Poisonville (3 page)

Silence. “I see,” he said after a while. “Is Giovanna with you?”

“No.”

“Her colleagues from the law office and the secretaries organized a surprise party for her, before the wedding. You know, the sort of thing they do in law firms in Milan. But she didn’t show up, and no one knows where she is. They were upset, they wanted to give her presents.”

That was typical of Giovanna. She’d vanish from time to time, forgetting to tell other people about it, and with just a few days to go before the wedding, she must be busy taking care of the last few details. She was a real perfectionist, born under Virgo, as she liked to point out.

I walked over to my law office, from my apartment in the center of town. As always, I stopped for a moment in front of my father’s law office, and studied the gleaming bronze plaque. Beneath his name—Avvocato Antonio Visentin—stretched the imposing list of his underlings. The fourth name was hers: Giovanna Barovier. Papa had taken her on as an intern, as a favor to me. Like Selvaggia, at first he was opposed to our relationship, but then he had understood that I was in love with her, and that Giovanna was better than her father’s soiled reputation. Once we were married, I’d join his law firm too, and there would be a new brass plate on the firm’s front door, with my name underneath my father’s. Until that day, he wanted me to run my own practice, he wanted me to make ends meet with no help from him. He didn’t want anyone to think that he’d made me a partner just because I was his son. It didn’t matter that that’s exactly what all the other lawyers in the area had done for their sons, without a second thought. Not him. He was the finest, the best-known, the most respected lawyer in town. He often said that the children of the leading families were softies, incapable of running the companies their parents had struggled to build. Even if he had never uttered his name, I knew that he was thinking of Filippo in particular. My father had put me through a tough and demanding apprenticeship. I took my degree in law at the University of Padua, and then I moved to Milan to work as an intern. After that, I opened a law office of my own in town. I struggled to build up my own list of clients, though hardly an impressive one. The most desirable clients, the ones with money, were all his. More than once, I had found myself battling his paralegals and junior lawyers, and Papa was always there, sitting in the audience, to see how I did. I would turn my back to him, but I knew he was there; I could feel his eyes on me. And I always attended his hearings. Papa really was the best. He almost never raised his voice, the way most of the old windbags did who practiced law in our town, but when he stood up and adjusted his lawyer’s robes before beginning his summation, a respectful silence would fall over the courtroom; he’d draw that silence out as long as possible, and then he’d break into it with his actorly voice, a voice that all his colleagues envied. My mother used to say that he looked like Jimmy Stewart. Not only physically, and in his gentle and slightly melancholy gaze, but also in his confident, unflappable movements.

Just a week earlier, Papa had made the announcement: I was ready for the big time. At last, he would take me in as a partner. I was deeply moved.

He wrapped his arms around me. “You’ve done good work, Francesco. You’ve earned this.”

I certainly had earned it. From the day I took my law degree, I’d worked hard to get my name on that plaque; I had specialized in corporate law so that I could become legal counsel to my father’s most important client, the Torrefranchi Foundation. The foundation had been created as a cultural entity, but once the Northeast had become the locomotive of the Italian economy, it had been transformed into a formidable consortium of corporations, capable of undertaking ventures in every field of business, and doing deals with anyone. Its unquestioned chief executive was Selvaggia, the Contessa.

Selvaggia had been born into a family of farmers, but she had succeeded in marrying the only aristocrat in the district: the Conte Giannino, who was a couple of decades older than her. Before she was married, her first name was Fausta—her maiden surname was Tonon—but she had promptly changed Fausta to the much more chic name of Selvaggia when the count asked her to marry him. She was canny, and she had a sharp business sense. After her husband died, she invested the money he had left her in successful business operations, bringing most of the area’s manufacturers into various partnerships with her. And the legal brains behind it all had always been Papa. He had made the Contessa’s dreams possible, and he had reached out to all those people who could help to shore up the Foundation’s image and power at a local level: politicians, artists, intellectuals, judges, and even a few high-ranking men of the cloth.

And that was where I would practice law. After years of hard work, I could finally savor the fruits of success. I’d become a respected lawyer, a powerful man, in town and throughout the region. Just like my father. My life was already planned out, engraved in golden letters. I was a Visentin. And I was about to marry the most beautiful girl in town.

Standing outside the door of my law office was my first client of the day. I had no secretary, so he had waited for me in the street. He was a turkey farmer, heavyset, about sixty years old. He spoke only in dialect. As I was showing him into the office, he explained that near his farm some young people had held a “rave”—he read the word haltingly from a note that his grandson had written out for him—and his turkeys, terrified by the pounding music, had stampeded against their pen, crushing one another in panic. Nearly all the turkeys had been killed. He wanted thirty thousand euros in damages. It was a relatively minor case, and one I was by no means likely to win. Still, you never refuse a paying client without a good reason. After talking it over, we shook hands and the turkey farmer, clearly satisfied, left the office. On his way out, he confided that he had heard good things about me at the tavern.

My second client that morning was a woman I knew from high school. She wanted me to represent her in a divorce case. I knew her husband, too. When we were in boarding school, we had played on the same volleyball team for a few seasons.

“Why don’t you ask Giovanna to take your case?” I asked her. “She has more experience in this area.”

“My husband has already hired a lawyer from your father’s law office.”

“Then I’m sorry, I can’t help you. When I get back from my honeymoon I’m going to start working there, too.”

I recommended that she go to another lawyer, and she congratulated me on my upcoming wedding, unable to conceal a hint of envy.

A short while later, I received a phone call from Carla, Giovanna’s best friend and her maid of honor at our wedding.

“I can’t find her anywhere,” she told me.

“She hasn’t even gone into the law office. She must be busy driving the seamstress crazy, or maybe the florist. You know how Giovanna can be.”

“We were at the seamstress’s shop yesterday,” she told me. Then she fell silent for a few moments. Finally, embarrassed and hesitant, she asked if Giovanna had spoken to me.

“About what?”

“I’m not really sure. I only know that it was important. Very important.”

“Important how? I don’t follow you.”

Carla wouldn’t say anything more; she hung up with a muttered goodbye. She had recently moved back to town after a long period living and working in southern Italy, in Campania. She had taken her college degree in biology, and had moved to Caserta with a classmate from the university. Then he broke up with her, and Giovanna had helped Carla find a job back in town, at the local health board. At least, that’s what my fiancée had told me. I didn’t know Carla very well. I knew that Giovanna and Carla had been close friends since they were little girls, and had stayed in touch ever since. I had never had such a close friend. I knew everyone in town, I spent lots of time at the country club and the café in the town piazza when it was time for aperitifs. I chatted about this and that with lots of different people, I went to parties, but I was a Visentin, in some sense on a higher, unattainable plane from ordinary people. Even as a child, I had lived with a sense of privilege, which had always obliged other people—young and old—to think of me as different from them. Back then, there was none of the widespread prosperity of the present day; social distinctions were more sharply drawn. Still, though, even now that lots of people own villas with extensive grounds and beautiful swimming pools and drive Mercedes, BMWs, and Ferraris, I continue to sense that time-honored respect for my family. My mother had done her best to persuade me to become best friends with Filippo, but we’d never liked each other much, even when we were still in short pants. I’d met lots and lots of other boys like him at the boarding school where I lived for the five years of high school. I’d had a good time, but I’d never really established any solid friendships. Things were different at university, but by then it was too late. I realized that I was no longer open to or interested in anything deeper than a passing acquaintance. I divided the world into the likable and the obnoxious. It was the same with girls. I had had plenty of girls, and I had no special memories of my time with them. Sex, affection, a certain period of fun and enjoyment, and then a tactful conclusion, no hard feelings, as my social position required. Then I met Giovanna and everything changed. With her I had plunged into an ocean of feelings and sensations that I was unable to understand in rational terms. Giovanna was my woman, my lover, and my best friend. She was my whole life. And I was happy in a way that I had not experienced since my mother died. Everything seemed perfect. My world, my future.

I walked home, pulled my car out of the garage, and drove over to Giovanna’s house. It was foggy, as usual.

My fiancée lived in a little town house on the outskirts of town. When we got back from our honeymoon, she would come to live with me. My house was a perfect modernist architectural gem, carved out of a venerable old 2,500-square-foot building. My father had spent a fortune to restore the original wooden roof beams that ran the length of the ceiling, and to uncover sections of wall built by Venetian masons in the sixteenth century. Her house, in contrast, was comfortable and attractive, but otherwise unremarkable. And I liked living in the center of town, just a short walk from the piazza, in the heart of town, where things were hopping. Where everything was just a short walk away.

Giovanna’s red Mazda was parked in the yard. As I got out, I noticed that her wheels were caked with mud. I shook my head and smiled. Giovanna loved to drive out into the countryside, where she bought salamis and fresh eggs from farmers she knew. And she had put together a sizable network of suppliers for fresh farm products.

I rang the bell, but there was no answer. I pulled my set of keys out of my overcoat pocket and unlocked the door.

“Giovanna, my love! Where are you?”

The house was silent. I continued calling her name. I climbed up the stairs that led to the bedroom.

I walked over to the big canopy bed, and drew the curtains aside, but it was empty. Then I walked into the bathroom. The first thing I saw was her leg, dangling over the side of the bathtub.

I took three urgent steps, and looked down into her wide-open eyes, staring at me through the still water.

“Giovanna,” I whispered.

“Giovanna!” I shouted, an instant later.

I cradled her in my arms until the ambulance arrived. Expert hands took her away from me; I stood watching, awaiting a verdict that came as no surprise.

“I’m sorry, the patient is dead.”

I nodded without speaking, numb, inert.

A medical technician helped me take off my overcoat and jacket, both drenched with bathwater, and guided me gently downstairs.

From the living room, I could hear a voice calling the Carabinieri.

Three of them arrived a little later. Sergeant Mele and two young Carabinieri I had never seen before. I had known the inspector all my life. He arrived in town with the rank of corporal and then he had worked his way up, spending the rest of his career here. He walked over to the sofa where I was sitting and placed a hand firmly on my shoulder. I felt his fingers squeeze my shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he said, in a low voice.

Then he climbed the stairs. He came back a few minutes later. With a fatherly tone of voice, he pulled words out of me one by one, but it was painful to relive the experience of discovering Giovanna’s corpse.

“I have to call the investigating magistrate and the medical examiner so they can take a look at things. You know how these things work.”

Sure, I knew, and I didn’t say a word. Giovanna was dead. Then and there, I didn’t care much how it had happened. It could have been an aneurysm, a heart attack. What did it matter? Giovanna was gone. Mele went out into the yard to make his phone calls. It couldn’t have been later than two in the afternoon, but it was practically dark already, the fog had gotten heavier and had turned ash grey.

My father came running into the room. He saw me and hurled himself against me, his arms wrapped tight around me, his chest heaving with sobs. I thought to myself that the last time I’d seen him like this was at my mother’s funeral.

“How awful, Francesco. I can’t believe it.”

“Take him home,” Mele told him, draping over my shoulders a blanket he had picked up from an easy chair. Giovanna’s scent wafted up from the cover; I hugged it to my body like a second skin. It was her favorite blanket. In the winter, she’d curl up in her armchair, wrapped in that sky-blue cashmere blanket.

Papa helped me into his Jaguar. “I’ll take you to the villa.”

“No. I want to go home. I need to be alone.”

Outside of my house, he held one of my hands in both of his. “I’m sorry your mother can’t be here right now. She would have known the words to comfort you.”

My mother. The most important women in my life were both dead. I was crushed by a collapsing wall of grief. I wished I could pass out, plunge into unconsciousness, but I felt strangely lucid.

“Can you tell Prunella?” I asked.