Cooking With Fernet Branca (26 page)

‘How was the sofa?’ I ask next morning as I make coffee and Ljuka begins to stir. ‘No metronomes?’

‘Huh?’

“That
dudi
neighbour I’ve told you about, Gerry? Sat himself down there some weeks ago right on top of a metronome Father gave me when I went to Moscow. It’s quite a sharp little obelisk. From his expression I’d say he became intimate with at least ten centimetres of it. I was hoping you didn’t have a similar mishap last night.’

‘Really, Matti,’ he says sleepily but still managing to sound shocked. I smile, knowing exactly what his problem is. Not only should a Voynovian elder sister not be coarse; she shouldn’t make jokes that imply shared experience with a
dudi
, no matter how accidental or innocent. Ah me. Moscow Conservatory taught me a lot more than music. Pavel might have won the Tchaikovsky Prize that year but when he wasn’t practising for six hours a day his thoughts weren’t much on music. The parties we had in those little student flats were hardly in accordance with the public face of Soviet sexual morality. But then we were artists, and the Russians have always understood there can be no rule that has no exception. I believe that was just as true under the Soviets, if not more so. It may be heresy for a daughter of Voynovia to say so, but there’s lots of good stuff in the Russians. Some of them.

‘I’ve been misjudging Gerry rather,’ I tell Ljuka, waiting to hand him a cup of coffee as he swings his feet to the floor and runs both hands through his enviable mane of hair. He has the smudged look of a suddenly woken child.

‘Oh?’ he says disinterestedly, sipping and shuddering. So I tell him of the recent revelations and at the mention of Luc Bailly, Per Snoilsson and Brill he perks up. ‘He
knows
those people?’

‘Apparently, yes. He’s written books about them. Or is writing, in Brill’s case. Of course, I was forgetting you’re a motor racing fan.’

‘Yes, well, Snoilsson’s world famous, Matti. He’s still Formula One champion. And just about everybody’s heard of Freewayz and Brill. Their music’s in every disco from Spitzbergen to Sydney, I’d think. Pretty crappy it is, too, but the kids go for it in a big way. Brill must be making a serious fortune. And this Gerry of yours has got his hooks into him? Smart guy.’

‘I can’t work out if he’s smart or not but he’s obviously much more professional than I’ve been giving him credit for. Plus he speaks fluent Italian. I’ve been underestimating him
because he’s such a queen. For all I know I’m wrong about that, too. Anyhow, he’s been underestimating me as well, so I suppose it’s mutual.’

‘He’d better not have been disrespectful.’

My little brother, my champion. ‘We’re grown-ups, Uki,’ I say. ‘Right now, you and I have far more urgent things to worry about than Gerry. What are we going to do? How can we find out what’s happening with Father? Can’t you call Panic?’

‘I’ll do that right away.’ He gets to his feet and struggles into his trousers. He still looks dazed and underslept but the coffee’s beginning to work. He pulls the phone over, dials an interminable number and then turns round, flattening his hand over the mouthpiece, to say rather shockingly: ‘Go away, Matti,’ nodding his head towards the back door.

I understand and go out. The less I know the better. And it would be safer not to risk Panic overhearing my voice. We have to assume the line may be tapped at that end. Or even at this end. The long arm of Europol. It’s depressing: too much like going back to an era I’d hoped had been left behind for ever. I wander apprehensively across the grass to the helicopter whose top surfaces, I notice, are shawled in dew. I’ve always liked these machines. I like the way they smell purposefully of kerosene. This one looks a lot tenner and more civilian than the last thing Ljuka turned up in. Still, the twin blades of its tail rotor are painted black with two yellow stripes across them, waspish colours implying that if you were thinking of making it your prey it might be safer not to. Flight; escape. I’m chiefly worried because I can’t tell how worried I ought to be. I would have thought Father and Ljuka had long since made provision against this moment, would have all sorts of contingency plans. But there again, too much power for too long slows people down. It makes them cocksure and slack, which was part of what I was trying to tell Ljuka the last time he was here.

I go around and lean my head against the cold plastic of the window in the pilot’s door and gaze in at the beautiful
functionality of the instruments and levers and switches, all of which I’ve had explained to me. Flying these things is tricky. It’s all a matter of co-ordination, with both hands doing things in two different planes and independently of the feet. In its way it’s quite like playing the organ. It surely oughtn’t to be any more difficult to fly one of these than it is to play a Bach trio sonata. Easier, actually, given the number of qualified helicopter pilots and the dearth of organists good enough to play the trio sonatas.

I’m just trying to remember where the ignition switch is when Ljuka himself comes out. His face is suddenly very adult indeed.

‘They’ve kept him,’ he says. ‘I had to get it from Franek. Panic’s gone. He got away in time. They’re at the house and they’ve impounded all the papers they can find. Franek says he thinks it’s co-ordinated and they’ve arrested people in Sarajevo, Pristina, Christ knows where. What are we going to do, Matti?’

‘I was hoping you’d be able to tell me, Uki. What do
I
know about all this stuff? I shall be all right; it’s you I’m worried about. They’re probably looking for you. Where could you go?’

It’s as if an old plan is coming back to him. ‘Marseilles. I’ll be fine once I’m on the ground there. I’ve got reliable friends. I guess after that North Africa and eventually the States. At least until the pressure’s off and we know where we stand.’

‘As long as it’s not in a dock in The Hague.’

‘Don’t. Ah,
kakash
!’

I follow his gaze. A dark blue car plainly marked
CARABINIERI
in white capitals along the side is gliding quietly to a stop beside the house. Two uniformed men get out of the back, the senior greying handsomely and festooned in braid. Both wear pistols in polished holsters whose flaps they unbutton automatically as they walk towards us. It’s true what they say in books: your knees really do feel weak suddenly.

‘Can you get away if I distract them?’ I say foolishly, my mind blank of heroic tactics.

‘The machine’s keys are in the kitchen,’ Ljuka says briefly. And since that is that, we begin walking calmly to meet them.

It starts off very civilly. The senior of the two announces himself as
maresciallo
Sgrizzi. I introduce myself and my brother. We all shake hands. The policemen appraise the helicopter with interest and walk around it. I remind myself that the carabinieri are part of the Italian military and not strictly civilians at all.

‘I assume you are the pilot?’ Sgrizzi addresses Ljuka, whose Italian seems well up to simple question-and-answer stuff.

‘I am.’

‘And of course you have the necessary
documenti
?’

‘In the house.’ We go in and from his bag, rather to my surprise, Ljuka produces a sheaf of official-looking papers and licences covered in stamps which the
maresciallo
examines briefly but keenly. He then asks to see my own
permesso
di
soggiorno
, which by some miracle I remember is marking a page in Prokoviev’s eighth sonata. He hands everything over to his subordinate with a nod. The younger man takes them outside to the car: standard practice familiar to any Italian motorist. He or the driver will get on their radio and check the details.

‘Please forgive this intrusion,’ Sgrizzi is addressing me, I presume as the lady of the house whose brother is about to be taken away in handcuffs. I interrupt graciously to offer him coffee which he politely refuses, a bad sign. ‘I’m afraid my business is official.’ Worse still. ‘It is with you,
signora
, rather than with your brother. At present.’

Worst of all. I sit down. ‘With me?’ I repeat feebly.

‘It is a delicate matter. You may wish your brother not to be present.’

‘What on earth …? No, I don’t want him to leave.’

‘As you wish. I must tell you,
signora
, that a very serious charge appears to have been levelled against you and it is my duty this morning to question you about the matter with a view to appropriate action being taken.’

‘Against
me
? “Appears”?’

The
maresciallo
looks at me a little sadly, I think, like an uncle disappointed in his niece. ‘It has been suggested that you are actively engaged in prostitution.’

There is a long silence in which my blood abruptly stops circulating and jells to embalming fluid. I catch Ljuka’s eye. He has understood, all right. His face is crimson and swelling. I shake my head urgently. The last thing we need is one of his explosions.

‘Can we get this straight,
maresciallo
?’ My tone is reasonable. ‘You’re saying you think I’m some sort of call girl?’ At this point, mainly out of relief that this isn’t about Ljuka, I’m afraid I begin to laugh.

‘An allegation has been made to that effect,’ he replies cautiously.

‘Oh? And by whom, may I ask? This is incredible.’

‘It is a serious matter,
signora
,’ the
maresciallo
chides me. ‘Unfortunately I am not yet at liberty to divulge the name of the person concerned. As I said, this is in the nature of a preliminary enquiry. But the allegation implied that not only may you yourself be engaged in this profession but that you might also be acting to procure others from Eastern Europe. Er, Voynovia, isn’t it?’

At this moment the dam bursts and Ljuka submerges our polite exchange beneath a torrent of Voysk – mercifully. The tirade is aimed at Sgrizzi’s honour, lineage, sexual practices and personal hygiene. Before long he will be challenging the
maresciallo
to a duel in the paddock, I realize with horror, but a noise from outside is becoming steadily more insistent above my kid brother’s impassioned voice. Soon the sound of an approaching helicopter fills the room.

That does it, I think. These people are not fooling after all. The policemen outside have found out about Ljuka on their radio and have sent for reinforcements. And a glance at my brother’s face shows he has reached exactly the same conclusion. I lay a restraining hand on his knee.

I am making a leisurely breakfast, trying not to wonder if tarty Marty is having hers in bed with Filippo Pacini. ‘A natural pilot,’ his father called him. I’ll say. To take the taste away I spread my toast from a carefully hoarded jar of my precious Log Jam. Not actually logs, of course, but oak twigs. I am probably the only person in the world who knows how to make oak twigs as soft as the slices of rind in Seville orange marmalade. They have a sumptuous aromatic flavour, faintly resinous like the waft from a closing cigar humidor. The secret – which has probably been lost since the Late Bronze Age – lies less in the cooking than in the steeping to break down the xylem fibres. That’s the bit which feels so like a trade secret I’m not sure I shall ever pass the recipe on. To have discovered how to impart the scent of freshly sawn hardwood to a preserve is, if I may say so, a real feat. To have reduced a piece of oak to the luscious consistency of crystallized ginger is the mark of a gen– (but here the phone interrupts what is beginning to look like an uncanny prediction of posterity’s judgement).

‘Gerry? This is Nanty. Returning yer call?’

‘Bit bright and early for you, isn’t it?’

‘Nah, it’s only just after midnight. I’m in the States, aren’t I?’ Music in the background, voices, laughter. ‘Mick says to come on round.’

‘Where, exactly?’ I ask with sarcasm that sinks and is lost in the night that lies between us.

‘This pad in, er,’ and the line scuffs and crackles as he turns to ask someone, ‘Denver, I think. But it’s easy to get to. Just ask the cab driver for Olympics subdivision and it’s where that becomes Therapists’ Village, actually right on the corner of Slam Dunk and Oedipus? You can’t miss it.’

‘Oh,
that
house. Funny, I’d always thought of it as being on Home Run and Penis Envy.’

It’s going to be OK working with Nanty after all. We’re just testing each other out, really, like potential lovers. Suddenly I suspect he no more believes in the death agonies of potatoes than I do. But UFOs? ‘Listen,’ I say. ‘You know Piero Pacini? I remember you admiring
Nero’s
Birthday
. Get this: he wants you and the boys to do a short gig for a scene in his new film. I know you’re all booked solid for the next twenty-eight years but we wondered if you could squeeze it in. It could be useful, Nanty. Give you some weight.’

‘We’re busy, Gerry, but we’re not
that
busy. Pacini? Wow – tell him he’s on. We’ll find time, don’t worry.’

‘I’ll have to check, but we may be talking about the next few weeks.’

‘We’ll work it in. Jeez, appearing in a Pacini film. Is this one anything like
Nero’s
Birthday
?’

‘I don’t know exactly. There’s certainly a beach orgy.’

‘Done a few of those, mate, but always in the market for more. Christ, Gerry, at this rate you’ll have to become my manager.
Pacini
. How’d you do it?’ A short pause and then, ‘Gerry? Is that a chopper I can hear?’

Well, yes, incredibly it is. The familiar noise has been growing steadily louder these last twenty seconds. Now the thing passes smack over the house and I can see yellowing vine leaves raining down on the terrace outside. It may be too late in the season to matter but we’re talking principle here. When I can hear myself speak I say: ‘It’s landed. Er, Nanty? What do you think a strong smell of ozone means?’

‘
Ozone
? Are you kidding, man? Listen, Gerry, you’ve got to get the hell out of there, I mean like
now
!’

‘I … Nanty, I think I may have left it too late. There’s this huge shadow on the kitchen door and … Oh-my-God-it’s … it’s so
big
and incredibly
old
!
No, no! Help! It’s an alien paedophile! I’m underage, mister! I’m not even forty – 
aaaargh
…!’

I break off and knock the receiver around a bit before replacing it. We’re going to get on just fine. But this sodding helicopter business has reached the giddy limit. Le Roccie is turning into a veritable oil rig. I’ve been far too kind to Marta, just as I was infinitely too polite to Benedetti. Well, the Samper worm is about to turn. A stop has to be put to this. I wrench open the back door and set off through the trees with purposeful stride. As I approach her hovel the sound of raised voices comes from inside the kitchen. I catch glimpses of sunlight winking off metal and perspex over in the paddock. Suddenly I don’t give a damn what I’m about to intrude on. I bang on the door and throw it open, at the last moment registering the carabinieri patrol car parked off to one side. Too late. I’m in.

The first person I notice is the gorgeous Filippo, standing by the back door looking incredulous. Marta is slumped on the sofa looking wronged. Beside her yet another handsome young man is looking murderous. There is something faintly familiar about him but my attention is distracted by the two carabinieri, obtrusive in full fig. Tableau.

‘Oh hello, Gerry,’ Marta says dully.

‘Hello, Gerry,’ Filippo echoes in an aside. Then, obviously resuming the sentence I had interrupted, he adds: ‘It’s utterly ludicrous. Preposterous.’ This is addressed to the senior of the two officers who from his uniform must be at least a Field Marshal.

‘I’m sorry to interrupt,’ I say. ‘I just came over to, well, I heard the helicopter and, you know, it came
slap
over
my house.’

‘This gentleman is my neighbour,’ Marta explains to the policeman.

‘Piacere
.’ We nod to each other and then he frowns for a moment and says, ‘Mr Samper? Is that correct?’

‘Um, yes. Yes, that’s me.’

He looks me over as if measuring me for a shroud and then returns to Filippo. ‘I’m sorry, sir. A serious allegation was
made against this lady and we are duty bound to investigate, especially since she is an
estracomunitaria
. Voynovia is not yet a part of the EU. As you’re surely aware, these activities of which our informant spoke are politically highly sensitive these days. The international trade in human lives is not something we can ignore.’

Filippo merely hands the officer his ID card. It is obviously he who has just arrived in the family chopper. ‘My father is Piero Pacini.’

‘Il
maestro
Pacini?’ The two carabinieri examine the card and then glance at each other, clearly taken aback.

‘Exactly. Check the helicopter’s registration. I’m not trying to impress you but to tell you that this is a straightforward case of mistaken identity. Marta, the lady you’re foully accusing, so far from being a common
lucciola
is an internationally distinguished composer who is writing the musical score for my father’s latest film currently in production down at Pisorno Studi. I’ve just come straight from him to fetch Marta because he needs her on the set this morning. This is also something you can very easily check. In fact,
maresciallo
, I think you had better go away and do that before you make a serious mistake you will later regret.’

And all this time I’m standing here trying to get my head around this. I didn’t at all like the way the
maresciallo
looked at me when I came in, and the bizarre conversation certainly indicates I’m an intruder. God knows what all this is about. I’m on the point of making an apology and drifting unobtrusively away when Filippo thinks of something else. I’m impressed by the way the boy handles these minions of the law. For a kid his age he’s certainly got confidence. That’s what comes of having a father who is world-renowned and a Cavaliere or a Commendatore or something. A good few zillions in the bank must help, too.

‘It seems to me the very least you can do for Marta is to tell her exactly who laid these grotesque charges,’ he is saying. ‘She has a legal right to know that. Who made this
denuncia 
against her? My father will need to know when he briefs our lawyer,’ Filippo adds significantly.

For a moment it looks as though the
maresciallo
is about to cave in before this unexpected heavyweight attack. Apparently, though, he has a last little something tucked away, and when it comes his timing shows he has a streak of the thespian in him.

‘Very well,
signore
,’ he begins. ‘I agree it is only fair and proper to identify this lady’s accuser, although as I have said several times already this was not an official
denuncia
but a serious rumour that was brought to the attention of a senior officer of the Ufficio dei Stranieri at the Questura in Lucca. It was reported purely in the public interest by
ingegnere
Benedetti, an estate agent in Camaiore. As a matter of fact he was the gentleman who sold this and the neighbouring house to its present occupants.’ He indicates Marta and myself and produces a notebook. Finding the right page he reads out:
‘Ingegnere
Benedetti swore in deposition that his informant said: “What do I care if she’s an East European call girl?”.’ He pauses before delivering the coup de grâce. ‘His informant, of course, was Signor Samper here,’ and he turns to me with a little flourish.

As a rule I hate to be literal, but when I say ‘all eyes are on me’ they really are, Marta’s in particular. She is nodding to herself with a sad half-smile of bitter resignation. What with her hair the old frump looks like Mona Lisa being handed her first Senior Citizen’s bus pass. I can see I need to put my case swiftly and well.

‘The
ingegnere
is quite correct,’ I tell the
maresciallo
. ‘That is pretty much what I said to him – although since I believed it was a private conversation it never occurred to me he would be passing it on to his police cronies. If it had, I would have made myself clearer. We were having this private conversation because I felt that Marta’s social life with visiting helicopters hardly fitted Benedetti’s promise to me when I bought my house that my neighbour was a mousy recluse who would
only be in residence one month of the year. My tone was one of protest and Benedetti himself said he wondered what Marta was up to. And then I said: “What do I care? What do I care if she’s an East European call girl?” – something like that. Obviously it was a rhetorical gesture. I didn’t mean she
was
a call girl, for heaven’s sake. I meant I didn’t care what she was, so long as life up here became a little quieter. And that’s it. If Benedetti mistook a figure of speech for an informal
denuncia
he has only himself to blame for being both mean-spirited and abnormally stupid. I believe poor Marta will bear me out in this since her own dealings with the
ingegnere
have probably led her to a similar diagnosis. Frankly, the man’s a cretin.’

A
cretino
sounds even better in Italian and I can see my nifty explanation has gone over well. Marta Lisa is looking as though the bus pass was a bureaucratic error and she can go back to being eternally thirty-three. The
maresciallo,
too, is looking relieved.

‘So, Signor Samper, you expressly deny that you made any specific accusation regarding this lady’s profession?’

‘Of course I do. What’s more, since that conversation with Benedetti I’ve learned that she is indeed the composer for
maestro
Pacini’s latest film. Consequently the helicopter visits were a necessary part of her distinguished professional connection with the production. Once that became clear there was no further problem. As I’ve just said, I never made any charges so I can’t withdraw them. My charge against
ingeg
nere
Benedetti still stands, of course.’

‘Of being a cretin?’

‘Exactly.’

‘To take action on that,
signore
, lies beyond the scope of the carabinieri. But we shall certainly explain his mistake to him.’

‘And caution him, I hope, against making malicious and actionable allegations in the future?’

Instead of replying, the
maresciallo
bows his head sadly and says to Marta, ‘I am truly sorry,
signora
,
to have troubled you over this matter. But I hope you understand that in the
present political climate we could hardly take no action at all once we’d heard the allegation. At the very least we were bound to come up here and make enquiries. However –’ and he shuts his notebook with a decisive snap that clearly implies the closing of the case against Marta.

Almost instantly she is transformed from crushed victim to gladhanding hostess. She bustles about the room with smeary glasses and a villainous-looking bottle.

‘Gentlemen,’ she says, sounding bizarrely like a CEO at a moment of boardroom triumph in a made-for-TV series about oil moguls. ‘This calls for a drink. A very special drink from Voynovia.’ The
maresciallo
and his colleague look apprehensive in the way Italians do when threatened with foreign food. ‘Just an
amaro
. If you like Fernet you’ll love our
galasiya
.’

‘Well, just a small one,
signora
. We’re really still on duty.’

I have the impression that under any other circumstances the
maresciallo
would have declined politely but firmly. However, surrounded by Piero Pacini affiliates and in the wake of what nearly proved a seriously bad career move on his part, he is in no position to refuse. The glasses of dense black liquid are passed around. It looks like sump oil.

‘Salute
!’
everyone echoes and takes an obligatory quaff.

Holy
bicycling
Christ
, I think as projectile tears leap from my eyes and splash into the glass. I dimly recall Marta having mentioned this stuff as being a more butch version of Fernet Branca made by huntsmen or something. Actually tasting this distillation of gall and lighter fuel simply confirms what I’ve long known, that Voynovians lack an essential element of human physiology. A central nervous system, possibly. Through dancing lenses of tears I can see the
maresciallo
has been equally hard hit but is bearing up with noble shreds of dignity.

‘Madonna
puttana
della
Madonna,
ma
quanti
gradi
ha
?’ he rasps at last, his vocal cords evidently cauterized.

‘Ninety-two, I believe,’ says Marta brightly, examining the bottle. ‘But they seldom put it on the label. Everyone in
Voynovia knows
galasiya
.
In our language it means “mother’s milk”.’