Her inborn discretion made it imposible for her to confide in her parents that she was already attracted to a man, much less a complete stranger; not to mention the fact that, finally, she had a regular date with his glance after more than a year of being aware that there was someone at the window across the way, every night.
It was out of the question even to think of talking about it with her mother, who was notoriously obstinate; she’d only intensify her efforts to drag her daughter out of that romantic fantasy that was bound to lead nowhere. She could just hear her now, going on and on about turning twenty-five and heading for a future of poverty and loneliness. She didn’t care what others thought, not even her parents: she’d wait for him, if it took a hundred years.
Because there was one thing she knew with absolute certainty: for Luigi Alfredo Ricciardi there was no one on earth but her. He only needed to realize it, and make up his mind to speak.
Just as she was waiting for her father to be done talking to a fat matron who couldn’t make up her mind which imitation cloth fruit to put on her hat, the bell on the door rang, announcing Sebastiano Fiore’s entrance into the shop.
Ricciardi arrived at Gambrinus in a noticeably worse mood than he’d been in a few minutes earlier, when he parted ways with Maione, who was heading back to police headquarters. There was a good reason.
He had just been covering the last part of the way, where the Via Toledo runs into the Piazza Trieste and Trento, when the man responsible for his sleepless night stepped out of the front door of one of the shops. Truth be told, he was only one of Ricciardi’s preoccupations, and at that moment not even the foremost: but he was still one of the most significant. To make a long story short, bidding his unseen mother goodbye, and therefore looking into the shop as he stepped out of it, the selfsame young man Ricciardi had seen whispering into Enrica’s ear the night before turned and crashed right into him.
He was tall, much taller than he’d seemed from a distance, and heavy, as well; the impact almost knocked Ricciardi over. He glanced fleetingly into Ricciardi’s face with a few hasty words of apology, and he found himself staring into a pair of eyes that scrutinized him coldly, without expression. He apologized again, somewhat worried this time, and moved away, stepping through the front door of the store next door.
The stabbing pain right behind Ricciardi’s stomach returned instantly, savage and excruciating. To Ricciardi the man appeared devastatingly handsome, athletic and well dressed. His eye, professionally trained to pick up even hidden details, noticed the silk shirt, the two-tone shoes with the perforated toe caps, the gold tie clip, and the wafting cologne. Neither did the gardenia in the buttonhole nor the straw hat escape the commissario’s notice, and he would have been able to draw up a complete description of the individual without any effort.
The most immediate effect of that encounter, which should perhaps have been described as a clash, was the distinct sensation of his own devastating inadequacy; Ricciardi understood that in the eyes of any healthy woman that man would be a hundred times prefereable to him. For the first time he took in his own external appearance, and saw himself for the skinny, drab, poorly dressed individual that he was: hatless, shoes dusty from long walks, an old skinny tie without a tie clip.
And he felt only irritation with himself, for having thought of that man as a rival in love. He hadn’t the slightest intention of even entering the competition, especially because he realized that his unlikely victory would only bring pain and sorrow to the woman who became his companion in life: a portion of his curse. And so, he thought again, so much the better. Better for everyone if Enrica found a handsome, well-mannered, well-to-do gentleman, who would certainly make her happy.
The thought of course brought him no comfort: when Ricciardi walked into the cool shade of Gambrinus he was a man on the brink of despair.
The Livia who was waiting, sitting at a carefully chosen table, was a woman filled with hope. She hoped, first and foremost, that Ricciardi would arrive, and that he wouldn’t be late, because the pressure of her aspiring squires was becoming oppressive. When she’d decided to smoke a cigarette to kill some time, five little hovering flames had immediately been lit before her, like votive candles in front of a sacred image; there was one contender in particular, dressed entirely in white, who was staring at her with clear intention, convinced that he was irresistible. At that point, she, who had certainly been in a similar situation many times before, started staring right back at him, until he got to his feet and came over, asking her:
“May I sit down?”
Whereupon she promptly responded:
“Absolutely not.”
The man was flummoxed. It was hardly a common occurrence to see such a beautiful woman sitting alone in a public place, and the opportunity seemed too delectable; for that matter, it was unthinkable to ruin his reputation as a womanizer, built up over so many years of honorable activity, by retreating immediately. And so he decided to persist:
“Signora, you’re much too beautiful to be sitting alone. I can’t stand by while that happens. So I’m going to sit down no matter what you say, and if someone has to leave, it will eventually have to be you.”
Livia looked toward the door: at that exact moment she saw Ricciardi come in.
With a luminous smile on her face, and without ever taking her eyes off the commissario, she said:
“I wouldn’t recommend you try that: the person I was waiting for has just arrived.”
Sebastiano Fiore walked into the Colombo family shop, straightening his tie, still a little unsettled by the odd look that the stranger had given him; what on earth can that be about, he thought, I barely grazed him. Thanks to his mental inclination never to focus too long on a single thought, he immediately regained the frank and jovial smile he’d been sporting until just a few seconds earlier.
At first he’d put up some resistance when his mother had ordered him to come to dinner at the Colombos’; he’d planned a night out with his friends at Scoglio di Frisio, the famous restaurant. But when Mamma got something into her head it was best not to resist with too much determination, otherwise the economic retaliations she was capable of unleashing could create serious problems, especially now that he was losing at cards and he’d piled up some debts that were even bigger than usual. And so, he’d decided, let’s go ahead and sacrifice a night out on the altar of sheer necessity.
Then, to his surprise, the evening with the Colombos had produced an unexpected and quite agreeable piece of news: the girl that he was being introduced to proved to be anything but unpleasant, with an attractive-if somewhat infrequent-smile and a long pair of legs. No doubt, she dressed like a fifty-year-old and wasn’t quite as smitten with him as she ought to have been: but this might yet prove to be beneficial to his plans. In fact, Sebastiano had a very precise strategy in mind: he meant to go on living comfortably on his wealthy parents’ backs, without changing his social rounds and routines in the slightest.
In order to pull that off, however, he’d have to go along with his mother’s ambitions, at least formally; and what better way than to get engaged with a girl like the Signorina Colombo, who was discreet, quiet, and anything but intrusive? His mother would be pleased, and she’d resume his allowance, in fact, she’d increase it, because getting engaged meant spending money on gifts, flowers, and so on and so forth; the theory of merging the two businesses was a very appealing one; and most important of all, the future operation of the business could be delegated to the bride, and he could go on living the way he always had: without working.