Day of the Dead (41 page)

As the woman shifted the car into gear and pulled away, and as the roar of the engine filled their ears, Ricciardi detected a slight movement directly behind him, in the backseat. He turned around and stopped, openmouthed, horrified by the sight that met his eyes.

Maione stepped out of the trolley, holding Lucia's arm and followed by their five children. The second of November was a painful recurrence: the only day of the year in which the entire family came together, both the living and the dead.

They'd dressed in silence that morning. No one felt like talking; everyone was busy remembering.

Luca, who'd been Lucia and Raffaele's firstborn son, was one of those boys who fills the lives of those around them. He was blond and had his mother's blue eyes, with his father's sunny, extroverted disposition. He never tired of playing pranks and cheerfully teasing the rest of the family, including his siblings, who worshiped him. He was loved by one and all in their quarter; his funeral was memorable for the sheer number of people who attended. So many of them with tears in their eyes.

Maione let a smile escape him as he approached the cemetery entrance: the
brigadiere panzone
, the big-bellied brigadier, that's what Luca used to call him. And Maione would chase the boy through the apartment with a wooden clog in one hand, calling: If I catch you I'll break your head open and put some good manners in there; and Luca would scream with laughter, and then turn to him with a serious face and say: I'll grow to be big, you know, Papà. I'll be bigger and taller than you, and I'll be a policeman, too.

The brigadier remembered how proud he'd been every time his son said those words; and how many times he'd cursed himself for setting him that example.

It was that example that had resulted in Luca's death, from a cowardly stab wound in the back, in a cellar where a wanted thief had been hiding out. The grief that he felt today, the third year running that he'd gone to visit his son at the cemetery on the Day of the Dead, was still as shiny and new as a piece of polished silver.

He looked over at his wife and, as always, she sensed his eyes upon her and smiled back at him. How beautiful you are, Luci', he thought. And how close I came to losing you, too. In the long months of silence, grief and sorrow had taken over their lives, creating an archipelago of islands separated by waves of salt tears. He'd been so close to leaving home, a place where it had almost become impossible to breathe.

But because love exists, and in the long run it can win the age-old struggle against grief, they'd found each other again that spring; and now they were closer than ever, bound together in part by the memory of Luca, and by the constant, aching loss that they both felt.

As always, the thought of Luca took Maione's mind back to Ricciardi, the only one who had understood that the best and only way to help the brigadier was to catch his son's murderer. He thought back to how close the two men had been on that occasion, and how close they had remained ever since.

He wondered how his commissario was doing, whether he'd kept his promise to abandon his strange investigation until the two of them could work together again. A search for something that was nonexistent, in the life of a poor orphan boy, in his world of desperation. Maione hadn't understood and still didn't understand what Ricciardi was looking for, but what he feared above all else was that he might run unnecessary risks, the kind of risks that it was Maione's job to protect him from.

Just as these thoughts were going through his mind, he saw a powerful automobile race down the curving road that led away from the cemetery, going just a little too fast. There was a woman driving, and he had the odd sensation that he'd seen her before somewhere, but he couldn't remember where. Seated beside her, incredibly, he saw none other than Ricciardi. He raised his hand to wave, but he realized that the commissario was looking behind him, toward the backseat, which was, however, empty.

He raised his hand to wave, but stopped mid-gesture when he saw the look of absolute horror on Ricciardi's face. It was over in an instant: the car shot off, leaving a trail of mud and exhaust. Maione felt his heart race furiously in his chest, and he responded to the impulse of the moment. He squeezed Lucia's arm, murmured that he'd join her afterward at Luca's grave, and set off at a dead run toward the taxi stand.

There you are, thought Ricciardi. At last, there you are.

For the first time since he'd become aware of the Deed, the name he gave his peculiar ability to perceive the grief of the dead who were killed, he had sought it out instead of fleeing from it.

He'd tried to explain the absence of Tettè from all the places he might reasonably have expected or hoped to find him; he'd walked the same streets the boy frequented, the same dark
vicoli
and alleys. And now, just when he'd given up the hunt, just when he'd decided to set his soul at rest and stop worrying, here he was, in all the atrocity of a slow, painful death.

The boy was contorted in excruciating convulsions, which forced him to straighten and then fold over at the waist continuously; his eyelids were pulled back and his eyes were showing the white of the corneas; he was grinding his teeth from the tremendous suffering caused by the poison. Yet at the same time, a sweet, loving phrase kept issuing from his lips:
thank you for the cookies. I love you, Mamma, you know that: you're my angel
.

As was often the case, the greatest horror of all lay in the contrast between the contortions of the body at its moment of extreme suffering and the dead boy's last delicate, loving thought. Ricciardi couldn't seem to tear his eyes away from Tettè's ghost, and from the terrible implications of seeing him there of all places, and of the phrase that he continued to repeat.

He turned to look at the woman.

He turned to look at the killer.

 

 

 

It had once again started to rain. A peal of thunder had shaken the air and a violent gust of rain slammed down onto the pavement.

Carmen was a nervous, jerky driver, and she paid no attention to the slippery surface of the road. She seemed lost in other thoughts, which drew her far away.

Ricciardi wondered what could possibly have driven her to such an act. Why had she done it? Suddenly he felt a terrible weariness come over him, and after the brief cease-fire that the fever had accorded him, it was back, and worse than ever. The commissario's soul was filled with the dead boy's suffering and sorrow, his last dying hope, all the love he'd felt for the woman who'd killed him.

Without thinking about the words he was saying, he murmured softly:

“Thank you for the cookies. I love you, Mamma, you know that: you're my angel.”

He couldn't even be sure if he'd really said it, or if he'd just imagined he had. But Carmen jerked in her seat as if she'd been bitten by a snake. She turned to look in terror into the back seat, and then gazed, aghast, at the commissario. The car swerved dangerously, knocking a handcart standing by the side of the road into a ditch, but then miraculously returned to the road. The woman didn't even think of slowing down. In fact, she jammed her foot down hard on the accelerator.

And, through tears and shrieks of sorrow, she began to tell her story.

So you knew all along, then. You knew. I realized it immediately, when I first saw you at the funeral: somehow you'd figured it out, that he hadn't just died by accident. And now you're here with me, to hear me confess it, and to take me down to hell.

Because I know, I know who you are: you're the devil. With those unblinking eyes of yours, that pale face, with death all around you. I know, I know who you are.

But I'm not going with you to hell, and you know why? Because I'm already familiar with hell. I've lived there and I live there still, in hell. Do you know, devil, what it's like to live with a lunatic? Do you know that, before locking him up, ashamed that word might get out, we used to pretend that he was normal? He'd stub out cigarettes on my arms; he'd wake me up at night and beat me bloody; he waited for me around every corner, in the dark, and lunged at me, fists clenched. He used to say that I was his enemy, a monster. But the real monster was him.

I lived like that for five years. How bad can you make hell for me, devil, how much worse than what I'd already lived through? But I put up with it. I put up with it all.

Because, you see, devil, I was born poor. I put up with privations because my father gambled away every penny we had, because my mother didn't know how to do anything but cry. And now that I finally had everything I'd ever dreamed of—wealth, comfort, status—I wasn't going to let anyone take that away from me.

That's right. The little boy was my son.

Born of an illicit affair, the child of a love without a future, two people writhing together in the dark. We made love while the lunatic was screaming and pounding at the door of his cell. We made love while everyone else thought we were hunting for the cure, as if there could be a cure for that monster's madness.

I really did think I was infertile. I'd tried, with all the treatments available, back when the monster still seemed to be a normal man. Nothing. But with him, with the doctor, I got pregnant right away. He took fright, he was as penniless as I was, all his money was in his wife's name. A lovely pair of paupers we were, rich only with other people's money.

We came up with a spa cure for the lunatic, far away, in Tuscany; Matteo prescribed it for him. Did you know that, devil, that his name was Matteo? So now, do you understand why my child bore that name?

I gave birth all alone, assisted by the chambermaid in a hotel. Like an animal. Like a stray bitch.

After that, what else could I do? I went back to my life, to my gilded cage. I placed the child with a family in the country, people I secretly sent money, but who didn't even know my name. Then the woman died of typhus, and the man began to drink. I couldn't leave him there anymore.

I searched for and found Don Antonio, that slimy, money-hungry priest. I paid the child, every month, plenty of money; but at least I could see him, I could practically raise him myself. I made the best of it, teaching school to those other bastard children, as long as I could be near him: near my son.

I couldn't keep him with me, you understand that, devil? It would have been easy for the monster's family to put two and two together: that wastrel of a brother, that coward who wants to get his hands on my money, now that the monster is finally dying, now that I finally have a chance to live my own life, a decent life.

And now he's found the letters.

I thought I'd destroyed them; I didn't remember that I still had them somewhere. He came to see me, he threatened me. I gave him a little something, but that was as much as I was willing to give him. So he followed me, and he found Tettè.

I knew everything, you understand, devil? He never stuttered with me. It was only with me, with his
mamma
, that he could talk. And the things he didn't tell me, I understood on my own. I knew all about those little bastards, the way they tormented him, what they put him through. I knew about the priest, the sexton, and the dark broom closet they used for punishments. I knew about the dog.

He'd told me about the poisoned tidbits in the food warehouse, how afraid he was that his dog might eat them. And toward the end he'd told me about the visits from my debauched brother-in-law, Edoardo.

The fear of losing everything obsessed me. If anyone found out that he was my son, a little orphan left to rot in a parish church, wallowing in filth and hunger, I'd have lost everything. They'd have tossed me out on the streets—perhaps they'd have thrown me in jail. What could I do? The child told me about the relentless demands, the questions that the damned man with the limp kept asking. It was only a matter of time; everything was coming to an end.

I had waited. I had been waiting for the lunatic to die and finally make me the mistress of all my wealth. Then I'd take the boy home to live with me, I'd give him everything I'd never had as a child; but now I'd been found out, and now I could no longer afford to wait.

For days and days, I was in a state of utter despair. I couldn't make up my mind. I had to choose between remaining rich and lonely or becoming poor and desperate, with a mentally deficient child to raise, and no skills, no way to make it on my own.

I just couldn't make up my mind. So I decided to leave it to fate. I baked him four cookies, two of them poisoned, and two safe. I made up a wrapper of cookies and took them to him. He loved it when I made him things with my own hands. I thought to myself: if he doesn't pick the poisoned cookies, that'll mean we're destined to go forward together, to fight side by side, even if we're left with nothing but each other.

We'll fight the man with the limp, we'll fight the lunatic, we'll take on the whole world.

But he grabbed the poisoned cookies without hesitation. I watched him eat them eagerly, smiling at me, right here, in the backseat of this car. And he said those words. The words that no one knows but you—because you're the devil—and me. And I'm his mother.

That's all he said.

Then he died.

 

 

 

Ricciardi listened to Carmen's story as if in a nightmare. His head was pounding painfully; the fever was devouring him.

And as if that weren't enough, the incessant hammering sound of Tettè's voice rang in his mind, piercing his soul, without passing through his ears.
Thank you for the cookies. I love you, Mamma, you know that: you're my angel
.

He'd seen so many things in his time: sons murdering mothers, brothers slaughtering each other, wives killing their husbands as they slept. But a mother who'd abandoned her own child to his fate and then poisoned him, letting him die an atrocious death, writhing in nightmarish pain—that was beyond his wildest imaginings.