Pietro sat down in the waiting room. The doctor soon emerged from Lorenzo’s room, without his white coat and carrying a document case under his arm. Spoke intensely with another doctor and walked over to the concierge.
‘I’m done. I’ll give you a lift.’
‘How is the boy?’
‘Exhausted.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s my fault. I wanted to take him to the lake before his mother came to pick him up. She’s decided to have him cared for at home.’
Dr Martini descended the stairs. Pietro struggled to keep up. Then they froze in their tracks. The old man in the petrol-pump attendant’s jacket and cap stood in the middle of the path. In the same place Pietro had seen him the previous evening, with the same ravaged face. He extended a hand. ‘Doctor, I wanted …’ He went up close. ‘I wanted … please …’
Martini walked right past him.
The old man addressed Pietro. ‘Tell him to listen to me, please, tell him …’
The concierge stared at him for a time, then followed the doctor down the underground-parking ramp to a dusty car, the rear windows covered with butterfly-shaped curtains.
Martini got in.
‘He’s a poor devil who doesn’t know how to pass the time.’ As he set off he noticed that on the dirty windscreen someone had written with a finger, Wash me, please. He pointed to the glass. ‘It’s Riccardo, he lets me know when I’ve exceeded the limits of decency.’ He drove with the document case on his knees. In the back were Sara’s car seat and a stuffed animal, facing away, with the words Hello Kitty on one sleeve, wrapped in a checked blanket.
‘Have you known him long?’
‘Riccardo? Yes, for a long time.’ Martini drove two blocks before opening his mouth again. ‘On the first day of school I found myself seated next to this curly-headed kid. “Pleased to meet you my name is Riccardo but you have to call me by my last name Lisi,” he says to me. A real scrapper. They separated us after fifteen minutes because we wouldn’t shut up. Same in middle school. Same in upper school.’ He smiled and now his eyes were visible. They gleamed. ‘At university it was medicine for both of us, and every lesson a cock-up. He stuck to me like a limpet.’
The concierge rested his hands one in the other, paint from the Bianchi still stuck to one thumb.
Martini slowed down.
‘I was the only one he had left. He lost his parents when he was a boy. Now it’s me, Viola, and Sara.’
In the middle of the boulevard a line of cars was forming. Just ahead a van was parking and blocking two lanes. They turned down a side street, circled the block and returned to the boulevard, entering ahead of the van. The doctor slipped his arms out of his coat, leaving it on his shoulders.
‘I forgot to thank you. For the elephant.’
‘I didn’t know what to get for him.’
The doctor settled back on the seat.
‘Lorenzo is partial to elephants.’ He nodded. ‘So am I. Ever since I read that they take care of the herd without regard to kinship.’ He was driving slowly now. ‘All for all. A kind of doctor of the savannah.’
‘All for all.’
The doctor slowed down again, arrived first at a traffic light and looked lost in thought. Then said, ‘I should try again.’
‘What’s that, Doctor?’
‘Do you have something to do right now, Pietro?
‘No.’
Dr Martini veered in the direction opposite to home. The checked blanket slipped off the back seat and he reached back to pick it up.
‘My mother made it for Sara. She was very handy with knitting needles.’
He put the checked blanket on the seat and added the document case. Skirted a piazza with a war memorial and continued along the road that led to the airport. Not much later he turned into a residential street, stopped before an art-nouveau villa with two olive trees in the front garden and putti decorating the balconies.
‘This is Lorenzo’s house, I won’t be a minute.’ Then he stared at the steering wheel without moving. ‘Pietro …’ he said, ‘don’t you miss your job as a priest?’
‘One can tire of a job.’
The doctor got out and walked toward the villa. Pressed the intercom button, pressed again and on the lower balcony appeared the woman Pietro had seen in the picture on Lorenzo’s night table. Beautiful like she was in the photograph, with a powdered face and bright red lipstick, she tossed her cigarette and went back inside. She soon emerged into the front garden in bare feet. Remained on her side of the gate.
The concierge stretched out a hand to the stuffed animal, then to the blanket. The wool didn’t itch. He created a nest from small bits of fluff while continuing to watch the beautiful woman facing the doctor. She held her small, porcelain-like hands to her chest. Began to scratch the back of one hand as the doctor spoke, switched to the other hand and dug more intensely, bowed her doll’s head. Pietro brought the blanket to his nose: the past smelled of nothing. Replaced it carefully on the seat and picked up the document case, unzipped it. Inside were a piece of paper with the hospital logo showing the weekly shifts, a packet of sugarless chewing gum, two fountain pens and four keys on a cord. Also two smaller, identical keys. He held these in his palm, thought about the only locked drawer in the doctor’s study. Put everything back and looked at the beautiful woman again. She was speaking vehemently and her porcelain hands had become livid. She hid them behind her back and the doctor returned to the car.
‘Stubborn woman. She’s really set on bringing him home.’ Dr Martini started the car and released the hand brake, thumped a hand against the steering wheel and set off. Passed a car and turned onto the boulevard they had come from, abruptly pulled his foot off the accelerator. ‘The person who gave you the note today …’ He stared at Pietro. ‘Did anyone else in the building see her?’
‘I was the only one there.’
They stopped at a stop sign. The doctor faced his side window as he spoke. ‘If she comes back, don’t listen to her. Don’t let her in. And the same goes for the old man that you saw earlier at the hospital. Understood?’
‘Understood.’
‘If they do show up again, please let me know.’
Pietro nodded, cleared his throat. ‘Do you have anything to do right now, Doctor?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Do you have anything to do right now?’
‘No.’
‘Will you come with me somewhere?’