Renzullo accompanied Maione and Ricciardi backstage at the Teatro Splendor, as the commissario had requested.
There were two doors leading to the theater’s backstage area.
One led in from outside, a door at the back of the building, which immediately opened onto a short flight of steps that ended in a narrow hallway lined by a bathroom and the large room that served as the collective dressing room for the rest of the troupe; that dressing room was split in two by a wooden partition: on one side the women, on the other side the men. The hallway then continued for a few more yards, curving along the line of the stage and then finally opening out into a larger space, a sort of antechamber for the dressing rooms of the lead actor and lead actress.
The second entrance, from within the building, through which the policemen and Renzullo now passed, was set at the back of the stage. Once they’d made their way past the coiled ropes and cables of the curtain and the materials used for the backdrops, including the painting of the Milan cathedral and the Venetian lagoon, the three men found themselves standing in the antechamber in question.
There, sitting on a chair with a badly worn straw seat, pushed up against a tiny table, a middle-aged woman was knitting in the dim light. She had an unkempt head of reddish hair, and her face was covered with freckles; a threadbare blanket was wrapped around her shoulders, like a tattered shawl.
Renzullo pointed at her.
“This is Signora Erminia. She does a little of everything: she mends costumes, makes ersatz coffee, distributes the fan notes that the spectators send to dancers and actresses, and occasionally even to the musicians. But her most important task is to make sure that no one bothers the lead actors. Anyone who wishes to reach Michelangelo and Fedora’s dressing rooms must necessarily pass by her.”
The woman turned her porcine, mistrustful gaze from Maione to Ricciardi, and then back to Maione. The uniform seemed to make a special and unpleasant impression upon her, but it certainly didn’t intimidate her. The brigadier recognized in her manners the age-old aversion felt by the lower classes of the city toward the police, and it annoyed him.
He touched his fingers to the visor of his uniform cap and spoke: “Buonasera, Signo’. We’d like to ask you a few questions, about yesterday evening, just to get a better idea . . .”
The woman half-shut her already small eyes and interrupted him: “What is there you’d want a better idea about? Everyone saw exactly what happened.”
Maione took a deep breath.
“Of course. But we’d still like to ask those questions. As long as it’s not an inconvenience for you, ma’am, of course.”
Erminia didn’t seem to pick up on the irony and unfurled a smirk of indifference. Her hands had never once stopped moving the knitting needles.
“If you want to waste your time, please, be my guests.”
Ricciardi weighed in, in part to soothe the tension: “You said that everyone saw it, Signora. Including you?”
The woman replied without once taking her eyes off Maione, almost as if she were engaging him in a silent duel: “No, not I. From here, as even you must understand, I can’t see the stage. But I heard it. I heard the song and the shots, as usual.”
Maione, meeting her gaze, asked: “And was there anything different from the usual sequence of events?”
This time the woman spoke to Ricciardi, and in such a way that it couldn’t be missed.
“When Signora Fedora falls, it usually makes no noise at all because she drops slowly. But last night there was a loud bang from the stage backdrop, the one with the monuments. Then the music stopped short, and the audience started to scream.”
As if nothing had happened, Maione went on: “And at that point, what did you do?”
Erminia continued staring at Ricciardi.
“Nothing.”
The commissario furrowed his brow.
“You didn’t so much as move?”
The woman shrugged her shoulders.
“My job is to stay seated on this chair. Whatever’s going on out there,” and she waved in the direction of the stage, “doesn’t concern me. They don’t pay me to watch the show. In the theater, you have to pay if you want to watch.”
All at once, she turned toward Maione and smiled, putting on display a mouthful of rotten teeth and blackened gums. The policeman maintained his composure.
“So you’re saying that you understood something very serious had happened, and you just remained seated? You weren’t even a little bit curious?”
The woman seemed to consider those words for a moment, while her hands ever so briefly fell still with the knitting needles. Then she said, in a low voice: “Brigadie’, I’m from San Giovanni. Where I come from, it’s an everyday occurrence to notice that something’s happened out in the street, in front of our apartment, our basso, something that might be healthier not to have seen or heard. In San Giovanni, unless you learn early to mind your own business, you won’t live long. My job is to keep anyone else from entering the dressing rooms of the leading actors. And that is what I do.”
Ricciardi nodded.
“So you never left your post, not even between one performance and the next? I’m interested to know whether anyone could have slipped into Gelmi’s dressing room, even if only for a moment, between the end of the first performance and the musical sketch in which Signora Marra was killed.”
The woman showed no sign of hesitation.
“No, no one entered the dressing rooms.”
Maione persisted: “Are you sure you never stepped away, not even for the briefest moment? I don’t know, to grab a quick cup of ersatz coffee or to see to some personal need . . .”
“No,” Erminia replied in no uncertain terms. “I leave my post only if Signor Gelmi or Signora Fedora asks me to. You can’t begin to imagine how many people try to worm their way into the dressing rooms, even during the performance. They show up there,” and she jutted her chin toward the far end of the hallway, where the door to the outdoors stood at the end of the short flight of stairs, “or here, from the stage, bringing bouquets of flowers and fan letters. Sometimes other members of the troupe try to get by, to talk about their own matters or issues concerning the revue. But I have strict orders not to let anyone through, and no one gets through. I only go to the restroom after everyone has gone home.”
Renzullo broke in, struggling to stifle a laugh: “Signora Erminia is better than a guard dog, believe me. I pay her salary, and even I can’t get free access to Michelangelo’s and Fedora’s dressing rooms. She’s a tough nut, Signora Erminia is.”
Maione nodded his head, acknowledging the valor of his adversary. Ricciardi asked: “By any chance, did you see whether Gelmi or Marra left to go anywhere else?”
The woman hesitated briefly: the first time. Her eyes darted from Renzullo to Maione.
“I mind my own business.”
The brigadier shot back harshly: “Signo’, today let me tell you what your business is: answer our questions, otherwise you’re bound to get in that very same kind of trouble that you’ve always been so eager to avoid. Do I make myself clear?”
Clearly unimpressed, Erminia shut up in an obstinate silence until Renzullo exhorted her to speak: “Ermi’, don’t be stubborn. This is important.”
At last, she made up her mind. Speaking in a low voice, she almost seemed afraid that the two actors could still hear her from their dressing rooms.
“Before the beginning of the second performance, Signor Gelmi went to see Signora Fedora.”
She fell silent again, as if she had nothing more to add. Ricciardi and Maione exchanged a glance and waited for the rest, but the woman seemed determined to waver no further from her vow of discretion.
“Perhaps I failed to make myself understood,” the brigadier persisted aggressively. “You must tell us everything you saw and heard.”
Unwillingly, Erminia went on: “Signor Gelmi stayed in his wife’s dressing room for a few minutes, perhaps five minutes. I could hear their voices, even if it was the intermission: that’s when everyone’s talking and it’s hard to hear what people are saying behind closed doors. But they were arguing loudly. Then he went back to his own dressing room.”
Ricciardi asked her one last question: “When he walked past you, how did he look?”
Erminia opened her mouth to reply but immediately shut it again. She looked at Renzullo and he smiled at her reassuringly.
So she said, in a whisper: “He was crying. Signor Gelmi was crying.”