The Bastards of Pizzofalcone (22 page)

 

When they were back out on the street, Romano pulled a cigarette out of a rumpled pack.

“I didn't know you smoked,” Alex said to him.

“In fact, I don't. Not anymore, anyway. But there are times when I feel the need, and I stick a cigarette in my mouth without lighting it.”

“They're an odd couple, eh?”

Romano snapped: “Couple? What the fuck are you talking about, couple? Did you see their IDs? Did you see how old he is? Sixty-three years old, the dirty old pig. And she's eighteen, turned eighteen last month. Eighteen! He's old enough to be her grandfather.”

Alex tried to calm her partner down: “Maybe it's true, that he's a family friend. And that the girl had a nervous breakdown. You can't always think the worst of everyone, you know.”

Romano looked up toward Signora Guardascione's balcony.

“Sure, why not, and I might be Maradona. He waited for the girl to turn eighteen, that way nobody can say a thing. Filthy pig. Well, at least the old lady will be happy. We checked everything out and we can wrap this case up.”

As they were getting into the squad car, Alex thought to herself that maybe there were still a few other things they could check out.

T
he woman with gray hair walks along, dragging her feet.

But no one notices.

She's fat. She's old. Arthritis has left her hips misshapen, every step is pure torture. The thunderclaps echo, the crowds hurry down the street. Not her. Haste is for those who know where they're going, for people who have a smile to share with someone, somewhere. The woman with gray hair has no more smiles, hasn't had for a long time.

She has a plastic bag in one hand, the woman with gray hair. She bought herself a couple of tomatoes, a box of individual cheese portions, and an apple. The grocer, without her having to ask, tossed in a sprig of basil and a tangerine. She didn't even notice.

She's wearing a heavy woolen jacket; the color is by now indefinable but it might once have been gray, like her hair; it's stained down the front. A shapeless dress covers a slip, which also serves as a nightdress and which she never takes off. She wears a necklace with a metal cross. Her hair is filthy, and for lack of a hairbrush, it has tangled into tiny insoluble knots.

She wears two men's socks, and a pair of slippers, tattered, with holes in the soles.

The woman with gray hair heads down the stairway of the subway, taking it one step at a time; she brings one foot down and places it next to the other, then repeats the motion. She braces herself on the railing, a tiny grimace of pain with every step.

No one sees her, as if she didn't exist.

On the escalator, a boy slams into her furiously; she almost drops her bag, but she manages to regain her balance just moments before tumbling to the ground.

The boy doesn't notice; no one notices.

The woman with gray hair doesn't change her expression. Her eyes remain glued to the floor.

The woman with gray hair lives alone, in a two-room apartment where she once lived with her mother. She stopped paying rent two months ago because her social security payments barely suffice to cover her one daily meal and the medications she needs to survive. In a day or ten or twenty, someone will come along to evict her, and then she won't know where to turn.

The woman with gray hair lacks the strength to cry, or even to complain. She has no phone numbers to call to ask for help, no friends who can assist her, no relatives to ask for shelter or a hot meal.

She doesn't even have the wherewithal to suffer, the woman with gray hair. She's lost all will, even the desire to see the sun come up in the morning. She goes on living because she doesn't know what else to do, and because she assumes that Someone Else's will counts more than her own.

In the midst of the crowd, she tries to win herself an advantageous position from which to board the train. Her aching hips, her weight, her years all conspire to make her the slowest animal in the jungle: unless she wants to be left behind, she'll have to push herself forward, very close to where the doors will open.

School has just let out. The worst time of day. Little bands of teenagers swarm the streets shouting, laughing, and shoving, indifferent to anyone around them.

A boy a few yards away performs a vulgar imitation of someone and the other kids all burst into laughter, playfully slapping and elbowing each other; a girl accidentally shoves the woman with gray hair, making her wobble frighteningly. The girl turns around, sees the woman with gray hair, and laughs right in her face; then she turns back to her friends, holding her nose and pantomiming the urge to vomit. They all laugh. This is the only time that anyone notices her.

The woman with gray hair doesn't lift her gaze from the small dark pit occupied by the subway's tracks.

Seen from behind, the woman with gray hair is the very picture of despair. Her slumped shoulders, her head, which hangs low, the filthy locks of hair that hang from her head like dead leaves. Who knows what memories pass through her mind. Who knows what thoughts.

Now the woman with gray hair sets her bag with its few items of food on the ground. Even though it weighs almost nothing, her fingers, pitiless, are radiating pain. The woman with gray hair lets out a faint moan.

But no one notices.

Pity, the woman with gray hair thinks as the tunnel fills with the buffeting wind of the oncoming train. What pity?

The kids laugh again, loudly, their young hair fluttering in the currents of air. The crowd braces for the arrival of the subway.

A shadow slides up behind the woman with gray hair.

No one notices.

The kids laugh at nothing in particular: they don't notice.

The two people in love, gazing into each other's eyes: they don't notice.

The young mother, arranging the blankets in her baby carriage: she doesn't notice.

The office worker, hurrying to finish the article in the free newspaper, so he can toss it in the trash before boarding the train: he doesn't notice.

The night watchman, struggling to keep his eyes open, fighting off exhaustion from the shift he's just finished: he doesn't notice.

The pickpocket, carefully monitoring the crowd for purses left open or wallets in back pockets: he doesn't notice.

The high school teacher, staring, hypnotized, at a female student's ass, sheathed in a pair of jeans so tight it's like a second skin: he doesn't notice.

The two nuns, chattering away in who knows what language about which of the two of them is going to be sent on a mission to Asia: they don't notice.

The ticket checkers, talking about soccer while waiting for someone with a friendly expression to accost, knowing that the ones most likely to lack a valid ticket are the ones with scowls on their faces, but knowing also that they're also the ones most likely to put up a fight: they don't notice.

The woman on her way back from grocery shopping, struggling not to drop any of the bags and parcels she's carrying: she doesn't notice.

Just before the train pulls into the station, just as the woman with gray hair is asking Whoever sits on high in heaven to please give her the strength, a hand touches her gently in the middle of the back and gives her a small shove.

The woman with gray hair falls without a peep into the small abyss of the tracks, at the very instant the train pulls in.

No one notices.

The one who does notice, with a scream, is a young woman just rushing down the stairs in a last-ditch attempt to catch the train; she misses the train but what she does arrive in time to see is the sad spectacle of all that's left of the woman with gray hair.

A gentle hand slips a note into the plastic bag still sitting on the platform.

With a farewell to the world that the woman with gray hair lacked the strength to utter.

But no one notices.

 

 

 

W
hen they reached the entrance to the La Vela yacht club—that was the name spelled out in looping script on the large brass plaque—the wind had picked up again. It had been threatening to rain, and rain hard, nearly all morning and for the first part of the afternoon; thunderclaps had marched closer and closer, while lightning flashed out over the sea; but instead of rain, the winds had again started blowing violently, and the black clouds were once more scudding rapidly across the sky.

Aragona and Lojacono headed downhill toward the front door of the elegant villa surrounded by greenery; through the ornamental plants they glimpsed the club's dock, the masts of various sailboats bobbing in the breeze like so many trees. Pisanelli had told them that their meeting with the Baroness Ruffolo needed to be informal and confidential, and so they didn't show their police IDs at the door.

The doorman, who seemed to have wandered out of a movie from the Fifties, was outfitted in full regalia: livery, sideburns, and white gloves. He looked Aragona up and down with ill concealed distaste: the fake tan, the aviators, and the shirt, unbuttoned to reveal his chest. The police officer lifted his chin and glared back at the man over the rims of his glasses with a look of defiance. Two worlds, facing off. Then, with the demeanor of someone giving way only under extreme duress, the doorman led them into a small private room, where a waiter came to receive them. He could have been the doorman's twin brother.

As they followed him through a succession of drawing rooms, the walls crowded with silver cups, trophies, and plaques of all sorts, Aragona whispered to Lojacono: “Where the heck are we?”

They reached a large room furnished with twenty or so card tables and little else; crowds of people clustered around the tables, most of them women holding hands of cards, while all around hovered waiters, like bumblebees in springtime, carrying trays loaded down with cocktails and canapés. In defiance of the prohibitions posted on the walls, the air was heavy with clouds of cigarette smoke.

They crossed the room, following the strutting waiter. Here and there, eyes rose from the cards and fixed on the two guests. Lojacono, to his surprise, detected a couple of lascivious glances shot their way by decrepit old women well into their eighties, attracted by the sight of fresh meat. He shuddered.

One of the walls consisted of a series of plate-glass windows overlooking a veranda, deserted except for a small table where an elegantly appointed woman sat. The waiter took them directly to that table, bowed to the lady, and said: “Baroness, here are the guests you were expecting.”

The woman was in every way identical to the other women crowding the room: her wrinkled, heavily made up face; her enormous dark glasses; her pearl necklace and gaudy, antique earrings. She was staring out over the veranda's spectacular panorama: an all-encompassing view of the bay and the mountain above it, the raging sea and the clouds scudding across the sky.

“
Grazie
, Amedeo. Please find out what the gentlemen would like; I'll have another margarita, please. Go ahead, make yourselves comfortable.”

The voice sounded like a sheet of sandpaper being dragged over a nail file. Her tone was dry, typical of those who are accustomed to issuing orders.

They asked Amedeo for two coffees, and the waiter turned and vanished without a sound. They sat down.

The woman slowly turned to look at them, staring at them through the dark lenses. The fact that they couldn't see her eyes, along with the intricate network of wrinkles covering her skin, gave her face a fixed, reptilian quality that made them both uncomfortable. Aragona fidgeted in his chair, and in a bid to regain his dignity removed and replaced his glasses; that gesture, however, had no effect, and the woman went back to looking out over the sea.

“I'm Anna Ruffolo. Giorgio Pisanelli tells me that you may need to have a word with me. Giorgio is a friend, I certainly can't turn down any request from him: but one thing needs to be perfectly clear.”

The croaking voice stopped, for no apparent reason. A moment later, the waiter shimmered into sight with a tray, set down on the table two espressos, a cocktail, a plate of finger pastries, and then turned and vanished.

Lojacono wondered how on earth the woman had known the waiter was about to arrive. As if he'd uttered that thought aloud, the baroness said: “In here, the waiters function like a series of relay stations. They're paid actual salaries by certain individuals to report all the gossip and news, the rarest of commodities in a world where nothing ever fucki—nothing ever happens, which is the world we live in. And right now, you're the news, as you can see.”

Without bothering to turn around, she tilted her head backwards. Aragona looked into the room behind the plate-glass windows and realized that at least a couple dozen women with blue-rinsed hair and enormous earrings were covertly observing them.

The baroness resumed her speech: “I was just saying that one thing needs to be perfectly clear: this conversation never took place. You can't write a report on it, you can't tell anyone else about it, you can't make the slightest mention of it to anyone at all, you'll never be able to say you met me or talked to me. Otherwise, nothing doing, and you can both go your way after enjoying your coffee. I didn't ask your names, and I don't want to know them. Make up your minds, and let me know.”

Lojacono said: “We understand, signora, and we thank you for your help. No one will ever know that we met, aside from the few colleagues with whom we're working this case. Outside of the police station, no one will ever find out about this meeting. And there will be no written record of it. I guarantee it.”