Black August

by Timothy Williams

  “I wouldn’t know,” Trotti said, feeling the ulcers under his tongue. “Perhaps Rosanna couldn’t bring herself to give him that.”

  “That?”

  “The physical part—her body.”

  “One day—not long after the mother’s funeral—Rosanna went upstairs on some errand and found her sister and the man—Rosanna’s boyfriend—in bed together.” Boatti shrugged. “That’s what brought on Maria Cristina’s last depression. She attacked Rosanna with a knife. Once they’d calmed her down, Rosanna finally decided it was time to put her into the home in Garlasco. The Casa Patrizia. And Rosanna came to live here.”

  “Poor woman.”

  “Who?”

  “You know who the man was, Giorgio?”

  Boatti shook his head. “I don’t know his name.”

  “Thanks for the help.”

  “But I know somebody who might know.”

  13: Torre Civica

  “A work site.”

  They walked up Strada Nuova, which was coming alive after the long midday break. There were workmen with pneumatic drills who were digging a narrow trench into the soft ground beneath the street.

  “The ENEL are laying electric cables,” Boatti said. He gestured. “And now our Communist/Conservative coalition are putting down stone slabs where for a hundred years there used to be cobbles.”

  Most of the pedestrians were tourists, visitors from elsewhere, who ate large ice creams and, ignoring the noise of the workmen, carefully studied the window displays in the city center even though most shops had already closed in anticipation of the Ferragosto.

  The two men had to step over a rope before turning into via Cardano. They came into Piazza del Duomo. It was free of traffic.

  It no longer seemed the same place—different light, different expectations—since the Torre Civica had gone. The debris had been removed and apart from the remaining pathetic stump beside the Duomo, the warning flags and the barriers, there was little to remind the casual passer-by of a monument that had weathered more than eight hundred winters of the Po valley.

  “Eight hundred years?” Boatti shook his head. “A lot older than that—it was probably built by a bishop in the eighth century at a time when the City and the Church were the same thing. Then later, at the time of the Comune, it was enlarged and adapted to the demands of the emergent bourgeois democracy. Hence its title of Civic Tower.”

  At the foot of what had once been the tower, there was a plaque on a pedestal and several wreaths to the memory of the four people who had died beneath the collapsing rubble.

  “I was in Strada Nuova, drinking coffee with a colleague,” Trotti said. “I never heard a sound. Not until I heard the sirens and saw people running.”

  Boatti walked with his hands in the pockets of his large pleated trousers. “The two girls who heard the tower begin to rumble were trying to phone the fire brigade when the whole edifice fell on top of them.”

  “They say that nobody was to blame.” Trotti placed a sweet in his mouth. “Internal cracks that even x-raying wouldn’t have shown up.”

  “You believe that, Trotti?”

  “The tower must have been weakened by last year’s freak tempest. Otherwise why would it have suddenly collapsed after more than eight hundred years?”

  “Italians learn their lessons in survival fast.”

  Trotti stopped and looked at the younger man. “What lessons?”

  “You forget Giacomo Boni.”

  “Who?”

  “Boni was the Superintendent of Monuments in Venice in 1902. It was he who pointed out to the Venetian city fathers that St. Mark’s bell tower was in danger of falling down.”

  “You’re writing an article on him?”

  “The city fathers had a choice—and they made it. They removed Boni from his post and they thought the problem had gone away. Trouble was, though, that a few weeks later the tower collapsed in the middle of St. Mark’s Square.”

  Both men laughed, but not with amusement. Trotti resumed his walking.

  Piazza del Duomo was almost empty. A solitary prelate in black, beneath a large, broad-brimmed hat, was walking briskly towards the Curia buildings. In one hand he held his missal.

  The shop was in one of the narrow alleys leading down from via Cardano to the river. It used to be an art gallery, but after a raid from plainclothes men from Costume, had been forced to close for over six months. Trotti knew that a hairdresser from Paris had set up a business there, but he had never been inside.

  A red mountain bike stood outside the shop; the flat handlebars reminded Trotti of a cow’s horns.

  Boatti grinned, opened the door and the two men entered, to be met by the hot, pungent smell of chemical lotions. The hairdresser looked up from where he was teasing a woman’s hair, raised an eyebrow and gave a prompt, professional smile. “A little moment, gentlemen.” He had slanting eyes and the yellow skin of an Asian. His spiky hair, however, was almost orange. He wore leather jeans, a white shirt and a thin, black leather tie.

  Several women sat in low armchairs, while about them girls in white overalls worked at their scalps. Another couple of women were sitting beneath the dome of their hairdryers, reading.

  “My name is Pierre and I am very pleased to meet you.” The hairdresser held out his hand. “Can I be of help?” He spoke Italian with a lisping French accent. The other hand, which held a long comb, remained on his narrow hip. He wore a broad, white belt.

  “Polizia di Stato.”

  “Police?” He stiffened.

  Trotti showed his badge.

  “I wasn’t warned.” The hairdresser frowned. “I’m a very busy man.” He gestured towards his clients. “I’ve a lot of work to do and many of these ladies will soon be going on holiday. They’re most certainly in a hurry. I have no time today to help you look into my finances.”

  “We’re not the Finanza and this is not a fiscal inspection.”

  The hairdresser seemed to relax.

  “Signora Isella,” Boatti nodded to where a woman sat beneath the hairdryer. “Commissario Trotti and I should simply like to speak to the signora for a few moments.”

  The Asian nodded his acceptance. There was the hint of sparse mustache along the sallow upper lip. “Of course, of course. Please excuse me if I must return to my work.” He smiled, showing regular white teeth, and went back to the wet hair that he had been combing. He took short steps, as if unsure of the raised heels of his boots.

  “He’s wearing makeup,” Trotti whispered.

  “Rather suits him.” Boatti moved towards the woman and bent over. She looked up from the newspaper, Gazzetta della Sicilia.

  “Signora Isella,” Boatti shouted, but she could not hear. She frowned in irritation, disapproval in her old, watery eyes. Her long, white hands held the newspaper against her knees. A walking stick leaned against the black imitation leather of the armchair.

  “Signora Isella.”

  One of the girls stepped away from her client and approached Signora Isella, turning off the dryer. She raised the egg-shaped dome, then, returning to her client, carefully watched Trotti and Boatti in the long, tinted mirror that lined one wall. She had pretty eyes and the thick ankles of a peasant from the rice fields.

  “What do you want?” Signora Isella said in an aggrieved tone. Her hair was made of tight, white curls that were firmly held down by a hairnet.

  “It’s about Signorina Belloni in San Teodoro.”

  At the mention of the name Belloni, the face seemed to change, to soften.

  “This is my friend, Commissario Trotti.”

  “I heard about Rosanna this morning,” Signora Isella said. “And I who thought she was away on holiday. How very terrible.” The old lady started to cry. “Very terrible.”

  14: San Michele

  The palace was behind San Michele chur
ch; the wafer-thin red bricks low in the walls grew thick as they rose upwards. It was one of those buildings that had been slowly added to over the centuries, subtly changing in architecture as it had neared completion in the eighteenth century. A plaque in the wall announced that the King from Piemonte had slept there during the first war of independence.

  “I’m going to visit my son.”

  The old lady walked with a stick, yet she wore fashionable high-heeled shoes.

  The two men accompanied her up the steps to the large wooden door. She rang a well-polished brass bell and immediately there were six clicks as the bolt was turned. A maid in uniform appeared.

  “Tea for three,” Signora Isella commanded peremptorily. “With ice.”

  The maid carefully bolted the door behind the visitors and hurried away into a kitchen.

  Signora Isella led the two men into a large room and gestured for them to sit down on the plump white settee. She lowered herself into a high-backed chair, setting the stick on the marble floor beside her.

  The room smelled of polish.

  The shutters were drawn, and the only light came from above.

  Looking up, Trotti saw that the ceiling had been painted with a trompe l’oeil fresco—cherubim and seraphim flitting across a deep blue sky, transporting flowers and fruit to young nymphs whose minds were clearly on other things. The painting was illuminated by hidden lights.

  “Early nineteenth century,” Signora Isella said. “Not particularly beautiful—and rather badly damaged by last year’s tempest. I’m still waiting for the insurance people to pay. Probably still be waiting on the day of my funeral.” She smiled, revealing teeth that were exceptionally white and symmetrical.

  They made small conversation.

  “Forgive my not opening the shutters. In the summer, they stay closed because of the heat. It’s not good for the ceiling. And because of the mosquitoes.” She added, “Although with this drought, there aren’t quite so many mosquitoes, I believe.”

  The maid soon appeared carrying a tray of iced tea and small biscuits. When the girl turned on a desk-top lamp, Trotti saw that the design on the china plates was the same as on the frescoed ceiling.

  “I only get to see my son twice a year,” the old lady said, between sips of tea. “He lives in Sicily—where he was born. In the summer, he likes to get away from the heat and so I spend a couple of weeks with him and the children in the Dolomites.” The word “children” caused her to smile. “At Christmas, we all go to Pantelleria.”

  “You used to live in Sicily, signora?”

  “Forty-five years of my life—but once my husband died, I had to get away. Came back to my native town to live with my brother. But he—God rest his soul—passed on a few years ago and I am left all alone to run this impossible house.” She lowered her cup. “I sometimes think Signorina Belloni was so right living in a little room. So much more practical—and no need for servants.” Her hand went to the breast of her blouse and the parallel loops of her necklaces in a gesture of sincerity. “I love Loredana, my maid, as if she were my own daughter—but there are times when I wish I was alone.”

  “Of course,” Trotti said sympathetically and nodded.

  “Alone—with just my memories for company.” She set the cup down on the guéridon beside her. “I have had a good life—such a good life.”

  “I imagine you were very fond of Rosanna.”

  “You knew her, Commissario—you know what a lovely person she was. Lovely and so good. So kind.” Signora Isella raised her shoulders. “Unfortunately, she never married. And for a woman, having a family—a husband and children—is such a great satisfaction.”

  “She always said that her schoolchildren were her family.”

  Signora Isella gave Boatti a brief glance. “She loved children, but the poor thing, she was terrified of men—so very terrified.”

  “Perhaps because of her religion,” Trotti suggested.

  “Religion?”

  “She was a Jehovah’s Witness, I believe.”

  “A Jehovah’s Witness, Commissario?” A dismissive move of the long, white hand. “A good Catholic like you and me.”

  Trotti nodded, even though the last time he had been inside a church was at the time of Pioppi and Nando’s wedding. (It was also the last time he had seen Agnese. Trotti’s wife had sat beside him but had promptly disappeared after the main course at the reception, accompanied by a young American woman.)

  “Signorina Belloni was an attractive woman,” Trotti said. “There could have been no shortage of men interested in sharing their lives with her.”

  “Rosanna was a sweet, sweet girl.”

  Trotti coughed. “Without of course wishing to be indelicate . . .”

  Signora Isella brought her watery glance on to Trotti’s face. “You are a policeman, Commissario. I imagine you must do your duty . . .”

  Trotti’s face broke into a smile. “Rosanna was only a couple of years younger than I am. We both grew up during the years of Fascism, although we never met until much later. At least I don’t think so. But I can imagine her in those days, in the uniform of a Giovane Italiana. I was a young Balilla.”

  The old woman visibly shuddered. “Those are years that I’d rather not think about. Unhappy years, very unhappy years for my good husband.”

  There was a silence.

  “Bad years, undoubtedly—but, like Rosanna, I was young at the time. And we didn’t know any better.”

  “My dear husband knew Mussolini during the Great War. A liar, a loud mouth and an upstart from Emilia. And a coward.”

  Boatti was sitting beyond the yellow circle of light cast by the table lamp. Trotti had the impression he was smiling behind his hand.

  “I mention Fascism, signora, because Rosanna once said to me that during those two decades—those two unhappy decades—young people had at least something to believe in. Today, we live in a society without values.”

  “Rosanna was a good person. But she could be very naive.”

  “I believe . . .” Trotti hesitated. “I believe that she almost married.”

  “Never.” Signora Isella folded her arms.

  Another awkward silence.

  “She had a man, of course.”

  “A man, signora?”

  “I can tell you that, Commissario. Now that she’s dead, I don’t think I’m hurting anybody by telling you that she had a man.”

  “A lover?”

  “Not what I said.”

  “A friend?”

  “A podgy little southerner.”

  “His name, signora?”

  “Not a Sicilian—the Sicilians have Norman and Arab blood, they are a fine breed of people, even the peasants.”

  “Who was this man?”

  “A little man from Salerno.” Her mouth showed her disapproval. “I never liked him. Obsequious—you know what they’re like. Opening the door for you and bowing and scraping and all that kissing your hand and using the simple past tense instead of the perfect. But their eyes are close together and you know they’re wondering what you’re worth and what they can hope to get out of you.”

  “You met him?”

  “A couple of times—when Rosanna was living in via Mantova. A teacher in her school, that’s how she introduced him. It wasn’t until later that she told me about him. I was surprised to see a man in her house and, of course, I immediately suspected something.”

  “Suspected something?”

  “He wasn’t the right man for her.”

  “What did you suspect?”

  “The Belloni family is not poor.”

  “And who is this man? Where does he live?”

  “He thought he could get his hands on the family fortune through Rosanna. When that didn’t work, he tried her sister.” Signora Isella gave a little shudder. “Like a gigol
o, using the poor woman for her money.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Just like Rosanna’s father—or rather her stepfather. Another man from the south who married a rich woman to get his hands on the money.”

  “Who was Rosanna’s lover?”

  “I never said Rosanna and this man were lovers.”

  “Who was he?”

  “He must have left his job not long after Maria Cristina went into a home. Went to live in Liguria somewhere—Ventimiglia or Imperia or San Remo. He went with his son.”

  “His name, signora?”

  “After all these years, you think I can remember that? An insignificant little man from Salerno?” She laughed briefly, looking at Boatti, and drank her tea.

  Her thin, white hair was tinted blue.

  15: Boris

  “A woman’s voice, Commissario.”

  “The cleaning woman—she comes in twice a week.”

  Tenente Pisanelli held one hand on the steering wheel. The other hand he ran through the long, lank hair that hung from the side of his head. The crown was now completely bald. “Very sexy voice for a cleaning woman. Sounds South American.”

  “Perhaps you ought to mind your own business.”

  “As you wish, Commissario. In the future, I won’t phone you on your home number.”

  Trotti sat back in the passenger seat. “Eva told you where I was?”

  “Eva the cleaning lady?” Pisanelli tried to suppress a smile. “I could do with a cleaning lady like that.”

  The late afternoon was still hot. There were no fruit drops left in his pocket and, anyway, Trotti felt slightly sick—Signora Isella’s tea had been sweet but very acid. Now he felt tired; he wanted to close his eyes and fall asleep. With Pisanelli driving, he preferred to keep his eyes open. The billboards, standing like sentinels along the edge of the rice fields, rushed past at regular intervals, advertising the city’s furriers and stainless steel saucepans.