Day of the Dead (35 page)

A rainy Sunday will make you want something different, whatever is it you don't have. It'll make you look out the rain-streaked windows and everything you see will become distorted, altered. A rainy Sunday even denies you a view of the outside world, with which you could fill your long hours deprived of strolls and encounters with other people.

If you're an old physician with war wounds carved into your soul, a rainy Sunday will find you already awake when day dawns. You'll get out of bed and shuffle around in your slippers, wandering through the rooms of an apartment that's too large for you, chilly drafts making you shiver in your nightshirt, heavy socks on your feet. You'll sit and smoke, looking your age-old loneliness in the face, without shame but with plenty of fear; contemplating the dark future you may never even have. You'll think of the long-ago fogs and rains of your childhood and youth, filled with games, devoid of frustrations; and perhaps you'll decide to go ahead and get dressed and go to the hospital, even though it's not your shift. Because the sick and their suffering are all you have left.

A rainy Sunday has its weapons.

If you're a young woman in love, you can't wait for something to happen, but a rainy Sunday makes time stand still, in a void that seems to stretch out into infinity. You'll read and reread a letter, comparing it with the hopes you secretly harbor, and the cold gray light filtering in through the windows will make you fear the worst. You'll make lunch with remote, distant gestures, and your family will sense your inexplicable agitation and they'll look at you with worry or annoyance. You won't even notice them, as you return over and over to the window like a fish staring through the plate glass of an aquarium, fearing and dreaming of a world in which you might no longer be able to breathe.

A rainy Sunday is ridden with fears.

If you're a woman in a man's body, perhaps you'll spend the day lacquering your nails, removing every single hair from your body. You'll feel a burst of rage over the fact that you can't go out in a summery flower-print dress, to shout to the world that you're strong and beautiful, in defiance of nature, which refused to listen to you. Perhaps you'll think back to how you were as a child, on the streets, rejected and mocked, humiliated by the very same men who now come to you begging and panting like hungry dogs. Some will come furtively to call on you, drenched with rain, eager and out of breath, and they'll look around when they come in and again when they leave, in fear of being seen; but you don't care, because that, too, is love, and if it pilfers a few moments now, eventually it will return them to you.

A rainy Sunday gives strange gifts.

If you're a beautiful woman from another town, you'll look out on your unfamiliar new city in the pouring rain. You'll think to yourself that for the land of sunshine, it certainly rains a lot here. But even the rain is different, gusts of rain alternating with shafts of light filled with music. You'll decide to go out anyway, and you'll drive around in your car through the empty streets, enjoying the silent
palazzi
overlooking the sea, the froth of the waves washing up onto the streets, the air charged with electricity. You'll think to yourself that you want a man, when at the café a dozen eager hands reach out to light your cigarette and a dozen doting smiles leave the other ladies glowering with envy; but the man you want isn't here, and your mind can only cultivate one hope at a time.

A rainy Sunday narrows your field of vision.

If you're a brigadier on your day off, you'll laze in bed for a change, while the rain hammers at the shutters. You'll make love to your wife in the morning, without haste, losing yourself in the blonde hair and light blue eyes and soft skin of the woman you've loved, you love now, and you'll always love, unflaggingly, until the light leaves your eyes. And later you'll welcome five little pixies into your bed, while she prepares breakfast, and you'll tell all those wide-eyed little ones about the dazzling adventures of the heroic policeman who arrests bad guys. And maybe you'll have a thought for someone who's gone away, and you'll send him a tear and a smile, reminding him that in your heart, the heart of a father, there's a big, beautiful, light-filled room just for him, and there always will be.

A rainy Sunday has plenty of guests.

If you're an aging
tata
filled with aches and pains, you'll watch your
signorino
getting dressed to go out, even if today is Sunday, even if today is the Feast of All Saints, even if today it's raining cats and dogs. And you'll protest, you'll complain, but you'll be ignored. He never listens to you. You'll look into his eyes glistening with fever, you'll listen to his dry cough. You'll feel the anguish of no longer being up to the task, your fear of his pain. You'll pin your hopes on the fact that you've seen him write when he thinks you're not looking, the fact that he keeps a folded, rumpled scrap of paper in his inside jacket pocket. Close to his heart.

A rainy Sunday has a few shreds of hope, amidst the loneliness.

Ricciardi was walking, and his footsteps echoed as if it were late at night, even though it was early morning. The rain was keeping people indoors that autumn Sunday.

He would gladly have stayed home himself that day, within the comfort of four thick walls. He was a wreck, his throat was on fire, his head felt like it was wrapped in cotton balls; but he knew that he couldn't rest until he had figured out who the man with the limp was, and what part he had played in the last days of Tettè's life.

The sexton had been nothing but a middleman. The other boys couldn't possibly know anything about the man with the limp, and in any case it would be difficult if not impossible to pry any information out of them. Don Antonio certainly knew nothing about him, besides which Ricciardi could no longer talk to him after that letter from the Curia. There was only one person left in whom the child might have confided.

The doorman of the building on Via Toledo was quite mistrustful: that bizarre individual who had come in from the rain, without a hat, his green eyes shining with fever, struck him as far too odd to be given easy access to his masters, on a Sunday morning, no less. He was just telling the man to come some other day because the signora wasn't in when none other than the signora called him on the interphone, ordering him to send up that strange visitor.

Ricciardi walked up a flight of stairs and found Carmen waiting for him at the door to her apartment, with a maid ready to relieve him of his overcoat.

“Commissario,
prego
, come right in. Luckily I saw you from the window, otherwise that hellhound of a doorman, Alberto, would have turned you away, without even asking me. I'll have to have a talk with him, one of these days.”

Ricciardi followed her through a succession of rooms until they reached a parlor lit by a large crystal chandelier. The apartment was large and opulent, full of carpets, tapestries, and old paintings. It emanated a solid prosperity, the feel of a fortune dating back generations and rendered stable by its successive heirs. The decorations, statues, and even the furniture spoke of travel to exotic lands and exquisite tastes.

Carmen followed Ricciardi's gaze.

“The money isn't mine, Commissario. It comes from my husband's side of the family, as I told you the last time we spoke. And this place, all the other houses, all this wealth ends here, with us. Because of my infertility.”

The commissario looked at her. Her grief didn't seem to have left her, though it might have passed from the phase in which it rages like a stormy sea shrieking in the soul to a dull background noise. Her delicate face was reddened and worn, crisscrossed with lines from crying; there were dark circles under her eyes, and her slender fingers never seemed to stop picking at her handkerchief. She was wearing a black dress, identical in every way to the dress she wore to the child's funeral, or perhaps it was one and the same.

“I can't stop thinking about it, Commissario. It's like a knot, right here in my chest, and it hurts every time I breathe. I hadn't realized myself just what that child meant to me. Even though I saw him only two or three times a week, the thought of being with him gave me a strength I'll never have again. What will I do now?”

She sighed and stared into empty space. Ricciardi again felt an acute sense of sympathy for that immense loneliness. The woman was all alone, surrounded by her wealth, far more so than poor Tettè had been in his life of poverty and despair, a life that lasted little more than the space of one breath.

“Signora, I didn't mean to intrude. I realize how hard all this is for you.”

Carmen looked up.

“I've thought a great deal about what you told me, Commissario. You're right: I should have brought Tettè to live with me. I should have overcome my fears, my pettiness. I should have given him the life and the well-being that you're supposed to provide for your children, because that's what he had become for me: the son that God wouldn't let me create. I was afraid, and now I've been punished. But the punishment was too harsh.”

Ricciardi tried to comfort her:

“No, you mustn't think that. You should blame the streets for Tettè's death, the general neglect of these unfortunate creatures. We should blame our general indifference for Tettè's death, not yours; after all, you were the only one who even felt the urge to go to his aid.”

The woman shook her head.

“No, Commissario. Unfortunately, it's not that simple. I might have started out with that intention, but in time Tettè became something else for me, something different, something deeper. I was interested in him, not the other boys, not all the poor children who live on the street. And I'll never be able to forgive myself for leaving him alone, to die.”

“Why are you tormenting yourself, Signora? Why are you accusing yourself of cowardice?”

Carmen stood up.

“Come with me, Commissario. I want to show you something.”

Ricciardi followed the woman down a long hallway and then up a flight of stairs. At the top of the stairway was a door. A male nurse in a white lab coat sat reading a newspaper; the second he saw the signora he got to his feet.

“No, no, stay seated. I just wanted to show the commissario something. Open the peephole.”

In the center of the door there was a small, hinged panel, with a knob so it could be pulled open. The man took a quick look, then stepped aside. Carmen stood looking for a long moment, then made way for Ricciardi, with a sorrowful look on her face. And he looked in.

The room was shrouded in dim light; windowless, it was illuminated only by a weak electric light set into the wall and protected by a metal grate. The only piece of furniture was a bed, in the middle of the room. A man was sitting on the mattress, dressed in a nightshirt.

His age was impossible to say, he could have been thirty or he could have been seventy. Sparse clumps of fading black hair covered his head. His eyes darted continuously over the walls, as if following the movements of nocturnal animals. From his constantly moving mouth dangled a streamer of drool, dripping onto his neck and his nightshirt. Through the peephole, which was covered with a pane of glass, he could hear a murmur, a stream of meaningless words. Carmen shut the little door.

The nurse said:

“He's already had breakfast and taken his medicine, Signora.”

“How was his night?”

“Peaceful, for the most part. The day nurse, Stefano, will be here soon to take over. Do you need anything else, Signora?”

Carmen sadly shook her head, and gestured for Ricciardi to follow her. When they were seated once again in the living room, the woman smiled bitterly and showed the commissario a photo in a silver frame.

“I should have said: I'd like to introduce you to my husband. This is what he looked like when we were married, and you've just seen what he looks like now. It's a disease of the nerves, and the doctors tell me that it might even be hereditary. Perhaps it's just as well that I'm infertile.”

The photograph showed a smiling man, tall and handsome: nothing in common with the human vegetable in the room at the top of the stairs. He stood arm in arm with a younger, much happier Carmen, dressed in white.

“It wasn't that long ago, Commissario. But to me it seems like a century. I wanted to show him to you so that you could understand, at least to some extent, why I didn't bring Tettè home with me immediately, to live here. Nurses, medicines, locked doors. I thought, what kind of place is that for a small child? And yet if I hadn't raised these objections, he'd be alive today. But that's not the only thing that condemns me to this living hell. In truth, I was selfish, deeply selfish.”

“Why, Signora?”

“My husband has relatives. Greedy souls, interested in him only for his wealth. If we were to adopt, that would have foiled their hopes of one day laying their hands on all that we now possess. They'd have done anything to prevent that from happening; and the last thing I wanted to do was to inflict upon my husband, in his present state, the pain of seeing his entire family turn against him. I preferred to give donations to Don Antonio, to provide Tettè with a little bit of welfare in this indirect manner. In other words, I was a coward. And now I'll never be able to forgive myself.”

Ricciardi pitied the woman; but he couldn't comfort her. She was right: if he were in her position he'd have carried the burden of his own well-being on his conscience.

“Signora, forgive me: I came here to ask you something. From the information we've been able to gather in the past few days, we think that Tettè met with a man. Do you know anything about that?”

Carmen blinked in bafflement.

“A man? Tettè? No, I don't know anything about that. What man?”

Ricciardi did his best to be precise:

“Apparently he was a tall, well-dressed man, and he came into contact with the child through the sexton. This man is said to have seen Tettè at least two or three times in the week leading up to the child's death. He would visit with him outside the parish church, and I'm pretty sure that neither Don Antonio nor the other boys knew anything about it. I thought that perhaps Tettè might have mentioned it to you.”