Diego Marani - God's Dog

Ivan had taken care of everything. He had bribed a male nurse to leave him the keys of an operating theatre, and one January night he had performed an abortion on Marta in the very department where she worked. They had left the clinic together, in a car belonging to the medical police, using a forged pass supposedly belonging to one of its members. But someone had informed on them, and the guardians of the faith had obliged Marta to undergo a medical examination. The result left no room for doubt. They were both found guilty of illegal abortion; he had been sentenced to ten years in prison, while she had managed to escape, had gone into hiding, and was now in charge of the Roman branch of the Free Death Brigade, her photograph still on the wanted persons list. But time, and a certain amount of ingenuity, had helped her to become less recognisable; she knew better than anyone else who her enemies were, and had learned the art of disguise accordingly. She had narrowly avoided arrest on two occasions, when she had helped other women who were seeking abortions. The police had ransacked her illicit clinic, breaking in just before she received a warning. But then the Free Death Brigade had changed tack. It was less risky to help women to go abroad for their abortions; a holiday in Corsica or the Balearic Islands would serve as cover. But the police were becoming aware of what was going on, and were now asking for ultrasound scans for certain destinations. During those same days the Roman branch was planning a deadly coup: an attempt on the pope’s life in Saint Peter’s Square on the day of Benedict XVI’s canonisation would have caused the whole world to quake. Marta and her associates had been waiting for such an opportunity for years. Preparations for the coup had exposed them to considerable risk. The members of the Free Death Brigade financed themselves through kidnapping and pushing drugs. Many of them had been arrested; the group had been virtually decimated. Marta was almost at breaking point, but she couldn’t give up now. Sometimes she regretted that she couldn’t lead a normal life, with a husband, a job and children to bring up. It hadn’t worked out with Ivan; yet while they were together, he had seemed to be the love of her life. She fell in love with him immediately, gave herself over to an all-engulfing passion, which suddenly gave meaning to her life and even had the power to deaden the all-consuming rage within her. The more helpless she felt in its sudden grip, the more serenely she yielded to it. He on the other hand had never managed to fall in love with her. He swore that he loved her, and in a sense it was true; but Ivan was a highly educated man, he used his head rather than his heart, and went about things with a doggedness which robbed his actions of spontaneity. Marta felt as though she were his daughter, rather than his lover; it was as though he were waiting for her to grow up so that he could let her go. Their being together had turned into an absurd expectation of her future maturity. They built nothing together, they were not even a real couple; he talked a great deal about the idea of the family, but the minute they were alone together all the life went out of him, he seemed to go into a decline; he seemed sad. He assured her that this wasn’t so, it was just that he was slow and careful by nature; but Marta could see that sadness was precisely what it was; or perhaps rather a repressed boredom, which was even worse. Ivan tried to convince himself that being with Marta was doing him good, but his whole nature was nudging him elsewhere. He had always scorched everything around him; he was made to be alone. So now Marta had nobody. Her father and mother were long dead, and she had no other family. This helped her to bear the weight of a life lived out in hiding. Hiding was not a problem, indeed she was quite happy to stay hidden; it spared her the need for choice. She was not vulnerable, there was no one in the outside world whom the police could pursue in order to track her down. At times, when she was sitting with those whom she helped to die, she felt that it was they who were her family: that army of dying people who looked at her with gratitude even as their faces were contorted with pain.

The door was opened by an old woman with unkempt white hair and thick glasses. She stood in front of him without saying a word, her trembling hands pressed to her chest. Perhaps she had been expecting him. Her eyes were red; clearly, she had been crying, and her mouth was half-open, set, as though she were trying to repress further tears. She was wearing an apron over a grey wool dress, and shapeless carpet slippers; one of her stockings had slipped down almost to her ankle. Salazar went into the flat, leaving her at the door. The room at the end of the corridor, where Chiara slept, was now empty. The bed was made up in the double bedroom, though there was only one pillow. The lamps had been plugged in, and the wardrobe was now full of female garments, on coat hangers; old woman’s clothes, long and dark. The panama hat was still there, on a shelf, together with the odd towel. A large half-open suitcase stood in one corner. Salazar realised that this was the home of an elderly widow. Now at last everything made sense. He noticed things that had escaped his attention on his first visit: the yellowing curtains, the knitted bedcover made with scraps of leftover wool, the piles of old newspapers, a rickety table, a peeling mirror in a bamboo frame. He went quickly into the living room and opened the photograph albums. The more recent photos had been removed, but oddly enough their absence left no gaps: if looked at in sequence, these images told another story entirely. All traces of Chiara had vanished. The photos were of other children, nephews and nieces or friends of the lonely couple who had spent their lives going from one oil well to another. Chiara had replaced the old woman for just as long as it took her to bring about her husband’s death. She had pretended to be his daughter, and a devout Catholic, so as to be allowed into the palliative care unit. She had gone to live in the Bonardis’ flat and had the old woman hidden elsewhere; she must belong to a well-organised network if she could afford to arrange such things. Had Chiara herself gone into the hospital during the night, when the unit was under surveillance, or had the job been done by her fellow-conspirators? In that way, Bonardi’s death would not have aroused suspicion. But how had he died? What poison, what weapon was used by the angels of death? Salazar went back into the hallway. The old woman had shuffled quietly after him from room to room; now she was looking at him apprehensively from the kitchen doorway. A pan was boiling on the stove, causing the windows to mist over. The battered formica table was set with a soup plate, a spoon, a glass and a napkin. Salazar could smell the broth. Now he turned and looked at the old woman who was leaning up against the door frame, clearly rigid with fear. With a sudden shudder, he sensed that this house, though full of pain, had been freed of some ghostly presence. He went off without a word. When the automatic light on the stairs went out, a trembling hand on the fourth floor switched it on again.

The hairdresser’s and the beauty salon were barely thirty metres apart. Salazar went in and approached the first assistant available.

‘Excuse me, may I ask you a few questions?’ he said, pointing to his badge. The girl was mixing a dye. Before she could reply, a heavily made-up woman intervened.

‘Can I help you?’ she asked, edging Salazar towards the door. She was chewing gum, and smelled strongly of violets.

‘I’m looking for this woman,’ said Salazar, taking the photo of Chiara Bonardi out of his pocket and edging the woman backwards in his turn.

‘Do you know her? She came to your establishment on 27 February.’ The woman took the photograph and put on the glasses which had been hanging round her neck; she looked at the face for a moment, frowning.