Converging Parallels (3 page)

“Commissario Trotti of the Pubblica Sicurezza.” He bowed and they shook hands. She smiled, and stepping back, folded her arms.

“How can I help you?”

Trotti turned slightly towards the door where the porter stood, one hand holding his cap, the other on the doorknob and a look of unconcealed curiosity on his peasant face. “If we could …”

“Of course.” Her hair was light grey, almost white. “That will be all for the time being, Nino. Grazie.”

The porter left reluctantly.

A smile flitted across her face. “A good man.” She glanced at her desk where several books lay open. “Without being discourteous, Dottore, I shall ask you to be brief.” A hand went to the small pearl placed in the lobe of her ear. “Next week we are closing down for the municipal elections. I have to organize the complete disinfection of the establishment—both before and afterwards.”

“I have to speak with you. In confidence.” He placed a hand
on her arm and noted the fleck of worry in her eyes. “About one of your pupils.”

She looked at his hand on the blue wool of her cardigan. “I am busy.”

“So am I.” He nodded to the desk. “I wouldn’t take up your precious time …” He let the sentence hang. He himself sat down on one of the high-backed chairs, turning it to face the headmistress. “Please understand.”

Behind the headmistress, a crucifix had been attached to the wall; the plastic head of the Christ lolled in pain.

She tapped at the neatness of her bun as she lowered herself into the chair. She crossed her legs and brushed at imaginary dust on the folds of her blue serge dress.

Trotti waited a few seconds. “This is in confidence and I trust that nothing will be repeated outside this room.”

“You talk like a priest.”

“I am a policeman.”

She smiled; she wore no lipstick.

“A child has been kidnapped, signorina.”

A sudden movement of her hand and he had noticed the absence of a ring. The long delicate fingers and the clean nails—no varnish—belonged to the hands of a girl. The skin was white. He wondered how old she was; in her mid-forties, he decided. The grey hair made her appear older; but she still had the living softness that disappears as a woman goes through the change. A few years older, perhaps, than Agnese.

“You are not joking, Commissario?”

“A child’s life may be in danger.”

“One of my children?”

“Anna Ermagni. The daughter of a friend. He used to work with me in the Mezzogiorno. He left the force to become a taxi driver.”

“Kidnapped?”

“She disappeared yesterday afternoon—from the gardens in via Darsena. Her father believes she’s been kidnapped.”

She looked at him, catching his eye and holding it. Her own eyes were hazel. “What do you think?”

“It’s early yet. But Ermagni is not particularly rich—not the sort of person who has enough money to pay a ransom.”

“The mother’s dead.”

“You know Ermagni?”

“A taxi driver?” She nodded. “He came to see me. He was very upset because his wife had just died. I remember it clearly because it was the day they took Moro—a Thursday. School closed down and I was alone here. He phoned, insisting that he saw me. A strange man. From the hills; he’d married a local girl. The parents have a bar in Corso Garibaldi.”

“The San Siro.”

“She died in the hospital. The doctors diagnosed cancer but it wasn’t certain.”

“You knew her?”

“The mother? No, I never met her.”

“Why did Ermagni come to visit you?”

“He was upset—there was no precise reason for him to see me.” She lifted her shoulders. “He said he was concerned about Anna. I don’t think he really wanted anything; he just wanted to come to the school and speak with me. It was all rather strange. That morning Moro had been kidnapped in Rome—his bodyguards killed in cold blood—and I couldn’t help feeling that something terrible was going to happen. I don’t know, the atmosphere, the complete shock. Nino had heard the news on the radio and had come running in, quite white.” She shook her head. “I was sure there was going to be a coup. Now it sounds rather silly; we’ve grown used to the Red Brigades and their threats, their communiqués. But at the time—just seven weeks ago—it was weird. The horror; those poor men assassinated in daylight.” She gave him another glance of her hazel eyes. “We are both of the same generation, you and I. We’ve been through the war—which for us Italians was a civil war. I felt when Nino came rushing through the door … I felt it was as though everything that Italy’s built up over these last thirty years was just crumbling apart. The end to everything.”

“A lot of us felt that way.”

“Ermagni didn’t seem to care. He insisted all he wanted to talk about was his daughter.”

She stopped and looked out of the window. In the distance, the dome of the cathedral glinted greyly through the rain.

“He said that he was worried about his daughter. Too timid, he said; too timid towards her own father and too reserved. Reserved—that was the word he used. I tried to tell him he had nothing to worry about, that shyness was quite normal in a girl of her age. He wanted to be reassured but he wouldn’t let himself. Perhaps he felt guilty—I don’t know. He said that she had always been very close to her mother—the marriage was not very successful, I gather. He felt that Anna had become a stranger now that she was living with her grandmother. He said that he couldn’t talk to his own daughter—that she was drawing further and further away from him. And he said that the grandparents were making things worse.”

“He doesn’t get on well with them.”

“They had always hoped their daughter would marry a professional person. Apparently she had been to university. Ermagni is not particularly well-educated. It doesn’t require much—excuse me—to be appuntato with the PS.”

“He is not stupid, either.” A pause. “What did you tell him?”

“About his daughter?”

“Yes.”

“Commissario, I never had children of my own.” The hint of a sigh as the cardigan lifted slightly. “I did not marry not because I didn’t want to.” She looked at the fingers of her left hand. “There are other reasons that I need not bore you with. However, I have been in this school for twenty years and I have been teaching for twenty-seven. In twenty-seven years, you learn a lot about children—and adults, too. And one of the most important lessons that I have learned is that you cannot change people. You can help them, you can advise them—but you cannot change them if they themselves do not want to change. Change people, force them to be different, to be not what they are but what we want them to be—that is Fascist philosophy, Fascist thinking. And I hope that you and I have had enough of that.”

“You told Ermagni that?”

She smiled, showing brilliant, even teeth. The corners of the hazel eyes wrinkled. “I didn’t talk about Fascism, if that’s what you think. A man who has just lost his wife and who feels that his daughter is drawing away from him—or being drawn away—is not the sort of person who cares about politics. Who comes to visit me on perhaps the blackest day in this country’s history. Fascism was uppermost in my mind. I was convinced that we were about to see the end of the Republic that day, and that the Fascist elements—they call themselves Red Brigades, but of course, they are Fascists, they think and act like Fascists—were bringing about the end of this fragile, lopsided freedom. But what would Ermagni care?”

“What did you say?”

“That there were two possibilities. Either Anna would grow out of her shyness in time. That he had to show her affection, show her that he was her father and that he loved her.”

“He is affectionate by nature.”

“And that if that didn’t work, quite simply she must be naturally shy and that there was nothing he nor I nor anybody else could do about that. Children are like flowers, Commissario—yes, I would have liked to have children of my own—and you can water them or you can starve them.” She glanced briefly at the potted plants along the sill; rain fell on the large green leaves. “There was no question of Anna being starved. I don’t know her particularly well—unfortunately I get less and less time to teach because of all the administrative work—but I know that she is happy in a happy school. We’ve got our problems, but we are happy here. And I know that she has a father who loves her, grandparents who care for her.”

“She lives with the grandparents?”

“Even before the mother’s death she spent a lot of time with her grandmother. The father works long hours—he’s on night work—and he comes home at irregular hours. Towards the end, the mother was in the hospital a lot of the time. She was very ill.” Signorina Belloni looked again at her long hands. “Believe me, there are a lot of children who have both a mother and father and who are
not as lucky as Anna. I sometimes catch sight of her in the courtyard. She doesn’t smile a lot but she plays normally with the other children. She is a serious child. And particularly pretty.”

“Perhaps that’s why she’s disappeared.”

The headmistress looked at Trotti. “I don’t think so. It is very unlikely that she would go off with a stranger. You think she was picked up by a man, don’t you? A child molester? Unlikely. She is a shy girl—at that age a lot of children are. I think it is much more likely that there is a misunderstanding. Perhaps she has gone with some friends—or an aunt. It happens. You know, people often think that children are innocent and that they don’t understand the dangers that surround them.” She smiled faintly. “At that age, the world can be a very frightening place.”

“Ermagni tells me that apart from the grandparents, there are no very close relatives.”

“Friends?”

“He works too hard to have many friends. At one time, perhaps, I was his closest friend. I’m the child’s godfather.”

“If Anna really has disappeared, Commissario, I think you must assume she’s been taken under duress.” Again the hazel eyes turned away to stare across the roofs. “I believe she’s with somebody she knows well.”

“You have known cases of kidnapping, signorina?”

Irony plucked at the thin eyebrows. “This is a quiet, law-abiding city—with no crimes more heinous than tax evasion. And a lot of adultery.”

“You don’t live here?”

She blushed. “I’m not quite sure what you mean by that.” A light, almost girlish laugh. Trotti wondered why she had never married, and why she should talk about adultery. “I live here and have lived here for the last twenty years. But I am from Milan—from the big city up the road—and I still remain an outsider. This is a very provincial place, as I am sure you know.” Her fingers touched the
Provincia Padana
that lay folded on her desk. “The violence, the kidnapping, the senseless murder which has become the trademark of Italy over these last nine years—our only growth industry—has somehow bypassed this provincial backwater. A
provincial city, with all the faults of provincial complacency and petty-mindedness. But with the great virtue of peace.”

“There are riots.”

“We have a large university, Commissario. Sometimes the students get excited, they spray the walls with their philosophy, they even throw stones through the windows. But it’s nothing very serious. They are unhappy about their rents or the quality of the spaghetti in their colleges. It’s the fashion and they are young. But this is a human city, where people are people and not merely statistics.”

“We have our problems.”

“There are problems everywhere. That is why I feel Paradise must be a very dull place—not that Paradise concerns me. Here there are not the immigrants that you have in Milan or Genoa or Turin. There’s no heavy industry—just the textile factory and another that produces sewing machines. We have been fortunate. The Italian miracle that has changed so many cities into industrial ghettos has bypassed us. Perhaps we should thank our mayor.”

“He is a Communist.”

“You don’t approve, Dottore?”

“I try not to get involved in politics.”

“You must have your opinions.”

“I keep them to myself.”

“Yet you want mine?” The smile had hardened.

Trotti lowered his head in apology. “I am being rude. I beg your pardon.”

“Not rude, Commissario. You are being cold.”

“A professional risk, signorina.”

“As a policeman, can’t you admit that our mayor Mariani has done a lot for the city?”

“Perhaps.”

“He has kept it small. He has prevented the big industries from stepping in, taking over the small factories and transforming them into industrial complexes. We have no sprawling suburbs, row upon row of box-like tenements that you will find everywhere else. No colonies of Sicilians and Calabrians brought north to work like animals on the production lines. The mayor has done a lot to keep
the artisans and the small shopkeepers in work. And in doing so, he has managed to preserve this city as it was twenty years ago. Our river is not polluted. Where else in Italy can children swim in a river without poisoning themselves? You’re a policeman, you must know the statistics better than I do. Where else can a woman go down the streets at night without fear of attack? Where else can she do her shopping without being afraid that teenage gangsters on motorbikes will snatch her purse?”

“You don’t think it is a maniac that has taken Anna?”

She frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“A maniac, a child molester. You don’t think that Anna has been kidnapped—not in this old-fashioned, crime-free city?”

“I know of only one case of child rape,” she said rather coldly. “And that was a couple of years ago.” She spoke in a flat, dull tone. Trotti felt that he had annoyed her.

“In this school?”

“On the other side of the river, in Borgo Genovese. A twelve-year-old girl was made pregnant. She was mentally deficient.”

“Raped?”

“Every evening. By her two brothers.”

The phone suddenly rang and for the next two minutes, the headmistress spoke into the mouthpiece. From time to time, her thin fingers pushed at the grey hair of the bun. Trotti stood up and went to the window. He looked out on the damp concrete courtyard. The fountain still spurted mournfully. Children in uniform were streaming out of a classroom, their cheerful shouting dulled by the windowpane. They wore black overalls and white cardboard cravats.