Afternoon
THE NIGHT OF WILD celebration was followed by a day of endless chatter and newspaper headlines, with T-shirts of the world champions on sale even outside cemeteries and in hospitals. Hardly anyone was working, and it would have been difficult to get anything done. To distract himself from the inane office chatter, Balistreri allowed Linda to persuade him to take a late afternoon walk.
After half an hour, his bad leg and his age made it necessary to rest. He also needed an espresso. They sat down at a café in Piazza Navona.
At the next table sat a couple with their two adolescent children. The mother read out loud from a guidebook. “Piazza Navona came into being in the first century AD, but as a stadium rather than a square.”
With his mouth full of pastry, the son asked, “Did the Rome team play here?”
The mother carried on with the history of the fountain, the rivalry between Bernini and Borromini, and the raised hand on the Rio della Plata statue that blocks the view of Sant’Agnese. “Well, it is a pile of crap,” the girl said, wiping a blob of pastry cream off her face with the back of her hand.
At a certain point the two teenagers got up without a word and went off to look in the store windows around the square that displayed designer clothes, iPods, and the latest cell phones. The mother put the guidebook down and looked at her husband, who was buried behind the edition of Corriere dello Sport that described the great Italian triumph in detail. “Do something, would you? They’re your kids, too.” He lowered the newspaper a little, looked over the top at her, and said, “You bring up the kids; I bring home the money.”
Their two espressos arrived with two little glasses of water. By now there were very few cafés that kept up this tradition. Balistreri liked it. It reminded him of the mabrouka who performed the same ritual for his father when he was in his study. Papa thanked her with a little nod of the head without taking his eyes off his papers. He always took a sip of water first and then started on the coffee.
He glanced at the next table, where the father had spread the paper out on the table and was continuing to read. His eye fell on a headline buried among the interviews with the team’s heroes. It was tucked in a corner, barely noticeable: A TRAGEDY OF TWO WORLD CUPS.
He got up and went over to the table. “Excuse me,” he said.
The man raised a pair of hostile eyes, probably expecting to see an immigrant trying to sell him something, but when he recognized a typical Italian face, he softened a little.
“Yes?” he replied, irritated nevertheless.
“Forget about it,” Balistreri said, having just noticed a newsstand at the other end of the piazza.
With Linda looking on, perplexed, he asked for the Corriere dello Sport.
The vendor laughed. “Sorry, all the newspapers were sold out by ten o’clock.”
“Even hard news?”
“Even the papers that publish hard news are all about our champions today. All sold out.”
Balistreri went back to the avid reader.
“Look, I need your paper. I’ll give you ten euros for it.”
The man shook his head. “I’m going to frame this and hang it on the wall.”
“All right. Look, I just want to read a little piece that interests me there, and then I’ll give it back to you.”
The other man was now curious. “What do you want to read?”
Balistreri pointed it out to him. The man looked at it with a frown. “Why the hell would you bother with that on a glorious day like today?”
The look on Balistreri’s face made him change his attitude.
“Keep that page. I’m not interested in it,” he said.
Sitting with Linda in the joyful piazza overflowing with crowds of people, Balistreri read the article.
. . . .
A TRAGEDY OF TWO WORLD CUPS. Giovanna Sordi committed suicide yesterday evening by throwing herself off the balcony at her home. Just like her daughter, Elisa, who was brutally murdered twenty-four years ago on the day of Italy’s World Cup victory in Spain, the elderly woman died as the national team was lifting its championship trophy. Was it a chilling coincidence, or did the latest national victory awaken unbearably painful memories for her? The Elisa Sordi case, which at the time was on the front page for weeks, has remained unsolved. No one has ever been formally charged with the murder. Unfortunately, what is a great joy for many is a huge personal tragedy for at least one family.
An extremely sensitive sub-editor, a piece that escaped the chief editor’s notice.
A pang in the stomach, different from all the others he had felt for years. It didn’t even seem to come from the usual point at the bottom of his esophagus, but somewhere deeper, distant, and clear.
He lit a cigarette and thought about Elisa Sordi’s parents: humble origins, a worker in early retirement and a waitress. He remembered the couple’s persistence—which he’d seen as overreaction—during the World Cup final, the desperation and restraint they showed after Elisa was found. He remembered how Amedeo Sordi came down to Homicide every morning to ask whether there was any news. He would sit in a corner and read L’Unità, remaining there in silence for hours. No one took any notice of him. He kept it up for two whole years until someone, perhaps his own lawyer, had gently let him know that it was pointless and that he was disturbing the police.
Giovanna Sordi had waited twenty-four years for someone to tell her who had taken Elisa from her and why. And when, after twenty-four years, World Cup champion Italy had replied no, she really couldn’t know who’d done it, she had decided to end it all.
On impulse, he tried calling Angelo. Linda was watching him, the vertical groove clearly furrowing her brow. Angelo replied cheerfully after the first ring.
Balistreri read the article to him. A long silence followed. Finally Angelo Dioguardi hung up without saying a word.