Hands on her hips, brow furrowed, and jaw jutting in an unintentional but highly successful imitation of the head of Fascist Italy’s government, Nelide reviewed the table for the umpteenth time. The young master had been laconic but precise: I’ll be home for dinner, possibly latish, and then I may go out again.
I’ll be home for dinner: therefore, dinner would be expected, and dinner would be ready. All strictly in the Cilento style, the way that Zi’ Rosa had prescribed, to ensure that the roots weren’t lost, that they were preserved. And so the young woman had procured well in advance the necessary ingredients to complement what she had in her pantry, conveyed by horse cart from the Malomonte farmlands.
The last meal of the year, being as it was a meal on the eve of a feast, a vigil, had to consist of lean food, by ecclesiastic rules. That did not mean, however, that it had to consist only of humble food. As a result, she had prepared several mainstays of the cuisine of her homeland, cleaving closely to the ancient recipes handed down from mother to daughter. Cinguli cu’ l’alici, a long pasta cut to pieces, obtained by cingulianno, that is, rolling the flour and water mixture under one’s hands, and then saucing it with anchovies preserved in old olive oil. Or baccalà fritto, fried salted cod, preserved at a constant temperature, in coarse salt, and then debrined with two daily baths of cold water for three days. Zeppole salate, fried zeppole with bits of anchovies and served hot. For now, they lay white and innocent, while the large frying pan stood ready to accommodate them.
The antipasto, obviously, would be the sautéed broccoli, with garlic, black olives, and anchovies; that’s an absolute must.
The sequence of the nine fruits and nuts, which would culminate with the pine nuts, would put an end to the traditional ritual before the sweets, the nocche ’i Natali and the pastoredde: cinnamon, honey, sugar, and cloves for the first dish; chestnuts, chocolate, and grated lemon for the second. Actually, one dessert would have been enough, but Nelide had preferred not to be put in the position of choosing one over the other. After all, sooner or later, the young master would eat it all. When it came to eating, the young master could eat. But he always seemed distracted, as if his mouth and his stomach weren’t communicating with his head.
The tablecloth was decorated with leaves, branches, and flowers. In Cilento, this was a tradition; young women gathered them in the wood early in the morning of the day, and then wove them together. Since she was in the city, Nelide had already resigned herself to the necessity of doing without; venturing into the nearby Capodimonte forest and defying the royal guards in order to procure the makings of that adornment struck her as excessive. Then something odd had happened. Tanino ’o Sarracino, the fruit and vegetable vendor, the odious fancy man who, instead of sticking to his profession, put on pointless shows in the neighborhood street market, had shown up at her door with the traditional fruits of the year’s end, even including pine nuts. Unfurling his finest and most dazzling smile, the young man had begun singing a romantic serenade, pulling from behind his back an exquisitely assembled bouquet.
For a few seconds, Nelide had stared at him through the space in the door left open by the chain. Without warning, she’d reached out her hand, grabbed the exquisite little bouquet, and shut the door in the young man’s face. A verse of the song had died out midway through, as if someone had rudely shoved a gramophone needle across the record.
The flowers had turned out to be perfect: Zi’ Rosa would have been contented to see even that custom respected. Now she had only to await the young master’s return so she could begin frying the zeppole. He would sit down, make himself comfortable: a happy ending, to ensure there would be a happy beginning.
She was drying her hands on her apron when she heard a knock at the door. Her jaw tightened at the thought that this might be Tanino again: she went to answer the door, ready to slam it shut again promptly.
There was a policeman at the door.
Enrica had been tempted to run away.
She’d thought about it all day long while helping to prepare dinner, without any desire to do so: silent, eyes downcast, indifferent to the atmosphere of expectation that always accompanied that special evening.
To run away. Considering that as a real possibility, something she could organize in secret, alone, under her own power—it helped her. To run away. That wasn’t her style. It wasn’t something Enrica would do—flee in the face of difficulty, refuse to take on a challenge, calmly and with determination, without any sudden moves or harsh words, without raising her voice but neither retreating by so much as a fraction of an inch from her own convictions.
She fantasized, while her brother regaled them with miraculous predictions for the new year, and her mother and sisters shot baffled glances at her as they organized the loveliest and most lavish banqueting table that had even been seen in that home. She fantasized about leaving the kitchen as if heading for the restroom, instead only to head her for bedroom, with a quick stop to plant a kiss on her father’s cheek as he sat intently reading the newspaper. She fantasized about getting down her large travel bag, the one she’d used to go to the seaside summer camp the previous year, when she’d first met Manfred. She fantasized about filling it with a few select items: a couple of changes of undergarments, a dress, her various objects of toiletry. Putting on her overcoat and hat. Waiting for the hall to be empty and then leaving the apartment in utter silence.
The concierge, that kindhearted gossip, would have asked her: Signori’, where are you going at this time of night, on the evening of the last day of the year? Look out, be careful, people throw old junk out the windows, you know.
And Enrica herself, at age twenty-five, felt old. Perhaps her mother ought to have tossed her out the window: a daughter who stubbornly insisted on remaining an old maid, turning her back on the best of opportunities, the most eligible catch.
But she wouldn’t run away, nor would anyone throw her out any windows. Reality and fantasy aren’t the same thing, so she’d have to meet Manfred and act perfectly natural, as if she hadn’t turned down his proposal just two months ago, as if she hadn’t turned her back on him and withdrawn to the kitchen to stare at the window across the way.
Instinctively, almost without realizing it, she looked up. No light, aside from the glow that arrived from the next room over, the somewhat impersonal drawing room where Rosa, the housekeeper, now dead, had served her an espresso.
That meeting seemed like an eternity ago, and yet it had happened only recently. It had given him a chance to talk with her. She had told him clearly that she was at a crossroads, that he would need to take a step in her direction, if he really desired her. In response she had received silence. Nothing but silence.
She’d dressed soberly, without any frills or fripperies, and her mother had shot her a glare of reproof. She’d have liked to see Enrica dressed in something more coquettish, something that expressed delight at the officer’s return visit; but Maria knew there was only so far she could push her daughter. It was sufficient to know that her daughter would be there and would behave politely. Time would take care of the rest; little by little, everything would be squared away.
Someone knocked at the door.
Her mother looked at the pendulum clock on the wall: punctuality was typical of Germans. She shot an imperious toss of the head in Enrica’s direction, directing her to go and open the door. It was up to her. It was Enrica who had behaved rudely two months ago, and now she had to make up for it.
With death in her heart, the young woman went to answer the door.
As soon as she heard the news, Nelide asked herself only one question, the same question she asked constantly in the face of any new problem, small or large. What would Zi’ Rosa do? Usually, the answer came to her quickly, because she knew her aunt to perfection, being as she was herself a faithful replica of her aunt.
This time, though, she was assailed by doubts. Someone has shot the commissario, the officer had told her. He’s at the hospital, the officer had told her. We don’t know anything else, the officer had told her. The doctor is operating on him now, the officer had told her. They sent me to inform you, the officer had told her. With your permission, I’ll go now, the officer had told her. Whereupon he had left.
Nelide wasn’t built to lose heart or depair. Fear, anguish, and anxiety were emotions unknown to her. Life was something you faced up to, and that was that. It made no sense to weep and wail, it served no purpose to despair; what you did was roll up your sleeves and fight.
The young master was wounded and her place was at his side. She had to watch over him and make sure that no one made a mistake in his care, that no one took advantage of the opportunity to rob him, that any wishes or needs he might have would be satisfied. She needed to stand by his bed, wide awake and alert, as she’d done during her aunt’s brief illness. That’s what Rosa would have done, and now it’s what Nelide should do.
But where was that hospital? What streets would take her there? And once there, would they even let a young woman from Cilento in, a young woman who didn’t know how to express herself well in proper Italian, and would therefore struggle to explain what she was doing there? She needed someone capable of stating things clearly. Someone who cared as much about the young master as she did.
Nelide’s eyes had gone decisively to the window across the way.
Enrica shut her mouth. Her heart was pounding in her chest. All around her, the world had dissolved in an instant. The fog had descended again: she saw nothing, she understood nothing.
Hurrying up as the second member of the family to extend cordial greetings of the house to Manfred, Maria was left with her smile frozen on her features when she found herself face to face with that remarkably homely young woman, with her determined eyes, narrow mouth, and decisive jaw covered in dark fuzz, wearing an overcoat that reached all the way down to her stump-like ankles and a cloche hat jammed firmly down over a thick and furry unibrow.
This stranger returned her glance impassively. She’d said what she needed to and now she waited.
Enrica turned to her mother, tears streaming down her cheeks, a trembling hand covering her mouth. She collected herself, stepped around Maria, and ran into the living room to find her father.
Bianca was sitting on the sofa in the large living room in Palazzo Marangolo, but this time she wasn’t listening to music. This time she was crying.
The duke stared at her, worried.
“Bianca, darling, be reasonable: it wasn’t advisable for you to dally in a hospital waiting room on New Year’s Eve. Dressed like this, in the midst of people from every walk of life, you’d have . . . And after all, what right did you have to be there? It’s one thing to defy the gossips and the backbiters, but this would have been going too far. You’re still a married woman, you have a name to worry about. It’s one thing to be accompanied to the theater or a reception, it’s quite another to rush to the bedside of a man who’s been shot outside of a theater.”
The contessa stared at her friend with puffy eyes.
“Carlo, don’t you understand? That young woman was just a few yards away when she pulled out her pistol and . . . He hadn’t even noticed it: if I hadn’t screamed and he hadn’t turned, that would have been the end of him. And then that blood, all that blood, the chaos, the people, the brigadier lifting him up in his arms . . . And if it had gone . . . Oh, my God, Carlo . . .”
The duke reassured her: “He isn’t dead, he’s being operated on. I sent my chauffeur to find out the latest. The doctor is a friend of his: something of a hothead, but apparently very good at his job. So he’s in good hands. In any case, for you this was an unseemly situation. That’s why I ordered that you be brought here. I couldn’t imagine you out on the streets on a day like this.”
He turned his gaze to the balcony. All around the dark seawater, the city seemed to be at war: smoke, explosions, flowers of light that challenged the stars and the chilly wind. Through the locked windows came the muffled noises of the celebration.
Bianca, trying to stifle her sobs, said: “Just seeing him there, Carlo . . . on the pavement . . . I was petrified. They taught me how to behave on all occasions, and yet . . . What am I to do, Carlo? What am I to do now that I know . . . that I know . . .”
In the dim light, the duke smiled at her with tenderness and melancholy.
“Rest, Bianca, rest. Tomorrow morning, when the sun rises, all will become clear. And then we’ll decide what would be best. I’ll help you. The new year is always better than the old one. And by now it’s almost midnight.”
Enrica burst into the hospital at a dead run, her hair a mess, red in the face, her eyeglasses befogged with weeping.
Heading out of the apartment building’s front entrance downstairs, followed by her father and by Nelide, she had crossed paths with Manfred carrying a large bouquet of flowers; the German’s dazzling smile had died on his lips the minute he’d glimpsed the young woman’s overwrought expression. She hadn’t even slowed down to say hello to him.
Now she stood in front of a closed door behind which lay written the destiny that awaited her. Now it was clear to everyone that in her life there was no room for love, joy, or sorrow uncoupled from the future of the man who lay suffering behind that glass. Now there was nothing more to say or do, other than to turn the handle and find out what was to become of her.
Nelide and the Cavalier Giulio Colombo looked each other in the eye. In their respective inner worlds, which couldn’t have possibly been any further apart, the same, identical conviction had taken root: it was up to Enrica to open that door.
And Enrica opened it, plunging into the room without hesitation, without stopping to catch her breath, with a heart that had stopped beating for the moment.
Inside stood Brigadier Maione, ashen-faced, cap in hand, his uniform jacket smeared with clotted blood, his features hardened with concern. Dr. Modo, pale with exhaustion, his white hair plastered to his forehead with sweat, stood beside him; he was drying his hands in a large linen handkerchief, his stained lab coat open over his waistcoat.
In the middle, lying on a gurney, pale and in pain, was Ricciardi. His eyes, glazed with sedatives, focused on Enrica’s face, and a weak smile appeared on his lips.
Modo was the first to speak.
“The bullet entered and exited his shoulder, resulting in no lesions of any organ; but that was a matter of inches. Old Ricciardi is indestructible, it would seem. Certainly, if he hadn’t turned to one side at the very last second, things would have gone differently. Anyway, hell doesn’t want him, for now.”
Enrica stepped close. But the commissario was no longer looking at her. He was staring at the embarrassed face of the man behind her, the one with a drooping mustache and spectacles, so similar to his daughter.
He opened his mouth and coughed. And then, in a faint but firm voice, he spoke: “Cavaliere, buonasera. I apologize for the disagreeable circumstances, but I’d like to ask for your permission to see your daughter, Enrica. Let me assure you that I have only the most honorable intentions toward her.”
Outside, beyond the shut door and the courtyard, a frenzy of jubilation exploded at the death of the old year and the birth of the new year. Which had finally arrived.