XXIII
Don Pierino Fava, the assistant pastor of the church of San Ferdinando a Chiaia, emerged from the confessional. This time, he had almost half an hour until it was time to say mass.
He devoted his early mornings to hearing confession: he knew what time he’d begin but he could never predict when he’d be finished. Sometimes he waited in the darkness and the silence for dozens of minutes at a time, praying for someone to open the grate and recite the formula: Father, forgive me for I have sinned. There were other times, however, when upon his arrival at six in the morning, he’d already find a number of his flock waiting, sitting on the benches beside the dark wooden booth that was covered by a heavy curtain. They were waiting to cleanse their consciences.
Running his hands over his tunic, buttoned from neck to feet, to smooth out the creases, Don Pierino remembered the beginning of his priesthood in Santa Maria Capua Vetere, the town near Caserta where he was born. With his open nature, in love at once with God and all creation, he took his vocation seriously and cheerfully, the way he did everything in his life. The quarter where his parish was located had taken him under its wing: diminutive, olive-complected, and cunning, he’d become ’o munaciello, a reference to munacielli, the mischievous ghosts of legend. In reality, though, he was a born helper: unfailingly at the side of those who had need of aid, and there were plenty of people who fit that description. San Ferdinando in fact had both aristocratic streets inhabited by the elite and, bordering them, a bona fide ghetto, where the police were afraid to venture.
Constant contact between these two sharply contrasting social worlds led to thorny situations, to bullying, violence, and rape. An atmosphere of malaise seethed under the surface, as if a rebellion might break out from one day to the next. The poor, the misfits facing the daily challenge of obtaining food and fighting off the terrible diseases that infested the vicoli, seemed increasingly unwilling to simply stay in their places, to look on passively at the opulence and squandering of their wealthy neighbors. And there was a proliferation of thefts, robberies, and purse snatchings.
As far as he was able, Don Pierino counseled against violence which, besides being immoral, tended to deprive families of their fathers, either because they had been arrested or because they’d been killed; in such cases he took care above all to comfort the children, bringing them food and clothing. He allocated a portion of the parish’s offerings to make those purchases, taking advantage of the elderly parish priest’s lack of attention, and made his own contributions out of the extra money he earned tutoring the children of the aristocrats and businessmen of Via Toledo and going to say mass in homes where invalids lived who could not come to church.
The only, so to speak, profane passion that Don Pierino allowed himself was the opera. With the aid of a member of his parish, a doorman in charge of a rear entrance, he was sometimes able to slip into the San Carlo Opera House for rehearsals or even for actual performances. These were moments of pure delight for him, in which he felt as close as one could be to God and to the masterpieces of His creation. He’d met Commissario Ricciardi during his investigation of the now notorious Vezzi case, the murder of the world’s greatest tenor, which, sadly, had taken place in his presence.
Those tragic events returned to his mind that morning, when he thought he saw the Commissario’s silhouette appear from the darkness of the church. At first he assumed that his mind was playing tricks on him, because the two men had had no occasion to meet again since that case. With a twinge of sorrow, he had realized at the time that Ricciardi was not a religious man; and this struck him as odd, because he sensed that the policeman was endowed with a profound sense of spirituality. He seemed to live behind a barrier of grief and pain, to which he was a constant witness; and it was as if this prevented him from even interacting with his fellow human beings, at least any more than was strictly necessary.
The shadow had moved from the far end of the nave and was coming toward him. The air was filled with the continual murmuring of the old women, who were reciting their orations beneath the main altar. When the dark figure had drawn close enough, Don Pierino realized that it was none other than the man he’d just been thinking about.
“Commissario Ricciardi, what a pleasant surprise! I’m happy to see you here; if you only knew how many times I’ve thought of you, in the past few months!”
He was smiling, standing on tiptoe and shaking both of the commissario’s hands in his. He seemed like a child who had just received a gift.
“I’m happy to see you, too, Father, believe me,” Ricciardi replied. And it was the truth. The priest had been very helpful to him in the Vezzi investigation, and on that occasion they’d established a relationship of trust, if not friendship: they were too far apart, in terms of values and experiences, to have all that much in common.
“Forgive me if I haven’t come to see you before this,” he said to the priest when they had reached the sacristy; “daily life is the enemy of even the best intentions, as you must know well. How are you? Still the opera lover?”
Don Pierino hadn’t stopped smiling.
“I’m a man of steadfast passions. But am I misremembering or did someone promise me that we’d go to the opera together sometime? The new season is beginning before long.”
Ricciardi admitted:
“You’re quite right, Father. I won’t break my promise, you’ll see: a commitment is a commitment. But could you spare me just a few minutes right now? I need a little information that you may be able to give me.”
The little priest pulled a large pocket watch out of his tunic and examined the dial.
“Yes, Commissario. We have almost half an hour before I need to get ready for mass. You’re always quite the early riser, which is a commendable virtue. Go ahead and ask.”
Ricciardi, who hadn’t slept a wink, was ashen, with dark circles under his eyes. Don Pierino had noticed, but something about the commissario’s expression told him not to delve into it.
“Did I interrupt anything? I wouldn’t want to cause you any trouble.”
The priest smiled with a hint of sadness.
“There’s nothing worse, you know, Commissario, than confessions. It’s a cleansing process, and you have to take the burdens of others onto your own shoulders and carry it away.”
Ricciardi thought how very similar that was to the work that he did, when he found himself in the presence of a dead person. Only he couldn’t cleanse away a thing. Don Pierino went on:
“At first I didn’t mind it: that’s just what I was thinking about when I saw you. I felt as if I was sharing something, helping my flock and providing a little comfort. But that’s not how it is. Sin provides no comfort. It’s a wound, and it leaves behind it a scar and a weakness: it will be committed again, over and over.”
“Well then, Father, what good does it do to clean up?”
Don Pierino shook his head.
“No good at all, perhaps. And perhaps all the good in the world. It’s important that they come on their own two feet, to bring their imperfection to God. And it’s never the way you might expect, you know, Commissario; there are harmless looking little old ladies who do terrible things, and well known, feared gangsters who confess to little baby sins. That’s what hidden scars are like. Everyone has their own.”
As had often happened whenever he talked to the priest, Ricciardi was somehow entranced. This man’s faith was practical, social, and active. None of the empty words he remembered from the Jesuits he’d studied with as a boy, with their otherworldly doctrine. All the same, time was passing, and that long night had left its marks.
“Father, I don’t want to take too much of your time. You say mass, I’m told, in the home of the Duke of Camparino.”