Everyone in Their Place

XXXV

After waiting for what seemed to him like a sufficiently long time, Andrea Capece entered the room that the two policemen had recently vacated to leave the apartment. He found his mother sitting on the small sofa, her hands in her lap, looking out through the open French doors onto the balcony where his father was leaning over the railing and smoking a cigarette. The sight gave him an unpleasant feeling, like he was experiencing a scene out of the past, and so he was. As a child, he had spent hours listening to the spreading silence separating his parents.

This time, however, he felt a strong sense of repulsion: for his father, who had once again shown himself to be ungrateful and indifferent, but also for his mother, who was obviously not yet fed up after all the years of humiliations to which she had been subjected, directly and indirectly, by that man. He thought how everyone is born either hammer or anvil: and the anvils are happy to be pounded, because it’s in their nature.

He walked over to her and speaking in a hushed voice, for who knows what reason, told her that he’d be going out for half an hour or so, to give a notebook to a friend. The woman nodded without turning around to glance at him; she continued to stare at the mute back of that stranger smoking and staring out from their balcony. Andrea left the room with a sense of relief, as if he just been forced to witness something horrifying against his will.

He walked out the front door without haste; he took a quick look around, but in the brutal afternoon heat, there was no one in sight, except for a beggar who was probably sleeping off a drunk in the shade of a tree across the street. He walked a few yards, and then slipped through a small wooden door leading down into a cellar. The stench of damp rot washed over him, but he paid it no mind; he walked over to the wall, removed a book, and put in his hand to pull out something wrapped in newspaper. He unwrapped it.

Mamma, he thought, I don’t know why you protected him from the police. After all the things he’s done, after what he did to you. But then I don’t even know why I tried to help.

Gripping his father’s pistol in one hand and placing his forefinger on the trigger, Andrea decided for the hundredth time that love was a fatal illness, and that he for one would never fall in love. Not for all the gold in world.

After Mastrogiacomo slunk, mortified, out of the room, Pivani dipped his pen in the inkwell again, and drew a line across the note he’d made earlier, with the nitpicking care of an accountant. Ricciardi, slumped in the chair, hands in his pockets, went on staring at him, waiting for the answer to his question: what had Ettore Musso di Camparino been doing there, and where was he the night his stepmother was murdered?

Pivani looked back at him, calmly.

“Dottor Musso is a respected authority in his field; did you know that, Commissario? A political philosopher, one of the most respected in the country. Behind that shy and sensitive exterior he conceals a penetrating mind, and he has admirers at the highest level in the national government. On a confidential basis, he writes many of the speeches that the Duce himself delivers before the Italian parliament and to the most eminent cultural organizations.”

Ricciardi seemed rather unimpressed.

“Then he’s responsible for the thunderous words we hear over the radio. But that’s not the crime I’m here to investigate.”

The man smiled as he caught the irony.

“I ought to warn you to take care, Commissario; I ought to remind you where you are, and the times we live in. A phrase like the one you just uttered can be enough to have you sent into internal exile: so be on your guard. But since I know that you’re no dissident but merely another of the many citizens who care little about Italy’s destiny, I’ll pretend you didn’t say anything.”

“And just how do you know that I’m not a dissident? After all, one of your squads attacked me, yesterday. And I wasn’t alone, either.”

Pivani shrugged, and checked another of the sheets he had on his desk.

“I already told you that what happened yesterday was a foolish mistake, and you’ve seen for yourself that those responsible will pay dearly for it. Very dearly indeed. And if I may, through you I’d like to extend an apology to the Signora Livia Lucani, the widow Vezzi; by the way, my compliments for the company you keep: a lovely and intelligent woman, and also a first-rate singer, I’m told. No, you’re no dissident. I know everything about you: and therefore I also know your attitudes, even if you don’t discuss them with anyone. You’re intelligent; in a very personal way all your own, decidedly introverted and focused inward, but still, you’re intelligent; and we all need an intelligent person at police headquarters. There really aren’t all that many.”

“Once again, Pivani, I need to remind you that I’m not here to hear about myself. And that I’m not particularly interested in knowing how you manage to know everything about everyone. I only want to know about Musso, where he was and why. And it seems to me that no one can answer that question better than you can.”

Pivani blushed, suddenly. He looked like a schoolboy caught red-handed. He leapt to his feet and started pacing back and forth, arms folded across his chest, his gaze low. Ricciardi thought he saw the muscle on his temple twitch a little faster.

“Let me tell you something right away, Ricciardi: Musso had nothing to do with your murder. Have no doubts about that. It wasn’t him. But I can easily imagine that my word isn’t enough for you; and that you’ll go on investigating, fearlessly. Am I right?”

“You know that’s what’s going to happen. And you also know that, if I came here and asked you of all people about Musso, I know for certain that you can answer my question. And that you will answer me.”

The man stopped pacing and laid both hands flat on the desktop. Staring the commissario right in the eye he snarled:

“Of course, there’s a second option, Ricciardi: I could recall Mastrogiacomo and tell him to finish the job he started the other night.”

A heavy silence ensued. Ricciardi seemed to consider the possibility seriously. Then he shook his head.

“No, Pivani. You couldn’t. And I’ll tell you why: my colleague, Brigadier Maione, knows that I’m here, even though he doesn’t know why. If I didn’t go back, he’d come looking for me. Moreover, don’t take this the wrong way, but you hardly strike me as the type. I don’t know whether that’s an insult or a compliment for people on your side of the barrier, but I have an idea that violence for its own sake actually horrifies you.”

After a long, surprised silence, Pivani shook his head, sadly.

“You’re quite right. Just as I was right when I read your file and decided that you must be an intelligent man. I know that you said nothing to Maione about where you were going, because you’d have put him in danger by doing so; and I also know it from the fact that he didn’t follow you, not even from a distance: they would have come to report such a thing to me only minutes after it happened. But it’s true, I find violence disgusting. That’s not the true face of Fascism, and yet the further we progress along our path, the more people seem to think that it is, actually.”

Ricciardi waited:

“So at long last you’re going to answer my question.”

Pivani let himself drop into his chair.

“Yes, I’m going to answer you. Because I can no longer let his name be spattered with mud; he’s an extraordinary man. And I can’t let his family’s name be besmirched any further: he may deny it, but that’s the thing he cares about most. I couldn’t stand to see him sent to jail for something he didn’t do, simply to protect myself. I’ll answer your question. Because I love him.”

Leaning out over the balcony railing, Capece decided that he loved her. He still loved her, even if he was never going to see her again. He loved her in his memory as if he were still holding her in his arms. In a long, heartbreaking tango of despair.

He couldn’t figure out what had happened, or why. It seemed like an endless delirious nightmare, the kind that make you moan in your sleep and linger for many long minutes even after you wake up, leaving a wake of agony and loneliness. He was damned. He had fallen into a living hell, a hell without peace. And it all seemed impossible.

He idly considered the possibility of climbing up onto the railing and joining Adriana again with one last, mad dive into the void. He wondered whether you have to be immensely brave or immensely weak to do something of the sort; and he answered his own question: whichever of the two characteristics might be required, he lacked them both.

In the street, fifty feet below, he saw his son Andrea walking out the door and turning the corner. He was a grown man, already. Capece had seen the hatred in the look Andrea had given him, earlier, in front of the two policemen; and the cold, intelligent, and ironic manner in which he’d answered Ricciardi’s question without answering it. He’d felt a shiver of pride, or was it fear? The young man would never forgive him for what he’d done; nor, as far as that went, would he ever be able to forgive himself.

For the hundredth time in the past hour he wondered what he’d say to his wife when he left the balcony and went back inside. And, also for the hundredth time, he wondered what had become of the pistol.

By now it was quite dark in the room, with the exception of the cone of light from the desk lamp, at the illuminated edges of which sat the two men, facing each other. From behind the shut door came a few subdued voices: the Fascists were asking one another what could be going on in that sanctuary that they themselves entered only reluctantly and hurried out of, when they did, as soon as was humanly possible. Pivani was staring into empty air, remembering. When he finally made up his mind to speak, it was in a low, flat voice.

“We first met at the San Carlo opera house. I had only just arrived in the city, the head of the party wanted me to get a glimpse of the place as soon as possible, see the most prominent citizens. I don’t like to socialize and appear in public, it’s not advisable for someone doing my job. But I went all the same. We were introduced, Ettore meet Achille, Achille meet Ettore. You see the point, right? Hector and Achilles. We had to laugh. He said to me: doesn’t look like we’re fated to become friends. Instead, quite the opposite. The party doesn’t accept people like us. We’re worse than criminals, we’re nature’s malformed abortions. I’ve known it my whole life, that I am the way I am. But I’ve never, never let the world see me for what I am. I’m even married, a girl from my hometown up north, but she’d never betray my secret: it would mean losing money and social position. There’s hunger up north, too, Commissario, did you know that? Plenty of hunger. People still take ships to America, out of Genoa. The party demands you have a wife, if you want to advance your career. Children? Well, if God doesn’t send them to you, you can hardly go out and buy them, can you? I had never. . I’d never done anything. When I was a kid, in boarding school, there was an older boy. He wanted to hurt me, but instead he helped me understand who I was. And I kept it to myself. That is, until I met Ettore.”

Ricciardi listened. And as he listened he recognized the movements of the diseased root, the sneaking love that knew how to make its way down the least obvious pathways, infiltrating, first, dreams and only later the flesh. He thought about Enrica, and he wondered, absurdly, if he’d ever watch her embroider again.

“Of course, we didn’t say anything. But believe me, Commissario, when I tell you that in that very instant, the moment our eyes met for the first time, we recognized one another. If you only knew how many times we thought back to that moment; if I live to be a hundred, it will still be the most important instant of my life. How many times I reached out to him; how many times we both tried to strangle this damned feeling. We talked all night about nonsense, one conversation with our mouths, quite another with our souls, with our hearts. We walked for hours, and it was brutally cold out; I come from the north, and I’ve never felt such cold weather as I experienced here. Then, outside his front door, just as day was dawning, we said goodnight. And then, on an impulse, without even knowing how or why, I kissed him. He locked himself up in his apartment, and he refused to see me again. Even though I’ve always avoided all public occasions, I never missed a party, a theatrical performance, a dance recital, or a symphony-all in the hopes of running into him; and I never saw him once. Then, one night, when it was pouring down rain, I found him standing right in front of this desk, where you’re sitting now, streaming wet like a stray dog, his eyes glistening with fever, his lips trembling. He was magnificently handsome, and he was in a state of despair.”

Pivani fell silent. Large teardrops were rolling down his cheeks, but his voice remained calm, as if he were dictating a report. When he resumed, he looked up fiercely at Ricciardi.

“To answer your question, then, I can tell you that Ettore Musso di Camparino, on the night between the 22nd and the 23rd, was here, with me. Making love with me. And then sobbing, despairing, along with me. Wondering what would become of the two of us, because in the world that the two of us were helping to create, there was no place for people like us. And there never will be.”