Everyone in Their Place

XLIII

Maione slowly made his way up the last part of the steep uphill street that led to his home, where lunch was waiting. Incredible as it might seem, given how hungry he was, he’d happily have skipped lunch entirely, for a number of reasons: first of all, he couldn’t stand the prospect of another bowl of vegetable soup; next, last night’s spat was certain to mean a chilly silence on his wife’s part, and that meant he couldn’t hope for the friendly conversation that was his one sure way of getting his mind off work; last of all, he’d have to walk past the fruit and vegetable shop run by that damned Di Stasio, who had greeted him with a smile that struck him as faintly sarcastic.

Things changed radically however when, still a good fifty yards, perhaps more, from his own front door, he caught an unmistakable whiff of Lucia’s Genovese savory pastries. It couldn’t be anything else: the meat and onion sauce his wife cooked, and no other sauce out there, would have woken him out of a deep coma, and it was famous throughout the quarter. Long before the topic of food became a minefield, Lucia used to rib him, saying that the reason he’d married her was her Genovese pastries: and he, with a laugh, would say that she was probably right.

The thought only irritated him more: it struck him that making Genovese pastries for their children, now that he couldn’t eat them, was gratuitously cruel; a torture that Lucia was inflicting on him to punish him for rejecting the soup she’d made the night before. He was tempted to turn around and head straight back to police headquarters, just to deprive her of that satisfaction; then he decided that a real man faces challenges, he doesn’t turn and run, so he climbed the stairs, down in the mouth but grimly determined.

When he opened the front door, the celestial odor wafted over him violently; he even thought that he could detect the scent of fried broccoli and roasted potatoes, and possibly even a rum baba. He couldn’t believe it: a full Christmas banquet in the middle of August. What on earth was happening?

He noticed that none of the children came running to greet him the way they usually did. He made his way into the kitchen and stood there, openmouthed: the table was groaning with an array of food, cooked in every style imaginable. There were only two place settings, with the tablecloth and silverware that were only used on very special occasions. Lucia stood glaring at him, combatively, by the kitchen sink as she dried her hands with a dish towel. He asked her:

“Where are the kids?”

“They’re down at my sister Rosaria’s. They’ve had lunch there and they won’t be back until tonight.”

The brigadier pointed to the dishes arrayed on the table: “And all this food. . who put it here?”

Lucia replied in a harsh voice, but laughter was glinting in her eyes. She was enjoying herself.

“Who do you think put it here? And you tell me, who else would I let set foot in my kitchen?”

As she spoke, she came closer to Maione and gave him a fake punch in the chest, and another, then another, punctuating the things she said:

“And you tell me, is there a woman in all Naples who cooks better than I do? And you tell me, is there a place in all Naples where you’d be more comfortable than in your own home? And you tell me, how should a woman feel when she sees her own husband not bother to come home for dinner? And you tell me. .”

He seized her wrist to stop her from hitting him and put one arm around her waist, pulling her close to him.

“Well, while we’re at it, how is a man supposed to feel when he’s rejected in his own home? And you tell me, how is a husband supposed to feel when he sees his wife flirting with an idiot fruit vendor-and even if we went to school together when we were kids, it’s never too late for me to pluck out every last whisker in his whorish mustache, one by one?”

And they both burst out laughing and crying, until Lucia said, sit down and eat, or else we’ll have to throw out this whole banquet; and Raffaele replied, if you’re thinking of throwing away your Genovese pastries, you’ll have to pry them out of my cold dead hands. And they sat down and ate for an hour, and then they made love, and then they ate the rest.

Crying and laughing the whole time.

His lunch with Modo had at least helped Ricciardi to pinpoint the source of his uneasiness: the duchess’s second ring. He realized that whoever had torn the ring off her finger, dislocating it in the process, had done so after she’d already been killed, but still he felt compelled to complete his picture of the emotions that had danced around her corpse that night. His sense of order demanded it.

He headed off toward Palazzo Camparino, on an afternoon so muggy that the movements of the few people out on the street seemed to be in slow motion, as if they were underwater.

In the courtyard he saw Sciarra sweeping, doing his best to stay in the shade of the columns; he had his back to Ricciardi and didn’t see him coming. When the commissario tapped him on the shoulder he lofted straight into the air from a standing start, a comic sight accompanied by the loss of his hat and a high-pitched scream.

“Oooh, Madonna mia, Commissa’, it’s only you. You’re going to give me a heart attack, you know, really! I was lost in thought, I was. .”

“Forgive me. See if young master Ettore is in, I’d like to talk to him.”

The little man was panting, with one hand on his chest and the hat he’d picked up from the ground in the other hand; after brushing it off as best he could, he put it back on his head. In an apologetic tone he said:

“There’s so much sweeping to do, there’s always dirt on the pavement out here. The young master says that I’m supposed to water the hydrangeas now, in the heat of the afternoon: but I can’t do that, climbing up and down the stairs with a heavy pail of water in this heat. So I water the plants in the evening, and I just pray that he doesn’t notice. Yes, Commissa’, he’s here. He’s upstairs, surrounded by his plants, as always. Just a minute, I’ll walk you up, and let him know.”

Ricciardi replied:

“I just want to stop by the duchess’s anteroom first.”

He followed the doorman up the first flight of stairs and stopped on the landing, waiting for him to open the gate. He sensed how uneasy the man was, but that was certainly par for the course. Everyone was uneasy around him: Ponte, the other policemen, sometimes even Maione. He was the only one of his kind, he thought. From another planet, the moon or Mars, or another star. Condemned to spend his life alone, and watch the others avoid him like the plague.

He took one step into the room, which was now clean and tidy, as if nothing had ever happened; but something had happened, and evidence of the fact was Adriana’s corpse, still visible, even if it was gradually fading, speaking to him in a subdued voice from the same corner where he’d first seen her six long days ago.

“The ring, the ring, you’ve taken the ring, the ring is missing,” murmured the woman’s dead and swollen mouth, her strong white teeth bared, with the black tip of her tongue extended between them. Ricciardi stood still, staring at her, his hands in his trouser pockets, his shirt collar unbuttoned and his tie loose. He wondered why her last thought should have been for her piece of jewelry, instead of some final curse or a note of regret.

Turning his back on the corpse he gestured to Sciarra and followed him upstairs to Ettore’s apartment. The duke’s son was on the terrace, leaning over a yellow rose bush. His back was to the two men, as he worked carefully with a pair of shears to trim the branches, with the utmost attention. After a moment, without giving any sign of having noticed that Sciarra was waiting, hat in hand, to announce Ricciardi, he said:

“Prego, Commissario, come right on in. Do you know the story of the yellow roses? Sciarra, you’re free to go.”

With unmistakable relief, the doorman moved off quickly: it was clear that he enjoyed neither the commissario’s nor the young master’s company. Ricciardi stood at the threshold of the terrace.

“No, I don’t know the story. Should I?”

Ettore stood up and turned to look at his guest, mopping his sweaty brow with his sleeve.

“No, I imagine you wouldn’t. It’s an Arabic story: Mohammed suspected that his favorite wife, Aisha, a beautiful woman, might be betraying him. And so he asked an angel how he could find out the truth; there are angels, you know, in almost all religions. Well, the angel told him to bring the woman some red roses, and then to dip them in water: if the flowers changed color, it meant that the woman had been unfaithful to him. Mohammed brought her the flowers and arranged for her to drop them into the river: the roses turned yellow. The color of jealousy, of love betrayed.”

Ricciardi heard Sofia Capece’s voice in his mind, as she claimed to be the angel of death. And he thought about jealousy, which had driven her so mad that she had decided to punish Adriana for betraying her own husband.

“And what happened to the favorite? Did someone shoot her between the eyes?”

Ettore laughed.

“No, of course not. She was kicked out of the house, that’s all. She was really rather lucky, wasn’t she?”

“But the duchess wasn’t lucky. She met quite a different fate.”

The man’s expression hardened.

“She was a bitch, Commissario. A vile, stupid bitch. She did whatever her diseased appetites suggested to her, she had no interest in anyone else’s feelings. If you expect thanks for having identified her murderer, don’t look at me. In fact, her lover’s wife has my pity and comprehension: she did what a great many of us ought to have done long ago, believe me.”

Ricciardi gave him a cool reply:

“It’s not up to you, or Sofia Capece, or anyone else to decide whether someone has the right to live or not. No matter how dastardly that person may be.”

The young duke shrugged his shoulders and smiled.

“The fact remains that someone, as you’ve seen for yourself, took that right. There’s another thing though: I’ve heard about your. . nocturnal strolls, and a certain visit you made to a building not far from where you live. As well as a lengthy conversation.”

Ricciardi nodded. He hadn’t expected Ettore to make any reference to the matter that concerned him, nor had he decided what he would do if he did: it had no conection to the investigation. All the same, the man clearly felt the need to talk about it. In fact, he continued:

“You see, Commissario, in a sense it’s almost a relief to be able to talk about it. I understand why Achille would do it. There are times when I want to jump out of my skin from the urge to talk about it. Like everyone who’s. . who’s ever been in love, I imagine.”

Ricciardi said:

“These aren’t matters that concern me, Musso. I needed to understand, find out the reason for certain things, and that’s all. Once I’ve got a clear picture, the rest is of no interest to me.”

“I know, I know. And I thank you for your sensitivity. But now that you know, let me tell you something: if you keep them in long enough, eventually emotions will suppurate and poison the blood. I’ve always been the way I am, you know. And I’ve never said a word about it to a soul. I’ve gone to bordellos, with fellow university students, to keep the others from talking about me, making hints about me. And then, once I got home, I would vomit for hours, out of sheer disgust. My mother would come over to me and stroke my head, without a word. She knew everything, I think: a mother can guess about certain things. And she loved me tenderly, no matter what. Not my father. But, then, he might not have loved me in any case.”

Ricciardi said nothing: there was nothing to be said. In the heat of the afternoon that was turning into evening, the insects buzzed and the scent of jasmine was intoxicating. Ettore went on:

“And I fought it, you can believe me. Nothing ever happened. I fell in love with colleagues, classmates, but I turned my back on love. I ran away, I broke off friendships. And I hated my own name, the name of this house, my father who was imposing upon me a nature that did not belong to me. Only my mother held me close. Only her tender love. And then she fell sick.”

“And Adriana came into your home,” Ricciardi added.

“That’s right, the bitch arrived. And she took my mother’s place, even before she was dead. Did you know, Commissario, that she slipped into my father’s bed while my mother was still alive, and in horrible pain from the tumor that finally carried her off? They even gave her this extra dose of suffering. Those two filthy beasts. And fate paid them back: killing her violently, and him slowly, little by little, day by day.”

Ricciardi felt a faint shiver run up his back; the horror of that hatred was far worse than the sight of the murdered dead.

“But you didn’t kill her. Not you.”

Ettore shook his head.

“No. I don’t have that kind of strength. I’m not a man of action: I’m a damned theorist, a writer. But I hated her, no question that I hated her. I yearned for her death every minute of every day. She tried to seduce me almost immediately, which was her way of sealing alliances. I found her, half-naked, in my bedroom one night, not long after my mother died. When I threw her out, do you know what she did? She burst out laughing. First she was just surprised, and then she started laughing. She knew that if a man rejected her, he had to be. . like me; perhaps nothing of the sort had ever happened to her. And from that day forward, she never missed a chance to humiliate me, to mock me. She even told my father, who had never noticed or had simply pretended not to notice. And we haven’t spoken since.”

Ricciardi asked, in a flat voice: “Talk to me about the ring.”

Ettore reeled, as if he’d just been slapped.

“The ring? How do you know about the ring?”

Ricciardi replied, without changing his expression:

“The autopsy revealed a dislocated middle finger on the left hand; it also found that it had been dislocated after she was killed because there was no hematoma. Clearly, someone had removed the ring that the duchess wore, and this someone couldn’t be anyone but you: the only one who returned home after she was killed.”

Ettore stared into the empty air, as if he were speaking to himself.

“I love him. I love him like I’ve never loved anyone in my life, in a way I never even thought was possible. We hide our love, we’ve tried to break it off a thousand times. I’ve fought against it, we’ve fought against it. But you can’t fight love, Commissario. Because if you fight it you’re bound to lose. Inevitably. And so you need to take the initiative, and you need to pluck this love, the way you might one of these flowers. When you love, then you find that you love the world as well, and you want to sing, and shout, and laugh about nothing at all, in the light of day. But instead I have to hide, leave at night and come back before dawn, like a wolf, like a criminal. That night I came home happy, and I found her there, the bitch: dead on the sofa, with a bullet hole between the eyes and the gate hanging open. And her hand dangling, with my mother’s ring on her finger. I’ve always known that ring, as long I can remember, every caress I’ve ever received was with that ring. The ring my mother was married with. That woman wasn’t fit to look at it, but she wore it as if it had always been hers. Yes, I tore it off her finger, with all the strength in my body. And I kept it. It’s right there, in that drawer: every now and then I take it out and I polish it. But just by wearing it, that bitch made it dirty for all time. It’s no longer my mother’s wedding ring. It’s as if she killed her a second time.”