My Mother-in-Law Drinks (29 page)

“Alfre',” his sister scolds him rhetorically for punching below the belt: a solicitude that I would hardly have expected from her and that I certainly don't deserve, considering that I attacked her just a minute ago (she's a great lady, my little girl).

“No, sorry,” Alf rebels, arguing back with understandable vehemence, “he's complaining that Mamma left and he even blames us for it; instead of worrying about his girlfriend, who ought to be here and isn't. I mean, what the fuck.”

Such a solemn and definitive analysis that, after the concluding “what the fuck,” we all plunge into a silence worthy of a university library.

Scully and Diabolik turn to look at each other for what must be the fifth time since we started putting on our show. If they keep this up, they're bound to fall in love.

The doctor seems seriously embarrassed. We must really have torn to shreds the pleasing picture of the happy little reunited family that he thought he was admiring until just a short while ago.

 

And then, no big deal: they take me to the hospital, I'd say basically just so they can release me, and there I learn that Engineer Romolo Sesti Orfeo is in the OR, where they've been working feverishly for some time now to remove the bullet. Half his body is paralyzed. No one knows if he'll ever emerge from the coma, and if so, in what condition.

While I'm there I run into Assistant District Attorney Garavaglia (actually, he comes looking for me), who feeds me a song and dance about what a fantastic job I did (way to go!) of maintaining control of that hostage taking “that aspired to become a trial.” He says that if I hadn't been up to the cultural challenge that Engineer Romolo Sesti Orfeo threw at me with that “surreal courtroom process,” right now they'd be about to declare the proceedings null and void due to the death of the the defendant instead of finally being able to bring mob boss Caldiero (right,
that
was his name!) to trial for his crimes; that what happened is serious because it could set a precedent for those who have lost faith in the justice system, etc. etc.

Now, I understand that a district attorney has to give certain speeches, especially in certain circumstances (though they could be a little less pretentious in the way they express themselves, truth be told); and I can't even say he's entirely wrong. But still there's something about it that just doesn't add up (something that, if anything, in fact, I find vaguely unsettling) in this attempt to condense events into a single narrative, using logic itself as a sort of packing tape. Maybe it's just that I've never liked potted histories.

I have no wish to get into an argument with him (in part because he really isn't a bad guy), but still I have a thing or two to say to him.

“Did you really find the ‘courtroom process' all that surreal, Dottore?” I ask him. “Because as far as I could tell, we talked about a number of very matter-of-fact things: a fugitive from justice who, undisturbed, frequents a supermarket where he knows he can find his favorite yogurt; a young murder victim who's under a defamatory suspicion; a desperate father who's been pushed to the point of taking literally the example set by television of a criminal trial reduced to unbridled gossip . . .”

He nods, both while I'm talking and after I'm done, though I don't know whether he's doing it in preparation for arguing against my points or just as a way of making a mental note of them.

“What's surreal is the idea of being able to resolve these problems with a spectacular and violent act, Counselor,” he objects politely. “Believe me, the engineer has all my human sympathy and understanding, but I cannot accept what he did. I say it as a citizen first, and as a magistrate second. Trials should be conducted by us, not by television. Your summation, Counselor, was an impassioned plea on behalf of the law and of the necessity to judge crimes according to jurisdiction. You dialectically demolished, one tile at a time, the entire inquisitorial arsenal that the engineer had erected to justify his plan. You conducted yourself as a genuine criminal lawyer, the kind I hadn't seen for a good long time.”

“Oh, well,” I say with a shrug.

I told you he wasn't a bad guy.

“Still . . .” the ADA says all of a sudden, narrowing his eyes slightly, as if from one moment to the next he'd been seized by an irresistible curiosity.

“What?”

“Odd, that the two of us have never met.”

Eh, I think. Not really all that odd.

“Sure is,” I confirm.

“Have you always practiced in this district?” he asks, making things even worse.

My forehead begins to perspire.

“Well, yes.”

“Truly strange,” he drills in. And he goes on staring at me.

Goddamn it all to hell, what do I need to do to escape the persecution of my own professional anonymity, change professions? I'm an unsuccessful lawyer, and that's that.

“I don't do a lot of criminal law,” I toss out, in the hope that he'll leave me in peace.

“I know plenty of civil lawyers too,” he notes circumstantially, confirming his ontological uncertainties concerning me.

Oh, sweet Jesus.

“Let's just say that I'm one of those lawyers who doesn't like to dally in the courthouse.”

He must have liked that one, because he finally looks satisfied, thank God.

“Too right.”

What is he doing, making fun of me?

Well, let him have his fun (if that's the case), as long as we can be done with this conversation.

He smiles, he extends his hand.

I happily shake it.

“It's been a real pleasure, Counselor.”

“Oh, same for me.”

You have no idea.

“I need you to come by my office, even tomorrow if possible. Just to take a few statements from you.”

“If you think that would be best.”

“I'll be expecting you, then.”

At last, we declare the session adjourned.

 

At this point there's nothing I want to do so much as go home, but the carabinieri inform me that there's a fresh crop of reporters outside, and that the best way to avoid another attack would be to get a ride in an ambulance heading out on an emergency call.

I tell them that I'll take advantage of that suggestion and how, first of all because I don't think I could physically endure another beating from a crowd of question-asking, flash-popping journalists, and second because the prospect of fleeing the scene in secret, completely unbeknownst to the press, gives me a certain shiver of excitement, to be honest.

Whereupon they tell me that they'll inform me as soon as the ambulance is ready.

And while I'm sitting there waiting my phone rings.

With what delight I read the caller's name on the display.

“Mother-in-Law! I was just wondering when you'd go to the trouble to call.”

She heaves one of her little sighs and replies:

“I always knew you'd come off looking smart, eventually.”

I shake my head.

“Oh, how I love getting compliments from you.”

“Really, you were great.”

“Not you too? Listen, did you all get the part about how that poor wretch shot himself? God Almighty, he's under the knife right now, they're trying to dig out the bullet in his cranium, they don't even know if he'll pull through, and ever since I walked out of that goddamned supermarket (why on earth I ever set foot in there in the first place I couldn't say), no one says anything to me except how masterful I was, when I couldn't even stop him from doing it.”

“Don't spout bullshit, Vince'. You found yourself in a situation straight out of the loony bin and you did what you could. That's it. You're not to blame for anything.”

I assume a confidentially dramatic tone.

“My jacket is covered with blood, Ass. The engineer's blood, you understand?”

“You want me to get the stain out?”

“Don't try to be funny.”

“What are you trying to do, make yourself feel responsible for a despairing man's attempted suicide?”

I heave a long sigh.

“I know it's hard to understand, but that's pretty much the size of it.”

“Hey, try to calm down, okay? You didn't have any role in it, you can't consider yourself guil . . . Wait a minute.”

“What?”

“God, I can't believe it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You're such a charlatan, Vincenzo,” she says, with a caustic note in her voice that makes me break out in one of my sweats.

“Huh?”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“Hey, what's come over you, have you lost your mind? Have you started drinking again?”

“You're playing the part of the failed hero. The one who's overcome by a sense of guilt for having failed to avert disaster. Christ, it's disgusting.”

I turn as red as a field of tomatoes and my perspiration level skyrockets.

“What are you . . .” I stammer.

She doesn't give me the time to defend myself (that is, if I even could) and she overpowers me, tearing me to shreds.

“Who the fuck do you think you are, James Bond on her majesty's secret service, and now you're developing mission failure syndrome? Fuck off! And another thing, now that I have a clear picture of the vulgar little song and dance you just tried to put over on me: the pathetic detail of the blood on your jacket was really despicable. Shame on you.”

“Are you out of your mind?” I try to counterattack, displaying high dudgeon. “How dare you come up with such a thing?”

It doesn't work.

“How dare I come up with such a thing, eh?”

It suddenly dawns on me how Nives must have felt when she was a little girl and caught the dressing down that later turned her into a psychologist.

I wipe my forehead, smearing the cuff of my shirtsleeve with sweat, then I fan myself using my left hand as a paddle and raise the white flag.

“Okay, maybe I hammed it up a little, but I swear that I nev . . .”

“Now you listen to me,” Ass interrupts me, “you so much as try and make a reference to this miserable cabaret of yours to the first journalist who comes along and asks you a question, and I swear I'll spit in your face.”

I lick my lips.

“Hey, relax. I don't plan to. I'm just a little upset, okay? Right now I don't even know what I'm saying.”

“No, you know exactly what you're saying. And you're not upset in the slightest. You're just turning into an idiot, that's all. You've caught a whiff of celebrity and you're wallowing in it.”

“Hey. Hey. Mother-in-Law. Are you still there?”

Fuck.

 

I sit there motionless, cell phone in hand, humiliated and sweaty, staring at the picture of Alagia and Alfredo when they were small; then I hear, not far overhead, a horrendously familiar flap-flap, and guess who lands next to me a second or two later.

“Oh, just who I was hoping to see,” I say. “What happened to you? I thought you'd been drummed out of the service, for, you know, poor guardianship.”

“Funny,” he says, one hand brushing his equipment. “Who knows where you find the courage to crack jokes, after the miserable display that you just made of yourself.”

“Listen up,” I reply, “while you were hanging out on a cloud scratching your balls, I was down here taking care of business on my own. And I think I did a mighty fine job too, if you don't mind my saying so. And, as usual, you show up when it's all over. Why don't you go back to collecting unemployment in the celestial heights, I already can't stand looking at you.”

“Now that you're famous? Not on your life.”

“I wouldn't have pegged you for such an opportunist.”

“Ah! Of all the people to talk, after that pathetic performance with your mother-in-law.”

At this point I don't even bother retorting: I just shoot him a glare so eloquent that he understands that this isn't the day for it and gets the hell out of there. The coward.

 

“Counselor,” one of the carabinieri from before comes over. “The ambulance is leaving.”

I look at him.

He looks at me.

“Counselor?”

“Eh?”

“The ambulance,” he repeats, pointing at it, as if showing me what one looks like.

I
f at this point you're getting the impression that there's something missing, like an answer to a question, you aren't mistaken: that's how it is. And the question is this: “Are you planning to overlook the fact that Alessandra Persiano hasn't gotten in touch with you, or do you think you have some right to an explanation?”

So, since you seem so eager to hear about it, Alessandra did finally show up. And it was just as I was heading for the ambulance, in slow motion, still catatonic from the telephonic browbeating I'd gotten from my mother-in-law.

Then and there, I swear, I was so stunned from my sudden plunge in self-respect that I didn't even recognize her. She must have thought I was still in shock or something, because she took my face in her hands and told me to look at her.

“My love, it's me,” I heard her say, and only then did I ask her where she'd been all this time.

“I was right here, where would you expect me to be?” she replied, adding a melancholy smile.

At that point I really would have liked to hear her explain, but the driver hit his horn, practically sending the both of us into ventricular fibrillation; so we hastened to climb in and the ambulance took off, tires screeching, with the siren wailing.

After that, what can I tell you. We went home, where it seemed that nothing had changed, except for the blinking red light on the cordless phone that indicated that the voice mail was full (I don't know about you, but to me there's something fairly depressing about the consolation offered by the place you live, as if it were showing you the unmodifiable picture of your existence, and no matter what you do and how many resolutions you make, it still offers you the same living room on the right, the kitchen on the left, and your bedroom down at the end of the hall).