“I don’t even know where his grandparents’ house is, and I’ve only seen the boy on that beach.”
“The owner of the Bar Maracaibo says that he saw you on the afternoon the boy disappeared, that you didn’t have your bag of goods, and that you were heading towards the grandparents’ house.”
“I don’t know which house that is,” he repeated irritably, “and that afternoon I didn’t go to Monopoli. When I got back from Naples, I stayed in Bari. I don’t remember what I did but I didn’t go to Monopoli.”
With an angry movement he seized the packet of cigarettes and matches, still on the table, and lit up again.
I let him take a few puffs in peace, then went on.
“How did you come to have a photograph of the boy at home?”
“It was Ciccio who wanted to give me that photo. An uncle of his, I think, had a Polaroid and took several photos at the beach. The boy gave me one of them. We were friends. Every time I passed I stopped to talk to him. He wanted to know about Africa, about the animals, if I’d ever seen any lions. That sort of thing. I was happy when he gave me the photo because we were friends. What’s more, at home I had masses of photos, lots of them of people on the beach, because I am friends with lots of clients. The carabinieri took only that one. It’s plain that this way it looks like evidence against me. Why didn’t they take all the photos? Why did they take only a few books? I didn’t have only children’s books. I have manuals, history books, books on psychology, but they took only the children’s books. Obviously this makes me out to be a maniac. What’s the word? A paedophile.”
“Did you tell these things to the magistrate?”
“Avvocato, do you know the state I was in when they took me before the magistrate? I couldn’t breathe from the beating I’d taken, I was deaf in one ear. First I was beaten up by the carabinieri, then I was beaten up by the warders as soon as I got to prison. In fact, it was the warders who told me it was much better for me to say nothing to the magistrate. Then the lawyer told me I mustn’t answer questions, as there was a risk it would only complicate matters, and I’d already made a mistake by answering the public prosecutor. He needed to study the documents carefully first. So I went before the magistrate and told him I didn’t want to reply. But even when I did answer, it made no difference, because the magistrate took no notice of what I said. In any case, I stayed in prison.”
I waited a second or two before speaking again.
“Where are all your things, the ones you mentioned, the books, the photos, everything?”
“I don’t know. They cleared out my room and the landlord has let it to someone else. You’ll have to ask Abajaje.”
We were silent for a few minutes, with me trying to sort out the information I had received, him I don’t know where.
Then I spoke again.
“All right, that’s enough for today. Tomorrow, or rather on Monday, I’ll go to the prosecutor’s office and see when we can make a copy of the documents. Then I’ll study them, and as soon as I’ve got my ideas a bit clearer I’ll come back and see you and we’ll try to organize a defence strategy that makes sense…”
I left the sentence in the air, as if there were something to be added to it.
Abdou noticed, and gave me a faintly questioning look. Then he nodded. He hesitated a moment, but he was the first to hold out his hand and shake mine. His grasp differed slightly, only slightly, from the one of an hour before.
Then I opened the door and called the warder who was to take him back to his cell, in the special section reserved for rapists, child abusers and those who had turned state’s evidence. All of them subjects who wouldn’t have lasted long in the company of the other prisoners.
I picked up the cigarette packet and realized it was empty.
9
On Monday I woke up at about half-past five. As usual.
In the early days I’d tried to stay in bed, hoping to get back to sleep. But I did not get back to sleep, and ended up wrapped in sad and obsessive thoughts.
I therefore realized that it was better not to stay in bed, and to content myself with four or five hours of sleep. When things went well.
So I acquired the habit of getting up as soon as I woke. I would do some exercises, have a shower, shave, make breakfast, tidy the apartment. In short, I spent a good hour and a half managing to think about practically nothing.
Then I would go out and there would be the daylight, and I’d take a long walk. This too helped me not to think.
And so I did that morning. I got to the office at about eight, glanced at my memo pad and put it into my briefcase along with a few pens, some official forms, my mobile. I scribbled a note to my secretary and left it on her desk.
Then I set out for the law courts. Getting up so early and arriving so early at the law courts had certain advantages. The offices were practically deserted, so it was possible to get through chancellery matters more quickly.
I had a hearing that morning, but first I had to go and talk to Prosecutor Cervellati. The public prosecutor engaged on Abdou’s case.
He was not exactly the most congenial man of law in the judiciary offices.
He was neither tall nor short. Not thin, but not exactly fat. His paunch was in any case always covered, summer and winter alike, with a horrible brown waist-coat. Thick glasses, very little hair, and what there was of it always a shade too long, grey jackets, grey socks, grey complexion.
On one occasion a friendly female colleague of mine, speaking of Cervellati, called him “a man in a singlet”. I asked her what she meant and she explained that this was a category of human being that she had come up with herself.
A man in a (metaphorical) singlet is first of all one who, at the height of summer, when it’s 95 degrees in the shade, wears a (real) singlet under his shirt, “because it absorbs the sweat and so I don’t catch my death of cold from all these draughts”. An extreme variant of this category is constituted by those who wear singlets even under a T-shirt.
A man in a singlet has an imitation-leather pouch for his mobile, with a hook to attach it to his belt. In the afternoon he gets home and puts on pyjamas. He keeps his old e-tacs mobile because those are the ones that still work best. He sucks mints to sweeten his breath, uses talcum powder and mouthwash.
Sometimes he has a condom hidden in his wallet, but he never uses it and sooner or later his wife discovers it and gives him hell.
A man in a singlet uses phrases such as: nowadays it’s impossible to park in the centre of town; nowadays the young have no interests except discothèques and video games; I have nothing against homosexuals/ gays/queers/faggots/fairies as long as they leave me alone; if someone is a homosexual/gay/queer/ faggot/fairy, he can do as he pleases but he can’t be a schoolteacher; sincerest condolences; there’s no difference between right and left wing, they’re all thieves; I know when the weather’s going to change because I get a pain in my elbow/knee/ankle/corns; we learn by our mistakes; at the end of the day; I don’t talk behind people’s backs, I say it straight out; only fools work; worse than wetting your bed; don’t dig your grave with your knife and fork; where there’s life there’s hope; it seems like yesterday; I must decide to learn how to use the Internet/go to the gym/go on a diet/get my bicycle going/give up smoking etc., etc., etc.
It goes without saying that a man in a singlet says there are no longer any intermediate seasons and that the dry heat/cold is no problem, it’s not so much the heat/cold, it’s the humidity.
The man in a singlet’s swearwords: oh sugar, shoot, drat it, oh flip, bloomin’ heck, well I’ll be jiggered, ruddy hell, for Pete’s sake, naff off, eff off.
Anyone who knew him would have agreed. Cervellati was a man in a singlet.
One of his few merits was that of being in the office every morning by half-past eight. Unlike almost all his colleagues.