Read A Private Venus Online

Authors: Giorgio Scerbanenco

A Private Venus (7 page)

At the bank, which was his father’s bank, they cashed the cheque he had been given by Engineer Auseri, which was for quite a large amount. They cashed it without any problem, even though they knew he had been in prison and even though his father, with his small savings account, had never done much to boost the institution’s profits.

‘After we’ve been to Musocco, we’ll stop for a drink,’ he told him encouragingly. For the first week he couldn’t reduce to less than a third the dose of alcohol Davide was used to drinking, for psychological reasons if for nothing else: he wanted him to stay a normal man, not become a thirsty man who thought of nothing but whisky.

Country graveyards, surrounded by greenery and tall cypresses, are not supposed to be depressing, unlike a large cemetery in a big city which can be quite chilling. But he hadn’t yet seen his father’s grave, he hadn’t even attended the funeral, and now he had in his pocket the sheet of paper Lorenza had given him, on which the numbers of the section and the grave were written, and together with Davide he entered that sad, oceanic expanse which was even more lugubrious in the sun. Of course, the grave was at the far end, and they had to do quite a bit of walking, Duca holding the carnations he had bought at the front gate.

Here was the section, more walking, and here was the grave, much the same as all the others in the row, the extinguished candle in the dark glass, the bed of little flowers scorched by the heat, the spartan inscription, Pietro Lamberti, date of birth and death, and that was it. He laid the carnations, loose, on the flower bed, without any attempt at arranging them artistically. From his photograph, his father looked out stiffly at the world in front of him, and Duca stood stiffly looking at the photograph.

‘This is my father,’ he said, as if introducing him, ‘a police officer, from Emilia Romagna, just like me, but he wasn’t typical of the region, he didn’t like revolution or revolutionaries, he liked the law, he liked rules. He was absolutely determined to sort out all those who transgressed the law or broke the rules. He was a kind of Javert. He managed to get himself sent to Sicily because he thought he could do something radical to combat the Mafia. For a while the Mafia took no interest in him, they had no time to waste on an ordinary
cop, but my father went too far: he managed to get something out of three or four of those peasants who’ve seen everything and know everything, but always say they know nothing. I don’t know what methods he used, maybe he had to bend the rules a little, but in his small way he managed to break through the wall of silence. His superiors promoted him, and the Mafia sent a young man to deal with him: it was a suicide mission, because my father was a very good shot and the attempt didn’t succeed, my father shot him dead but not before being stabbed in his left shoulder, his left arm was almost paralysed and he was transferred here to Milan, to a desk job.’ He wasn’t looking at Davide, he didn’t care very much if he was listening or not, he was talking like this as if praying—isn’t summing up a man’s life a kind of prayer?—but he sensed that Davide was listening, more than that, he had never listened the way he was listening right now.

‘Maybe it was because he didn’t want the same thing to happen to me that he was against the idea of my becoming a policeman like him, he wanted me to graduate as a doctor, and I did. Nobody will ever know how he managed on a police clerk’s salary, and a widower to boot, because my mother died when I was a boy, but the day I graduated he was in bed, suffering with his heart, and when I had my exams, he had his heart attack. Then I did my military service, and by the time I got back, he’d somehow, stuck there in his office in the Via Fatebenefratelli, already found me a place in a clinic, Professor Arquate’s clinic. Maybe I’d have worked my way up, and he’d have lived happily to the age of ninety, but I met Signora Maldrigati. She’s the old lady
I killed with an injection of ircodine. My father didn’t even know the word euthanasia, for him it was worse than if I’d gone mad, or rather, he must have thought I
had
gone mad, and maybe he forgave me because of that, but he realised the consequences of what I had done: I wouldn’t be a doctor any more, I’d always have a stain on my record, and that killed him.’ His father continued to look at him stiffly from the photograph even when he fell silent, and even if he had heard his words, he still didn’t understand why his son had killed, he would never understand it, for all eternity, his look in the photograph said that clearly.

Davide’s voice came to him suddenly, in that great heat and sadness, Duca hadn’t expected him to be the first to speak. ‘I’d like to visit a grave, too.’

Duca nodded, continuing to look at his father.

‘But I don’t know where it is. It must be here, but I don’t know where.’

‘There must be an office somewhere,’ he said to Davide. He looked at him, only his face was shiny with sweat. ‘Just give them the name of the person and they’ll tell you the section and the number of the grave.’

Davide’s voice remained even. ‘It’s the woman I killed last year. Her name was Alberta Radelli.’

5

On that stretch of avenue that goes from the Arco della Pace to the Castello Sforzesco, even just after ten in the morning, the sides of the road are lined with alluring female figures, wearing scanty but tight-fitting clothes in summer, who know how to operate in a large metropolis where there are no provincial limits to timetables or conventional divisions between night and day, and at any hour of the day, from midnight to midnight, a citizen can slow down in his car, hail one or other of these ladies, and ask for their co-operation.

A blue Giulietta appeared that morning on the right-hand side of the arch and slowed down, and a woman of forty dressed like a teenage Beatles fan stepped down into the road almost as if to bar the way, but the Giulietta swerved and accelerated, not because Davide Auseri had seen the kind lady and hadn’t seen fit to accept what she was offering, but simply because, just as he was about to realise his plan, something inside him almost always drove him to flee. Further on, from behind a tree, a genuine teenager, at any rate a girl no more than twenty, waved him down, as if she had an appointment to present the papers for her marriage. She was blonde, she looked like a gangster’s moll in a Hollywood film, or better still, like one of those little girls who, at carnival time, dress up as eighteenth-century ladies for the neighbourhood dance, painted, powdered and completely unaware of the historical aspect of their costumes, concerned only with the fact that they’ll be able to eat a lot of sweet things and play a lot of games during the day. But
Davide Auseri swerved away from the blonde, too, as if afraid, even though what he most wanted was to stop. It was almost always like this at first, he was afraid; later, if the girl had managed to get in the car, he wasn’t.

But that morning none of the willing ladies standing in the avenue managed to intercept the Giulietta: the fear was stronger, and Davide headed towards the centre, and drove for a long time, feeling quite sad, through the Foro Bonaparte, the Via Dante, the Via Orefici, the Piazza del Duomo, the Corso Vittorio, San Babila, the Corso di Porta Venezia, having no other plan, beyond that failed one, then returned to the Via Palestro, reached the Piazza Cavour and decided to go to the Alemagna in the Via Manzoni to eat something. One instinct having failed him, the instinct for food had returned even more strongly.

He got to the Via dei Giardini and had no difficulty finding somewhere to park the Giulietta because during those scorching August days the metropolis was considered uninhabitable by a large number of its citizens, who, for some reason, found it perfectly habitable in fog, smog, and snow. Even at the Alemagna, he had the place—the bar counter a few dozen metres long for the drinks, a counter a dozen metres long with sandwiches of egg, salmon, caviar, the two counters of pastries and ice cream in quantities reminiscent of Versailles and the Tuileries—almost completely to himself, apart from two other customers who floated like him in the mountain-cold yet unrefreshing air conditioning.

He ate three substantial sandwiches and drank a beer, without daring to look too closely at the five assistants and
two cashiers, all women, just as he never looked too closely at anyone, only at inanimate things, provided they weren’t dolls or toy dogs with eyes that frightened him as much as human eyes frightened him. However, he did spend some time looking at the assistant on the pastry counter, a specialist in pralines who was somewhat behind with the fashion, with her bouffant hairstyle: the one she wore that day was not the most bouffant, the previous week he had seen one even more bouffant, and the size of that hair suddenly gave him the urge to go back to the park and this time stop. But it was only a sudden whim, the various hidden censors inside him blocked that resurgence of passion and suggested something more spiritual: going to Florence and back, along the Autostrada del Sole, trying to beat his own record of the month before, which was already a very short time. He would eat in Florence and get back to Milan in time for an aperitif. He liked the idea and immediately left the Alemagna.

In the Via dei Giardini, the Giulietta, improbably, was the only car parked in a stretch of about twenty metres near the bus stop. He paid the parking fee to the man in the peaked cap, who immediately walked back into the shade, and he was about to squeeze himself back into his car when he heard that voice.

‘Excuse me.’

He turned. A girl in a sky-blue suit, with large, perfectly round dark glasses, was smiling at him, but with a hint of anxiety about her mouth, which apart from her small nose, was the only part of her face that was visible, covered as
it was by those large glasses and by her brown hair that descended over her face like two half-closed curtains.

‘Excuse me, signore, I’ve been waiting for a bus for half an hour, I have an important appointment and I’m already late—could you possibly give me a lift to Porta Romana?’

Davide Auseri nodded and opened the door for her. She got in and sat down composedly, placing on her knees a light brown leather handbag which looked more like a large man’s wallet, and he set off.

‘What street exactly?’ he asked.

‘Oh, right at the end, if you’d be so kind.’

‘Of course, I was going that way myself.’

‘I’m so pleased, then I won’t be making you waste too much of your time.’

His guest’s knees were not completely uncovered, but they were visible and he could look at them as he drove.

‘I know it was shameless of me, but you can never find a taxi when you need one.’

Maybe it was her voice that put him on the right track, but not only the voice. He was a solitary man, and solitary men think a lot. Above all, even though he was no expert, he had the impression that the bus that went through the Via dei Giardini didn’t go to Porta Romana. And right next to the bus stop there was a taxi stand, and he had seen a long line of them. All the traffic lights in the centre had been on his side, and now he was in the Piazza Missori. The closeness of the girl and the sight of those knees, not to mention the heat, must have made his censors give up the ghost.

‘Do you like travelling by car?’ he asked her.

‘Very much, with a good driver.’ Her voice continued to change, its softness had turned inviting.

‘I’m going to Florence, along the autostrada. We can be back by six this evening, seven at the latest.’

‘Florence is a bit far.’ The softness of her voice had diminished a little, but she made no mention of the important appointment she was supposed to have had.

‘We’ll be back before dinner,’ he said. All his censors had vanished by now, and the real Davide Auseri emerged from the depths of his subconscious.

Her voice turned a little harsh. ‘I wouldn’t like to be dumped in the middle of the road.’

‘I don’t do things like that.’ His voice, too, had turned harsh, it even slightly resembled his father’s voice.

The girl took off her glasses and threw back her hair, her eyes were a little tired and a bit afraid, but her expression was sweet, almost innocent, and she said innocently, ‘I’ve always wanted to go to Florence, but going this way is a bit scary.’

A girl who pretends to be waiting for a bus, next to a parking space, and is actually waiting as patiently as a fisherman for whichever man, young or old, comes to collect his car, as long as he’s alone and makes it clear he doesn’t have any urgent business to attend to, shouldn’t be scared of much, but she seemed genuine enough.

‘It’s the first time someone has ever said they’re scared of me.’ They were almost at the end of the Corso Lodi and he had to make up his mind. He gently stopped the car and with a distracted, elegant gesture, without showing either wallet or money, managed to take a couple of notes and pass them
into the handbag, or wallet, that she was holding on her knees, keeping them clutched in his hand in such a way that the transfer happened without any vulgar banknotes being seen. In many cases, money is a quick-working tranquilliser, an antidote to fears, anxieties, and states of depression. The Davide that had emerged from his subconscious, dripping with instincts, knew that.

‘Let’s go,’ she said, but her voice remained harsh, and even a little bitter now. ‘There are lots of ways to get to Florence, clearly I had to go like this.’

Until they got to the tollbooths on the autostrada he drove slowly, and for another ten kilometres or so after taking out the ticket he kept up the same dull pace, but he was just psyching himself up. She had put her glasses on again and let the curtains of her hair fall, and was intelligent enough not to lean on his shoulder. ‘Go faster, I like it.’

He humoured her, pushing the Giulietta to its limit, the autostrada was fairly clear, but she didn’t see him make even the slightest mistake, or be the slightest bit careless, and despite the figure on the speedometer she didn’t have the slightest feeling that she was at risk.

And he didn’t say a word. She must know men: she didn’t tell him that she really liked driving like this, she didn’t tell him anything about herself or ask any questions about him, in short, she had no desire to make conversation, having understood that he was one of those men—maybe they were the best—who do only one thing at a time. For now he was driving, and only driving. She didn’t like one-man bands, like those performing dogs that played the drum with sticks tied
to their tails, the cymbals with their paws, and bells with their heads. That constant, calm silence was good for Davide, it unblocked him completely, his deepest instincts strained in him like cats closed up in a basket for half a day: hot, aggressive, precise. He wasn’t interested any more in whether or not he broke his record from Milan to Florence and back, as his superego had first suggested, and at the service station in Somaglia he stopped outside a hut festively bedecked with flags.

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