She remembered that when the young master was just a little boy, back in the village, there was a group of hooligans his age who used to torment him; nothing dangerous, of course: they’d laugh when he went by, they’d lure him with offers of games and then abandon him, all alone, in the dark or out in the open countryside. Luigi Alfredo hated it, even if he never talked about it; she could only guess at his feelings from the sad gaze she saw on his face every time he came home after running into them. One day, she’d decided to take the initiative, facing off with the leader of the gang, a big strong boy who had no respect for anyone; at first she’d spoken to him courteously, but then, faced with the boy’s mocking laughter, she’d been forced to put matters in physical terms, with a pair of resounding blows. After that, the young master had never been mocked again, but the boys had also sought his company far less often: perhaps the cure had been worse than the illness.
This time, however, it would be different: she wasn’t planning to throw a scare into anyone, nor would she establish direct contact with the person who, intentionally or unintentionally, was making her boy suffer. She’d made use of the hairdresser, a necessary but dangerous intermediary: she hoped that she’d succeeded in purchasing the woman’s discretion, even though the cash price had been unreasonably high. Still, news had come in punctually, and once again, it had been good news.
Enrica, the eldest daughter of the Colombo family, couldn’t stand the man that her parents had been trying to match her up with: this was a well-known fact. She didn’t have the slightest intention of seeing him again one-on-one, and she’d only socialize with him when she had no alternative: which was better still.
The big news that she’d learned in the hairdresser’s kitchen just an hour ago, while a cookpot on the stove exuded a terrible miasma of onions and cauliflower and the temperature rose well above 120 degrees, was that just as Ricciardi looked at her, she too was looking at Ricciardi. Or perhaps she should say, Enrica allowed herself to be watched as she embroidered with tenderness and trepidation. And this had been going on, Rosa learned to her astonishment, for more than a year, which explained why every night, as soon as he was done eating, the young master hastily retired to his bedroom. It hadn’t been easy to pry this information out of the girl, the hairdresser had told Rosa, certainly in order to persuade her to a more generous tip. But Rosa believed that Signorina Colombo liked Commissario Ricciardi more than a little, and that it would be best if he hastened to introduce himself to the family, and wasted no time in doing so, before Signor Russo had a chance to make a formal request: also because the man wasn’t at all bad-looking, according to the hairdresser who had met him one night on the stairs; apparently, he was rich, to boot.
It would therefore be up to Rosa to find some way of persuading the young master to make his move, instead of waiting in silence the way he usually did: but how could she do it, if he never let slip a word or confided in her? And then there was one other odd detaiclass="underline" the Colombo girl had mentioned a woman that she had seen with Ricciardi. A woman described as vulgar and not as young as she used to be, dressed in a garish, show-offy style: translating from the very particular jargon of hairdressers and girls in love, Rosa had guessed that the woman in question was beautiful and much sought-after, well dressed and very elegant. Who could this woman be? And most important of all, Rosa wondered, why, if he was seeing such a lady, was Luigi Alfredo so unmistakably unhappy?
Maione was sitting at a table at Gambrinus, sweating and waiting for Ricciardi. The person sitting across from him, and behind a glass of spuma that was gradually losing its foam, was making him feel slightly uncomfortable.
It rarely happened that the brigadier felt uneasy in the presence of a suspect: he was accustomed to challenging individuals who were guilty of all sorts of crimes; he’d spent his life on the street, and hunger and poverty had been the only schoolteachers this man had ever had, and they’d made him the policeman he’d become. He’d seen everything and the opposite of everything. But he didn’t know what to think, now, of young Andrea Capece.
He’d waited outside the school, and he’d seen him come out, identical in every way to all the other youngsters swarming in the summer sunlight, finally free of their everyday duties, heading off for a Saturday of fun and relaxation. The boy was walking next to a girl, who looked over at him as she talked and talked, her books bound together with a leather strap; once again, he had occasion to appreciate Ricciardi’s sensitivity-the commissario had told him to go in civilian attire to spare the boy his classmates’ gossip. He’d walked over to him, touching him lightly on the arm to catch his attention; the boy recognized him, and he took great care to observe exactly what went through the boy’s eyes, what crossed his brow, in search of the usual signs of fear, the surprise of an animal caught in a trap; but he’d seen none of that.
Instead, he had seen the carefree smile give way to the signs of a profound sadness, age-old, grievous, the sadness you’d expect to see only in an adult; along with a flicker of something resembling pride. Not even a shadow of repentance, much less regret. The sad eyes had glided over the newspaper package, the shoulders had hunched over slightly under the weight of what would come next; he’d waved goodbye to the girl, and she had bowed to Maione, thinking him a family member, and then she’d walked off, the smile on her face never even fading.
They’d walked the whole distance in silence; the adult didn’t know what to say, the boy simply didn’t want to speak. They’d arrived at Gambrinus, as previously agreed with the commissario, and they’d taken a seat at one of the tables. Maione’d asked Andrea what he’d like, and the boy had shaken his head, with a doleful smile. The brigadier had then ordered a cup of coffee and a foamy spuma, but the young man never even tasted the drink. Now they were waiting for Ricciardi, who hadn’t wanted to have Andrea brought to police headquarters.
Maione wasn’t sure he wanted to be present during that interview, because he had a son the same age, now his eldest, after Luca’s death. He thought there shouldn’t be sadness in the eyes of a sixteen-year-old.
XXXIX
On Friday afternoons, the city ignores the heat; it ignores the cold, the rain, and the wind.
The city, on Friday afternoons, has no weather, or perhaps it’d be better to say, it has a special weather all its own. It’s the weather of anticipation, two wonderful days when the brutal pace of work slows, when you can think about yourself and your own interests for a while, at last. Two days of seeing friends, attending mass, dancing. Two days of uniformed children doing calisthenics in the middle of the piazza, guided by lovely young ladies with megaphones; two days of children at summer camp marching in double file down to the beach, shaved bald to ward off lice, squinting in the dazzling sunlight of Mergellina. Two days of sunbaked scugnizzi-street urchins with a rag bound around their waist, tied with a length of rope or twine, bare feet deformed, soles as tough as shoe leather, recklessly hanging off trolley cars. Two days of gypsy girls reading your palm, or counterfeit monks offering lottery numbers. Two days of singing and music.
The city, on Friday afternoons, populates its streets with anticipation: it’s far too wonderful and important to wait for Saturday together, no one wants to be shut up at home. Via Toledo fills with voices and noises, the watermelon vendor promising the cool fire of his merchandise, the strolling coffee-seller with his monumental wheeled cuccuma, the lemon man, his merchandise dangling from bobbing branches. And focaccias with fresh anchovies and raw shrimp, mussels, and octopus, pretty farm girls with a nanny goat on a rope and an iron pitcher to hold the goat’s milk.