A Walk in the Dark gg-2

by Gianrico Carofiglio

  Both Alessandra and I again objected to their being admitted and to Genchi’s testimony being heard. Caldarola delivered his verbal ruling in his usual monotonous voice, in which there were now hints of malice and threat. The judge, having heard the requests from both parties regarding admission of evidence; having noted that all the evidence requested is admissible and relevant to the case; having noted in particular that the admission as evidence of the plaintiff’s medical and psychiatric records and the hearing of testimony from a psychiatric specialist, as requested by counsel for the defence, are both relevant, with the purpose (as expressly allowed in Article 196 of the Code of Criminal Procedure) of evaluating the statements of the said plaintiff and ascertaining her physical and mental fitness to testify in court; having also noted that the behaviour of the plaintiff’s attorney Avvocato Guerrieri at today’s hearing does not seem exempt from disciplinary censure and must therefore be submitted to assessment by the appropriate authorities; for these reasons: all the evidence requested by the parties is admitted; the beginning of the trial is set for 15 January 2002; a copy of the record of today’s hearing should be sent to the sitting public prosecutor and the Bar Council of Bari so that they may assess, according to their respective expertise, whether there exist grounds for disciplinary action to be taken against Avvocato Guido Guerrieri, member of the Bar Association of Bari.

  “You screwed up,” Alessandra whispered as we were leaving the courtroom.

  “I know.”

  I searched for something to add, but couldn’t find anything. Delissanti was behind us, with his people. They were passing comment, and even though I couldn’t make out the words, there was no doubt about the tone. Smug.

  I said goodbye to Alessandra and started walking faster, because I didn’t want to hear them. Anyone watching the scene, and having seen what had happened before, would have thought I was running away.

  Sister Claudia, who had been in court the whole time, suddenly appeared by my side, without my noticing where she had come from.

  She walked out with me, without asking me any questions. He didn’t hurt me that time. When it was over he told me it was a secret between him and me. I mustn’t tell anyone. If I told anyone, bad things would happen. There was a puppy in the yard. He was a little white mongrel and I’d called him Snoopy. He slept in a box and I used to take him our leftovers to eat, and sometimes a little milk diluted with water. I said he was my dog, even though I knew perfectly well they’d never allow me to take him upstairs to our apartment. He said if I told anyone our secret, the puppy would die. I went back down to the yard, told the other kids I didn’t feel like playing any more, and went and hugged Snoopy. It was only then that I started crying. Of the times after that one, I don’t have such a clear memory. They’re all mixed up together. Always in that room, with the unmade bed, the stink of cigarettes. The other smells. The empty beer bottles on the bedside table, or overturned on the floor. The sounds he made as he was… finishing. The fear that my little sister, who was often in the next room, would come in and see us. More than a year had passed – I remember it well because I was in my first year of high school – when he told me I was getting big, and there were things – other things – I ought to know, and that he ought to teach me. It was a rainy afternoon, and my mother was out. She was still working in the afternoons, when she could, because he was still unemployed and we couldn’t make ends meet otherwise. That time he hurt me. He hurt me a lot. And the pain stayed with me for days. After he’d finished, he told me I was a woman now. As he said it he pinched my cheek, between his index and middle fingers. Like a gesture of tenderness. At that moment, for the first time, it came into my mind that I wanted him to die.

  21

  Going to the supermarket relaxes me. It’s always been like that, ever since I was a child and my mother and I used to go to the Standa on the Corso Vittorio Emmanuele, go down to the basement, take a trolley, and do the shopping.

  I remembered the pleasant sense of cold you felt as you went down the last flight of stairs and walked in between the refrigerated aisles, surrounded by the smell of uncooked meats. The meat in those refrigerated aisles, the vegetables, the cheeses, the plastic: all came together in a single, complex, rather aseptic smell, which for me was the “smell of the Standa”. There weren’t so many supermarkets at that time, and going to the Standa was a bit like going to the funfair in the Fiera del Levante, which was in September, just before the school term started.

  At the Standa supermarket there were some products you couldn’t find elsewhere. For example, certain vaguely exotic-looking cheeses in tubs, the names of which I can’t remember. The taste, though, I remember well: they tasted of ham, a kind of rustic taste, much more intense than those little triangles I was used to eating, which didn’t taste of anything. There were French biscuits that were like little pastries. They were a luxury item, and you couldn’t eat them like ordinary biscuits, with milk, for example. And there were so many other things we loaded in the trolley that I always wanted to push it, things that now fill my memory, in the grainy, nostalgic colours of a Super-8 home movie.

  I thought then that all kids my age liked going to the supermarket.

  I still do. There are afternoons when I can’t stand it any more – the clients, the papers, the office, the phone calls to my colleagues – and I feel that I need to get out, to go to a bookshop, or a supermarket. Most of the time it passes, that desire to get out, because there are other clients, other papers, other pain-in-thearse colleagues to talk to on the phone. Sometimes, though, when I really can’t take it any more, I go out. And sometimes I take the car, and drive off for an hour, or even two, to one of those huge hypermarkets on the outskirts of the city.

  It gives me a sense of freedom to walk around in the afternoon between the aisles with a trolley and buy the most useless things, the most unlikely foods, books with twenty per cent discount, electronic articles – which I then never use – on special offer. By the time I get back to the office I feel better: not exactly raring to get down to work, but definitely better.

  So that afternoon I was in my favourite supermarket. A vast hangar bang in the middle of one of the most rundown areas on the edge of town. An almost unreal place.

  I was in the ethnic food aisle, stocking up with Mexican tacos, basmati rice, cans of Thai noodle soup, when, from my jacket pocket, I heard the first rising notes of “Oh Susannah”, the latest unlikely ringtone I’d chosen to personalize my mobile phone. I didn’t recognize the number.

  “Hello?”

  “Guido Guerrieri?” A woman’s voice.

  “Who is it?”

  “Claudia.”

  I was about to say Claudia who? Then I recognized her.

  “Oh, hi,” I said, and then immediately remembered we were usually more formal with each other. Why I’d suddenly said hi I don’t know. There was a moment’s silence.

  “… hi.”

  I felt embarrassed. I didn’t know what to say next. By saying hi, I’d already made things less formal. Sometimes I think I’m socially inadequate: precisely the kind of person who, when they meet someone in the street and they’re not sure how to address them, says hi.

  “Is everything all right? Is there any news?”

  “I phoned your office and they told me you weren’t there. Then I remembered you’d called me on my mobile and I’d memorized your number. Am I disturbing you?”

  Well, I should be dealing with the delicate matter of the international traffic in spring rolls, but I’ll try to fit you in, sister.

  Obviously, she wasn’t disturbing me.

  She told me she was giving a martial arts class the following day. It was open to the public, and if I still wanted to see what it was like, I could come to her gym, which was near the prison. She and her pupils would be there from six to nine in the evening.

  I was surprised, but I said I’d be there. She said fine, and hung up. Without saying goodbye.

  The following afternoon I le
ft the office at six-thirty, postponing an appointment with a client who was supposed to be coming to pay and so had no objection. I decided to go on foot, even though it was quite far, and by seven-fifteen I was at the address Claudia had given me. It was a gym where they did dance, yoga, that kind of thing. It was called Corpopsyche and as I went in, I was expecting to see something vaguely esoteric, like zen or meditation, full of languid movements and Eastern spirituality. The kind of thing I’m not crazy about.

  So I felt suddenly a bit uncomfortable at the idea of wasting time like this that I could have spent working, and I told myself I’d stay just half an hour, out of politeness. Then I’d say goodbye and go back to the office, maybe calling a taxi to get there quicker.

  The gym had a parquet floor, a big mirror that occupied one whole wall, and a wall bar for ballet exercises. Exactly what I’d expected, seeing the sign. There were a few benches, on which a dozen people sat watching. I sat down where there was a free space.

  If the gym corresponded to what I’d imagined, the things that were happening on the parquet floor – the class itself – were very different. There were some twenty pupils, almost all men. They were wearing black canvas trousers, white T-shirts and black dance shoes. Sister Claudia was dressed in the same way, except that her T-shirt was not white but black. I assumed that distinguished her as a master, like a black belt or something similar.

  What they were doing didn’t look at all like dance or yoga or some New Age nonsense. They were hitting each other with very quick punches and kicks and blows with the knee and the elbow. Unlike most martial arts, the blows weren’t controlled, the movements weren’t elegant. It was pretty clear what would happen if these techniques were applied in a real situation, in a street fight for instance.

  I was surprised, even though, in a sense, what I was seeing was consistent with the kind of feelings I’d got from Sister Claudia whenever we’d met. As I followed the class, the words for these feelings came into my mind, in this order: direct, rapid, abrupt, aggressive.

  Vicious.

  The word vicious, like the others, materialized spontaneously in my head, by a process of free association. No sooner did I hear it spoken by my inner voice than I felt ill at ease, as if I’d said it out loud. Or as if I’d discovered, and named, something that ought to have remained hidden.

  Claudia, the vicious nun.

  At a certain point in the session, Sister Claudia took a long black handkerchief out of a bag, placed it over her eyes, and knotted it behind her head. Then she assumed a kind of combat position, while the pupil who seemed to be the most proficient of them placed himself right in front of her. He was a dangerouslooking young man with close-cropped hair, over six feet tall.

  At a silent, invisible signal, the student started aiming punches at Claudia’s face, and she started parrying them. All with her eyes blindfolded.

  I’ve boxed for many years. I’ve seen, given, parried, dodged, and above all taken, a lot of blows. In gyms, in amateur rings, even on the street. Before that evening I’d never seen anything like this.

  They were moving in a precise, regular rhythm that reminded me of a documentary on the circus I’d seen many years before. TV was still in black and white in those days. There was a rather elderly, pleasantlooking man who was teaching juggling to a group of young people in the ring of an empty circus tent. He too was blindfolded and kept three, or four, or five balls in the air, never dropping them and maintaining the same precise, regular rhythm throughout. It was as if he had magnets on his hands, and the balls were inevitably, irresistibly attracted to them.

  Claudia was doing more or less the same thing, but instead of balls there were punches being thrown at her face. She had magnetic hands, and with those magnetic hands she attracted and repelled the punches, rendering them as harmless as balls made out of rags.

  In boxing they’d always told us never to close our eyes. In attack and especially in defence. You must never lose control of the situation. See what your opponent is doing, catch his move with your eyes as soon as it starts, and be ready to react: to parry, or to dodge and counterattack. I’d always felt comfortable with that idea. Eyes open, always. I associated closed eyes with fear, and open eyes, tritely, with courage. Look straight at the problem, or the opponent, or whatever. One of my few certainties.

  At a certain point, the regular rhythm seemed to change. Gradually, the punches, and the parries, gathered speed, and then in a moment it was all over. The pupil was on the ground and Sister Claudia was on top of him, twisting his arm and with her knee on his face. I hadn’t really noticed the move that had led to that conclusion.

  She took off the blindfold, and all the pupils did relaxation exercises. Then they lined up in front of their master. They bowed slightly in farewell, holding their right fists in the palms of their left hands, their arms flexed in front of their chests.

  Only then did she seem to become aware of my presence. She came towards me as the pupils left the floor and headed for the changing rooms.

  I stood up, she greeted me with a nod, and I responded in the same way. I was curious now, there were questions I wanted to ask, and I’d completely forgotten that I’d been planning to get a taxi and go back to the office.

  “I’ve never seen anything like that,” I said, not making any particular effort to be original. Opening and parting lines have never been my forte. She didn’t reply, because there was nothing to reply.

  I tried another tack. “What exactly is the name of this discipline again?”

  “It’s called wing tsun.”

  “Not exactly girls’ play.”

  “Most girls’ play, like most boys’ play, isn’t interesting. According to legend, wing tsun was devised by a nun, as a way of allowing physically weak people to defeat bigger and stronger opponents. But there are legends like this in all the martial arts. The best one is about the origins of ju-jitsu. The one about the Japanese doctor and the weeping willow. Do you know it?”

  “No. Tell it to me.”

  “There was a doctor in ancient Japan who had spent many years studying methods of combat. He wanted to discover the secret of victory, but he was disappointed, because in the end, in every system, the thing that won out was either strength, or the quality of weapons, or dirty tricks. In other words, however much you trained and studied martial arts, however strong and prepared you were, you could always find someone else stronger, or better armed, or more cunning, who would defeat you.”

  She broke off, as if she’d just thought of something that bothered her.

  “Does this really interest you, or are you just being kind?”

  How do you answer a question like that? Especially when asked by a woman-a nun – who’s just finished beating up a bruiser over six feet tall as if she were juggling? You don’t answer at all. Obviously.

  All I did was look her in the eyes with a slightly comical expression, as if to say, We could dispense with all this point-scoring. Or else, I’m not the kind of person who says something just to be kind.

  Incredibly, it worked. Her features relaxed a little, and for the first time her face lost a little of its hardness. It was transformed. Pretty, I couldn’t help thinking, and immediately felt ashamed and repressed the thought. Unusual as she was, Claudia was still a nun, and I’d been taught by nuns all through elementary school. Some ideas, associations, patterns of behaviour, are very hard to abandon if you were taught by nuns at elementary school. You just don’t say, you don’t even think, that a nun is pretty.

  Claudia resumed her story without making any other comments. I stopped thinking about nuns, both in general and in particular, and my stupid taboos.

  “Anyway, this doctor was dispirited, because he wasn’t making any progress in his quest. One winter’s day, he was sitting by a window. Outside, it had been snowing for hours. He was looking out, deep in thought. The whole landscape had turned white, with all the snow. The meadows, the rocks, the houses, were covered in snow. The trees too. The branc
hes of the trees were heavy with snow, and at a certain point the doctor saw the branch of a cheery tree bend under the weight of the snow and break. Then the same thing happened with a big oak. There’d never been a snowfall like that before.”

  There’s no doubt about it: I have a childish turn of mind. I like being told stories, if the storyteller is good. Claudia was good, and I wanted to know how her story was going to end.

  “In the grounds, not far from the window, there was a pond with weeping willows all around it. The snow was falling on the branches of the willows too, but no sooner did it start to accumulate than the branches bent and the snow fell to the ground. The branches of the willows didn’t break. When he saw that, the doctor felt a sudden sense of elation and realized he’d reached the end of his quest. The secret of combat was non-resistance. Whoever is yielding overcomes all tests. Whoever is hard, rigid, is sooner or later defeated, and broken. Sooner or later he’ll meet someone stronger. Ju-jitsu means: the art of yielding. The secret was in yielding. Wing tsun works on more or less the same lines.”

  It struck me that if the secret was in yielding, Claudia didn’t seem to have mastered it at all. To be honest, she didn’t give the impression of being a yielding person.

  She’d read my thoughts. Or more likely she was simply continuing the speech she had in her head. “Obviously you have to understand what yielding means. It means resisting up to a point, and then knowing exactly when to yield and divert your opponent’s strength, which in the end will rebound against him. The secret is in knowing how to find the point of balance between resistance and yielding, yielding and resistance, weakness and strength. That’s where the principle of victory lies. To do exactly the opposite of what the opponent expects, which to you comes naturally or spontaneously. Whatever those two words mean.”