Death in August

by Marco Vichi

  The little thief lit up.

  ‘Botta? I haven’t seen him for months.’

  ‘You must spend your holidays in different places.’

  ‘And Botta … knows how to cook?’

  ‘No, he doesn’t know how to cook, he’s a born cook. It’s different.’

  ‘Well, well.’

  ‘You remember my address?’

  ‘Of course, Inspector, I’ve got it printed up here,’ he said, pointing a finger to his forehead. Bordelli thought a poor bloke like Canapini deserved a tombstone with a carved inscription at the very least. He belonged to a generation of thieves who put honour above money, a species that was slowly but inexorably dying out.

  They descended the stairs together. Out on the blazing pavement, Bordelli had an idea.

  ‘Listen, Cana, I’m supposed to come here every day to water the flowers, but I’m terribly busy.’

  Canapini understood at once. His lips curled as if to smile, but his face became sadder than ever.

  ‘I’ll take care of it, Inspector, don’t you worry, I can do it.’

  ‘Thanks, that takes a load off my mind. Here are the keys.’

  As he held them out to him, Canapini raised his hands.

  ‘I can’t take them, Inspector. I’m afraid I’d lose them.’

  ‘Then how will you get in?’ Bordelli realised at once what a silly question he had asked, and only shook his head, smiling.

  ‘If God created flies, there must be a reason,’ somebody had written, though at that moment he couldn’t remember who. His thoughts drifted off, searching his memory for things he had read in his youth, but he still couldn’t remember … and slowly they turned to other flies, in April of ’45, in northern Italy, the flies swarming round the face of the last Nazi he killed. He had taken aim from afar, and from above, as the German ran by below the embankment. He had set the machine gun for single fire and kept shooting until the target fell to the ground. The Nazi was a blond lad of about seventeen, eyes open wide to the heavens above. His helmet had rolled ahead of him, and Bordelli had picked it up and felt something like a blow to the stomach. On one side was a swastika painted in white, with a large X painted over it in red. Above, at the top of the helmet, was the bullet hole, which passed right through the first N in the name ANNA, written in white paint beside a heart, also white, its point slanted to the left. Bordelli felt the vomit rise into his throat. He had killed a blond boy in love with an Italian girl, not a Nazi. He sat down on the grass and lit one of his hundred daily cigarettes. He had kept that helmet ever since, stowed away in a wardrobe. He never killed anyone else after that, never felt like firing any more. The notches on the butt of his machine gun stopped at thirty-seven.

  He ran a hand over his face, and for the first time felt as if the war had taken place a thousand years ago.

  Piras’s face appeared inside the half-open door.

  ‘Am I disturbing you, Inspector?’

  ‘Not at all, Piras. Come in.’

  The Sardinian remained standing in front of the desk. He chased away a fly that had landed on his cheek. He had a grave expression on his face.

  ‘I wanted to ask you what we’re going to do about the Morozzi brothers,’ he said.

  ‘You seem to be taking the case very much to heart.’

  ‘We should interrogate them again, but separately. And I would do the same with the wives.’

  ‘You want to upset them, I guess.’

  ‘Exactly. And it doesn’t matter that we don’t yet have a clear sense of things. What do you say?’

  Bordelli mulled it over. He swatted at two flies making love on his arm.

  ‘Piras, do you remember who wrote: “If God created flies, there must be a reason?”’

  ‘Saint Augustine, Inspector. In the Confessions.’

  Bordelli nodded, as if he’d known all along.

  ‘All right, Piras, I agree with you. Let’s interrogate them all, one at a time.’

  The Sardinian looked quite pleased.

  ‘Then I’ll have them summoned,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, take care of that yourself. And have them come tomorrow.’

  Piras left, and Bordelli sat there, reflecting, amid a dozen or so frantic flies. The case was still at the same point. They needed to work out how it was possible to kill someone from sixty miles away. And they had to do it in August, the hottest August in memory.

  But what if the Morozzis were in fact innocent? Who could have killed that woman, and why? For revenge?

  Bordelli thought with envy of Rodrigo, so full of hope and novelty. Perhaps he had found the right woman, which was saying a lot. And he was two years younger than him. One could only imagine what kind of nights he was spending with his mysterious lover.

  The interrogation was a painful affair. Bordelli consoled himself with the thought that Botta was already at the cooker. He had left him a short while before, chopping onions.

  The Morozzi brothers did nothing but whimper the whole time. They wiped away their sweat with their handkerchiefs, repeating everything they had already said. Their wives resembled one another like sisters. Gina and Angela. They had the same unpleasant mannerisms, the same whorish make-up, and both gave off a strong smell of chestnut flour. They too repeated everything their husbands had said, with a long-suffering expression that inspired only antipathy. The only concrete result of the interrogation was to make them all upset, as intended.

  After they left, Bordelli started pacing about his office.

  ‘So, Piras, how did they do it?… And what is that smell?’

  ‘That’s all I can think about, Inspector, but I still can’t come up with an answer.’

  Piras, of course, was referring to the first question. Bordelli crossed his arms over his paunch, continuing to sniff the air with irritation, then got up and opened the window wide. Piras sat stone faced, thinking, trying to put the pieces together. It wasn’t so difficult, after all. By now the dynamic of the murder was more or less clear: Salvetti’s Alfa Giulietta Sprint, the switched medicine bottles, the copied keys. All that remained to be unravelled was the business of the pollen, nothing more, and then the rest would be like taking candy from a baby. Bordelli circled round his desk and plopped down in his chair.

  ‘Today’s the funeral, Piras, then they all go off to the solicitor’s to read the will.’

  ‘Was Signora Pedretti very rich?’

  ‘Very. But she left it all to the nuns.’

  Piras smiled wickedly.

  ‘Good for her,’ he said.

  ‘If the Morozzis did it, it was all for nothing,’ Bordelli said.

  Piras started walking about the room, index finger over his lips, gaze wandering up and down the walls. The inspector drummed his fingers on his cigarette pack, also thinking. He glanced at his watch and saw that it was already one o’clock. The nauseating smell was still in the air and made his head ache.

  ‘I’m going to get a bite to eat, Piras. See you tonight, at my place.’

  ‘All right.’

  On his way out of the station, Bordelli tapped on the window of the guardroom.

  ‘Mugnai, when you get a chance, go up to my office. The ladies left behind a nasty little scent as a souvenir. See if you can get rid of it.’

  ‘All right, sir.’

  * * *

  Bordelli dropped in at home, deciding he couldn’t go to Toto’s. He wanted to eat lightly and then lie down for half an hour before going back to work. He ended up sitting at the kitchen table eating tuna and onions while Botta fussed about with his saucepans with the seriousness of an engineer.

  ‘An extra guest’ll be coming tonight, Botta, but don’t be alarmed. It’s only Canapini.’

  ‘Cana? Where did you unearth him?’

  ‘I found him at the flat of a lady friend.’

  ‘Aha. You caught him trying to rob someone.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  Botta sniggered and continued stirring the contents of a large earthenw
are pot with a wooden spoon, raising Dantesque clouds of smoke.

  ‘The crazy fool! It’ll be nice to see him, poor bloke. When did he get out?’

  ‘A couple of days ago.’

  ‘Want a few hot beans, Inspector?’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Botta poured a ladleful of steaming beans on to a plate, then started chopping parsley with a mezzaluna. In one corner of the table was a large slab of red meat beside a salad bowl filled to the brim with diced potatoes. A number of mysterious bags were lined up on the sideboard.

  ‘What’s it going to be after the Lombard soup?’ Bordelli asked.

  ‘It’s a surprise, Inspector. All I can say is that it’ll be a journey outside of Italy.’

  ‘To the north or south?’

  ‘No more questions, Inspector. Botta never talks.’

  ‘In this heat I’m sure you’ll take us south. Morocco? Tunisia?’

  ‘This is a delicate moment, Inspector. Don’t distract me.’

  Bordelli finished his tuna and ate an apple without saying another word. Ennio moved nimbly back and forth between table and cooker, completely submerged in his thoughts. Seeing him so busy, Bordelli decided to get out of his way, went and lay down in bed and lit a cigarette. The blinding sunlight forced its way through the slats of the closed shutters. At that hour, two in the afternoon, the silence was almost absolute. Feeling a great sadness well up in his chest, Bordelli closed his eyes and very nearly fell asleep with the lighted cigarette in his hand. He crushed it in the ashtray and turned on to his side. He was trying to banish from his thoughts the image of Elvira brushing a blonde lock of hair away from her face, and when he finally succeeded, it was replaced by another, much older memory … an abandoned farmhouse at the top of a hill … He was on patrol with Piras Sr, climbing the slope through fallow fields. When they reached the house they stopped in the farmyard and looked around. It was spring and the insects were buzzing round the flowers. A sort of maternal warmth emanated from the hot bricks. He felt like lying down in the grass and sleeping for ever. He slung the machine gun over his shoulder and folded his hands behind his head, breathing in the scented air. Then all at once he turned round, instinctively, without knowing why, and saw the double barrel of a shotgun poke out of some bushes beside the house. He managed to grab Gavino by the arm and pull him to the ground a split second before the shot. The pellets struck the wall of the house, raising a yellowish cloud of dust. Flat on the ground, they awaited the second shot.

  ‘Should I fire back?’ asked Piras. Bordelli shook his head no. They lay there on the warm brick, carefully scanning the bushes. The double barrel was gone, but soon poked out through more shrubbery. He and Piras rolled to one side and the shot wasn’t late in coming. The hail of pellets scraped the ground, cutting the grass and raising splinters of brick. At once Bordelli sprang to his feet and ran towards the shotgun, diving into the bush, where he found himself in front of an old man with a broad face, a long beard and a black peasant’s cap pulled down to his eyes. The man was pointing his now empty shotgun at him, shaking the barrels to keep him at bay.

  ‘You want my chickens, do you? Well, no chickens for you, my friend, the Germans gunned them all down, too, hee hee hee! Ah, no chickens, no rabbits, all kaput, heeheehee! Sprechen deutsch, ja? Hee hee hee! Traitor rabbits, up against the wall, all of ’em, kaput!’

  He goggled his eyes and burst into laughter. Bordelli heard Gavino panting behind him.

  ‘And who is this?’ asked the Sardinian. Without taking his eyes off the old man, Bordelli tapped his temple twice with his finger.

  Piras came forward with a great rustling of leaves and branches.

  ‘He may be crazy, but he was ready to make us bleed,’ he said, gesturing as if to say that his cartridges were harmless, filled only with birdshot.

  The old man was no longer smiling, but staring at the double barrel of the shotgun in wonder. He remained that way for a few seconds, brow wrinkled as if listening for a faraway sound. Then he set down his rifle, lowered his eyes, and sobbed three or four times, chest heaving.

  ‘Animals!’ he said, rubbing his nose and stamping his feet on the ground so hard he seemed to want to break through the earth’s crust. At last he spat to one side and raised the rifle again, pointing it at Bordelli.

  ‘No chickens, mein general, they’re all kaput. Heeheehee! Sprechen deutsch? All kaput.’

  Bordelli and Piras exchanged glances. They took the mad old peasant by the arm and walked back towards the field, as the man kept muttering ‘kaput, kaput’ without cease. Back at the infirmary they coddled him like a child. He scarfed down some American junk food and got so drunk he finally threw up. The following day they sent him along with a couple of wounded to a hospital behind the front lines. Bordelli continued to wonder whether he had done the right thing to take the old man away from his little house and not simply leave him there alone to live out his crazy life in peace.

  * * *

  A fly landed on his nose. He opened his eyes to look at the alarm clock. He was sure he had slept hardly at all, but in fact it was almost six o’clock. He lay in bed for a while longer, trying to revive his sluggish muscles. The stink of cigarette butts bothered him, so he covered the ashtray with a book. Stretching his legs over the hot sheets, he stared at the ceiling and turned his thoughts to Signora Pedretti-Strassen. He saw again her gnarled hands clutching at her throat, her blue-veined white feet, her sharp, slightly hooked nose, her open eyes, full of horror and almost alive, her body stiff on the great bed, alone in her large villa on the hill, high over the deserted city, surrounded by age-old trees … At once he felt like going back there, to breathe that air again, see that room again, look at those floors again.

  He put on his shoes and poked his head into the kitchen. Botta was dicing meat, engrossed in his labours, while a white, spice-scented smoke rose up from a skillet.

  ‘I’m going out, Ennio. I’ll see you at nine.’

  Botta muttered something without looking up. The inspector left him there and went out into the street, mouth still pasty with sleep. As the Volkswagen was parked in the shade, he could get in without trauma. Reaching the Lungarno, he crossed the Ponte alle Grazie and turned, as always, to look up at the church of San Miniato al Monte, his favourite. Its white facade always had the same effect, whether from up close or far away.

  A few minutes later he turned up the sloping street that led to the villa. A warm, sticky wind blew in through the window. He could already see the villa’s roof from afar, with the great cedar towering over it. He took the last curves with an unlit cigarette between his lips. He would smoke it later, perhaps seated on a sofa in front of some beautiful painting.

  He stopped the Beetle in the usual spot and got out of the car. Crossing the street, he looked down at the city below. A maze of red roofs bristling with the churches’ belfries. He felt a great urge to scream at the top of his lungs, to stop thinking about Elvira’s eyes, the slap of her bare little feet on the tiled floor. He wanted to forget he was fifty-three years old, a melancholy grump with no more desire to dream, an old man fond of solitude, unable to open up to others.

  Lighting the cigarette, he headed towards the villa. He entered the garden somewhat tentatively, as if violating someone’s privacy. The cicadas hummed, high in the trees. All was calm. Entering the house, he went straight up to the first floor. In Rebecca’s room the window had been left ajar. Bordelli opened it wide, pulled up a chair, and sat in front of it. The wind gently rustled the trees’ great boughs, and soon he was asleep, chin on his chest, lulled by the cicadas.

  A gust whistled through the trees, waking him up. It was almost dark outside. His cigarette had fallen to the floor and burnt down, leaving a brown streak on a floor tile. Glancing at his watch, he saw that it was almost nine o’clock.

  ‘Shit,’ he said. Dinner must be almost ready. He tried to get up out of the chair, but his legs were unsteady. Bending down to pick up the butt, he looked around for an ashtray.
Spotting a wastebasket in the corner, he tossed the cigarette and missed. Rising with a sigh, he walked past the bed and noticed something moving on it. Turning round with a start, he smiled: a huge white cat was lying on one of the pillows, paws in the air and eyes half open.

  ‘And what are you doing here?’ he said.

  He went up to the animal and patted it. The cat opened its eyes and meowed. Its fur was soft. Bordelli ran his hand all along its belly.

  ‘Got to go now, pretty boy. Ciao.’

  He turned to leave, but stopped in his tracks in the doorway. Perplexed, he looked back at the cat, then went downstairs and started inspecting the windows and doors. They were all tightly shut. He couldn’t work out how the cat had entered. Clearly the animal hadn’t been shut up indoors all this time, and it obviously wasn’t dying of hunger. Why he was taxing his brain to uncover a cat’s secrets, he couldn’t say, but at the end of the day he was a policeman, and there was no helping the fact that strange phenomena aroused his curiosity. Thus there must be an opening somewhere. Ten past nine. His guests must already be seated at table. As he was about to leave, the cat walked past him, towards the kitchen. Bordelli followed. It headed straight towards the French door as if about to run into it, but, as though by magic, the moment its head touched the wood, a little hatch opened up and the cat disappeared outside, tail stroking the edge of the cat door. Bordelli got down on his knees for a better look. He’d never seen anything like it. The little door was hinged on top, and when at rest, it filled the opening, completely concealing it. It opened with ease from either side, like saloon doors. Brilliant. Nine fifteen. Now he had better fly. No more playing cop. The others had probably already started eating. He ran out of the villa and raced back into town, driving like a madman. When he slipped the key into his front door, it was 9.25.

  ‘Inspector, we said nine o’clock!’ said Ennio, offended. Bordelli put a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Sorry. Is everyone here?’

  ‘Everyone but you. I’ve already served some wine.’

  ‘Well done, Ennio.’