Botta, who was a sentimentalist, asked Diotivede how things had turned out with the beautiful Greek girl. The doctor grinned bitterly.
‘The year after the war broke out, I left for the front, and when I returned Simonetta was with somebody else. She was very beautiful.’
There was a silent pause, as if each was thinking of past loves gone wrong. Piras’s eyes were bloodshot from all the alcohol, but he was full of energy and one could see he felt good. Even the smoke no longer bothered him. He pulled his chair closer to the table and rested his elbows on the tablecloth.
‘Just outside my town, Bonacardo,’ he began, ‘there is a big grey boulder, over six foot tall, at the edge of a stream. It has a rather even hollow in the middle, forming a sort of seat that looks as if it was carved by human hands. The village elders say that long ago a woman fell in love with a man, and he with her. But they kept their love secret, because their families despised one another because of a disputed boundary. In short, the usual Romeo and Juliet sort of story. They would arrange to meet at night at the grey stone, calling it “our rock”. And they would part in the morning, weary and happy. It was a great love, the kind that can last a lifetime. And that was, indeed, what they imagined for themselves, that they would live together for ever. But one day he decided to leave to join Napoleon’s army, which was descending over Europe to bring the Revolution to everyone. He said he could not be happy if he didn’t do this, and that love shouldn’t make people selfish but give them the strength to do important things. He said that if he didn’t love her, he wouldn’t have the courage to leave, and that if he didn’t leave, he would feel like a coward. This was the price of happiness. He dreamt of freeing the world from tyranny and promised her he would return soon, in triumph. “Wait for me at our rock,” he said, “wait for me there, I’ll be back soon.” She wanted to cry but didn’t. She held him tight and kissed him. She wanted him to leave with an untroubled heart. So she sat and watched his ship sail away until it vanished over the horizon, and the very next day she went and waited for him at the grey boulder. She leaned her back against the stone and thought of him, his face, his kisses, of every time they had shared their love in that place. The rock was the symbol of their secret love. The months went by, without any news of her beloved. She became more and more weary and desperate. She hardly ever slept and ate only so that she would be pretty when he returned. At night she would slip out of the house and lean against the great rock, gazing at the stream. She would watch the water rush past and think that time, itself, stood still. After a year had gone by, she started to think he was dead, but she didn’t want to accept this. She couldn’t. In the end she thought that she too had to pay the price of happiness, just as he had done. So she decided to make a vow. On her knees she prayed before an image of the Blessed Virgin, as the little children around her made fun of her. “My dear Madonna, please save my man. Ask me something, speak to me.” The Madonna said nothing, but the girl nevertheless believed she understood what she needed to do. She swore she would never again quit the place where they had loved each other, until he returned. She would spend her life standing in front of the grey stone, and she asked the Virgin to punish her if she was unable to keep her vow. “If I ever step away from our rock, you must drown me in the stream. You must kill me.” But even this was not enough. And so she convinced herself that if she ever stepped away from the rock, her beloved would die that very instant, felled by a ball of lead. Thus one winter’s day she headed for her rock, carrying only a blanket. A week went by. Everyone in town thought she had gone mad, but to keep her alive they brought her food to eat and water to drink. She would thank them with the faintest nod of the head, and hardly ever spoke. Fatigue clouded her vision, but she continued to fight off sleep. She did not want to fall asleep, because she was afraid that if she did, she would fall to the ground and lose contact with the stone, and her beloved would die like a dog. After three weeks of this, however, she realised she could not keep it up. She had committed the sin of pride, and sooner or later she would fall to the ground and he would die. She asked to be bound to the stone, but nobody would do this for her. They all told her to go home, to stop playing the madwoman. Even her mother came, together with the priest, to try to persuade her. But she would not be moved, and to every attempt to take her away she replied that if they tried to remove her from that rock, she would throw herself into the river at once and drown. In the end, they let her be. One night she felt on the verge of collapse. Another minute and she would fall to the ground. The blood was draining from her temples. She only had time to say, “Forgive me, my love,” and then she saw no more.’
Piras paused to pour himself a splash of grappa. Nobody breathed a word. Canapini was panting with curiosity, curled up in his chair like a cat. In the end, he couldn’t hold back.
‘And then what?’ he asked. Piras took a good, deep breath.
‘When she awoke, she didn’t even want to open her eyes. The world no longer interested her. She extended her hand to drag herself to the river and drown, but instead of dirt she felt only air. And so she opened her eyes and saw the sky full of stars. She hadn’t fallen. The rock had opened up and formed a comfortable seat, sheltered from the wind. And so she was able to wait for her man, who returned in a sorry state, but alive and in one piece. I say it’s a legend, but the old folks in town tell the story as if it was true.’
‘What a beautiful story,’ said Canapini. Dante raised a glass and invited the guests to toast the women of the world, all of them, those who wait and those who leave.
‘To women, the true salt of the earth,’ he said. Seven glasses of grappa rose over their heads. To women.
The following morning Bordelli woke up with the backs of both hands massacred by mosquitoes and a name spinning round in his head. Simonetta. He too had had a Simonetta. He lay there in the dark, trying to picture her face again, but couldn’t remember it. It must have been around ‘35. She was the only child of a Roman aristocrat. Her family had villas and estates almost everywhere. The last time he had seen her was at a dinner party with her parents, in a villa by the sea. It was a fine Fascist summer. There were many guests, almost all relatives of hers, important people. Bordelli arrived in his bathing suit, but this was taken merely as summer extravagance. Simonetta’s mother absolutely wanted him to sit next to her. She was never done telling him how handsome he was and caressing his arm. Midway through the dinner she started making plans for the future husband and wife, describing to her guests the villa in which they would live, the sort of life they would lead — he would do this, she would do that, and so on. Bordelli waited for the woman to finish talking, then wiped his lips with his napkin and stood up.
‘I think I have other plans,’ he said. He politely said goodbye to the guests, and then left. He never saw Simonetta again. Had he married her, today he might be Count Bordelli, idle rich landowner, father of a few children, and well respected in high society. He would never have known the innocence of an old prostitute like Rosa, nor the cooking of Botta, learned while in prison, and he would never have met that old curmudgeon Diotivede. His life would have been completely different, and perhaps this very day he would have strolled through the park thinking that if he hadn’t married Simonetta, he might be another man, perhaps a policeman, an inspector who dines at home with thieves who teach him how to pick locks with a hairpin, and who, when he’s sad, seeks comfort from an ex-hooker with a heart of gold.
He felt the sweet taste of grappa at the back of his throat. When he moved his head, a sharp pain travelled up from the nape of his neck to the base of his nose, running over his skull like a cog. He took a deep breath and heard a whistle in his chest. He had smoked too much. His lungs burned. He vowed that he would smoke only three or four that day, five at the most, definitely not more than six. Seeing the pack of cigarettes on the nightstand, he batted it away in rage. He remained in bed, staring at the blood-swollen mosquitoes hanging from the ceiling asleep. In a little while Botta would come to wash the dishes and put the kitchen back in order. That was the agreement: Bordelli the money, Botta the labour. Spotting a mosquito within reach on the wall and feeling his skin burn, he crushed it, staining the wall red.
He heard some footsteps inside the front door.
‘Is that you, Ennio?’
The steps arrived as far as the bedroom door, which opened partly. Dante’s leonine head appeared.
‘Good morning, Inspector. Shall we have some coffee?’ he said cheerfully.
Only then did Bordelli remember that Dante had slept on the sofa.
‘Go ahead, I’ll be there in a minute,’ he said.
‘Sleep well?’
‘Yes, and yourself?’
The inventor smiled majestically.
‘Marvellous nightmares.’
The inspector sat up, put his feet on the floor and his hands on his hips.
‘The coffee pot must be in the sink. Do you know how to use a napoletana?’ he asked. Dante assured him he did and disappeared into the kitchen. The inspector went barefooted into the bathroom, feet slapping the hard floor much less delicately than Elvira’s. Beautiful, young Elvira … He was unable to forget her; she returned to his thoughts at the most unexpected moments, and each time he felt older, heavier. He pissed painfully and with effort, the burning finish speaking eloquently of grappa. He rearranged his hair with his fingers and washed his face. The cold water felt good on his skin, but then the towel got snagged on his hard, short stubble. He stood there looking at himself in the mirror, hands resting on the sink, counting his wrinkles and thinking of Signora Pedretti-Strassen stiff in her bed, hands round her throat. After the pause of the night, his mind was filling again with a swirl of ideas and questions. Especially one, the usual: how did they do it? He thought of the Morozzi brothers, sweaty and hysterical, and saw their blonde, made-up wives, who had left that nauseating smell behind in the office.
How the hell had they done it? And which of the four did it? Or was it all four? Or perhaps only two? The brothers or the wives? Or maybe only one couple. Or perhaps none of them. Perhaps it was all a mistake, time to start over …
He thought of Dante struggling with the napoletana and went into the kitchen. The inventor was trying to assemble the machine upside down.
‘What an odd contraption,’ he said.
‘Give it to me.’
‘I was almost there, you know.’
Bordelli took the pieces out of Dante’s hands.
‘See? This goes here.’
‘I’d thought of that, but it seemed too banal.’
‘Not everyone has your imagination.’
‘Compliment accepted. I am very vain.’
Ennio arrived, and all three went into the dining room. They took their coffee on the tablecloth of the night before, which was covered with exotic stains and crumbs. There was still a scent of spices and grappa in the air. Botta was about to open the shutters, but Bordelli raised his hand.
‘Just the windows, Ennio. I’m having a little trouble with the light this morning.’
‘Whatever you say.’
The temperature was rising by the minute. It was going to be another muggy, sweaty day. Dante lit one of his pestilential cigars and tossed the match into his empty espresso cup. Feeling the smoke in his nostrils, Bordelli had to make an effort not to light a cigarette.
‘I’ve got a riddle for you,’ he said to his friends. ‘Interested?’
‘What sort of riddle?’ asked Botta, amused. Dante went and sat down in an armchair and stretched his legs across the floor, awaiting the question. The inspector downed his last drop of coffee and started toying with the empty cup.
‘Pretend you want to murder someone with a powdered poison, powerful enough to kill the person who inhales it. Obviously you don’t want to end up in jail, so, when the victim breathes the stuff, you have to make sure you’re far from the scene of the crime. How do you do it?’
Botta scratched his head.
‘Well, I’d put the poison in the soup, or in the toothpaste.’
‘The poison is deadly only when inhaled.’
‘Oh, right. Well, then … How should I know? I don’t. I give up.’
Dante was contemplating, eyes half closed and lips pursed. Bordelli looked at him.
‘What about you, Dante? What would an inventor do?’
‘Easy. A time-release mechanism.’
‘Easy to say, but to make one?’