The Girl with the Crystal Eyes (8 page)

    Gradually,
the daylight changes in its intensity. The light is like the ticking of a
clock.

    It's
strange how humdrum life can be as it flows past.

    Sometimes
it's as if you're going through life without really realising it's you that's living
it, but then, in an instant, all of a sudden, everything changes.

    Everything
is now bathed in a blue light. Eva is walking quickly under the arches of the
arcades. The arches steal your memories, they transform them, they stretch them
in the same way they have stretched a straight line to make it into a dome. The
domes of the arcades look skywards 'with their noses turned up': that's what
her grandfather had said when she was little and they had taken a trip to
Bologna.

    She
starts walking again, with her head down, hands in the pockets of her black
fleece. She has her hood up too, but it lets her rebellious blonde curls
escape.

    She
looks at the boots she always wears. They're a sort of heavy talisman, keeping
her feet firmly on the ground, attached to the floor. Without them she would
daydream far too much. She isn't a practical person. The teachers always told
her that at school.

    She
feels better. She feels reborn.

    The
baby girl of a sad woman who passed on her unhappiness even as she gave birth,
and because of that Eva finds it difficult to smile. But now she's aware of
something new deep in her heart. It's as if she's entering the world afresh,
conscious of being able to do anything, of having risked everything and started
again.

    She
can now see her block of flats in the distance. As she runs across the road,
she spots a group of children who are laughing and shouting. And then she
realises she's afraid.

    Has
the pathologist been yet?'

    'Yes,
Inspector. He says the man died between four and five,' answers Tommasi, clearly
shaken by the early-morning sight of a corpse with its head smashed in, the
body then abandoned among the rubbish in the University district.

    'Cause
of death?'

    'His
skull was split open. He was hit with force, with a stick perhaps. No trace of
the weapon.'

    Inspector
Marconi paces irritably backwards and forwards. He is thinking, hard.

    He
approaches the body and lifts the white sheet for a moment. He studies the
corpse.

    He
always looks at the expressions on the faces of the dead. You can understand so
much by looking at them. He's sure of that.

    'Move
the body, if they've finished taking the photos. Fuck, this place is full of
students. Who got here first?'

    'Two
men from the flying squad. One of them is that short guy leaning on the
railing.'

    The
inspector walks towards Officer Gutuso - 'the Moor', as his colleagues call him
- who is still staring at the white sheet covering the body. Muddy, brown
loafers stick out from under the sheet.

    He's staring
because he's never seen a real dead body before, and now he can't take his eyes
off it.

    'Did
you notice anything strange this morning, when you arrived?' Marconi tries to
make eye contact with the officer, who is still looking unflinchingly at the
dead man's shoes.

    Gutuso
is wishing that he hadn't been on duty earlier that morning. He'd rather have
been in bed, especially now that he's finally found himself a girlfriend. And
he wishes he hadn't seen him, the dead man. He thinks perhaps he'll see that
same image in his dreams now, every night.

    Then
he frowns and nods. 'To tell the truth, yes. Something strange by the side of
the body - a lollipop.'

    'A
lollipop?' Marconi repeats, astonished.

    'Yes,
strawberry,' adds the policeman. 'Still new - in its wrapper, I mean. It was
propped up by the body, and he seemed to be looking at it… I mean, obviously he
couldn't really have been looking at it, since he was dead.'

    
'Obviously
,'
Marconi interrupts, slightly irritated. 'But how come no one saw or heard
anything?' he adds, raising his voice. 'Who called you, anyway?'

    'An
anonymous phone call. A man. Could've been a traveller. Sometimes they sleep
here. This is where they hang out,' said the other man from the flying squad.

    'Tommasi,
go and get all the info you can. Ring doorbells; ask everyone who lives around
here if they heard anything. See if you can find one of these travellers.
Promise them a beer, if you have to. Go on now. I'll expect you in my office in
an hour.'

    Tommasi's
a good officer, the inspector thinks to himself. He does what he's told without
asking too many questions, he's bright and he doesn't say much. Marconi likes
people who don't say much.

    He
goes into a nearby cafe. It's a small room with just enough space to stand at
the counter, and with one small table with two chairs by the window.

    'An
espresso.' He orders in a tone that's rather too authoritative, causing the
waiter give him a surly look. As he drinks it, he thinks about the strawberry
lollipop. It's months now since he last had a good fuck; he can barely remember
what a woman looks like.

    Last
time was with that Sabrina, one of his sister's friends - the one who's a bit
of a slag and who had always wanted him. That evening he had met her in front
of the gym when he'd come off duty and was heading home and he had given her a
lift. She hadn't stopped looking at him while he was driving, and every now and
then he had glanced briefly at her shapely thighs, squeezed into those ugly
American, tan tights that made her look like a peasant. Or, rather, like
someone's aunt.

    Then
she had invited him in, and he'd followed her without really wanting to, almost
without thinking.

    She
was there in front of him, getting undressed, while she told him that she had
always liked him, and that thinking about him going round with a gun had always
excited her.

    He
had done his duty as a man, but it was a by-the- numbers performance, the sort
you try to forget as soon as possible.

    The
coffee is extremely bitter - the
barista
getting his revenge? Now he's
drying up cups and humming along to a song by Lucio Dalla that's playing on the
radio.

    'Excuse
me, when did you close yesterday evening?' Marconi puts a Euro down on the
wooden counter.

    'What's
it to you?'

    'It's
because of the dead man,' says Marconi and indicates a vague point somewhere
outside the door, where the dead man lies, covered by the white sheet.

    'Ah,
you're a cop, that's it.'

    
That's
it. What does 'that's it' mean?

    'Ten
o'clock, as always. And I didn't see or hear anything.' He goes back to the
cups, and to the song.

    Marconi
decides to walk back to the police station. He enjoys walking: it helps him to
think as well as relaxing him. It's a way of taking a moment just for himself,
without having to explain to anyone what he's doing. He'd never be able to
think things through at his desk, because it would feel like he was wasting
time. Inactivity drives him mad; he has to be moving all the time.

    A
half-open door attracts his attention. He stops for an instant and can just
make out, in an ivy frame, a statue of a naked girl covering herself with a
hand resting lightly on her breast. She gazes out into the silence that surrounds
her.

    Someone
has imprisoned her beauty within the marble, as an image of eternal youth. Her
features will never change; she will never fall in love with another man; she
will never run off to lead her own life; she will stay there.

    Forever.

    Viola
lets the water run over her. She plays with the scalding hot jet of the shower.

    The
rivulets of water follow the soft curves of her body.

    She
has taken the shower head from the wall, and now directs the jet of water to
massage her body. The soles of her feet, then her hips, between her legs. Her delicate
skin looks red. She likes it like that. She likes things that hurt a bit.

    The
same goes for when she makes love with Marco.

    He is
an animal. Not much foreplay - often he enters her straight away. He doesn't
wait for her to get aroused.

    And
it hurts.

    It
hurts a bit - the way she likes it.

    They
argued again today. He went out and said he wouldn't be back for dinner and
that she shouldn't waif up for him.

    She
cried first, and now she's burning herself with a scalding shower.

    She
wishes she didn't have to depart the white cloud of steam that surrounds her
and protects her.

    She
decides to try out her water mantra.

    
Water
- wash everything away. Wash it away and don't let me think. Make me new,
without any worries, so I can be born again and be a princess.

    It
used to work when she was a girl, her magic water spell, but not now. Water
never washes the hurt away. The hurt is too dark and too intense.

    The
dream has stopped persecuting her.

    But
this is when she feels even more frightened.

    She
steps out of the crystal box of the shower, resting her dripping foot on a pink
slipper. She grabs the towel and then goes back inside. It's too cold out
there.

    She
dries herself carefully. Then she opens the door of the shower, feels instantly
the difference in temperature and gets used to it slowly, letting the warm air
and the cold air mix. The heat and the cold dance around each other, and
entwine until they become one.

    She
stands on her slippers and, without putting them on properly, slides over to
the mirror.

    She
has to go; she knows that.

    She
dresses in black. Her hair is wet but she doesn't feel like drying it. She
opens the draw with Marco's work clothes and takes out his woollen beret. The
one she knitted for him, the one with the pompom on top that looks like a
panda's tail. It was a Christmas present.

    She
puts it on. Before going out, she decides to hide the gleam in her eyes behind
a black line. She puts make-up on above and below her eyelids, with a quick
flick of her wrist.

    Now
her eyes seem less scared; they have gained a more definite outline. Even her
eyes wear their own form of protection - like her body in jumpers that are too
large for her, or her nails under their layer of transparent polish.

    But
it's superficial: only a semblance of protection. She is aware of that.

    She
fetches her house keys and then a packet of tissues. She pulls out two and puts
them in her pocket.

    She
never allows herself to cry more than two tissues' worth at a time.

    She
goes out of the house: a small, short building behind the engineering faculty.

    A few
steps and she's at the bus stop.

    She
sits down and waits. She can't put it off any longer.

    So, one
blow to the head which splattered his brains out. No sign of a struggle. No one
heard anything. So there wasn't a fight or an argument. Nothing.'

    'Just
like before, the victim didn't expect it,' says Marconi.

    'What
do you mean, like before?' Frolli is always suspicious. Someone who always asks
What am I missing?

    'Two
murders in two weeks. In both cases one blow, a dead man, no struggle. In both
cases a memento beside the body. The first time the carefully placed razor,
wiped clean and closed. The second time the lollipop.'

    'Do
you mean it's the same murderer?
^?