filled with tears. To hide her face from her father, she turned toward the shop door, which was halfway open, and saw Ricciardi walk into the church of San Ferdinando.

  XXI

  Don Pierino was doing his best to get rid of Signorina Vaccaro. She was a prominent and influential member of his parish congregation, a woman who was very wealthy and very, very elderly. Legends circulated among the faithful in the neighborhood to the effect that she was well over a hundred, but it seemed more likely that once she’d reached eighty, she’d decided to linger at that finish line, giving that as her official age for at least another ten years.

  Periodically—every three days, to be exact—she decided that the time had come to update the higher echelons of the local church on her precarious state of health, and woe betide the hapless recipient of her report. The parish priest, Don Tommaso, had become a master of evasion, and always managed to disappear the moment before the signorina came hobbling down the main aisle. Actually Don Pierino suspected that his direct superior had assembled a network of scouts, and that some faithless altar boy must be delivering warning signals in the form of sharp whistles or some other piece of secret-agent tradecraft. The fact remains that it was always Don Pierino who fell into the arthritis-warped talons of that little old lady. Signorina Vaccaro, convinced that the accruement of all her earthly sufferings, along with her much-touted chastity, constituted a general fund of merits that would ensure her entry into a comfortable and everlasting Heaven, was determined that her Father Confessors should be promptly informed of every development in the progress of her countless maladies.

  As he stood listening to Signorina Vaccaro tell of the debilitating effects of her most recent bout of dysentery, Don Pierino smiled and nodded. Short and stout, dark complected, with gleaming dark eyes like a pair of black olives, the assistant parish priest was much beloved by his flock, and especially by the great many poor and sick parishioners who lived in the populous city quarter that fell under the administration of the church of San Ferdinando. If there were hungry, sick, or parasite-ridden children, Don Pierino was always the first to offer to help, with his broad, contagious smile and the inborn optimism that characterized his faith.

  Don Pierino possessed a cheerful faith, a faith that was filled with love of all creation and, therefore, of God. He also loved art, and especially music, for which he had a voracious appetite. He loved the countryside, though he was rarely able to return to it. And he loved the sea, which was far from his birthplace in Santa Maria Capua Vetere, but he’d quickly made friends with the waves and the salt air of Naples, unfamiliar though they’d been at first.

  Signorina Vaccaro had just moved on to the effects of an especially uncomfortable gastritis attack, complete with graphic descriptions which Don Pierino would gladly have done without, when he thought he saw a familiar figure in the dim light of a side altar. A fond and familiar figure.

  He’d first met Ricciardi during the investigation into the murder of the tenor Arnaldo Vezzi, a murder to which he’d unsuspectingly been a witness. The two men couldn’t have been any more different in terms of personality, education, passions, and faith, but they’d established a relationship that, if not exactly a friendship, was at least a bond of powerful empathy. He was intrigued by Ricciardi’s green eyes, which at first glance seemed cold: they were a window into an inner world of grief and suffering, of pain whose cause he could not confess.

  The cheerful little priest sensed a heart imprisoned, trapped behind the iron bars of who knows what memory; but a big heart, a heart full of compassion for his fellow human being.

  Ricciardi wasn’t the kind of man who would come to see him if he didn’t have a serious reason. And he felt sure that Signorina Vaccaro would survive both the gastritis and the interruption to their conversation. He told her that he needed to hear the confession of someone who, he was afraid, might have committed murder during an armed robbery in someone’s home—knowing this to be one of his parishioner’s special bugbears. Signorina Vaccaro’s eyes grew round and, to keep the criminal from identifying her, she disappeared from the church at a surprising speed, evidently forgetting her debilitating arthritis for the moment.

  Don Pierino hurried toward Ricciardi with his usual bouncing gait, mentally asking God’s forgiveness for his white lie.

  “Commissario, what an enormous pleasure! How are you? I heard about the accident and I immediately hurried over to the hospital, but you’d already gone home, in defiance of your doctor’s orders. Did you feel what a fine chilly wind we’re getting? Then again, what kind of Christmas would it be if it were hot out?”

  Ricciardi returned the priest’s greeting, with a brief handshake, after which he thrust his nervous hand back into his pocket.

  “Don Pierino. It’s a pleasure to see you, too, and you know it. And I’m sorry that I haven’t been by to see you for a while, but . . . well, you heard about it. How are you?”

  The assistant parish priest smiled, his fingers knit over his belly.

  “Fine, fine. As the Lord wishes me to be. I’m certainly in no position to complain, don’t you agree? You see worse cases than I do, on the streets out there. You know that none of us can really complain.”

  “In fact, quite true. I need to trouble you for some information, as usual. Can you spare a few minutes of your time?”

  “Absolutely, of course . . . In fact, you just saved me from a long conversation, with that elderly signorina you saw when you came in, so I owe you my full attention. Ask, ask away.”

  Ricciardi registered the priest’s willingness to help, then asked:

  “Can we talk a little about the nativity scene, Padre?”

  Don Pierino flashed a happy smile, like a scugnizzo who had just been offered a trip to the pastry shop.

  “Of course we can! Come, come with me, prego.”

  He locked arms with Ricciardi, who though not a giant was certainly far taller than the priest, and walked him thirty feet or so to where, in front of one of the side altars, a manger scene had been set up. The construction covered quite a bit of floor space, at least eighty square feet, and it featured large antique shepherds in the foreground, declining in size toward the background, creating a remarkable illusion of depth. Ricciardi was impressed in spite of himself.

  Don Pierino was bouncing up and down like a little boy.

  “Beautiful, eh? Don’t you think it’s beautiful? I do it myself, with the help of a few of the boys who attend the parish school. Many of the figures are very old, they’ve belonged to the church for centuries; others have been donated more recently by our congregation, over the past several years. Others still we purchased ourselves, or else they were made by parishioners who are skilled at making clothing or working with terra-cotta.”

  Ricciardi studied them, fascinated.

  “Impressive, very impressive, Padre. Really nice, my compliments. Tell me, is there a symbology to the figures? In other words, do they re
present anything?”

  Don Pierino nodded, never taking his eyes off the miniature landscape.

  “Of course they do, Commissario. The manger scene is one of our people’s most venerable and well-established traditions. In it, throughout the various phases of this city’s history, situations and characters have been depicted that over time have come to form part of our popular imagination. You see, each and every nativity scene, even the poorest and most rudimentary, has three levels: at the top is Herod’s castle, there, representing power and arrogance; in the middle is the countryside, with the flock, the shepherds, and all the rest; at the bottom, and in the foreground, is the cavern with the nativity. And dotting the landscape are the ruins of the temple, symbolizing the triumph of Christianity over the pagan gods; the tavern, which symbolizes the human predilection for sin; and so forth. Each element of the manger scene has a meaning, and the principal elements have more than one.”

  Ricciardi listened, absorbed.

  “Everything has one or more meanings, you say. Could you give me some examples, Padre?”

  The priest cheerfully complied. This was his topic, and he was happy to be able to talk about it.

  “Certainly. Let’s start with the locations and the architectural elements. I’ve already told you about the temple and the tavern; concerning the tavern I’d also point out that the banquet you see under way here, inside, is a reference to the fact that all the inns and taverns refused accommodations to the Holy Family. It represents human wickedness and selfishness, which the advent of Christ is bound to illuminate. The oven, which you see there, is always present in the manger scene; not only does it illustrate one of the most ancient trades, it also refers to the bread that, along with wine, is one of the foundations of our Christian faith. The bridge over the river, which you see in the background, refers to an ancient legend according to which three babies, killed specifically for this purpose, were buried in its foundations, as part of an enchantment intended to ensure its arches would hold strong. It symbolizes the union—the bridge, in fact—between the world of the living and the world of the dead. The well is another element that is always included, and it represents a direct link to the underworld. As you can see, darkness and evil also play a part in the nativity scene. Just like in life, no?”