‘Whaat diid youu saaayy?’
‘Laaater!.. I’ll tell you laaater!’
‘Is Giacomo there with youuuu?’ she persisted. Salvetti shook his arm in the air.
‘Nooo, he’s still at the Consaaaalvooos’.’
Bordelli put an unlit cigarette in his mouth, promising himself he wouldn’t smoke it until the drive back to Florence.
‘Is Giacomo your son?’
‘Yes. Every day after lunch he goes to stay with those friends I mentioned, to play with Matteo, their boy. He should be back by now. In a few minutes we’ll be going to the beach.’
Salvetti’s wife had disappeared from the window and reappeared on the lawn. She was wearing a gauzy little sundress covered with giant butterflies, her shoulders bare. She walked towards them with a rather studied step, planting the tapered wooden heels of her clogs into the grass with the nonchalance of habit. From afar she looked rather attractive, more plump than slender, hair full of airy curls. When she was under the arbour, she noticed the empty table.
‘Artemio! Haven’t you offered these gentlemen anything?’
‘Sorry, it didn’t occur to me.’
The wife gave him a playful little slap on the back of the neck but appeared to have miscalculated, striking him rather hard. Salvetti took it quite badly, but his wife paid no heed.
‘You’re always so impolite! Isn’t that so, signor …’ and she looked at Bordelli, holding out her hand. The inspector shook it and immediately felt as if his own had been greased up for life.
‘Inspector Bordelli, pleasure.’
‘Piras,’ said Piras, barely rising.
When she realised they were policemen, the woman got scared.
‘Has something happened to Giacomo?’ she said, alarmed.
Her husband snaked a hairy arm round her waist.
‘No, no, dear, there’s no need to worry. They only wanted to ask me a few questions. I’ll explain later.’
‘My God, what a fright!’ she said, putting a hand over her heart. She was indeed attractive. A bit too made up for Bordelli, but attractive, all in all. She soon recovered her smile and asked what the two nice policemen might want to drink.
‘No need to bother, signora, we have to leave,’ said Bordelli.
‘Won’t you have a glass of orzata? Or mint?’
‘Come on, Giovanna, can’t you see these men are in a hurry?’
‘Don’t be such a bore, Artemio! Come now, Inspector. What can I get for you?’
Bordelli looked at Piras and bit his lip.
‘An orzata would be fine,’ he said.
‘And this handsome young man, what would he like?’
‘That would be fine for me too, thank you,’ said Piras, his dark eyes staring hard at her. Signora Salvetti excused herself to prepare the drinks and walked away, swaying on her pretty clogs, followed by Piras’s analytical gaze. The three men sat back down, at a loss for words. Piras pretended to tidy his hair but was actually having a last look at Giovanna before she disappeared into the house. Salvetti noticed and felt annoyed. He crossed his legs, shaking the top one furiously, as if trying to make time speed up.
‘I really would like to get to the beach before dark,’ he said, seeming a bit on edge. Piras was looking at him harshly, as if wanting to rearrange his face. Bordelli couldn’t stand the tension any longer and got up out of his chair.
‘Signor Salvetti, we’re going to go. Please give our regards to your wife.’
Salvetti was already standing, pleased to put an end to the encounter and particularly pleased to be rid of this Sardinian who was undressing his wife with his eyes. But Giovanna reappeared in the distance with a tray full of glasses and bottles. The husband sighed and fell back into his chair, resigned. As the woman approached, smiling, they all heard the clanging of an iron gate and then saw the two little boys appear on the lawn with their bicycles, excited and sweaty. They rode up to the arbour and skidded on the grass when they stopped.
‘Papa, papa! Can we go and drive in the garage?’
Salvetti raised a hand to shield the sun from his eyes.
‘Before anything else you must say hello to these gentlemen,’ he said.
‘Hello … Can we go now?’
‘All right, but be careful.’
The boys turned their bikes round and sped away, pedalling madly. Signora Giovanna poured the orzata into the glasses and smiled at Bordelli.
‘They’re going to play in the car … You’ve removed the keys, dear, haven’t you?’
‘What a question!’
Giovanni handed the two policemen and her husband their respective glasses, then served herself some mint and sat down with the sun directly on her face, not wanting to miss a single ray. She started talking about how much she had always loved the sea, from childhood.
‘I assure you, Inspector, when we come here I have a better appetite, I digest better, sleep better, breathe better — in short, I do everything better, ev-ery-thing … Don’t I, Artemio?’ She squeezed her knees together and giggled in a way that her husband found irritating.
‘Please, Giovanna …’
‘Why, what did I say?’ and she laughed again, slyly, hiding behind her glass of mint. Bordelli couldn’t wait to be liberated, and he finished his milky orzata in one long draught that bordered on the impolite. He glanced at Piras, hoping he would do the same. His assistant got the message and drank hastily, darting lightning-quick glances at Signora Giovanna’s legs, her fancy gold-rimmed clogs, and her naked, sunburnt, peeling shoulders. Salvetti, if he could have, would have killed him.
Signora Giovanna kept on talking, saying how much she adored the hot sand, how wonderful it was to lie and roast in the sun, how much she loved to take the rowing boat out to sea so she could finally take off her bathing suit and get some sun on her breasts and bottom. She had a beautiful smile, did Salvetti’s wife. Bordelli pictured her naked on the boat, covered head to toe in tanning oil, breasts in the sunlight, and at the same time he pictured people who had nothing, who toiled all day in order to eat just a little, who didn’t even know that lotions to prevent sunburn existed. Clenching his teeth, he rose with a sigh.
‘We really must go, thank you so much,’ he said. Salvetti didn’t wait for him to say it twice, but shot up like a spring to show them out of his territory. Signora Giovanna beamed a panoramic smile and, remaining seated, offered her hand to the policemen.
‘Well, see you soon, Inspector. Ciao, young man.’
Piras and Bordelli politely said goodbye and headed out across the lawn, struggling to keep pace with Salvetti, who was practically running. Piras stared at the Milanese’s neck with a disagreeable look on his face. At the gate, the three men very quickly shook hands. Bordelli and Piras were about to leave when Giacomo, Salvetti’s son, came running from the garage.
‘Papa, papa, the car’s been scratched!’ he cried with the proud intonation of someone delivering bad news. Salvetti’s eyes opened wide and he turned round abruptly, losing his balance, and would have fallen had Piras not caught hold of his arm.
‘What do you mean, “scratched?”‘ he yelled, brusquely yanking his arm out of the Sardinian’s grip.
‘We didn’t do it, it was already there! It was already there!’ Giacomo screamed cheerfully, before running back to the garage. At the far end of the garden, Signora Giovanna waved her arm to say goodbye again to the policemen, wondering why they were lingering at the gate. Salvetti, meanwhile, had disappeared into the garage, and Bordelli didn’t know whether to leave or to wait for him. He leaned against a gatepost and looked at his watch. The sweat was flowing down his back. It seemed the afternoon would never end.