Cosi Fan Tutti

XX

Professor Esposito had arranged to meet Aurelio Zen in Piazza del Duomo, but when Pasquale dropped his passenger off there was no sign of the professor. Pasquale was sceptical as to the chances of his ever reappearing.

'Your watch must have cost — what? — three, four times what you owe him? Why should he let you redeem a pledge which is worth more than the debt it secures?'

This verdict was delivered with the gravity and assurance of an economist explaining why the government's fiscal policies are doomed to failure. Zen had no answer to its implacable logic, but he decided to wait for fifteen minutes anyway. Before dismissing Pasquale, he broke the mobile phone out of the box and, as a test, dialled his answering machine, which was taking calls for the disconnected phone.

There were two messages. The first was from Gilberto Nieddu, asking him to get in touch 'as a matter of the gravest urgency'. The other was from someone called Luisella, who just said she would callback. Zen switched off the portable and was about to put it away when he realized who Luisella was. He closed his eyes and uttered a curse.

'How's that, duttd?' asked Pasquale with a worried look.

'This thing brings bad luck/ muttered Zen, holding up the mobile phone.

Pasquale seemed to take this complaint literally.

"I can change it for another, if you want. But what's the problem, exactly?'

'My ex-wife just called me.'

'Ah!' said Pasquale, as though everything was now clear. 'That's not the phone, duttd. That's the moon.'

'The moon?'

'It'll be full tonight.'

Zen shrugged.

'That happens every month, Pasquale. I haven't heard from my wife for seven years. Why now?'

'Because it's also the solstice, duttd. When the solstice and the full moon fall on the same day, even San Gennaro is overmatched.'

With this thought, Pasquale went off to circulate the poster of John Viviani amongst his fellow tassisti. Professor Esposito still had not appeared, so Zen dialled Gilberto Nieddu's number in Rome — or rather the number of a printing shop in the outskirts of the city belonging to a distant relative whom Nieddu had roped in on a 'Sardinians versus the Rest of the World' ticket when times got tough.

Zen left a message and his number with this cut-out, then held the line until Gilberto was put through.

'Aurelio! Thank God you called.'

From the tone of his friend's voice, Zen gathered that his message had been something more than mere hyperbole.

'What's happened?'

'It's your mother, Aurelio. I don't want to alarm you unnecessarily, but… well, she seems not to be at home.'

Behind Zen's back, a chorus of car horns played a brassy big-band fanfare.

'That's impossible! She never leaves except to come and visit your kids.'

'Exactly. That's when we first suspected something was wrong. She was supposed to come over this morning, but when I called for her there was no answer. Then Maria Grazia, the housekeeper, showed up and we went inside.

It was empty, Aurelio. No Giustiniana, no note, no nothing. I was hoping that perhaps you knew where she was/ Zen felt his head spinning.

'Look, I can't come up to Rome just now. Maybe tomorrow, I don't know. Can you make a few enquiries? Ask the porter, the other people in the building.. / "I wish I could, Aurelio, but I have to go abroad. I'm flying out of Fiumicino in a couple of hours. Abusiness trip/ 'But you told me you'd had to surrender your passport/ 'Oh, and one final thing,' Nieddu said in an oddly strained voice. 'You remember that video-game cassette you brought me to look at?'

'What about it?'

'I've just discovered there was some sort of mix-up.

Apparently the one I gave you back wasn't the same one you gave me. There were a bunch of them lying around in this place I went to test it. I suppose I must have picked up the wrong one.'

'Are you joking? Jesus Christ, Gilberto! So where's the original?'

'Don't worry, it's in safe hands. Well, I've got to go, Aurelio. I hope your mother gets in touch soon. Ciao!'

The line went dead. Zen frantically redialled the number in Rome, but there was no reply. He was trying Gilberto's home number when a figure standing meaningfully close caught his attention. Professor Esposito bowed politely.

'I'd given up on you/ Zen said ungraciously. The news of his mother's disappearance had shaken him more than he had yet appreciated. He imagined her having slipped out of her mind, as effortlessly as a dust-ball carried through an open window by the draught. She might even now be wandering around the traffic-ridden streets and addict-haunted parks of the capital, babbling to herself and accosting strangers under the illusion that she was back home in Venice, where everywhere was safe and everyone knew everyone.

'We had an appointment,' the professor remarked in a puzzled but slightly hurt tone.

'The cab driver who brought me here said you'd never show. "The watch is worth more than what you owe him," he told me. "Why should he bother to give it back?"'

Professor Esposito looked pained.

'Evidently he must be a low and ignorant class of person.

It is true that I could have realized a short-term profit on the transaction by retaining your watch, but only at the cost of forfeiting your custom in the future and injuring the good name I have been at such pains to build up over the years.'

Zen nodded vaguely, but he wasn't listening. He had to find his mother, but he also had to find the escaped prisoner — and, above all, the US naval ensign who had gone AWOL. If what Gilberto had told him about the videogame cassette was even half true, then John Viviani was potentially in deadly danger.

'"Never make an enemy unnecessarily, nor neglect an opportunity to make a friend,'" observed Professor Esposito sententiously, '"for enemies can harm you and friends help you in ways and on occasions that you can never imagine." Francesco Guiccardini.'

He slipped his hand into his overcoat pocket and produced a watch which he handed to Zen.

"I happened to notice it had a tendency to lose time, so I took the liberty of showing it to a friend of mine who cleaned it thoroughly. Then I thought, Genna, Genna, what have you done? Is it likely that the dottore wouldn't have got the watch fixed himself, if he wanted to be on time? If he has omitted to do so, it can only be because he wants it to run slow so as to provide an excuse when he's late for some professional or social appointment. And now you've ruined everything for him. What an idiot you are,Gennaro!' Zen thanked the professor for this thoughtful and ingenious hypothesis, but assured him that he had just never got around to getting the watch repaired. He then handed over the money he owed. The professor bowed again.

'You have my card/ he said. 'If you ever have any other little matters which need sorting out, you know where to find me/ 'Actually…'

Professor Esposito was instantly all attention.

'Yes?'

Zen shook his head.

'No, it's nothing.'

Neither man moved.

'That card of yours/ Zen said at last. 'It mentioned various services of an, er, supernatural variety/ 'Yes/ 'Would they include tracing someone who has disappeared?'