by Marco Vichi
‘One more round?’
‘But of course … Let’s drink to compassion … The sole force able to counter human egotism …’
Dante poured the grappa and they clinked glasses. They carried on chatting, drifting from subject to subject, free as the air tossed by the wind, paying no attention to the hourglass …
A little past three o’clock Bordelli got up to go home, staggering slightly. A faint alcoholic euphoria let him see the world as a little less gloomy.
‘Sooner or later you’ll have to come and see my dominions …’
‘Whenever you like, Inspector … Have a good sleep …’
They said goodbye with a handshake, and Bordelli went back outside under the stars. A vast, round moon spread a violet cloak over the wooded hills. It was quite cold, and the Beetle’s seat was freezing. Heading back to Impruneta, he started humming a song by the Lescano Trio, trying in vain to recall all the lyrics. He drove through the darkened village and continued on his way.
A large, frightened hare appeared on the dirt road that led to his house. Bordelli stopped the car and turned on the high beam, and the animal remained frozen in the middle of the path for almost a minute, staring spellbound at the headlights. Then it suddenly dashed off and vanished into the night. Bordelli put the car in gear and drove off, smiling. These small things were also what made living in the country agreeable.
He parked in the threshing area, and when he got out of the car, he turned to look up at the castle in the distance. The same window was still lit. A glowing rectangle that seemed to flicker slightly.
One minute later he was under the covers. He turned off the light and lay on his back. He was still thinking about the butcher, the shotgun blast that had blown out his head, the fat body falling down on to the leaves … And he decided this had to be the last time. In the darkness he traced the sign of the cross in the air with his hand, uttering the formula for absolution he’d learned at church as a child: Ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis in nomine Patris …
He woke up around nine, and between yawns he put the espresso pot on the fire. The sun was beaming forcefully through the window and probing the dusty corners. He could hear the wind rustling the leaves outside, and it made him think of the sea. The sea of his childhood, smooth and hot, glistening in the sunlight. The sea he used to look out upon from the deck of a ship or the tower of a submarine, a mysterious, fascinating sea that might conceal deadly ambushes … Every now and then he felt the need to see the sea, to let his eyes follow the flat horizon line …
Casting a distracted glance out the kitchen window, he was shocked to see a lady in a dark overcoat and black hat coming down the path. It was the first time he’d seen another human being walking along the little dirt road. He sat there and watched as she drew near. She must have been rather old, though she walked bolt upright. He didn’t think he recognised her. He was expecting her to continue on past his house, but instead she crossed the threshing floor and knocked at his door. Overcome with surprise, he went to open.
‘Good morning …’
‘Please forgive the disturbance, I am Contessa Gori Roversi.’
‘Pleased to meet you. Franco Bordelli.’
‘I know your name already. May I come in?’ She seemed anxious, but was trying to hide it.
‘Please do,’ he said.
‘You’re very kind,’ she said, coming inside with stately bearing.
‘Please excuse the mess; I haven’t been living here for very long and haven’t yet had time to—’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ the woman cut him off.
‘Actually, I was just making coffee. Would you like a cup?’ He was trying to find the right words to use with a contessa, to put her at her ease.
‘That’s very kind of you, thank you.’
‘Won’t you sit down? I recommend the armchair, it’s much more comfortable.’
‘I prefer a chair, if you don’t mind.’
‘Please make yourself at home,’ Bordelli said solicitously.
As the contessa sat down on one of the wicker kitchen chairs, he removed the sputtering espresso pot from the fire. He poured the coffee into two fine china demitasses he never used, which he’d inherited from an aunt of his father’s, and put a silver sugar bowl, which he’d filled just then, on the table.
He sat down opposite the woman. Looking at her, he realised she wasn’t that old after all, or not as old as he’d thought when he saw her from afar. She was probably only a few years older than him. It looked more as if her face had been aged prematurely by some sort of terrible suffering. The wrinkles were concentrated around her eyes, and on that skin, which must have once been like silk, they appeared sculpted in soft wood. Two magnificent pearl earrings hung from her little ears.
The contessa took no notice of the sugar, drank a tiny sip of coffee, and then set her little cup back down.
‘I live in the castle you can see from here, on the hill.’
‘I admire it every day,’ said Bordelli, wondering what could ever have prompted the contessa to come knocking at his door.
‘I don’t want to waste your time … I heard in town that you are a police inspector.’
‘Not any more. I was until a few months ago.’ He sipped his coffee in as refined a manner as possible.
‘You dealt in murder …’
‘That’s true.’
‘I’ve come with a job for you.’
‘I’d be glad to help, if I can … What is it?’
‘You must find who killed my son,’ said the contessa, suddenly authoritarian, as if she might bang her fist on the table at any moment. Bordelli sat there holding his espresso cup in midair for a second or two, then stood up.
‘You’d do better to call the Florence police at once, Contessa.’
‘Please sit down, Signor Bordelli,’ said the woman, newly polite. Was she perhaps a bit mad?
‘As I was saying, I’m no longer in service, and so there’s no way I can …’
‘Then please be so kind as to hear me out,’ said the contessa, enjoining him again to sit back down with a slight nod of the head. Bordelli obeyed.
‘Don’t you think it would be better if—’
‘My son was murdered fourteen years ago, on the night of June the sixth, 1953.’
‘I’m sorry, I thought it had just happened …’
‘No, I’m sorry, I acted a bit rashly,’ said the woman, newly polite again.
‘Please continue.’
By now he was genuinely curious. The contessa took another little sip of her coffee.
‘I found my son hanging in his study. Everyone said it was a suicide, but I know that’s not true.’
‘Do you know it, or are you simply convinced of it? They’re not the same thing.’
‘I know it, and that’s enough for me,’ said the woman, hardening again.
‘Can you tell me why?’
‘My son would never have killed himself.’
‘Forgive me, but … how can you be so sure?’
‘I’m his mother, and I know it’s true,’ said the contessa, quaking in her chair.
Bordelli looked at her respectfully, thinking that perhaps it was best to humour her for the time being.
‘Do you have any idea who might have killed him?’
‘I have no idea. I just know that he was murdered. So you don’t believe me either?’
‘I didn’t mean that. But I can’t really form an opinion without knowing the details.’
Maybe she really was just a poor old madwoman.
‘I’ll pay whatever you want, but you must find out who killed my son.’
‘Please tell me how it happened,’ said Bordelli, steeling himself with patience. He felt very much like smoking a cigarette, but didn’t want to be impolite. The contessa seemed to calm down. After a long, thoughtful silence she began to tell her story, not omitting certain details that had etched themselves for ever into her memory …
Orlando was an only chi
ld. At that time he lived alone in the castle. Count Rodolfo had passed away two years earlier, and the contessa had moved into their villa at Castiglioncello. Mother and son spoke often by telephone, almost always late in the evening, sometimes even after midnight. Orlando got on well and wanted for nothing. On the night of Saturday, 6 June, the contessa rang him at around eleven o’clock, but there was no answer. She tried calling back every half-hour, each time letting the phone ring for a long time. Orlando might have gone to a party, since it was Saturday, or he might have stayed late at a friend’s house or had a flat tyre … Or perhaps he’d simply fallen asleep and didn’t hear the phone … Maybe he’d unplugged it, or the line was down … Then why did she feel so worried? She tried calling one last time at around 4 a.m., and finally decided to wake up her chauffeur and have him drive her to the castle in Impruneta. When they got there, day was already dawning. A faint light was filtering through the drawn curtains in her son’s study. The contessa had the keys to the castle, but the main door was bolted shut. She knocked hard, pulled the bell-ring several times, but inside they heard nothing, aside from the ringing of the bell. And so she ordered her chauffeur to circle round the castle and call loudly to her son from outside, but Orlando didn’t answer. At that point the only thing left to do was to go to the Carabinieri in Impruneta. The contessa rang and rang the bell outside the gate of the compound, and in the end a sleepy-eyed young carabiniere came out and told them that the marshal wasn’t there. The contessa said she was very worried about her son. Something terrible had happened, she said. She could feel it. The lad seemed undecided as to what to do and tried to calm her down. She didn’t give him any time to reach a decision, but immediately heaped insults on him and left in a rage to look for a telephone. She woke a friend who lived in a large villa just outside of town and asked her whether she would be so kind as to let her use her phone. She called the police and explained the situation in a few words. The officer put a young detective on the line, and she told him the reason for her concern. The detective also tried at first to downplay things, but when the woman kept insisting, he decided to accede to her wishes. The fire department was summoned, and to enter the castle while causing as little damage as possible, they had to break a few slats in a ground-floor shutter, cut the windowpane, and force the inside shutter. The contessa insisted that she be the only one to go inside, and they helped her climb through the window. She went up to the first floor with her heart in her throat, entered her son’s study, and saw his lifeless body hanging in midair, his face livid and his tongue black and dangling … From the very start she’d thought what she still thought today …
‘He was murdered. That was no suicide,’ the contessa concluded, jerking her head slightly and making her magnificent earrings quiver.
Bordelli tried to hide his perplexity, to avoid humiliating her.
‘May I ask you a few questions?’ he asked.
‘Of course.’
‘What kind of rope was it?’
‘Whoever killed him had torn off the curtain cord.’
‘And where did they … In short … What was the cord tied to?’
‘There was a large wrought-iron chandelier in the middle of the room.
‘Did your son leave a letter or note?’
‘There was a sheet of stationery on the desk with only two words on it: Forgive me. Orlando would never have written anything of the sort. And the handwriting was strange …’
‘It wasn’t his own?’
‘It looked like his, but there was also something strange about it.’
‘In what way?’
‘It wasn’t as elegant as usual, a bit chaotic … Clearly somebody had forced him to write those words under duress.’
‘Might it not have been simply the agitation he was experiencing at that moment?’ Bordelli ventured.
‘I will repeat it again, Inspector. My son was murdered.’
‘Do you know of anyone who might have had anything against him, for any reason at all?’
‘I have no idea, as I already said. Orlando never told me much about his private life,’ the contessa said bitterly.
Bordelli felt a light tingling under the skin and realised he missed his job. That is to say, he was starting to take an interest in this story. By this point he knew that, in spite of everything, he would end up investigating this young man’s death, even if the convictions of his grief-stricken mother were not to be taken seriously.
‘If you want me to look into the matter you must tell me everything you can remember, even details that might at first glance seem of little importance to you …’
After lunch he got down to lightly hoeing the garden as Ennio had taught him, so he could sow – or, rather, plant – the artichokes. The thought of having an artichoke patch gave him a sense of satisfaction, even though Ennio had warned him that artichokes were strange plants. You had to find the right spot for planting them, otherwise they would dry up with the first cold snap; but if they took root they would grow strong and last for many years. It all depended on their exposure to the wind and the soil’s ability to hold the right amount of moisture. Before anything else you had to ask a local farmer for some young artichoke shoots, which you would then plant in holes smaller than those for the tomatoes and hope the weather cooperated. Rosemary was another kettle of fish; it almost always took and grew strong no matter where you put it. You merely had to take some branches and stick them in the ground …
‘If you want a nice little hedgerow around the garden, you can cut them from this plant,’ Ennio had said, stroking the bristly ends of a large rosemary bush …
Unable to resist, he’d sprung into action. He cut off several branches of the rosemary and planted them in the ground along the garden’s perimeter, continuing his botany lesson …
Sage, on the other hand, was capricious. You had to pick the small young plants that grew around the larger bush and stick them in the ground after working the soil a bit. Not all would take root, and in fact they might all dry up from first to last. It depended mostly on the moisture in the soil.
No profession, in short, was easy. Skill and passion were always required. He’d given his all to being a police inspector, and deep down he felt he hadn’t done a bad job. Could flushing out killers be considered a passion?
He found a small dead bird at the base of a tree, its little feet stiff and its beak full of dirt. It had very short wings and must have fallen from the nest. He dug a hole in the ground, buried it, and put a rock on top. Poor little thing, it was born and died within a matter of days … without knowing why …
Wiping the sweat from his brow, he carried on hoeing, all the while thinking of what the Contessa Gori Roversi had told him. In talking about her son the woman’s mood changed by the minute, going from nostalgia to vexation to jealousy to ill-concealed grief, even if the dominant feeling remained one of boundless admiration:
Orlando had taken a degree in law with the highest marks and at the right age, allowing him to continue his studies during the war. After university, he’d decided to practise the profession, even though there was no need. No Gori Roversi had ever earned money doing that sort of work, not even his father, Count Rodolfo. Managing the family’s lands and real estate all over Italy had always been their sole occupation. He, on the other hand …
‘This accursed modern era had contaminated him with its stupid frenzy …’
Orlando wanted to show that the children of nobles could face life as well as anyone else. He used to say he couldn’t stand being looked upon as a good-for-nothing, a mama’s boy. It was almost as if he was ashamed of having illustrious origins. He got busy and before long he became the assistant of two elderly lawyers who had an office in the centre of Florence. Orlando used to say that he liked the work more and more, even though they paid him a pittance. The Manetti & Torrigiani firm had important clients, including industrialists and politicians, but mostly they administered the enormous estates of the city’s upper nobility. Orlan
do at the time had a girlfriend, a notary’s daughter, a beautiful girl with a good head on her shoulders. He saw her often, especially evenings after supper at her parents’ house. Sometimes, however, they would go out alone to see a movie or a play. Orlando worked a great deal, and in his spare time he liked to go riding, play tennis, and play the piano. He would also spend pleasant evenings with his friends … In short, he led an untroubled, rather satisfying life.
After listening to the contessa’s story, Bordelli had asked her for the names of the people to whom Orlando was closest at the time, and wrote these down in a notebook. There were of course Giulio Manetti, attorney; and Rolando Torrigiani, attorney; and Orlando’s dearest friends, Gianfranco Cecconi Marini, and Neri Bargioni Tozzi. Finally, there was his old girlfriend, Ortensia Vannoni, who at that time lived with her parents in Via San Leonardo, one of the most beautiful streets in Florence.
The contessa had him write down her telephone number and told him he could call her at any hour of the day or night. She’d left after declining Bordelli’s offer to give her a lift in his car, casting a disdainful glance at his Beetle as she went out. He’d watched her make her way back up the path with her confident gait, erect as a drill sergeant, and waited for her to vanish round the bend … Was she just a poor old madwoman? He would try to find out …
When the sky began to darken, he set down his hoe and went back inside. After a long hot bath, he lit a fire and sat down in the armchair with a book in hand. He went on reading for almost two hours, forgetting about everything.
At around seven o’clock he rang his former police headquarters.
‘Hello, Mugnai …’
‘Inspector, what a pleasure to hear from you! How are you? How come you never drop in for a visit?’
‘What use would you have for an old pensioner? How are you?’
‘I can’t complain, Inspector. Even though there are two new arrivals here I don’t like one bit. The airs they put on! Don’t even say hello, they don’t. But when you were here—’
