Authors: Michael Dibdin
Zen lugged his bags back to the car and they set off. As soon as they were past the outskirts of the bleak, cheerless town, Zen felt his spirits rise. He still felt half drunk and totally disorientated, and had had no time to work out the implications of what had happened. But all that mattered was that he was leaving. He had never felt such a visceral urgency to get away from any place.
Suddenly the car drew in to the side of the highway.
‘Do you see that rock over there?’ asked the consul, pointing.
It was a massive outcropping of volcanic basalt, worn and weathered by the elements into myriad fantastic gullies and crevices.
‘That’s where they’re supposed to live, in rocks like that one, hidden away in the crannies and crevasses. Allegedly they can be very vindictive if disturbed.’
Zen glanced at the consul, who restarted the car and drove on.
‘The
huldufolk
, I mean,’ he explained. ‘There’s a rock much like that on the property where my family’s summer house is. My father was a member of parliament for the
Alþyðuflokkurinn
, a very radical, left-wing party. He was also a close friend of Halldor Laxness, our Nobel Prize-winning writer, and generally prided himself on being a progressive, forward-looking
individual
. But when we had a new driveway put in to the summer house, he made the builders go all the way round that rock rather than blow it up, even though it added almost half a kilometre to the length of the drive, and of course to the cost. “You surely
don’t believe in that superstitious nonsense?” I asked him
mockingly
. I’ve never forgotten his reply. “Of course not,” he said. “But you can’t be too careful.”’
They drove on for a while in silence. At last the structures of the airport appeared in the distance. Zen lit a cigarette and turned to Guðmundsson.
‘You said that I was only the second case you’re heard of where a foreigner had this …’
‘
Fylgja
. Yes.’
‘Who was the other?’
Guðmundsson laughed.
‘It’s a droll story. I told you that Keflavik was originally built as a military base during the Second World War. Well, one of the servicemen stationed there started showing symptoms of the condition, going on about people that no one else could see and so on. A lot of those rocks were torn up and blown apart to lay out the runways and base facilities, and so many of the “hidden people” must have been made homeless. At any rate, the medics who examined the man had never heard of the
huldufolk
, of course. They decided the guy was crazy and shipped him back to the States. This was just before the Normandy landings.’
Zen smiled.
‘Lucky man!’
‘Not really. The ship he was on got torpedoed by a U-boat off Newfoundland and went down with all hands.’
The parking lot at the airport was almost empty. Snæbjörn Guðmundsson pulled up right in front of the handsomely
sterile
terminal building.
‘Now before we part,’ he said, turning to Zen, ‘I would suggest that you bear in mind what happened to that GI.’
Zen frowned.
‘How do you mean?’
Guðmundsson sighed.
‘I absolutely believe everything that you told me about what happened to you last night. I also give you my word that I shall not reveal it to anyone else. I strongly advise you to do the same. What may seem quite plausible here in Iceland will sound like arrant lunacy back in Italy. People will remember that car
accident
you had, and begin to wonder if the injuries you sustained
were purely physical. Do you see what I mean?’
Zen nodded.
‘Yes, yes. Of course. I thought you meant something else.’
‘What?’
‘When you said I should bear in mind what happened to the American. I thought you meant that my seeming good luck might turn out to be a death sentence in disguise too.’
Snæbjörn Guðmundsson laughed.
‘Of course not! Actually, he was very much the exception. Most people who are
skyggn
enjoy excellent health and live to an
exceptionally
old age.’
They both got out of the car. The consul fetched a trolley for Zen’s bags. Once they were loaded, the two men stood there awkwardly.
‘Thank you for your help,’ said Zen. ‘And good luck with the painting.’
Snæbjörn Guðmundsson grimaced.
‘Just one authentic piece before I die, that’s all I ask. It doesn’t matter how small or insignificant, still less whether anyone else notices or cares. Just one true thing, so that I can feel that my life hasn’t been wholly wasted.’
They shook hands.
‘It’s been a pleasure to meet you, whoever you may be,’ Snæbjörn Guðmundsson commented with an arch smile. ‘I wish you a safe and pleasant onward journey. And please try and
forget
about what we’ve been discussing. It’s really just a strictly local folk myth of no wider significance. It may or may not be true here, but it certainly isn’t anywhere else. There are no hidden people where you’re going!’
The first thing he did, after being flushed out of the side entrance of the Stazione Termini in a party of hearty young foreign
backpackers
and their parasitical horde of touts, rogue cabbies,
beggars
and pickpockets, was to get something to eat. Not that he had any excuse for feeling hungry. They’d fed him something called ‘breakfast’ on the flight to Denmark, and something else called ‘a snack’ on the connecting plane to Fiumicino. But this wasn’t a question of physical hunger. His needs were deeper and more complex than that, and luckily he knew just how to satisfy them.
He crossed the busy street, delighting in several near misses and a very ripe insult from one of the drivers vying for position, then headed towards Piazza della Repubblica. After a few more life-enhancing, near-death traffic experiences, he turned left along Via Viminale, humming a sprightly melody he eventually
identified
as the national anthem, last heard in truncated electronic form emanating from Snæbjörn Guðmundsson’s cellphone.
‘L’Italia
ch
i
-
amò,
stringiamoci a coorte, siam pronti alla morte
…’
Opposite a curvaceous section of a redbrick rotunda, once the southern corner of a vast complex of public baths erected by some Roman emperor, stood a poky little establishment about the size of a neighbourhood barber’s shop. Inside the window, a roast piglet reclined languidly in a glass case as though taking an
afternoon
nap. Once through the doorway, there were a few rough wooden tables, chairs and benches. The proprietor, Ernesto, a short man who had come to closely resemble the product he sold, presided from a zinc serving bar at the back. He gave a mock start of astonishment as Zen walked in.
‘I thought you were dead!’ he exclaimed in a Roman accent that would have needed one of his own knives to cut.
Zen nodded.
‘There was a rumour to that effect.’
The two men shook hands, the owner having wiped his off on his filthy apron.
‘That shocking business in Sicily!’ exclaimed Ernesto with a massive shrug which effectively erased that island from the atlas. ‘It was all over the TV and papers, but of course De Angelis and the rest of the lads gave me the inside story. It’s sickening, just sickening! What are we supposed to do with those people? We’ve tried everything, and nothing works. Let’s face it, they’re just not like us. Never were, never will be. And now they’re talking about building that bridge to the mainland, at the taxpayers’ expense, needless to say. You know what I say? Forget it! Stop the ferries! Patrol the straits with gunboats and shoot the bastards if they try to smuggle themselves into the country. They’re worse than the Albanians.’
At any other time, Zen might have been inclined to agree, but in his present state he felt like gripping Ernesto by the arms and trying to convince him that they were all – yes, even the Sicilians –
fratelli d’Italia
. He had enough common sense left, though, to realize that this would not do. Although open to the general
public
, Ernesto’s establishment also functioned as a private club for a circle of privileged regulars, and like any club it had its rules. One of these was that a certain amount of purely rhetorical racism had to be tolerated in the spirit in which it was offered, as an
innocuous
way of establishing commonality and bonding, expressing solidarity and exasperation, and excluding outsiders. Like the human body, a community could only tolerate a certain degree of invasive otherness without internal collapse. The Romans had had fifteen hundred years of practice in the necessary strategies of passive aggression, and Zen for one did not feel that it was his business to criticize them. The baths which once covered this whole area of the city might have been pillaged and quarried and razed to the ground, but the people were still here.
‘So where have you been all this time?’ Ernesto went on. ‘They told us you’d survived that Mafia bomb, but when you didn’t show up here I began to wonder. Maybe they’re not telling us the truth, I thought. Even De Angelis didn’t seem to know anything definite. Maybe we’re all out of the loop, I thought. Maybe the whole thing is just a huge lie! After all, it wouldn’t be the first time, would it?’
Zen seated himself at one of the narrow tables.
‘It certainly wouldn’t.’
‘So where were you?’
‘At the end of the earth, Ernesto. It’s a long story, and I’ve got an appointment at the office in fifteen minutes. Meanwhile I’m ready for some real food.’
‘Right away,
dottore
! The usual?’
‘The usual.’
Ernesto took one of the filled rolls from the glass cabinet, set it on a plate, then added two more thick slices from the roast and set it down in front of Zen along with a small carafe of white wine and a knife and fork.
‘I carved it extra fatty,’ he said with a conspiratorial wink. ‘You’re looking a bit peaky,
dottore
. We’ll have to feed you up.’
Zen cut a chunk of the pale, perfumed meat and started to chew. Apart from wine, Ernesto only served one thing:
porchetta
, choice young piglets from farmers personally known to him, stuffed with fennel and herbs, slowly roasted to moist perfection on a spit and served cold with chewy fresh bread. The crackling was a crisp layer of rich delights, the fat a creamy, unctuous
decadence
, the flesh tender and aromatic. Even the generic Castelli Romani wine, which couldn’t have been given away free as a household cleanser in Venice, tasted blandly acceptable to Zen today.
As he turned his attention to the roll, having satisfied his immediate craving for flavourful protein, he began to wonder what lay ahead in his imminent interview at the Ministry just down the street. The name Brugnoli meant nothing to him, but this in itself was not surprising. Zen had been out of commission and away from his desk for almost a year, and in Italian politics a year is a very long time. Indeed, he had heard rumours that in his absence there had been yet another general election. But while the players might have changed, the game was likely to remain fairly predictable. The Craxis and Andreottis might be either dead or in retirement, just like their erstwhile enemies, the hard men of the Red Brigades, but to this day no one knew for sure how Aldo Moro had been kidnapped with such breathtaking ease and efficiency, nor why he had been killed. It was like Argentina after the collapse of the military dictatorship. The old regime had been swept away, but a general amnesty and a still more general collective amnesia were in effect.
The implications for Zen’s career were not positive. From what the Foreign Ministry official had told him in coded euphemisms on the phone, the case against Nello and Giulio Rizzo, if it ever came to court, could be resolved without Zen’s testimony. That removed any further threat to his life from Mafia hit men, but it also removed any interest that the Italian authorities might have had in him. The early retirement which had been hinted at back when he was still convalescing now beckoned. There would be polite speeches, perhaps even a few perks in the way of his
pensionable
grade and so on, but basically he would be out. At the very best, they might kick him upstairs to a position as Questore at some sleepy provincial police headquarters where he would shuffle files, oversee routine administrative work and generally watch the clock until he was eased out altogether.
But what he needed was work, and more urgently than ever before. He had never felt particularly zealous or committed to his job until now, when it was in danger of being taken away from him along with his mother, his adopted daughter and a whole way of life he had casually taken for granted, as though it would always be there. Now it looked like it very well might not be, he asked himself in a sort of panic what he was to do. He would have enough money to live on comfortably, but how was he going to get through the day? What would he do at nine o’clock and noon and six in the evening, and why? What would be the point of it all?
He wiped his mouth on the paper napkin, paid the modest bill, assured Ernesto of his satisfaction and continued custom in the future, and continued down the street to the
café
at the next corner, where he downed an espresso and smoked a cigarette which tasted as acrid as the one traditionally offered to the condemned man.
The guard at the gate of the Interior Ministry building did not recognize Zen, but after some discussion allowed him to proceed as far as the security checkpoint at the main entrance. The
plain-clothed
functionary who presided here was a big man with squidgy features, clumsy gestures and the embittered air of someone painfully coming to terms with the fact that his
boyhood
dream of some day becoming a small-time pimp in Centocelle had probably passed him by.
He demanded to see identification. Zen explained that he had been working undercover and was not carrying any. The failed pimp retorted that no one got in without identification, in a tone suggesting that the very fact that Zen had been unaware of this already made him a potential suspect.
‘I have an appointment with someone named Brugnoli,’ said Zen. ‘Does the name ring a bell?’
‘We don’t disclose the identity of Ministry personnel.’
‘Well, can you call him and let him know I’m here?’
The man jerked a thumb over his shoulder.
‘The phone’s at the main desk.’
Zen started forward, and was immediately restrained by an outstretched hand.
‘I can’t let you in without valid identification.’
The official’s tone of voice indicated clearly that there was no point in trying to reason with him. Zen turned away, walked down the steps into the courtyard of the building and dialled a number on his mobile phone. A voice he didn’t recognize answered.
‘
Sì
.’
‘
C’è De Angelis
?’
‘
Un
momentino
.’
The voice receded, calling out, ‘Giorgio! For you.’ After a
further
pause, Giorgio De Angelis came on the line.
‘Well?’ he said bad-temperedly.
‘
Ciao, Giorgio. Sono
Aurelio
.’
There was a pause, then a deafening cry.
‘Aurelio! How are you? Where are you?’
‘Standing outside the front door to the building. I don’t have my ID and the security guard won’t let me in. Can you persuade him of the error of his ways?’
‘I’ll be right down.’
Zen was smoking another cigarette when De Angelis appeared outside the doorway and bounded down to embrace his friend.
‘How wonderful to see you looking so well!’ he exclaimed.
‘It’s good to be back. I don’t know how long for, though.’
‘But what are you doing here? I thought you were off for a working holiday in the States.’
Zen immediately took a certain distance.
‘You’re not supposed to know that,’ he said. ‘No one is.’
De Angelis shrugged.
‘It’s just something someone said. You know how it is. I had no idea whether it was true or not.’
‘But you passed it on to a few other people anyway.’
‘Only a couple. What happened to your hand?’
‘I had an accident with a knife.’
‘Are you free for lunch?’
‘I’ve already eaten. Plus I have an appointment with someone called Brugnoli, whoever he may be.’
De Angelis rolled his eyes.
‘Ah, our new “facilitator”.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘You’ll see.’
At the security checkpoint, De Angelis showed his badge and obtained a temporary pass for Zen on his own recognizance.
‘Top floor, naturally,’ he said. ‘If you feel like talking
afterwards
, I’ll be at the Opera.’
He inclined his head steeply backwards, seemingly inspecting the mock cupola above their heads as though for signs of
earthquake
damage.
‘I mean really talking,’ he added.
Brugnoli’s office was the second on the left of the ‘good’ side of the top floor, the one with the view of the Quirinale. There was no sign on the door or beside it, but Zen had been assured by some young men hunched over computer screens in another room he had entered at random that this was the right place. There had been no identifying sign on their door, either.
The reception area inside the unmarked door was unlike
anything
Zen had ever seen at the Viminale. There was a leather sofa and matching armchairs, a low table covered in magazines and art books, a number of large potted plants with fleshy outsized leaves, a printed sign thanking Zen for not smoking, and a large video screen showing current stock prices on various
international
markets. In the opposite corner, next to an imposing internal door, a faux blonde in a pink lambswool twinset was picking fussily at a computer. The walls were painted a genteel pastel shade of peach and the Persian rug underneath the low table looked too threadbare and faded to be anything but a genuine
antique. Gentle classical music made itself felt at a barely
subliminal
level, while recessed halogen lamps diffused a clear, restrained light on a space that had either nothing or everything to hide. It looked less like the antechamber to the lair of a
high-ranking
ministry official than the premises of a dentist whose bill would prove to be even more painful than the treatment.
Zen introduced himself to the receptionist. She touched her computer screen in three places, like a priest blessing a
communicant
. A moment later, the inner door opened and a short,
energetic
man with receding hair and a jovial smile emerged.
‘Dottor Zen! What a pleasure! You’ve had a smooth trip, I hope? The way back always seems shorter and sweeter than the way out, I find.’
He caught Zen staring slack-jawed at his open-necked shirt, stonewashed jeans and black running shoes.
‘Dress-down Friday,’ he explained. ‘One of my little
innovations
around here. It has encountered a certain amount of
resistance
from some of the older team members, I’m afraid, but of course I don’t insist. That’s my whole philosophy of the
workplace
environment. “Personal choice, personal empowerment, personal responsibility.” All that counts is results. Come in, come in!’