Marco Vichi - Death in Sardinia

‘I can’t promise.’

‘If I throw a party, will you come?’

‘I can’t promise.’

‘You’re such a shit!’ she said, blowing him kisses. Bordelli reached the bottom of the stairs and then ran into Princess Doralice’s daughters, all dressed in veils, in the entranceway. They made a big fuss over him and covered him up to the ears with lipstick.

‘Ciao, Inspector, you coming to see us on Thursday?’

‘Unfortunately I can’t, I have to work.’

‘Oh, bollocks!’ said one of them. Even in their present get-up, they still hadn’t lost any of their whorish manners. The one called Cristiana got her hair all tangled up in the letterboxes and let out a stream of rapid-fire obscenities. Then they raised their swishing skirts all together and ran up the stairs, laughing and calling each other tarts and sluts at every step. It would have been interesting to see how Rosa was going to persuade them to pipe down and rehearse …

The sky was black and laden with clouds, but it still wasn’t raining. Bordelli opened Rosa’s present while driving, steadying the steering wheel with his knees. He read the note and smiled: To the handsomest monkey in the kingdom, from your Rosita . The square little box contained a great deal of pink cotton, at the bottom of which was a tiny heart made of jade. It was smooth and sparkly. He pulled over to the side of the road and hung Rosa’s heart from the little chain he wore round his neck.

After dessert, he poured a drop of grappa into his glass and lit a cigarette. His headache had subsided a little. During the entire meal Toto had done nothing but talk about violent crimes from his home town in the south … Hands chopped off, tongues chopped off, goat-tied corpses, dead bodies with rocks in their mouths … all the while turning juicy, dripping steaks over on the grill.

The inspector downed his grappa and got up to leave, patting the cook on the shoulder by way of goodbye. He walked out of the still-full trattoria and got in the Beetle. It was barely nine o’clock. He didn’t feel like going home. Putting an unlit cigarette between his lips, he let the car take him where it would. When he found himself driving through Piazza Alberti, he suddenly had an idea. He parked in Via Gioberti and ducked into the first bar he encountered. The shelves inside were full of panettoni. Sitting at two small round tables were four motionless codgers, staring at their empty glasses and cigar butts. Over their heads was a television blaring at high volume. It looked like a film. Near them were some children playing pinball. The telephone was just inside the entrance, in one of the quieter spots. Bordelli bought a token and phoned the home of Fontana the barrister. A woman answered, probably the governess.

‘Casa Fontana,’ she said.

‘Good evening, I’d like to speak with Signor Guido please,’ the inspector said, covering the speaker with his hand.

‘Who’s calling?’

‘This is Inspector Bordelli.’

‘Please wait while I call him.’

‘Thank you.’ He could hear a television in the background, broadcasting the same film as in the bar. A good minute passed, then he heard some footsteps approaching the telephone.

‘Hello?’ the young man said in a low voice.

‘Hello, Guido …’

‘Yes?’

‘I’m calling because I’d like to have another little chat with you and Raffaele.’

‘Oh,’ said Guido, not the least bit surprised.

‘Is Raffaele there with you now?’

‘No.’

‘Will he be coming later?’

‘No.’

‘You won’t be seeing each other tonight?’

‘Yes.’

‘Yes in what sense?’

‘We will be seeing each other.’

‘Where?’

‘Not here.’

‘Guido, please, try to speak in complete, comprehensible sentences … This is starting to sound like an interrogation.’

‘I thought it was.’

‘Don’t be silly … So you’ll be meeting Raffaele somewhere else tonight, if I’ve understood correctly?’

‘We’re playing music,’ said Guido. Prising a few consecutive words out of him was an achievement.

‘Ah, I see, and where?’ Bordelli asked.

‘Via de’ Bardi.’

‘Then I’ll meet you there. Number?’

‘Thirty-two.’

‘What’s the name on the buzzer?’

‘No name.’

‘How will I recognise it?’

‘There’s just the number.’

‘What time will you be there?’

‘Ten.’

‘Wait for me before you start playing, otherwise you won’t hear me.’

‘All right,’ said Guido.

When Bordelli hung up he felt tired, as if he’d just done some heavy lifting. Talking to Guido was thoroughly exhausting. He went over to the counter and asked for a coffee. He drank it slowly, watching one of the elderly men in the mirror. The old codger was asleep in a sitting position, hands on his legs. He had a small head, a sallow face furrowed with wrinkles and two oval leather patches on the elbows of his jacket. Not even the noise of the pinball machine could rouse him from his slumber. The barman glanced lazily at him several times while rinsing cups.

It was almost half past nine. The inspector left the bar and got back in his car. He drove slowly, smoking a cigarette. He felt strange, as if he were on his way to a party where he didn’t know anybody. Then there was the fact that he really hadn’t been straight with the lad. There was no need to talk to Raffaele or Guido. For the moment there was no longer any need to talk to anyone … except Odoardo, that is. Whereas he’d gone and made up that story. Perhaps it was only out of curiosity, to see the two youths one more time from up close.

There was still half an hour to go before his unlikely appointment, and luckily it hadn’t started raining yet. He crossed the Arno and left the Beetle in Via dei Renai. He went through Porta San Miniato on foot and started climbing the staircase that led to Viale Galileo. There were no street lamps, and he could barely see. The last stairs were the steepest, and he reached the top out of breath. Crossing the Viale he went all the way up to the basilica of San Miniato, which to him was the most beautiful church in Florence. The facade of white and black marble was decorated with fine inlay and geometric figures reminiscent of oriental textiles. At the top, in the place of the cross, was an eagle whose talons clutched a roll of fabric, symbol of l’Arte dell Lana, the wool guild of medieval Florence … Even back then, money was more powerful than faith.

He stood there looking at the thousand-year-old church with the monumental cemetery of the Porte Sante around it. He knew some of his great-grandparents were buried in there, but he’d never managed to find them. One day he would have to go and calmly search the graves and family chapels, and read the inscriptions one by one. Once, when he was about six or seven, one of his relatives had taken him for a stroll through the tombs, and they’d shown him the grave of the man who had written ‘Pinocchio’. He hadn’t gone walking in a cemetery for a very long time. Some years back, he used to do it rather often, just to relax. He knew all the ones around Florence, from Pratolino to Gli Allori. He’d even gone a couple of times to the American cemetery at Falciani and walked for hours through those thousands and thousands of white crosses lined up like rows of vines.

Glancing at his watch, he saw that it was already ten o’clock. As he headed back down the same dark staircase, he noticed two shadows at the bottom coming towards him. A man and a woman. When they got closer, he heard them speaking German and stiffened instinctively. The language still made him shudder, there was nothing he could do about it. When the couple walked past him he looked at the man’s face. He must have been over forty. Bordelli realised he could easily be one of those Nazis who’d fled Florence in August ’44 when the Allies entered the city, and had now returned with his wife to see the bridges he’d blown up before leaving. Or maybe not. Maybe he was just a former Wehrmacht soldier who’d come to visit the city of Michelangelo and Leonardo.