Big Italy (5 page)

“Sometimes I like to think I’m a little girl too.”

Diffidently Priscilla approached. She had slipped her thumb into her mouth. Twice she glanced back at her mother.

“I quite like nice toys,” Priscilla remarked earnestly. Her left hand went from her groin as she pointed at the box.

“Just like me.”

“You’re grown up.”

“I used to be a little girl. I’ve always liked playing with dolls. I still do, sometimes … when I have the time.”

Again Priscilla turned to her mother.

The young woman from the Val Camonica nodded her encouragement. She did not smile nor did she take the smoldering cigarette from her mouth.

“I like dolls when you can brush their hair,” Priscilla said breathlessly.

“Girl dolls, boy dolls.” Signora Scola now held out both hands. “I’ve found some lovely dolls here—please play with me, Priscilla.”

Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, president of the Italian Republic, looked down from the wall. His photograph and a crucifix decorated the pale green walls. There was an ancient poster of the group I Pooh. A couple of watercolors in bright pastel had been pinned to the lower wall. They did not mitigate the impersonal surroundings of the small room.

“I have a dolly at home. Don’t I, Mamma?”

On the far wall was a long mirror. A television camera was bolted to the ceiling.

“Look, here’s a little girl like you.”

“She’s not wearing clothes.”

“She must be very cold, poor little mite.”

“She’s naughty.”

“You’re a naughty, silly dolly,” Signora Scola acquiesced, turning back to address the pink plastic. “Go on like that and you will be very ill. You’ll catch pneumonia. I think we’d better dress you.”

Priscilla was now standing beside Signora Scola.

“Ah, Priscilla, my love.” Turning slightly, Signora Scola’s delicate features smiled down on the little girl. “You want to help me dress this silly little thing before she catches her death of cold?”

The box had once contained bananas from Somalia. It now contained various toys for both boys and girls: cars, cloth animals, plastic guns, wooden men. Rubber insects and creepy crawlies.

Signora Scola touched Priscilla’s golden hair. “You’re a pretty girl.”

“I don’t like those spiders.” Priscilla brusquely pushed the woman’s hand away and tumbled down beside the box. She was holding a black doll in her hand. “They’re horrible.”

“You want to help me dress this little girl?”

“You’re very big.” Accusatory eyes. “Big people don’t play with dolls.”

Signora Scola said, “I don’t have any children.”

“You have a daddy?”

“Yes.”

“That’s my mamma.” Priscilla gestured to where the smoking woman sat in silence on the hard, upright chair. “Daddy’s in the truck. He drives the truck. Sometimes he goes to the sea. Doesn’t he, Mamma?”

“Yes, tesoro,” the woman nodded; the young, thin face was pinched. “And I have a granny and an uncle. And perhaps I’ll have a little sister soon.” Priscilla had started to rummage. The black doll was discarded on the floor behind her. Priscilla had turned back to the banana box and now removed a snake—green, and of glaucous, lifelike rubber—from where it was entangled among the other toys. “I don’t like this snake.”

Signora Scola agreed. “I don’t like snakes.”

“A naughty snake.”

“God likes snakes.”

“This is a very naughty snake. A naughty and very bad snake.”

“Why’s he a bad snake, Priscilla?”

“He’s a very bad snake.”

“What’s he done wrong?”

“Very bad.”

Signora Scola nodded in agreement. She had light brown hair and dark brown eyes. Fine features and an olive complexion.

“Bad, bad.”

“What’s the snake done wrong?”

The grimy, little hand took hold of the rubber tail and angrily smashed the inert head against the carpet.

Violently.

“What’s he done, Priscilla?”

Several times the child banged the green head and the yellow eyes and the forked, red tongue to the ground, Her strength was impressive. “I want him to die.”

“He’s been naughty, Priscilla?”

The little girl continued her merciless battering.

“Why is the snake naughty?”

Now with both hands and renewed vigor, Priscilla banged the snake against the floor, then against the banana carton, then against the wall. “I hate him, I hate him.”

“What’s he done wrong?”

Priscilla had started to cry hot tears of anger.

The mother stood up, a new, unlit cigarette held between her fingers. “Don’t shout, tesoro.”

Priscilla spoke from between gritted teeth. “I want him to die.” Froth appeared at the corners of her mouth. “Die, die.” Her voice grew louder and louder, her vehemence redoubled. “I hate him.”

In a pique of rage, her round young face now quite red, her blonde hair disheveled, Priscilla threw the snake at Signora Scola. “I hate him, hate him, hate him.”

Priscilla Ponti, three and a quarter years old, fell to the carpet, saliva forming a string at her mouth.

Behind her, the yellow eyes stared at the back of Priscilla’s head and the forked tongue lolled mockingly.

“N
OTHING FOR IT
, I suppose,” the Questore said, grinning as he closed the door behind him with his heel. The man from Friuli placed the tray on Trotti’s desk. “If the mountain won’t move, Muhammad must.”

“Muhammad who?”

“I know your obsession with coffee, Piero. Let me assure you this stuff’s the best—or at least your favorite, Moka Sirs.” The man gestured to the two cups on the tray. “Three sugars.”

Trotti noted with satisfaction that the Questore now favored more sensible coffee cups to the thin porcelain that he once preferred. “Very flattered, Signor Questore.” Commissario Trotti’s face broke into a tired smile. “But I’m not retiring for another ten months.”

“Who said anything about retiring?” The Questore shook his head in amused disapproval. “Wouldn’t be surprised if you outlived me in this wretched place.” He frowned. “I’m no Greek and I’m not bearing any gifts, merely a cup of coffee. Cup of coffee and perhaps a chat.”

The Questore slumped down on to one of the greasy canvas chairs. He was wearing a blue anorak that had both a zipper and leather buttons. There was a soft, woolen scarf around his neck, and beneath the outer clothes and a V-neck sweater, he wore a blue tie and a white shirt. “No heating in here, Trotti?”

“My radiator hasn’t been working since Italy won the World Cup.”

“Before my time.” The Questore added, “You should ask for an electric fire.”

“I’ll be leaving soon.”

“If you don’t die of pneumonia first.” The Questore nodded towards the tray. “Take your coffee.”

Trotti did as he was told.

“Sweet enough?”

“Excellent, Signor Questore.”

“You see, Piero, in time a man can learn anything. And with time, I’ve finally come up with a cup of coffee to meet your demanding standards.”

“Just as I’m leaving the Questura.”

The Questore raised his cup to his lips. Before drinking he said, “There are times when you can be extremely surly, Piero.”

“The onset of old age.”

“You were surly thirty years ago.” The Questore did not appear amused. He hurriedly drank his coffee and then set the cup—taken, Trotti now saw, from the Dopolavoro in via Manfreddi—back on to the tray. He leaned back in the chair and crossed the legs of his thick, corduroy trousers. “You’ve just been at the hospital? At Pediatria?”

“Yes.”

“With Signora Scola?”

Trotti nodded.

“A good woman.”

Again he nodded.

“She has a lot of admiration for you, Piero.”

“Strange.”

“You sound tired.” The Questore looked at him for a moment, then asked, “How would you like a holiday?”

“I’ll be going down to see my daughter in a couple of weeks’ time.”

“A holiday abroad. How would you like that?”

“This is the golden handshake? You’d like me out of the Questura? Low profile—that’s the problem. I’ve never known how to keep a low profile.”

The Questore held up his hand, “Piero, Piero—you really must not let yourself get carried away. I honestly think I’ve never met a man like you to take offence. And bear grudges.” He shook his head. “I assure you, there’s really no reason for you to bear me any grudge. If you were in any way fair, you’d have to recognize that more than once I’ve defended you against my best interests.”

“Never said anything to the contrary.”

“You’re worse than a Sicilian. You neither forgive nor forget.”

“No grudges, Signor Questore. No grudges because within a very short time, I’ll be out of your hair.”

Unconsciously, the Questore put his manicured hand to his hair. There was no need. The hair was thick and lustrous. And artfully cut to make the Questore appear younger than his fifty years. Not a white strand, nor the slightest hint of thinning.

Perhaps the hair was the reason Trotti resented the man. Or at least the most important of many reasons that Commissario Trotti had accumulated over the last ten years.

“It is precisely about your retirement, Piero, that I came to see you.”

“Very considerate.”

“You’ve been doing some good work lately.”

“Thank you, Signor Questore.”

“I detect a note of irony in your thanks, Piero?”

“Only too pleased to learn I’ve been doing good work.”

“Very good work. But then you’ve always been a man to work by himself.”

“I’d like to think I’ve been doing good work for the last thirty-nine years or so.”

“That’s not what I meant. You take offence so easily, Piero. You’ve always been a star—you know that. Honest, motivated and efficient—despite this surly appearance you choose to put on.”

Trotti did not speak.

“Several years ago, I decided to let Merenda run the Reparto Omicidi. Yet another decision you’ve held against me. Another grudge, but you know as well as I do that I would have much preferred you doing that. But I couldn’t, Piero. Not because you’re not up to it—I sometimes think that with your sly intelligence there are few tasks you’re not capable of. It’s just you’re not a media man.”

“Media man?” Trotti repeated flatly.

“Commissario Merenda belongs to a different generation. He’s more than twenty years younger than you—and it shows. You know you can’t work with Merenda—you’re not a man to collaborate. Reparto Omicidi functions as a team. You like to do things in your own way—whatever you say, everybody knows you despise Merenda. There are lots of things you know that Merenda will never know, Piero.” He held up his hand, whitened by the cold of the office. “But there’s one thing he understands that you’ll never understand.”

“Only one?”

“Merenda understands that being a policeman at this end of the century in a country that has two presidents—Spadolini in Rome and Berlusconi in Milan—Merenda knows the importance of public relations.”

“A media man.”

“Precisely, Piero.” The Questore frowned, worried lest Trotti were imitating him. “In these last eighteen months, since the Barnardi thing, you’ve been doing some very good work.”

“Then I can walk out of the Questura in September with my head held high?”

The Questore paused for a second. “If you want to stay on, Piero Trotti, I think I’ve got just the job for you.”

“No, no.” Trotti was already shaking his head.

“Can you kindly hear me out before you make your decision?”

“No jobs, no nothing.”

“Piero, you’re the most infuriating of men.”

“Precisely what my wife used to say. My wife and every wretched policeman who ever had to work with me.”

“If you want it, Piero Trotti, there’s a job waiting.”

“The hills of the OltrePò, Signor Questore. The hills, my goats, my pigs and my chickens.”

“You’re the right man. The right man for the right job. You’ve already done good work with children …”

“Children?”

“Interpol, Piero? Does that mean anything to you?”

“What?”

“How would you like to be director of the regional child abuse section?”

“And my goats, Signor Questore?”

“Y
OU
’
VE ALWAYS BEEN
a family man. A good father and husband.”

“My wife lives in America. We’ve been separated for the last fifteen years.”

“In an occupation where most men end up burned-out and washed out—alcoholics or wearing tutus—you’re notorious for your abstemiousness.” A slow smile. “The only vice would appear to be your boiled sweets.”

“And my grudges.”

“If you say so, Piero.” Their eyes met. “Point is, though, that should you decide to stay on with us, you could do some very useful work.”

“You don’t think I’m entitled to a rest after all these years?”

“You see, with the International Declaration of Children’s Rights there’s been a big move to control things which historically we’ve always dealt with at a purely national level. National or provincial.”

Trotti was silent. He removed a packet of sweets from the drawer, offered one to the Questore who shook his head and took a cherry-red lozenge for himself.

“Like most other crime, crime against children has gone international.”

“Child abuse?”

“Child abuse in its largest sense. Trafficking in children for various criminal purposes. Medical as well as purely vice. Children being stolen from their parents to be sold for adoption in a foreign country. Or being murdered for their vital organs.”

Trotti popped the sweet into his mouth.

“We’ll need to collaborate with our neighbors. As the frontiers between nations come down, there’ll be more and more collaboration.”

“You’ve just told me that collaborating’s not my specialty.”

“Your specialty,” the Questore said, lowering his guard, “is that you’re a decent human being.”

“Don’t jump to conclusions.”

“And you like children.”

“I’m an old man, Signor Questore. I’ve really got very little in common with children.”

“And your granddaughter?” He gestured to a photograph on Trotti’s cluttered desk. “You’ve nothing in common with Francesca?”

“I hope to spend time with her—once I’ve moved out of here.”