Day of the Dead (17 page)

Ricciardi considered what the priest had just told him.

“Where do you get the money to keep things going, Padre? I can't imagine that the offerings you get at Mass are sufficient, no?”

Don Antonio spread his arms wide in resignation.

“Don't be ridiculous, those aren't even enough to keep the church clean. We get some funds from the curia, though not much; and then there are the donations from the Ladies of Charity, who also come twice a week to tutor the boys. The gifts that come in, sweets or clothing, don't even pass through my hands. They just divvy them up directly among themselves.”

Ricciardi wanted to get a clearer picture of things.

“And these Ladies of Charity, do they take turns, or are the teachers always the same? And just how many of them are there?”

“If only there were enough of them to be able to take turns. There are two of them, just two. If you'd like to meet them, you can come tomorrow morning: it's Thursday and they'll be teaching. They've been informed of Matteo's death; one in particular was especially close to the child. Let's hope she keeps coming: to lose her would be a tragedy.”

What am I looking for? What the devil am I looking for?

Ricciardi kept asking himself this question on his way home. It was raining, surprise, surprise; and the temperature went on plunging from one hour to the next, as a persistent northern wind buffeted the city.

He didn't know what he was looking for; or rather, he knew but he couldn't accept it.

The Deed: the damned Deed, his curse, his cross to bear, for the first time was persecuting him even without showing itself. In fact, precisely because it had not shown itself. Poor Matteo–or perhaps he should say Tettè, the name they had given him to make fun of his stutter–was dead; that much was certain. And Modo had found traces of strychnine. And today he had even figured out where Tettè might have found it, just a few hundred feet from the step on the staircase where the milkmaid with the nanny goat had found him with his dog.

The dog. All he had to do was think of it and turn to look at the other side of the street and there it was, trotting along, indifferent to the rain. Ricciardi shivered as he realized that the animal materialized whenever he was alone. If only he could interview the dog, maybe that would give him all the information he needed.

His thoughts turned to the little boy. He could almost see him walking through the streets at night, in the rain, in the cold; he imagined the boy talking to the dog with his heart's voice, without stammering, easily and calmly. Tettè, you did have one friend. A friend who knew how to listen to you without needing to hear the actual words.

Cristiano, too, had melted Ricciardi's heart: the loneliness that he'd glimpsed behind the swaggering arrogance, the feigned confidence. The terror in the boy's eyes when the warehouse owner's grip had choked the air out of him. Chil­dren, refusing to grow up and face life.

He too had been a lonely little boy, he thought to himself, feeling the rivulets of rain streaking down his face. But he'd had someone to look after him, and he still did. He smiled in the dark, the sound of his own footsteps accompanying him down the empty street. Dear old Rosa, you've always been there, with your indigestible cooking, with your scent of lavender. Dear old Rosa, you're a warm room, you're fresh bread, you're woolen blankets. Dear old Rosa, I know you'll grumble for an hour when you see me drenched with rain, and you'll run to fetch towels of all sizes, and you'll complain about your aching bones, and predict the same aches and pains for me when I get old. Who knows if I ever will get old?

The Deed and its rules, he thought. And what if that rule simply didn't apply this time? What if Tettè died of fright, before the strychnine had a chance to kill him? Then I wouldn't see him, and I'd be looking for something that doesn't exist. The ghost of a ghost. Searching without finding.

Perhaps what I'm looking for is a reason. Something for myself, not for poor Tettè. He was thinking about this, when he finally glimpsed through the rain the corner of his apartment building, his home. Perhaps I'm looking for the reason that there are children who are dry and warm tonight, and then there are others with chattering teeth who don't even know if they'll find a dry place to spend the night.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw a white coat with brown spots moving in the rain. What do you have to say about it, dog? There are also children in caskets, waiting to be buried. But their memory will endure as long as you're around, dog, as long as you're following me and commanding me to find out why.

In a gesture that had become customary with him, before entering the front door of the building he turned his eyes up to the window of the kitchen of the Colombo apartment, and saw that it was lit up. Have you read my letter,
amore mio
? he thought. What future awaits you and what future awaits me, can you tell me that? Who were we as children, and what children will we become? And will there be children to whom we can promise love and safety? What would our children be like? What would their eyes see?

He brushed aside the wet hair that hung over his forehead, and he started climbing the stairs.

 

Thursday, October 29

 

The first morning of cold weather has a taste and a color unlike any other. Because the cold always comes in the night, when everyone's asleep, and it takes the city by surprise; and because it comes on the wings of the wind.

It comes, changing the taste of the rain, which used to smack of the sea and now tastes of ice, and turns into a shower of needles driving into one's flesh and eyes, replacing the light that was made up of yellow and black with a different light, a light that is gray and uniform.

Everyone gets dressed under the covers, on the first morning of cold weather: and that's the way it will be for the rest of the winter, as everyone twists and turns under the blankets to preserve the night's warmth down to the last gasp, fighting against the flannel nightshirt that gets caught in the sheets, keeping on the underclothes, the knee-length woolen underwear, slipping on the socks with garters, prudently left out the night before within reach of the bed.

Then a rush to the kitchen to wash up in the sink, down the icy hallway, while mothers and wives hurry over with clothing warmed on the stove, envying the lucky few with bathrooms in their apartments, as the line on the landing to use the shared latrine grows longer. Show up late and get ready to wait.

The mothers wake up the children, preparing the fingerless gloves that will leave their fingers freezing but able to write. They'll wash the children, still dazed with sleep, uncovering only the surfaces to be washed, one after another, scrubbing with large chunks of Marseille soap, the same soap they use to do the laundry. The children will pee in the chamber pot, which will then be carefully emptied off the balcony later in the morning, when no one will be passing by below, to keep from obstructing the paths of those who have to go to work even today, on the first morning of cold weather.

The stoves are going full blast this morning. The firewood put aside over the last few days, in preparation for this first chill, is finally being burned. The people warm their hands on them, placing them on the stovepipe, insulated by a piece of wool cloth that fills the apartment with its scent. They rummage through cabinets and drawers in search of the heaviest uniforms to wear in the war against the first cold morning: no one worries about the color or the cut; those are concerns for warm weather, for the first days of spring, for summer swims. Now it's to war, because it's the first morning of cold weather. What's worse, it's raining; so the war starts with the shoes, a wooden sole and an old, orphaned leather upper, patiently nailed on, its original sole lost years ago; and those who have bought a new pair recently luxuriate in their wealth, carefully checking them over, sitting fully dressed on the edge of the bed and minutely observing the tiniest scratch, the slightest imperfection: and if a sign of wear is found, they curse the shoe seller or the incompetent cobbler, completely forgetting how long it's been since they made their purchase, that these have been their “new shoes” for several years now.

The first morning of cold weather, even though it's long been dreaded and awaited, will arrive unexpected; and it will catch the elderly off guard, with new aches and pains, and the certainty that this winter will be their last. The black shawl will be pinned at the neck, the beat-up hat will be worn even indoors, and there will be a new melancholy in their eyes. And it won't be just on account of the weather that a shiver will run up and down their spines.

The first morning of cold weather brings evil thoughts.

Garzo had a presentiment. He'd been feeling this sense of foreboding every morning for a while now, ever since he'd first learned of the Duce's visit.

His presentiment was the product of the nightmares that haunted the deputy police chief's agitated sleep. Each time his imagination gave birth to some new monstrosity, such as His Excellency's arriving ahead of schedule and tumbling down the steps of police headquarters, wet and soapy due to some last-minute mopping, or else the engine of the car conveying him breaking down, so that the Duce finds himself forced to help push the vehicle uphill all the way to City Hall, flanked on either side by hordes of mocking bystanders.

And invariably, when morning rolled around, his alarm clock caught him staring wide-eyed at the ceiling, his heart in his throat, with, in fact, a sinking feeling: something was bound to happen, and it was going to ruin everything.

On his way to the office in a trolley car crowded with wet and sniffling passengers, he decided that actually something good had happened: in one fell swoop, he'd not only gotten rid of the dangerous Ricciardi, who could have represented a problem with his unpredictable proclivity for making trouble, he'd also managed to wangle an invitation to a very exclusive reception at the new home of the widow Vezzi. A single fell swoop, in fact, the work of a master strategist. Still, he couldn't keep himself from feeling that creeping sense of uneasiness, as if something bad were about to happen.

When he got to the office, he'd just hung up his overcoat on a hanger to dry when he heard someone knocking on the door. Ponte stuck his head in with a face that was even more miserable than usual, an envelope in his hand. Garzo took it from him and saw his own name, written with a proliferation of swoops and flourishes. His first thought was of the invitation to the reception, which he'd been expecting any second; then he noticed the elaborate heraldic crest embossed on the stationery. He knew it well, he remembered the endless correspondence that had come and gone during the feverish days of the final negotiations on the Concordat, the Lateran Treaty. It was from the archiepiscopal curia of the city of Naples. The return address was on Largo Donnaregina, not far from the cathedral. He furrowed his brow.

The unpleasant sensation redoubled with every second it took him to get to his desk and take the silver letter opener in his trembling hand. He pulled out the letter and read it. Then he reread it. Then he reread it again. With each rereading, the famous violet patches spread further and further over his face and neck, of that distinctive hue that the staff at police headquarters liked to describe in a whisper as “Garzo-in-a-rage purple.”

He finally staggered to his feet and made his way to the door, threw it open, and shouted into the deserted hallway:

“Maione!”

Climbing Via Santa Teresa, against the wind and the rain, Ricciardi arrived at the parish church. He ironically thought to himself that he'd been to church more often in the past few days than in the previous three years put together.

It was cold that morning, he thought. He didn't mind the cold: he'd grown up in the mountains, and cold weather reminded him a little of home. And experience had taught him that hot weather and sunshine encourage people to go out, to get together, and to feel an array of emotions: love, envy, jealousy. All emotions that served as accelerants for passions and, therefore, for murders.

Cold weather, on the other hand, slowed people's blood: they tended to stay home, hunker down, let time pass. People clung to what they had, no matter how scanty; they became less interested in the possessions of others: money, jewels, clothing, women, husbands. There was less of an urge to go out on the hunt. When the weather was cold, murders tended to go into hibernation. Not all, but some of them.

He reached the sacristy where he found Don Antonio writing, next to a large stove, wearing a scarf around his neck and a woolen hat. He had fingerless gloves on, and he was blowing on the tips of his fingers.

When he saw Ricciardi, he gave him a look of surprise, which kindled the commissario's suspicions: hadn't they set this meeting just the night before?

“
Buon giorno
, Padre. I see you're suffering from the cold.”

The priest surprised him a second time by smiling warmly at him.

“
Caro
Commissario. I hardly expected to see you here this morning, with this dreadful weather: rain and an icy wind—hardly the ideal conditions to come all this way from police headquarters.”

“No, actually I came directly from home and, as you know, I live nearby. Plus I don't especially mind the cold. You'll recall that we agreed that I'd come by to meet the Ladies of Charity and the other boys of the house. It won't take more than a few minutes; I promise not to be a nuisance.”

“Yes, that shouldn't be a problem, I imagine. They're in there having a lesson. Unfortunately, only one of the ladies came today; the younger one, the one I told you was fondest of Tettè, seems not to be feeling well. She's surely grieving over his loss.”

Ricciardi held up his hand to stop the priest, who was just standing up from his chair.