I Will Have Vengeance (6 page)

Rosa had often wondered where that sorrow in the eyes of the young Baroness came from. She had everything she wanted, leisure, affluence, a loving husband. But when she accompanied her on long walks through Fortino's countryside, amid the pungent smell of goats and the peasants who stopped working to take off their hats, she felt that sorrow walking with them, one step behind. Perhaps it was memories, or regrets. Baroness Marta spoke little. But she smiled at Rosa, tenderly, and caressed her face sometimes, as if she herself were twenty years older.

Rosa remembered the morning of October 1899, the last year of the century, when they sat on a bench on the terrace, embroidering, and Marta had raised her green eyes to her and told her: “Rosa, starting tomorrow we have to sew sheets for a cradle.” Just like that, simply. From that time on, she had become
tata
Rosa and would be so all her life.

 

“You know I don't want you to wait up for me. It's late for you, you should already be asleep.”

Ricciardi felt the warmth of the house seep gradually into his wind-chilled bones. The scent of wood fire in the stove, the aromas from the kitchen: garlic, beans, oil. The lamp next to his armchair was lit, the newspaper on the armrest. In the bedroom, his flannel robe, soft leather slippers and hairnet. My
tata
, he thought.

“Oh sure: I go to sleep and let you go hungry. What do you think, I don't know that you would go to bed without eating? That you would always wear the same suit and the same shirt, if I didn't lay them out on the bed for you? It's not normal, thirty years old and no woman. Not to mention, given these times, it won't be long before they actually start arresting bachelors. With so many attractive young women out there. And you, you're handsome, rich, young, from a good family. What more could a woman want? That way you can put me in a rest home and begin to live for a change.”

There: she'd said it. Sitting down at the table, he was very careful not to sigh. It would give rise to an endless tirade and he had an appointment for which he was already very late.

Rosa watched him eat, like a wolf, as usual. Bent over his plate, quick, silent mouthfuls. He denies himself even that, she thought, the pleasure of savouring. He never savoured anything, not food or anything else. In him, the sorrow that in his mother had been concealed became evident. The same green eyes. The same sorrow. She had cared for him all his life, through the feverish nights, the loneliness. All through his years at boarding school she had been there waiting for him, during vacations, holidays, Sundays, letting him find the things he liked without him asking her for them. She sensed the turmoil of his thoughts, though she didn't know what these thoughts were. She had been his family and he had become her reason for living. She would have given her eye teeth to see him laugh, at least once. She would have liked to see him at peace, not detached from others and from the quickly spinning world which he stood watching from a distance, hands in his pockets and a strand of hair over his face. Not smiling, not saying anything. And yet, what did he lack?

She was moved, a mother's concern. He seemed like a child again, lost in thought as he ate. He had always liked beans.

Ricciardi had never liked beans, but he would never disappoint his
tata
; besides he was hungry tonight, maybe because of the chill he felt in his bones. He thought again about the crime scene. If the coat and scarf had been brought into the dressing room after Vezzi's death, who had brought them? And why? The only ones who had admitted seeing the dressing room after the crime had been Lasio, the stage manager, the wardrobe mistress Lilla and the seamstress. Mopping up the sauce with his bread, Ricciardi recalled the large woman's enchanted expression in the presence of the stage manager: was it possible they were in cahoots? And the seamstress, that Esposito, was she in on it too? No, too many people. And too much blood. The murder had not been planned, he was certain of that. And the open window? And the small, striped cushion? So many questions and the Incident wasn't helping him. It happened frequently: what he heard from the victim's image could also be misleading, and could throw him off track. It was a feeling, a sensation, not a rationally framed message. Grief, rage, hatred, even love.

A glass of red wine, then another: after each new death he found it hard to sleep. The image stayed with him like a flutter in his chest, an expectancy. Maybe it was transmitting the fear of death to him, fear of the final moment. Fear of what? He thought about it. As long as you're alive, death doesn't exist; once death comes, you no longer exist. Still, you'll meet death, he had said to the Jesuit at the boarding school, at the age of seventeen. But afterwards you'll meet God, the Jesuit had replied.

Is there a God? Sipping his wine, Ricciardi thought about the strange priest he had met at the theater; his shrewd replies, sparkling eyes. He seemed like a good man. Another one who thought there was a God. Where was God for him, when he saw the image of sorrow and felt its reverberation? Was it up to him alone to relieve that sorrow?

Ricciardi got up from the table, otherwise his
tata
would stand there all night watching him drink, without clearing the dishes. He kissed her tenderly on the forehead and went to his bedroom to keep his appointment.

T
he blonde woman was walking along the walls of Piazza Carolina, heading up towards Via Gennaro Serra. The cold wind from the sea drove her along, but her steps were dragging. In contrast to the rare passers-by scurrying to reach the warmth of their homes, she had no desire to face those eyes that bore into her, searching out her hidden feelings.

She had become good at dissembling, at concealing. She had to prevent anyone from knowing, had to keep what had happened from becoming common knowledge. In the uncertain light of the street lamps, walking more and more slowly, she felt her lover's hands on her body; she recalled his face, his voice, the shallow breathing. She thought about the words that were said, the promises, the plans. How could it have happened? she wondered. And now, how could she hide it from her man's eyes, that she loved another man, that she dreamed of leaving with him?

She ran her hand over her face, under the hat that hid her beautiful eyes. Tears. She was crying. She had to compose herself, she wasn't far from home. She glimpsed the dark shape of the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, at the top of Pizzofalcone hill. Soon she would have to face the man who loved her so much that he could read her thoughts. She was remorseful. She felt bad for him, for having betrayed him. She had to make sure no one found out, she had to protect him from scandal.

Quickening her pace, she wondered again what would happen.

 

Like every night, Ricciardi closed the door of his room behind him. Before going to bed he would open it a crack to hear his
tata
Rosa's heavy breathing and be reassured by its regularity. He changed into his robe, and put a hairnet over his hair. With the lights turned off, he went to the window and parted the curtains. The patch of sky, swept clear and cloudless by the strong north wind, displayed four bright stars; Ricciardi wanted to be illuminated, but not by the stars.

The light that mattered to him was that of a dim lamp on a small table, behind the window across from his in the building opposite. The table was beside an armchair in which a young woman sat, embroidering. A cosy corner in the large room that was the kitchen. Ricciardi knew that her name was Enrica and that she was the eldest of five children: a large family. The father was a hat merchant. One of Enrica's sisters, married and the mother of a young child, lived with her husband in the same apartment. The young woman was embroidering with her left hand, lost in thought. She wore tortoiseshell glasses. Ricciardi also knew that she bent her head a little when she was focusing; that her gestures were fluid and graceful, though she didn't know what to do with her hands when she talked; that she was left-handed; that she would suddenly laugh when playing with her siblings or her little nephew; and that sometimes she cried, when she was alone and thought no one could see her.

There wasn't a single night when he didn't spend some time at the window, experiencing Enrica's life vicariously. It was the only time he granted his tormented spirit a brief respite. He watched her at supper, serene and amiable with her family, seated to her mother's left. Listening to the radio, her expression intent and engrossed, or to a recording on the monumental gramophone, spellbound, with a hint of a smile. Reading with her head bowed, moistening a finger to turn the page. Arguing, softly but stubbornly speaking up for herself. He had never spoken to her, but there was no one, surely, who knew her better than he did.

Indeed, he had never exchanged a word with her, nor did he think that would ever happen. One Sunday, when his
tata
wasn't able to, he had gone to buy vegetables from the street vendor who came down from Capodimonte. He had paid, turned around with a bunch of broccoli under his arm, and there she was in front of him, face to face. He still shuddered at the memory of the extraordinary mixture of pleasure, awkwardness, joy and terror he had felt. Afterwards, in the drowsy state that preceded sleep, or at the moments when he woke up, he would see those deep, dark eyes hundreds of times. That day he had fled, his heart leaping in his chest, a loud pounding in his ears. Not turning around, dropping bits of broccoli along the way, his eyes half-closed to retain the image of those long legs and that faint smile that he had perhaps glimpsed. How could I speak to you? What could I offer you, except the distress of seeing me perpetually worn out?

In the small cone of lamplight, Enrica went on embroidering, unaware.

Before giving in to sleep, Ricciardi thought again about the clown and his desperate last song.

“
Io sangue voglio, all'ira m'abbandono, in odio tutto l'amor mio finì
. . . ” I will have vengeance . . . , and all my love shall end in hate.

What makes a man at the point of death sing? Was he getting ready to go onstage? Rehearsing his role? Why was he crying? Ricciardi clearly recalled the streak the tear had left on the white greasepaint. Or maybe the tears expressed an emotion related to the opera? And if so, what? What was unique about this performance? Why was the protagonist still in his dressing room putting on make-up while they had been singing for over an hour onstage? He had to learn more about it. He had to enter Vezzi's life and his curious profession made up of fiction and make-believe. He would ask the priest for help.

And as the wind rattled the shutters, Ricciardi drifted into a muddled dream in which a left-handed girl embroidered in front of a weeping clown.

T
he following morning, the wintry wind had not lost its intensity. Heavy dark clouds raced across the sky, allowing the sun's rays to light up bits of the city at intervals, as if they were spotlights focused haphazardly to capture even the most insignificant details. On his way to the Questura, Ricciardi saw men chasing their hats, barefoot children racing in the wind, their hand-me-down shirts billowing like sails, heedless of the cold, and beggars huddling in tattered rags, seeking refuge in building doorways only to be chased away by intolerant porters.

Ricciardi thought about how much the city might change, as times themselves changed. In the frigid wind and fickle light, the old buildings teeming with life became dark caves and new construction sites seemed like monuments to loneliness and neglect.

When he got to the office, he found Vice Questore Garzo's clerk waiting for him at the door; Garzo was Ricciardi's boss. The small man, partly because of the cold, and partly because of his obvious state of anxiety, was stamping his feet softly on the ground and rubbing his hands together.

“Ah, Commissario Ricciardi. Finally, I've been freezing, such a wind . . . The Vice Questore would like to see you in his office, immediately.”

The clerk's name was Ponte. He was one of those who felt uneasy in the Commissario's presence and had a superstitious dread of him. He always avoided making eye contact with him or getting in his way. Even on this occasion his eyes kept shifting, looking down at the floor a little, then up at the ceiling, a little to the side, with an occasional darting glance at his interlocutor. Ricciardi was annoyed with him, both because he suspected the reason for the man's agitation, and because he found it hard to tell from his expression what it was all about.

“At this hour? Usually I'm the only one up here on this floor until ten. All right. I'll take off my coat and I'm on my way.”

“No, sir, please: the Vice Questore said, ‘I want him in my office immediately.' He's been here since seven thirty! Please, sir. He'll take it out on me!”

“I said I want to take off my coat first. You'll just have to wait, you and the Vice Questore. Please step aside.”

Given that biting tone and harsh look, Ponte moved aside with a little leap, although it was clear he was acutely uneasy. Ricciardi went into the office, taking his time, hung his coat in the dark wood armoire, smoothed his hair back and followed the agitated clerk down the hall.

Angelo Garzo was an ambitious hustler. His entire life, not just his career, was marked by a driving ambition. About to turn forty, he was champing at the bit to have a Questura assigned to him, even a minor one.

He felt he had all the requirements: good looks, excellent people skills, a perfect family, dedication to his work, Party membership and participation in political activities, an aptitude for pleasing his superiors and a firm hand with his subordinates. He considered himself endowed with excellent organizational abilities, he conscientiously and constantly showed his face everywhere, he was moderately social and, in his opinion, likable enough. But in reality he was inept.

The climb to his present position had from time to time been marked by betrayal, cunning, and servility towards his superiors. And above all by the skilful exploitation of his subordinates' capacities.