Doubts. He was full of doubts. Doubts that drowned him and clawed at him.
His thoughts, whichever way they turned, wound up slamming into a solid brick wall.
Sitting in an armchair, with the radio playing dance music in the background, while the housekeeper Nelide cleaned an already immaculate kitchen, Commissario Luigi Alfredo Ricciardi faced up to his own uncertainties.
That murder case, simple though it seemed to be, was unnerving him. It seemed obscure to him. He couldn’t grasp its aim or its mechanics, he couldn’t penetrate to its essence.
If Gelmi had planned out the murder, he’d have done it in such a way as to avoid being the only possible suspect; whereas if his act was the result of a momentary burst of rage, it would have taken place during a quarrel, the most recent one having taken place, according to the devoted Erminia, just before the second performance.
Instead, this was a hybrid, with the distinctive characteristics of premeditation shown by the order of the bullets in the clip, but also with the typical traits of an angry and flagrant act carried out during the theatrical performance of a betrayal.
The comic, Zuzú, had told him that actors confuse make-believe with reality, and perhaps that was true: but in real life betrayal certainly dictates an immediate reaction, it is much less likely to inspire a laborious, clear-eyed process of revenge. What’s more, there were two aspects in direct contrast with each other: Gelmi had pulled the trigger and Gelmi had declared his own innocence.
For the umpteenth time, Ricciardi summarized the statements of the witnesses and the fellow artists, colleagues of the two lead actors. There was no solid evidence, but the overall picture fit well with the hypothesis of the victim’s being involved in a secret love affair, as confirmed by the billet-doux they’d found in the pocket of her robe. But the real question was: did the husband know? And what had been the purpose of his visit to Fedora’s dressing room, from which he had emerged in tears?
That note deserved to be studied more closely. “Again, tonight, I’ll wear your embroidery before falling asleep,” Marra had written. What embroidery? An article of clothing? A gift? And why “in my heart it will be the last thing I hear”? That odd mixture of tactile and auditory perceptions baffled Ricciardi. What’s more: “Don’t worry, I belong to no one but you. I’m yours, yours and happy!” What was the meaning behind that invitation to remain calm? Was her lover jealous, too? Of who? Everyone knew, as far as he could tell, that Gelmi no longer had intimate relations with his wife.
Last of all: “Till tomorrow.” That meant the woman was certain that they’d be seeing each other again. This excluded the possibility that the lover, or presumed lover, was extraneous to the group of artists because, as had been perfectly clear during their interviews, when the show was on, the members of the troupe were confined to the theater, engaged in rehearsals and the three daily performances. That said, who could it be? And in any case, why go to the trouble of devising such a complicated murder?
No one could possibly have sidestepped Erminia’s sharp eye and made their way into Gelmi’s dressing room. What’s more, the woman was loyal to the death to Michelangelo, who had arranged for Renzullo to hire her in the first place. Therefore, if she’d known anything about evidence that might serve to clear him, she would certainly never have kept it to herself.
It all led back to the most obvious interpretation possible: Gelmi had murdered his wife in a fit of jealous rage, professional envy, bitter resentment, or possibly because of some sort of indecent behavior. Perhaps Fedora had decided to leave him and had communicated that fact to him prior to the second performance. At that point, Michelangelo had made his decision, and in keeping with his intrinsic nature, he had acted out that intention on the stage, before an audience.
Still, there was something troubling Ricciardi. Something he’d seen or heard. It was an all-too familiar sensation: like a puzzle piece out of place, a detail out of focus, apparently normal but, in reality, anything but.
On the radio, the orchestra completed its performance with a flourish, and the announcer informed the listeners that the next piece would be a song. The radio then produced the opening bars of a melody that had enjoyed a special place in the commissario’s heart for some time now.
The warm intonation of Carlos Gardel’s voice warbled out Caminito.
Instinctively, Ricciardi shot a glance at the clock in the corner of the room. It was roughly 10 PM, the hour at which, by a tacit but ironbound understanding, he would make himself seen at his bedroom window, keeping the light off. Enrica would do the same, stepping close to her kitchen window in the building across the way, half a story lower. The two of them would smile at each other, now freed of the veil of reserve and secrecy, at this point without fear and instead reveling in the joy of beholding each other.
Caminito que el tiempo ha borrado,
que juntos un día nos viste pasar,
he venido por última vez,
he venido a contarte mi mal.
(Little street that the years have forgotten
Where she and I once walked together so happily,
I’ve come here just one last time,
To tell you about my sorrow and pain.)
But that was the evening of doubts, and Ricciardi was once again assailed by a wave of hesitation that came from another corner of his troubled soul.
The eagerly awaited evening appointment had a less agreeable collateral aspect. On the fourth floor of Enrica’s apartment building, shrouded in a vague luminescent glow, a sight displayed itself to his cursed and inward vision, the spectral image of a woman who had hanged herself. The disproportionately long neck, stretched by the traction of rope and body weight, her bulging eyes, blackened tongue protruding from the mouth in a perennial, ghoulish smirk, and her despairing voice continually repeating: You damned whore, you took my love and my life. One last, chilling invective.
Dead out of hatred, dead out of misery, dead amidst suffering.
Usually, in a matter of months, those apparitions would dissolve. And yet there were certain phantoms that, for unknown causes, persisted in infesting the place of their passage into the world of the dead, and they lingered, incessantly spewing out their last thoughts, their extreme sentiment.
To see that presence hovering over Enrica’s smile was, to Ricciardi’s mind, a ghastly oxymoron, a mocking contradiction in terms that called everything else into question. His love thrived and grew day by day, gaining in bulk and mass and solidity; but if a part of him labored under the illusion that he’d be able to live a normal life, there was also an aspect of his awareness that clearly glimpsed the selfishness of a bond rooted in a lie.
Because concealing his true nature from Enrica meant lying to her. Nothing more and nothing less.
Caminito que entonces estabas
bordeado de trébol y juncos en flor,
una sombra ya pronto serás,
una sombra lo mismo que yo.
(Little street, you were lined with clover,
And flowering reeds were in bloom along your way,
Very soon you’ll be just a shadow,
A shadow the same as I am now.)
The sorrowful verse of that song rang out like a menacing wave of grief; Ricciardi shuddered. Lies . . . Fedora had concealed the truth and now she was dead. What would become of him? And to what degree would his own condemnation fall on Enrica’s head?
That was why he had never made any mention of the future the few times they had actually gone out. He was still struggling with himself and with his own fears. What would be the right thing to do? Speak to the young woman’s father, that good and unceremonious man, so similar to his daughter, who had actually come to talk to him when he realized what was happening to Enrica with Manfred? Ask his permission to spend time with his daughter, saying nothing about the fact that their frequentation might very well lead to nothing at all? Or tell Enrica: Listen, my love, I want to spend every minute of the rest of my life with you, but I can’t and I won’t and I must absolutely never become a father?
As he stood up, at the first stroke of the hour from the wall clock, his mind flew to Bianca; the undecipherable expression, hovering between sorrow and sweetness, that had appeared on her face when he had told her that she should consider herself free of any obligation to see him. Perhaps, unintentionally, he had hurt her. Like Livia, whom he hadn’t seen in quite some time now, but whose actions were the clearest possible symptom of the pain he had caused her.
Caminito que todas las tardes
feliz recorría cantando mi amor,
no le digas si vuelve a pasar
que mi llanto tu suelo regó.
(Little street, every afternoon,
I walked the length of you singing my love.
Don’t tell her if she comes by,
that my tears watered your ground.)
He stepped over to the window with the customary tempest raging in his soul. Across the street, behind the glass panes of the kitchen window, Enrica was standing there, waiting for him.
She wasn’t smiling, though.
The young woman looked up and met his gaze. Two floors further up, the hanged woman murmured: You damned whore, you took my love and my life. Behind the commissario, Carlos Gardel sang:
Desde que se fue
triste vivo yo;
caminito amigo,
yo también me voy.
Desde que se fue
nunca más volvió,
seguiré sus pasos
caminito, adiós.
(Since she went away, I live in sadness.
Little street, my friend, I’m leaving too.
Since she went away, she’s never returned.
I’m going to follow her, little street, goodbye.)
As if she were listening to the same piece of music, Enrica mouthed the syllables Ca-mi-ni-to, communicating an appointment to meet the next day.
Ricciardi noticed that her lower lip was quavering: she had either been crying or was about to. What had happened?
The radio underlined that instant:
Caminito cubierto de cardos,
la mano del tiempo tu huella borró;
yo a tu lado quisiera caer
y que el tiempo nos mate a los dos.
(Little street covered in weeds,
the second hand erased your footprint.
I would like to fall down next to you
and let time kill us both.)
Ricciardi reached out his hand.
But Enrica was already gone.