Ciccio the nose-picker was a little fatter than the last time I had seen him. The smell in his shop made me want to retch. I’m an unusual citizen of Palermo, an insurmountable revulsion for guts keeps me from enjoying the typical street food dishes, which consist of bread and fried, buttered entrails. Luckily for Ciccio, his numerous clients weren’t as fussy as me and they enjoyed stuffing their mouths with paninis inside the tiny restaurant. The walls were covered with posters of Juventus football players – the place was a black and white sanctuary which made me, as a true Inter football fan, even sicker than the smell of fried guts. The posters had been stuck one on top of another for decades, with ancient ones of Furino being almost completely covered up by more recent ones of Pirlo and Tevez.
Ciccio was preparing a panini, filling it with chunks of spleen and lungs and simmering it in a layer of lard. He looked surprised when his feline eyes locked on mine. He dropped everything and asked one of his co-workers to replace him. He welcomed me warmly as if I was a close relative that he hadn’t seen for a while.
“Mr Corsaro, how good to see you! This is incredible!” He exclaimed. He spat with every ‘s’ that he spoke and he slurred his vowels – he tapped his finger against the end of his nose and his speech returned to normal. This was the reason why people had nicknamed him the nose-picker. I was very familiar with his socially awkward attitude, and with his problems with the law. A few years ago, the police had busted him for stealing public electricity. He had been using an illegal source of electricity in his shop for years, but not many policemen – or any other passers-by – had noticed this problem. Everyone was just too busy stuffing their faces with food, which they were given for free by the kind, honest Ciccio. That was until a policemen who didn’t like fried guts paid a visit. For Ciccio, that was the beginning of an unfortunate time. One of our communal clients, a habitual robber, directed him to my office and I defended him to the best of my abilities. I had managed to get him a light punishment.
“How are you, Mr Marletta?” I asked him, as I offered my hand. I made sure that I kept enough distance between us because I couldn’t stand the stench that permeated him. Francesco Marletta – also known as Pietro, Ciccio to the people of Palermo and the nose-picker to the old Albergheria quarter – shook my hand very forcefully. He flaunted his yellow smile, he had been robbed of a few teeth.
“Can I offer you a bite?”
“No, I’m good, thank you. Consider it as though I’d accepted,” I answered. I realised that I had shook my head perhaps a little too vehemently, as if to say ‘no please, spare me!’ The nose-picker didn’t say anything else and turned towards his co-worker – a young man with ginger hair and fair skin covered with an incredible amount of freckles.
“Kevin, will you wrap six paninis for Mr Corsaro?”
Kevin nodded and got to work.
“Can I speak to you in private for a moment?”
“Of course, let’s step outside.”
He invited me to lead the way with a gesture. Outside the shop, a pregnant bitch was dragging herself lazily along the pavement.
“I apologize for bothering you – I just need to ask you a few quick questions.”
“You never bother me, sir. You’re the boss.” The nose-picker’s ticks had started again.
“Did you know that a man was killed a few days ago not far from here?”
He nodded.
“My job is to defend the person who’s currently charged with that murder.”
“That’s understandable, Mr Corsaro,” he ticked his way through the words again. He clearly knew about my brother.
“Listen, I was wondering… considering that your shop is so close to the murder scene… do you remember anything about that afternoon, anything that could be of use to the investigation?”
Ciccio spread his arms.
“I’m very sorry, Mr Corsaro, but I don’t know anything about this business. I remember that day was chaos. There were ten police cars, a few ambulances. It was mayhem – I don’t really know any more than this.”
“Did you know Mr Palillo?”
“I knew his face…”
“He was a loan shark apparently.”
“We’ve never had those kinds of problems, luckily…”
There wasn’t much point insisting – I could read in his answer his I-don’t-give-a-fuck attitude.
“You don’t remember a tourist calling into your shop that morning? An American or an English man. Do you remember anyone like that?”
Mr Marletta frowned a little, then he scratched his cheek and stared at a spot over my shoulder.
“I don’t think so, Mr Corsaro. Most of the foreign people that we get in here are immigrants from Turkey, Morocco, Africa and Asia. I don’t remember any Americans.”
“Do you know Mr Salvatore Marchese?”
He clicked his tongue against his palate – a sound that in Sicilian culture means ‘no’. His eyes, however, told a different story.
“They call him Big Jim.”
“I don’t remember, Mr Corsaro.”
“You’re a young man – how come you’re so forgetful? Having a strong memory is important. I remember your trial very well.”
Mr Marletta sighed.
“I kind of know the face of everybody, but I don’t have that many friends, you know…”
“Apparently, Big Jim used to beat people up to get money from them on behalf of Mr Palillo.”
“As I said, we’ve never had those kinds of problems.”
“Do you know Mr Filippo Marletta?”
If the shop owner could have described his own reaction in his colourful slang language, he would probably have said that the question was a real blower. In other words, he appeared to have been bowled over by the mention of that name.
“What do you want from me, Mr Corsaro?”
Filippo Marletta was his brother. I had seen his name in the list of the usurer’s victims. It seemed that he had received a couple of courtesy visits from Mr Marchese.
I wanted to say “I want you – or even better, somebody who isn’t you, perhaps one of your co-workers – to remember that they saw my brother in the car park at 5 p.m. that day.” But I wasn’t that kind of man. I asked him something else instead.
“I want to know if you saw Mr Marchese around here that afternoon before the murder.”
“Mr Corsaro, you’re a family man, and so am I. These people are evil.”
“You can trust me.”
Ciccio tugged on his apron – he was nervous. He sighed deeply.
“It was a Wednesday. Juventus were playing in the city that Sunday. Kevin – the young man that you saw earlier – that’s my nephew, my sister’s son. She chose his name in honour of a character from the Bobby Guard film, do you remember it? The guy who danced with the wolves. She had this child with a scumbag from Borgo Vecchio. I didn’t even know him. This man hung around my house for a couple of days and on the third day they decided to go and live together. Jesus, that was a great idea. What I mean, Mr Corsaro, is that this guy from Borgo Vecchio was an asshole. He frequented a bad circle of friends and – I don’t know how it happened – he got involved in a robbery where someone died. A private security guard. It happened when Kevin was only two years old. That scumbag has been in the Ucciardone prison ever since. I’ve brought up this kid like my own son. Why am I telling you this story? Because the day that you’re talking about was a Wednesday and Juventus were due to play in the city on the Sunday, which means that it was basically a bank holiday for us. Kevin had gone to buy his ticket that afternoon. I remember it very well, he came back with his ticket in his hand, he was so excited. He crossed the street without checking for traffic and the son of a bitch that people call Big Jim almost ran him over with his moped. That moped’s so noisy that you can hear it from ten blocks away.”
“What time was it?”
“I’m not sure. It must have been half four.”
“Which direction was Mr Marchese going on his moped? Towards Palillo’s house?”
The nose-picker nodded.
*
Valeria was holding my hand tightly. Her hazel eyes were bright and lively as always. The rest of her body though, had been severely affected by the disease. She struggled to breathe, despite her desire to speak.
I told her about Fabrizio, she wanted to know everything. She noted down every detail in her mental notebook, as always, and she nodded every now and again for me to carry on with the story. I reported every little detail to her, omitting only the bit about Mr Fisichella’s contribution.
“The sooner the trial begins the better. We can’t lose,” Valeria whispered. Her loose hair partially covered her face and she leaned back on soft blue pillows. They were the same colour as the blankets on her single bed.
“I still can’t believe that they arrested him.” I said.
“They don’t know what they’re doing – the motive is futile, the psychological profile doesn’t match. There are no witnesses. There are no fingerprints from Fabrizio on the furniture or the documents that were scattered on the floor. No sensible judge would ever condemn him.”
I nodded, as I held on to her hand. I looked out of the window – May had arrived with its postcard-like sunny weather. The sun was majestic, it shone through the clean sky and the filthy city. Its brightness was held at bay by the bedroom windows, as if the light refused to enter. The room was left in cold semi-darkness. The air smelled of medicine.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said. She brushed the hair from her cheek. I really hoped that she didn’t know.
“I’m not thinking about anything.”
“You don’t want to wait for the trial. You want to rescue your brother. You want to play the little detective and find the murderer. We did it together once, do you remember?”
I thought about the story of the crucified priest. Valeria had surprised me with her courage that time. I leaned over and kissed her on the forehead as I stroked her hair.
“I need your help to do that.”
“I’m here. I’m getting better. They explained to me that this is how anyone would feel a few days after chemotherapy. I’ll get better. Let me do some work, or I’ll die on this bed.”
“You won’t die, don’t worry.”
“Give me a list of Palillo’s victims – I bet the murderer’s one of them. Someone that was subjected to that parasite’s cruelty must have stabbed him to death. I want to research each one of them.”
I stood up, picked up my bag and pulled out a stack of papers. I laid it on the bed.
Valeria smiled.
“You knew I was going to ask for this.”
“I love you too.”
“Don’t be soppy – you don’t have the face for it. Just leave these papers to me, I’ll think about what to ask Gaetano, to help out with the research. I’ll keep you posted, obviously.”
“I’m not sure about the ‘obviously’ bit, you never keep me informed of anything.”
“Shut up, I have cancer and I’m single.”
I lifted up my hands.
“I surrender.”
“Don’t get stuck on Mr Moncada. He’s the most powerful man in Sicily, he makes millions every day, how can he have anything to do with a leech like Palillo? Think about this present from the military instead. The information provided by the inmate is useful – investigate it, listen to me.”
“I’m working on it, but it seems another impossible mission, like identifying the watchless man. I don’t want to waste any time while my brother’s in prison. Ah, I almost forgot – I spoke to somebody today who saw Palillo’s henchman at the murder scene.”
“Tell me about it,” she invited me.
I gave her a short summary of my conversation with the nose-picker. When I finished Valeria sighed, she was visibly tired. Then she granted me one of her beautiful smiles.
“We’ll get him out of there, don’t worry. Leave these papers to me.”
I stroked her face to say goodbye.
“I still remember when you did your military service. We went to visit you once, me and Monica, when you were about to start your guard shift. I still have the photo.”
She pointed to a Plexiglas frame hanging from the wall. A collage of photos were contained within it. In one, Valeria was a beautiful twenty year old in a swimming suit. She was sitting on her father’s lap together with her sister. Poldo, the dog that had kept her company during the carefree years of her youth, sat at their feet – the photo had been taken in a large field, perhaps Bosco Ficuzza. Next to this photo and amongst the most beloved memories of her lifetime, was me, with my ugly bespectacled face. My hair was a ridiculous black forest. The yellow, military tabs were very apparent – they reminded me that I had been transferred away from Persano during my last few months of military service. Monica was hugging me from the right, with a young, innocent smile that I had forgotten, on her lips. Valeria was hugging me from the left, she had put her hand behind my head and was raising two fingers in the guise of a pair of horns, for the amusement of the soldier taking the photo for us.
The sound of her coughing brought me fifteen years forward, back to the present. In the darkness of the room, my best friend looked pale and exhausted, threatened by an enemy that worked in silence to take her from me. I struggled to swallow as I leaned over to kiss her. I walked out of her house just in time to hide the tears that I was about to shed.
*
I blasted out La Bohème in my car at a ridiculous volume. Fourth act, grand finale: Sono andati, fingevo di dormire. I sang it all, alternating between Mimì and Rodolfo, screaming like a desperate eunuch. At the red light on viale Lazio, an old lady in an ancient Fiat Panda stared worriedly at me.
I drove past Don Bosco, my old school, on the northern half of via Libertà, which was the Italian Champs-Élysées. I hadn’t been to church for over two weeks, my prayers to God had suddenly ended and my faith, which had been fragile for quite some time, had vanished completely during the last few days due to the evident stupidity of life.
For some reason I decided to park inside villa Ranchibile. I turned Puccini off shortly before the death of poor Mimì.
I sat on one of the last pews, as I usually did. The church was deserted. A gentle sunlight filtered through the window, touching the beams and the mosaic that portrayed Our Lady. A dark emptiness dwelled within me. I couldn’t feel anything but pain and dismay. No faith, no hope, no god. Everything had faded away like a dream after waking, the betrayal of an illusion. “You’re not here, nothing’s here. There’s just pain and blood until the day we die. You’re just stories for those who are foolish enough to believe in them.” The statue of Christ laying in his mother’s arms in the marble Pietà on the left side of the altar attracted my attention. My sight was blurred with tears.
“I foolishly believed in those stories.”
Nothing. We’re nothing but combinations of cells that live and die in the blink of an eye, it’s nothing compared to the infinity of time and space. No god, no hope, no justice, just a throw of dice.
I sank my face into my hands. Under my feet, I felt the solid rock on which I had built my interpretation of life crumble to dust.
The hand on my shoulder made me jump in terror. Don Trovato, my old R.E. teacher, was standing in front of me. I’d seen him a few months ago, he had been the type of man who looked like he had remained frozen in time for the past twenty-five years, never changing. This time, though, something had changed. Time had caught up with him, it was late in his life but equally merciless. For the first time, the priest looked old to me. Everything about him had changed, the prelude to a critical moment in his life. His small eyes, hidden behind his thick glasses, were still magnetic and charismatic. He sat next to me, on the edge of the bench, like somebody who doesn’t want to be intrusive.
“How are you?” I asked him.
“Tell me how you’re doing first, Roberto.”
“Is it so evident?”
He laid his hand on my wrist, like he did back in high school when I was unprepared for the lesson. He was a master of knowledge, a bottomless well of information, an endless river of fresh thought. We had adored him, quite literally. The strength of his grasp was diminished now.
“I’ve heard, unfortunately. I’ve been praying for you and your brother. I’m sure he’ll be able to stay close to you and to your mother.”
A sob surprised me as I was about to reply. I burst out crying, a desperate sound. They were the same unstoppable tears that wet my pillow as a young boy, when during the night, in silence, I thought about my dad when he was dying.
“My world’s falling apart, Don Trovato. My brother’s in jail and I still don’t know how to help him get out. My mother’s destroyed by the pain. My dearest friend’s dying of cancer.”
The priest took both of my hands and held them in his.
“Let’s pray together.”
I lifted my eyes to him. I felt like Blade Runner’s replicant in the presence of its creator.
“I can’t pray any more, I don’t believe any more. I’m sorry, I just can’t.”
He was impassive to my words. He breathed calmly and stared into my eyes with strength and kindness.
“What god, Don Trovato? What god would allow so much pain, so much injustice? What god can just stand by and watch an innocent person wither away and die? What kind of monster is the god that we brag about? Please, tell me.”
Don Trovato had explained a lot of things to me in the past. He nodded, breathed in deeply and took off his glasses.
“I will be ninety years old tomorrow. It won’t take me long to discover if I have lived for an illusion or if this God that you no longer believe in, and who even I sometimes doubt, does really exist or not. Great saints, incredibly virtuous men and women, compared to whom I’m nothing, have felt what you feel right now and what I’ve often felt before. There’s an atheist in every believer, even the most saintly one.”
“How do you cope with it?” I interrupted him, without knowing what I really wanted to say.
“Like a child, Roberto. It took me a lifetime to understand it. I’ve read, I’ve studied, I’ve meditated. Great men, sublime, intelligent individuals have written streams of beautiful, insightful, inspiring words about God and faith. But the truth, Roberto, the truth that I discovered after ninety years, is that intelligence does not lead the way to God. The closer I get to death, the more I realise how futile it is to try to imagine what happens after death. The very thought of it makes me feel dizzy.”
I stared at him in dismay. It was exactly the same feeling that I’d felt before when I had tried to imagine an eternal life. Half a minute of contemplation was enough to feel the abyss that opened up inside my stomach.
“I can only do one thing, whenever I think about it. I try to be a child again. Think about when your kids hold your hand to cross the street because you’ve told them that crossing the road is dangerous. They don’t fully understand. They just trust you. They entrust themselves to you. That’s what I do with the Lord. I’ve given up trying to understand the real meaning of everything, because the more you think about it, the more it all appears meaningless. I entrust myself to Christ and to his promise, like a child. And I love, like he did. Only now, at ninety years of age, I think that I understand what the Lord meant when he said ‘I tell you that unless you change and become like little children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.’ I believe that Christ was risen, like his followers believed. They were all simple people, not insightful theologians. They believed not because they had elaborate theories, but because they had witnessed something extraordinary with their own eyes. This is the faith that they’ve passed down to us, this is the Gospel. Jesus has risen, we will rise again, death shall not have the last word. How will this happen? I’ve no idea, but I believe in it. Again – like a child.”
I used my hand to wipe the tears from my face.
“I feel the weight of the world on my shoulders.”
“It’s your fate, Roberto. I’ve known it ever since I first met you, when you were only fourteen. This is your life – to take charge of your weaknesses and those of others. I believe that this is what the Lord asks from you.”
“I don’t know how to help my brother. He’s innocent, Don Trovato, believe me.”
“I’ve never doubted it for a moment. I know Fabrizio.”
“I’m trying do to my best, but I’ve seen no results so far.”
“With all the CCTV that they have in the city, is it not possible that the murderer was caught on tape somewhere?”
He was still a very insightful man, despite his age.
“There’s no CCTV in the area, unfortunately. There was a witness. A person who spoke to Fabrizio, a man who could give him an alibi. He was a tourist but we can’t find him.”
“Someone who spoke to him?”
“Yes, an English or American man, we don’t know which. A man who could confirm that Fabrizio was still in his car during the time that the murder was taking place. He had accidentally flicked his cigarette butt at the man. The man then said to him something about a lamp that my brother didn’t understand. Then he asked the time and it was five o’ clock, that’s after the murder.”
“Lamp?” Don Trovato asked. He was a bit behind, poor old man. I felt a little sorry for him.
“Yeah, my brother doesn’t remember it well. He heard something like ‘lamp six’, I don’t know what it means. He was a foreign man, so—”
The priest stopped me with a motion of his hand and nodded. As he did this a boy entered the church and began to pray, his eyes locked on the altar.
I breathed out, to expel all the pain and the anguish I felt. I stared at the wrinkled face of Don Trovato.
“I’ll do anything that I can for my brother,” were the only words that came from my lips.
“Lamp six, he said?” The priest repeated.
Yes, he was clearly getting old, I realised, as I nodded impatiently.
Don Trovato frowned. He was focussed on chasing his thoughts. He took off his glasses again and rubbed his face with the palm of his hand. He then pulled himself together. His next words were barely a whisper.
“Lampades eius lampades ignis atqua flammae divinae.”
“Beg your pardon?”
“His flames are fiery flames, a burning flame – that’s the Italian translation from CEI, I believe. A bit of an unfortunate translation, to be honest.”
For a moment, I felt that my heart had stopped.
“It’s the Bible, the Song of Songs. It’s a popular one for marriages. But Monica didn’t want it for your marriage.”
He remembered. He remembered everything. How could he have such an incredible memory?
“Are you saying that man was a priest?”
“You’re saying that. But it sounds like a good assumption.”
I grabbed his arm. He was as thin as a rake. For a moment, I was afraid that I would break his arm.
“I’ll find him! If it’s a priest, I’ll find him!” I said excitedly, my voice had raised in pitch.
“I wish you all the best, my son.”
“God bless you, Don Trovato.”
I hugged him tightly, sprang up immediately and ran out of the church. I had already walked past the stairs where the school kids hung around during recreation time, and was a few steps away from the road that lead to via Libertà when I realised that I had forgotten something.
I walked back to the church and entered through one of the doors close to the altar. There, I froze and contemplated the crucifix in silence, as my heartbeat struggled to find a decent pace.
Don Trovato was whispering his prayers on the bench where I had left him, wrapped in peaceful silence.