Rosina Mastriani did her best to be even tempered and sunny with Dottor Criscuolo at the employment office.
She couldn’t spare any more time. She wanted a yes or a no, and she wanted it immediately.
Rosina was in a hurry. After moving away from home, she’d been fired from the only job she’d been able to find, at the Call Center N.D. (“Insure Your Life and Life Will Smile Back”), because:
she hadn’t obtained results;
she wasn’t fast enough;
she wasn’t alluring enough;
her voice wasn’t loud enough to be heard;
she had once or twice broken into tears while talking with a potential client;
she never accommodated the psychological requirements of the potential client;
she was unable to explain the crucial importance of insuring the lives of others, much less her own, at a minimal level;
it was obvious from miles away that she wasn’t enthusiastic about going all the way to San Giovanni a Teduccio every morning at seven and returning home with darkness in the sky and in her eyes;
and because she lacked optimism.
The Executive Leader, Technical Support, Mario Apicella, known to his underlings as “Stress ’em Out,” in his rare moments of interpersonal interaction, wanted to be referred to as “The Boss.” Mario Apicella was thoroughly familiar with the behavioral norms expected of the call center employees. The notification of redundancy was communicated by Dottor Apicella to Rosina with merciful rapidity, in a charming tone of voice, respectful of the psychological requirements of his interlocutor:
“Mastriani, you’ll find a better position, wait and see. After all, the work you’re doing is well below your educational level.”
Rosina bit violently into the inside of her cheeks to keep from uttering the rapid sequence of words that her tongue was on the verge of spitting out.
After the exit interview she returned home and sat there, alone, racking her brains: there must be another opportunity out there somewhere, however hard it might be to find.
Equally difficult to find was her own automobile, which she had parked on the sidewalk. When she finally spotted it she realized that she had been parked in by two other cars. Immediately afterward she read a sign on her windshield warning her not to try to move her vehicle: the police had clapped a wheel clamp onto the car.
As soon as she climbed onto the bus she set out to count all the shades of gray and brown along the Via Marina. She took advantage of the opportunity as well to count all the months of rent that she could still afford to pay: three, tops, if she also stopped eating.
A very polite gentleman stood and offered her his seat. But it was just an excuse to rub up against her arm. So she waited patiently, stood up, smiled at the very polite gentleman, and pulled the cord for the next stop. The very polite gentleman eagerly accepted the implicit invitation, as well as the place in front of the door. As soon as the bus doors swung open, Rosina counted to three, coincidentally the number of months she could pay rent, and shoved him off the bus.
By the time the very polite gentleman got back to his feet with a curse, the doors had already closed. She blew him a kiss out the window.
“On days like this I learned that it’s possible to murder someone, and you just chose the wrong day.”
Then she thought about how they’d found Jerry Vialdi’s corpse.
Ninety minutes later, she got back to her studio apartment in Pianura. She turned on her computer and put both car and wheel clamp up for sale.
“Jerry Vialdi, even now that you’re dead, you continue to draw down curses on my already amply cursed existence. I can’t afford to keep the car you gave me. The next one I buy is going to have a sunroof. Every time I look up I’ll laugh loudly, right in your face.”
She wondered who she could turn to for a job, where she could go, and what the hell remained for her to try now; she bit into an annurca apple and tried not to think about her kids, who didn’t even want her anymore, and the memory of all that she no longer possessed.
She turned the apple-scented knife over and over in her hands and slowly cut into her knee.
“Signora . . . ” Dottor Criscuolo was reading the CV, “ . . . Signora Mastriani, you know, at your age it’s hard to find a position. Your university degree is actually a hindrance. The slightest possibility of successful placement is . . . is . . . In any case, we’ll let you know.”
“But I know your exact placement. Right here.” And Rosina Mastriani held her hand up against her throat.
Then she left the office, moving nicely. That was something she knew how to do. She considered the way in which she’d beaten someone to the termination point, the way she always seemed to do, whether it was with women or men. And she decided:
“Fine, that just means that if I can’t find an easy job I’ll have to get a hard one.”
Mara Scacchi put on her lab coat roughly and awkwardly: a button flew under the eighteenth-century cabinet. She stretched out on the floor to reach the button.
That was how her father found her: as she was trying to stretch her arm out all the way to the wall.
“Mara, what are you doing?”
“I’m filling a prescription. What does it look like I’m doing?”
“Well, well, calm and courteous as always. Yesterday, when you were out God knows where, a couple of policemen dropped by to ask questions. They wanted to check our sales of psychopharmaceuticals in the last month. I’d have to guess it had something to do with the murder of your friend.”
“He wasn’t my friend, he was my lover.”
“Thanks so much for setting me straight. Did you kill him?”
Mara Scacchi did her best to keep her implacable legs under control, though they were determined to go elsewhere.
Father and daughter looked at each other for a long time, in a silent duet of ancient resentments.
The warehouse man called the pharmacist to ask him for a pro forma invoice.
Mara blessed her rescuer, went to the bathroom, locking the door behind her, and put her wrists under cool running water for a while. Then she reached into her lab coat pocket and found a surrogate for the peace of mind she’d just lost.