by Marco Vichi
‘I’m sorry, I must’ve dialled the wrong number.’
‘Who were you trying to call?’
‘Forensic Medicine …’
‘Oh, who would you like to talk to?’
‘I was looking for Dr Diotivede.’
‘Please wait just a minute and I’ll see if the doctor can come to the phone,’ said the lad. Bordelli was dumbfounded. Through the receiver he heard some footsteps walking away, then after a long silence some more steps approaching.
‘Yes?’ It was Diotivede.
‘Since when do you have a secretary?’ Bordelli asked.
‘He doesn’t cost much, I just feed him the leftovers from the post-mortems.’
‘He must be the happiest man in the world.’
‘I hope this isn’t one of your useless calls.’ The doctor sighed.
‘I wanted to know if you felt like having lunch with me.’
‘Are you feeling lonely?’
‘Well, there’s a big fat bluebottle in here, keeping me company, but it doesn’t talk much.’
‘I’ll be free in about half an hour.’
‘I’ll be waiting patiently.’
‘All right, then, see you in a bit,’ said Diotivede, hanging up.
The inspector rose slowly, said goodbye to the fly, and went down to the courtyard. It was starting to rain. Driving out in the Beetle, he waved to Mugnai, then saw him get out of the guard booth, gesticulating. He rolled down a window.
‘What is it?’
‘Inspector, could you do me a really big favour, sir?’
‘What?’
‘Could you buy me the Settimana Enigmistica?’ he said, putting a hundred-lira piece in the inspector’s hand.
‘Tell me something, Mugnai. Have you ever managed to complete one of their crossword puzzles?’
‘I certainly have, sir …’ said Mugnai, seeming hurt.
Bordelli slapped him on the belly and left, the windscreen wipers screeching against the glass. The viali were packed with cars, most of them driven by mothers on their way to pick up their children at school. The pavements were a confusion of umbrellas. He stopped at the kiosk in Piazza della Libertà to buy La Nazione and the Settimana Enigmistica for Mugnai.
When he got to Viale Pieraccini it was raining buckets. It was really an October to forget. Parking at the bottom of the staircase to the Forensic Medicine Institute, he killed some time skimming the newspaper.
At last Diotivede appeared under a large black umbrella. He came down the stairs, spry as a young lad, and got into the Beetle.
‘Who was the kid who answered the phone?’ asked Bordelli as they drove away.
‘A resurrected corpse.’
‘You could have invited him too.’
‘I decided to let him work. He’s a young graduate who wants to specialise in the art of the post-mortem.’
‘His mum must be so happy.’
‘That’s enough of this silliness. It’s a wonderful profession,’ Diotivede said in all seriousness.
‘A gravedigger once told me the same thing,’ Bordelli said, laughing. He wanted to laugh a little, to dispel the tension of waiting. The doctor heaved a long, provocative sigh but ignored the challenge.
‘Where shall we go to eat?’ Bordelli asked.
‘Feel like going to Armando’s?’
‘Armando’s it is.’
‘On Thursdays they have baccalà.’
‘You don’t seem like the baccalà type to me.’
‘I found some in a dead man’s stomach the other day and felt like having some,’ said Diotivede.
‘You could have eaten his, while you were at it,’ said the inspector.
‘Still nothing on the boy?’ the doctor asked, changing the subject.
‘Not yet.’
‘Sons of bitches …’ Diotivede said under his breath.
The inspector was astonished. He’d never heard him talk that way before. They both fell silent. It was still raining, and there were a great many cars on the road.
They arrived in San Lorenzo. The Trattoria da Armando had few tables, and they were all taken. All men, except for two American women. Diotivede and Bordelli had to wait for fifteen minutes in front of the counter, continually changing position to let the waiters pass. People were talking loudly, mostly about hunting, mushrooms and football.
At last a table became available, and they sat down. They ordered baccalà alla livornese and a litre of wine.
‘Have you ever gone walking through the woods outside of town?’ Bordelli asked.
‘I always have and still do,’ said Diotivede.
‘Ah, I didn’t know …’
‘When did you last pee?’
‘This morning at the station … Why?’
‘Ah, I didn’t know,’ the doctor said with a cold smile.
‘Well, now you know and can sleep easy,’ said Bordelli, filling the glasses. He wanted to enjoy his lunch and not think about going back to the office to wait for news that might never come. Diotivede decisively changed the subject.
‘I’m engaged to be married,’ he said, point blank. Bordelli stopped chewing.
‘Are you serious? Since when?’ He was truly astonished. The doctor normally never opened up like this.
‘Aren’t you going to ask me how old she is?’ asked Diotivede, a sparkle in his eye.
‘How old is she?’
‘Forty-two, but she looks thirty-five.’
‘Then be careful, she must be mad.’
‘Brilliant people are always considered mad.’
‘Did you tell her you spend your life in the company of corpses?’
‘That was the very reason we fell in love,’ said Diotivede with another icy smile.
‘What’s her name?’
‘Marianna.’
‘You must introduce me to her,’ said Bordelli.
‘Better not. I say this for your sake.’
‘In what sense?’
‘You might die of envy.’
‘Is she really so beautiful?’
‘She’s gorgeous,’ said Diotivede, taking a long swig of wine.
‘Are you sure she’s in her right mind?’ Bordelli asked, trying to provoke him.
‘Absolutely. She told me she hates police inspectors.’
‘Well, she hasn’t met me yet.’
‘I’d rather she didn’t know I keep bad company.’
‘I get it, you’re the jealous type,’ said the inspector, feeling a genuine twinge of envy.
‘Look who’s talking. It’s been twenty years and I’ve never known a single one of your girlfriends.’
‘I never quite get to know them myself, as far as that goes.’
‘Maybe you should change your brand of aftershave,’ said Diotivede, lustily chewing a mouthful of baccalà.
When Bordelli pulled back into the courtyard of the police station, it was past 3.30 and drizzling. Mugnai ran up to him with an umbrella.
‘Inspector, Piras has been looking for you for the past hour.’
‘Here you go,’ said Bordelli, handing him the Settimana Enigmistica.
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Where’s Piras?’
‘I think he’s in the radio room,’ said Mugnai, scanning the cover of the Settimana.
Bordelli went at once to the radio room, and Piras came towards him with his hands in the air.
‘Shit, Inspector …’
‘What is it?’
‘After lunch Panerai left his flat an hour earlier than usual, and they followed him as far as Piazza Alberti, but then they lost him.’
‘It happens,’ said Bordelli, suppressing a curse.
‘They’re searching every street in the area for him, but still haven’t found him.’
‘Just keep looking.’
‘I’m staying here, sir. I’ll let you know as soon as they pick up his trail again.’
‘What time does the butcher’s shop reopen?’
‘At four.’
&nb
sp; ‘I’m going upstairs.’
The moment he entered his office he heard a moribund buzzing over his head and realised that the fly didn’t have much time left. He flopped into his chair with a cigarette in his mouth and a song by Little Tony in his head, which he hummed from time to time.
It was a long, boring afternoon. Only one new development: the big black fly decided to die right on his desk, beside the Giacomo Pellissari file. Bordelli picked it up by a wing and dumped it in the wastepaper basket.
At eight he went and had a bite to eat in Totò’s kitchen, and as soon as he came out he felt the need to be coddled by Rosa. Actually, it hadn’t really been just ‘a bite to eat’. He’d gorged himself on pasta and meat and had knocked back nearly an entire one-litre flask of wine. Not that he felt drunk or anything. He could always hold his alcohol. At the end of the war he had even happened to seize a railway car full of cognac headed to Germany. He would drink whole cupfuls and at the most would feel a light sense of euphoria. But tonight he really had eaten too much, and a little stroll would do him some good. He drove the car home and left it there, then headed for Via dei Neri, an unlit cigarette in his mouth and a rainproof hat rolled up in his pocket. The sky was covered with threatening clouds, but at the moment it wasn’t raining.
When he was a little kid those streets were full of carriages, bicycles and a few rare cars, but most people wore out their shoes on the pavement. Everything was different now. There were more and more cars and motorbikes, driven by younger and younger kids. Many of them dressed bizarrely, rather differently from the young people of his day, who by the age of twenty were already fully adult and by forty on the verge of old age. Nowadays it seemed as if the young didn’t ever want to grow up, and Bordelli liked this. He felt as if he was absorbing some of this youth, at least until he saw his reflection in a shop window.
An Alfa Romeo Spider overtook him on the Lungarno, wildly honking its horn, and he just managed to glimpse behind the windows the blonde hair of a couple of girls … Unless they were long-haired boys. There were more and more of them about these days. He’d even sighted five in a single day once. And he would often misidentify them. He would see long hair, turn round to look at the woman and find instead a man with a beard. It upset him every time.
Crossing the Ponte alle Grazie he noticed that the Arno was swelling and slowed down, fascinated by that mass of dark water sliding silently through the city, cutting it in two.
A moment later he rang Rosa’s buzzer and waited a good minute before the front door opened. He climbed the stairs slowly. He was mildly surprised not to find Rosa waiting for him on the landing. The door was ajar, and he slipped inside. Rosa was in the sitting room feeding the half-blind kitten some milk through a syringe without the needle, as Gideon observed the scene from his perch on the sideboard.
‘Look how cute she is … She eats like an ox. By now she’s out of danger,’ said Rosa.
‘I hardly recognise her,’ said Bordelli, sitting down on the sofa. Indeed, the kitten had gained weight and her fur looked shiny. She was digging her claws into the syringe as though afraid it might be taken away. She seemed full of energy.
‘If you want something to drink, help yourself.’
‘Perhaps a bit later …’
‘You have no idea what I had to do the first day to make her poo.’
‘Can’t they do it all by themselves?’
‘Not when they’re this little. And if they don’t poo, their intestine gets blocked and that’s the end of them. I had to rub her bottom with cotton, the way the mama kitty does with her tongue. I was at it for a good fifteen minutes. Finally this little thing as hard as a rock came out … and I cried for joy.’
‘You’re such a good little mum,’ Bordelli commented.
‘Wasn’t that yummy?’ Rosa said to the kitten, kissing it on the head and setting it down on the carpet. Gideon jumped down from the sideboard, ready to square off. The kitten ran towards him and jumped on him, trying to bite his nose. Despite the bad eye, she seemed to see quite well. Gideon flopped down on the floor and started swiping at her with his paws as though toying with a mouse.
‘They’ve already made friends,’ said Rosa, touched. Even after ten years of brothels she could still blush and feel moved like a schoolgirl.
The cats carried on playing. Briciola would attack Gideon, who then defended himself. Suddenly the kitten stopped wrestling, took a couple of little steps back and forth, then collapsed on the carpet.
‘Is she unwell?’ the inspector asked, alarmed.
‘No, no, she always does that. She’ll play and play and then suddenly fall asleep.’
‘I wish I could do that.’
He looked at Briciola, thinking that if he hadn’t passed by those brambles, she would have suffered the same fate as her little brothers and sisters. It was chance, or fate, that saved her. And he hoped that chance or fate might deign to lend him a hand in his investigation as well.
‘Would you like a little grappa?’ asked Rosa, rescuing him from his thoughts.
‘You’re a sweetheart … I’ve also got this pain in my neck …’ Bordelli said, in all seriousness. Rosa went up to him and wrinkled her nose at him the way one does to children.
‘You chase after every skirt you see, but you’ll never find someone to spoil you like your Rosina, not in a million years,’ she tittered. She picked the kitten up from the floor, and without waking her put her in a little box with an old sweater inside.
‘She sleeps like a rock, the little thing.’
She filled two small glasses with grappa, took off her purple stilettos, had Bordelli lie down and then straddled his bottom. She started massaging his neck with soft but decisive movements, laughing as he moaned with pleasure. But it wasn’t just pleasure he felt. Rosa’s little massages also had the power to empty his mind and suspend his judgement of the world, a rather relaxing thing.
‘I must admit you really know how to use your hands,’ he managed to say between groans.
‘If you only knew how many overgrown little boys I’ve massaged while they complained about their bitchy wives and witchy mothers-in-law …’
‘I am not an overgrown little boy,’ he grumbled.
‘You’re the most childish of them all,’ she laughed, massaging harder.
‘At any rate, I haven’t got any wives or mothers-in-law …’
Hearing the roar of the violent, driving rain outside, Bordelli remembered he’d come on foot.
‘You’re going to have to lend me an umbrella; I walked here.’
‘You walked here?’ Rosa asked in surprise.
‘It’s a pretty easy walk.’
‘Why don’t you sleep here tonight? Just listen to the weather outside …’
‘It’s not the end of the world if I get a little wet. I can take a nice hot shower when I get home.’
‘Well, I’ve got all the umbrellas you want,’ said Rosa, a little disappointed. But luckily she didn’t stop massaging him.
‘Why don’t you tell me some old story about your family?’ Bordelli mumbled. He loved listening to Rosa reminisce about times gone by. She was a good storyteller, and she liked doing it almost as much as she liked shopping for shoes and provocative little dresses.
‘Have I ever told you about the time Zia Asmara fell in love with the parish priest?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Bordelli lied, happy to relive yet again the travails of Zia Asmara, painful to the one who had lived them but most amusing to listen to.
‘Zia Asmara was my mother’s little sister. At twenty she was the prettiest girl in Cerbaia, and all the men in the area would have given their right hands for her. Not just boys, old men, too. But she fell in love with a young village priest who’d just arrived from Bologna, and she used to go to all the masses, at all the different times of day, just to see him …’
After two hours of torrential downpour only an insistent drizzle remained, as streams of dirty water flowed down the pavements. It
was well past midnight. Aside from the occasional passing car, there was nobody about. Bordelli hugged the walls of the buildings as he walked, huddling under the small pink umbrella Rosa had lent him. He’d nearly fallen asleep in her miracle-working hands, and had to yank himself violently out of that limbo.
He passed under the Uffizi arcade, just to avoid returning by the same route he had come by. His feet were cold and wet. Leaving the Ponte Vecchio to his left, he continued along the Lungarno. The rainfall was letting up by the minute, but he still needed the umbrella. Without stopping, he cast a glance over the parapet. The Arno was more swollen than ever, heaving in great muddy splashes and flowing fast with a dark murmuring sound. It would not have been much fun to fall in just then. When he got to the corner of Via de’ Tornabuoni, the rain suddenly stopped, and he closed the absurd umbrella with a sense of relief. The moon was smothered by a thick mattress of clouds, looking like a torch trying to make its way through the fog.
Crossing the Ponte Santa Trinità, he noticed some youths on Vespas and Lambrettas proceeding slowly alongside the Via Maggio pavement across the river, gesticulating at a man who was walking peacefully along. Then they put their scooters up on their kickstands, got off and surrounded the man. Bordelli quickened his pace, and as he approached he heard the youths’ mocking voices. There were five of them, all about twenty years old.
‘Homo …’ one of them yelled, running his hand over his crotch. ‘You wish, eh?’
‘Pan-sy, pan-sy, pan-sy,’ chanted another.
‘When d’ya last take it up the arse, eh?’
‘Tomorrow,’ answered another, guffawing.
‘So you like little kids, do you? Pervert!’ said the one who seemed like the ringleader, and he dealt the man a slap that resounded in the quiet street. At that point the other four started slapping him around as well, and the poor man fell to the ground. The insults grew more violent, and they started kicking him in the face. The youths didn’t even notice the burly man approaching at a quick pace.
‘Hey, bed-wetters …’ said Bordelli, drawing up behind them. They all turned round at once, all with the same surprised sneer on their faces.
‘Ah, what a pretty little umbrella,’ said the ringleader.
