Prego, señor, el cafè . . .” whispered Conchita, stirring the little spoon in the demitasse. The faint, continuous ding ding ding of metal on china made Fernando Borghetti Ansaldo open his eyes wide.
“What time is it?”
“Half past las siete,” the Peruvian housekeeper replied, leaving the demitasse on the nightstand. The undersecretary for foreign affairs rolled over in bed. His wife had already left their nuptial bed. While the housekeeper silently left the darkened room, Fernando downed the espresso at a single gulp. It was tasty, hot, and bracing. The moka pot remained and always would be superior to coffee pods, the honorable undersecretary continued to tell anyone who would listen, and if he were the undersecretary for industrial policy he’d have made sure that it was against Italian law to manufacture and sell those horrible swill-brewing coffeemakers. He got up, rubbed his face, and slowly made his way into the bathroom.
He turned on the shower. While waiting for the spray to heat up, he looked at himself in the mirror. He’d need to do something about that belly. He was turning into a watermelon. When he saw himself from the side, he looked like he was pregnant. And now his cranium was almost completely bald, a shiny dome. But he couldn’t bring himself to think of getting a hair transplant. And there was no way he’d consider a hairpiece. He often spoke in public, and he knew that under the spotlights fake hair took on unlikely shapes and highlights, broadcasting to the world their complete artificiality. That would be a humiliation he’d never put himself through. Far better just to be bald. He took off his pajama pants and was about to step into the shower when he heard a voice.
“Fernando?” It was his wife, Roberta.
“What?”
“You know, Giorgio didn’t come home last night either.”
“What do you mean, he didn’t come home? Where is he?”
Roberta leaned against the door frame and crossed her arms. “Last night he went out with his friends for a pizza.”
“Well, call his friends, why don’t you?”
“It’s too early for that.”
“Did you try his cell phone?”
“It’s turned off.”
“Wait and see; he’s probably hooked up with some pretty girl . . . he’s thirty years old, Roberta, it’s perfectly normal.”
“I certainly hope not.”
The husband and wife locked eyes. They’d once again come to the topic that neither one of them had the strength or courage to broach. They both dropped their gazes at the same moment.
“Tea or milk?” asked Roberta.
“Milk with just a drop of coffee. Are there any pastries?”
His wife nodded and vanished. Fernando stepped into the shower.
The warm water brought him slowly back to life. Where the fuck was Giorgio? Actually, he couldn’t stand the idea that his son was out and about. And he was starting to wish he could just erase him from his mind and his thoughts.
If only that boy had never been born!
He knew that a good father would have picked up the phone and kept calling until he found him. But at nine o’clock there was a very important meeting at the ministry. “I can’t put my own family matters before the demands of the Italian state,” he muttered under his breath. But that’s not what he was really thinking. His actual thoughts were: I can’t waste my goddamn time trying to find that idiot. Let his mother worry about him. She doesn’t have a job, she never lifts a finger from morning to night, so there! Now she has something to keep her busy for the rest of the day.
Fernando had adopted a rather unusual habit. In the shower, or in the car, in other words, when he was alone, he’d speak aloud, as if there were a journalist with him, microphone extended, just waiting to start the interview. He had found that this was very good training for being able always to come up with a believable story. To protect his respectability. And the things he said were always politically correct, deeply rhetorical, on the verge of the ridiculous. He had to appear to be a just man, consistent, a civil servant working for the good of his country, caring about the needs and interests of the community that had elected him. In other words, even though his thoughts might veer northward, what came out of his mouth must necessarily veer to the south. It was an exercise for the TV cameras, a technique that he honed every day, more and more. “And then after the meeting I’ll have a luncheon with the Malaysian delegation. Between our two nations, there has always been a profound sense of respect and reciprocal esteem. And it’s going to be an important meeting, both in human and in political terms.” The actual thoughts of the Honorable Borghetti Ansaldo were these, though: I’m going to have to sit there at lunch with those four colored monkeys that I couldn’t give a flying fuck about and convince them not to raise the taxes on tourism but still supply the services that our resorts have requested. “The meeting will stretch out for quite a while, possibly until late at night. No, I just don’t have time to worry about Giorgio’s problems.” Translation: After lunch with the Malaysians, which I’m hoping won’t last more than an hour, I have an appointment to see Sabrina. And if you don’t mind, if I have to choose between Sabrina and that brainless cabbage of a son of mine, I’m bound to choose Sabrina and her delicious thighs.
The mere thought of Sabrina’s thighs had given him an erection. He could already imagine her stretched out on the leather sofa in his downtown office, the rent paid by the Italian taxpayers. Now that was an appointment he really couldn’t afford to miss. And today, Tuesday, March 20, the day before the official start of spring, was a red-letter day for him and Sabrina. A date on which Fernando Borghetti Ansaldo intended to start a historic new chapter in their illicit and torrid relationship. Today, at last, he was going to ask her to let him screw her in the ass.
THE IMMACULATE BMW STATION WAGON WITH ONLY twenty thousand kilometers on the odometer turned over on the first try. He could have taken advantage of his position and requested a police escort, but then he’d have to walk all the way from the ministry to his study for his appointment with Sabrina, and that was out of the question. Plus he couldn’t rule out, after the sex, the idea of a trip to a trattoria in the Castelli Romani to eat and drink until all hours. He’d need his car. The garage doors swung open, Fernando waved to Amerigo, the concierge, and turned onto Viale dell’Oceano Atlantico. There was plenty of traffic. He looked at the slow-moving cars. “The important thing is to give the citizens of this fair city a chance to travel freely by increasing the size and capacity of the public transportation network,” he said under his breath. “The investments of Rome, Italy’s capital, in buses and subways are in the interest not only of individual citizens but of the country as a whole. It’s time to give the Romans an opportunity to get to work without necessarily taking their own vehicles, which will result in a considerable increase in outlays on fuel, insurance, vehicle taxes, and depreciation, all of which takes a bite out of a family’s disposable income . . .” No, in his head he was cursing all those dickheads sitting in their cars, so many useless people who wouldn’t be missed if they simply stayed home. Parasites, good-for-nothings, who get in their cars every chance they get so they can sit in traffic jams like idiots and go get a cup of coffee with their retired friends or to visit their mothers and brothers and sisters and then go window-shopping in malls. He broke into the English he’d be using later. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mister Joro Bahur . . . Mr. Melaka, how is your wonderful daughter . . .” that flat-nosed fat pig who smells of fried food. “Mr. Sibu, one of these days I’ll take you to some typical Roman restaurant . . . to taste spaghetti cacio e pepe . . . wonderful!”
“What the fuck are you yammering about?” a harsh, steely voice boomed from directly behind him, sharp as a well-honed blade. Fernando jerked in his seat. Sitting behind him was an enormous man wearing a woolen watch cap and a pair of Ray-Bans.
“Who . . . who are you? How did you get into my c—”
“Shut up and take the next right,” the big man ordered him.
“I’ll have you know, I am—”
“I know who you are. And I said take the next right, so quit fucking yammering.”
Fernando Borghetti Ansaldo obeyed. Sweat was streaming down his back in rivulets. He was afraid to glance in the rearview mirror and look his guest in the eye. He was afraid to speak. He was even afraid to shift gears. He felt like a cold slab of marble.
“Put on your brakes, you moron. Don’t you see the light?”
He was right. He slammed on the brakes and the car skidded to a halt just inches short of the white line. His breath was choppy and shallow, as if someone had drained the oxygen out of the car’s interior. He tried to look up at the rearview mirror but just then the passenger-side front door swung open and another man, hairless, also wearing a pair of Ray-Bans, got in.
“Hello there, Dottor Borghetti. How are you doing?”
The undersecretary, his eyes wide with terror, looked wildly at the new arrival. “The light’s green now,” the bald man said in a calm voice. A horn honked behind him and he let the clutch out. He pulled out into the broad thoroughfare of Via Cristoforo Colombo. “Where . . . where am I going?”
“Straight ahead.”
Only then did Borghetti Ansaldo notice that the man sitting next to him had an enormous pistol in his lap. And he was looking at him from behind the dark lenses of a pair of sunglasses.
Is this possible? he was thinking. Is this actually happening to me? In the middle of Rome? Where are the police? My God, what’s going on here? What’s going on?
“Take the beltway, heading toward the Cassia,” said the man with the pistol.
“They’re expecting me at the ministry,” he found the courage to say. “When I fail to show up, they’ll unleash the police, put out an all-points bulletin, and—”
“Don’t worry about a thing,” said the man with the cavernous voice from behind him. “This won’t take long. Keep it under fifty-five miles per hour and do as you’re told.”
“Are you . . . are you kidnapping me?”
The two men didn’t even bother to reply.
“Then what do you want from me?”
“You ask too many questions, fatso. Just drive and pipe down. And keep both hands on the wheel.”
Fernando Borghetti Ansaldo gulped down the ball of dry dust he had in his throat, wiped his forehead, and concentrated on the road ahead of him.
“It’s very likely that we’ll see police cars on the beltway,” said the long-haired guy in the back, “but you see, Borghetti? You just try to pull something clever, like flashing your brights, jamming on the brakes, accelerating, honking, and my friend here will shoot you. In the gut. So you’ll die slowly and suffer atrociously. A gut shot hurts.”
But the last thing the undersecretary was thinking about was trying to be a hero. He’d already made up his mind to obey and just hope that those two men didn’t hurt him too badly.
“Do you want money?”
No answer.
“Do you want favors of some kind? I have enough influence to—”
The bald guy slapped him in the back of the head. “Shut up and drive.”
He felt humiliated. Not even at school, not even as a child, had he ever been given the classic slap to the back of the head, known in Italian as a scappellotto. A scappellotto is something you give an out-of-control child, an apathetic pupil. Not a respected undersecretary, a member in good standing of the majority party, a man with institutional responsibilities, a man who always received a military salute from the Carabinieri, who snapped to attention in his presence. Then it dawned on him. Suddenly everything became clear. A horrible crudely drawn symbol appeared in his mind’s eyes, a five-pointed star on a banner behind the weary, resigned face of a great statesman of the Christian Democratic Party, held captive in a Red Brigades lair, awaiting his execution. Well, so be it, he thought. “If my sacrifice is required, I’m ready. Go ahead.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“You’re terrorists, aren’t you? What are you, communists?”
The two men burst out laughing. “You’re not that important, you pathetic idiot. Just take the Aurelia and shut your piehole.”
No. It wasn’t the Red Brigades after all.
He felt a slight pang of disappointment.
“You know that this car has an antitheft alarm system with satellite tracking, connected directly to the Carabinieri? And the minute I fail to show up at the ministry they’ll know something’s wrong and they’ll immediately be able to find the car’s location and they’ll come and get us and . . .” He looked up. In the rearview mirror the big bearded man was holding up a piece of electronic equipment with dozens of snipped colored wires protruding from it in all directions. “Now,” the man said, “we’d like a little silence. So shut up and drive.”
Borghetti Ansaldo obeyed.
OPEN COUNTRYSIDE, NOT FAR FROM THE WATER. Abandoned farmhouses surrounded by fields run to seed, dotted with olive trees in serious need of a thorough pruning. Mud everywhere. The BMW struggled through that panorama of desolation, jerking and jolting over potholes, gears grinding and motor straining. The suspension groaned and the tires sprayed water in all directions as they churned through puddles. At the side of the road rusty tractor parts could be seen, along with old, tattered plastic bags. “Where . . . where are we?” asked the undersecretary, breaking the silence.
“Località Testa di Lepre,” said the man next to him, with the flat precision of a tour guide.
“What are we doing here?” asked the politician, but he got no answer. Then he heaved a sigh. If they’d been planning to kill him, they’d have done it already, he decided.
“There . . . the warehouse,” the bald guy said, pointing. Borghetti Ansaldo hit the turn signal and pulled off the dirt road onto a grassy lane that ran toward an old abandoned industrial shed.
“Get out.”
Puddles and mud everywhere. Under a fiberglass lean-to roof was an old Vespa without a seat, two enormous toothed tractor tires, and heaps of stacked furniture. The glass in the warehouse windows was all broken. Someone had written on the cement wall with a marker: “Casalotti rules!”
“In you go!” said the big man, swinging open an iron gate that creaked on its hinges.
IT WAS A SINGLE BIG ROOM A HUNDRED YARDS IN length. Drops of water were dripping from the ramshackle roof: you could see the sky through the holes. Cement columns held up the rafters. The stench of stale urine and wet dirt filled his nostrils. Then, at the far end of the industrial shed, Fernando Borghetti Ansaldo saw someone squatting at the foot of a cement column. Head lolling to one side, hopelessly. He seemed to have passed out. As he got closer, the figure took shape. His hands were tied behind him. A pair of jeans, track shoes, and a sweatshirt that said HARVARD UNIVERSITY. Fernando recognized it immediately. He’d brought it back for his son, from a trip to the States three months ago. “Giorgio . . .” he said, in a small, frightened voice. The two men stopped him a few yards short of his baby boy. From behind the column, silent as a ghost, a third man emerged with a woolen cap on his head and a pair of glasses. A black jacket, a pair of gloves, and a pair of Clarks desert boots on his feet.
“This is Giorgio. Giorgio, say hello to daddy.” The man grabbed Giorgio’s chin and forced him to look up. Now his face was illuminated by the light streaming through the broken windows.
Blood oozed from his mouth and his nose. Giorgio barely opened his eyes. He smiled. He had blood on his teeth too.
“What . . . what have you done to him?”
“Nothing much, trust me,” said the new arrival, who was clearly the leader of the pack. “But this sack of shit stuck his pee-pee where he shouldn’t have. You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?”
The undersecretary said nothing.
“Do you or don’t you?” the man bellowed.
The honorable undersecretary nodded his head three times.
“In that case, my friends and I are giving you one last chance. Either this dickhead stops once and for all, or next time we’re going to turn nasty.”
“Because we know how to be nasty, did you know that?” said the big man behind him.
“What . . . what do I have to do?”
“That’s something you’d need to tell us,” said the leader of the band. “You see, my friends were suggesting we might do a number of things: cut his dick off, slice off his balls. All things I completely endorse, and perfectly just, no doubt about it, but in the end we’re reasonable people and we thought we’d give you one last chance.”
“I could have him institutionalized and—”
“Do whatever you think’s best. I’m just warning you, though. If we have to come back, what happened to your son today is going to look like a stroll in the park.”
“I understand,” said the honorable undersecretary in a small, frightened voice.
The sound of the drops of water falling from the ceiling into the puddles below filled the silence.
“Papà, can we please go home?” Giorgio suddenly asked.
But Fernando Borghetti Ansaldo was impervious to pity. He looked at his son, blood of his blood, flesh of his flesh, tied up like a ham on a pole, and felt a surge of hatred and resentment surge up his throat. “You’re a dickhead, Giorgio,” he said. “A complete dickhead.”
“Yes, but now we’re going home, aren’t we?”
Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” echoed through the enormous foul-smelling room, making the undersecretary flinch. The leader of the trio quickly slipped his hand into his jacket pocket. “Oh fucking Jesus . . .” He pulled out his cell phone.
“Yes?” he said, vanishing behind the cement column.
“Dottor Schiavone, of the Aosta police?”
“That’s me. Who’m I speaking with?”
“What’s that echo I hear?”
“Pay no attention to that. Who is this?”
“It’s Tomei.”
“Tomei?”
“From the Tomei menswear shop, in town.”
“Ah, of course. I’m all ears.”
“I told my wife, my son, and even my part-time sales assistant about what you’re looking for, and my wife had a bright idea.” (He emphasized the English term part-time annoyingly once again.)
“Good.”
“So, she’d like to speak with you. Shall I put her on the phone?”
“No. Believe me, this wouldn’t be the right time to talk.”
“Are you in a meeting?”
“Good guess. I’ll come see you as soon as possible.”
“It’s always a pleasure to be able to help Aosta’s finest, after all, and . . .”
But Rocco missed the rest of what the man had to say because he’d already ended the call. He came back around the cement column. The undersecretary was still there. And also there, tied securely to the column, was the undersecretary’s son.
“Now, where were we?” asked Rocco.
“The honorable undersecretary had just said that his son was a complete dickhead,” said Sebastiano.
“Ah, yes, that’s right. Couldn’t agree more.” Then Rocco walked over to Furio. “Do you mind? Let’s cut through the bullshit.” With a rapid move, he seized Furio’s pistol. He strode straight over to Giorgio and aimed the gun at the young man.
“No!” shouted the undersecretary. Furio and Sebastiano stood motionless, watching in horror. Rocco pulled the trigger over and over again, firing into the reinforced cement just inches from Giorgio’s head. The deafening gunshots blasted in quick succession while the cement, chipped to flakes by the bullets, peppered the side of the bound man’s head; he flinched with every shot. Fernando Borghetti Ansaldo felt a warm rivulet run down the inside of his trouser leg. And to judge by the stain on the floor, his son too had pissed his pants. After firing all six shots, Rocco handed the pistol to Furio.
“Next time I’ll aim lower.” And he strode briskly out of the huge room.
Furio turned to look at the politician. “Is this clear to you?”
Fernando shut his eyes and nodded. Giorgio was whimpering softly. “I swear it. Giorgio will never hurt anyone again.”
Sebastiano went over to the young man. “Borghetti? We can get in anywhere, whenever we want. Next time instead of you, we’ll take your wife.”
Furio laughed. “But something tells me that we’re not going to be seeing each other ever again, are we?”
Then the two men left without another word. Fernando Borghetti Ansaldo stood there, looking at his son, tied to a chair. He stepped closer. The young man reeked of shit.
THEY WERE LISTENING TO A GOLDEN OLDIES SHOW ON the car radio. Right now, “Just an Illusion” by Imagination was playing.
“Ah, all the memories . . .” said Sebastiano dreamily.
“Greece. Summer, 1982,” Furio began. “We hooked up with those Dutch girls, you remember, Rocco?”
But Rocco was looking out the car window. Seba and Furio exchanged a glance and then did nothing more than to hum the British hit song. Over the piece of dance music could be heard Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.” Rocco answered his cell phone while Seba lowered the volume on the car radio.
“Schiavone. Who is it?”
“Ciao, sweetheart, it’s Alberto.”
It was the medical examiner from Livorno.
“What’s up . . .”
“There’s news. I need to speak with you. All right, first of all, I’ve examined all the belts and neckties from the Baudo home. No trace of epithelium, hairs, nothing.”
“Mmm . . .”
“It wasn’t with any of these items that Esther was strangled.”
“In that case, whatever was used must now be—”
“Exactly, who knows where it is now. But I need to talk to you about something much more important.”
“I’m out of town right now. When I get back to Aosta I’ll call you.”
“Where are you?”
Rocco didn’t even reply. Alberto understood immediately. “Fine, I’ll wait to hear from you. But listen: this is important.” And he hung up.
Rocco put his phone back in his pocket and nodded to Seba to turn up the radio again. But “Just an Illusion” was over. Now the radio was playing Milli Vanilli’s “Girl You Know It’s True.” Screaming, Sebastiano switched the radio off.
PRIMA PORTA IS A TOWN JUST OUTSIDE OF ROME, beyond the bounds of the Grande Raccordo Anulare, the beltway. It’s on the Via Flaminia, the main artery that runs north toward Terni and the green hills of Umbria. But first and foremost, for the people of Rome, Prima Porta is the city cemetery, officially known as the Cimitero Flaminio. It covers 370 acres, with forty-five miles of roads. To get around, you either drive or take a bus. A city all its own, made up of eternal residences: graves, vaults, and two-story funerary chapels.
Sebastiano and Furio had stayed in the car. Rocco wanted to walk the last hundred yards alone. He crossed the road as the C/8 bus barreled past, heading for the Islamic section. The sky was gray, and as he strode past a fresh grave, the sickly sweet odor of flowers nauseated him. He went past a pine grove and there opened out before his eyes an expanse of headstones jutting from the soil like so many derelict teeth. Lost in the sea of graves, two women dressed in black hunched over, busy doing something to the headstones. Rocco went straight as an arrow to the third row. He walked up to the black marble slab.
Marina was there, waiting for him. There were only dried flowers on the grave. Rocco picked up those withered scraps and went back to the road. He tossed them in the trash, then went over to the water fountain and filled the vase with fresh water for his daisies. He went back to the grave. He arranged the flowers and finally looked at the headstone. He knew the dates by heart, but he read them all the same:
He’d chosen not to put a photograph on the headstone. There was no need. Marina’s face was branded into his mind’s eye sharper than a rancher’s mark seared into the flesh of a cow. They say that usually the faces of our loved ones gradually fade into the mist of our memories. That the features start to blur, along with the colors of the eyes and hair, their height, and especially the sound of their voices. But none of that happened to Rocco. Since July 7, 2007, Marina hadn’t lost so much as a mole in his memory. So there was no need of a photograph. The image of Marina’s face, clear and vivid, would be the last sight in Rocco’s eyes the day it was his turn. There was no doubt about that.
“Ciao, Marina,” he said in a low voice. “You see? I came to visit. Like I promised.” He could see his reflection in the shiny, polished marble. “Look, I brought you something . . .” He stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled out a notebook. “Your words are in here. They may be useful to you.” He stuck it under the vase. Next to it he left a pen. “You know what? I found a hard word for you. I wrote it right in your notebook. It describes me. You want to know what it is? Oligemia. But I’m not going to tell you what it means, otherwise it wouldn’t be any fun for you.”
One of the two women, dressed in black, had kneeled down and was crossing herself. Rocco too leaned over the grave, but only to remove a leaf that had fallen on the marble slab.
“Happy Birthday, Marina . . . see you at home,” he said, and blew her a kiss.
He walked back to the little road, looked up, and saw them. They were standing about a hundred feet away, looking at him wordlessly.
He felt his heart climb into his throat. He stood stock-still. Laura and Camillo, too, seemed incapable of taking a step toward their daughter’s grave. Finally Rocco made up his mind and, in spite of the fear that bolted his knees in place, he forced himself to walk toward them. As Laura watched him walk toward them, she placed her right hand on her husband’s arm, as if to hold tight to the only certainty remaining to her. Rocco kept his eyes on the ground; he knew that if he looked up he wouldn’t be able to make it all the way to where they were standing. If he looked at them, even for an instant, he’d change direction and head straight back to Sebastiano and Furio, who were waiting for him in the car. Then, when he was almost within arm’s reach of the couple, he stopped and looked up. Laura’s face was covered with wrinkles, and her lovely blue eyes had faded, as had the chrysanthemums she held in her hand. Camillo’s hair, already white, had thinned, and he now wore a pair of glasses with black frames. Like his wife, he’d lost weight and looked drab, colorless. They both seemed to lack depth. A pair of cutout figurines, glimpsed through a gray veil.
“Ciao, Laura . . . ciao, Camillo.”
His in-laws said nothing. Laura was having trouble breathing. Camillo was even worse off: he seemed to be in a state of waking apnea. Well, he’d come this far: he’d said hello, now what? What else did he need to say? Ask for their forgiveness? He’d done it a thousand times since that day—July 7, 2007. In the morgue, at the funeral, with dozens of phone calls, but the result hadn’t changed. Marina hadn’t come back to life, and they’d never forgiven him.
Not that he deserved to be forgiven. He knew that; the blame was his and his alone. And nothing would ever alleviate the ruthless violence of those pangs of remorse that he felt in his heart, those ripping talons that lacerated him inwardly, drawing more and more blood with the passing years. He just wished they would realize one thing: he’d loved Marina. More than anything. And he loved her still. And not a day, not a night went by that he didn’t weep for her. But a mother and a father have a greater right to grieve for the loss of a daughter than a husband does. They take precedence.
“I know what you want from me,” said Laura, tight-lipped. “But I can’t do it.” Then she looked at Rocco again. “And I’ll never be able to.”
Rocco nodded. Her eyes were glistening now. On her weary, pale face, here and there he caught a glimpse of Marina. In the twist of the mouth, the angle of her glance, her hairline. Is that what Marina would have been like as an old woman? “I know, Laura. But I have to go on living, and I’m standing here the way I was five years ago. I just want you to know it. For what remains of my life—”
“What remains of our lives is of no importance,” Camillo interrupted him. He slurred his words, and his voice was brittle as glass. “Forgiveness doesn’t matter, because when hope dies, nothing matters anymore. You want to know something? I thought that dying would be the easiest thing. But it’s not. Look at me. I stand here before you, I talk, I walk, and my goddamned life won’t let me go, Rocco. It won’t do me this favor. Don’t you find that all this goes against what’s natural?” he said, pointing to the flowers with a faint smile.
“I don’t understand,” said Rocco.
“It’s supposed to be the children who put flowers on their parents’ graves, no? The day you can explain to me why the opposite has happened to us, that will be the day I’ll be able to forgive you and forgive myself.”
He put his arm around his wife and together they walked past Rocco and started toward Marina’s grave.
He watched them walk away, side by side, moving slowly. Laura had laid her head on her husband’s shoulder. The C/9 bus heading toward the Jewish section of the cemetery went past, lifting the hems of Camillo’s overcoat and stirring Laura’s skirts. Rocco turned and went back to the car.
Only when he saw his friends leaning against the hood of their car smoking did he stop crying.
“Take me to the airport, please.”
Sebastiano and Furio said nothing. And the whole way to Fiumicino they kept their mouths shut.
WHILE WAITING FOR THE BOARDING ANNOUNCEMENT, he took out his cell phone and punched in the number of his old office.
“Yes?”
“Deputy Police Chief Schiavone, please put me through to De Silvestri.”
“Just a second,” said the impersonal voice.
He heard a series of background noises, then the voice of Officer Alfredo De Silvestri boomed out of the phone: “Dottore . . .”
“It’s all taken care of, Alfredo. The matter is settled.”
He could hear the policeman’s labored breathing. “If you need anything else, you know where to find me, but believe me, I only want to get a call inviting me to come down and celebrate your retirement.”
“Grazie, Dottore.”
“Don’t mention it, Alfredo. Say hello to your niece from me.”
And he hung up.
“Alitalia, flight AZ 123 to Turin, we’re now boarding at Gate C 19 . . .”
He stood up, pulling his ID and his boarding pass out of his pocket. He was leaving Rome, his beloved Rome. But he didn’t feel the same wrenching sense of loss he’d experienced the first time, just six months earlier. Could it be that just six months’ time had changed his city so completely? Could you become a stranger in such a short time? Who was at fault? Had Rome changed? Or had he?
“A SHITTY DAY, ROCCO,” SAID ITALO AS HE DROVE slowly down the highway from Caselle to Aosta. “The police chief called looking for you three times, and Farinelli of the forensic squad left you a box of stuff in your office.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That you were in Ivrea, trying to track down someone who might have seen something.”
“Excellent.” The deputy police chief reached out and plucked a cigarette out of Italo’s pack. “Listen, I know it won’t do any good to go on pestering you about it, but why do you insist on buying Chesterfields?”
“Because I like them, Rocco. In fact, can I have one too?”
Rocco stuck two in his mouth, lit them, then handed one to Italo.
“Thanks. Did you take care of everything in Rome?”
“Yes.” He said nothing more.
“Who went to Esther Baudo’s funeral?” he asked after a pause.
“Me and Caterina. We did what you told us. We took pictures of just about everyone. There weren’t that many people. Thirty people, more or less. I put the pictures on your desk.”