Giorgio Scerbanenco - A Private Venus

‘Yes.’

‘Obviously nobody will come tonight, but from tomorrow morning at six, I’ll phone you every hour to make sure nothing has happened.’

‘What could happen?’

‘I don’t think anything will, but after what happened last year they may have become more cautious. They may be watching you to see if you have contacts with anyone.’ That wasn’t the only thing, but he didn’t tell her the rest. ‘Now go to bed, Livia. And thank you.’

‘I’m so glad I succeeded,’ she said, her girlish voice triumphant.

Only when he put down the receiver did he notice that Lorenza was standing in the square, bare, yet intimate hall, her eyes cloudy with fear.

‘Go to bed, don’t worry.’

‘Who was it?’ She couldn’t help worrying, she knew everything, Duca had told her everything, and it was a horrible business.

‘Livia. We found the man.’

‘What are you going to do now?’

He became nervous because he felt sorry, eaten up with remorse, because she was right: it was stupid, criminal, that instead of looking for a good job he should get involved in this disgusting affair. ‘Maybe I’ll go out, maybe I’ll stay here, but there’s one thing I’d like, which is for you to go to bed without worrying about me.’

Lorenza turned red, because of that tone, and because Davide was there, listening, she looked at him, she seemed to be about to say something, but she was dominated by her big brother, and she went back to her room.

‘A guide to Milan,’ he said to Davide. They went into the living room, which was a little larger than the hall, and where among the other so-called furniture in the so-called Rational style-chosen by his father, who had thought he would like it-there was a small bookcase with books and old magazines, the beginnings of a library that had remained unfinished when he had gone into prison, three years earlier. There was also dust, because Sara didn’t give her mother much time to see to the house, and there was also a guide to Milan, a little book with a nice map, a bit out of date, but it might still be useful. They went back in the kitchen, laid the map out on the table, looked at the list of streets: Via Egidio Folli, at the very edge of the city, just behind the Parco Lambro, the street then joined the main road that led to Melzo and Pioltello. ‘They’ve become very cautious,’ he said.

‘Why?’ Davide asked.

‘They’re not confident enough these days to set up their studio in the middle of town. They’ve moved out of the centre, just like the big companies. At the first sign of anything going wrong, they can jump in their car and they’re already on the main road.’

‘What do we do now?

‘I’m thinking about that.’ But it wasn’t true, in broad terms he had already made up his mind, he was only pretending to think in order to convince himself that he wasn’t working from a whim. It was all a lie.

If he had been an honest citizen, at this point he should have phoned Carrua, given him the information about the photographer, and let him deal with it. But he couldn’t be an honest citizen, his criminal record showed that.

‘How strange,’ he said, ‘if Livia Ussaro’s father hadn’t had a toothache, Livia wouldn’t have gone out to the pharmacy and maybe we’d never have found anything with our system.’

‘We have to do something,’ Davide said: he was an impatient man and didn’t realise he was basically saying the same thing for the second time.

‘Of course,’ Duca replied. ‘Can you ride a bicycle?’

‘I think so.’

‘All right, now let’s see what time the sun rises.’ He had a diary, a very wonderful one, there were many wonderful things in it, including the fact that this week the sun rose at 5:32. ‘That means that by five there’s already a bit of light, so you have to leave here at 4:30.’

‘And where do I have to go?’ Davide asked.

‘To the end of the Via Egidio Folli, to see where these Ulisse Apartments are, what they are, how far they are. If I went there by car I’d arouse suspicion.

‘And the bicycle?’

‘The caretaker’s son has one. I’ll wake the caretaker and ask him to let me borrow it, he’ll be a bit surprised, but he likes me, I really don’t know why.’ It was the dead of night, and there was complete silence in the kitchen, as if everyone was asleep, and even the things in it seemed to be asleep-the empty beer bottles, the whisky bottle about to become empty, Sara’s dummies and feeding bottles on a towel on the draining board by the sink-though he was sure Lorenza wasn’t asleep. But even Lorenza couldn’t understand.

‘And afterwards?’ Davide asked.

‘You see, Davide,’ he said, ‘if they’ve become so cautious, we have to be cautious, too. Let me explain what we’re going to do tomorrow. Just before two o’clock, Livia will call a taxi and go to this Publicity Photographic place. We’ll follow her. But let’s suppose that someone else, very cautiously, is also following Livia, to make sure that Livia doesn’t have any friends with her, like us. If that’s the case, this person will notice that we’re following Livia, and then we won’t get anywhere. Are you with me?’

‘Of course,’ Davide told him with his eyes.

‘So we have to follow Livia, but indirectly. In other words, we’ll go ahead of her, we’ll set off a hundred metres in front of her and keep the same distance. But even then, only up to a certain point. Imagine the formation: first us, in the Giulietta, then the taxi with Livia and then, possibly, this person following Livia. While we’re in the city, in the traffic, we can maintain this formation because the man won’t notice that we’re with Livia, given that we’re in front of her, but by the time we get to the end of the Via Egidio Folli, we’ll be on a road in the open country or almost,’ he pointed at all the green on the map, ‘and we’ll probably be the only cars around at that hour. Then he may suspect, because we’ll be all too visible. In addition, when we’ve got to these Ulisse Apartments, we’ll have to park the car, if we park it right in front, we’re rather naïve as pursuers. So you understand what you have to do there on the bicycle.’

He was starting to understand.

‘You do a reconnaissance. After seeing exactly where the Ulisse Apartments are, you have to find two things for me: a place where we can hide the car as close as possible to the building and to the main road, but without it being visible from the building itself. And the other thing is a secondary street which is near the building but isn’t the Via Folli. Or at least you have to be able to tell me if there’s neither a spot to park nor a secondary road.’

Silence. They hadn’t heard the whoosh of car tyres for about ten minutes. It was almost two in the morning, they still had many hours to wait, and they were not the kind of men to sleep on the night before a battle.

‘My father liked playing solitaire,’ he said to Davide. ‘He must have left a few packs of cards here. Do you know how to play scopa ?’

‘Yes.’ Scopa wasn’t much fun with only two players, but they had to do something.

3

Livia emerged from the front door of her building and got into the taxi. It was just after 1:30, the traffic was starting to thin out: many people preferred to eat at that hour. ‘Via Egidio Folli,’ she said to the driver.

In the mirror she saw the driver giving the usual disgusted grimace: whatever address you give a taxi driver, he’ll think it’s a stupid destination. Why does anyone need to go to the Via Egidio Folli in their lives? Or to the Via Borgogna, for that matter? And maybe he was right.

The driver continued along the Via Plinio, crossed the Via Eustachi, the Viale Abruzzi, turned into the Via Nöe and reached the Via Pacini. At this point Livia admired Davide’s driving skills, with which, of course, she was already familiar: the Giulietta with Davide and Signor Lamberti on board was ahead, always within sight, but never right in front of the taxi. Following a car by keeping ahead of it was a delicate operation in city traffic and Davide was performing perfectly.