Carlo Gadda - That Awful Mess on the via Merulana

The bell rang. Lulu raised hell again. Assunta had gone to the door. After some discussion, in the other room, a young man entered, dressed in a gray suit, not inelegantly cut. He was made to take a seat. "Another cup, Tina,[ sic ] for Signorino {2}Giuliano." He was introduced at once; he introduced himself: "Valdarena." "Ingravallo," grumbled Ingravallo, barely detaching himself from the chair, and barely clasping, almost reluctantly, the hand which the other man extended to him. "Signor Valdarena.. " Liliana said, dealing with the coffee, the cups. "A cousin of my wife's, Balducci explained, ruddy-faced.

There was, painful as it is to admit, in Don Ciccio a certain coldness, a kind of prickly jealousy towards the young, especially towards handsome young men, and even more so, the sons of the rich. This sentiment, for that matter, did not go beyond the admissible limits of an internal phenomenon, it would never have influenced his behavior as a police officer; he, no, he was not "handsome"; and he wasn't even able to console himself with that proverb he had heard in Milan from a girl at the prophylactic dispensary in Via delle Oche: "Real men are always good-lookers."

He felt already, in his heart, a dismay, a voice, una voce poco fa. . which already whispered in the cells, he himself couldn't have said whether in the cells of the brain or of the heart, but perhaps it was the effect of the dry white of Signor Gabbioni and his son, a rather nervous wine, a voice that was trumpeting awfully: "This is her boyfriend," like the fierce tom-tom of those headaches which used to grip his temples.

He didn't know why, but he thought, or he imagined, that the young man was one of those boys who wants to get ahead at any price: he too: the kind who are rather "attached," that is to say, seduced by the idea of the old cash, which for that matter, say what you will, doesn't do anybody any harm. Coming in, the signorino had eyed the furniture and the knickknacks, the fine cups, and the silver pitcher, and that silver sugar bowl, remnant of the old Umbertine glitter, a souvenir of the seven fat kine, with a gold acorn and two little silver leaves on the lid. Yes: to pick it up with. He had accepted a fingered cigarette from Balducci (who opened the gold cigarette case under his chin with a sharp click): and he was smoking it, now, with a kind of restrained voluptuousness and, at the same time, with an elegant naturalness.

Ingravallo was then seized by a strange idea, as if he had drunk poison, it was Gabbioni's dry wine: he had the idea that this "cousin" was paying court to the Signora Liliana in order to. . yes, of course!. to win financial favors from her. The thought infuriated him: with a secret, dissimulated fury, a suspicion, naturally. A treacherous suspicion, however. . which made his temples ache, a suspicion of the most ingravallian, most donciccian nature.

On the right ring-finger, on the white hand with the long, gentlemanly fingers, which he used to shake his cigarette, the young man had a ring: of old gold, very yellow, magnificent: a bloodstone mounted on it: an oval bloodstone with an initial carved in it. Perhaps the family seal. It seemed, to Don Ciccio, behind the veil of words and politeness, that there was some coldness between him and Balducci. . "Giuliano is all eyes, all full of attentions towards his lady cousin," Ingravallo thought, "gentleman though he is." After a dutiful handshake, he hadn't even glanced at Gina. He gave the dog only a casual pat: and instead of its angry yip! yip! the nasty thing, she shifted to some sinking growls, like a little storm, retreating, and finally she was quiet.

Signora Liliana, though with some badly repressed sighs (on certain days) under the shifting clouds of sadness, was. . was a desirable woman: everyone noticed her looks, as she walked along the street. At dusk, in that first abandon of the Roman night, so crammed with dreams, as she came home. . there, from the corners of the buildings, from the sidewalks, tributes, individual or collective, blossomed in her direction, glances: flashes and shining youthful looks: at times a whisper grazed her: like a passionate murmur of the evening. Sometimes, in October, from that changing of colors, from the warmth of the walls there emanated an improvised pursuer, a Hermes with brief wings of mystery: or perhaps from strange cemeterial Erebuses, risen again to the living, to the city. One more brassy than the others. And more of a dope. . Rome is Rome. And she seemed to feel sorry for the ass, so gloriously driven after his fortune by those great sails of ears; with a glance, half-disdainful, half-pitying, between gratitude and scorn, she seemed to ask him: "Well?" A woman who seemed veiled to the desiring, her timbre sweet and profound, her skin stupendous: lost, at times, in some private dream: with a knot of handsome chestnut hair which burst from her brow; she dressed in admirable style. . She had ardent eyes, helpful, almost, in a light (or with a shade?) of melancholy fraternity… At Assunta's sing-song, somewhat boorish announcement, "It's Signorino Giuliano," it seemed, to Ingravallo, that she had given a little start, or blushed even: with a "subcutaneous" flush. Imperceptibly.

*** *** ***

When the two policemen said to him: "There's been a shooting in Via Merulana, at number two hundred and nineteen: on the stairs, where the sharks live…" a jet of curious blood, anguished perhaps, flooded his right ventricle. "Two hundred and nineteen?" he couldn't help asking, though in an absent tone. And he relapsed at once into that kind of remote somnolence which, in him, was also his official's mask. Meanwhile the chief of the investigations squad had come into his room. He carried his Messaggero, still unsavored, and a petal, a single white petal, in his buttonhole. "Almond blossom," Ingravallo thought, questioning his superior with his eyes, "The first of the season. So now he can even afford flowers, eh?" "Will you go over to Via Merulana, Ingravallo? Take a look. It's nothing much, they tell me. And this morning, with that other business of the Marchesa in Viale Liegi. . and then the mess here in the neighborhood, in Via Botteghe Oscure; and then that other nice little bunch of posies, the two sisters-in-law and the three nephews; and on top of it all, we have to straighten out our own business, and then, and then. ." he put this hand to his forehead, "all we needed was the Under Secretary on our back. I'm fed up to here, I tell you. So do me a favor, eh? and go on over."

"All right, I'll go," Ingravallo said, then muttered, "I'll go," and he took his hat down from the peg. The badly fitted peg came loose and fell to the floor, as it did every time, then rolled for a bit. He picked it up, stuck its withered root into the hole, and with the sleeve of his forearm, as if it were a brush, briefly smoothed his black hat, along the band. The two policemen went after him, as if by tacit command of the chief commissioner; they were Gaudenzio, known to the underworld as "Blondie," and Pompeo, alias "Grabber."

They took the PV bus {3}and got off at the Viminal, then changed to the tram for San Giovanni. So in twenty minutes or so they were at number two hundred and nineteen.

The palace of gold, or of the sharks, if you prefer, was there: five floors plus mezzanine. Worm-eaten and gray. To judge by that grim dwelling and its cohort of windows, the sharks must have been a myriad: little sharks with yawning stomachs, that's for sure, but easily satisfied esthetically. Living underwater on appetites and phagic sensations in general, the grayness, the lofty opalescence of the day was light, for them: that little bit of light which was all they needed. As to the gold, well, yes, maybe it did have gold and silver. One of those big buildings constructed at the beginning of the century which fill you at first sight with a sense of boredom and canarified contrition: you know, the precise opposite of the color of Rome, of the sky and the gleaming sun of Rome. Ingravallo, you might say, knew it by heart: and in fact, a slight palpitation seized him, as with the two policemen he approached the familiar structure, in his official, investigative role.