Valerio Varesi - River of Shadows

“Arico,” the commissario said, mindful of the sensitivities of his colleague, “our inquiries are proceeding in parallel, so we can give each other a hand. If you can keep the river under surveillance and keep a record of the movements of the magano, this will be useful both to yourself and to me.”

The maresciallo thought it over. He was not an ungrateful man, and he knew that if the inquiries were to lead to his promotion, it would be down to Soneri. “I’ll keep you informed,” he said, “I’ll send off the telex today requesting a higher level of surveillance.”

The cold was even more intense. The thermometer outside the pharmacy registered a sub-zero temperature. There was an east wind over the plain, blowing upstream and slowing even further the river which was already sluggish with the drop in water level. Soneri walked in the direction of the port, crossing the avenue lined with cottages and heading down to the moorings. The level had dropped again, and on what must have been the riverbed he noticed the skeletons of trees dragged down after decades of flooding from the Alpine valleys to the sands of the Po. Squads of scavengers and of the merely curious had begun making their way up and down the banks in search of any strange objects emerging after long years under the water.

In the boat club, Ghezzi was listening to the radio. At Pomponesca a barge from Rovigo — apparently using old charts — had run aground, and along the Luzzara shoreline a sheet of ice had begun to form in a bend exposed to the winds from the Balkans.

“It’s starting,” Ghezzi said. “And tonight if the cold gets any worse…”

“Will the port freeze over as well?” Soneri asked him.

“I’m afraid so, but the boats are all ashore.”

“Apart from the magano belonging to Dinon and Vaeven.”

Ghezzi said only, “I suppose so,” immediately dropping the subject as though they had trespassed on forbidden ground.

“What would happen to a craft like that if it were trapped in the ice?”

“It’s pretty robust, but not sufficiently so to break through thick ice.”

“So it would have to put in somewhere.”

“They’ll all have to put in if it goes on like this. But more than anything else, they’ll be laid up afterwards.”

“After what?”

“When the temperature goes back up. The river will become impassable, a mass of ice floes that can cut like blades. It’ll take days for the last of them to get to the mouth of the river.”

It occurred to the commissario that if the magano was going to become unusable, Melegari would already have worked out some safe haven. Being a man of the river, he was bound to be aware of the consequences of the freeze. There was only one master in the whole business, and that was the river itself. It had concealed Tonna, had managed the drift of the barge and now, by withdrawing its freezing waters, it was upsetting long-established customs along its length and breadth. The men who inhabited the riverbanks were compelled to adapt to its whims as to a sovereign, so now the magano must be in the act of surrendering and retreating to dry land.

“The ice will be here by nightfall. The moorings at Stagno and Torricella on the right bank are exposed to the north-east,” Ghezzi advised anyone who would listen.

Barigazzi came in with a worried expression. “Explain to him that I don’t have the data. Someone pulled up my stake,” he said, pointing to the radio and at some unspecified interlocutor. “All these folk tramping up and down the riverbanks…” he added, uttering an oath as he hung his overcoat on a hook.

“If the river freezes over, they’ll be walking on the waters as well,” Soneri said.

“That won’t happen. I’ve seen it covered only twice in my life, and you need a bitter cold like this every day for a fortnight.”

The radio broke in with its update on the freeze. It seemed that ice was forming all along the Emilia side, where the shore was more exposed to the winds from the north-east.

“A wicked beast,” Barigazzi said. “It starts off on the still water and then advances slowly on all fronts. Gradually it’ll sink its grip into the riverbed. They’ll need to move if they’re to get all the boats on to dry land. Wood and ice don’t go well together.”

“There’s one missing here at the port,” the commissario said.

The others made no reply. Ghezzi pretended to be adjusting the radio, and Barigazzi got up to look across the river. He turned to face them and in an effort to lower the tension which had suddenly built up, he announced: “If it was up to me, I’d go at full speed. Unless they’ve already decided to leave the magano at some other port.”

“Is there any way of checking?” Soneri asked Ghezzi.

Ghezzi picked up the microphone, pressed a few buttons and sent out a request for information. A few moments later, the replies began to come in. It appeared the boat had not put in at any of the ports.

“Would you keep on sailing in freezing weather like this?” Soneri said.

The old boatman shrugged. “They’ve still got a bit of time. There’s one mooring after another and they know the river well.”

Soneri turned to listen to the news on the radio. According to the bulletins, the temperature was almost ten degrees below zero everywhere.

“Like a refrigerator,” Ghezzi muttered.

At Bocca d’Enzo, they had caught a silure weighing ninety kilos, and the lucky angler was now recounting the various stages involved as though he were the guest on a real radio programme.

“He’ll sell it to the Chinese; they’re keener on silure than on ordinary fish like chub,” Soneri heard Barigazzi say as he left the club. The cold had not lifted. If the magano was to make it back, it would have to be that evening. He would be there waiting for them. To keep the cold at bay, he had equipped himself with supplies of parmesan shavings from Il Sordo.

Out in the yard, he was seized by an unfamiliar longing for company. He felt that the whole business was now coming into the final straight, like the freeze taking hold of the river bit by bit. At that very moment, the strains of “Aida” began to ring out and he saw it was Angela.

“Ah, so you haven’t been sucked under by a whirlpool,” she said.

“I’ll never forgive myself for having disappointed you,” Soneri said, feeling overwhelmed by loneliness.

“There are so many things for which you need forgiveness, but I won’t go into them now because they’re nearly all un-pardonable.”

“I know. But it makes sense to do things on a grand scale, especially with women. That way they feel sorry for you.”

“Don’t get carried away with yourself, and don’t tell me you’ve forgotten what day it is today.”

Soneri had indeed forgotten their anniversary. One morning many years previously, on a day every bit as cold as today with the same frost clinging to the hedgerows, Angela had appeared quite suddenly, framed by hawthorn. He had been taken by her no-nonsense but beguiling manner, which in some odd way resembled the aroma of his cigar. It had all started there…

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but these inquiries…”

He heard a sigh. “What have the inquiries got to do with it? It’s just that you and I are one year older, that’s all there is to it.”

Before he had the chance to reply, he heard the telephone cut out. Angela’s tone of pain and hopelessness lingered in his ears and he called her back, but the telephone was left to ring out and he imagined her throwing herself on to the bed, in tears. He knew she was capable of that. Her tough shell disguised a vulnerable and tender heart.

With his mind occupied by this distraction, Soneri found he had walked the length of the elevated road, beyond the descent that would have taken him into the town. He only realized how far he had gone when he drew abreast of the monument to the partisans.