Gianrico Carofiglio - Reasonable Doubts

Oh, excellent. I’d glanced at it and hadn’t understood a word.

I didn’t say that, but he read my mind, and without my asking started to explain his introduction in detail.

I couldn’t believe it. There were at least two hundred people there, and this character had buttonholed me. I’d have liked to signal to someone to come and save me, maybe by knocking Elton on the head, but I didn’t know anyone.

After a while I noticed that people were moving in groups towards the side of the garage furthest from the entrance. The movement you always get at parties when the food is ready.

“I think there’s something to eat,” I said, but he didn’t even hear me.

He was unstoppable now, having launched on a metaphysical exegesis on the works of Katso.

“Spudlicating, humbo,” I said. Complete gibberish, just to make sure he wasn’t listening to a word I said. And it was true: he really wasn’t. He didn’t ask me what “spudlicating” meant, or even what a “humbo” was. He was too busy talking about archetypes and the way certain artistic manifestations condensed the scattered fragments of the collective unconscious.

I condensed my scattered fragments and said excuse me – only because I’m such a polite person – turned and headed towards the food.

People were crowding around a long table. From a room immediately behind it, waiters emerged with trays full of sushi, sashimi and tempura. At one end of the table were wooden chopsticks wrapped in paper, at the other, plastic knives and forks for the inexperienced.

I made my way between the people without bothering too much about the queue, filled a plate, poured a lot of soy sauce over it, took a pair of chopsticks and went and sat down on a stool away from the others, to eat in peace.

The food was very good. It had clearly been prepared there, just before being served, not frozen and kept for hours in a fridge, and I enjoyed it more than anything I’d eaten for quite a while. A waiter passed with a tray of glasses filled with white wine. I took two, mumbling that I was expecting a lady. The wine wasn’t as good as the food, but at least it was nice and cold. I drank the first glass straight down and disposed of it under the stool, then sipped in a more civilized manner at the second. Gradually the crowd around the table dispersed.

It was then that Natsu emerged from the room behind the table. She was in a white chef’s uniform, which set off her dark complexion and black hair spectacularly.

She glanced at the table, which looked as if a swarm of locusts had passed over it. Then she looked around and I stood up without even realizing it. After a few moments, our eyes met. I waved awkwardly. She smiled and came towards me.

“Good evening.”

“Good evening.”

There were a few seconds of embarrassment. I felt the impulse to say that the food was very good, that she was an exceptionally good cook, and other highly original remarks like that. Fortunately, I managed to restrain myself.

“I could do with a cigarette. Do you mind going outside with me?”

I said I didn’t mind at all and we walked together towards the entrance, where all the smokers had gathered. She took out a packet of blue Chesterfields, and offered me one. I said no, thanks. She took one for herself and lit it.

“How long is it since you quit smoking?”

“How do you know I quit?”

“The way you looked at the packet. I know that look because I quit a few times myself. What do you think of the show?”

“Interesting. I didn’t understand the catalogue at all, and I didn’t understand very much of the works. Then an Elton John lookalike who talked like the comedian Lino Banfi asked me if I was Piero’s boyfriend and-”

She burst out laughing. Loudly, with real gusto, which surprised me because I didn’t think I’d been that funny.

“I didn’t think you were so nice when I saw you at work.” She laughed again. “You were like one of those lawyers in American films, the efficient, ruthless kind.”

Efficient and ruthless. I liked that. I’d have preferred “handsome and ruthless”, like Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive, but I didn’t mind.

She smoked a little more.

“Did you come by car?”

No, of course not, we’re only five or six miles from the centre of town. Every evening I train for the New York Marathon. I ran all the way here, in jumpsuit and track shoes, and changed before I came in.

“Yes, of course.”

“I’ve finished here. I haven’t got a car, I came in the van with my colleagues. You could give me a lift home, if you like.”

Yes, I’d like that, I said, trying to hide my surprise. She told me to give her five minutes, which was how long it would take her to get out of her work uniform, give instructions to her colleagues about clearing everything away, and say goodbye to the organizers of the evening.

I stood and waited for her at the entrance, with the bodybuilder for company. Every now and again he’d whisper something into his microphone, his bovine eyes busy staring into the depths of nothingness.

Almost a quarter of an hour went by. People came in and out. I should have asked myself what I was doing. I mean, Natsu was the wife of a client of mine who was in prison. I shouldn’t have been here. But I had no desire to ask myself that question.

Natsu came out again. Even in the semi-darkness I noticed that she had spent part of those fifteen minutes doing her make-up and hair.

“Shall we go?” she said.

“Let’s go,” I replied.

We drove quickly to the ring road. As we moved onto the ramp, the electronic notes of ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams’ by Green Day came from the CD player.

I told myself I was a fool and a hothead. I was over forty – well over forty – and I was behaving recklessly and like a bastard.

Take her home now, say goodnight politely, then go home yourself and go to bed.

“Shall we go for a drive?” I said.

She did not reply immediately, as if she was undecided. Then she looked at her watch.

“I don’t have much time, half an hour at the most. I promised the babysitter I’d be home by one. She’s a student and she has classes tomorrow.”

Did you get that? She has to go home to her little girl, because, you idiot, she’s a married woman, with a daughter, and a husband in prison. And in case you’ve forgotten, her husband is your client. Now take her home and let that be the end of it.

“Of course, of course, I just thought… we could go for a drive, listen to some music… Anyway, I’m sorry, I’ll take you home now, you’ll be there in no time… Just tell me the address-”

“Listen,” she said, interrupting me, talking quickly, “this is what we can do, if you like. We go to my place, you drop me and drive around for ten minutes. I pay the babysitter, she leaves, and you come up for a drink and a little chat. What do you say?”

I didn’t reply immediately because I couldn’t swallow. My moral dilemmas were swept away like the dirt in those commercials for sink cleaners. Yes, I said, that’d be great. We could have a drink and a chat.

And maybe a kiss and a cuddle and a fuck.

And then repent at leisure.

We reached her place, which was in Poggiofranco. An apartment block with a garden, the kind we used to envy when we were children, because the kids my age who lived in places like that could go down and play football whenever they liked, without their parents saying anything.

In the Seventies, Poggiofranco had been known as something of a Fascist stronghold, certainly not a place where a child from a left-wing family would have gone. It struck me that their apartment may have been where Paolicelli had lived as a boy. It was an unsettling thought and I dismissed it immediately.