Time ground to a halt around Ricciardi. The four men sitting at nearby tables all held their breath, as anxious to hear his reply as Livia herself. He opened and shut his mouth, once and then twice. If he answered in the affirmative he’d be lying, but he’d also get himself out of this sticky situation, possibly once and for all. But was that what he wanted? Livia was beautiful, cheerful, and passionate. He liked her and being around her gave him an odd, unsettled feeling that was more than just simple queasiness. In good conscience, however, he couldn’t say that his heart was entirely unfettered.
“No. I don’t have a girlfriend. But. . I do have feelings for a person, yes. She doesn’t know it, but I have feelings for her.”
As he whispered such a profound and personal thing, in the crowded café, his head spun: he felt as if he had a fever. It was as if a cloud passed over Livia’s face, and her eyes were tinged with pain. Ricciardi felt as if he’d just beaten her. But it was over in an instant: she immediately got to her feet with a smile on her face.
“Well, then, my dear man, I’ll go on fighting. It seems to me that I still deserve a little happiness, and that you have this happiness tucked away somewhere. I intend to seek it out, find it, and seize it for myself. Tell your would-be girlfriend, deep in your heart, to pack her bags and get ready to move. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d better get going: I have some apartment-hunting to do.”
And she left, her progress followed by dozens of eyes.
XLV
Sunday is a holiday. But it seems like a war.
The armies are summoned by the bells, pealing out the announcement of the seven o’clock mass in scolding tones: how could you have failed to think of God first thing, instead of lolling on your pallets, with open windows, trying to obtain the faintest whiff of a breeze? For shame!
And the armies respond, descending from the quarters inhabited by the poor to take the best seats, on the steps of the churches or in the streets popular with strollers: no one is out yet, but to lose a position means being forced to find another way to make a living, another way to fill one’s belly. It’s an army of a thousand colors, the army of beggars: purple mutilations, verdigris uniform jackets worn by veterans just returning from the front, gauze bandages concealing, variously, empty eye sockets or perfectly healthy eyes, parakeets in their little cages, trained to extend little notes to passersby, telling their fortunes. And an army of a thousand sounds, accordions, ocarinas, mandolins, old violins with cracked soundboards. Even wrinkled black shirts, to win the pity of the newly powerful.
Shortly after dawn, the sound of hammering began to ring out as improvised stages were built: upon which bands would play, beneath which pickpockets would buzz like bumblebees, slipping deft hands and light fingers into pockets and purses, without marring the delighted smiles on the faces of the many listeners-at least, not until they got home that night.
Sunday is a war of commerce, for the street vendors who take the place of the shops, closed for a day. Cobs of corn, golden brown or scorched black, an irresistible aroma wafting in the air; seeds and nuts, advertised by the shrill whistle of the peanut cart; doughnuts sprinkled with silver and particolored dots of sugar, with a fat female vendor shooing away flies with a fan; juicy slices of watermelon, liquorice sticks, greasy fritters. Rattletrap old ice cream carts, shaped like a ship’s prow with an umbrella to ward off the heat of the sun, and wooden penguins carved into the sides. All of them snatching the best locations, whoever arrives last is poorly lodged: Sunday is a holiday but it seems like a war.
And like all wars, here comes the cavalry riding into the fray: most of the carriages rolled in shortly after dawn, though some of them had been there all night long, with the coachmen fast asleep, hats on their faces and whips under their arms, stretching in discomfort from the dankness in their bones. The straw scattered under the dray horses, capturing their urine and feces, if not the foul smells that poison the surrounding air.
Sunday is a war, for the children as well; the luckest ones have been dreaming of this day all week long, with ink-stained fingers, breathing in chalk dust, at their desks or behind the blackboards, on their knees in punishment. The other children have thought about it too, chasing barefoot after the rats in the vicoli or fighting off stray dogs for a scrap of stale bread in the garbage discarded by the well-to-do palazzi of Santa Lucia. They’ll meet later at the Villa Nazionale, casting greedy glances at the toy stalls, dreaming of floating away hanging from a red balloon on a long string or making their stern fathers jump in the air at the sound of the firecrackers that can be heard going off every so often; the fathers targeted by the vendors with their smiles as they hawk their wares, the children driven off rudely with clubs and sticks.
Sunday is a war. But it seems like a holiday.
Ricciardi had slept very badly, though that was hardly a change. He recalled a chaotic dream, where he was mixing up Livia and Adriana, both women talking to him in threatening tones about rings and apartments. Behind them, Enrica’s elegant and well-dressed boyfriend, looking at him and laughing at him, for who knows what reason. And he was trying to open a book that he’d bought the day before and immediately concealed from the intrusive and gossipy eyes of his tata, underneath a loose floor tile behind his armoire; but he couldn’t do it, the pages were massive and he had no strength left in his hands.
When he woke up in the morning, his forearm tingled painfully with pins and needles: he’d slept with his full weight on it. He couldn’t move it, and the anxiety of his dream spread to his waking life. On the other hand, the ghosts of the living and the dead were gone, leaving a new and unfamiliar dread in his heart.
He had been tempted to break the promise he’d made to Don Pierino, reluctant as he was to plunge into the frantic chaos of the day, in all that heat: he really didn’t feel like celebrating. But he had more than one debt of gratitude toward the little priest and he didn’t want to disappoint him yet again, and so he trudged off wearily toward the waterfront. Along the way he cultivated fractured thoughts: Livia and her determination to stay on, Enrica and her closed window, Adriana and her sad fate. He thought once again of the book he’d purchased and concealed, and he wondered if he’d ever have the nerve to pull it out and read it. And he thought of his tata, too, and how, when she saw him going out on a Sunday morning, she had smiled and made reference to what she supposed was a date the young master had, perhaps with a woman from out of town: that woman had a gift of second sight, or else some anonymous informer. He hadn’t replied.
There was something different in the air: it was still oppressively muggy and humid, but the sky was gray and it smelled of damp. Maybe it would rain, eventually, he thought. As he walked, he saw the crowd swelling, families and knots of friends going to enjoy one of the city’s most beloved and traditional festivals. By the time he got to Via Santa Lucia, the crowd was enormous, and the neighboring marina, where the allegorical procession would conclude, was already packed.
Ricciardi had heard something about the ’Nzegna festival, but he’d never made an effort to understand the ritual nature of it, nor had he ever bothered to go to it. He knew that the moment everyone was waiting for was the procession and that, as usual, everyone took advantage of the opportunity to dance, sing, and commit every sort of crime imaginable, under the cover of the massive crowds; the holding tanks at police headquarters during this kind of event tended to be incredibly full.
Shoved along by the crowd he found himself not far from the wharf from which, ten feet above the surface of the water, a number of scugnizzi were hurtling straight down in spectacular dives, to the applause of hundreds of sweaty spectators. Not all the dives were successful, though: Ricciardi saw the image of a little boy looking out to sea, standing erect on the wooden structure of the wharf. He was looking out to sea from an unnatural angle, though, because his neck was snapped a little below the nape; the translucent pallor and the wrinkly skin pointed Ricciardi to a delayed recovery of the body and an extended stay in the water before the boy died. He heard his message, loud and clear in spite of the noise: