Marco Vichi - Death in Sardinia

‘All right,’ said Pina.

‘Actually I came here because … I have something to tell you,’ said Piras.

‘What?’ asked Pina, alarmed. It was as if she already understood.

‘Don’t get upset … I just wanted you to know before the new year …’ said Piras, at a loss for words.

‘About Benigno?’ asked Pina.

‘Maybe … He didn’t kill himself …’

‘I knew it,’ said Pina, crossing herself.

‘So what happened, then?’ asked Giovanni, who didn’t quite understand.

‘He was murdered,’ said Piras.

‘By who?’ asked Pina, squeezing her glass.

‘Almost certainly by the Fascist who was about to shoot him in ’43.’

‘ Santa Bonacatu! ’ Pina cried, crossing herself again. Piras briefly told them everything that had happened. Pina and Giovanni listened to him dumbfounded.

‘… and they broadcast Pintus’s photo on the TV news, but so far nobody has called in. I’m convinced he’s the one. There are too many coincidences. But since there aren’t any photographs of that Fascist, nobody can prove it,’ Piras said in conclusion.

‘Benigno once drew us a picture of him,’ Pina said, frowning.

‘Where?’ asked Piras.

‘Right here. He was here with us, and he drew us a picture of him. Remember, Giovanni?’

‘Yes … Wha’d you do with it?’ asked Giovanni.

‘I put it away somewhere ‘cause I didn’t want to see it. It scared me,’ said Pina, eyes wet with tears. Piras stood up.

‘So you’ve still got it?’ he asked.

‘Maybe,’ said Pina.

‘Well, please try to find it.’

Pina wiped her face and went off in search of the drawing. Piras stayed in the kitchen with Giovanni. The fire was consuming a big olive branch. It would take a long time to reduce it to ash, but it would succeed in the end. Pina returned a few minutes later, holding a page torn from a notebook. She handed it to Piras as if it were burning.

‘That’s him,’ said Piras.

‘Jesus Christ,’ said Pina, crossing herself again.

‘Though I have my doubts whether a drawing like this would hold up in court,’ said Piras, perplexed. All the same, he folded up the drawing and put it in his pocket.

‘I have to go home to eat, or Dad’ll get upset,’ he said. Pina walked him to the door, put her hands on his shoulders, pulled him down to her level and kissed him on the forehead.

‘I told you Nino wouldn’t go to hell,’ she whispered. Piras gave a hint of a smile and left. When he got home, Gavino was already sitting at the table. The evening news report had begun some time before.

‘What smells so good?’ asked Piras. The aroma suggested rabbit and potatoes.

‘Why are you never here when we sit down to eat?’ asked Gavino.

‘Don’t start …’ Maria said to her husband. She put the pan on the table and started filling their plates. Rabbit and potatoes. When Carosello began, all three of them started watching. When Calimero appeared, Maria stopped eating and watched the skit to the very end. It was her favourite. Pietrino liked the animated puppet of Lagostina best … Gavino, for his part, was waiting for the women, who were always beautiful on TV.

When Carosello ended, President Saragat appeared and gave his year-end speech to the nation … Unemployment, Vietnam, European unity, disarmament, NATO … High rate of production, wider distribution of wealth … The twentieth anniversary of the end of the war in Europe …

‘And to every one of you and your families, I wish peace and prosperity and the brightest of futures.’

After supper the Setzus arrived, and they all sat down to watch Disney cartoons. Pina’s eyes were wet, but she seemed more serene. Her Benigno was in heaven. Around ten o’clock Ettore and Angelo also showed up to watch Mina. Then the Faddas arrived with their little girl. Then the Congius. Soon the Piras kitchen was completely full. Everyone wanted to watch the montage of the best skits of 1965. Now and then some dancing girls came on, and Gavino watched with eyes a-glitter. Maria noticed, but that night she didn’t care.

Piras was thinking that it would have been nice to spend the evening with Sonia, at her place, in Florence, alone, over a candlelit dinner with a good bottle of wine … He was planning to call her just after midnight to tell her he would start the new year without crutches … and then he would tell her: ‘ Saludi e trigu e in culu a s’aremigu .’ 46

Bordelli lay in bed, slowly smoking a cigarette. It was still drizzling outside. He hadn’t even bothered to undress. The room was in total darkness. On his way home he’d remembered to buy a leather football for the little boys. He’d won the bet, but had decided to lose it. He thought that in the end, the person most guilty of the murder of Badalamenti was Judge Ginzillo, who had denied him the search warrant he’d asked for many months before. If the usurer had been arrested, nobody would have killed him, and therefore there would have been no murderer … He was well aware that this reasoning didn’t hold water in the eyes of the law, but he didn’t care. He blew the smoke out of his mouth and imagined it rising to the ceiling. His head began to fill with the usual images of the past … his mother, his father, a few women, the war, the dead. He wished he could empty his mind and sleep.

It must have been almost midnight. He began to hear the first fireworks. But Bordelli didn’t feel like celebrating. Baragli had suddenly died early that evening, around seven o’clock. He hadn’t made it to the new year. His wife and son had seen him alive at lunchtime and found him dead that evening. The funeral was set for the following day.

A difficult question arose in the inspector’s mind: what the hell do we live for? He had no answer, but didn’t feel too anxious about it. Perhaps the explanation would arrive all by itself one day, or else it would never come at all. He remembered the time he’d asked Semmai the same question in ’44, with the Germans within spitting distance. It was night, with the moon casting a ghostly light over the fields. Semmai was a Sicilian with fiery eyes as black as pitch. He’d looked at Bordelli and smiled, then turned towards the valley.

‘I have no idea what the fuck we live for, Commander, but I like living.’

Easy as crushing a fly. It was anybody’s guess how Diotivede or Rosa might answer the question, or the newspaper vendor on the corner, a poor old man with the face of someone who has just been dealt a slap for no reason at all …

He just couldn’t relax … He couldn’t stop thinking about the past two weeks. Meeting all those young people had been interesting, but also rather distressing. In their presence he’d felt awkward and superfluous, unfit for the world round the corner. But his biggest fear was that of becoming an old man full of regrets. Perhaps that was why he’d let Odoardo go. So he wouldn’t have to remember sending someone like him to jail. Baragli’s words came back to him:

‘Above anything else, a policeman must be fair’. He’d said it with his eyes full of fire, the final flame before dying.

The inspector put out his cigarette and turned on to his side. He would have liked to fall asleep, but outside, pandemonium broke out. It sounded like a bombing raid; 1966 had just begun.