Gold, Frankincense and Dust

by Valerio Varesi

  “You mean he made the whole journey as a dead man? No-one realised …”

  “Worse than that. The coach travelled through the night and they were probably all asleep. But he’s shut his eyes for good.”

  “And when they woke up, no-one stopped the coach?”

  “No they didn’t. No-one noticed a thing. Maybe they thought he was still resting. They were mainly childminders and carers, and when they all got off, the driver went back into his cabin to turn the bus round, without paying any attention to the old man. He says he didn’t see him. I can understand that, after driving through the night.”

  “So, who did find him?”

  “The passengers setting off for Romania this morning.”

  “In other words, a whole day went by and he was left on the bus parked in the station?”

  “Exactly so. This morning, a woman couldn’t find a seat, so the driver did a count and found he had one extra passenger. It was the old man. He was siting in the corner at the back. You know the place where the kids like to sit on a school outing? Well, they gave him a shake, but he was already rigid.”

  “Another surprise. O.K., I’ll be there right away. In the meantime, call the police doctor.”

  “Commissario, there’s no need for you to come. I’m here already. It looks to me like a case which’ll be solved in an hour at the most.”

  “No, I’d be as well to come along.”

  He got up and dressed hurriedly. As he was going out, Angela asked what had happened.

  “I’ll have another chapter in this rum tale to tell you this evening.”

  At the bus station, which the people in Parma familiarly call the Pensilina, the crowd of Romanians hoping to get away were crammed together in the waiting room. It was a huge coach with a trailer for suitcases attached. The stages of the journey and a large blue globe had been painted on the side.

  “They’re nearly finished, commissario,” Juvara announced as the ambulance men tried to manoeuvre a steel stretcher with the corpse out of the coach. The police doctor got off after them. “I’m pretty sure it was a heart attack,” he said to Soneri.

  “Did he have any luggage?” Soneri wanted to know, showing little interest in the cause of death.

  Juvara, the doctor and the other officers looked around in embarrassment, trying to come up with an answer.

  “Check up, would you? Do we know his name?”

  This time the inspector was able to step forward confidently. “He was called Igor Dondescu. He had a three-month visa.”

  “Get in touch with Interpol. Let’s see if they can come up with anything.”

  Juvara looked puzzled. He could not understand why Soneri was showing such interest in the case.

  “I want to know where he was born, what work he did, who his relatives were.” He himself was a bit surprised at his own zeal, especially when he noticed the puzzled expressions of Juvara and the other officers. He was not sure why he was dedicating so much attention to the story of an old man from so far off, but the incident was having the same effect on him as a bullet delivered in an envelope.

  Meanwhile, another policeman came up to him with a worn, shabby bag in imitation leather. “It seems it belonged to the dead man. It was under the seat.”

  Soneri took it. It was old and threadbare and the handles were coming off. It looked the very picture of poverty, and in it he recognised the hardship borne with dignity which had been such a feature of his childhood years. As he was examining it, a group of Romanians gathered menacingly around him.

  “You let us go?” demanded a fair-haired, generously built woman.

  The officer who had found the bag signalled to her to calm down, but the woman, backed by another dozen travellers, stood her ground and glowered grimly at those around her.

  “That man dead, no? What you want? Once dead, dead,” shouted someone else.

  The commissario looked at them wearily, and detected in them all the empty swagger of life. A gratifying impetus of physical fullness was urging them to relish the moment. They were in a hurry to get back, to find themselves again, to eat, make love and sleep in the house where they had been born. These were all too human aspirations, and every lost moment could never be recovered. On the instant, he felt himself incapable of resisting that multitude of instincts.

  “Alright, if the magistrate agrees, let them go,” he decided, holding the bag in his hand. He turned away without saying goodbye to anyone and got into his Alfa thinking that it was somehow inhuman to die on a bus, ignored by everyone and forgotten on a seat.

  *

  “What a business!” exclaimed Juvara when they got back to the office. “Dying like a rat in a corner.”

  “The poor have too many problems to be upset by death and the rich are too afraid to face it.”

  The inspector chewed over those words, and then muttered something incomprehensible. Soneri picked up the bag, rose from his seat and emptied its contents over his desk. Juvara came over to have a look. The first thing he saw was the wallet, made of cloth and squashed into the curved form of a buttock. They opened it. Inside there were some twenty euros and a few other coins, as well as some cards, receipts, a one-way bus ticket and the identity cards of two very similar, blond-haired, bright-eyed girls. In spite of the poor quality photographs, possibly shot in a booth in a passport office, they both looked very beautiful.

  Soneri turned them over in his hand for some time, trying to find the best angle of light. He then put them into an envelope which he handed to Juvara. “Get them to do some enlargements and have a few copies printed. I’d like to know who they are. Try and find out if there are any Dondescus among the Romanians in Italy.”

  Once Juvara had left, the commissario picked up the telephone and asked to speak to Nanetti. “You’re back from Cortile San Martino,” he said with no preamble.

  “Another morning in the damp,” his colleague complained.

  “Any news?”

  “Sorry. None at all. They must have used petrol judging by the state of the body. However, I think we can say it was a woman.”

  “That’s something. How did you work it out?”

  “Soneri … O.K., it was all burned up, but unless the fire was especially ferocious there … I mean there were some remains.”

  “What does that mean? I’ve known some terrible mistakes made with suppositions like that.”

  “We’ll find out after the D.N.A. tests, alright? But that’ll take some time. Anyway, I know it was a woman from other details.”

  “Well, out with it!”

  “If I didn’t know you well, I’d tell you to go and … Anyway, listen, the only thing that survived the fire was a half label.”

  “And it was from a female garment,” the commissario interrupted.

  “Exactly.”

  “How was it saved?”

  “Ah, Soneri! It was a label from her knickers, and it’d got stuck between her buttocks. The fire only singed it. And I can tell you we’re talking about lingerie, very expensive,” he added with a touch of malice.

  “That’s the maniac in you coming out,” the commissario teased him.

  “What do you mean, maniac? Look, knickers say more about a woman than any other item of clothing, just you remember that. They’re not called foundation garments for nothing.”

  Nanetti’s extempore reflections always left Soneri bemused. They were born of repeated, obsessive observations of everything.

  “You’re right,” Soneri admitted. Looking at his watch, he said, “To make it up to you, let me invite you to the Milord.”

  *

  Nanetti took his seat slowly, with a grimace of pain. “Please, no mushrooms, eh? They’d remind me of the dampness outside.”

  “Take your medicine,” Soneri said, pouring a glass of Gutturnio. “So, tell me all about these knickers.”

  “There’s not much to tell. Luxury items, as I said. Deduce from that what you like.”

  “Someone who was well off, in ot
her words.”

  “Well off … In my view, a woman who can afford to pay two hundred euros for a matching bra and briefs set is not doing too badly for herself.”

  “How do you manage to keep so well informed about female underwear?”

  “What do you want me to say? I keep up to date. My marriage might have collapsed, but I didn’t turn into a monk.”

  Alceste, notebook in hand, interrupted them. “Tortelli a patate and a little tripe,” Soneri ordered.

  “Monkfish,” Nanetti sniggered, looking challengingly at the commissario with his last remark in mind.

  “In that case, can I recommend a restaurant in Ravenna?” Alceste said, a little piqued.

  “No, listen. It was a private joke,” he said, winking at Soneri. “Give me the same as the maestro seated in front of me.”

  “You’re right,” Soneri said, in a more serious tone. “She couldn’t have been short of cash. However, this makes it all more complicated.”

  “I agree. Circles of grandees, powerful, well-connected people … Just from looking at her, she could have been a well preserved forty-year old, or else a twenty-year old bimbo making a pitch for an ageing businessman. There’s no question it would have been better if she’d got her knickers from Upim.”

  “Well, who knows? She could equally have been some poor soul who thought she’d been handed a life-changing opportunity and had splashed out on a smart outfit. Or else a prostitute. This line of work has taught me never to take anything for granted.”

  “What about the old man found dead on the coach?”

  “Funny business,” was all Soneri would say.

  “It’s really gnawing away at you, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but only the bits I don’t understand, which is to say nearly all of it. What do you make of it? Why should an old guy get on a bus in Romania and set off for Italy with only twenty euros, a bag full of odds and ends and the photographs of two girls?”

  “Search me! He must’ve had someone here.”

  “That’s the most logical explanation, but the point is – who?”

  A couple at the table next to them got to their feet, leaving their meal half-finished. They were still arguing under their breath as they made for the door.

  Alceste arrived with two steaming plates. “These’ll warm your bones,” Soneri guaranteed Nanetti, nodding at the tortelli.

  “I hope so. My poor bones feel like savoiardi biscuits in mascarpone.”

  They began eating in silence, but halfway through the meal they became aware of a distinguished-looking gentleman with fine features who, with absolute naturalness, took a seat at the table which had been occupied by the young couple. He sat where the woman had been and absorbed himself in the financial pages, poring over the figures dealing with stocks and shares. Soneri went on eating, but kept his eye on him. After a few moments, the man turned his attention to the remains of a roast which the woman had scarcely touched. The commissario and Nanetti exchanged knowing looks, but the stranger was completely at his ease, behaving like a normal customer. His gestures, his behaviour and his relaxed way of sitting at the table gave him an aristocratic air. He poured the leftover wine into his glass, rolling it around and sniffing it like a connoisseur. Then he continued eating with some appetite, but always with an appearance of detached ennui.

  “They’d have thrown it all out,” Nanetti said in a whisper.

  Soneri said nothing but went on peering at the man in some perplexity.

  “There you go again. Now you’re starting to brood. I’d be as well having a sandwich at the bar and staring at the wall. Let’s at least talk about this burned corpse,” Nanetti said.

  “That’s exactly what I’m thinking about,” Soneri muttered, turning to look once more at the man beside them.

  “Alright, alright.” Nanetti dropped the subject.

  “I was thinking,” Soneri started up again, “there could be some resemblance, some connection between the woman consumed by the flames and this man here,” he said, referring to the man with the newspaper.

  “Well …” Nanetti said with some scepticism.

  “I mean, someone who turns up looking well off and in a position of authority so as to conceal what he really is.”

  “He’s hardly concealing anything.”

  “Yes he is, from most people here. Remember we’re nearest to him and policemen into the bargain. He had a one-in-a-million chance of bumping into two men like us. And as to being in authority, I haven’t the slightest doubt. He looks like a businessman.”

  “A good actor. But authority … what authority can the burned-out stump of a human being command?”

  “The dead are always in authority. They belong to a world which terrifies us and that in itself inspires respect.”

  Nanetti stopped to think this over. Meanwhile the man at the table alongside them had finished the roast and was about to move on to the grilled vegetables which were lying untouched on a side plate. He shot a glance from time to time at the steak left more or less intact by the male companion of the woman whose place he had taken, but he did not touch it.

  Nanetti had to make an effort to keep himself from laughing at the commissario’s almost morbid curiosity. “What would you be like if it was a good-looking woman?”

  Soneri gave him a brief look of apology, before turning his attention back to the man, who returned his glance with a smile. “Did you see the woman who was sitting here?” he asked, with complete naturalness.

  The commissario nodded in surprise. He was caught off guard, as though he had been gazing too intently at a woman’s cleavage.

  “Would you not kiss her?” the other man continued amiably.

  “Yes, perhaps.”

  “For me, it is as if I were kissing her.”

  Soneri shook his head while Nanetti looked on in amusement. “I don’t understand.”

  “Regrettably, eating with her fork and drinking from her glass are not really such intimate gestures,” the man sighed.

  “It’d be better to have her tongue in your mouth,” Nanetti let slip.

  The commissario stared at him, reproaching him for what he considered unjustifiable vulgarity, but the stranger did not lose his composure. He arranged his lips into the smile required by etiquette, and went on: “If you examine the question from the point of view of hygiene, a kiss is infinitely more compromising. In any case, I would never touch a man’s plate,” he said, pointing at the steak opposite him.

  Soneri considered the conversation a surreal postscript to the surreal events he had witnessed the previous evening. Or perhaps he was seeing things in a wholly new way. Still reeling and disconcerted, he noted that the man’s jacket had fraying hems and that his newspaper was a day old.

  “I can say I dine like a king and savour sniffing the perfume left by ladies on napkins. It’s almost like making love. At least I lunch and dine in their company. The rest can be left to the imagination. One can indulge in fantasy, but that’s exactly why the experience is so satisfying. Sex is a function of the brain.”

  Neither Nanetti nor Soneri spoke a word as they rose from the table, but the strange man gave a gentle wave of the hand which spoke of a natural nobility of bearing.

  “You might’ve offered him a dessert,” Nanetti said as they went to the cash desk. The commissario still did not speak.

  Alceste always wanted reassurance that he had pleased his clients. “Everything alright?”

  “More than alright,” Nanetti smiled. “And there was some entertainment thrown in.”

  Alceste’s expression darkened, and he looked down. “I know. I should show him the door, but I feel sorry for him.”

  “Let him be. I don’t care how he looks, but I am curious about him.”

  “He’s an old marchese fallen on hard times. He was born into money, but he squandered it all. He used to have three palaces in the city, but they swindled him out of the lot because his head’s in the clouds.”

  Nanetti stretched out
his arms as if to say it happens all the time.

  Alceste went on. “They call him Sbarazza. He goes from restaurant to restaurant, but I think he’s happier here than anywhere else. I used to offer him a lunch through there, in the kitchen, but he declined anything that smacks of charity. That’s the way he is. He wants to keep up the appearance of being master of his own world. Not many people are aware he eats leftovers. He does have class. He sits there and gives the impression of having always been there. He finishes off what others leave behind, but he’ll only eat from women’s plates. First he observes them, then takes their place. It doesn’t bother me, but some of my colleagues can’t stand that kind of behaviour. They can’t bear him eating dishes others have paid for. They’d prefer to throw it out, but I could feed half the city with what’s left uneaten. Nobody wants it, not even for their dogs.”

  Soneri and Nanetti stood listening to Alceste in amazement. When they went out, they walked in silence because there was nothing to say. A sort of burning inner wound tormented them, but without their being able to identify it precisely.

  “What a story! Seems unbelievable,” Nanetti said finally.

  The commissario shook his head. “No, it’s just that poverty causes scandal and hides itself away.”

  4

  BY THE TIME Soneri was walking across the yard at the police station, the afternoon was rapidly dying. Gusts of mist were burying the fading day and the neon lights from the offices announced the onset of darkness.

  “Did you find anything in the missing persons register?” he asked Juvara.

  “No. The usual names, the ones we already know. I also checked recent crime reports, but I found nothing. I’m afraid we’re dealing with an illegal immigrant.”

  “There’s a surprise!” The thought had been preying on Soneri’s mind. Someone dies miles from home, no-one knows where she is and no register with information on her can be found. At least the old man on the coach had a scrap of paper in the form of a visa. That thought unleashed a torrent of associations. The image of the bus leaving the Pensilina passed through his mind. The dead man on it came from Romania and there had been Romanian travelling people in the encampment next to the dump at Cortile San Martino. The burned body could have been an illegal immigrant too.