She turned toward the wall again, and in her heart it began to rain. Had she only smelled a woman’s scent, she might have understood. A man had his needs and she’d been distant from him for years now.
But eating at another woman’s table? Not that. That was true betrayal.
Ruggero Serra di Arpaja opened the window of his study to let in the Sunday air. For the first time in days, he’d been able to get a few hours’ sleep, and he was feeling better.
The summons for Emma had come as a pleasant surprise. He’d been convinced that the two police officers were there to haul him off and pitch him into a black pit of ruin and disgrace, one from which he would never be able to extract himself, no matter the ultimate outcome. But instead, here he was, still able to defend himself.
The air that entered the room came up from the sea; as usual, it carried with it the smell of decay. He thought of Calise, of the powerful, funky must of her apartment. He’d been there twice: the first time to negotiate, the second time to pay; but he’d also seen her the morning she had come looking for him at the university to demand more money still. He remembered the woman’s croaking voice, her geriatric shortness of breath. But she was lucid; was she ever. He’d offered her plenty of money and she’d demanded plenty more. He had accepted, in large part just to get out of that horrible place. Greedy and squalid.
When he went back, he knew it would be for the last time. And then, all that blood. Blood everywhere. When he thought back on it, it felt like a nightmare, nothing but a nightmare; but he felt no pity for that old witch.
From the nearby sea came a seagull’s cry. The street was silent: only a few women here and there, their heads covered, on their way to Mass.
Just to make sure, and to complete his descent into hell, he’d even gone to see him: the other man. He wanted to get a look at him, read his face, study his eyes. He’d found exactly what he expected, an emptiness inside a shell that was pleasing to the eye. And he’d found a new certainty.
With a sorrowful smile, he closed the window.
Attilio entered the Villa Nazionale from the Torretta, at the end of Viale Regina Elena. He liked to stroll against the current of the crowds, knowing full well that the more customary route went the opposite way, beginning from Piazza Vittoria. The reason was that he liked to pass by couples and families, launching fleeting glances and subtle smiles at married women and unmarried young ladies, taking pleasure in their confusion.
It was an old game he liked to play with himself, and it still amused him: bringing a blush to the cheek of even insignificant women, arousing the frustration of the men walking at their sides-so much less enchanting than this dark, athletic, and well-dressed young man-as well as the ladies’ regret at not being alone and able to return his smile. Attilio felt good. He was enjoying his Sunday in the Villa Nazionale, strolling down the broad, sunny path, amid the scent of the flowerbeds and the nearby sea.
And he was luxuriating in the knowledge that in the end, everything would turn out perfectly. Emma was bound to choose him, he was sure of it; even more so now that he’d looked her husband in the face, a defeated, despairing, broken-spirited man. Could there be any doubt? As he inhaled the aroma of the pine trees and holm oaks that lined the wide path, Romor felt invincible.
He planned to stroll the length of the Villa two more times, smiling at the women and doing his best to avoid the wealthy children who raced along excitedly in their horrible little metal-and-wood pedal cars, and then he’d go off for a seafood lunch not far from the church of Piedigrotta. Now that the solution was at hand, there was no longer any point in scrimping. He could afford to indulge in a few minor luxuries. No more depressing Sundays at his mother’s house. He was done going there entirely; it only made him sad, and when he felt sad he could feel the rage swelling up inside him.
He shook his head to drive out these unpleasant thoughts and the irritating memory of his mother’s voice, with her perennial admonishments; today was the first Sunday of spring and he wanted no clouds darkening his radiant horizon. He crossed paths with a family, an elderly couple, a young woman with a small child, and a few adolescents; in their midst was a tall young miss, not quite striking but still appealing. He shot her a smoldering gaze, tilting his head to one side and slowing his gait in a way that he knew to be utterly irresistible; she ignored him roundly, preserving a gloomy expression on her face, as if she were nurturing some secret sorrow.
Your loss, thought Attilio, shrugging his shoulders. Go ahead and be gloomy, if you want. As far as I’m concerned, the world is mine and I plan to enjoy it.
XLIII
Sunday surrounded Enrica without touching her. The world left her out of its colors and tones, and she had never felt so lonely in her life.
Like an automaton, she’d taken part in the family rituals: breakfast, Mass at the church of Santa Teresa, the streetcar to Piazza Vittoria. She wasn’t talkative by nature, and she’d been able to conceal her melancholy; her father and siblings’ excitement about the excursion was something that she and her mother tolerated, certainly not something they shared.
Villa Nazionale, even though it was a place she liked, struck her as noisy and vulgar that day. The carabinieri on horseback in dress uniform rode along the tree-lined path reserved for pedestrians next to the viale; the horses were as restless and uneasy as she was. She continued to curse herself for the way she acted during her interview at police headquarters, for having acted so differently from her true self.
Walking one step behind her parents, leading her brothers and sisters by the hand, and preceding her sister and brother-in-law, who in turn were pushing the baby carriage with her little nephew, she thought that she might grow old without having a family and children of her own, as a result of her grumpy disposition; still, hadn’t her mother always told her that it was her finest quality? The sun flooded the blossoming trees, the children were playing with their cheerful little pedal cars, and a street organ was playing Duorme, Carme’. Sleep, Carmela. How ironic, considering that she hadn’t slept a wink.
From beyond the tops of the pine trees came the slow sound of the calm sea. They stopped at a stand selling seeds and nuts; her father, as always, pretended he was giving in to the pleas of her brothers and sisters so that he could buy a few paper twists of nuts for himself. She loved her family, but today they were intolerable to her. She would have liked to return to the darkness of her bedroom. They started up again, walking in the direction of the zoological park’s aquarium, another obligatory stop on their Sunday promenade, where they’d look at the starfish, feigning astonishment for the hundredth time; it meant so much to her father.
Passing close by the little temple with the bust of Virgil, absentmindedly listening-for perhaps the hundredth time-to her father’s stories about the Roman poet’s feats as a sorcerer, she mused bitterly that the sorceress to whom she had turned hadn’t been of any help to her: quite the contrary. Then she felt a flush of shame at the thought, as she remembered the woman’s atrocious death.
Her eyes fleetingly met the gaze of a man with an idiotic smile on his face; she looked away as quickly as she could. There was no room in her mind for anything other than a solution to her current dilemma.
Still, there was something familiar about that man. Before erasing his image from her mind, she wondered for an instant where she might have seen him before.
Doctor Modo shouldn’t have been at the hospital at all, but there he was regardless, as was often the case. The night before Ricciardi, in that distinctively cold yet vibrant way of his, had told him the story of the man who had stabbed himself, a man with whom neither the commissario nor the doctor had ever spoken, and he’d felt the urge to come see how he was doing.