Valerio Manfredi - The Ancient Curse

‘What’s she like?’

‘Disturbing.’

‘Exactly what I thought you’d say,’ said Francesca with a touch of sarcasm.

‘Well, I don’t know how to define her. She may be crazy, or a visionary, what do I know? But she insisted. She told me I had to give up my research and leave before…’

Francesca seemed not to notice that he hadn’t finished the sentence.

Fabrizio continued: ‘Before something happens to me.’

‘What do you think she was talking about?’

‘I didn’t ask her and I didn’t even feel like asking her, but I’m sure you can guess what I thought and what I’m still thinking now.’

‘The animal.’

‘Exactly. What else?’

‘So what’s the connection between a woman who works behind the bar of a third-class establishment and that horrible murderous creature?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t even know if there is a connection. Maybe she just wanted me to think that there was. I can’t tell you why. Anyway, I was very deeply disturbed and I couldn’t wait to get out of there. When I got up to leave, she said goodbye as if she were talking to a dead man. Do you know what I mean?’

‘Well sure, I think so. But I wouldn’t fret over it. I’m certain she’s just some kind of a loser who’s trying to work out her frustrations by acting like a sorceress or a clairvoyant or something. You’d be surprised how many of them there are out there.’

She got up and put the plates in the sink.

‘Shall we make coffee?’ asked Fabrizio, getting up to help.

‘You plan on staying up late tonight?’

‘Yeah, I think so. I’d like to start transcribing that inscription.’

Fabrizio drank his coffee, then got up to leave. For a moment he hoped Francesca would ask him to stay, but he immediately put the thought out of his head. She was the type of girl who only comes to bed with you if she loves you and thinks you love her. No, only if she’s sure you love her. After which you start with the wedding plans. In a flash of lucidity, that all seemed incredibly premature and his enforced chastity seemed a small price to pay.

Francesca walked him to the door and threw her arms around his neck. ‘If I were following my instincts I’d ask you to stay,’ she whispered into his ear.

Fabrizio felt completely different from the way he had a moment before. ‘But you’re not going to follow your instincts, are you?’ he asked.

‘No, it’s better we don’t. We’re in the middle of a very difficult situation, and you’re not very clear about things, are you?’

Fabrizio didn’t answer.

‘Do you at least like me a little?’

Fabrizio would have preferred to be somewhere else and instead he heard the words he’d been rehearsing when she was in the shower slip out: ‘Francesca, my love…’ He held her close in the darkness as the rain beat down on the canopy over the front door and an intense odour of moss and wet wood flooded in from the nearby forest. He felt like he’d never want to leave her, that the smell of her hair and the taste of her lips were the only warmth and the only pleasure that life could give him.

He kissed her and ran off under the rain towards his car.

IT WAS POURING and every now and then a flash of lightning lit up the countryside like daylight. Further west, towards the sea, lightning bolts were streaking the sky, but the continuous rumble of thunder was muted by the distance. There was practically no one out at this time of night, in such weather, and Fabrizio fingered the tape he had in his pocket, thinking of the message it contained. Words from a long-ago era, words that formed a dreadful message, to judge from the director’s self-imposed isolation and the extreme reaction he’d had that day Fabrizio had told him about the Phersu.

He turned down the Val d’Era road and had soon arrived at his house on the Semprini farm. The front courtyard and backyard were illuminated by the outdoor lights and the old bricks in the low walls gleamed in the rain. He stayed just long enough to safely deposit the tape Francesca had given him and to take his rifle from the rack, then he got back into the car and drove off in the opposite direction.

At that same moment, Lieutenant Reggiani was stretched out in an easy chair in his apartment, watching an Almodovar film on TV and drinking a whisky on the rocks. He was relatively relaxed, given the circumstances, and jumped when the phone on the side table rang.

It was Sergeant Massaro. ‘He got home ten minutes ago, went inside for a moment and then drove off again.’

‘You’re following him, aren’t you?’

‘He’s just half a kilometre ahead of me.’

‘Well done, Massaro. Don’t lose him. If there’s any reason for alarm, call me and call the squad car.’ He looked at his watch. ‘But where’s he headed at this time of night in this storm?’

‘No idea, sir. He’s actually just turned right towards La Casaccia, if I’m not mistaken.’

‘Right. I think I know what he’s thinking, then. Anyway, you stay on him, understand?’

‘Roger that, sir,’ said Massaro, switching off the speaker-phone in his Fiat Uno.

Fabrizio pulled off the side of the road, got out his topographical map, examined it under the dashboard lights and then picked up his binoculars. He pointed them in the direction of the open countryside to his right. La Casaccia, about 300 metres away, was an old country estate connected to the local road by a lane full of potholes that had filled with water during the storm. At the end of this path was a courtyard surrounded by the main house, which was old and dilapidated, another building, where the tenant farmer must have lived, a shed with a collapsing roof and a stable with a hayloft, also in a state of disrepair. The overwhelming impression was of neglect and disuse, and the houses would have appeared uninhabited had it not been for a couple of lit bulbs dangling on the outside walls and for the light filtering out from a window on the ground floor of the tenant’s house. Fabrizio was close enough to see the inside of the room and the bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling. There was a man of about fifty inside, sitting at a table with a plastic tablecloth, a flask of wine and a half-empty glass in front of him.

Fabrizio heard a dog barking and the sound of a chain running back and forth over a wire strung between the two buildings. A car was driving up and the dog was letting his master know. Who could it be so late at night in such an isolated place?

The vehicle looked like an old van. It stopped in the middle of the courtyard and a woman got out. At first, Fabrizio could not make out her features, but then the door opened and lit up her face. It was the woman from behind the bar at the Le Macine tavern!

Fabrizio realized immediately that a lot of his questions were about to be answered but unless he got closer he would miss whatever happened. He searched through his pockets and backpack for something he could pacify the dog with, but found nothing, not even a crust of bread. He aimed his binoculars and found himself witnessing – although he could not hear a word – an argument that soon degenerated into a violent quarrel. The woman stormed out, slamming the door behind her, got back into her van and drove off.

Strangely, during the whole time that the woman was inside, maybe ten minutes or so, the dog had never stopped barking. On the contrary, his yapping had become so fierce and insistent that Fabrizio could hear him distinctly, even at this distance. The dog continued to bark for a couple of minutes after the vehicle had disappeared, then stopped. Fabrizio could hear the chain sliding back and forth for a while, then nothing.

He decided to pluck up his courage and approach the man inside the house. He started up the car and drove it down the little lane with only his parking lights on. He stopped at the edge of the courtyard and got out as the dog started barking again and running up and down the muddy yard. Almost immediately the door opened and the man appeared as a dark shadow in the doorway.