Day of the Dead (25 page)

“Signora, my name is Ricciardi. Believe me, you have my sincerest condolences for your loss. I never knew the boy, but you have my sympathies nonetheless.”

The woman lifted her veil, uncovering a pair of swollen eyes, red with crying, and a pretty face that was, however, creased and worn with grief.

“The commissario; yes, of course, they told me about you. I'm Carmen Fago. Thank you. It's everyone's loss really. There's no one who didn't love Tettè. It would have been impossible.”

“I'm certain of that. I apologize for having to ask you this now, but it would be very useful to me if I could speak with you, after . . . when the ceremony is over.”

Signora De Nicola, who had come over to tell Carmen that the funeral procession was about to depart, shot Ricciardi a scorching glare.

“Does this strike you as an appropriate time for this? You certainly are insensitive—heartless, I'd say. Can't you see that my friend is distraught?”

Carmen Fago laid a gloved hand on her friend's arm.

“No, Eleonora: please, I
do
want to talk to the commissario. He wants to understand, and so do I.”

The older woman did her best to object.

“Carmen, I've already told you, there's nothing to understand. It was an accident, a terrible accident. Why do you insist on tormenting yourself?”

The younger woman shook her head, with determination.

“I saw him, just two days before it happened. I saw him and he was fine, you understand? He was fine. He was my little boy, the one who gave me a feeling of tenderness that nature has denied me. I can't and I won't just put him in the ground without knowing.”

She turned once again to Ricciardi.

“Commissario, I'll be with you right afterward, once Tettè . . . once we've said good-bye to him. Please, wait for me.”

 

 

 

 

The hearse rumbled off, emerging from the hospital courtyard into the crowded quarter of Pignasecca, with its mix of working-class and poor inhabitants.

Despite the fine drizzle, the market was teeming with people, accompanied by a relentless wave of noise: vendors' cries, quarrels, loud haggling; but when the white hearse emerged a spectral silence fell and the crowd opened, forming two walls of humanity. The horses knew their job, and even though their cargo was light, they proceeded at a proud and cadenced pace.

Don Antonio led the cortege, aspergillum in hand. After him came the twins, in their altar boy vestments. Their bearing and appearance—identical to the last detail as long as the one missing his front teeth kept his mouth closed—was quite choreographic.

Next in the procession was Carmen, who couldn't stop weeping, held up by a serious, stately Eleonora.

The three other boys walked with their heads bowed. Cristiano shot a furtive glance at Ricciardi, then fixed his eyes on the pavement and kept them there. A step behind them was the sexton, following their every move like a prison turnkey.

Ricciardi and Modo, one bareheaded, the other with his hat tugged firmly down around his ears, brought up the rear. Behind them, roaring like a panther about to lunge, was the torpedo-body limousine in which the two women had arrived at the church.

The men lining the procession's path either doffed their hats or saluted smartly, fingers to the hat brim; the women made the sign of the cross, and a few even pulled out their rosary beads and began to pray in silence. Many people curiously inquired of their neighbors whose funeral this might be; the poor exited this world with much less grandeur, certainly without carriages and flowers, and when the child of a wealthy family died word spread quickly, as a rule.

When they reached the corner of Spirito Santo, where the street ran into the larger Via Toledo, Carmen opened her black purse and pulled out a handful of white Jordan almonds, flinging them to either side as if she were sowing wheat. Instantly, a horde of ragged, barefoot children silently lunged to collect the sweets, with little squabbles breaking out among them.

Ricciardi was familiar with the custom, and exchanged a glance of understanding with Modo: the Jordan almonds
represented the happy occasions that the dead child would never celebrate: first communion, confirmation, and wedding. The two men observed those children, hungry and festive, following the funeral procession. Death and life, intertwined for all eternity.

Saverio, one of the boys from Santa Maria del Soccorso, followed his instincts and pounced on a handful of almonds, which immediately put him into a noisy clash with a pair of
scugnizzi
, but the sexton quickly grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and shoved him back into line.

The cortege stayed in formation until it reached Piazza Dante, and there it halted and dissolved. One of the undertakers approached Carmen, who pulled an envelope from her purse; the man touched his hat and climbed back into the hearse, which then departed in the direction of Poggioreale cemetery. Ricciardi waited with Modo off to one side, while Don Antonio lingered in ceremonious conversation with the two ladies. The elegance and speed with which the priest concealed in the folds of his tunic a second envelope, which Carmen had extracted from her purse, did not escape the commissario's eye.

After a few minutes spent exchanging condolences, the priest headed off toward Capodimonte, followed by the boys and the sexton. Before leaving, he turned to look at Ricciardi, briefly looking him in the eye. The commissario returned the stare, until the priest dropped his gaze.

Modo squeezed Ricciardi's arm.

“This is where I bid you farewell, my friend: after having accompanied a dead boy, I'm off to see if I can be of any assistance to a few of the living, who may not stay that way for long. Take my advice: be careful. I worry about you, even though I have to say that this new Ricciardi who does his own investigating is a refreshing development.”

Ricciardi shot him the grimace that he often wore in place of a smile.

“We always end up urging each other to be careful when we say good-bye. We both must be doing something wrong.”

He approached the two women. Eleonora glanced briefly at him with a look of hostility and spoke to Carmen.

“If you like, I'll wait for you in my car. When you're done, I can take you back home.”

The younger woman shook her head.

“No, don't worry about it: you go ahead. I'll ask the commissario to see me home. I live nearby; it can't be more than a ten-minute walk, and it's hardly raining at all. Besides, I'd like to get a little fresh air.
Grazie
, Eleonora. Perhaps I'll give you a call on the phone later.”

Continuing to glare severely at the impassive Ricciardi, Eleonora nodded.

“All right, if that's what you prefer. Give my best to your husband. I'll talk to you later.”

She turned and left, without a word of farewell. Ricciardi said:

“I'm afraid your friend doesn't really like me. She interprets my questions about Matteo's life as casting a shadow on the way Don Antonio looks after his boys, and he seems to share her feelings.”

Carmen replied in a voice still hoarse from weeping:

“Well, isn't that the case, Commissario? Just what is the motive behind your questions, if not that?”

The two of them headed off, walking up Via Toledo, retracing the route of the funeral procession in reverse. Carmen had opened a charming little umbrella to ward off the fine drizzle. Ricciardi realized that she was young, probably no older than thirty, but there was a look of unbearable grief in her eyes.

“No, Signora,” he replied, “I have no suspicions about Don Antonio. I think that he could do better, that's true; still, he does a great deal. Nor do I doubt that Tettè's death was the result of a tragic accident, as far as that question is concerned. What I want to understand is if and how I can prevent such an accident from happening to another one of the boys. And in order to find that out, I have to know more about the child's life, that's all.”

Carmen blew her nose into the handkerchief she kept tucked into her glove.

“I see. You should know, Commissario, that I'm infertile. Ever since I was a little girl, I've only had one dream: to have a child of my own. I come from a humble family. My father was a schoolteacher, my mother kept house. I watched her and dreamed of being the way she was with my little brother: a mother, nothing but a mother. Then I met my husband; I would have liked to have ten, twelve children with him. One of those big, happy, healthy families. But that's not what happened. No children came.”

Ricciardi could hear the incessant surge of sadness in the woman's voice: a flow that reminded him of the sea's undertow, calm yet somehow terrible.

“I couldn't tell you how many physicians we went to see, how many sanctuaries we visited. My husband is rich, you know: very rich. He could have afforded to adopt hundreds of children, but I never wanted to. I wanted flesh of my flesh to hold in my arms, the fruit of
my
love, not other people's. After ten years, I finally resigned myself; we both did. We'd grow old together, and we'd be the last ones to bear my husband's family name. I turned to charity. This city needs it, and desperately, as I'm sure you know, Commissario.”

Ricciardi nodded. He was perfectly aware.

“Then, after about a year, I met Tettè. He was the smallest one there, and with his stutter he couldn't even speak. But he had a smile, Commissario, a smile that loosened a knot in my chest that I didn't even know was there. I remember it . . . forgive me . . . ”

Carmen stopped talking and burst into tears. Ricciardi waited for her sobbing to subside.

“We understood each other instantly, all it took was a glance. He never spoke to anyone; his difficulty with speech made most adults lose their patience, even Eleonora, and the other boys just made fun of him. I'm not a particularly patient person, and I never have been; but I was patient with him. We'd sit together for hours, he'd draw and I'd speak sweetly to him, and toward the end he almost never stuttered with me anymore. He was able to talk to me about his world, his life. We'd tell each other stories. It was as if our two lonelinesses had finally met, after waiting for each other for all those years.”

Ricciardi listened in silence. Then he said:

“Did you see him often, Signora? I mean to say, aside from the lessons you gave him twice a week.”

Carmen sighed. She smiled through hers tears as she spoke.

“I used to go pick him up at least once a week; he loved my car, he was so excited whenever he got a chance to ride in it. I'd bought him a suit of clothes that they kept for him at the parish, and they'd have him wear them whenever he came out alone with me. I'd take him out to eat, but he'd get full right away, because his stomach was so small. I'd drive him around, without my chauffeur. He loved the way the wind would come in through the window and toss his hair, and in the summer we'd put the roof down and laugh, oh how we laughed. Those were the happiest moments, for him and me. He was the son I'd never had, Commissario. God had given him to me, after all.”

 

 

 

Seven days earlier, Friday, October 23

 

I
t's cold in the big room, freezing cold. It's still early, but Tettè has been awake for a while now, curled up under the burlap sacks that he has for covers.

The rain patters against the shutters, still closed, and the dampness in the air ought to depress him; instead Tettè smiles happily. It's the most wonderful day of the week. The day his angel comes.

Tettè daydreams and waits. When Nanni opens the door and yells out the morning wake-up call, he leaps out of bed and starts folding his makeshift covers, pulling his shirt and britches from under the pallet. He shivers as he puts them on. They're icy cold against his bare skin.

After the sexton has made sure that even the most stubborn ones are out from under the covers, he approaches Tettè and gestures for him to come with him into the other room. Tettè follows him, joyfully. The other boys watch them go, and the twins exchange a knowing glance.

In the other room, it's even colder, because no one sleeps in here; it's a little room that the sexton always keeps locked. There's a table with two chairs and a small, rusty metal cabinet, also locked. The sexton pulls the key out of his pocket and opens it. Tettè can't wipe the smile off his face, and Nanni shoots him an ugly look.

The man pulls a pair of short pants and a little sailor's blouse out of the wardrobe, a cap and a pair of black leather shoes. The clothes are spotless and neatly ironed. Nanni sets them down on a table like a series of relics and then sits down to watch Tettè change.

Tettè doesn't like the way the sexton looks at him; he has one of those gazes in which you can't read a thing. His eyes are always red; Tettè knows, as do all the other boys, that the man gets drunk every night in a tavern down by the harbor. They've seen him snoring openmouthed in the gutter on summer nights many times.

You're getting to be a big boy, says Nanni as he watches him. Such a big boy. Tettè gets dressed as quick as he can, putting the clean clothing on hastily, and in his haste he loses his balance and almost rips the short pants. The man lunges forward and slaps him hard.

Stupid
cacaglio
, he says to him: those pants are worth a lot more than you are. You have no idea what Don Antonio would do to you if you tore them. Tettè's ear is ringing from the slap the man gave him, but he chokes back his tears. All he wants to do is get dressed and leave the room.

Nanni goes on talking: remember that I know your secret,
cacaglio
. The secret that only you and I know. Just remember that I can always tell that secret, and if I do you'll lose everything, you fool of a
cacaglio
. Which means you also won't get to wear your new clothes and drive in the car with the signora anymore.