The public health authorities, on this occasion, were represented by Dr. Bruno Modo, who was leaping from one foot to the other in the water, doing his best—and it was no easy feat—to keep from getting too wet while holding an umbrella, his leather doctor’s bag, and a sheet of paper. As soon as he spotted Ricciardi and Maione he headed straight for them with a bellicose glare.
“You two, eh? How could I ever have doubted it? A phone call first thing in the morning, as soon as I’ve gotten my trousers dry after getting soaked on my way to the hospital, a mile and a half upstream fighting this goddamned river they call Via Nuova Capodimonte, and who do I see? Laughing-boy Ricciardi and his skinny squire, the noble Brigadier Maione. Can we put an end to these special personal requests, Brigadie’? Look, read this: the immediate presence of Dr. Bruno Modo is requested and required. Let me ask you, wouldn’t any other doctor do? Did you really have to call me specifically?”
A sardonic smile appeared on Maione’s face.
“No, Dotto’, it’s just that the commissario is never happy unless he has you here. He only trusts you. When that other doctor comes, the little young one, I don’t know, somehow the commissario just doesn’t seem satisfied. The way you handle corpses, no one else comes close. And so we ask for you special; why, aren’t you happy to see us?”
Modo turned to look at Ricciardi, waving the sheet of paper with the phoned-in formal request in a mock-threatening gesture.
“I can’t wait for the morning that your request sheet shows up on my desk. The one that’s going to say: two police detectives found torn to pieces by a Fascist enforcement squad. Ah, if only! The day that happens, even I’ll enroll in the party, I will!”
Ricciardi’s expression hadn’t altered, but he was clearly amused.
“Have you ever thought about getting into vaudeville, the two of you? A nice little act at the Salone Margherita, the doctor and the brigadier, oom-pah-pah . . . Listen, shall we get this examination underway, so we can all get out of the rain? Based on an initial assessment, in any case, I don’t see any signs of violence on this corpse.”
Modo shot him an offended look.
“Oh, right, now you’re the one who decides when there are signs of violence and when there aren’t. Look, you’ve brought me all the way out here, my long underwear is wet right up to the knees; we might as well do this examination right. Where is the corpse? Ah, here it is. A little boy. Very young, couldn’t be more than seven, eight years old. Ah, what a shame.”
The doctor started moving around the child, carefully lifting the clothing, tenderly touching the hands and legs. Ricciardi noticed from a distance that the dog had gotten to its feet and now had both ears cocked, as if waiting to be called; all the same, it seemed to sense how delicately Modo was working and, remaining vigilant, didn’t move from where it stood.
The doctor examined the position of the corpse, crouched down to palpate the feet, inspected the face. He took notes on the back of the memo requesting his attendance. As he worked, Maione held the umbrella over him, doing his best to anticipate the doctor’s rapid movements.
When he was done, Modo went over to Ricciardi, drying his hands on his handkerchief.
“Now then: the corpse is stiff and cold. If you ask me he died yesterday evening or in the middle of the night. You’re quite right, there are no marks of violence on the body, at least nothing that could have proved fatal: old bruises, a few abrasions here and there, but nothing that was concurrent with death. He’s sitting up because he’s leaning against the wall, otherwise he would have fallen over. In my opinion, he’s seven years old, but he could be a little older; these street kids get very little to eat and develop rickets, so they can be a couple of sizes smaller than what’s normal for their actual age. He may even be ten or twelve years old. That’s something you’re going to have to find out.”
Ricciardi asked:
“About the time of death, are you certain?”
Modo shrugged.
“You can never be certain, when it’s cold and raining. The corneas are already opaque, glazed over, and I’m pretty sure I’m seeing black at the edges of the pupils. You can see hypostasis, that is, red blotches from the settling of blood due to gravity, along the right side of the neck, on the pavilion of the right ear, under the thighs, and on the legs, like socks. You see? If I press on the flesh with my fingers, it doesn’t turn white. The corpse stayed in this position for a long time.”
“And the cause of death? Agreed, no violence. So what killed him?”
Modo fell silent for a moment as he looked at the boy.
“I couldn’t say. It looks to me like a simple case of cardiac arrest. I told you, they’re weak, undernourished; every cold turns into pneumonia. They have no medicine, no one takes care of them. This is the third one I’ve seen this month. They found one of them at the train station whose ribs stuck out so much that you could examine his skeleton without even opening him up. Another one, a girl, was so hungry that she fell into the street at Sant’Eframo and a car ran over her like she was a bag of rags. It’s heartbreaking, I know. But it’s just one of the effects of poverty in this city that’s still waiting for the rising sun of the future.”
Maione listened, shaking his head.
“I feel tremendously sad for these poor creatures, Dotto’. Used to be every family would take in one of them. They called them the children of the Madonna. And they were even treated better than the other kids; people said they brought luck. But now, with the poverty you see these days, who can afford to have an extra mouth to feed?”
Modo never missed an opportunity to slip into his favorite topic of conversation.
“But doesn’t everyone say that we now live in a perfect country? Read the newspapers, Brigadie’, and all you’ll read about are parties, receptions, inaugurations, ship-launchings, and military parades. Foreign princes and kings visiting our country, happy, cheering crowds. But you and I, and our friend Ricciardi, here, all know perfectly well that matters are quite different. That children like this nameless boy are allowed to starve to death on the side of the road.”
Ricciardi raised his hand to stop him.
“Have mercy, Bruno. I beg you, no politics this morning. I can’t take it. I spent most of my night shift filling out reports and I’m even more disgusted with our political system and bureaucracy than you are; but I think that, with this fixation you have on Mussolini and the Fascists, you’re going to get yourself in trouble sooner or later, and very serious trouble, too.”
Modo ran his hand through his thick white hair and put his hat back on his head.
“So? You think that at my age I could really be afraid to speak my mind? After what I did in the Great War, for my country? For my reply to you I’ll borrow a reply of theirs: me ne frego! I don’t give a damn!”
Ricciardi shook his head.
“You don’t understand. Or perhaps I should say you pretend you don’t understand. Men like you do a great deal of good for their people. You’re the best doctor I know, and not only because you know what you’re doing and you’re good at it, but also and especially because you feel pity. I was watching you, before, as you were examining this poor corpse; you showed respect for it, as if it were still alive. Do you think it would be the best thing for them, for us, if people like you, who are few and far between, were yanked out of circulation because of a phrase or even a single word uttered in the wrong place at the wrong time? Don’t you think it’s better to try to change things day by day?”
Maione added, from under the umbrella:
“The commissario has a point, Dotto’. In any case, I have to do my duty as a spy, and in five minutes I’m going to turn you over to the proper authorities, so that they can send you off to internal exile in a hot, dry place, and I’m doing you a favor, at that.”
Modo burst out laughing, and waved to the two morgue attendants who had accompanied him.
“It’s no use, and more the fool I for even trying in the first place: you can’t have a serious conversation with a couple of cops. It’s as if I were trying to talk to a pair of oxen, except that they’d at least pretend to listen to me, without making idiotic jokes. Okay, okay, I’m heading back to the hospital; at least the dead don’t have a bunch of smart retorts. And I’m going to send this poor child to the graveyard, so that he might rest in peace, even if I can’t.”
The rain had turned to a faint drizzle, indistinguishable from fog. The two attendants lifted the corpse, laboriously straightening the stiffened limbs. Ricciardi saw them start toward the wagon, which was drawn by an old black horse glistening with raindrops. The child’s head lolled to one side and a rivulet ran down his neck. An involuntary mechanism of memory recalled to Ricciardi’s mind the image of a lamb that he used to play with as a child, after it had been sacrificed by the farmer for Easter dinner: the same head lolling to one side, the same tender neck. Two defenseless little animals. Two victims.
In the spectral atmosphere of death and fog, the dog howled once, briefly. Ricciardi felt a shiver run down his back.
Impulsively, he called out to Modo, who was walking away with the undertakers.
“Bruno, listen to me, I need you to do me a favor: Don’t send him to the cemetery. Have them take him to the hospital, perform an autopsy on him. I want to know exactly what he died of.”
Modo looked at him in surprise.
“What do you mean, what he died of? I told you, cardiac arrest. These children have practically no immune system to speak of; he could have died of anything. Why do you want to subject him to further torture? Besides, you can’t imagine how much work I have to do at the hospital! With this weather, two out of five doctors are sick, and people come streaming in with bronchitis, pneumonia, and bruises from falls and accidents.”
Ricciardi laid his hand on the doctor’s arm.
“Please, Bruno. I never ask you for anything. Do this for me: as a personal favor.”
Modo grumbled:
“That’s not true, that you never ask me for anything. To be exact, you’re an unbelievable pain in the ass. But fine, fine. I’ll do you this favor. But remember, you owe me one.”
Ricciardi grimaced in a way that was vaguely reminiscent of a smile.
“Fine, I owe you a favor. When the warrant for your arrest finally lands on my desk I’ll take the long way around the city when I come for you, that way you’ll have time for one last visit to the bordello where you take your pleasures.”
The doctor burst out laughing.
“You know that the whores in this city couldn’t live without me, eh? Guagliu’, hold up there, there’s a change in destination. Take the child to the hospital for me. He’s a client of mine, now.”
Once the cart had set off, Maione stepped closer to Ricciardi.
“Commissa’, I don’t get what you’re doing here. Hasn’t that poor child suffered enough already? Is it really worth it to inflict more cruelty on him now that he’s dead, if there weren’t any marks on the body?”
Ricciardi said nothing; he stood watching the dog, which had never once taken its eyes off them and had stayed where it was, even after the cart with the corpse had departed. He shrugged his shoulders.
“What can I tell you, Maione. It just seemed wrong to put him in the ground without even knowing what killed him. Come on, let’s head back to headquarters, so that we can finally draw this night shift to a close.”