“Can you imagine? The last time this hand touched her, it was to slap her face.”
And he began crying, sobbing. Maione and Ricciardi exchanged a glance; each, without knowing anything about what the other was feeling, saw in Capece’s sobs the emotions that he was feeling so deeply at that moment.
Once he had recovered, Ricciardi asked in a gentle tone of voice: “Forgive me, Capece. But you understand perfectly well that I have to ask you this. Do you own a revolver?”
Capece looked up and stared defiantly at Ricciardi:
“First you’re going to have to arrest me, Ricciardi. If I’m a suspect, first you’re going to have to arrest me. I’m not going to answer your questions, this one or any of the others. Take care, I know all about your methods. I still have weapons, you know; not the ones you’re thinking of. I can still take you apart, one piece at a time, with a single article. Now, get out of here. I want to drink, and I want to sleep.”
Ricciardi and Maione were walking slowly, hunched under the burden of their thoughts. Capece’s interrogation had touched them deeply. The brigadier finally broke the silence:
“Commissa’, I don’t know. I feel sorry for this man, it pains me to see him, but I have to tell you honestly that he strikes me as the kind of guy who could lose his mind from all this grief. I’ve seen other men like this, heads of families, fathers, respectable people, but sensitive, far too sensitive. For better and for worse.”
“It’s true, all too true. He’s a good man, no doubt about it. But he’s also a person who could do something rash, because he feels he’s been humiliated or else because he thinks he’s losing something. And in the end he challenged us, but it was only out of despair.”
Maione ran a finger under his collar, trying to get a little cool air.
“Well, whatever the case, they’re not letting us work under ideal conditions, eh, Commissa’? That idiot Garzo threatening us, now Capece here threatening us, the young master with his plants on the terrace threatening us. But we can’t threaten anyone: if we do, we’ll wind up in a world of trouble.”
Ricciardi nodded.
“True, but we’ll go on doing our best to get our work done. Do me a favor: make the rounds of the cantinas and dives, find out if anyone remembers seeing Capece getting drunk. Maybe he passed out someplace, someone saw him, and we’ll strike him off our list. Otherwise, we’ll get a warrant and go search his office and his home to see if by any chance he happens to own a Beretta 7.65.”
“Yessir, Commissa’. It’s just that in the cantinas and dives, people drink but they also eat, and lately, whenever I go someplace people are eating, it gets on my nerves. Anyway, the young master gardener strikes me as quite a lunatic too. Maybe he’s got a nice Beretta tucked away somewhere. Or not?”
Ricciardi shot Maione a rapid glance.
“You, with this food obsession of yours, sooner or later you’re liable to kill someone. And then I’d wind up having to put you in prison.”
Maione laughed bitterly.
“And I’d eat more in prison than I do at my house, these days, Commissa’. Even if you put me on bread and water!”
“As far as the young master is concerned, you’re perfectly right, and don’t think that Garzo can bark loud enough to throw a scare into me. We’ve got to do some digging, and the first thing I want to find out is whether on the night in question the young master was at home, or whether he might have come in just a few minutes after his stepmother. The festivities were underway outside, as we know, so if they quarreled it’s entirely possible that no one heard them. All right, we’ll learn more tomorrow. For now, let’s go home, because it’s late and it’s still just as hot as ever. I’m not even hungry.”
Maione spread his arms.
“Lucky you, Commissa’. The heat makes me even hungrier. Buona notte, then, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”
XXII
Sitting in an armchair and knitting, Rosa watched Ricciardi eat. Or really: she watched him play with his food, pushing it around the plate with his fork.
This truly was an unusual turn of events; even in his darkest hours, he’d never lost the ravenous appetite that was a crucial element of his personality. It wasn’t like he savored his food: he bolted it fast, one mouthful after another, his forehead creased by a single deep wrinkle of concentration, as if he were intent on completing some challenging task. But when he was done, the plate was wiped clean.
Not this time. The sheer rarity of the situation upset his tata, and in fact she hadn’t even reacted with her usual daisy chain of criticisms and complaints to the effect that, if he insisted on eating street food, he was bound to ruin his digestion once and for all. He was ashen, preoccupied, and even more silent than was customary for him. She’d asked him whether he was having troubles in the office, and he’d vaguely nodded his head; nothing more.
Rosa decided that whatever it was, it must have something to with the conversation that the Signorina Colombo had had with her suitor in the drawing room across the way. And she couldn’t understand why a man like Ricciardi wouldn’t finally take action, seizing the initiative and establishing some direct contact with the girl. He had everything he needed to make him a presentable prospect: he was young, he had money, he was educated. To her eyes, he was also stunningly handsome.
As she went on knitting, she shot him occasional glances over the top of her eyeglasses, and heaved a sigh; happiness is a rare bird, and it lands only rarely, and then where it wills. Rosa remembered Ricciardi’s mother; she’d been very fond of the woman, and was at her side till the day she died. She too, like her son, was silent, with a vague, incomprehensible sense of suffering that served as a kind of basso continuo to her otherwise gentle character. She too, like her son, had long spells, times when she absentmindedly looked into the distance. At times like that, no one could say where she was wandering in her mind; she too, like her son, had everything she needed to be happy, and yet she was not.
Ricciardi got up from the dinner table; he understood that Rosa was worried about him, but he couldn’t bring himself to pretend that everything was all right. Not tonight. He feared the moment when he’d have to look out his window; he was attracted and repelled by the illuminated rectangle on the far side of the vicolo, where the healthy customary life of a family had always gone on, the life that gave him so much peace. After all, what could be healthier, what could be more customary, he thought with bitter irony, than a woman and a man being introduced, getting engaged, and getting married, and a new family coming into being?
I’m the one who isn’t normal, he thought; I can’t forget that. I’m the one who’s persecuted by the dead, the dead who incessantly tell me about their pain, who infect my soul and my life. I’m the one who can’t dream of a woman and a family, much less think of having children.
And so he asked himself for the thousandth time, why does this hurt you so much? Why won’t this knot in your stomach unravel, why such despair? You’re not consistent, that’s your problem. And you’re cursed, just as your mother told you twenty-five years ago.
He closed the bedroom door behind him and walked over to the window with his eyes shut tight. He heaved a deep sigh and opened them, only to see the shutters in the Colombos’ kitchen pulled to. Over there, on his left, the aggravating glow of the drawing room lights.
Enrica had gone back to her father’s shop wearing a mask of steely indifference. In her heart, fury was taking the place of sorrow; irrational though it was, she felt betrayed, as if she’d caught Ricciardi red-handed. And she felt like more of an idiot than ever before: why on earth would she expect a man like him, handsome, upper-class, young, and attractive, not to see other women? For all she knew, this woman was his fiancée and, since she lived up north, as her accent suggested, the two of them saw each other only rarely. In spite of herself, she had to admit that she, the other woman, was captivating, if you liked that sort of thing. Too flashy for her tastes, but charming. Even the insipid Sebastiano, on their way out of the café, had been unable to keep from darting the woman an admiring glance.