Blood Curse

XLII

The first Sunday of springtime is different.

It begins with the church bells, just like any other Sunday, and just like any other, it’s silent in the early morning; but it brings different promises, and it wastes no time in fulfilling them.

It has a new smell, and it imparts its secrets to those few who awaken at dawn, looking down from the balconies on the upper stories. You will see them sniffing at the air like dogs, and smiling to themselves for no reason.

It has a new taste, as anyone can tell you who breakfasts on the fresh milk that a boy will sell you on the street. It’s the same boy who was there just yesterday, but the milk has a freshness that regenerates your throat.

And it especially has new sounds. A pagan feast, with rituals and songs; you’ll hear it in the cooing of the doves on the rain gutters, even before the sun is up. And you can hear it in the melodies of the washerwomen as they walk toward the fountains, and in the calls of the strolling vendors on their way in from the surrounding countryside. The wares they hawk bear the scent of the season: violets, wheat for ricotta-filled pastiera cakes, young rue, or herb-of-grace, and other aromatic herbs. Even the hens scratching at the ground in the vicoli cluck with renewed energy.

Nearly a month late, this is the first Sunday of genuine springtime.

That morning, Ricciardi decided to go to the beach. It was something he did from time to time, when Sunday caught him off guard and he had an investigation in full swing.

He would spend time there, though he was a man of the mountains, to regain his equilibrium and his concentration.

He hadn’t gotten much sleep, a couple of hours at the most. The thousands of thoughts running through his head were demanding that he establish a bit of order.

He liked to go sit and think on a small out-of-the-way beach at the foot of the Posillipo hill, not far from where the fishermen’s wives sat mending nets. They watched him curiously from afar as they worked; but he was safe behind the bulwark of his unfamiliar attire, and no one bothered him. Sitting on small shelves of rock, he waited, silent and calm, for the wind to kick up. No spray, nothing: just the ebb and flow, the respiration of the green water a few feet below him.

A month earlier, like a retreating army, the winter had decided to unleash one last desperate assault. A furious storm had pounded the coast for two full days, incessantly, flooding the beachfront roads. Many of the inhabitants had fled inland in search of shelter.

A fishing boat, driven by hunger and necessity, had ventured out for one last sortie, hoping to get back to harbor in time, and it didn’t make it. Once good weather returned, a number of other boats had set out to retrieve the bodies and bring them home to the wives and mothers, but they hadn’t found anything at all.

Now, at the same distance but in the opposite direction from the black-clad women stitching up the tears in the long fishing nets, Ricciardi could make out the forms of the three dead fishermen, whose souls had washed up with the incoming tide. Two of them older, one little more than a child. Their clothes in tatters, their flesh gnawed away by fish, the marks of the fractures and contusions that the angry sea had visited on their bodies as it slammed them against the wood of the fishing boat, before carrying them down to the bottom of the abyss. Ricciardi clearly perceived their thoughts, one of them cursing the saints with a deep, hoarse voice, the other one calling on the Madonna’s mercy. The boy, with his lips and tongue swollen from suffocation, was still calling his mother’s name with all his heart.

Nothing new there, thought Ricciardi. Between the grief of the dead and the work of the living, the commissario decided that he’d have to make sure his own feelings didn’t distract him from his investigation into the murder of Carmela Calise. The clear cold state of mind that he needed in order to evaluate the evidence he had in hand must not be destroyed by the thought of the closed shutters of the window across the way. He had to get his priorities straight: the image of the old woman beaten to death was asking him for justice, incessantly repeating an old proverb in the bedroom of the apartment in the Sanità.

He looked at the translucent figure of the dead boy. Mamma, where are you, Mamma, hug me, Mamma, it kept saying through cyanotic lips. I can’t do anything to help you, thought Ricciardi. But perhaps he could still do something to ensure a little justice for Carmela Calise.

For no apparent reason, the two Iodice women surfaced in his thoughts.

It wasn’t just melancholy she felt now, but concern and furious anger as well. She had waited and waited and waited. She’d fallen asleep at the table set for two, her head lolling on her arm. The sound of a closing shutter from a nearby building had startled her awake. She’d looked up at the clock on the wall: it was eleven.

In the past, a hundred years ago, Raffaele would have let her know if he was going to be late for dinner, one way or another. A police officer, a street urchin, a phone call to the accountant on the second floor who gave his enormous telephone pride of place at the center of the living room table. But now, not a word of notice. For some reason, it had never occurred to her until now: it had been more than a year since the last time he’d let her know he was running late.

She had put away the bowls and dishes and packed up the food, then she’d gotten undressed and gone to bed; it would have been humiliating to leave evidence of her long wait. A few minutes later, maybe a quarter of an hour, she had heard the key turn in the lock. Pretending to be asleep, she’d listened intently as her husband clumsily stumbled around in the dark. He hadn’t gone into the kitchen the way he usually did when work forced him to come home late and hungry; he’d undressed in silence and lain down, doing his best not to cause the mattress to move more than was necessary. A minute later, he was snoring blissfully.

Moving in closer, Lucia sniffed him alertly: she smelled odors of cooked food. Her husband had eaten dinner. But where? And there was another smell, slightly gamy. Possibly a woman.

She turned toward the wall again, and in her heart it began to rain. Had she only smelled a woman’s scent, she might have understood. A man had his needs and she’d been distant from him for years now.

But eating at another woman’s table? Not that. That was true betrayal.

Ruggero Serra di Arpaja opened the window of his study to let in the Sunday air. For the first time in days, he’d been able to get a few hours’ sleep, and he was feeling better.

The summons for Emma had come as a pleasant surprise. He’d been convinced that the two police officers were there to haul him off and pitch him into a black pit of ruin and disgrace, one from which he would never be able to extract himself, no matter the ultimate outcome. But instead, here he was, still able to defend himself.

The air that entered the room came up from the sea; as usual, it carried with it the smell of decay. He thought of Calise, of the powerful, funky must of her apartment. He’d been there twice: the first time to negotiate, the second time to pay; but he’d also seen her the morning she had come looking for him at the university to demand more money still. He remembered the woman’s croaking voice, her geriatric shortness of breath. But she was lucid; was she ever. He’d offered her plenty of money and she’d demanded plenty more. He had accepted, in large part just to get out of that horrible place. Greedy and squalid.

When he went back, he knew it would be for the last time. And then, all that blood. Blood everywhere. When he thought back on it, it felt like a nightmare, nothing but a nightmare; but he felt no pity for that old witch.

From the nearby sea came a seagull’s cry. The street was silent: only a few women here and there, their heads covered, on their way to Mass.

Just to make sure, and to complete his descent into hell, he’d even gone to see him: the other man. He wanted to get a look at him, read his face, study his eyes. He’d found exactly what he expected, an emptiness inside a shell that was pleasing to the eye. And he’d found a new certainty.

With a sorrowful smile, he closed the window.

Attilio entered the Villa Nazionale from the Torretta, at the end of Viale Regina Elena. He liked to stroll against the current of the crowds, knowing full well that the more customary route went the opposite way, beginning from Piazza Vittoria. The reason was that he liked to pass by couples and families, launching fleeting glances and subtle smiles at married women and unmarried young ladies, taking pleasure in their confusion.

It was an old game he liked to play with himself, and it still amused him: bringing a blush to the cheek of even insignificant women, arousing the frustration of the men walking at their sides-so much less enchanting than this dark, athletic, and well-dressed young man-as well as the ladies’ regret at not being alone and able to return his smile. Attilio felt good. He was enjoying his Sunday in the Villa Nazionale, strolling down the broad, sunny path, amid the scent of the flowerbeds and the nearby sea.

And he was luxuriating in the knowledge that in the end, everything would turn out perfectly. Emma was bound to choose him, he was sure of it; even more so now that he’d looked her husband in the face, a defeated, despairing, broken-spirited man. Could there be any doubt? As he inhaled the aroma of the pine trees and holm oaks that lined the wide path, Romor felt invincible.

He planned to stroll the length of the Villa two more times, smiling at the women and doing his best to avoid the wealthy children who raced along excitedly in their horrible little metal-and-wood pedal cars, and then he’d go off for a seafood lunch not far from the church of Piedigrotta. Now that the solution was at hand, there was no longer any point in scrimping. He could afford to indulge in a few minor luxuries. No more depressing Sundays at his mother’s house. He was done going there entirely; it only made him sad, and when he felt sad he could feel the rage swelling up inside him.

He shook his head to drive out these unpleasant thoughts and the irritating memory of his mother’s voice, with her perennial admonishments; today was the first Sunday of spring and he wanted no clouds darkening his radiant horizon. He crossed paths with a family, an elderly couple, a young woman with a small child, and a few adolescents; in their midst was a tall young miss, not quite striking but still appealing. He shot her a smoldering gaze, tilting his head to one side and slowing his gait in a way that he knew to be utterly irresistible; she ignored him roundly, preserving a gloomy expression on her face, as if she were nurturing some secret sorrow.

Your loss, thought Attilio, shrugging his shoulders. Go ahead and be gloomy, if you want. As far as I’m concerned, the world is mine and I plan to enjoy it.