“What about hatred, Duke? What does hatred make you do? When the illusion of love vanishes, what’s left?”
Maione scuffed the floor with his foot. Concetta stood like a statue in the shadows.
“Hatred is a thought, Commissario. An impulse, perhaps even a desire. Someone who’s busy dying hour after hour, someone who never leaves his bed and depends on the kindness of those who come to assist him, cannot afford the luxury of hatred. Because it’s a luxury too.”
Ricciardi considered what the duke had just said. He couldn’t imagine that shell of a man murdering the duchess; but still the duke was clear-minded, he could have issued orders and given instructions. Out of the corner of his eye he studied Concetta, who didn’t even seem to be breathing.
“You have a son, isn’t that right?”
The question fell into silence. It seemed to Ricciardi that even the rattling of the duke’s dying lungs had changed its tone. After a few moments the man replied.
“Yes, I have a son. His name is Ettore.”
No affection, no emotion. A simple stark statement. Ricciardi waited, but the duke didn’t seem to have any intention of adding anything; when he did speak it was to say:
“I hope you’ll forgive me, now, Commissario; I’m very tired. I’ll be glad to see you again whenever you like, but right now Madame Death wants my sleep.”
“Of course, your grace; pardon me. Just one more thing: did your wife wear a. . special ring, as far as you know? Something of particular value, I don’t know, a rare stone perhaps?”
The duke coughed again, and it took him a while to gather his breath and his strength for a response.
“My wife, my real wife, my Carmen had a ring. It was my family’s ring, with our coat of arms; the ring that all the duchesses of Camparino wore. I took it off her dead hand, but I wish I’d never done it, I’ve regretted it every instant of my life since then; and I gave it to her, to Adriana. As if she were worthy of wearing it. When you’re finished with the. . with her, give it back to us. To my son. It’s the only part of her I wish I had back.”
Ricciardi decided that this was hardly the moment to inform the duke that the ring had already been taken from the interloping gold digger; and for now the brief description of the object was all he needed. He said goodbye and left the room, and a relieved Maione followed him out.
Livia walked out of the elevator in the hotel lobby; instantly, she was surrounded by a porter, a coachman, and a bellboy who, until a few seconds earlier, had been snoozing in the late-morning heat. Two men reading the paper as they sipped their coffee looked up and both whistled softly and admiringly.
The woman was stunningly beautifuclass="underline" she’d spent more than two hours trying on, over and over, just some of the countless dresses that she’d brought with her; in the end she’d selected a little light gray dress in a fine material, with a black handbag and black shoes. The hat, set at a coquettish angle on her short, dark brown hair, had a tiny black veil, her one concession to her state of mourning. If it had been entirely up to her, she’d have dispensed with that as well, but she didn’t know what Ricciardi thought about it and so she’d decided to keep at least a marker of her loss, which was more social than it was emotional. She wore black gloves on her hands, in fishnet, just like her stockings.
Elegance was one of Livia’s distinguishing characteristics, like her feline movements and the spicy aroma of her perfume. As always, her entrance into any room immediately captured the attention of one and all, and never let it go.
The two men had risen and, with allusive smiles, come over; they clearly belonged to the elite, discreet army of gigolos that brightened the holidays of solitary female tourists, especially foreign ones. Livia smiled and gestured with one hand to the only member of the group whose services interested her: the coachman.
The man, hat in hands, bowed and inquired: “Where can I take you, Signo’?”
With a smile, Livia told him. Her offensive had finally begun.
XVI
After they left the bedroom, Ricciardi asked Concetta to go and see whether the duke’s son was available to see them; they waited in the anteroom, in the company of the ghostly image of the duchess, which kept repeating its denunciation of the disappearance of the ring.
Ricciardi thought in silence, his hands in his pockets, looking out the window down into the palazzo courtyard. The building’s height kept much of the courtyard in shadow, including the luxuriant bed of multicolored hydrangeas. The commissario wondered whether the murderer had hidden in one of the many nooks and crannies, or if he had entered with the duchess, upon her return home.
Part of his thoughts, though, went to the words the duke had spoken, words that made him ponder himself and his life. A man dies at the very moment that his life no longer means anything to anyone else; those words had gouged a hole into his chest. He thought of Rosa, of the excessively maternal care she lavished on him; he thought of Maione, of the rough and only partial confidences they exchanged, now and again; he thought of Doctor Modo, and the cutting irony and refined mockery that characterized their relationship, as well as the occasional beers they drank together; he thought of his mother, her silent love, her weary smile.
Am I alive? he wondered. And if not, when did I die? Looking out the window, he saw Sciarra below him, busily raking dead leaves out of the flower bed. Not far away from him, the two children were quarreling, the older girl hiding something under her dress; probably something to eat. The little man whose sleeves were too long would turn around every so often and pretend to chase them, then he’d return to his work with a broad smile on his face. Well, no doubt about it, Sciarra was still alive. The woman standing behind him, however, whose immense grief at departing from her earthly existence he could feel against the back of his head, was not.
He thought irrationally of Enrica, of just who the man whispering into her ear with a smile might have been. Whoever he was, he wasn’t like him: he wasn’t condemned to solitude. He felt a stabbing pain in his stomach: this sensation too was starting to become familiar to him.
Soundlessly, Concetta came to summon them. The young master could receive them now.
Just once, for a change, you devote yourself to yourself for a bit. You’ve washed your hair in the large washbasin of the porcelain bath accessories. You rinse your hair with the pitcher, using water that you heated in the big cook pot in the kitchen: it’s something you haven’t done in ages. Now you’re brushing it out, sitting in front of the mirror; again, something you’ve almost forgotten how to do. Lazily, you also wonder whether it’s worth the trouble of curling it with a permanent, instead of pulling it up into a bun on the back of your head, the way you always do: your hair’s not ugly after all, once it’s washed and loosened. It’s not dull anymore. There’s a new glistening light to it.
There’s a different expression in your eyes, as well; you wonder what it could be. What could be new about them. Perhaps it’s just the hint of a smile.
Perhaps you want to be ready when the time comes.
The staircase was cool due to the thickness of the palazzo’s outer walls. As they climbed, Maione, who was still panting and sweating, directed a question to Concetta’s vast back:
“But with all the empty rooms in the building, why on earth did the young master choose to go live on the top floor?”
Concetta replied without raising her voice, as if she were in a church.
“The young master moved upstairs after his mother’s death, ten years ago. He loves plants, he keeps them on the terrace; so he wants to be close to them. Also, it’s comfortable for him, he has two large rooms.”