‘Anyway, you’re not the only ones who can be a little crazy. It’s just that up here in the north we don’t make empty threats.’
Rodolfo went back to the sofa and opened Andrea de Jorio’s La mimica degli antichi investigata nel gestire napoletano at the illustration he had been examining earlier, marvelling at the quality and detail of the engraving.
‘Meaning what?’ he muttered through a long yawn.
‘Meaning this evening’s service of tribute down at the stadium.’
‘You speak in riddles.’
Vincenzo laughed scornfully.
‘If you ever got your head out of the library and into the real world, you’d know the answer.’
‘Unfortunately I’m not a spoilt brat like you, Vincenzo. I can’t afford to play at being the eternal student. My father has spent a lot of money sending me up here to get a degree. He naturally expects to see some return on that investment.’
And is going to be shattered and furious when he finds out that I have pissed it away, he thought.
‘All that interpretation shit you study with Ugo?’ Vincenzo retorted. ‘Well, interpret this! Someone killed Lorenzo Curti because he bought our team, with all its glorious history, for a song, then let all the best players go and was too cheap to get replacements. He’s been screwing us over for years, and last night he paid the price.’
‘They said on TV it was probably to do with his business dealings.’
Vincenzo shrugged impatiently.
‘What do those jerks know? Anyway, the important thing is the bastard’s dead, and there isn’t a true-hearted Bologna fan who isn’t totally over the moon. So of course we’re all going along to this memorial thing they’re putting on, only-get this!-we’re going to laugh all the way through it. Sure, I’m a little stoned. The others will be too. We won’t do anything outrageous, but up there in the stands we’ll be holding our own private commemorative service. And I promise you, the tone will be rather different from the official one down on the pitch. So give me that jacket of mine you stole.’
Rodolfo retrieved the battered, black leather garment and handed it to Vincenzo, who stomped out of the apartment without another word, slamming the front door behind him.
Blissfully solitary once more, Rodolfo took one last lingering look at the Disprezzo engraving that he had scanned and downloaded-using the university’s state-of-the-art technical facilities-and then forwarded to Professor Ugo. Knowledge of his email address and mobile phone number was another of the privileges that Ugo made available to graduate students.
Not that Rodolfo was one any more. His tutor had made it very clear that he had been barred from attending the seminar course and stood no chance of receiving his final degree, although like any other member of the public he was at perfect liberty to attend the professor’s celebrated weekly lectures, the next of which was tomorrow. Rodolfo smiled reflectively. Maybe he would go along and hold his own ‘private commemorative service’, just like Vincenzo and the rest of the yobs at the stadium tonight. Nothing outrageous, as Vincenzo had put it, but he might put in an appearance. He’d have to go back to the uni soon anyway, if only to return the Andrea de Jorio book and all the others that he had borrowed over the past months, most of which were long overdue.
He walked through to his bedroom and was scanning the shelves for the necessary titles when the phone rang.
‘It’s your old dad, Rodolfo. Just my usual weekly call. Like to keep in touch, you know.’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘So how are things?’
‘Fine, dad. Fine.’
‘Wish I could say the same.’
‘What’s happened?’
‘Oh, nothing really.’
The voice paused.
‘At least, nothing I want to talk about over the phone. You understand?’
‘What’s happened?’
The resulting silence was finally broken by a bitter guffaw.
‘What do they teach you up there at the university?’ his father mused quietly, as though to himself. ‘You know nothing. Less than you did when you were ten. Five, even. Nothing, nothing…’
The voice died away.
‘I know a few things,’ Rodolfo replied truculently, hoping that he wouldn’t be asked to provide an example.
But now his father sounded contrite.
‘Of course you do, of course. You’re very learned, I’m sure. You must forgive me, it’s just…’
‘What, dad?’
‘Nothing. Just keep talking, that calms me. It’s probably just that I’ve been overworking.’
‘On what?’
‘Oh, it doesn’t matter.’
‘Tell me!’
‘Well, we’ve been rebuilding a retaining wall on a bend in the road up past Monte Iacovizzo, up there in the Gargano. It’s in the national park, so we have to use the original granite blocks. An absolute bitch. We’ve been there all month, and we’re not done yet. It’s going to be way over budget, but it’s for the government so of course there’s no problem about cost overruns.’
Silence fell.
‘What’s a retaining wall?’ asked Rodolfo artlessly.
His father laughed harshly.
‘Don’t pretend you give a damn!’
‘I do.’
Another long silence.
‘Well,’ his father began hesitantly, as though still suspicious of a trap, ‘basically they support unstable ground. And they’re always problematic, especially old ones like the one we’re mending.’
‘Why?’
‘Because they defy the laws of gravity and of soil mechanics. There are so many ways they can fail.’
‘Such as what?’
‘Sliding, foundation failure, you name it. Overturning is the most common. What most people don’t realise is that mortar isn’t a glue, it’s just to level out the irregularities in the stone blocks and keep the pressure diagram constant. That sort of wall is a simple gravity structure, so you need to calculate the overturning moment.’
‘You can predict when it will fall down?’
His father laughed again, with indulgent contempt this time.
‘Not that kind of moment, idiot! The outward push at a given distance from the base. The weight of the blocks times the horizontal distance from the front of the wall gives the restoring moment. That obviously has to be greater than the overturning moment if the thing’s going to stand up.’
‘I never knew anything about this,’ Rodolfo remarked.
His father laughed cannily.
‘You’re taking the piss, aren’t you? Patronising your dumb old dad banging on about stuff the Romans knew as if it was breaking news!’
‘It’s news to me.’
‘I’m sure it is, but why should you care?’
‘What about failure?’ his son replied.
‘It can happen for lots of reasons. Rising water levels during the rainy season, seasonal shrinkage and swelling.’
Rodolfo murmured his comprehension.
‘So failure is the key to everything,’ he said.
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, the possibility of failure. That’s the truth maker, as philosophers say. The only authentic tasks are those at which you can fail.’
A silence fell. No, there was a sound of the sea, or maybe the soughing of a breeze in the oak grove around the house. Then he thought that his father was laughing quietly. But as the sound went on, Rodolfo realised that he was weeping.
‘What’s the matter, dad?’ he cried with genuine alarm.
‘I’m just lonely. Since your mother died, I’ve been all alone, and with so many problems, professional and personal. I want you here, but all I get is a disembodied voice down the phone line. I hate telephones, I hate computers, I hate this technology that is stealing our souls! Laugh at me all you like, the fact remains that I want you to be here. Here in Puglia, here at home. You, my only son.’
Yet another silence.
‘Now do you understand?’ his father asked.
‘Well, I’m not sure. I mean, what exactly do you have in mind?’
‘No, you don’t,’ his father retorted, plainly ashamed of having let his feelings show for the first time. ‘Your problem, Rodolfo, is that you’ve been educated beyond your intelligence. What the hell is this semiotica all about, anyway? Can you explain it to me the way I just explained retaining walls to you? If you have to waste more of your time and my money at university, why not go the whole hog and study ottica? That way you could at least make some money as an eye doctor when you finally graduate, if ever. People always need help with their sight. I can’t tell a tension crack from a spider’s thread without my glasses any more.’