The Day of the Owl (11 page)

'I see the income-tax people don't worry you much.'

'I never worry,' said Don Mariano.

'How's that?'

'I'm not a well-read man: but there's one or two things I do know, and they're enough for me: the first is that we have a mouth under our noses – for eating more than talking ... '

'I have a mouth too,' said the captain, 'but I can assure you that with it I eat only what you Sicilians call "Government bread".'

'I know, but you're a man.'

'And what about the sergeant?' asked the captain ironically, pointing to Sergeant D'Antona.

'I don't know,' said Don Mariano, scrutinizing him with what, for the sergeant, was unwelcome attention. 'I,' went on Don Mariano, 'have a certain experience of the world; and what we call humanity – all hot air, that word-I divide into five categories: men, half-men, pigmies, arse-crawlers – if you'll excuse the expression –and quackers. Men are very few indeed; half-men few, and I'd be content if humanity finished with them ... But no, it sinks even lower, to the pigmies who're like children trying to be grown-ups, monkeys going through the motions of their elders ... Then down even lower we go, to the arse-crawlers who're legion ... And, finally, to the quackers; they ought to just exist, like ducks in a pond: their lives have no more point or meaning ... But you, even if you nail me to these documents like Christ to His Cross, you're a man.'

'So are you,' said the captain, not without emotion. Then, with a twinge of discomfort at having exchanged a 'Present Arms' with a head of the mafia, he tried to justify this by remembering that he had once shaken hands with Minister Mancuso and the Honourable Member Livigni as representatives of the people, surrounded by fanfares and flags amid the din of a National Holiday. Unlike them, Don Mariano, at least, was a man. Beyond the pale of morality and law, incapable of pity, an unredeemed mass of human energy and of loneliness, of instinctive, tragic will. As a blind man pictures in his mind, dark and formless, the world outside, so Don Mariano pictured the world of sentiment, legality and normal human relations. What other notion could he have of the world, if, around him, the word 'right' had always been suffocated by violence, and the wind of the world had merely changed the word into a stagnant and putrid reality?

'Why am I a man, not a half-man or even a quacker?' he asked with harsh exaggeration.

'Because,' said Don Mariano, 'in your position it's easy to trample on a man's face; but you treat it with respect... Many years ago I had to take a mortal insult from men sitting where you and the sergeant are sitting now. An officer like you slapped me; and, down in the guardrooms, a sergeantmajor pressed his cigar-butt on the soles of my feet, and laughed ... I ask you: can a man sleep after such insults?'

'So I don't insult you?'

'No, you're a man,' repeated Don Mariano.

'And d'you consider it manly to kill or have killed another man?'

'I've never done anything of the sort. But if, just to pass the time of day, discussing life, you were to ask whether it was right to take someone's life, I'd say: it depends whether he's a man.'

'Was Dibella a man?'

'He was a quacker,' said Don Mariano with scorn. It was a slip. Words are not like dogs which can be whistled back to heel.

'Have you any particular reason for so classifying him?'

'None. I scarcely knew him.'

'Even so, your judgment is perfectly correct. You must have had some grounds ... Perhaps you knew he was a spy, an informer of the carabinieri ... '

'I didn't bother.'

'But you knew?'

'The whole town knew.'

'So much for our secret sources,' said the captain ironically, turning to glance at the sergeant. 'And if Dibella did sometimes do his friends a good turn by passing us on selected information ... What would you say?'

'No idea.'

'But on one occasion at least, some ten days ago, Dibella did let slip some genuine information: in this office and sitting where you're sitting now ... How did you get to know about it?'

'I didn't: and if I had, I wouldn't have been interested.'

'Maybe Dibella came and confessed his mistake to you from remorse ...?'

'He was the sort to feel fear, not remorse. And there was no reason for him to come to me.'

'Are you the kind to feel remorse?'

'Neither remorse nor fear: never.'

'Some of your friends say you're very religious.'

'I go to church, I send money to orphanages ... '

'Do you think that's enough?'

'Of course it is; the Church is great because each can be in it according to his own lights.'

'Have you ever read the Gospels?'

'I hear them read out every Sunday.'

'What do you think of them?'

'Beautiful words: the Church is all beautiful.'

'For you, I see, beauty has nothing to do with truth.'

'Truth is at the bottom of a well: look into it and you see the sun or the moon; but if you throw yourself in, there's no more sun or moon: just truth.'

The sergeant was getting bored. He felt like a game-dog compelled to follow the trail of a hunter over arid stony ground without the faintest scent of game. A long, twisting trail. Murder had hardly been mentioned when the field suddenly broadened: the Church, humanity, death. Club conversation, God Almighty, and with a crook ...

'You have helped many a man to find truth at the bottom of a well,' said the captain.

Don Mariano stared at him with eyes cold as nickel coins. He made no reply.

'And Dibella had already found truth,' the captain went on, 'when he wrote your name and Pizzuco's.'

'Truth? Madness, you mean!'

'He was
not
mad ... I sent for him immediately after Colasberna's death: I'd already had anonymous information which enabled me to connect the murder with certain interests ... I knew that Colasberna had had proposals and threats and even been shot at, just as a warning. I asked Dibella if he could give me any information as to the identity of the person who had made those proposals and threats. Caught on the hop, but not enough to give me the right answer there and then, he gave me two names: one of the two just to confuse me, so I later found out ... I wanted to protect him; but I couldn't arrest both the men mentioned by him. I had to be sure of arresting the right one. Since they belonged to rival
cosche,
one of the two was in the clear; either La Rosa or Pizzuco ... Meanwhile, the disappearance of Nicolosi was reported. And I was surprised at certain coincidences ... Nicolosi, before disappearing, had left a name too. We pulled in a man called Diego Marchica, whom you must know, and he confessed ... '

'Diego?' burst out Don Mariano incredulously.

'Diego,' confirmed the captain; then he told the sergeant to read out his confession.

Don Mariano followed the reading with heavy breathing that sounded like asthma; actually it was anger.

'Diego, as you see, led us to Pizzuco without much trouble; and Pizzuco to you ... '

'No, not even God will lead you to me,' said Don Mariano with assurance.

'You have a high opinion of Pizzuco,' observed the captain.

'I've a high opinion of nobody, but I know 'em all.'

'I don't wish to disillusion you about Pizzuco, especially after Diego let you down so badly.'

'He's a cuckold,' said Don Mariano, his face twisted with a spasm of uncontrollable nausea. It was an unexpected sign of yielding.

'Don't you think you're being rather unfair? Diego never even mentioned you.'

'What have I to do with it?'

'If you've nothing to do with it, why are you so angry?'

'I'm not angry: I'm just sorry about Pizzuco, who's a decent person ... I'm always upset by disgrace.'

'You can guarantee that what Marchica says about Pizzuco is quite untrue?'

'I can guarantee nothing, not even a one-cent IOU.'

'But you don't think Pizzuco's guilty?'

'No, I don't.'

'And suppose Pizzuco himself had confessed, and named you as accomplice?'

'I'd say he'd gone out of his mind.'

'So it wasn't you who instructed Pizzuco to settle Colasberna, by fair means or foul?'

'No.'

'Have you any investments or interests in building companies?'

'I? Heavens no.'

'Didn't you recommend the Smiroldi company for a big contract, which was obtained by somewhat unorthodox methods, to say the least, thanks to your recommendation?'

'No ... Yes, but I make thousands of recommendations.'

'Of what kind?'

'All kinds: about contracts, jobs in banks, school examinations, government grants

'And to whom do you address these recommendations of yours?'

'To friends who get things done.'

'Who in particular?'

'Whoever is friendliest and can do the most.'

'But don't you yourself get anything out of it, any profit, any token of thanks?'

'Just goodwill.'

'Sometimes, though ...'

'Sometimes I'm given a
cassata
for Christmas.'

'Or a cheque: Martini, the accountant of the Smiroldi firm, remembers a substantial cheque made out to you and signed by Smiroldi himself; the cheque passed through his hands ... Maybe it was a token of thanks for landing an important contract, or had you done something else for the firm?'

'I don't remember: it could well have been a repaid loan.'

'Well, if you don't remember, we'll subpoena Smiroldi.'

'Fine: then I needn't try and remember. I'm old and my memory sometimes sticks.'

'May I just call on your memory about a more recent matter?'

'Let's see what it is.'

'The contract for the Monterosso-Falcone road. You managed to raise the money for an utterly useless road, on a quite impossible plan. That it was you who raised the money is shown by an article of a local correspondent who gave you the credit for it. Apart from this, doesn't the Fazello company also owe the award of a contract to your influence? That was what Signor Fazello told me, and he had no reason to lie.'

'He hadn't.'

'Has he, under any form whatsoever, shown you any gratitude?'

'Yes, he has! He came here and blabbed the whole story: he's paid me back, all right, with interest!'

*

An hour before the session was to begin they had collected their invitation cards from the Via della Missione entrance. They had strolled in the arcade, had a coffee at Berardo's and paused to look at the illustrated weeklies hanging up on the bookstalls. Rome lay in enchantment under a gentle flow of sun and, sauntering along, they were hardly aware of the rush of traffic and the long-drawn-out screech of the trolley-buses. Voices, newsboys' voices shouting the name of their hometown coupled with the word 'crimes', sounded distant and unreal. They had been away from home for two days and had already spoken to two eminent criminal lawyers, a minister, five or six deputies and three or four men wanted by the police who were enjoying the golden idleness of Rome in the taverns and cafes of Testaccio. They felt at ease, and the invitation of their Member of Parliament to visit Montecitorio for a session in which the Government was to reply to questions about public order in Sicily seemed an ideal way to end a hectic day. The evening papers said that the temporary arrest of Marchica, Pizzuco and Arena had been converted into real arrest, since the Public Prosecutor had issued warrants. From what journalists had been able to glean, Marchica had confessed to one murder and attributed another to Pizzuco; Pizzuco had admitted his involuntary complicity in two murders committed by Marchica; two, not, as Marchica had confessed, one; and Arena had admitted nothing, nor had Marchica and Pizzuco accused him of any complicity. Even so, the Public Prosecutor had issued warrants against Marchica for premeditated murder, against Pizzuco for premeditated murder and instigation to murder and against Arena for instigation to murder. An ugly situation but, seen from Rome at an hour which bestowed on the city the gay, airy freedom of a soap-bubble, luminous, iridescent with colours of shop-windows and women's dresses, those arrest-warrants seemed to float upwards, light as kites, to whirl like a merry-go-round over the top of the Antonine column.

It was almost time. The two went down the subway and, amid the multicoloured throng more vivid under the crude neon of display windows, their subfusc overcoats, their faces, swarthy as the patron saint of S., their mourning bands, their language of nudges and exclamatory looks with which they noted and acclaimed the passing of a pretty woman, their hurried gait, attracted momentary interest. Most people took them for plainclothes men following a pickpocket. Really they were a glimpse of the problem of the South.

At the House, the ushers looked at them with misgiving, passed their invitation cards to and fro, asked for their identity cards and made them take off their overcoats. Eventually they were escorted to a box. It was just like a theatre, but the proscenium was quite different. They were looking over the rim of what seemed a huge funnel, at the bottom of which was a mass of dark suits in ant-like movement. There was the same light which in their parts heralded a storm, when clouds driven by winds from the Sahara roll up in a slow surge, filtering light through sand and water: a strange light which makes surfaces look like satin.

It took a little time before the abstract concepts of left, centre and right applied to the concrete topography of the House and to the more familiar party faces. When Togliatti's face emerged from behind a newspaper, they realized they were looking at the left; then, with the slow precision of a compass, they swung their gaze towards the centre, paused for a moment on the face of Nenni, on that of Fanfani, and came to rest on the member to whom they owed the spectacle. He seemed to be looking at them too and they waved but, lost in his own thoughts, he did not notice. What impressed them most was the constant coming and going of messengers from bench to bench, like shuttles imparting to the hall the mechanical movement of a loom. A hum of low persistent talk rose which seemed to come from an empty vault rather than from the groups of persons sitting on the amphitheatre benches, haggard and absorbed.