Beneath the Mountain

by Luca D'Andrea

  “Look how he ruined my nail polish.”

  “You idiot. What are you planning to do?”

  I crumpled the can and flipped it into the recycling basket. “Nothing at all. I want to finish the present for Clara, buy a tree . . .”

  “A plastic one.”

  I rolled my eyes. I hated plastic Christmas trees, but I knew it was so much better for the environment. “. . . made in China, decorate it as flashily as I can, and spend a lovely Christmas.”

  “Sure?”

  “I love you, Annelise. You know that, don’t you?”

  “I love you, too. And I bet a but is on its way.”

  “But I hate it when you are such a goody two shoes. Men act like this. We don’t have a conversation, we hit each other. It’s our way of resolving conflicts.”

  Annelise folded her arms over her chest. “I didn’t mean that.”

  “In a few months, Mike will have finished. We’ll arrange the premiere here, in Ortisei or Bolzano. T.A. says—”

  “Who?”

  “T.A., Total Asshole. The head of marketing at the network. He says it’s an excellent idea. In his e-mail, he used the word ‘exciting’ twice and ‘epic’ four times.”

  “Do you think people will understand?”

  “They’ll understand,” I reassured her, although I was far from convinced myself.

  It was possible they wouldn’t even bother to see that damned documentary. And to be honest, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to see it either. Just the idea of it made me feel like throwing up.

  So, to cast it from my mind, I started thinking again about the Bletterbach.

  Nine Letters and a Sled

  I waited a couple of days. Time enough for the swelling on my nose to go down a bit. Then, after a quick search on the internet, screwing my courage to the sticking place and using a trip to the city to buy Christmas decorations as an excuse, I set off for the courthouse in Bolzano.

  It was a square building, in pure Fascist style, on the not very imaginatively named Piazza Tribunale. Watched by a bas-relief depicting a Mussolini of cyclopean dimensions making the Roman salute (“Believe! Obey! Fight!” said a caption), I plunged into the minutia of the Italian legal system.

  The staff were very kind. I introduced myself and explained what I needed, and they sent me to the third floor, where I waited for the deputy prosecutor on duty to have a few minutes to spare. When he emerged, he apologized for the wait, reproached me for not making an appointment over the phone, and shook my hand energetically.

  His name was Andrea Zeller. He was a youthful man, slightly stooped, with fine features and a dark tie. I knew, because I’d read it in the online archives of the local paper while I was waiting for him to arrive, that his almost submissive bureaucratic appearance concealed a courtroom shark.

  Zeller, too, must have done his research while I was waiting for him, because I didn’t need to explain to him who I was. Unlike the inhabitants of Siebenhoch, though, he showed no hostility toward me. On the contrary, when I explained to him that I needed his help for a new project, he proved more than happy to lend a hand.

  We made our way to a nearby café, where he secured a discreet table, and once the coffee was served he rubbed his hands, adjusted his glasses, and asked me, “What can I do for you, Signor Salinger?”

  “I’m working on a documentary about a murder that took place in Alto Adige in 1985, and I’m trying to contact the prosecutor and the Carabinieri captain who carried out the investigation. I think they must both be retired by now. The name of the Carabinieri captain was Alfieri, Flavio Massimo Alfieri, a name fit for an emperor,” I joked—he stared back impassively—“and the prosecutor’s name was Marco Cattaneo. Maybe you—”

  “I remember Cattaneo well. Unfortunately, he died about ten years ago. As for Captain Alfieri, I don’t know anything about him. I can give you the number of the provincial headquarters of the Carabinieri. They may know something. But don’t expect too much, they guard the privacy of their own men jealously. What murder are we talking about? In these parts, ’85 wasn’t a happy time.”

  “Are you from around here?”

  Zeller started playing nervously with a gold-plated cigarette lighter. “I was born in the Oltrisarco district and grew up in Gries, where the Santa Maddalena cellars are. In ’85, I’d only just graduated, but I remember very well what it was like in this city. Ein Tirol had declared war on Italy, and the tension was tangible. If your documentary’s about that, I’m afraid—”

  “No, I’m not interested in terrorism. That’s not my thing. I’m interested in a murder that took place near Siebenhoch, in the Bletterbach.”

  The prosecutor made an effort to visualize this. “Unfortunately nothing comes to mind.”

  “The newspapers didn’t talk about it much. They were too concerned with a storm that caused a dozen deaths.”

  “Now that, I remember. It caused quite a lot of damage. I’m not surprised the crime didn’t get much attention. Was anyone ever arrested?”

  “Never. As far as I know, the case is still open.”

  There was a gleam in Zeller’s eyes. “Homicide cases are never shelved, at least until the perpetrator is sentenced, but if after, I don’t know, thirty years, nobody has been charged, it’s possible that the paperwork was transferred to the courthouse records. If you like, I can give you a few telephone numbers that’ll save you a bit of time, what do you think?”

  I perked up. “That would be very kind.”

  * * *

  The clerk in the records department looked me up and down. “There’s nothing here.”

  “Are you telling me the files have gone missing?” I asked in astonishment.

  “No, I’m telling you they’re not here.”

  “Then where might they be?”

  “In the relevant police headquarters. Maybe the police are late transferring them to records. They’re up to here with paperwork and—”

  “Thirty years late? Do you think that’s possible?”

  That wasn’t his problem.

  “And anyway,” I grunted, “it wasn’t the police who conducted the investigation, but the Carabinieri.”

  “Then you’ll have to ask them,” the clerk said, completely unfazed.

  I left the records department furious. I’d drawn a blank, and I was late for the decorations. I left my car on Piazza Victoria, behind the monument, and headed for the feverish bustle of the historic center of Bolzano, what the locals call I Portici. I bought colored stars, Santa Clauses of various sizes, and at least ten kilos of spangles and silver paper. Our home would sparkle.

  I shoved everything in the trunk of my car, but before setting off back to Siebenhoch I decided to make one last attempt. I called the Carabinieri headquarters.

  At the third ring, a bored voice answered.

  I explained who I was and also mentioned the name of Deputy Prosecutor Zeller. The voice became less bored and more attentive.

  I asked about Captain Alfieri. “Could I speak to him?”

  “That would be difficult, Signor Salinger. He’s dead.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “A good officer. Now, if you have nothing else to—”

  “Actually, there is something else.”

  “Go on.”

  The voice showed a touch of nervousness. I tried to be as concise as possible.

  “I’m trying to gain access to a file. An old investigation conducted by Captain Alfieri.”

  “You’ll have to ask the records department at the courthouse.”

  “I’ve already done that. They say the file isn’t there.”

  “Strange,” the voice said. “Very strange.”

  I had no doubt that, in Carabinieri headquarters, a few butts were about to be kicked.

  “Do you want the records number?”

  “Yes, please, Signor Salinger.”

  I dictated it to him.

  I heard the man mutter something to himself. Then I heard the unmistakable
noise of a keyboard being attacked by hands ill accustomed to navigating it.

  At last, an amused exclamation.

  “Now I remember, of course. The Bletterbach affair. Mystery solved, Signor Salinger. The file isn’t in records.”

  “Do you have it?”

  “That pain in the ass Max Krün has it. In Siebenhoch.”

  I was stunned. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You’re from there, aren’t you? You told me you’re from Siebenhoch.”

  “I live there.”

  “Then you must have met him. The head of the Forest Rangers.”

  “Yes, I know him. But I don’t understand why the file is in his hands.”

  “Because Krün is a big son of a bitch,” the carabiniere explained jovially at the other end of the line. “As stubborn as a mule. That business in ’85—”

  “Were you there?”

  “No, in ’85 I was having an easy life in Pozzuoli, I was thinking of becoming a mechanic, and girls would smile at me, Signor Salinger. Don’t make me any older than I am. But the way Krün managed to piss everyone off around here is practically a legend. That’s why I remembered. What a character, that Krün!”

  “I’m curious. Could you explain?”

  “Technically, the investigation was entrusted to us, do you follow me?”

  “Yes.”

  “So for a few years the file stayed here, in Bolzano. Then the case was forgotten about and the paperwork went into records. But, being an investigation for homicide, it wasn’t really shelved. It was in a kind of bureaucratic limbo. That happens constantly. Are you still on the line? Try to follow me, because this is where it gets good. Krün doesn’t like the way things have gone, so he starts looking through the laws and bylaws. What you need to understand is that in Siebenhoch Max Krün serves as an interim police officer. Now, according to a law dug up by Krün, a code that comes straight from the Albertine Statute and has never been repealed, the public official performing the function of police officer can request the documentation regarding any crime committed in his territory and keep hold of it for as long as he wants, which in this specific case means until the paper rots away.”

  He laughed so loudly, he almost burst my eardrum.

  “Are you telling me,” I said once that weird laugh was over, “that the file is in the Forest Rangers barracks in Siebenhoch?”

  “Precisely, Signor Salinger,” the voice on the telephone confirmed, turning serious. “May I add something in confidence? I wouldn’t like you to have misunderstood my tone.”

  “Please.”

  “We haven’t been telling the story of Krün to all the new recruits for the last twenty years to make fun of him. We’ve been doing so because for us the man is an example. We admire him.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The people who were killed were his friends,” the man said. “What would you have done in his place?”

  * * *

  Each of them had been looking for a way out from the Bletterbach. The members of the rescue team. Werner, Max, Günther, and Hannes. And where had they ended up?

  Günther had dug his own grave by trying to drown the story in alcohol. Hannes had gone out of his mind. Werner had run away from Siebenhoch. And Max? What was it Werner had said about Max?

  Max had turned his uniform into the armor of the defender of Siebenhoch. He had clung to his role in order not to succumb. Now I had proof of that.

  Nine letters: “obsession.”

  * * *

  On the morning of Christmas Eve, before the sun had even emerged from behind the mountains, Werner found me ’round the back of Welshboden. The sled was finished, the paint dry.

  “Looks like you have a talent for this kind of work.”

  I jumped. “I hope I didn’t wake you,” I apologized.

  Werner shook his head, then looked at the sled again. “I’m sure Clara will love it.”

  I wasn’t so sure. All I could see were the defects. “I hope so,” I muttered.

  “I’m convinced of it.”

  “What if it doesn’t work? I’m afraid I put on the runners too quickly and—”

  “Even if it was the slowest sled in the world and fell to pieces at the first test drive, you made it. With your own hands. That’s what Clara will remember one day.”

  “You think so?”

  “She’ll grow up, Jeremiah. She’ll grow up quickly and you won’t be able to protect her any more. I know, I’ve been through that myself. But you know what a father can do?”

  I didn’t want to reply. I felt a knot in my throat. So I waited for him to continue.

  “A father can give only two things to his daughter: self-respect and good memories. When Clara is a woman, a mother, what will she remember of this Christmas? That the sled was slower than a tortoise or that you made it with your own hands?”

  I smiled, grateful for those words.

  I noticed that his eyes had grown a little moist.

  There were too many memories in the air that morning.

  “Anyway, there’s only one way to find out,” he said, dismissing his embarrassment and sadness. “We have to try it out.”

  I thought he was joking.

  But that wasn’t Werner’s style.

  If anyone had seen us, two adults taking turns sliding down the snow-covered meadows of Welshboden, as excited as little boys and cursing like dock workers every time they ended up with their muzzles in the snow, I think they would have thought we were lunatics. Actually, we were having a great time.

  By the time the sun peered out, we were breathless but smiling.

  “I think it works, don’t you?”

  “I think I owe you a thank-you, Werner.”

  * * *

  It was Clara who handed out the presents immediately after dinner: a task that she seemed to enjoy as much as unwrapping them.

  The house in Siebenhoch filled with exclamations of surprise and joy. It was as if Werner had never wanted anything more than that pink spotted tie (“That way you can have a bit of color on you, Ops, pink suits you”), Annelise hugged the sweater with the reindeer as if it were an old friend (“Her name is Robertina, Mamma, she likes geraniums”), and as for me, I had never seen anything more beautiful than that pair of gloves, so colorful it hurt to look at them.

  As well as the gloves, I received the latest novel by my favorite writer (from Annelise), a toolbox (from Werner), and a photograph of Kiss’s road crew with the words “Get better soon, friend!” (from Mike)—which made my eyes a little moist.

  “Do you like your gloves, Papà?”

  “Each finger has a different face! They’re wonderful, sweetheart!” I put them on and strutted about. “Simply wonderful!”

  “How many letters are there in the word ‘wonderful,’ Papà?”

  “As many as the kisses you deserve, sweetheart.”

  And although she pretended to object, I whirled her ’round in the air.

  Good memories, right?

  When things had calmed down, I spoke up. “I think your present is somewhere here, honeybun. But I’m not sure where . . .”

  Clara, who had just finished unwrapping Werner’s present (a pop-up book) and the one that Mike had sent her by post from New York (a Kiss T-shirt with the word “Clara” on the back), turned her head to me, her little eyes looking like two stars.

  “‘Somewhere,’ five letters?”

  I ruffled my hair, trying to seem confused. “Papà’s old. Papà’s losing his memory.”

  “Five letters is lying.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But something tells me you should put on your jacket and gloves.”

  In a moment, her jacket half-buttoned up and her scarf dangling, Clara was at the door. Before flinging it wide open, she turned to Annelise. “Can I?”

  “It’s not a pony, sweetheart.”

  “I don’t want a pony, Mamma. Can I go outside?”

  “Last year you wanted a pony.”

  Clara stam
ped her feet impatiently on the floor. “Last year I was little, Mamma. I know ponies can’t be kept indoors. Can I go outside now?”

  Annelise barely had time to nod before a gust of wind covered us in tiny snowflakes.

  “Papà!”

  I smiled. Annelise kissed my cheek.

  We went out to admire my masterpiece.

  “But it’s beautiful! It’s all red.”

  “Bright red, sweetheart, you don’t want it to get offended. Bright Red Sled, let me introduce Clara. Clara, let me introduce . . .”

  I didn’t finish the sentence. Clara had sat down astride her new gift.

  “Will you help me, Papà?”

  How could I resist that delightful little face? For the remaining two hours, but maybe it was more, all I did was drag Clara up and down the meadow in front of the house, feebly illumined by the moon, until it resembled a battlefield.

  Then I threw myself on the ground, defeated.

  “Papà’s old,” I panted. “Clara’s sleepy. Tomorrow we’ll go to Welshboden and I’ll show you how to sled downhill. It’s more fun there. And maybe I’ll manage to avoid any muscle strain.”

  “Clara isn’t sleepy,” she protested. “Papà isn’t old. Well, maybe a little bit old.”

  Annelise took her by the hand. “It’s time to go to bed. You can play with your new sled tomorrow.” She gave me a glance that meant that it was time for Salinger to unwrap his Christmas present, too. The kind of present forbidden to minors, the kind I liked a lot. “Provided your father is still in one piece tomorrow morning.”

  I admit it.

  I shouldn’t have known. It isn’t good to know what your presents are before Christmas Eve, I’m aware of that. Nor is it good to go around the house rummaging in drawers like a truffle hound.

  No, it’s not done.

  But curiosity is a nine-letter word that fits me like a glove. Besides, in my defense, I have to add that Annelise hadn’t been at all careful in her choice of hiding place. It had taken me less than half an hour to find it. And I have to say that the words “Victoria’s Secret” had whetted my appetite.

  * * *

  And anyway Victoria’s Secret slid away in the twinkling of an eye. A really bad girl, that Victoria, really bad.

  Most Things Change