Джанрико Карофильо - Rome Noir

“What do you mean, eaten them?” Quirino asks, pointing to the mangled bodies of the cats in the courtyard. “What about these? Did someone eat these?” His hand moves to his neck, he opens the top button of his shirt, takes a deep breath. “Those sons of bitches,” he cries out suddenly, starting up the stairs, climbing faster and faster as a thought begins gnawing at his brain; he stumbles, and his hand trembles as he fumbles with the lock, and “Cesarì!” comes out in a stifled scream that dies in his throat when he sees the little bird curled up quietly on his perch, his head tucked under the beautiful feathers that slowly rise, swelling in rhythm with his breath.

There is a dazed silence in the lobby. “Like during the war, when we were all quiet, mute, so we wouldn’t get bombed,” Sor Giacomo whispers, wringing his hands.

“Under siege,” Signora Iolanda echoes him, following Quirino’s restless steps, as he paces up and down in silence, waiting for everyone to sit down on the chairs, which have been arranged in a circle.

Signora Iolanda looks up at the ceiling, stares at the naked bulb of the lamp hanging overhead. She shudders. She twists in her seat. “Who could have told Tito, poor thing, that it would end like this?” Sor Pietro looks at her, beside himself. “In his sleep,” he adds. “In his own house... in our house...” His head sags, he cleans his glasses and places them on his sweaty nose. “A good dog, a decent soul... big... I taught him everything... hanged by the neck from the television cable, with his teeth out... such a decent dog.” His eyes hidden behind the glasses turn toward Quirino, who continues to pace, trying to come up with an idea, something appropriate to say, fingering the drawer key in his pocket as if it were an amulet. He clutches it in his fingers. He hears an agitated whispering in the corner. “Let’s begin the meeting,” he says uncertainly, but giving his voice an authoritative pitch. All the residents start, as if those were the first words of God on earth. They instinctively turn their heads toward the front door, to make sure that it is firmly shut.

Quirino watches the two Zorzi brothers, who are huddled together. “Do you have something to say?” he asks, trying to maintain his tone.

The two exchange a few nervous glances. Then: “Yes,” says Sor Paolo, raising his hand to ask for the floor. “I do.” But he is silent when he sees all those eyes turn toward him expectantly.

“The fact is,” Sor Geno intervenes, with a nod of agreement toward his brother, “the fact is that we two... we don’t have animals at home and... who are they going to take it out on, those people, if they get it into their heads to break a window, a door, whatever... in our house...”

“ We’re the only ones they can take it out on,” Sor Paolo concludes, his bald cranium sinking between his shoulders, while Sor Antonio says, “Because the point is, Sor Quirino, that now they’re even entering our homes, you see? Entering our homes ...”

“To terrorize us,” Signora Iolanda chimes in.

“When we’re asleep, when a person... How does one defend oneself, Sor Quirì? How can a person defend herself alone,” Signora Lavinia wails.

“By talking to the district committee,” Sor Antonio speaks up. “That’s how we defend ourselves!”

Quirino gives him a dubious look. “And since when has there been such a committee?”

“The district committee ,” Sor Geno says sarcastically. “That bunch, all they do is make up questionnaires ‘to survey people’s needs,’ they say... And what are the people’s needs, according to them?” He spreads his fingers and starts to count: “Bike and pedestrian paths, maintaining the green spaces, urban quality of life, chemical toilets... chemical toilets, for God’s sake! How much do you think people like us are worth in their eyes, huh? A bunch of penniless old people...” He feels his brother nudge him in the ribs and turns. “Am I wrong, Paole?” he mutters, his face livid.

“So what do they want, then? For us to go away? Is that what they want? To throw us out?” Sor Pietro says in a low voice. “To hang us all?”

“They want to eat our hearts,” Signora Lavinia breaks in, pressing her hands to her chest.

“All those drunken kids, those filthy immigrants, those Chinese, those junkies, those spoiled daddy’s boys, those building speculators who buy and sell and buy... and open new businesses... and we don’t have the slightest idea what they’re planning to do with this neighborhood of ours...” Signora Iolanda rants, to a murmur of agreement. She fidgets in her chair while her husband grabs her by the arm and casts a furtive look at the door.

“Calm down,” he says quietly. Then he turns firmly toward Quirino. “Let’s get back to the point. Who’s the one who has keys to our houses?” he hisses. “Who’s the one who can come and go as he pleases? Who’s the one who takes the bread out of our mouths...” He breaks off, stifling his rage and continuing to stare at Quirino, who turns pale.

“What are you trying to say, Sor Antonio?” Quirino murmurs, sneaking a glance at his watch and cursing his son, who still hasn’t shown up. Finally, trying to compose himself, he says: “If you want the keys, we can give them to you,” as if to evoke, with his words at least, the son who should already be there, at his side.

“Keys, what keys?” snaps Sor Pietro. “I... I’m going,” he says, leaving them all dumbfounded.

“Where are you going? To Stazione Termini?” Sor Geno asks with a flare of sarcasm.

“To join the beggars?” Sor Paolo is more precise, helping his brother out.

Signora Lavinia, looking around as if lost, moans: “Now what will we do? After forty years...”

“We’ll occupy a building,” Sor Antonio interjects. “We’ll certainly be better off than here, with all this moisture—”

“It’s eating us alive,” Signora Iolanda interrupts. “It’s eating us alive,” she repeats, glancing at Quirino, who leans against the wall.

“I’m eating you alive,” Quirino mumbles in bewilderment, clinging to the key to the drawer jammed in the bottom of his pocket. Then he bends down and opens the leather folder on his chair. Feeling the breath of all those angry dogs hot on his neck, he begins rummaging, dumps everything out, then lifts his head, his hair falling over his forehead. “They’re not here,” he whispers with a groan, “the keys... they’re not here.” A voice insinuates itself furtively amid the confusion of his thoughts, rivets him there in the middle of the lobby. Well? What do you think, Sor Quirì? Then the voice impels him up the stairs. He’s getting away now, Sor Quirì! One floor, then another. He’s going down, he’s going down... and he finally reaches his door.

Ready to drop, he rushes to the drawer and searches it frantically. “They’re not here,” he repeats, sunk in evening shadow, while the voice has now become a phrase stuck in the exact center of his brain: We have to be shrewd ...

“That son of a bitch!” he hisses in a flash of lucidity, slamming his fist on the table. “He thinks he can throw people out just like that!”

He feels a sharp pain start along his arm and spread throughout his body, now trembling with rage. He takes a deep breath. He tries to calm down. “Cesarì, see what he did, that son of mine?” he groans, holding onto the credenza and making his way with unsteady steps toward the cage — “Cesarì... Cesarino... Cesa...” — which hangs there, shattered.