by Marco Vichi
At the crossroads at Poggio Imperiale, two youths on a Lambretta cut him off, and when he honked the horn they came up beside the Beetle cursing and pounding their fists on the window.
‘What the fuck do you want, you old git!’
‘Get out of the car, you piece of shit!’
Bordelli tried to ignore them. He had no desire to waste time on idiocies, but the two youths kept on threatening him and yelling at him to stop. They looked like scions of good families, with clean faces and longish hair. One was dark, the other blond. The kind of lads girls liked.
At Porta Romana Bordelli decided to pull over and got out of the car. The two put the scooter on its stand and came at him, not knowing that the old git had been a boxer for several years in Mazzinghi’s gym. Bordelli dodged the blond youth’s wild punch without any difficulty and dealt him a right jab to the stomach, knocking him breathless to the ground. The other one hesitated for a second, then rushed him, spewing insults. Bordelli dodged his punch as well and landed his own square in the lad’s face, sending him rolling across the ground with blood pouring out of his nose.
‘That’ll teach you to respect the elderly …’ he said, getting back into his car. He drove off, forging a path through the crowd of onlookers that had gathered. He didn’t like coming to blows like that, but sometimes you had to, just to get by … Had he perhaps overreacted? Taken advantage of the situation to let off a little steam? Whatever the case, those two punks would henceforth think twice before strutting their stuff with an ageing pensioner …
He put the same cigarette back in his mouth, without lighting it. He would gladly have put the butcher and his friends out of his thoughts, but it wasn’t easy. They formed a kind of grey fog that enveloped everything. He was anxious to dispel it.
Crossing the Ponte alla Vittoria, he encountered a bit of traffic on the Viali. Youngsters were darting every which way on their motorbikes, caps pulled down over their eyes and girls clinging to their backs, and he felt a slight pang of envy … Or perhaps just a bit of nostalgia for his lost youth.
He proceeded along Via Strozzi at a walking pace, and some, as usual, pointlessly honked their horns. He had been born in Florence and grown up there, but after just a few weeks of living in the country, he felt like an outsider come from afar. He’d already grown unaccustomed to the confusion; he felt that it wasn’t for him. The knowledge that sooner or later he would go back to his quiet house reassured him … He would fill the stove and slip into bed under the duvet, which would warm up ever so slowly, and, as he read his book, he would hear an animal or two cry out in the night …
He parked in Viale Lavagnini outside the Trattoria da Cesare, and as he was getting out of the car he turned round for a moment and looked at the street that led to police headquarters. It was as though a thousand years had passed since the time when he used to take that street daily.
He went into the restaurant. After not showing his face there for over a month, he was welcomed like somebody back from the dead. He exchanged a few words with Cesare and the waiters, then slipped into the kitchen, where he customarily ate while seated on a stool. When the cook saw him, he let out an Apulian yell and ran to shake his hand.
‘Where you been hiding, Inspector?’
‘I’m not an inspector any more, Totò …’
‘Down in my parts, whenever somebody disappears for more than two days, we think he’s dead.’
‘I may well be dead myself, but my ghost is very hungry,’ said Bordelli. Totò immediately served him a glass of wine.
‘What do you feel like eating, Inspector?’
‘Something light …’
‘The only light things we’ve got are the napkins and corks …’
‘Would a simple dish of pasta with tomato sauce be possible?’
‘Are you kidding, Inspector?’ said Totò, returning to his burners. Carrying on the conversation while cooking for the restaurant’s customers, he prepared an enormous bowl of ‘simple’ penne with tomato sauce for Bordelli … though it must be said that there were huge chunks of sausage floating in the sauce. Bordelli accepted the surprise with resignation and started eating heartily as Totò regaled him with lugubrious stories of his home town … Such as the time when a lad, to impress his friends with his bravery, decided one summer night to walk out to the cemetery alone, swearing that he would spend the night there, only to be found at dawn the following morning, wandering through the fields, hair having turned completely white … Or the young woman whom nobody knew, who was found drowned in a small, fast-flowing stream, completely naked, with a snake coiled round her neck, and some swore she was a witch … Or the rich landowner of about fifty who, after his wife died, lived all alone in a large apartment in the centre of town and one Sunday morning came to the window with a double-barrel shotgun in hand and started shooting at people coming out from mass. He killed three or four people before being shot down like a wild boar by the Carabinieri. Nobody could figure out what had happened to him, and when it was discovered that he’d left his vast estate to a beautiful girl of sixteen, a peasant’s daughter, pandemonium broke out …
‘The strangest things happen in your home town …’ Bordelli commented. He’d finished his pasta with some effort, and after declining a dish of osso buco with beans he took a last sip of wine. The wisest thing was to leave before Totò pulled out the grappa. He stood up, wanting nothing more than to go to bed, and said goodbye to the cook, saying he’d be back soon. Totò tried to corrupt him with a slice of cream pie, but he managed to resist the temptation and left that place of perdition feeling proud of himself.
The cool night jolted him awake. Instead of getting in his car, he lit a cigarette and walked as far as police headquarters, to help digest his supper. Looking up at the building where he’d spent two decades of his life was like taking a leap back in time, even though, just a few months earlier …
‘Need any help?’ he said, sticking his head inside the door.
Mugnai gave a start, then smiled and made a vague military salute.
‘Inspector! You scared me …’
‘I can see you’re busy,’ said Bordelli, gesturing towards the Settimana Enigmistica, the weekly puzzle magazine.
‘I’ve almost finished … I just need two or three more words …’
‘Let me see … Five down … Five letters … Foscolo’s Jacopo … The answer is: Ortis.’
‘What?’
‘Just write O, R, T, I, S.’
‘You’re right, it fits … Now there’s four down … If I can get that, I’m almost done …’
‘Let me see … Seven letters. Killed Hector … The answer is Achilles.’
A patrol car’s tyres screeched as it sped out of the courtyard, and Bordelli managed just in time to salute the two officers inside, Rinaldi and Tapinassi, whom he knew well. A few seconds later the wail of the siren rose in the air. What could have happened? He felt more curious than an ageing auntie, and recalled the moments of emergency he used to experience until just a few months before, when, after days of total darkness, something totally unexpected would turn up …
‘Inspector … Can you hear me?’
‘Eh? Yeah, what is it?’
‘Twelve across … Talion law … Eight letters … What’s “talion” mean?’
‘Vendetta,’ said Bordelli, feeling a shudder at the back of his neck … And again he saw Panerai collapsing to the ground amid the rotting leaves, skull shattered by the shotgun blast.
‘Okay, we’re almost done,’ said the guard, staring at the grid of words.
Bordelli stayed in the guard booth until they finished the crossword puzzle, then took his leave of Mugnai with a pat on the shoulder and headed off into the cold night, fidgeting with the matches in his pocket.
‘There’s a room just for you, with a nice big bed,’ said Bordelli. He was lying on Rosa’s sofa in the half-light of her little sitting room.
‘I don’t like the country, maybe because I was born there,
’ she said, caressing Briciola. The kitten was curled up at her feet, observing the world with its damaged eye. It had grown, but not much. One could tell it would remain a small cat. Gideon, on the other hand, looked bigger every time he saw him. He was dozing atop the back of an armchair, with one eye half open, keeping the situation under surveillance.
‘Every man should have a little patch of earth,’ said Bordelli, stretching to stub out his cigarette in the ashtray.
‘Oh, we’ll all have our little patch of earth … in the cemetery.’
‘What a pleasant thought …’ Bordelli muttered, imagining his own funeral for a moment. Would many people come? Or only a few with long faces? Rosa was frantically stroking Briciola’s belly.
‘Look how fat she is, the little piglet,’ she said, rubbing her nose into the cat’s head.
‘Anyone would get fat in your hands,’ said Bordelli, pulling himself up into a sitting position. He ran a finger over Briciola’s head and got nipped for his effort. Rosa started laughing.
‘You really have a way with women …’
‘It’s not always my fault,’ Bordelli said in his own defence, thinking sadly of Eleonora. The night she was raped he’d spent the evening with Rosa getting his neck massaged … and when he entered the bedroom … Every time he thought of it he felt overwhelmed with guilt … If only he’d got home earlier that night … But maybe not, maybe it would have made no difference … But there was no point in thinking about it any more …
‘Can you tell me now what happened with your pretty brunette?’ asked Rosa, as if she’d read his mind.
‘Let’s talk about something else.’
‘C’mon, ugly, you can tell me anything.’
‘Not now, please …’
‘You’re so surly …’
‘I’m just a little tired.’
‘When you were chasing down killers you were tired, and now that you’re no longer doing anything, you’re still tired … Maybe you’re just a big old lazybones.’
‘Would you like to come and help me hoe the ground? Or maybe chop some wood?’ said Bordelli, smiling as he imagined Rosa working the land in her spiked heels.
‘That’s nothing for a big strapping man like you …’
‘It’s harder than you think.’
‘If you didn’t feel like chopping wood you could have stayed in the city. They invented coal furnaces for that. It’s called progress …’ said Rosa, who started laughing like a fool. All at once Briciola jumped off her lap and ran away as though pursued by a monster.
‘What’s wrong with her?’
‘She always does that, I think she’s a bit dotty … A little more cognac?’
‘Just a smidge, thanks,’ said Bordelli, but he let Rosa fill his little glass to the brim.
‘Chocolate?’
‘You only live once …’ said Bordelli, reaching out for the box.
Briciola was walking close to the wall, bobbing her head like a lioness and rearing up every so often as if fighting an invisible enemy. Maybe she really was crazy. Then she suddenly starting running round in circles, trying to chase her tail.
‘At any rate, not too long ago I spent days shovelling mud, don’t you remember?’ Rosa said suddenly, returning to the former subject.
‘I can already see the marble plaque … In November 1966, in these streets, Rosa Stracuzzi, championess of love, in a spirit of sacrifice and selflessness, undertook to remove several tons of mud with her own two little hands …’
‘That’s too silly for comment,’ said Rosa, laughing.
‘I meant it in all seriousness …’
‘Sometimes I can still smell the stink from the flood,’ she said, sniffing the air.
‘I think we’ll be smelling it for a while.’
‘Briciola! Leave the curtains alone!’ Rosa shot to her feet and the cat ran off and hid under the sideboard.
‘Did you know there’s a castle on the hill in front of my house? A contessa lives there,’ said Bordelli.
‘How do you know?’
‘She came and called on me.’
‘I wish I’d been born a contessa …’ Rosa said dreamily, dropping back down into the armchair.
‘Contessina Rosa …8 It has a nice ring to it.’
‘Before the war, there was the daughter of a Sicilian baroness working at the villino on the Lungarno …’9
‘Oh, really?’
‘Pretty as a picture … And probably the biggest whore of us all …’ said Rosa, chuckling.
‘And now she’s probably married to a prince.’
‘So you said the contessa came to see you?’ Rosa said, curious.
‘About fifteen years ago, in that same castle, her only son hanged himself with a curtain sash …’
‘Oh, the poor woman …’
‘She’s convinced he was murdered and wants me to find the killers.’
‘What’s this contessa’s name?’
‘Gori Roversi.’
‘No!’
‘Why? What is it?’
‘I used to have a steady client by that name …’
‘Was he called Rodolfo?’
‘That’s the one! A wonderful man. With enormous whiskers … A great nobleman. He used to bring me presents all the time.’
‘A real gentleman …’
‘In bed he was as sweet and cheeky as a child. And afterwards he would curl up beside me and tell me in a whisper about his beautiful wife and beloved son … I felt so sorry for the poor man … Briciola! That’s enough now!’
By the time he left Rosa’s building it was almost two o’clock. The dim street lamps in Via dei Neri struggled to overcome the darkness. A cold wind was blowing. Weather for wolves. There was nobody out on the street. Signs of the flood were still visible on the building façades and every so often one got a whiff of heating oil.
The front seat of the Beetle chilled his bottom. He started up the car and drove off sighing. He took the Lungarno, already knowing what he was about to do. Instead of turning on to the bridge he kept going straight, heart beating fast. He took Via Lungo l’Affrico and after the viaduct turned on to Via d’Annunzio. He pulled up outside Eleonora’s building and leaned forward to get a better look at the façade. The light was on in a second-floor window … Might it actually be Eleonora’s? What was she doing awake at that hour? Maybe she couldn’t sleep … Or was writing a letter to her boyfriend …
He did a U-turn and drove off, feeling like an idiot. He lit a cigarette, swearing it would be his last. It wasn’t the right moment yet to go looking for Eleonora. There were still a few things he had to take care of first. If he ever got up the nerve to knock on her door, he wanted to be able to tell her … At any rate, he had to wait …
Via Impruneta was deserted, the olive trees by the road visibly tossed about by violent gusts of wind. It occurred to him that Ortensia hadn’t called back. He would wait another few days, then ring her back himself. Why did she sound so upset over the phone? He was very curious to find out, as curious as he was to discover whether or not the contessa was just a poor distraught mother who’d lost her mind. Or perhaps curiosity wasn’t the right word. At this point he felt there was no turning back. He might come up empty handed, but he knew he had no choice but to get to the bottom of things … And again he wondered why. Maybe he was just ageing poorly.
Passing by the dirt road that led to Dante’s farmhouse he was tempted to go and impose on him. Undoubtedly he would still be awake. Bordelli slowed down, but then changed his mind and continued straight ahead. He was too tired.
He drove through the town, and as he was going down the trail that led to his house, he again saw a hare in the middle of the road. He recognised it as the same one as before. There was no doubt about it. It had survived the hunters for another day. He waited for it to vanish into the darkness, then proceeded on towards home. The wind was gusting stronger and stronger, and the tops of the cypresses undulated like flames.
It was less cold up
stairs. He heard a shutter slam and went and closed it. Shovelling a little ash out of the stove, he refilled it with wood with the ease of habit. He could never now give up this sense of peace, the way his thoughts could wander freely through the vast palace of memory. The cries of the animals outside, the creaky old furniture, the boughs of the trees rustling in the wind, only deepened the silence.
He went down to the kitchen to get a bottle of water for the night. He couldn’t sleep without having water within reach. Sometimes he would wake up in the middle of the night with his throat parched and guzzle half the bottle.
He got into bed and started reading Lermontov. For a while now he’d been noticing that the letters on the page were slightly out of focus, and he had to hold the book farther away to read it. It was probably time to get some glasses, goddam it all. It was a thrilling story, and he didn’t put the book down until he realised he’d been rereading the same line without understanding. It was past four o’clock. He turned off the light and buried his face in the pillow. When he was a child his final thoughts before drifting off to sleep were always confused and tumultuous; memories of the day just past would blend into fantasies of adventure. At times he would have trouble falling asleep, thinking he could see the silhouette of a werewolf or witch coming towards him out of the shadows. At other times as he was drifting off he would imagine himself as a giant as tall as a mountain and would lie down on top of the sky and gaze down upon Florence from above. He would curl up under the covers and lose himself in these adventures, seeing everything that happened in the streets, and he could intervene as he pleased. If a woman was assailed by a thief, his giant fingers would pop out of the clouds and carry the villain away. Or if he saw a man fall out of a top-storey window he would hold out his palm and catch him before he hit the ground. Other times he would put out a fire by sticking one finger in the Arno and letting it drip huge drops of water on to the blaze …
