From the street came a woman’s laughter and the bleating of lambs. Easter was coming out here, too.
After a brief pause, Ricciardi took a look around:
“You have a beautiful house, Signora. May I ask what line of work you’re in, in your family?”
Maione struggled to suppress a laugh: he was curious to hear how Viper’s mother would answer that question. She sat up straight and proud in her chair.
“My husband, who was named Gennaro,” and she pointed to the statue of the saint of that name, as if it were a portrait of her late spouse, “died young. I raised that shameless hussy and her younger brothers and sister all on my own. Children have a duty to help their mother, especially a mother like me, who sacrificed all her life for them.”
Ricciardi didn’t allow himself to be diverted from the point of his question.
“So Maria Rosaria’s brothers and sister help you, monetarily?”
The woman burst into a mocking laugh.
“If only. If anything I help them, I practically have to feed them and clothe them myself, and there are three of them. My two sons are day laborers, and my daughter married a miserable wretch who’s even more wretched than she is.”
“So this house, the work you’re doing on it, the money to feed and clothe your children, how do you pay for it all?”
Maione was enjoying this enormously. But Concetta didn’t seem embarrassed in the slightest.
“The son of that whore lives here with me. The money is to make sure he’s properly cared for. I’d like to see her try to keep all that money for herself, instead of paying for his expenses.”
The brigadier broke in.
“So you say the child lives with you? And where is he?”
Without even turning around, the woman clapped her hands and, when the housekeeper came promptly, still with the scrub brush in her hands, she said:
“Bring the child.”
After a brief interval of hostile silence, a little boy, about eight, came trotting into the room, his face and hands spattered with mud, his cheeks ruddy. Beneath a shock of midnight-black hair glittered a pair of gorgeous eyes. With a stab of pity, Ricciardi recognized the woman’s features, delicate and fine-drawn as they had been, even in death; paradoxically, he also discerned the grandmother’s features, though on her face they were shrouded by harsh anger.
“What’s your name?”
The child looked at his grandmother, who nodded. Then he spoke:
“Gennarino Cennamo, at your service, sir.”
Ricciardi signaled to the woman, who sent the boy away with a glance.
“He’s a lovely little boy,” he said.
Concetta retorted:
“He’s a child of sin, born to a lady of the night who didn’t know how to hold on to her man, the boy’s father; she didn’t know how to get him to marry her and she didn’t even have the wit to get some other man to marry her; all she knew was how to be a whore, and there’s not money enough in this world to wash away the shame that she’s brought on her son and the rest of the family. I’d rather go on living in the mud and stealing food from the dogs and the pigs than bear the shame that one has made me suffer for the rest of my life.”
She’d uttered that tirade without a shift in her tone of voice, without the slightest hint of anger. In the woman’s heart there wasn’t a speck of love or grief for her murdered daughter.
Ricciardi said:
“You wouldn’t know who might have done this thing? You don’t know about any enemies, or some jealous woman, for instance, or a man who might have hated her?”
During the silence that ensued, the woman displayed no emotion or uncertainy. Then she said:
“Someone always hates women like her. It was the same way when she was a little girl, just too pretty. Beauty, you know, is a sin. It’s not like everyone can afford to be beautiful. If you’re too beautiful, then you need to leave, otherwise this is how you wind up. Anyway, I have no idea who could have done it; she sent us money by mail, we hadn’t seen her in years. Her son doesn’t even know who she is. Who she was.”
That final correction was the only hint of uncertainy.
Ricciardi said:
“One last thing, Signora. Did you know that Giuseppe Coppola, whom you know as Peppe ’a Frusta, had asked your daughter to marry him?”
“Yes, I know that. He came to me first, to ask my permission, can you believe it?”
The commissario was surprised to hear that the woman seemed to find the idea amusing.
“And what did you tell him?”
“I told him that as far as I was concerned he was crazy, that it was something that could never happen; that he’d just be throwing away his own good name and that his family would never forgive him. Peppe is a good boy, a bravo guaglione, he didn’t deserve that curse.”
Maione was disgusted. The two men stood up.
“Signo’, thanks for your cooperation. I’d like to inform you that tomorrow morning, at seven, the funeral procession for your daughter will be leaving from Via Chiaia.”
Concetta eyed him coldly.
“And since when do they give a funeral for women like her? They’ll toss her in the gutter, where she belongs.”
Ricciardi couldn’t restrain himself:
“Signora, do you hear what you’re saying? You’re talking about your daughter, flesh of your flesh. A young woman, just twenty-five, who was no more than a child when she was raped. Don’t you think that she has a right to a little pity?”
Concetta shot to her feet with astonishing agility. She stared at Ricciardi and said:
“All I know is that she was a whore. And now she’s even left us saddled with debt. Do you want to tell me who’s going to pay for the rest of this constructon?”
XXIV
She never expected to feel this bad. Still in bed, with the shutters fastened tight, in the darkness of her room, her pillow soaked with tears. She’d never have expected. Not now.
She had a past, a life that had been difficult more than once. The death of her son, just one year old, of diphtheria, had been the most painful moment of all, and she’d become accustomed to comparing everything terrible that had happened since to that event.
Her husband’s domineering and violent personality—he might have been the most respected tenor in all Italy, a close personal friend of Il Duce, but his genius was matched only by the most staggering egotism she’d ever witnessed. She’d suffered—from his constant betrayals, from the loneliness into which he’d forced her, and from the silence in which he’d left her.
She’d held tight to the one thing she still had: herself, her beauty, a social circle of which she’d become the center through her loveliness, her charm, and her class; the same things that had brought her backstabbing, slander, insults, various other betrayals. Beauty is a crime that cannot be forgiven.
She’d stopped looking for love. It wasn’t that she’d given up on it, no: she’d simply relegated that emotion to a lower rank in her soul. There had been men, men whose courtship she’d decided to accept, men who’d managed to charm her, or at least aroused her curiosity, in the hopes that they might be different from the rest. They all proved, however, to be no different from all the others.
And then there had been that meeting, that ridiculous acquaintance which had unhinged every resolution of solitude and serenity, every plan she’d had to renounce hope of a future. A meeting that took place in the most illogical circumstances imaginable: the investigation into the murder of her husband.
All it took was a glimpse of those eyes, those sea-green crystals into which she had sunk, and from which she could not seem to emerge. Livia had fallen in love with Ricciardi the instant she looked into his eyes, and now she knew it. Certain emotions leave their mark, they enter into uncharted territory in the soul, they cross an unknown threshold in
the heart and take possession of it forever.
Livia was crying: because no one before him had ever triggered this feeling, a feeling that would never come again, and which she couldn’t live without.
It was on account of him that she’d moved to that city, a city she’d learned to love, but a place where she’d always be an outsider; the capital—where she had been one of high society’s most admired queens, where she had friendships at the very summit of political and economic life—had seemed to her as empty as the stage of a shuttered provincial theater.
She’d taken an apartment, and furnished it as if it was where she was to live as a newlywed. She’d once again welcomed hope into her life, she who had considered herself already dead.
She’d held him in her arms, in that apartment, on a night of fever and rain, when his eternal defenses had collapsed in the face of a stronger loneliness than usual, a disappointment of some kind, or something else, who knows, she didn’t care: what she knew was that she had had him, on her flesh, in her body. That the kisses, the caresses, and imprint his body had left inside her hadn’t been one of her many dreams, or one of the fantasies that accompanied her own solitary pleasure-taking, but a wonderful reality.
She’d hoped to chip away at his defenses gradually, to pull out whatever it was inside him that brought a perennial look of sorrow to his face, and to help him to erase that grief; she’d hoped for a future, something that fate had set aside for her in exchange for the many tears she’d shed; she’d believed once again that love existed, and that it existed for her too.
Against her own customs and her very nature she’d persisted, she’d courted him. She, who had always taken her pick of many suitors; she, who was gazed at with veneration by men and suspicion by women whenever she made her entrance—alone—into a theater; she, who every day received bouquets of flowers from admirers of all ages. And she hadn’t allowed herself to be discouraged by the locked door guarding his heart, that he claimed belonged to another: Livia was certain it wasn’t true. That he’d told her that just to keep her at bay, perhaps to protect her from some terrible unknown secret.
There couldn’t be another woman. She’d have sensed it, she’d have seen it. He was always withdrawn, absorbed in his life which consisted of his work and his home, the elderly tata who still lived with him, and whom she had met after his accident, at the hospital, and another relative, a tall young woman who had left immediately.
All this was true until yesterday. Seeing him again had left her with her heart in her throat, as always; and she’d been happy to see the doctor, a likeable man, intelligent and one of his friends. She loved the idea of sharing every aspect of Ricciardi’s life, and all the more so one of his very few friendships. And then that pointless, violent barb.
It hadn’t been the words, that vulgar and inappropriate reference to her friendships. It hadn’t even been his tone, flat and chilly as it all too often was. What had wounded her had been the obvious fact that he’d meant to hurt her. And the doctor’s embarrassment had only confirmed that terrible sensation.
She’d started sobbing in the car, ignoring the driver’s cautious words as he asked if there was anything she needed; she’d gone on sobbing when she got home, waving away the housekeeper who asked if she felt unwell; she’d sobbed all night long in her bed, without a bite to eat.
She was weeping over the death of her hopes, the mirage of lost love, the silence that would once again be her life’s companion. Over her loneliness, which had come back, this time to stay.
She’d decided that she would leave. That she could no longer stand to stay in that city, where every day she risked encountering those eyes, the eyes that had once made her think life wasn’t yet over, only to disappoint her in such a painful way.
She’d go back to Rome, where she’d rebuild, piece by piece, a modicum of self-confidence. Back to Rome where she was valued and perhaps, in some strange and unsatisfying way, even loved. Where some friendships remained to her. She’d once again be Livia Vezzi, queen of the night, the most beautiful one. At least she’d have that.
Meanwhile, as springtime was scheming changes all its own, outside the locked shutters, Livia decided that as soon as the holidays were over, she’d leave, and send for her things later.
Turning her back on love.
XXV
Ricciardi and Maione were used to it: in their line of work, it was impossible to show up anywhere unexpected or by surprise.
In the best case, their arrival was preceded by word of mouth—whispers and eyes peering out from behind shutters and blinds, as the sound of their boots and shoes broke the silence of secluded alleys. In the worst case, hordes of shouting scugnizzi danced ahead of them like some irreverent fanfare.
Which is what happened this time, as a small flock of barefoot boys splashing through all the mud and puddles they found along the way, laughing and singing choruses in dialect, playfully darting to try to pull the brigadier’s pistol from its holster, as he tried to ward them off halfheartedly, like an ox persecuted by a cloud of bothersome flies.
At the far end of the road, just a few hundred yards from the Cennamo in-progress mansion, there was a fence with a gate thrown wide open. On the ground it was possible to see the tracks of countless cart wheels and, just as they were entering, a load of broccoli pulled by a mule came through the gate, with a peasant on foot following the cart. The man eyed them mistrustfully, neither speaking nor tipping his cap.
They found themselves in a large courtyard. The odor of the nearby stables was piercing, as was the smell of vegetables that were being stored in a building into which they saw the cartload of broccoli enter. A broad-shouldered woman with a determined look on her face came toward them, wiping her hands on her apron; from her blond hair and blue eyes, they immediately understood that she was kin to the Coppola brothers.
“Do you need something?”
The tone of voice wasn’t hostile, but brisk: this was a workplace, and there wasn’t time to waste. Maione said:
“Signo’, is this where Giuseppe Coppola works? We’re from the mobile squad, Brigadier Maione and Commissario Ricciardi. Can we speak to him?”
The woman seemed entirely unimpressed by the presence of policemen in her courtyard. She stared at them, mopping her brow with a handkerchief that she’d pulled out of a pocket in her skirt.
“My name is Caterina, I’m Giuseppe Coppola’s sister. What do you want with him?”
She wasn’t bad looking, the self-proclaimed sister of Giuseppe Coppola: her coloring was lovely, her eyes glittered in the sun like sheaves of ripe wheat; but her features were harshened by a strong-willed domineering personality, and she had a pair of deep creases at the corners of her mouth. Her powerful arms were accustomed to hard labor.
Maione set her straight on who was asking the questions:
“Signo’, if we need to speak with him, then it’s about something that doesn’t concern you, otherwise we would have come straight to you, don’t you think? Do me a favor: if he’s here, would you please go get him for us?”
The woman gave the brigadier a long stare: she looked as if she was about to give him a shove. Maione put on the sleepy expression he used whenever he was interested in discouraging conversation.
“I don’t know where my brother is. These past few days, no one seems to know where he’s been going. Let’s just hope that he snaps out of it soon, otherwise this whole place will go to hell in a handbasket. Why don’t you go take a look in the stables? I have some broccoli to get unloaded.”
She turned to the farmer that they’d seen enter the building and gave him an incomprehensible order in thick dialect. The man stopped short with a huge bundle of broccoli in his arms, as if frozen solid by her rough shout, and put the produce back on the cart, awaiting further orders, clearly frightened of the woman who was striding toward him.
The brigadier said:
> “An energetic lady, eh? She’s worse than any man.”
Taking care to avoid the horse droppings that dotted the courtyard, where a dozen or so hens were busily pecking, they walked into the large farmhouse.
No matter what Caterina might say, the Coppola family company seemed to be humming along famously. On one side of the large shed were lined up a dozen or so carts, painted light blue, and there was still room for at least another dozen, which were no doubt out making deliveries just then. A number of men, each wearing a dark felt hat and a handkerchief knotted around his neck, were working busily around the carts, checking joints and axles and oiling hubs. At the opposite end of the room, the entrance to the stables could be seen, a high arch through which came the sound of neighing. Maione was reminded of Bambinella’s laughter.
Seeing them come in, the workmen, clearly worried, made a show of concentrating even harder on their tasks: there was no one in that city who didn’t have something to fear from the police. The two policemen headed for the horse stalls.
Inside they found a clean, tidy space, where three men and two women were hard at work, brushing and attending to the animals. Here too it was clear that only a small part of the fleet of horses were here, fewer than ten. Most of them were out working.
A man broke away from the group and walked toward them: it was Pietro, the younger Coppola brother, whom Ricciardi had already met at police headquarters.
“Commissa’, buongiorno. Do you remember me?”
Ricciardi nodded, and introduced him to Maione.
“We’ve come to Antignano to meet Signora Cennamo, Maria Rosaria’s mother. As long as we were here, we thought we’d drop by, just to see the place and maybe talk to your brother.”
Maione decided that, his dark hair aside, the boy could easily have been Caterina’s twin brother, except that he lacked his sister’s massive musculature, despite his broad shoulders. But he must be better natured, because Pietro smiled and lifted both hands, displaying a grooming brush and a rag.
Vipers Page 13
