Signora? Signo’, well, which one will it be?”
Livia shook herself out of her thoughts and for what seemed like the hundredth time tried to focus on the two dresses that the seamstress was showing her. This seamstress had been recommended to her by a new Neapolitan friend, the Marchesa De Luca di Roccatagliata. She was happy with the two samples, but she couldn’t quite make up her mind as to which one she liked best.
But her mind was wandering chaotically, returning repeatedly to the rain-streaked window. The few words she’d managed to pry out of Maione had put her in a state of anxiety and alarm for Ricciardi, especially concerning his relationship with Dr. Modo, a subject of special interest to the secret police.
She’d gone to police headquarters specifically to let Ricciardi know, without saying it in so many words, that seeing the doctor socially could expose him to a very serious risk: it took next to nothing, these days, to find yourself shipped off to internal exile.
But then Maione had spoken to her of the dead boy, and this, too, had gone straight to her heart. She’d been a mother herself, if only for a short time, because her baby boy had sickened and died. The fact that a man could become so passionately involved in finding out the reasons for the death of a little orphan boy only increased her interest in Ricciardi, if such a thing was possible.
From the street below, along with the sounds of the pouring rain and passing cars, came the cheerful yells of the scugnizzi splashing in puddles. Anyone who feels love for children has a great deal of love to offer, she decided. She smiled at the seamstress.
“They’re lovely, just beautiful; I’ll take them both.”
In the same little café where he had met with Ricciardi earlier, Maione was sitting with Bambinella, who was warming her hands around a cup of tea. The expression on his informant’s face worried him: Bambinella was usually all smiles, playful and affectionate in a vulgar fashion, given to rough humor and teasing; now she was serious, grim, pensive.
“Well, then, Bambine’: What’s going on, will you tell me? You’re always telling me how dangerous it is for us to meet out in the open, and now I actually find you standing on the street corner by police headquarters saying you want to talk to me?”
Bambinella set down her teacup and picked up a napkin with her long fingers, her polished nails.
“Brigadie’, it’s about the death of the child, the little boy from Santa Maria del Soccorso. I heard something and, since it struck me as an interesting piece of information, I came to tell you about it. Did I do wrong?”
“No, no, you did right. It’s just that you have a face . . . well, not the usual ugly face I’m used to seeing on you.”
Bambinella grimaced.
“I know, I just left the house the way I was, without even touching up my makeup. But if a girl is pretty, she’s pretty no matter what, Brigadie’.”
Maione smiled.
“Exactly—if a girl is pretty. So tell me all about it: What did you find out?”
“All right, Brigadie’, listen carefully: This morning that client of mine came by, the verdummaio, the strolling vendor who told me that he’d seen the boy with that well-dressed man, the man with the limp, you remember?”
Maione nodded.
“Go on.”
“Well, he’d already told me that he’d had the impression that the man and the little boy were having an argument, and that the man with the limp was holding him by the arm and rousting him, shaking him a little, in other words. He’d even thought about stepping in, because it seemed to him that the little boy needed help.”
“Yes, you already told me about that. So?”
Bambinella went on patiently:
“Well, today he told me that he’d seen him again, the man with the limp. He’d seen him come out of an apartment building, in Via Santa Lucia, number twelve; and he asked just who that gentleman was. The doorman, who was a friend of his, told him that the man lived there, and that his name is Sersale, Edoardo Sersale. He’s a nobleman, and he comes from some venerable family or other, my client didn’t really understand that part. The name rang a bell for me, and after the verdummaio left, I went down and talked to a girlfriend of mine who works in a bordello in Via Torretta.”
Maione spread his arms wide.
“I don’t know what to say, you have a girlfriend working in every single corner of this city, as long as the place is sufficiently filthy and disgusting. Whorehouses, taverns, gambling dens, you name it.”
Bambinella nodded.
“It’s true, Brigadie’. And it’s a good thing, too, because as always I’d remembered correctly: my girlfriend had told me about one of their customers who was really hooked on one of the girls. I know her by sight, too; she’s pretty enough, but if you ask me she’s just a bit vulgar, with a pair of tits like this, and a mouth . . .”
Maione interrupted her vehemently:
“Listen, do you really think that I should be sitting here with you, at the risk of having someone see me and making me look like a fool, and being mocked until the day I die, just so I can find out what kind of tits a whore who works at the bordello in Via Torretta has? Will you get to the point, yes or no?”
“You’re right, you’re right, Brigadie’, forgive me; that’s just the way I am, I get distracted. In short, this client of the friend of my girlfriend answers the description perfectly, the limp, well-dressed, and so on. So I asked this girlfriend of mine if she could arrange for me to talk to the girl, whose name I’m not going to tell you—sorry, but I swore on Our Lady the Madonna of Pompeii, and as you know I’m a very religious girl. Well, to make a long story short, the name matches. And this guy Sersale is in trouble, too. Big trouble.”
Maione perked up his ears.
“What do you mean, in big trouble?”
“Well, he may be an aristocrat, but he’s up to his ears in debt. He likes women, bordellos, and cards. He’s gone through a fortune, and now he’s in the hands of the loan sharks, and they’ve told him that if he doesn’t pay up, every last cent, they’re going to fix him good.”
“What does that have to do with the little boy?”
“Ah, that I couldn’t say, you’ll have to find out for yourself. But the fact remains that the girl said her friend had changed completely in the past few days. He was laughing and giddy like he used to be; he seemed to be happy again. He told her that it wouldn’t be long now until he expected to have all the money he needed to pay off his debts and straighten out his situation. And when the girl asked him how he expected to do that, he said: I’ve found the boy. That’s all.”
Maione was baffled.
“What’s that supposed to mean: “I’ve found the boy’? What did he mean by that? Tettè was an orphan boy, he didn’t even have food to eat, and in fact he was so hungry that he even gobbled down rat poison. What could he have given to a man like that?”
Bambinella shrugged her shoulders.
“That’s something I couldn’t say, Brigadie’. But my heart tells me that this bastard with a limp fits in with the death of that poor little child somehow, and that he’s in it up to his neck.”
Maione agreed.
“Whether or not he was involved, we’ll certainly have to investigate him. Grazie, Bambine’: you were right, this is very valuable information, and it needed to reach me right away. But can I ask you something? Why did you do it? Why did you go out hunting, all the way to Torretta in the rain and then here, to wait for me on the corner, knowing I might not come by here at all?”
Bambinella drank her last sip of tea and smiled sadly.
“Because I was a little orphan boy myself, Commissa’. No father, no mother, abandoned in the middle of this city’s streets. I know it what it’s like, when you’re nothing; when it doesn’t matter whether you live or die, and nobody gives a damn. I had to earn my living in scraps and mouthfuls of food, just like that poor creature you found dead at Capodimonte. Let’s just say it was a flower I placed on that child’s casket. A flower from Bambinella.”
Enrica’s hands flew over the bowls, plates, and utensils as she set the table for dinner. And the same way her hands were flying, her heart was soaring, high above the rain-dense clouds that were louring over the city.
She’d received another letter. Her father had handed it to her with a conspiratorial smile, having pulled it out of the mailbox with a rapid sleight of hand that his wife failed to see: a knowing smile that had made her turn red as a ripe tomato, until she managed to escape to her bedroom.
This time the tone was gentler, although it remained well within the bounds of discretion that she’d established with her own letter. Ricciardi apologized awkwardly for his shyness, which perhaps had been excessive, and had prevented him from stepping forward and speaking to her directly, as many other men surely would have done in his place.
She shouldn’t doubt, however, that all his thoughts were focused on her: what he felt, and what he hoped one day to be able to tell her, was something very important (and here Enrica had been forced to stop reading, because her heart felt suddenly as if it were trying to leap out of her ears). It’s just that he wasn’t comfortable in this kind of situation, as he’d never experienced anything of the sort before.
He concluded the letter by saying that he sincerely hoped that she, too, thought about him from time to time, and that her thoughts resembled his own. He truly hoped so. And he closed by wishing her every good thing in the world, with all his heart.
Enrica couldn’t remember ever being so happy in her life. Ever. Not even close.
She just hoped that she’d be able to put all her feelings into the letter she was about to write in response: she, too, would be more affectionate this time.
She wondered when he’d ask for a meeting.