He ran through the streets and vicoli. He ran barefoot, dodging cars and carriages, trolleys and handcarts. He ran through the market, leaping over obstacles and bumping up against fat women selecting apples. He ran on the sidewalks, splashing puddle water onto office workers trying to keep their pants dry on their walk to work, thus setting off curses and angry cries in his direction.
Cristiano ran, not caring who or what he slammed into along the way, indifferent to the icy drizzle he was dashing through; running warmed him up, and he liked to breathe in the rain.
He ran because he was looking for someone, and he went from one place to another where he thought he might find that person. And then he found him.
Cosimo Capone was a saponaro, a soap seller. It was a trade that encompassed many others, as he always liked to say. In theory it consisted primarily of barter, swapping junk for junk, with the difference in value paid in irregularly shaped chunks of brown soap, as difficult to handle as they were slow to dissolve. In theory. But in practice, Cosimo did more chatting than anything else.
He chatted with everyone, but especially women. He knew that he was charming, with his handsome smile and his gift of gab, and that a couple of nicely phrased compliments did wonders to soften the hearts of housewives and washerwomen; and with the softening of their hearts invariably came the opening of their coin purses. If you added a pretty song to the reassuring handcart piled high with raggedy old clothes and copper pots, the items practically sold themselves.
According to Cosimo, going around with a little kid in tattered clothing was a great idea for someone in his line of work; and the skinnier and hungrier he looked, the better. Women are mothers, or else they’d like to become mothers: an ill-fed, ill-clothed child is an irresistible appeal to their pity, and therefore to their generosity. And then if the child looks much younger than he really is, has such a bad stammer that he can’t even speak, and is accompanied by a stray mutt in worse shape than he is, then you’ve hit the jackpot.
For Cosimo, Tettè constituted a genuine gold mine; depending on the situation, he’d either tell people that Tettè was his son and that the boy’s mother had died in childbirth, or else that he’d found the boy on the street, or that he was the son of a comrade-in-arms who’d died in combat. He was quite astute at guessing the nuances of grief and pain in the life of any woman who approached his handcart, and he knew how to play the innermost chords of her soul; the haggling eased up and the earnings were always much greater than he had any right to expect.
But this wasn’t the only thing that made Tettè the ideal assistant. The other thing, the most important one, had taken months of training: an investment of time and effort that had only recently begun to pay off, and which Cosimo, conscientious businessman that he was, wasn’t willing to lose without a fight.
When Cristiano, dripping with rain and out of breath, caught up with him, Cosimo was using his running patter on a mistrustful middle-aged woman leaning halfway out the ground-floor window of a basso.
“Signo’, this morning you’re a sight for sore eyes: you’re such a vision that if I look at you I’ll be blinded, I’ll have to stumble my way through the vicoli, I’ll run my handcart straight into a brick wall. But tell me, how do you do it—how do you keep yourself looking so pretty?”
The woman, who had a beard and whiskers a cadet might envy and looked to weigh as much as a cartload of bricks, narrowed her eyes.
“Your magic isn’t going to work on me this morning, Cosimo. I’ve got this handful of rags, and what I need is a large bar of soap. If you want to give it to me, fine; otherwise clear out, because your handcart in front of my window is blocking my air.”
“Donna Carme’,” he sniveled, “you’re trying to ruin me! A large bar of soap is worth at least a shirt, and a shirt in good condition, or at least a frying pan without any holes in it. What am I supposed to do with a couple of tattered footcloths? Put at least a five-cent piece next to them, and that way you’ll send me away a happy man! Don’t take advantage of me, now that I’ve fallen head over heels for you!”
The woman showed that she was a tough nut to crack; it had been thirty years since she’d last received a sincere compliment, and she wasn’t about to be made a fool of.
“Nothing doing. So go on, make up your mind and make it quick. I have things to do.”
It was then that Cosimo noticed Cristiano’s presence. After catching his breath, the boy said:
“Don Co’, I can work with you, I’ll go into the apartments, that cacaglio won’t be coming anymore!”
Donna Carmela narrowed her eyes to slits and asked, in an even warier voice:
“What did the child say? What apartments is he going into?”
With the speed of a rattlesnake, the junk seller’s hand shot out and grabbed Cristiano’s shoulder, crushing it in a violent, viselike grip. The boy immediately fell silent.
“No, this child must have me confused with someone else, Donna Carme’. I’ve never even met this scugnizzo. You know that the only one I keep with me is my stepson, Tettè. You remember Tettè, don’t you?”
The woman’s scowling face suddenly brightened into a smile.
“Of course, how could I not? The lovely quiet little boy with the brown and white dog. Always so polite, the way he bows to me if I give him a cookie. Why isn’t he with you today?”
Cosimo put on a worried expression, without letting go of Cristiano’s shoulder.
“He’s sick, a few lines of fever. If he doesn’t feel well, I don’t take him out with me, especially in this weather, no? You have children yourself, don’t you, Donna Carme’? In other words, you can understand me.”
The woman grew cautious again, but her voice had softened at the thought of little Tettè.
“No, I don’t have children, I never got married, because there was never anyone who was right for me. But I have nephews and nieces, and your little boy reminds me of a little nephew of mine who died, years and years ago. All right, let’s not waste any more time: here are the rags and a five-cent coin, give me the soap and get out of here, I’ve got work to do.”
Once the transaction had been completed, the woman slammed the window shut with a bang. Cosimo spat angrily on the ground and, once they’d turned the corner, began shaking Cristiano.
“Who asked you to open your big mouth? What on earth made you think you could speak to me without permission? I ought to kill you with my own two hands!”
The boy stood there, wide-eyed and speechless. He was terrified. Cosimo went on, in a hiss:
“You know that I’d do it, too, eh? You know that all too well. Where’s your little friend? Why hasn’t he been around for the past three days, him and that disgusting dog of his? If he turns up and he’s been out scavenging food, I’ll break every bone in his skinny body, I swear it as God is my witness!”
Cristiano caught his breath and said, the words tumbling out:
“Don Co’, that little cacaglio won’t be coming anymore: he’s dead. He ate rat poison and died, and they found him at the Tondo di Capodimonte. So I wanted to take his place, and come around with you. I don’t want to go work with the cobbler anymore. I’m fast, I can run. And that thing in the apartments, I can do it better than he ever did!”
Cosimo turned deathly pale; he looked around in terror and, after making sure that there was no one around to see or hear, he grabbed Cristiano by the throat.
“What are you saying? What do you mean, he’s dead? Who knows about this? And what do you mean by ‘that thing in the apartments’? What do you know about it, who did you talk to?”
Now Cristiano really was afraid: he hadn’t expected that reaction from the junk seller, and in the dark stretch of alley where the man had taken him there was no one to call to for help. Animal of the street that he was, he recognized the cold determination in the man’s eyes, and he understood that his life was in danger.
“No, no, let me go, I won’t breathe a word to anyone. And no one else knows. The cacaglio himself told me, he told me that sometimes when you were out on your rounds together, he’d sneak into the apartments and grab something while the women were talking to you. But he only told me, and I’m not going to tell anyone else. Now let me go. I told the priest that I was coming to talk to you for a minute and then I’d be right back.”
Cosimo thought fast, and he loosened his grip. The red imprints of his fingers were clearly visible on Cristiano’s throat. The man ran his hand over his face to wipe away the rain: he’d come within an inch of killing the boy.
“Go on then, get back to the priest. And don’t let me ever lay eyes on you again. But remember this: if anyone finds out anything, I’ll come track you down wherever you’re hiding, and I’ll finish what I started this morning. You understand? Now, get out of here!”
Cristiano didn’t have to be told twice, and he took off running, slipping on the wet cobblestones.
Cosimo flopped down onto his cart, with a faint clanging of copper pots. He’s dead, then, he thought. He’s dead.
And now what am I going to do?