Conor Fitzgerald - The Namesake

‘You sound almost proud of what they do.’

‘Italians are better at self-sacrifice, discipline and savings than anyone else in Europe and, above all, they — we — are extremely organized. The problem is that we divide into units that are too small. We organize into families instead of neighbourhoods, neighbourhoods instead of towns, towns instead of provinces, provinces instead of regions, and regions instead of a country. The same goes for our industries. They’re always too small. We have the same problem in the police. Basically, we should have just one force. But we are an organized people. Just look at an Italian travelling. Neat, clean, everything planned, budgeted. The northern Europeans are chaotic, dirty, dishevelled, lost, drunk, loutish… As for your police and their efforts to stop drug smuggling, words fail me. Eat your lunch, what’s the matter with you: are you some sort of fucking anorexic?’

‘Dioxins,’ said Konrad.

‘What?’

‘This food. It is probably all poisoned. We are in Campania. I know about this region. People burn rubbish in the streets and fill the air with dioxins from burning plastics. The Camorra has filled the land with heavy metals and maybe even nuclear materials. You keep telling me the food was produced locally. But I don’t want to eat produce grown from the toxic soils of Campania. These are filthy people, ein Dreckvolk, and I do not want their food.’

‘You ate the bread.’

A gratifying look of panic crossed across Konrad’s face.

The waiter, who had taken back Konrad’s untouched plates one after the other, now came over to find out what was going on.

‘ Non si sente bene,’ Blume explained. ‘ No, figurati, il cibo era ottimo. Poi, e un tedesco, quindi non capisce un cazzo ne della buona cucina, ne delle buone maniere. ’

Konrad had pulled out a notebook and was writing something down. In the middle of all Konrad’s extravagantly curly hair was a great bald patch where the freckles looked like liver spots. From above, Konrad looked like an old man, and this pleased Blume immensely.

Konrad paused in his writing for a moment to look up and smile at Blume, saying, quite mildly, ‘You forget I understand when you speak Italian and insult me to the waiter.’

‘I didn’t forget. I just wanted to make sure the waiter understood. What are you writing?’

‘Some of what you said is interesting. I am making a note. One of the reasons I am good at my job is I am willing to learn.’ Konrad put away his pen and notebook.

‘Konrad, just tell me why you visited that Ndrangheta boss. Personally, I don’t give a damn. In fact, if it leads to your imprisonment or death, that’s fine by me. It’s between you and your superiors. I just need something to take back so it looks like I did some work here. You get that, don’t you?’

‘You are so full of suspicions but do you… do you know anything about me, Commissioner?’

‘I am rapidly forming some ideas.’

‘Years ago I was on my way to becoming a professor or an archaeologist,’ said Konrad, ‘but I switched universities and became a federal policeman instead.’ He downed a glass of wine, then cleared his throat. ‘My Latin and Greek are excellent,’ he continued. ‘My Latin professor once asked me to explain my method for learning vocabulary so fast, so that he might teach it to his other students.’ He paused and peered at Blume, then shook his head sadly. ‘I don’t think you have the right sort of mind for my technique. You lack patience and humility, as well as a classical background, of course.’

‘You’re making me feel really small.’

‘But I think even you may know that Ndrangheta is a Greek word, it comes from andrangathos, which means “courageous man”.’

‘Are you absolutely sure about that?’ said Blume. ‘You’re convinced you are not talking bullshit?’

‘Of course I am sure. Calabria was part of Magna Graecia and ancient Greek words are still spoken there.’

‘So you’re telling me Ndrangheta is an ancient name?’ asked Blume.

‘Yes. I am assuming you have not studied these things. Obviously, you have no knowledge of ancient Greek.’

‘Italian kids still do Greek and Latin, at least if they go to a Liceo Classico, which I did. There’s nothing ancient Greek about those Calabrian thugs. Don’t believe anything they say. Even their name is a lie. The organization you have placed back in the mists of time basically came into being in 1975. So, once again, you have understood nothing.’

‘I hate to correct you…’

‘Then don’t. It’s all made up. There’s no ancient custom. When I was a student, the name was hardly even used. It doesn’t date back much further than the War — you know, the one you guys started and lost.’

‘Italy lost first,’ said Konrad.

‘Italy was misrepresented by its leaders, and changed sides. And I was speaking as an American there.’

‘I have studied the rites of the Ndrangheta. Some of them are based on ancient custom.’

‘It’s all bullshit,’ said Blume. ‘All those rites are taken from the Freemasons, another bunch of bullshit artists. This Ndrangheta mythology was basically invented yesterday. Like I said, until the 1980s they were just called the Calabrian Mafia. For a while it was called the Maffia, with two “ f ’’s; before that, people just called them the Camorra, or bandits.’

‘So they do go back in time.’

‘Sure they go back in time,’ said Blume. ‘Everything and everyone goes back in time. We all come from somewhere.’

Locri

Robertino awoke as his mother was making lunch, and, noting she was not within touching distance, began to make his displeasure known through a mixture of griping and straining efforts to escape from the trap of his baby bouncer.

His mother seemed to be more stressed than usual by his antics, and sensing this, the child raised the stakes, adding cries to his grunting efforts to break free.

‘Please, not now. Ruggiero!’ she called. ‘Come in here! Pick up your brother. Keep him quiet for ten minutes, would you?’

Despite arching his back and going red from the strain of trying to break out of his bouncer, it turned out the last thing in the world Robertino wanted was to be removed from it, at least not by his brother. Griping became screaming.

‘Shut that child up!’ shouted his mother. ‘Get him out of here.’

‘But he’s hungry,’ protested Ruggiero.

‘What the hell do you think I am doing, standing at this stove for the fun of it?’

Ruggiero eventually found a game that Robertino liked, which consisted of singing pee-poh-pah-dah on a sliding scale and touching him on the forehead, nose, chin and tummy, over and over and over again. By the time lunch was ready, the infant had dissolved into peals of laughter, which quickly became infectious and lifted the mood.

As she finished spoon-feeding Robertino a pap made out of meat stock and semolina, his mother said, ‘Your father will be here in a few days. He can’t say when. He’ll sort things out, if anything needs sorting out, of course.’

‘I know.’

‘Because something is going on. Yesterday Zia Rosa was in a panic about Enrico not coming home. I tried not to let her infect me with her fear, but I was worried, too.’

When Ruggiero had arrived home the evening before, this mother had been studiously casual about his temporary disappearance. He had been at once hurt by her indifference and proud of her strength.

‘It was bad for Enrico. Not me.’

‘Was it?’ His mother was fond enough of Enrico, though she tended to use him as a yardstick with which to measure the superiority of her own son.

‘Who else was there?’ asked his mother.