Michael Dibdin - A long finish

There had been nothing sparkling about Asti at nine o’clock the previous night, however, with a blustering and buffeting wind and sheets of rain which spattered on the platform like liquid hail. The user-friendly genius of the State Railways had ensured that the two-coach diesel unit which serviced the branch line to his final destination was waiting on a track as far as possible from the platform where the Rome-Turin express had arrived. Trembling and breathless, with aching limbs and a sinking heart, Zen grabbed his bags and ran the length of the dank, ill-lit underpass, terrified that the connection would leave before he could reach it.

He needn’t have worried. Another fifteen minutes passed before the automotrice finally revved up its engines and nosed off along the single-line track across the Tanaro river and south to Alba. Zen soon fell into a shallow, confused, snuffly sleep, from which he was awakened by a member of the crew, who curtly informed him that they had reached the end of the line. His interrupted dream had been set back in Naples, his last posting, and as he gathered his belongings together and clambered out of the train he braced himself for the crowds, the noise, the vibrant chaos and confusion of that city…

It did not take him long to realize his error. The rainswept streets were as deserted as the small station, the taxi rank empty, the shops and houses shuttered and dark. Fortunately it proved to be a relatively short walk to his hotel, where it took several minutes of continuous ringing on the bell to rouse the night porter, who seemed to have no idea who Zen was or what he was doing there, or even that the establishment over which he presided existed for the purpose of offering accommodation to travellers.

But all this had been as nothing to the discovery, next morning, that getting out of bed and going to the bathroom presented a physical challenge roughly equivalent to walking across Antarctica. He was shivering, aching, sneezing, snivelling, coughing and moaning, and felt utterly exhausted and disoriented. Somehow he made it back to bed and lay down for a few minutes, during which, according to the clock, an hour and a half went by. When he finally surfaced, two hours after that, he crawled to the phone, rang for a waiter and arranged for delivery of the ingredients whose preparation he was now embarked upon.

The remedy was an ancient tradition of the Zen family, a secret nostrum at once venerable and slightly shameful, given its reputed connection with an ancestor who had been Governor of the Venetian stronghold of Durazzo, now in Albania, and who had gone native in such a spectacular way that the Council of Ten had not only recalled him but had had him quietly strangled. For Zen its mystique derived from the fact that as a child he had not been allowed to take it. For his colds he was dosed with aspirin ground up in a spoonful of honey. Only adults got the full-strength, gloves-off, no-holds-barred treatment: a whole head of peeled garlic eaten raw with copious quantities of strong red wine.

Despite the acknowledged and indeed almost miraculous benefits of this potion, there had been plenty of adverse comments about it from those forced to associate with the patient afterwards. As one uncle had put it succinctly, ‘The symptoms of the cure are worse than those of the illness.’ But to Zen’s mind this merely confirmed its efficacity, on a par with such harsh and primitive remedies as bleach poured over an open wound, or the ministrations of the local self-taught dentist, with his rack of terrifying implements whose application you didn’t want to even think about. Pain could only be cured by pain. Bad power required good power to defeat it, and power of any sort was bound to hurt.

The cloves of garlic, once stripped and chewed, certainly hurt at first, their crunchy fibrous substance disclosing an astonishing saturated strength of oily, burning intensity which coated every surface in the mouth and throat and then, under the benign influence of the wine, turned into a mild but persistent tingling warmth promising to drive out every foreign body and intruder in short order. He had drunk most of the litre of red wine and was biting into the last but one of the fat ivory cloves when there came a knock at the door.

‘Well?’ he mumbled through a mouthful of half-chewed garlic. Probably the cleaner wanting to make up the room. The service was never there when you needed it, but whenever you wanted a bit of peace and quiet…

The door opened cautiously to reveal a plump, dapper, well-dressed man of about Zen’s age carrying a large manilla envelope. He took in the scene and coughed in an embarrassed way.

‘Ah! Excuse the intrusion, dottore. I’ll come back later, when you’re more…’

Zen took another leisurely swig of wine.

‘Are you the manager?’ he demanded. ‘About time, too. I’ve complained twice about the heating, and that lump of scrap metal over there is still about as warm as yesterday’s bath.’

His visitor surveyed the dishevelled, unshaven figure huddled in his dressing-gown on the rumpled bed, gulping wine and chewing raw garlic.

‘I think there must be some mistake,’ he said.

‘I certainly hope so!’ Zen retorted. ‘The principles of central heating have been known in this country ever since Julius Caesar was wetting his knickers, yet your establishment is apparently incapable of…’

The newcomer closed the door. He strode to the phone, set his envelope down on the table and dialled.

‘Front desk? Room 314, Vice-Questore Tullio Legna of the Commissariato di Polizia speaking. I have come to pay my respects to a very important visitor from Rome who is staying here as your guest. I understand that he has complained about the inadequate heating in his room, but without effect. I suggest that you rectify this situation without further delay, lest I find it necessary to close the entire hotel pending a full investigation, a process likely to take some considerable time.’

He hung up and turned back to Zen.

‘Please accept my apologies, dottore. We don’t get many visitors out of season. They must have been trying to cut costs by turning the boilers off.’

Zen unrolled a strip of toilet paper from the spare roll he had removed from the bathroom and blew his nose loudly.

‘I feel dreadful,’ he said, rising painfully from his bed, one hand extended. Realizing belatedly that he was still holding the soggy tissue, he looked about vaguely for the waste-basket.

‘You’re ill,’ Tullio Legna observed.

‘No, no. I mean, yes, I suppose I am. But that’s not… Dreadful about receiving you like this, I mean. What must you think?’

‘I think you have a bad cold.’

Zen waved at the open wine bottle and the remaining clove of garlic.

‘An old family cure. I wasn’t expecting visitors.’

He gestured Legna towards the lone chair in the room and collapsed soggily on the bed, pulling the dressing-gown about his legs.

‘I tried phoning, but there was no reply,’ the local police chief replied, sitting down. ‘Since I happened to be passing, I thought I’d just drop by in person.’

Zen coughed, sniffed and lit a cigarette.

‘And found what looks like a flop for homeless alcoholic derelicts,’ he said, pushing the remaining clove of garlic about the bedside table like an extracted wisdom tooth awaiting the proverbial fairy. ‘But it does work. At least, so I’ve been told.’

‘The curative powers of garlic are, of course, well-attested,’ Tullio Legna remarked sententiously. ‘But here in Alba, at this time of the year, I think we may be able to do better. Will you allow me to order you lunch? Not from the kitchens here, God forbid. There’s a good place a couple of streets away. I’ll have them send it up to the room. What are you drinking?’