The speed with which, with only one hand, he managed to lift every one of the paintings, stare at them over and over again before tucking them all under his arm, apart from the two I had succeeded in grabbing from him, was incredible. ‘You’ve done me a great favour,’ he said as he went out, ‘I don’t know how to thank you.’ And he rushed off down the stairs. Gog leapt up at him, trying to sink his teeth into the canvases which Stumpy was carrying off as booty.
That very evening, Manàch came racing round to my place, out of breath: ‘Come out,’ he screamed at me, before rushing up to meet me on the stairs. ‘They’ve beaten up Stumpy!’
‘Beaten him up? When? Where? Who was it?’
‘Brizzi and his henchmen. Five of them went round to the Polish woman’s house … they found them there, Elise and him, in bed together. They dragged her out, in the nude, and carted her off … she was writhing about, trying to get free, screeching like an eagle. They punched and kicked him until he was a bloody mess.’
We were interrupted by the scream of a siren. ‘Hear that? They’re taking him to hospital at Luino.’
The ambulance went roaring past in front of us at top speed at that very moment. It was followed by a car driven by the Polish woman, his mother.
I caught a glimpse of Elise three days later in church for Sunday mass. She was wearing dark spectacles and a scarf which covered her face up to her nose. She stayed at the back, beside the confessional. As she went out, she made me a sign to follow her. I caught up with her in the lane alongside the bell-tower. She took me by the hand. ‘I have your paintings! They’re lovely … they made me tremble all over. It was us to a tee, clasped together, in another world!’
‘Thank you. How is Stum … I mean Rizzul … your boyfriend?’
‘He’s recovering slowly. I haven’t seen him yet. His mother does not want me even to go near the hospital. She says I have been the ruination of her boy. Fortunately he sent me a card.’
‘I was thinking of going to see him tomorrow.’
‘Ah yes, that was why I called you over. Would you give him a letter from me?’ She handed me an envelope, and gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Still dazed, I was about to go when she called me back: ‘Oh, I was thinking of preparing a nice surprise for my Rizzul when he gets out. Would you like to do a portrait of me?’
‘Right away?’
‘No, if it’s possible I would come over to your house in a couple of days … provided your mother has no objections.’
‘My mother will be delighted. See you soon.’
Almost a week went by. ‘She’s not coming any more…’ I said to myself, but early one Thursday afternoon I heard a knocking at the door of my room. It was her, Elise.
‘How did you get here? I was looking onto the piazza and I didn’t see you cross it.’
‘I came via the garden. I am being followed by Brizzi’s men. Maybe this way I can give them the slip!’ She took off her dark spectacles. ‘Don’t put this black eye in the portrait.’
She did indeed have a large, black and blue bruise. ‘You’re still beautiful the way you are,’ I plucked up the courage to say, before blushing. I made her sit with her back to the window. ‘If you don’t mind, I will try to paint you against the light.’
‘Do it your way…’ Elise ran her fingers through her curls, tossing them up in the air. Her hair itself seemed to expand.
‘Do you know you look exactly like an Egyptian mural painting? Look!’ I opened a big book of ancient art which was lying on the table. I showed her the funeral decorations of Amenossis. ‘Incredible. It could be me … in the nude!’ She read the caption. ‘Queen Nofret, wife of the Pharaoh. Do you really think I’m as beautiful as that? You know, it could even be a great-great-grandmother, considering that my mother came from those parts. She was born at Memphis, on the Nile.’ She lifted the book and kissed it: ‘Ciao, welcome home, Gran!’ Then she added: ‘If you like, I could pose in the nude, like her!’ I almost fainted on the spot. She noticed my sudden pallor and tried to fix things: ‘Oh all right, if you prefer to work from memory … you’ve already seen me undressed that night at the Polish woman’s house, isn’t that right?’
I told her I needed to retire to the toilet a moment. I came back almost at once to find she was already posing, reclining like the Egyptian Nofret. I was extremely agitated.
The canvas was already on the easel. ‘Listen, Nofret,’ I said with conviction, ‘I prefer to begin with a few sketches.’
I did some drawings on four sheets of paper, then began sketching on the canvas and adding colour. I was in a state of enchantment as I followed the lines of her body, so smooth in the half-light. I had no sense of passing time … she was still there, relaxing, as though peering onto another world.
‘The sun is setting, we’ll have to stop.’
Nofret shook herself as though awakening. ‘Let me see what you have done,’ she asked, picking up the canvas. ‘Yes, yes!’ and so saying she began leaping about the room. ‘It’s me … ha, ha, you’ve made the tresses of my hair just like the Egyptian painting.’ She came over beside me. I thought she was about to kiss me but instead she lifted me off my feet, swung me around, repeating in a sing-song voice: ‘Bravo, bravo … my little phenomenon!’ She then deposited me on the couch as though I were a sack and, taking one look at her watch, exclaimed: ‘Oh my God, it’s seven o’clock already! I’m an hour late. That bastard Brizzi will blacken my other eye,’ and off she went tripping down the stairs.
I went to the window and watched her cross the orchard with Gog at her heels. I noticed that in her haste she had forgotten her handbag. I opened the window and called to her, but she did not hear me. Not even Gog heard me, but perhaps he was only pretending not to. I grabbed hold of the bag and went racing down the stairs. I ran up the back alleys in the town, hoping to head her off before she got back to the big house where she lived with the thug. I climbed the Malarbeti staircase and came out in front of the gates which led into Brizzi’s garden. There was a police car parked there. A moment later, I saw two officers coming out, pushing Brizzi in handcuffs ahead of them. Next, in a line like the Three Wise Men, emerged his henchmen, they too tightly handcuffed and chained. With them was the Neapolitan police sergeant, a friend of my father’s. ‘What’s going on?’ I asked.
‘Huh, you should know,’ he grinned from ear to ear, and marched down to the police van to make sure that his prisoners were properly accommodated. When the van had moved off, he turned back. Just then, Nofret and my Great Dane, who was continually rubbing up against her, made an appearance. My dog and I have the same tastes!
The girl said hello to the sergeant, who proceeded to tell both of us that the very day Stumpy was taken to hospital, the Polish woman had gone to the police to file a report against the thug and his gang for assault and serious injury to her son. As if that were not enough, the assailants had taken jewellery and valuable objects from a sideboard in her bedroom.
‘Unluckily for them, we made our entrance at the precise moment when our honourable friends were brewing portions of cocaine for purposes of trade.’
‘Bloody hell!’ I said.
The girl did a somersault, yelling out a shriek of triumph as she turned head over heels. The sergeant removed her dark spectacles. ‘Luckily for you, Signorina, these bruises on your eyes testify to the fact that you were forcibly compelled to stay with Brizzi. Then there’s the proof of these photographs.’ So saying, he showed the girl a sequence of images taken at the villa when the gangsters were holding her naked and dragging her away.