Death in August

by Marco Vichi

  ‘I don’t want to hear about it, Botta. Let’s have this coffee.’

  Ennio went and prepared the cups according to his personal method, with the sugar first, and any use of spoons forbidden.

  ‘What brings you here, Inspector?’

  ‘I was thinking about arranging a dinner at my place. What do you say?’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Got anything on for Wednesday?’

  Botta reviewed his engagements in his mind, staring at the floor.

  ‘Wednesday … Wednesday … Yes, I’d say that would be all right.’

  ‘Good, I’ll tell the others.’

  ‘They’ll be the same as last time, no?’

  ‘Mind if I add a couple more?’

  Ennio’s face darkened.

  ‘Policemen?’ he asked.

  ‘Don’t worry, one is the son of an old friend, and the other is a scientist and friend to mice.’

  ‘I’ve got no problem with that.’

  ‘Okay, then, you’re to make whatever you like. Just one wish, on the part of Diotivede.’

  ‘If I’m up to the task …’ Botta said, modestly.

  ‘Bean soup alla lombarda. Just imagine, in this heat.’

  Ennio brightened.

  ‘Excuse me if I start drooling, Inspector, but that’s one of my specialities. It doesn’t matter if it’s hot outside; I only have to find the right beans. And for the rest, I’ve already got something in mind.’

  Now came the most delicate part of the operation, since Botta was a very sensitive man. Bordelli coughed into his hand and, with maximum nonchalance, pulled out his wallet, took out one ten-thousand-lira and two one-thousand-lira notes and laid them on the table.

  ‘That should suffice,’ he said.

  Botta blushed.

  ‘It’s too much, Inspector. Take back the two thousand,’ he said, putting the two notes back into Bordelli’s hand. The inspector put them back on the table.

  ‘You’ll see, there won’t be any change,’ he said.

  ‘You can tell a good cook by the way he shops, Inspector.’

  ‘Well, if there’s any left over, you can buy more wine.’

  ‘Sooner or later, I’m going to buy you a fine dinner, I swear.’

  Bordelli lowered his eyes.

  ‘Never mind, Botta, you’ve already paid enough.’ He patted him on the shoulder and left him to his watches with Swiss faces and Neapolitan hearts.

  The heat in the street was ghastly. And there was no hint of rain. Bordelli tried to distract himself by thinking about the dinner and the guests. Was Dr Fabiani in town? He was an old, melancholy psychoanalyst who had made a strong impression on him. Bordelli had met him a year before, during the course of an investigation, and invited him to Christmas dinner with Botta and Diotivede. It was a quiet, pleasant evening. Late into the night, each had told an old story from his past as they sipped cognac.

  On his desk Bordelli found a handwritten note: I must speak to you. I’ll be back shortly. Zia Camilla. Zia Camilla was Rodrigo’s mother. Strange. She never called on him at headquarters. Bordelli expedited a couple of matters by telephone and finished reading the report of an arrest for murder. An unambiguous affair: a row, a knife, many witnesses. The killer was a young Calabrian male whose mother’s virtue had been slandered. He had been in town for only a few days and didn’t know that, in this part of Italy, slandering someone’s mother was almost as common as saying ‘Ciao’. A sad story of cultural misunderstanding. Bordelli got to the last lines: ‘… after which Bruno Pratesi addressed Salvatore Loporco with the words “son of a whore”, whereupon Loporco took out a cutting instrument with a five-inch blade and set upon Pratesi, stabbing him repeatedly in the chest and abdomen, saying in dialect, “I’ll teach you to talk about my dear mother that way”. All witnesses concur in saying that Loporco etc …’

  At that moment somebody knocked, and Mugnai’s head popped inside the half-open door.

  ‘Your aunt is here,’ he said.

  ‘Show her in.’

  Zia Camilla was fat only from the waist down. She always wore a stunned expression and a hint of alarm in her eyes, but today more than usual. Bordelli got up to greet her.

  ‘Zia, what’s wrong?’

  The woman set her shopping bags down on the chair in front of the desk and remained standing.

  ‘I wanted to talk to you about Rodrigo. Lately he’s been sort of strange,’ she said in a worried tone.

  ‘I saw him a couple of weeks ago, and he seemed fine … In the sense that he seemed normal.’

  ‘It’s only been these last few days …’

  ‘In what way has he been strange?’

  ‘He’s just strange … A mother can feel these sorts of things.’ Bordelli sat down on a corner of the desk, thinking that Rodrigo had always been a bit of a pill.

  ‘Tell me more,’ he said. Zia Camilla threw up her hands.

  ‘He never goes outside any more, he doesn’t shave, he hardly ever answers the telephone, and when I call on him he keeps me standing at the door and can’t wait for me to leave.’

  ‘Wasn’t it the same four years ago, when you gave his old shoes to Father Cubattoli?’

  ‘This time it’s worse.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Why don’t you pay him a call? Talk to him a little. Maybe he’ll confide in you.’

  ‘Why would he do that?’

  ‘You’re his cousin … and you’re a detective.’

  ‘For him those are points against me.’

  ‘Just pay him a little visit. Do it for me. I’m worried.’

  ‘All right, Zia, I’ll try ringing him later.’

  ‘And what if he doesn’t answer?’

  ‘Then I’ll go and see him at home.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘Promise.’

  ‘Thank you, dear. God bless you.’ She stood up on tiptoe to kiss him and stroked his cheek with her fingers. Bordelli saw her out, carrying her shopping bags for her.

  ‘Ciao, Zia, give my best to Zio Franco.’

  ‘Thank you, dear.’

  ‘I’ll phone you as soon as I’ve got any news.’

  From the window the inspector watched Zia Camilla walk briskly across the courtyard’s flagstones. At seventy-three, she was still strong and healthy. She was his father’s sister, which gave him hope for the Bordelli line. It would take an accident to make him die young. Which was, in fact, what happened with his father, Amedeo Bordelli, a big, burly man with the broad, handsome face of a good-hearted boxer, who fell from a window while painting the shutter-latches.

  The inspector returned to his office and saw that it was almost eight o’clock. His appointment with Piras was for half past nine. As he didn’t have much appetite, he went out for a bite in the bar across the street and then bought a couple of cold beers. He put one in the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet and then uncapped the other with his house key. During the fifteen years he’d been working in that office, not once had he ever remembered to bring a bottle opener from home. Lighting a cigarette, he dialled Rodrigo’s number. He let it ring for a long time, but there was no reply. He redialled the number half an hour later, with the same result. What a pain in the arse. Now he would actually have to go there. He had no desire to talk to Rodrigo, but since he’d promised Zia Camilla, he couldn’t back out. Well, there were worse things in life than a peevish, pedantic cousin. Anyway, he was curious to find out what was behind this business of not shaving … He had never seen Rodrigo unshaven.

  Round about nine o’clock the heat in his office became unbearable. It was like being caught between the fingers of a gigantic hot and sweaty hand. Bordelli didn’t feel like going home. He lit another cigarette, his fourth or fifth, he couldn’t remember. Not a bad tally, he thought. A few months ago, by that hour he would already have smoked a good thirty. There was still a little light outside. Clouds were still gathering, every so often you could hear some distant thunder, but still no rain. A good downpour would
have made the night a little less asphyxiating.

  Bordelli picked up the receiver and dialled Fabiani’s number. The psychoanalyst was very pleased to be invited to dinner. He, too, always stayed put in August. He seemed in good spirits, though there was, as always, a note of deep sadness in his voice. When Bordelli had first met him, Fabiani was still tormented by remorse over a work-related incident that had ended tragically. It gave him no peace. They agreed on dinner and said goodbye.

  Bordelli sat in silence, staring into space. Without knowing how, he found himself thinking about the woman of his life, the one he had never found. He tried to picture her, to imagine what she might look like, but he couldn’t see anything. He had no precise idea of her, but he was certain that if she stood right in front of him, he would know at once that she was the one. And it would be a triumph. Then he realised that by now it was getting late. If he found her now, at fifty-three, it would only be a defeat. Maybe he’d done everything wrong. He had always been waiting for something special, the way little girls believe in Prince Charming, languishing in their illusions. Falling in love with the wrong women had only reinforced his desire to find the right one, making him more and more rigid and hard to please. Sometimes, just to escape the loneliness, he would throw himself into brief, sordid relationships with women who didn’t understand him and only left him wanting to be alone. And now here he was, fifty-three years old, his only satisfaction that of having the same dream in his head, but with no hope of fulfilling it. He took comfort in the thought that he could never have done otherwise, and if he were reborn he would do the very same things. A heroic melancholy enveloped his head like a hot rag … Bordelli, the solitary knight, beloved of all women …

  At 9.30 sharp, there was a knock at the door. Rousing himself, Bordelli felt ashamed of his silly dreams.

  ‘Come in.’

  It was Piras. He walked in and remained standing in front of the desk.

  ‘Any news, Inspector?’

  ‘One thing. But don’t just stand there, sit down.’

  Piras dropped into the chair, impatient for Bordelli to speak. Chasing the remaining scraps of dream from his head with the help of a sigh, the inspector readied himself to satisfy the Sardinian’s curiosity.

  ‘It’s no longer a game, Piras. Signora Pedretti was murdered.’ And he told him in minute detail what he had learned from Diotivede. Piras’s mouth tightened.

  ‘Interesting,’ he said.

  Bordelli denied himself another cigarette, pleased at such willpower, and reclined in his chair, bending the springy back.

  ‘Are you free Wednesday evening?’

  ‘I get off work at eight.’

  ‘I’m having a dinner party at my place, a little thing among friends. Care to join us? I should warn you I’m the youngest of the lot.’

  Piras looked visibly pleased.

  ‘That’s fine with me, Inspector. I’ll bring some Sardinian pastries.’

  ‘I’ll bet they’re papassinos.’

  ‘How did you know?’

  Bordelli smiled and recalled a cold morning in ’44.

  ‘Once, during a mortar attack, your father explained to me in great detail how those biscuits are made, and I’ve been wanting to taste one ever since. But I wanted to tell you another thing. Tomorrow at noon, Signora Pedretti’s two nephews are coming to see me. I want you to be there, too. You can man the typewriter and write the report, but mostly I want you to try to figure out what’s going through their heads.’

  ‘That’s fine with me.’

  Piras left. After a few minutes of listless reflection, Bordelli slapped himself on the forehead.

  ‘Rodrigo,’ he said. He immediately dialled his cousin’s number and let the phone ring for a long time, but it was no use. Bordelli hung up and promised himself he would drop by his cousin’s place the following day. He was becoming seriously intrigued by this business of not shaving.

  A little rain fell around midnight, so sparse you could count the drops. They were as big as eggs and splatted on the road with a slapping sound, evaporating in seconds on the still-hot asphalt. Bordelli had lain down in bed with a book by Fenoglio on his belly. Even immobile, he still sweated. A moribund fly kept going from one end of the room to the other, ceaselessly crashing against the walls in search of a way out. The mosquitoes were having a ball in the only apartment in town without DDT. Reading was impossible. It was easier to sink into the usual unwholesome melancholy. Warm gusts of wind blew through the wide-open windows, and still more mosquitoes, and the creaking sounds of old bicycles. Now and then a lone automobile, or a faraway train. Vito, known as Vinaccia, also passed by. He was an old alcoholic who talked to himself. He never left the San Frediano quarter. Bordelli recognised his stumbling, wine-sodden step. The drunk was muttering to himself, in the usual angry tone. The inspector set aside Fenoglio and turned off the light. He heard Vito stop to catch his breath. Then he suddenly raised his voice.

  ‘They’re all whores, the lot of ’em … nothin’ you can do about it … all whores …’

  Poor Vito. Bordelli heard him set off again with difficulty, cursing through clenched teeth. Then he stopped at the end of the street and started yelling the same things as before. He even banged on the steel shutters of a few shops, choked on his own voice, coughed to the point of fainting, and then, after spitting theatrically, resumed his grumbling. In the penumbra of the bedroom, Bordelli remembered another old madman from many years before, also an alcoholic who talked to himself. People called him Villoresi, but nobody knew his real name. Nor did anyone know how old he was. He had a monstrous nose exploding in the middle of his face like dripping wax, dilated pores as red as open wounds, two pale blue imbecilic eyes popping out of his death’s-head as though blown out from within by force, and a rotten, perpetually open mouth. He dragged himself about, holding up walls with one hand, taking short little steps, like Vito, always speaking aloud to someone who wasn’t there, question and answer in quick repartee, almost always angry, head dangling to one side. He would spit out insults at an invisible enemy and curse him for eternity. Whenever any women saw him approach, they would cross to the other side of the street, avoiding his gaze. Realising this, he would start yelling.

  ‘Fucking whores! Yeah, you wish! Fucking whores is what you are!..’

  He had a deep, hoarse voice, and the more he yelled, the more his imprecations stuck in his throat, his face turning red from the effort. Children were a little afraid of him and used to taunt him for the thrill of it. They would hide round street corners and shout a name at him — ‘Bertolaniiiii!’ — which functioned as a sort of magic word that, for obscure reasons, made him fly into a rage. ‘Bertolani! Bertolaniiii!’ Villoresi would straighten himself with a start and look all around to stare down the culprit, screaming a litany of curses against the whole world: ‘Damned pigs … sons of whoring sows … I’ll kick your arses one by one …’ The children would take to their heels, pursued by his oaths.

  Almost everyone in the neighbourhood was fond of the old man. If a day went by without any sign of him, they would ask one another: ‘Where’s Villoresi?’

  Bordelli swatted at a mosquito humming in his ear. It was even hotter than before. The weary buzzing of the fly had not ceased for a single moment. He closed his eyes, hoping to fall asleep, and before drifting off he saw a medieval village from the Marches region whose name he couldn’t remember. To enable the Allies’ tanks to pass through, they’d had to widen the streets by chiselling away the stones of the houses.

  Anselmo was utterly unlike how Bordelli had imagined him: chubby, with beady, suffering eyes, a tuft of greasy hair atop his head. He had a troubled air about him and an oily face, and looked about thirty years old or a little less. He sat on the chair as if he was forever about to get up. He folded his sweaty hands, then wiped them on his trousers. He kept sticking his forefinger inside his shirt collar, as if he needed air. He genuinely seemed the anxious type, the kind who flush the toilet before they’ve
finished pissing. One felt nervous just looking at him. Yet his voice was strangely calm and even. He was well dressed and wore a very serious-looking tie.

  His brother Giulio was younger, also fat, also a ‘doctor’. The same flabby face as Anselmo, the same pain-filled eyes, but a lot more hair and a more colourful tie.

  The heat had reached dangerous levels. Anselmo was having difficulty breathing.

  ‘Well, here we are, Inspector. Why did you want to see us?’ he said with a cold smile. Bordelli looked over at Piras, seated at the typewriter across the room.

  ‘Just a few questions,’ he said.

  ‘Very well.’

  Bordelli sighed wearily and looked Anselmo straight in the eye.

  ‘Signor Morozzi, where were you on Thursday evening between eight and ten o’clock?’

  The sweat was dripping from Anselmo’s chin. He took out a handkerchief and wiped his face.

  ‘In what sense, Inspector?… I mean, why are you asking me this?’

  ‘You’re not the only one I’m asking. I also want an answer from your brother.’ Giulio shuffled his feet on the floor.

  ‘Me? On Thursday?’ he said in a falsetto. Anselmo cut him off.

  ‘We were at the beach,’ he said.

  ‘Where, exactly?’

  ‘Cinquale.’

  ‘Did you stay in or go out?’

  ‘We ate out, then went dancing late into the night, at a club on the waterfront.’

  Giulio confirmed the story with a nod. Anselmo rested one hand on the edge of the desk, leaving a wet imprint behind. He was panting softly.

  ‘But, if I may ask, what has this to do with the matter of …’ He didn’t finish his sentence, but just stared at the inspector, face shiny with sweat. Bordelli decided not to beat about the bush and to get straight to the point. He turned to Giulio, who was also sweating profusely.

  ‘Your aunt was very wealthy, as you know. In cases such as these, it’s always best to check whether any of the heirs tried to force the hand of fate.’

  ‘The hand of fate?’ said Giulio, eyes narrowing. He seemed weaker than his brother. Of the two, he was clearly the one who followed; he looked at Anselmo with admiration, under the sway of a charisma that he alone could see. Bordelli observed him carefully.