Diego Marani: God's Dog

Looking them in the eye aroused even more revulsion. That is, if you could locate their eyes in the yellow masks of those faces distorted by suffering. But Salazar was a hound of God, and he did not flinch. He learned to recognise them. From 148 to 152. His ‘set of five’, he called them, as in bingo. Inevitably, he also felt compassion for them, though he tried to keep it in check, in order to allow his soul to be totally taken over by suspicion. He must not put his trust in those expressionless faces, those livid hunks of flesh now barely stirring amidst the chill whiteness of the sheets. They were not often awake, so Salazar found himself having to make a tour of the dark rooms more than once. He would pause whenever he caught somebody’s eye. He could not always be certain they had seen him; he would show them the crucifix and sit down by the bed. The ‘conversations’ he had with them were largely silent, conducted by means of signs, brief gestures before they lapsed back into sleep, uttering faint groans which sometimes sounded like strangled laughter. Some tried to talk to him: they spoke of matters of little importance, asking him to move something on the bedside table, to give them a glass of water, which they would not be able to hold, or to look for their slippers under the bed, slippers they had not worn for days or weeks, and which the cleaner had put on the chair when she mopped the floor. Their fear seemed dimmed by some even greater worry which was theirs alone, and which they did not seek to share. In their moments of wakefulness they looked around them as though uncertain where they were, almost irritated by the voices and shadows which distracted them from their calvary. They had work to do, they had no time to spare to listen to pious relatives or cooperate with wretched nurses offering pointless pills.

‘Sister, could you tell me which of these five are still taking medication?’ That evening Salazar had arrived with a bee in his bonnet. He had separated some files out from the rest, and now he put them down on the desk.

‘Let me just check,’ said the sister, turning the computer screen in her direction.

‘I particularly want to know who’s being given morphine,’ he added.

‘All except 148.’

‘Doesn’t he need it?’

‘He’s already been given the regulation amount. It’s a rule. The patients need to bear witness to Christ’s suffering on the cross…’ the nurse explained, as though reciting by rote.

‘Of course,’ murmured Salazar, running a hand thoughtfully through his hair. At that same moment he saw the woman from the evening before, going towards the exit. She was wearing a blue handkerchief tied beneath her chin, with a tuft of fair hair protruding from it on to her forehead. She was a hard-featured woman, with narrow eyes above high cheekbones. She walked with a firm, proud step, as though powered by some secret rage. One hand was in her pocket, the other on the strap of her shoulder bag. Salazar opened the file of patient 148: Marco Bonardi lived at Via Cornelia 327, in Monte Spaccato. He was looked after by his daughter Chiara.

It was he, no. 148, who seemed the most alert. One afternoon Salazar had found him propped up on his elbows, apparently looking out of the window. The nurse came up to lay him down flat on his back again, explaining to Salazar that it was spasms of pain that caused him to adopt that unusual pose. Sometimes he would talk out loud, eyes wide open, but empty, staring out on to the darkness of delirium. Yet every so often it seemed to Salazar that those eyes would flash — in alarm, perhaps — as though he had recognised him as someone he knew. He was the old man who was visited by the woman with the rosary. All in all, Salazar was more suspicious of her than of him. He’d kept a close eye on her, evening after evening. Her grief was somehow too self-assured; too falsely spontaneous, allowing the onlooker to sense a certain calculated detachment even in the way she said her prayers. Nor did the rosary she handled so distractedly look right in her hands: they were fine hands, educated hands, which seemed almost to think when they touched things or tucked that rebellious tuft of fair hair back into her handkerchief. Because he had to start somewhere, the inspector decided to find out more about Chiara Bonardi.

The next evening, the woman seemed to be waiting for him at the vending machine on the ground floor; or at least she didn’t immediately move away when she saw him approaching. She was sipping a cappuccino, warming her hands on the hot plastic beaker. Visiting time was just over. The relatives were filing out, a silent crowd of them thronging the entrance hall with its artificial plants. A smell of cooking wafted along the corridors. Salazar went up to the vending machine, put in a coin and pressed the button for an espresso.

‘Good evening, might I have a word?’

‘By all means.’

‘Our paths crossed some days ago. I am a pilgrim priest. I’m in charge of the patients in the palliative care unit.’

‘I know,’ she said quickly, hiding her mouth behind her beaker.

‘We hold prayer vigils, we help the sisters and give a general hand with the running of the place.’

The woman nodded, a flicker of impatience visible on her face.

‘I know what a pilgrim priest is,’ she said with a strained smile, as though trying to be polite. She looked at the crucifix on Salazar’s jacket.

‘We are also here to help the families. We know that these are difficult times. But life must go on, and there are so many problems. Is there anything that I can do for you? Have you children who need collecting from school? Elderly relatives who need looking after? Anything else that I could do?’

‘No thanks, I have no children. And father has lived alone for many years.’

With the yellow ochre light from the street-lamps filtering in through the glazed doors, the modern building looked more than ever like an industrial hangar.

‘Please, if you’re busy, don’t let me keep you.’

‘No, that’s all right. It’s been a long day, I’m just having a hot drink before going out again. Tomorrow I shan’t have time to come and see my father,’ she said, swallowing the last drop.

‘I hear they’ve stopped giving him morphine,’ Salazar ventured to say.

‘Those are the rules,’ she answered sharply.

‘Is he eating?’

‘He has the odd teaspoonful of water. Then there’s the drip…’

‘It could be a long business…’

‘We are in the hands of God,’ the woman broke in as though she wanted to end the matter. Then she sighed, long and deeply, and started looking around nervously for something in the distance on which she could focus her attention.

‘Perhaps it would be better to let them die…’ said Salazar suggestively, his eyes on the woman’s face. She pressed her lips together and looked quickly back at him.

‘But that’s just what we’re doing, isn’t it?’ she said in a low voice. Then she threw the plastic beaker into the bin, smiled coldly and walked away, knotting her blue handkerchief firmly under her chin. Salazar waited a moment or two before going up the stairs. He looked at his watch: a quarter past seven. He ran up to the first floor, took his coat from the coatrack in the sister’s office and went back down to the entrance hall. He had no difficulty in spotting the blue handkerchief among the other heads walking towards the door. There were few people in the overground station. The train coming from Labaro was already pulling in. Salazar hurried on to the platform and just managed to slip into a carriage at the last minute. Chiara Bonardi was seated a few feet away, with her back to him, staring blankly into the middle distance. The lights of Torrevecchia skittered over the train windows. Beneath the flyover the streets all looked the same, with their rows of red and yellow lights, and the windows of the blocks of flats which the train almost seemed to be running into when the railway curved. Raised shutters revealed kitchens and living rooms, lit televisions, corridors and stairs. Salazar looked idly at the headlines in other people’s newspapers. The river Aniene had burst its banks and flooded the railway at Monte Mario; there was a crush at the station on Via Boccea. Chiara Bonardi was now moving towards the door. Salazar waited for her to get out before doing so himself. He followed her through the puddles of a car park in front of a supermarket, then along a road which ran beside a building site. She then went into a wider street which was better lit, and full of traffic. Salazar followed her at a prudent distance, checking his whereabouts on his handheld sat nav. They were a few hundred metres away from what he knew to be her home address. Via Cornelia was the next on the right. The woman crossed the street, stopped in front of the window of a bar and went towards a low, wide block of flats in the middle of a row of garages. She walked up the steps, stopped to look for her keys in her bag and disappeared into the entrance hall. Salazar waited for a moment before going up to check the bells: Bonardi, fourth floor, staircase B. He looked at his watch: it was eight forty-four.