Numero Zero

17 Saturday, June 6, Noon

There. Now I’ve told it all. Let me try to make sense of it. Who are “they”? That’s what Simei said, that Braggadocio had pieced together a number of facts, correctly or incorrectly. Which of these facts could worry somebody? The business about Mussolini? And in that case, who had the guilty conscience? The Vatican? Or perhaps conspirators in the Borghese plot who still held authority (though after twenty years they all must be dead), or the secret services (which?). Or perhaps not. Perhaps it was just some old Fascist who’s haunted by the past and acted alone, perhaps getting pleasure from threatening Vimercate, as though he had — who knows? — the Sacra Corona Unita behind him. A nutcase, then, but if a nutcase is trying to do away with you, he’s just as dangerous as someone who’s sane, and more so. For example, whether it’s “they” or some lone nutcase, someone entered my house last night. And having gotten in once, they or he could get in a second time. So I’d better not stay here. But then, is this nutcase or are these “they” so sure I know something? Did Braggadocio say anything about me to Lucidi? Maybe not, or not much, judging from my last exchange of remarks with that sneak. But can I feel safe? Certainly not. It’s a long step, though, between that and escaping to Romania — best to see what happens, read the newspapers tomorrow. If they don’t mention the killing of Braggadocio, things are worse than I imagine — it means someone’s trying to hush it all up. I’ve got to hide at least for a while. But where? Right now it would be dangerous to stick my nose outside.

I thought about Maia and her hideaway at Orta. My affair with Maia has passed, I think, unnoticed, and she shouldn’t be under surveillance. She no, but my telephone yes, so I can’t telephone her from home, and to telephone from outside means I have to go out.

It occurred to me that there was a back entrance, from the courtyard below, through the toilets, to the local bar. I also remembered a metal gate at the far end of the courtyard that had been locked for decades. My landlord had told me about it when he handed me the keys to the apartment. Along with the key to the main entrance and the landing door, there was another one, old and rusty. “You’ll never need it,” said the landlord with a smile, “but every tenant has had one for the past fifty years. We had no air-raid shelter here during the war, you see, and there was a fairly large one in the house behind, on Via Quarto dei Mille, the road that runs parallel to ours. So a passageway was opened up at the far end of the courtyard for families to reach the shelter quickly if the alarm sounded. The gate has remained locked from both sides, but each of our tenants had a key, and as you see, in almost fifty years it’s become rusty. I don’t suppose you’ll ever need it, but that gate is also a good escape route in the event of fire. You can put the key in a drawer, if you wish, and forget about it.”

That’s what I had to do. I went downstairs and into the bar through the back door. The manager knows me, and I’ve done it before. I looked around. Hardly anyone there in the morning. Just an elderly couple sitting at a table with two cappuccinos and two croissants, and they didn’t look like secret agents. I ordered a double coffee — I still wasn’t properly awake — and went to the telephone booth. Maia answered immediately in great agitation, and I told her to keep calm and listen.

“So follow carefully, and no questions. Pack a bag with enough for a few days at Orta, then get your car. Behind where I live, in Via Quarto dei Mille, I’m not sure what number, there’ll be an entranceway, more or less the same distance up the road as my place. It could be open, because I think it goes into a courtyard where there’s a workshop of some kind. Either go in, or you can wait outside. Synchronize your watch with mine, you should be able to get there in fifteen minutes, let’s say we’ll meet in exactly an hour. If the entrance gate is closed, I’ll be waiting for you outside, but get there on time, I don’t want to hang around in the street. Please, don’t ask any questions. Take your bag, get in the car, make sure you have the timing right, and come. Then I’ll tell you everything. Check the rearview mirror every now and then, and if you think someone’s tailing you, use your imagination, do some crazy turns to throw them off. It’s not so easy along the canals, but after that, lots of ways to give them the slip, jump the lights on red. I trust you, my love.”

Maia could have had a promising career in armed robbery. She did things to perfection, and within the agreed hour, there she was in the entranceway, tense but happy.

I jumped into the car, told her where to turn to reach Viale Certosa as quickly as possible, and from there she knew her way to the highway for Novara, and then the turnoff for Orta, better than I did.

We hardly spoke during the entire trip. Once we’d reached the house, I told her it might be risky for her to know all that I knew. Would she prefer to rely on me and remain in the dark? But I should have guessed, there was no question. “Excuse me,” she said, “I still don’t know who or what you’re frightened of, but either no one knows we’re together, in which case I’m in no danger, or they’ll find out and be convinced I know. So spit it out, otherwise how will I ever think what you think?”

Undaunted. I had to tell her everything — after all, she was now flesh of my flesh, as the Good Book says.