When I opened my eyes and looked at the clock, it was past nine.
Caterina was sleeping deeply, face down, embracing a pillow. Her bare back was exposed, and it rose and fell gently, rhythmically.
I got out of bed without making a sound, got washed, got dressed, and wrote her a note saying I was out for a walk and I’d be back soon. A few minutes later I was on the Via del Corso.
It was a warm, lovely day. Everyone was wearing spring attire and, as I looked around to decide where I should go for an espresso, I saw a corpulent, almost completely bald man wearing a rumpled suit and a tie hanging loosely around his neck. He was walking toward me with a big smile. Who the hell was that?
“Guido Guerrieri! What a nice surprise. Don’t you recognize me? It’s me, Enrico. Enrico De Bellis.”
When I heard his name, I had a singular experience. The folds and wrinkles that had deformed his face melted away, and the features of the stunningly beautiful but vapid face of a young man I’d known twenty-five years earlier emerged from the sands of time.
The man I now recognized as De Bellis threw his arms around me and gave me a kiss on the cheek. He reeked of cheap aftershave, cigarettes, a suit that hadn’t been cleaned in far too long, and alcohol. At the corner of his mouth was a trace of the espresso he’d recently thrown back. What little hair that remained on his head dangled, in need of a trim, over his ears and the back of his neck.
“Enrico, ciao,” I said, once he released me from his embrace. I tried to remember the last time we’d seen one another and to reconstruct his life based on the information in my possession. He’d gone to college-law of course, the refuge of the crooked-but he’d dropped out after taking two or three exams. For years he’d indulged in a variety of pastimes, some more dangerous than others, and some less lawful than others. Businesses and companies were created and then conveniently made to disappear. Check kiting. Questionable operations with his credit cards. A marriage to a homely but wealthy young woman that went sour-very sour-in the wake of a series of legal accusations, police reports, and trials. A guilty verdict for bankruptcy fraud, and additional criminal prosecutions for further fraud and for receiving stolen goods.
He’d disappeared from Bari, with a host of creditors eager to track him down on his back, some of them exceedingly unsavory. Individuals with nicknames like Pierino the Criminal, Mbacola the Shark, and Tyson. That last name succinctly described the methods this character employed to recover debts that were not exactly out in the open.
De Bellis had vanished into thin air, the way only people in that world can. And now he had reappeared out of the void, materializing right in front of me, with his rumpled clothes and the stench of tobacco smoke, his air of slovenliness, and a grim, poorly disguised desperation.
“It’s been forever since I’ve seen you! What are you doing in Rome?”
I decided that it might be best not to tell him exactly what I was doing-what I had just finished doing-in Rome.
“The usual. An appeals case, a hearing at the Court of Cassation.”
“Oh, of course-an appeals case, a hearing at the Court of Cassation. You’re a big-time lawyer now. I read about your cases. I’ve kept up with you through our friends.”
I preferred not to think too carefully about what mutual friends Enrico De Bellis and I might have. He slapped me on the shoulder.
“Shit, you look great. You haven’t changed a bit. I’ve had some tough times, but things are starting to look up for me. In fact, things already are looking up. Things are going great. If I can get this one project I have in mind off the ground, I’ll be all set.”
He spoke hurriedly, his words tumbling out with such forced cheerfulness that it verged on the grotesque.
“Come with me. Let me buy you a coffee,” he said, taking me by the arm and steering me into a nearby cafe.
“Two espressos,” he said to the barista.
And then, turning to me with a conspiratorial air, he said, “Should we ask for a drop of sambuca in our coffee, Guido?”
No thanks. Sambuca at ten in the morning isn’t part of a healthy diet.
I gave him a tight smile and shook my head. So he decided to go ahead and add my dose of sambuca to his coffee. He nodded to the barista, who clearly knew him well. He poured sambuca into Enrico’s cup and stopped just before it spilled over the brim.
Technically, that was a glass of sambuca with a little espresso to top it off. De Bellis drank it quickly and immediately afterward-I’m sure of it-decided he’d like another. He got a grip on himself, though, and refrained from ordering the second sambuca with a drop of coffee.
Then he pretended to check his pockets and discover, with mock chagrin, that he’d forgotten his wallet.
“Oh, damn, Guido. I’m sorry. I offered to buy you a cup of coffee and here I am without any money. So sorry.”
I paid. We left the bar, and De Bellis extracted an MS cigarette from a packet that was as rumpled as his suit. Healthy living, no question about it. He took my arm as we started walking toward the Piazza del Popolo. Along the way, he decided to brief me on all the options that modern medicine offered in terms of therapy for erectile dysfunction. He was-to his credit-impressively well-informed on the topic.
After explaining to me the various options available-from pills of all sorts and injections worthy of a horror film, up to and including a hydraulic apparatus that would have intrigued Doctor Frankenstein-he added that when it came right down to it, the best thing for us was whores or, even better, DIY. A nice free porn video on the Internet, five minutes of effort, and it’s taken care of. No problem, no worries about performance. Because that medicine isn’t so good for you. I mean, Guido, you’re in good shape, but I’m a few pounds overweight. I’ll start a diet one of these days. Anyway, afterward there’s no need to make nice and have a smoke together and make plans to see each other again. It’s all hydraulics. Prostate maintenance.
I felt like throwing up. I bent down to tie a shoelace that didn’t need tying, just to get free of his grasp.
“Can I ask you a favor, Guido? We’ve always been good friends, and that means a lot to me.”
Actually, we hadn’t ever been good friends. I knew he was going to ask for money.
“I need to make a payment today. As I told you, I’ve been through some tough times, but I’m getting back on my feet. I have an incredible project I’d love to tell you about one day when you have time. Maybe we can go out for a drink next time you’re in Rome and I’ll tell you all about it. Here, take my card.”
His business card was the type you print on cheap paper at a vending machine. It read ENRICO DE BELLIS, FINANCIAL AND CORPORATE CONSULTING. No address, just a cell
phone number. Financial and corporate consulting? What did that mean? I guess he had to put something on the business card, and he couldn’t write ENRICO DE BELLIS, CON ARTIST, GRIFTER, AND EXTORTIONIST.
“If you could make me a small loan, I’d pay it back within a week. It’s money that I owe to some people who… well, let’s just say, it’s not a good idea to make them angry. I don’t have to tell you, you’re a big criminal lawyer. By the way, I haven’t congratulated you on your brilliant career. But it was obvious when we were boys that you’d do whatever you set your mind to. I remember that you always said you wanted to be a criminal lawyer, that you were going to grow up to be someone. You’re a big success, and you’ve earned it.”
I’d never said I wanted to be a criminal lawyer when I grew up. Certainly not when De Bellis and I knew each other, back when we were kids.
“I need a thousand Euros. Like I said, I’d pay you back in a few days. I can mail you a check, or if you give me your account number, I’ll wire the money to you.”
Why of course. I’ll just give you my account number, and I’m sure I’ll receive full payment, with a little extra for interest, in just a day or two.
“I’m sorry, Enrico, but as you can imagine, I don’t walk around with that much cash in my pocket.”
“Maybe you could write me a check.”
“I hardly ever use checks anymore. I put everything on a credit card.”
“Of course. You probably have one of those platinum cards with unlimited credit. I’m sure you have no use for cash or checks. Then maybe we could swing by an ATM-there’s one on every corner-and you could withdraw a thousand Euros. You can rest assured that in a week, ten days at the most, I’ll pay it all back. What do you say?”
What I said was nothing. I pulled out my wallet, opened it, extracted three fifty-Euro banknotes, and handed them to him.
“I’m sorry, Enrico, I’m really in a hurry. As I told you, I’m here in Rome on business.”
He took the money without a word and slipped it quickly into the pocket of his rumpled jacket. We stood there face to face in silence for a few seconds. He was weighing the odds of getting anything more out of me. At last, when he had resigned himself to the fact that I wasn’t going to give him another cent, the light went out of his eyes and his face went blank. I no longer had anything to offer him, so he could turn and go now.
“All right then, if you really have to go I won’t keep you.”
He barely bothered to say good-bye as he turned and left, without thanking me and without promising to pay me back. He walked off with a lumbering gait, lighting another cigarette as he went. I imagined him searching for someone else to give him money. It was part of his daily struggle for survival, as well as his never-ending attempt to fend off the desperation that nipped at his heels, ready to catch him by the ankles and swallow him whole.
A few hours later, Caterina and I were on a plane back to Bari.
Just as she had been the night before, during the flight she was perfectly at ease-comfortable, spontaneous, and relaxed. She acted as if nothing had happened or, rather, as if we were a long-standing couple. I, on the other hand, felt increasingly confused and awkward. I kept having the feeling-simultaneously vague and sharp-that there was something obvious that I was overlooking.
When I left her outside her apartment building on Rione Madonnella, near the Cinema Esedra, she gave me a kiss and told me to call her soon, because she was eager to see me again.