Ettore didn’t intend to do either of these things, but he was pissed off, he’d said it to frighten Palmo and that little bastard. They’d pinched his lorry, Christ almighty! What was he going to tell Bianco?
‘I’m sorry, goombah. Those fuckin’ brats, they’re devils, they are. ’
‘Listen, Yank, I’m not leaving without the rig and the cargo, and I know I’m not going to come out of this looking too great, and neither is my colleague, but first we’re going to have ourselves a bit of fun as well.’
‘Listen, my friend. I’m going to see what I can do. But you’re not to fuck things up. Put your gun away and tell your associate to let the boy go, it won’t do anybody any good, there are too many others around. Otherwise we’ll have the Military Police on to us.’
Ettore looked at him grimly. ‘Don’t you think I know that the police around here see what they want to see? I want the lorry. Without the lorry, there’s going to be a bloodbath.’
Victor Trimane snorted a few times, troubles every fuckin’ day. He adjusted his tie, glanced around and nodded at someone in the crowd around them.
He swapped a few words with a small, thin guy who waved his arms around a lot. First he shook his head, then, with a look of resignation, he appeared to be convinced. As the man walked away, Vic said loudly, ‘Tell him Steve Cement and I will be coming later on. Tell him, Antonio, and be quick about it!’
He turned towards Ettore with a strained smile.
‘My friend, as you can see, we’re going to sort everything out right now. You just wait here and don’t do anything stupid.’
Then he walked over to Palmo, freed the little boy from his grip and sent him on his way with a kick in the arse.
Ettore lit himself another cigarette. He had to wait and hope that things would be ok, that they weren’t pulling a fast one, he and that cretin of a colleague he’d been lumbered with.
Palmo stood next to him, silent and red in the face; he was trembling and still hadn’t put down his rifle.
Ettore handed him a cigarette. ‘Smoke this and put the gun down, quickly.’
An hour later, Antonio reappeared at the wheel of the lorry, among the shouts and yells of a crowd that hadn’t stopped commenting on what had happened.
Ettore felt lighter, but the lorry was lighter too.
Standing by the empty trailer, he looked quizzically at Vic.
Vic shrugged. ‘What the fuck am I supposed to do, my friend? They’re animals, that lot. Poverty turns them into animals. We can’t give them all a job. They won’t even let us work. Listen to me, you got off lightly. You got your rig back, and believe me, you’re lucky there, this lot have dismantled aircraft-carriers, they’ve sold whole American liners. Listen to me: I’ll give you a little compensation. I’ll give you another five cases of cigarettes and one of whisky, so we don’t leave the lorry empty. And you go home happy and with Don Luciano’s blessing. Ok, goombah?’
Ettore looked at the tip of his shoes, with his scorching cigarette between his lips. He just had to play his part, and he’d be ok, because although he was furious he had no other option. The lorry was the basic thing.
He looked up, holding the American’s eyes for a few seconds. He nodded to Palmo, who was still walking around the lorry to check that it was all there.
‘Let’s go.’
They headed back to Bologna, to Bianco.
Chapter 9
Bologna, 22 January
A late-nineteenth-century town house converted into apartments. Via San Mamolo, an affluent district at the foot of the hills. Behind the massive front door, the smell of bourbon-scented tobacco and disjointed fragments of jazz from upstairs.
Pierre bounded up the stairs and found himself right in front of him on the landing, tall and still slim, pipe gripped between his lips and an absorbed expression.
‘Sorry I’m late, professore, my brother wouldn’t leave me alone.’
‘That’s fine, Pierre, catch your breath and make yourself comfortable while your tea cools down.’
Renato Fanti led the way down the corridor. Long and narrow, it led through a glass door to the sitting room. That one room, with its floral-patterned sofa and dark furniture, was about as big as the Capponi brothers’ whole flat. Pierre couldn’t stop admiring the elegant furniture, the embroidered curtains, the library crammed with books, the old upright piano that no one played. On the oval table sat a steaming teapot and raisin biscuits, as they did every Friday.
‘This is Darjeeling, one of the best teas in the world. It’s produced in India, at an altitude of 1,800 metres,’ Fanti explained. Every week, a different variety of tea.
Pierre filled the cups and added a cloud of milk, in the English style. Before the lesson there was always time to catch up with the latest news.
‘Have you read about the Djilas trial? Unbelievable, isn’t it? A month ago they make him president of the Yugoslav parliament, and now they’re dismissing him and throwing him out of the Party.’
‘I don’t read the paper very often, you know. But I’ve heard people talking about it a lot,’ and he pointed behind him at the big and very cumbersome radio. ‘There are strange things happening in Yugoslavia, that’s true. What does your father have to say on the subject?’
‘My father. my father doesn’t say anything. He knows Djilas, as a matter of fact. He might have something to say about it, but I haven’t heard from him for almost a year. He should have dropped us a line at Christmas, but there was nothing.’
Fanti noticed Pierre’s expression. ‘A month’s delay could be down to the post, couldn’t it? Yugoslavia seems close, but you can never tell. That’s why I prefer pigeons.’
‘But you see,’ replied Pierre without looking up, ‘it’s a whole collection of things. The last letter arrived in March, just a few lines, bad news. Then nothing for ten months and now this business about Djilas.’
‘Was your father on his side?’
‘Well, yeah, something like that, although over the past few years he’d got up a few people’s noses. He said he’d been fired, he said people got riled at seeing an Italian getting important jobs to do.’
The professor tamped down the tobacco in his pipe. The flame from his lighter revived the embers, and his lips smacked as he took rapid puffs.
‘Don’t you think he would have come back to Italy if things had got really bad?’
‘Well, you see, things here aren’t that much better, in fact they’re no better at all.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, at the end of the day he’s a “traitor”, you know? On the Yugoslavian front in ’43, he quit the army, he killed an officer and joined the partisans. Here in Italy they’d stick him in jail. At least if he had the Party on his side, he might be able to manage for a few years, but no, he’s a “Tito-Fascist”, as they say, his comrades over here are leaving him there to rot.’
The jazz stopped, and the needle clicked at the end of the record. Fanti got up to turn it over, and after a moment’s hesitation the Count Basie Orchestra started up again. Outside it had started snowing.
‘As to the Party,’ the professor continued, ‘Togliatti and Tito will soon make peace, now that Uncle Joe has gone. This Djilas business demonstrates as much: Tito wants to go back to the Russians, so he’s abandoning everyone who criticised the Soviet Union.’
‘To put it briefly: my father has never been on the right side,’ Pierre observed with a half-smile. He swallowed down his last mouthful of tea. He took from his satchel some pieces of paper and the pen that Angela had given to him. A lick of his finger as he looked for his most recent notes.
‘Here we are.’ Then, in English, ‘We go to the cinema and after we have a drink, I’ve underlined after but I can’t remember why.’