They came to the Po and the Alfetta shook as the front wheels hit the planks of the wooden bridge. An old Bailey bridge, built by the Americans in 1945, it had never been replaced. The planks rattled angrily and then the car was back on the soft tarmac. It was a clear, hot day and already the hills could be seen standing out against the mist of the horizon. The distant patchwork of vineyards and then, above them, the dark mantle of pine forest. Trotti whistled softly; a tune that he could not place. Donizetti, perhaps.
It was another half hour before they started to climb, winding between the vineyards, green and neatly terraced. Perhaps because of the fresh air coming through the open window or perhaps because of a feeling that he was returning to his home territory, Trotti felt less tired. His eyes no longer ached.
The cherry trees were still in blossom, as though they had been caught in a freak snow storm. Forgotten smells that brought back his childhood came through the window and Trotti felt an uncharacteristic sense of nostalgia. Over thirty years earlier he had left these hills and, as he drove, he told himself that one day he would return forever. He would keep bees, he would make his own wine, perhaps keep a few chickens and some cattle. Pioppi would be married by then; she would come at the weekends, bringing the grandchildren.
Pioppi. Her real name was Lucia and neither he nor Agnese could remember where she got her nickname from. Somehow it seemed to suit her; when she was seven years old and plump and she wore ribbons in her hair. But now she was growing up. She did not have any boyfriends—or so Trotti believed—but he knew that quite soon the time would come when she would leave him. Trotti had always wanted children; but after Pioppi, Agnese had said no. She criticized him, she said that he was a man and that he did not know how a woman suffered in childbirth. She even refused his suggestion of adopting a child. “I have my career to think about.”
Trotti would have liked a son.
His ears were beginning to pop as the car came to the top of the pass and beneath him, to his left, stretching away from the smooth black ribbon of the road, there was a pine forest. A flat, red-brick building was the university research center. To his right, just perceptible on the misty horizon, nearly ninety kilometers away, he saw the grey glitter of the Mediterranean. The wind whistled against the car and he turned, following the green signs indicating the autostrada. The smell of pine was sharp and clean.
Twenty minutes later he was back in the valley on the outskirts of Albana. He went under the cement bridge of the motorway with its graffiti in praise of Juventus or some local team. When he was a boy, Albana had been a village—a few houses along either side of the main road, stables, some dusty shops and a busy market every Tuesday.
Sometimes he used to come with his mother in the brown train; that was before the war, before the Germans blew up the line. There was no longer any train, only a blue bus for those who did not have their own car. Now the old church was hidden by new blocks of apartments, painted red and pastel green. The narrow, dusty streets were cluttered with cars and, in the early afternoon, teenagers were scurrying backwards and forwards, deliberately skidding on their Vespas and “Ciao” mopeds.
The mountain river had dried up; along the stony bed, with on one side the open countryside and on the other the squalid backs of the old, stone houses, the water trickled in a silvery snake. Everywhere there was the litter of old prams and rusting, upturned cars. A few young children were playing cowboys and Indians.
Magagna yawned noisily.
“Where are we?”
Without answering, Trotti took the map from the glove compartment and got out of the car. He crossed the dusty square. Earth and stones rasped at his shoes. The wreaths at the foot of the war memorial had withered. The air was still and hot.
At the corner of the square, there was a petrol station; two pumps stood like forgotten aliens beneath a stout pillar and a yellow and black sign; the six-legged, fire breathing animal advertised AGIP PETROL. In a uniform of the same yellow and black, sitting at a distance from his pumps, a peaked cap pushed back on his head and a comic between his hands, was a young man.
“A good restaurant?”
The man had been watching Trotti since the dark blue Alfetta had parked on the edge of the square. Now he just sat with his mouth open.
“Is there a good restaurant in Albana?”
The young man’s mouth continued to gape. He raised an oil-smeared hand from the comic and pointed down the street, his own eyes following the indicated direction with interest, as though the pointing hand belonged to someone else.
“Thanks.”
The dull staring eyes followed Trotti until he was lost to sight round the corner of a house.
Magagna caught up with Trotti. “Lively place.”
Together they walked along the main street.
A dog barked somewhere and the sound of a radio being played came from behind closed wooden blinds. A car went past—a dilapidated Fiat 600, gnawed by rust and followed by an eddy of dust.
“We”ll have something to eat first.”
Magagna said, “We’ve only just had breakfast.”
“Time flies when you’re sleeping.”
The restaurant, La Campagnola, was at the next corner.
They went in. It was cool inside after the dusty heat of the street. The air was heavy with the smell of rancid wine and yesterday’s cigarettes. Two young men were playing billiards at a large table in the middle of the room. They watched the newcomers while chalking their cues. One placed a cigarette in an ashtray and returned to the game with frowning concentration.
In the corner, beneath a tank filled with a stuffed fish, a bulbous jukebox glowed with orange and mauve lights; the glass was smeared and the titles hardly visible beneath the surface.
Trotti and Magagna sat down at a table and the Commissario opened the map out on the green baize. He stared at the map without speaking. Magagna sat opposite him and yawned, revealing his tongue and gold fillings. He then lit a cigarette and inhaled, letting the blue-grey smoke curl from his nostrils. He stroked his mustache.
Not looking up, Trotti said, “You could give up smoking.”
A girl approached the table. Her hands behind her back, she said, “Signori?”
“We would like some ham—local ham. Some olives, some cheese and some wine—all local.”
The girl nodded.
“Red wine, that is.”
She nodded again, her face expressionless and walked away.
Magagna’s eyes followed her and the gentle movement of her hips.
“Very young—and no ankles. But a nice little body.”
Trotti took no notice. He was using a small pencil to make rings on the map.
“Of course we can’t be sure of the radius. It’s quite likely that they brought Anna here deliberately to confuse us. But it is something to go on. It doesn’t make sense. According to Clerice they’ve got a car. Why should they want to run the risk of being recognized by putting Anna on the bus here? They could just as well have dropped her off somewhere in the city. During the night, nobody would’ve seen them.”
“Exactly,” Magagna said, his eyes now watching the girl as she returned from the kitchen. She walked in small, rapid steps, her rubber sandals flip-flopping on the floor. She set a large sheet of paper over the green baize and placed a knife and fork in front of each man.
“The raw material is there but it could do with dressing up.”
Trotti said, “She can’t be much older than seventeen.”
“A good age. It’s then that they start getting interested in the good things of life.”
The girl returned with a large dish of prosciutto, which she set on the table. The bottle of wine she put between her legs and with a gleaming steel bottle opener expertly removed the cork. She did not smile; her face was motionless. Her features were pale but regular; her mousy hair was parted in the middle and pulled into two plastic clips.
“Thank you,” Trotti said.
He no longer
felt tired. He ate hungrily while Magagna prodded at the small plate of olives. The wine was sweet and dark; there was something reassuring about the full red color. Trotti filled the glasses to the brim.
“Good ham.”
Magagna did not agree. “One day, Commissario, I will take you to a little restaurant in the Abruzzi, not far from l’Aquila, and there you will eat ham …” He did not finish the sentence; instead he kissed his fingers in appreciation.
Trotti smiled and helped himself to a slice of cheese.
Around the walls, interspersed between calendars and posters advertising films that were to be—or had been—shown at the town’s cinema, there were several fish. Stuffed trophies in waterless green tanks.
Magagna followed Trotti’s glance. “And I’ll take you to a stream—I used to go there as a boy—where you can catch trout. This long.” With his hands, he made an exaggerated claim.
“Only of course,” Magagna went on, “there’s no fish there now. Ten years ago they built a fertilizer factory upstream and now all the fish are dead.”
“I hope she’s all right.”
“Who?” Magagna asked, his fork poised in mid-air.
“Anna Ermagni.”
“Of course she’s all right.” He placed an olive in his mouth and chewed. “They didn’t touch her.”
“But her relationship with her father is strange. On the tape, it’s quite clear she doesn’t like her father. It’s not normal.”
“Her age.” Magagna rubbed his mustache, put down his fork and took his cigarette from a battered ashtray that had once advertised Fernet Branca Liquore. “A difficult age—and her mother’s just died. But she’ll grow out of it.”
Trotti laughed. “What do you know about children? You’re not even married.”
“Don’t have to be married to have children.”
Trotti raised an eyebrow.
“Seven brothers and sisters. You forget that I grew up in Pescara. Seven brothers and sisters and probably as many more that my father wouldn’t admit to.” A vaguely obscene gesture. “We have hot blood where I come from.” He turned away and as though to prove his point, he stared at the girl who now stood idle behind the counter, propping herself on the zinc bar and staring in front of her.
“The same age as Pioppi,” Trotti remarked.
“I haven’t seen her for some time. How is she?”
Trotti smiled. “Still too young for you.” But there was a glint of hardness in his eye. “I must get back in time to take her to church.”
“And your wife? How is she?”
“Agnese?” He made an open gesture with the hand that held his fork. “When we were here ten years ago, she wanted to get away. She found everything so provincial. When I was transferred to Bari she was over the moon; but within six months she hated the place. I didn’t like it much either, but I had my job. She was out most of the day, playing bridge or going to the yacht club. She had friends, she was never lonely but she hated it. Wanted to come back.”
“The Mezzogiorno is special. They’re different, they’re unreliable, the southerners.”
“Pescara is not the South?”
Behind his sunglasses, Magagna seemed genuinely offended. “Pescara is Central Italy. We were never invaded by the Arabs or the Spanish. We are European.”
“Now my wife is fed up here. She wants to go to Bologna, she says. Somewhere more exciting and less provincial.”
“She’s right. The city is provincial.”
“And Pescara?”
“It’s a city, a real city. They’ve spoilt it with the long esplanades of skyscrapers like something in America. But beautiful even so. The sea, the long, sandy beach. And girls—there is no one who can beat Pescarese girls.”
“Of course.”
“Commissario. Your wife is right. I’d rather live in my own city, with its sprawling new suburbs and its streets snarled with traffic, its whores that line the road at nights and all the poor peasants who have come from the countryside to look for a job—I prefer all that to this provincial, stuck-up city. Arrogant. A town of shopkeepers and lawyers. A town that pretends to be proud of its theater and its university and its historic churches, but in fact all it cares about is making money. A town of moneymakers who go to bed early. It votes Communist but in its stony little heart—and in its wallet—it is grasping and indifferent. A town without a soul, Commissario, a hardworking, provincial little city. Give me Pescara any day. Far from the foggy plain of Lombardy; pine trees, sandy beaches and the smell of the Adriatic.”
When they had finished the ham and the cheese and when they had emptied the dark bottle of wine, the girl came over and placed a scrawled bill on the table. Trotti paid. “One other thing,” he said, placing his hand on her arm—she had dark black hairs that ran in neat parallels across the pale flesh. “We’re looking for a church.”
“A church?” She looked unhappy. “You’d better ask the manager.”
“This place is full of cretins,” Magagna whispered as the girl hurried off, her shoes flapping on the ground, towards the kitchens. “Perhaps there’s something in the water.”
She came back a few minutes later accompanied by a large man in a dark suit and brown shoes. She led him to the table like a road accident victim leading a policeman to the scene of the crash.
“Signori?” A glint of gold teeth.
Trotti showed his identification.
The man visibly paled. Brusquely he turned to the girl and made a motion of dismissal. She returned to her place behind the bar where she stared intently into the air.
“The ham was excellent.”
The man gave an ingratiating smile while his hands wiped nervously at his trousers. “You are very kind.” He nodded sideways and sat down slowly on a wooden chair beside Trotti. He had a large belly that swelled out beneath the dark fabric of his trousers; the leather belt unsuccessfully attempted to keep the swelling back, but it pushed from either side of the narrow strip of crocodile leather. He sat with his legs apart and his hands on his knees.
“How can I help you?” His forehead was damp with perspiration.
“We’re looking for a choir.”
The man puffed his cheeks and looked about him with offended dignity. “This is a restaurant, signori.”
Magagna gave Trotti a worried glance.
“We’re trying to locate a choir because if we can find it, it might be of use in our enquiries.” He added, more softly, “A case of kidnapping.”
“What sort of choir? I know nothing about choirs.” The dark eyes looked intently at Trotti.
“A church choir in this area that probably practices during the week.”
Magagna added, “And somewhere where there are bells. Church bells.”
“Ah,” said the man and he sat back in his chair. “Strange.” He scratched his ear. He was probably about fifty years old and was almost bald. His nose had the same shining, greasy texture as his dark suit. “There used to be a church here with a choir. But now they use records. Young people—they don’t go to church any more. A shame. Not that I’m devout, of course. But it’s wrong. The young people today, they’ve got everything but they are not grateful. They’ve got no time for church.” He scratched his ear again. “A choir that practices during the week. Bells.” He looked at Magagna, then back at Trotti. “In one of the villages, perhaps.”
“Or in the hills?”
“In the villages. You need young boys for a choir. All the young people have left the villages. They go to Milan or Genoa for work. The villages are dying, they are full of old people. Who wants to spend his life working in the fields when you can earn twice as much in the factories—and when you’ve got independence? The hills are empty. Bells, you say?”
“Bells,” Magagna repeated and very slowly, like a worried doctor, he removed his sunglasses.
“Not in the hills. There are no choirs there. The young have all left. Independence, they want independence. They go to the big cities”—he threw a
hurried look at the girl—“where nobody knows who you are, where you can do what you like. I don’t know. Bells?”
“And a choir.”
“Well, I don’t know. Unless …”
“Unless what?” Magagna was leaning forward in his chair, his glasses dangling in one hand, his young face only a few centimeters from the man’s flabby face, “Unless what?”
“It’s only a guess.”
“What?”
“Well, if you take the road on the left as you head south—left, mind, not right or you’ll land up on the autostrada—if you take that road and follow it as it winds upwards, following the signposts—the yellow ones, they were put there by the Ufficio Provinciale del Turismo, a real waste of money …”
“Well?”
“You follow the road for twenty-five kilometers and you come to Tarzi.”
Trotti nodded.
“Just before you get to Tarzi, on your right, there’s a convent.”
“Of course,” Trotti said, standing up. “Of course, Santa Roberta.”
The fat man nodded and smiled hesitantly.
“Why didn’t I think of it before?” Trotti slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand. Then picking up the map, he thanked the proprietor, placing a hand on the shoulder of his shiny suit.
“And the ham was excellent.”
Trotti left, followed by Magagna, who replaced his sunglasses before stepping out into the street.
The billiard players and the fat man watched them leave; the girl continued to stare at some private horizon.
23
UNLIKE ALBANA, TARZI had hardly changed since Trotti’s childhood.
It was as he remembered it. It nestled, a small, forgotten town, between the Apennine slopes. The church tower rose and like a grey finger pointed out the cloudless sky.
“When I was ten,” Trotti said, leaning forward to turn off the radio, “I came here with my cousin Anna Maria. I cycled on a bicycle lent to me by her brother Sandro—he’s an important doctor now at the hospital in Brescia. In those days—it was just at the outbreak of war—the roads weren’t surfaced and you had to be careful of getting a puncture.”
Converging Parallels Page 14
