A Fine Line

by Gianrico Carofiglio

  “No, Ignazio. I don’t smoke.”

  He lit another cigarette, silently, concentrating hard. Then he turned to me again. “This is the number of the pork butcher’s, for the phone tap,” he said, taking out a little piece of squared paper, like a page from a school exercise book, and holding it out to me. “I wrote it out secretly from mother’s diary. It’s the number she calls to have the shopping delivered. I don’t want to go there. Do you think it’s possible he makes the smoked ham out of dogs too?”

  “I don’t think so. I think that would be difficult.”

  “So I can eat the smoked ham?”

  “Yes, I’m sure you can. You’ll be safe with the ham.”

  “Oh, I’m pleased, because I really like smoked ham. I like rolls with smoked ham and cheese slices. Do you like them, Avvocato Guido?”

  “Actually, it’s a long time since I last ate that kind of roll. But yes, I used to like them.”

  “Then one day I’ll bring two and we can eat them together.” He let about ten seconds go by and assumed an expression of polite impatience. “So what about the phone tap?”

  “We’ll do it next week.”

  He looked at me with disappointment and a hint of suspicion in his eyes. “Can’t you do it right away?”

  “Unfortunately not, Ignazio. We need to fill in a form.”

  “What form?”

  “We need to get a form from the court, write down everything for the phone tap, and give it to the judge.”

  “So we have to go to the judge? We should go together.”

  “There’s no need, I’ll go, don’t worry. That’s a lawyer’s job, isn’t it?”

  He turned pensive. He was processing the information I’d given him. At last, he nodded resolutely. “If I hear anything else in the meantime, I’ll let you know right away.”

  “Excellent idea. Now, Ignazio, you’ll have to go because I have an appointment with another client and I don’t want to keep him waiting.”

  “Of course, of course.” And after a brief pause: “Avvocato Guido, can you give me your mobile number? Then, if there’s an emergency, I can call you and you can come right away.”

  “I’d be happy to give it to you, Ignazio. The problem is that I’m changing contracts right now and I think I’ll have a new number by tomorrow. There’s no point in my giving you the old one, is there?”

  “You know something, Avvocato Guido?”

  “What, Ignazio?”

  “I’m happy when I come to see you, because you understand what I’m saying. Other people are crazy. I tell them what I hear from my animal friends and they look at me with an expression that tells me they don’t believe me. You understand, you’re more intelligent.”

  “Thank you, Ignazio, that’s nice to hear.”

  He looked at me for a few moments longer as if to underline the concept, to confirm that he really meant what he had said.

  God knows how he was when he was a child. God knows what he dreamt of doing and what his parents dreamt for him. Maybe they imagined he would become a doctor, or a lawyer, or an engineer, and that he would be with them in their old age, instead of which they had found themselves trapped by life, with a fear of dying that was different from the one we all have: the fear of leaving their son, a child in a man’s body, alone and helpless.

  “Can I give you a little kiss, Avvocato Guido?”

  “All right, Ignazio.”

  He approached and I smelt the stale smell of hundreds of Marlboros, smoked one after the other, with which his clothes and his hair were impregnated. He gave me a delicate kiss on the cheek, like a child kissing its father.

  “Now you must excuse me, Avvocato Guido, I have to go. I’ll be back soon, though. Please see to that matter.”

  “Don’t worry, Ignazio, I’ll deal with it. Let me walk you to the door.”

  We walked down the corridor together, watched from the other offices.

  “We’ll see each other soon. Right now, I’m going to work.”

  “Where are you going, Avvocato Guido?”

  “I’m going to my office, to work.”

  “Do you have a cigarette?”

  “No, Ignazio, I don’t smoke.”

  “Then take one of mine,” he said, taking out the two packets.

  “Don’t light it now, or the smoke will linger on the stairs and the other people in the building will get angry. Light it when you’re in the street.”

  “But isn’t it forbidden to smoke in the street?”

  “No, you can smoke in the street. It’s in church that you can’t smoke.”

  A few days earlier, he had been caught for the umpteenth time smoking in church, and for the umpteenth time the parish priest had kicked up a fuss, threatening to call the local health authority, the municipal police, the paratroopers.

  “Can you give me money to buy cigarettes?” he said, even though he still had the two half-used packets in his hand.

  I took out my wallet, extracted a ten-euro note and gave it to him. “Since you already have cigarettes, keep the money. Or else get yourself an ice cream or fruit juice.”

  “But when I finish them, can I buy more with these ten euros?”

  “Yes, Ignazio, you can.” I managed to hold myself back from saying that he ought to smoke less, that smoking is bad for you, and so on. Apart from the fact that it would have been futile, I wondered if it would have been right. I once knew a lady, a client, whose two children had been killed in a road accident. She smoked a lot, but not in a nervous way. Methodically, you might say. She would drag fiercely at the smoke, and it was as if each mouthful spread through her body like a medicine that a mad doctor had forced her to take regularly. Once – we were in a break during the trial for culpable homicide of the lorry driver who had killed her children – someone told her that she ought to quit.

  She replied, in a calm tone that sent shivers down my spine: “I’m alone, with a grief that won’t leave me until I die. I can only bear it thanks to these cigarettes. If I didn’t smoke I’d go crazy. And if I go crazy with grief, what do I care about the risk to my heart, or the risk of tumours and all that stuff? I’m killing myself anyway, so it’s better to do it this way.” And there was nothing else to add.

  “All right, goodbye, then,” Ignazio said, unaware of the intense activity in my mind.

  The afternoon passed normally. Even just a few days later I wouldn’t have been able to remember what had happened, but a few minutes before eight a call came in.

  “Yes?”

  “Avvocato, there’s a call for you.” There was something odd about Pasquale’s voice that I couldn’t figure out.

  “Who is it?”

  A brief pause. “Judge Larocca.”

  Now I was the one who paused for a moment. “Judge Larocca? The head of the appeal court?”

  “Yes.”

  “Put him through.”

  6

  If a judge calls me at my office – it happens rarely, but it does happen – I start to get anxious. I’m always afraid that something has gone wrong. That I’ve screwed up in some really big way. So big that it can’t be dealt with by a clerk of the court or a secretary.

  And the fact that the judge in question, as in the case of Larocca, is kind of a friend doesn’t change things one iota. A judge calling you at your office is a flashing red sign saying: Danger ahead. I asked myself what I could possibly have done, but couldn’t think of anything. We had a few appeals pending, and were waiting for the dates of the hearings. Nothing urgent, nothing important. So I thought.

  “Hello?”

  “Guido!”

  “Pierluigi. How are you?”

  A brief pause.

  “So-so. I waited for the end of office hours before phoning, because you might have been seeing clients and I didn’t want to disturb you.”

  “That’s all right, you can call me when you like.”

  “Actually I was hoping to see you in court, but it’s been a while since you’ve appeared be
fore me.”

  “You’re right, it must be a couple of months. Come to think of it, I don’t have many clients in prison these days.”

  Another pause, on both sides. Mine meant: Are you going to tell me why you called or do I have to ask you? His, I don’t know.

  As happens in these cases, we talked over each other: “Listen—”

  “So what do—”

  “I’m sorry, it’s just that I need to talk to you—”

  “Can you tell me over the phone, or would you prefer me to come to your office tomorrow?”

  “No, thanks. It’s something… How can I put it?… It’s better if I come to see you.”

  “All right. When can you come?”

  “As soon as possible.”

  “As soon as possible could be this evening, if you like.”

  “That’d be perfect.”

  “It’s eight o’clock now. Maybe it’s best if you come when there’s nobody around. That way we can talk in peace.”

  “Thanks, Guido. I really appreciate it. Tell me what time and I’ll be there.”

  “Let’s say 9.30. You know the address.”

  “Of course. If only for the times I’ve read it on your papers.”

  Pierluigi Larocca wasn’t just anybody. If the expression top of the class could be applied to anyone, that person was him.

  We had gone to the same high school – although we weren’t in the same class – and the same university. He had been a legendary student. Top marks at school, top marks at university, a graduate at twenty-two and at twenty-four already a magistrate.

  He had become head of a criminal division of the court while still young, and it was widely thought that when the post became vacant – in a few months, because the old president was about to retire – he would become the youngest president of the Court of Bari. Then – who knows?

  The Prosecutor’s Department and the police didn’t like him. They considered him too much of a stickler for rules. Maybe they were right, but it should be said that his decisions were always impeccably argued and were almost never overturned by the Supreme Court.

  We had rubbed shoulders occasionally in our university days, even though we didn’t move in the same circles. His was the classic well-to-do Bari of the early Eighties. I don’t know what mine was. I hung out with all sorts of people back then, but actually our paths did sometimes cross. The height of our intimacy was an evening when we went for a pizza together with our respective girlfriends. His, as far as I recalled, hardly said a word.

  If Larocca wanted to talk to me in my office, he must have some private problem. Either he was the injured party, or he was under investigation. The second hypothesis struck me as extremely unlikely. Or rather, I couldn’t imagine that somebody as untouchable as him could be accused of something.

  All right, I told myself. I’ll go out for a walk now and have a bite to eat. I hadn’t had lunch, and I suspected that the conversation with Larocca wouldn’t be a short one.

  7

  By 9.15 I was back in the office.

  Going into the office when it’s deserted always gives me a touch of anxiety. The anxiety of someone who feels he’s in the wrong place, that things are happening somewhere else. The sensation of being left out.

  That didn’t happen in the old place, nor does it happen if I remain alone when everybody else has gone. Maybe it means something, and someone better than me would be capable of interpreting the phenomenon. So far I haven’t succeeded.

  At exactly 9.30, the silence of the office was broken by the harsh sound of the entryphone.

  “Second floor,” I said, opening the door without waiting for a reply.

  Larocca walked up the stairs while I waited for him in the doorway. I held out my hand and he took it. After a very brief hesitation, he came closer, moving awkwardly, and hugged me.

  He was wearing a well-cut jacket and trousers, a shirt, a neatly knotted tie and classic shoes, and gave off a faint high-quality male scent. I doubt he’d dressed like that as a student, but I couldn’t remember him wearing anything different from what he had on now or in court. He had been a somewhat anonymous young man in appearance: average height, average build, average features, the kind you look at and forget immediately afterwards. With the years, he had grown more interesting. The slightly receding hairline, the lines on his forehead and at the sides of his mouth, even the slight bags under his eyes, had conferred personality on his face. This was the first time I’d realized it, outside the context of the courtroom, of our roles, our masks.

  “A nice office, it reflects your personality,” he said as we proceeded along the corridor towards my room at the far end.

  I don’t think my office reflects my personality. It was done by an overenthusiastic designer; I simply put up with it and paid. For at least the first two years, I would have liked nothing better than to abandon it and run away. Gradually, I got used to it. Nothing more.

  “Please sit down,” I said, indicating an armchair in my room, on the opposite side from the one behind the desk.

  “It smells nice in here,” he said as he sat down.

  “That’s one of my female colleagues. She’s obsessed with natural essences. Yes, it is very nice.”

  He looked around. He noticed the books, the comics.

  “It isn’t quite how I expected it. Don’t get me wrong, that was meant as a compliment. It doesn’t have that – how can I put it? – that sad, dusty look. The offices of old lawyers have something of the sacristy, the bishop’s antechamber about them. Those of young lawyers seem like… well, legal offices: furniture all the same, law books, horrible prints. I like it that there are real books here, and even comics. What do you have there, Tex Willer?”

  “A few old issues. Sometimes I reread one to relax when I can’t work.”

  “I like that,” he said, indicating the framed poster hanging to the right of my desk. It’s a black-and-white photograph of two Palestinian children sitting on the ground surrounded by bombed-out buildings. At the bottom, there’s a quotation from Brecht: We sat down on the side of wrong because all the other seats were taken.

  “I’ve grown fond of it. It’s one of the few things I took with me from the place where I lived with my ex-wife. It followed me to my old office and now to this one.”

  “Your ex-wife. That’s right, you’re separated. How many years has it been?”

  “I’m divorced now. We separated ten years ago.”

  “Ten years? Incredible.”

  It wasn’t clear what was so incredible about it. Maybe it was just an expression of his embarrassment. He’d come to me to talk about a delicate, urgent matter and somehow couldn’t get into the rhythm.

  “So, what can I do for you?”

  My question startled him. He abandoned the apparently relaxed position he had kept up until that moment. He straightened and leaned forward in the armchair.

  “You’re right, we’ve got through the pleasantries. I’m here about something that’s been tormenting me for several days. I don’t even know where to start.”

  “Shall we have a drink?”

  “No, no, don’t worry, calling the bar at this hour—”

  “One of the advantages of having such a large office is that there’s also a kitchen with a fridge. Will you have a glass of chilled wine, or would you prefer something non-alcoholic?”

  “Chilled wine will be fine.”

  It really was fine. Before starting to tell me what he had to, Larocca knocked back two glasses of Chardonnay as if it were water, ignoring the little tray of pistachios I’d brought in to accompany the bottle.

  “Alcohol helps, you can’t deny it. Guido, I’m scared that they’re bringing criminal charges against me in Lecce.”

  According to the code of criminal procedure, when magistrates are subject to criminal proceedings, the case is dealt with in a place different from the one in which they work. A rule intended to avoid any conflict of interest. For magistrates from the Bari area, cases f
all within the jurisdiction of the court in Lecce.

  “Excuse me, Pierluigi, but is that speculation or have you had formal notification?”

  “Neither.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

  He snorted in frustration. “I was told by a friend, a colleague of yours.”

  I had the impulse to ask him who it was, but restrained myself. If he wanted to tell me, he would; if he didn’t, my question would just embarrass him.

  “What did this colleague of mine tell you?”

  He filled his glass again and immediately drained it. “Don’t think I always drink like this. It’s just that this story is wearing me out. Your… colleague told me that there have been statements made to the anti-Mafia magistrates in Bari by a Mafioso who’s turned state’s evidence… statements accusing me. This Mafioso supposedly… I’m sorry, I really can’t say it. I feel overcome with shame and anger. The man has apparently stated that I accepted money in return for favourable rulings. To get prisoners released, in fact.”

  I let out a hint of a whistle. There are always unpleasant rumours circulating in the courts about supposed examples of judicial corruption, judges inclined to accept gifts and grant unlawful favours. That happens in Bari too, of course, and there were some names that were bandied about more frequently than others. Some of these rumours had been confirmed and over the years some judges – especially in the civil courts, to tell the truth – had been arrested, sentenced and struck off. But I’d never heard the slightest gossip about Pierluigi Larocca.

  “This colleague of mine who told you about this, how does he know? What is his source, if I may ask?”

  “This has to be strictly between ourselves, Guido.”

  I made a slightly self-important expression, to make it clear to him that there was no need to worry, that I was Mr Confidentiality in person. And I also looked somewhat ridiculous, I thought to myself, as I always do when I force myself to act self-important. I don’t like self-important. Either from an aesthetic or an ethical point of view. But sometimes I can’t help myself.

  “He heard it from a woman friend of his who works in the office of the Mafioso’s lawyer.”