Reticence

III

When I got back to the hotel that evening I saw that the television was on in the lounge and a young woman I’d never seen before was sitting there on a couch, flipping idly through an old TV guide that must have been long out of date. She turned and gave me a quick look, and I said hello before picking up my key at reception. Back in my room I undressed my son on my bed and poured him a bath in the washbasin, it was a pretty big washbasin and he was a pretty small guy and he just fit, sitting half immersed in the water like a Roman consul, completely naked with his chubby little nipples, the soap in one hand and my toothbrush glass in the other, with a little yellow plastic duck bobbing against his chest. He played there good-naturedly, every bit the druggist, filling the glass and then emptying it again slowly into the water to see the effect it produced. Generally he was very fond of baths, offering as they did the chance to carry out new pharmaceutical experiments each time, and, even if he didn’t have enough room to straighten up and belly-flop into the water, he nevertheless managed to splash with his feet and spill water all over the floor. I picked him up all dripping wet and wrapped him in a large white towel to dry his hair while rubbing his back and little bum, and, lying him on the bed, I wrapped him in a fresh diaper while he beat his legs chaotically just to make things more difficult. You stop it now, I said. He stopped, giving me a charming little smile. He was still lying on his back smiling at me — what a hypocrite — and I sat him up to slip on the clean little pajama I’d gotten out for him. I then combed his hair, parting it on the side (now we’re all squeaky clean) and we played like that for a bit on the bed before dinner.

I’d installed my son on my bed with the bib around his neck, and, sitting beside him on the covers, I held a little jar of prepared puree that I’d gone down to fetch in the kitchen, sole in béchamel sauce, judging from the label it couldn’t be all that bad, and, while my son looked at the jar with interest, I slowly stirred the puree with a little spoon to cool it down, that’s what you get for having it heated up in the first place. A wisp of steam rose from what had probably once been sole and now consisted of a flaccid, lumpy mush covered with a milky broth. I took another bite of the audacious, irreproachably bland mixture and, although it wasn’t tasty in the least, it did seem cool enough, just right, I’d say, to give a spoonful to my son who was still waiting patiently on the bed, his mouth open wide to help things along. It’s all right? I said, holding out what was already his third or fourth spoonful, because my son had wolfed down his food ever since he was little, so to speak, silent and concentrated, opening his mouth wide even before he’d fully swallowed the previous bite. Once he’d finished all the puree I conscientiously scraped up a last spoonful for him from the bottom of the jar, which I then ate myself before rinsing out the little spoon and jar in the washbasin.

It was a little after eight o’clock when I went down to dinner after putting my son to bed, and there was no one in the dining room when I went in except for the young woman I’d seen a little earlier in the television room, dining alone near the window. She was wearing a suede jacket with a black blouse and little horn-rimmed glasses, and it was only when I went to sit down that I noticed a camera on the table beside her, the same Nikon I’d seen that morning in the last room I’d visited. We were the only two in the dining room, separated by a row of unoccupied tables, and, even if we immediately glanced away each time our looks crossed, I observed her surreptitiously throughout the meal. Finally she was the first one to get up and leave, wishing me goodnight with a slight German accent, and I watched her leave the room with the camera in her hand. It was night outside and I was now alone in the dining room. The leaves of the tamaris swayed very slowly on the deserted terrace outside, and I drank my coffee thinking that the Biaggis must be home by now and that I’d go back out in a little while to pay them a visit.

Back in my room I stood at the window, pulling back the curtain slightly to look outside. I’d left the light off so as not to wake my son, and the only light in the dimness came from the weak bulb over the washbasin that isolated one corner of the room in a yellowish patch of light. There wasn’t a sound in the village, and I looked out at the deserted road that led up toward the Biaggis’ house. Across from the hotel I could see the lone donkey in the bluish depths of the abandoned lot, lying in the shadows of the enclosure whose rocky surface was lit by the moon. I stood at the window without moving, my body hidden by the curtains that I’d only opened a crack to look outside, and I wondered if someone standing outside might think there was anyone in the room.

The Biaggis must certainly have returned home by now, and as time went on and I stood there at the window putting off the moment when I went to see them, I started to think that if tonight as well it was so difficult for me to take what seemed like such a simple decision as dropping in on some friends to say I was staying in the village, it was basically due to the reticence I’d felt at visiting them on the first day, a reticence that I still hadn’t been able to shed in fact, and which, far from having abated with time, had only grown as the days went by, to the point where ever since I’d taken the liberty of removing the letters from their mailbox this had hobbled me entirely and made it all the more difficult for me to go see them. Nevertheless I went and took out a clean shirt from my travel bag and changed silently in the dim light. Then, slowly, I put on a tie and tied it carefully around my neck. There was almost no light in the room, and, after having put on my jacket and coat, I went over to the washbasin and took a quick look in the mirror. I was standing very close to the glass in a dark coat and tie, my face almost pressed up against my reflection. My eyes looked bluish-green and slightly baggy in the dim light, but what I saw above all was the terribly worried look on my face. And yet all I was looking at was my own reflection, which was no doubt not particularly menacing at that, nevertheless the face looking back at me in the feeble light bore a terribly worried expression, as if it was myself I mistrusted, as if in fact I was the one I was afraid of — whereupon I crossed the room and went out.

Everything was silent outside when I left the hotel, and the sign on the roof was still illuminated. The neon lights bathed the road and trees in a faint blue glimmer, and I saw that two cars were parked in front of the hotel. I wondered who they could belong to, and climbed over the little chain-link gate onto the terrace for a moment. There wasn’t a sound all around, and I stood in the shadows looking into the dining room where the light was still on. The dinner service was almost over and there was only one couple still sitting at a table, drinking their coffee in front of the sliding window. The man had his back to me, barely a couple of yards away. I couldn’t see his face, just the back of his neck and a hint of his profile when he moved his head. Suddenly I reeled back when the owner came into view on the other side of the room. Had he had time to distinguish my silhouette in the night? Had he realized I was just outside the window? I left the terrace immediately and walked off down the road without turning around. I was heading toward the Biaggis’ house, and I’d almost arrived at the top of the cliff by now. The wind was blowing heavily, and I continued to walk as the lighthouse beam turned regularly over the surface of the water. I didn’t have any idea what I’d say to the Biaggis when I got there, and I knew full well they’d probably be surprised to find me paying them a nighttime visit like that, nevertheless I continued up the road toward their place. Soon the road stopped winding along the cliff and entered a very dense, very dark grove of trees, and after following the wall of the property for ten or so yards I stopped in front of the Biaggis’ gate. I couldn’t hear a sound from within, everything was perfectly still around the house. Apparently the Biaggis hadn’t come home yet because the car was nowhere in sight. I stood on the side of the road and looked at the mailbox hanging in the dusk. When they got back the Biaggis would find the mail I’d returned that morning, I thought, and, going up to the gate, I slipped my hand into the mailbox but felt nothing under my fingers — the letters were gone.

The moon cast a dim light over the park on the Biaggis’ property and all of the shutters were closed along the front wall, downstairs and upstairs, and the metal blind over the bay window was rolled down. Could it be that the Biaggis were home nonetheless, asleep in the bedroom upstairs? I unwound the chain from the door and entered the property. Hardly anything had changed around the villa since I’d been there last, dead leaves still lay all over the garden, but I noticed that the old umbrella had been righted and now stood erect in front of the house. Its metal stays were spread skyward, and attached to them were several ripped strips of cloth. I walked noiselessly onto the terrace and along the metal blind of the bay window over to the front door. No lights were visible inside the house, and after taking one last peek through the shutters to see if I could see anything inside, I came back to the front entrance and rang the doorbell. I had rung the doorbell of the Biaggis’ house and didn’t move, standing there in the dim light waiting for someone to open the door. Could it be no one was at home? I rang a second time, and, still not getting any response, I decided to go in and walked over to the earthenware jar to get the keys to the garage.

I’d gone inside the villa, and made my way slowly through the ground floor trying to get my bearings in the darkness. Anyone home? I called out. Stopping at the living room door I saw the stone fireplace at the other end of the room, barely distinguishable beside the dark shapes of three leather armchairs around a coffee table. There wasn’t a sound in the room, and I walked slowly over to Biaggi’s study and softly opened the door. I felt around for the light switch and, not finding it, I lit my lighter and saw in the glow of the flame that the letters were lying on the desk. There they were, the three letters I’d returned that morning, lying side by side on Biaggi’s desk. So someone was in the house right now, someone who knew I was there? I left the room immediately and, walking past the large wooden mirror in the entrance, I saw a furtive silhouette pass by in the blackness, dressed in a dark coat and tie.

The night sky was immense and dark, and several long black clouds slid slowly across the halo of the moon. I’d gone upstairs to the Biaggis’ bedroom, and as no one was there I’d gone over to the window and opened the shutters. It seemed I was all alone in the house, and I stood there at the window of the Biaggis’ bedroom. The garden in front of me was silent, and from time to time the long luminous beam from the lighthouse on Sasuelo Island whisked across the sky behind the treetops. The gates to the property were dimly lit by the moon at the end of the driveway, and I thought that Biaggi — because Biaggi must have known I was in the house — would no doubt not be long in returning, and that any minute now I would see the old gray Mercedes pull up in the night in front of the gate, with its motor running and headlights blazing, lighting up the irregular stones of the wall around the property. I would still be standing at the window of the room and I’d see Biaggi get out to open the gate. I wouldn’t move and I’d watch as he got back into the car and, when the old gray Mercedes entered the park, Biaggi would suddenly see my silhouette in a dark coat and tie standing at his bedroom window in front of him in the night.

I’d gone back downstairs and sat down for a moment in the living room without taking off my coat. The windows in front of me were very black, and behind them the lowered metal blind didn’t let in the least bit of light. Around me in the darkness I could make out the silent contours of the furniture, the couch and the other armchairs, the bookshelves lining the walls. I sat there alone in the Biaggis’ villa and didn’t move, pricking up my ears at the slightest sounds from outside, the numerous nocturnal creaking sounds I thought I could hear coming from the garden, when I spied two little points of light shining in the darkness at the other end of the room, one red light and one green light glowing on the bottom shelf of the telephone table. Getting up and walking over to the table, I saw there was an answering machine set up in the villa. I crouched down for a moment in front of it and saw that apparently there were no messages, the tape was still wound back to the beginning. Cautiously I pressed one of the buttons with my finger and heard Biaggi’s voice resound in the utter silence. Biaggi’s voice rang out in front of me — Biaggi’s voice — vivid, close, and at the same time terribly distant. You have reached eight five three, one three four three. We’re not in right now but you can leave a message after the. I’d managed to stop the message and the house was once more engulfed in an absolute silence that was all the more disturbing as I didn’t move a muscle.

I’d finally left the house and was walking back to the hotel when I saw a black cat on the side of the road. It was close to the garbage dump, staring at me with its ears pricked, and lying at its feet was a long fish skeleton it had just pulled from a plastic bag. It was no more than five yards away, and I had the feeling it would run off if I made the slightest move in its direction. It didn’t flinch and was no doubt waiting for me to leave, staring at me in the night with deep green eyes that were finely speckled with yellow. But what troubled me the most was that it wasn’t the first time I’d seen that look, that it was a look I’d already seen, one night on the jetty down at the port. And the hotel owner must have seen the very same look the night before in the hotel dining room, because this must have been the cat he’d told me about that morning, the one that had entered the dining room through the sliding window and prowled around in the darkness, slipping stealthily between the tables, its luminescent green eyes shining in the dim light of the moon, before making off as soon as the owner came in.

I’d gone down to the port and was standing at the end of the jetty, my coat pulled tightly around me. I couldn’t hear a single sound in the port, just the murmur of the water close at hand and the sound of the waves breaking against the rocks, and I looked out at Sasuelo Island, far off and barely visible in the darkness. The lighthouse beam swung over the surface of the water, and I watched the long shaft of light thinking I’d never be able to get to sleep if I didn’t go to bed now. Already the night before the long, luminous beam of the lighthouse on Sasuelo Island had turned all night in my sleep with a throbbing regularity, sweeping away the darkness and then moving off before reappearing immediately under my eyes without leaving me the least respite. It was always the same dazzling cone of light that suddenly surged forth and grew quickly in the darkness before brutally blinding me for an instant, after which I waited in dread for the next time it came around, soon seeing nothing more than my own panic-stricken face on the edge of sleep, my eyes piercing the blackness, my pupils constantly dilating and contracting with each passage of the beam of light, I lay there staring in front of me, powerless and uneasy, wide-eyed in the night. Because in fact Biaggi was on Sasuelo Island. Dressed in a wet sailor’s jacket, Biaggi’s stiff, decomposing corpse was on Sasuelo Island at that moment. After floating for a while chest-up in the black water of the port, it must have been fished out and heaved on board a fishing boat that had left the harbor under the same moonlight as tonight, exactly the same, with the same black clouds sliding across the sky. The boat had then putted slowly across to Sasuelo Island, and when it finally arrived at the rugged coastline it had docked gently at a small landing at the edge of the water, and Biaggi’s corpse had been unloaded onto the shore under the silvery moonlight, his bloated bluish face violently illuminated by the beam of the lighthouse whose high, silent outline rose up overhead in the night. Then, slowly, the body had been tugged along the little path leading up the rock face to the lighthouse. And there, in the utter darkness, it had been dumped on the ground below the automatic control instruments of the lighthouse that flickered on and off in the night, face up and arms spread wide, where it still lay.

It wasn’t yet midnight when I got back to the hotel, and walking down the hall I saw there was still a light on under the owners’ door. My son didn’t stir when I entered the room. He was sleeping peacefully in his travel cot, and I went slowly over to the window and pulled back the curtain. I stood at the window of my room in my dark coat and tie, looking out onto the road that led off in the night toward the Biaggis’ house. I could have telephoned the Biaggis right now if there’d been a phone in my room, I thought. The phone would have rung in the deserted living room of the villa, and after several seconds the answering machine would have switched on and I would have heard the sound of Biaggi’s voice in the receiver, Biaggi’s flat voice coming from far off in the night. You have reached eight five three, one three four three. We’re not in at the moment but you can leave a message after the — and I would have hung up without leaving a message.

It was a little after eight thirty when I went down to the port the next morning. The sky was very gray over the village, and several long black clouds drifted on the horizon over Sasuelo Island. The lighthouse had been out for several hours now, and I looked at its lofty silhouette standing out in the mist, wondering if anyone had been to Sasuelo Island in the last couple of days. Because even if there’d been no keeper on the island since the lighthouse was automated, it only stood to reason that maintenance visits were carried out from time to time and that someone tasked with keeping the lighthouse had to go over to the island on a regular basis. But what I couldn’t quite figure out was how often these visits took place. Was it every month, once a week, every two or three days? Because if it was that often, I said to myself, it was certain that someone must have been on the island in the last day or so. And then I started thinking that someone could have seen me leave the hotel on my way to the village that morning, someone who was still in the village and was watching me at this very moment.

I’d sat down on a stone block at the end of the jetty and was looking back at the square that stretched out on the other side of the port. It was empty and the wind blew steadily over the ground, swirling up whirlwinds of dust and old bits of paper. And it was then — as I was sitting all alone on the jetty and there was no one around — that I saw the old gray Mercedes enter the village. It had turned the corner at a very slow speed and was now driving slowly through the square. It seemed almost hesitant, and I thought for a moment that it would continue on its way, but it slowed down some more and stopped beside a bench near the telephone booth. I hadn’t made a move and could see an immobile figure in the car, but the distance was too great for me to distinguish who it could be. The car had parked facing the sea about thirty yards away, and the engine continued idling on the square while the silhouette inside seemed to be looking in my direction.

Because it was Biaggi in fact who was watching me from inside the car. Biaggi had seen me leave the hotel this morning when I’d gone into the village and followed me at a distance down to the port. And there he was now, watching me from the wheel of his car, whose engine he’d just switched off. A few seconds went by and a man I’d never seen got out of the car. He was massively built, with broad shoulders and closely cropped gray hair. Was he looking for me, this man who was now slowly walking across the square in my direction? He stopped in front of the little stone parapet at the edge of the gravel and started looking out over the horizon. Neither of us moved, and he couldn’t have failed to notice me on the jetty because I was right in his line of sight, with nothing but the softly undulating water of the harbor between us. He stood there across from me on the square with his eyes on the sea, not seeming to pay me the slightest attention. But in fact he had seen me, I knew full well that he’d seen me and that he’d been focused on me ever since he’d gotten out of the car. All the while looking out at the sea, he took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lifted it slowly to his mouth, pulling out a cigarette with his lips and lighting it while protecting the lighter with the palm of his hand. His eyes rested on me for a brief instant, as if he just wanted to make sure I was still on the jetty, and then he went into the phone booth.

Who did he want to call? Who did he want to tell that I was there on the jetty? Was it Biaggi, was it Biaggi he was calling? I could see his outline through the window of the telephone booth, picking up the receiver and dialing a number. But if it was Biaggi he was calling, I thought, if he was calling Biaggi to tell him I was on the jetty, no one was going to answer because the answering machine must still be on in the villa. Unless Biaggi had turned off the answering machine, unless Biaggi was at home right now waiting for this call. And it was then that someone answered, it was then that someone must have picked up the phone in the Biaggi’s villa because the man suddenly started talking inside the booth. I was still sitting on the stone block at the end of the jetty, and I could just make out the silhouette of the man talking on the phone in the telephone booth. He turned his head in my direction from time to time, and despite the distance I could see his look clearly behind the glass pane, a hard, somewhat empty look that was riveted on the port. Just before the end of the conversation he glanced over at me once more, and he must have seen that I was observing him because he twisted his body slightly in the booth, turning his back on me completely. He said one or two more words and finally hung up, leaving the booth and letting the glass door fall shut behind him. He got back into the car without taking another look in my direction or even looking out at the sea, and I watched the old gray Mercedes turn around on the square and slowly leave the village.

As soon as it disappeared I rushed over to the square, went into the phone booth, and dialed Biaggi’s number. Because if the man had just/ called Biaggi and Biaggi had answered, I said to myself, by immediately calling him back I would no doubt not leave him enough time to switch the answering machine back on, and, hearing the telephone ring again in the living room he would no doubt wrongly think it was the man calling again and he would pick up the phone, Biaggi would answer my call himself. I’d just dialed his number and stood there in the booth with my ear to the receiver waiting for the phone to ring. It rang once, then a second time, slightly shorter, and then I heard the phone connect and Biaggi’s voice in the receiver, Biaggi’s flat voice recorded on the tape. So in the brief interval between the man’s call and mine Biaggi had had enough time to switch the answering machine back on. Because, in fact, he must have gone back out immediately, Biaggi must have left the house immediately after receiving the man’s call to come meet me, and he must be on the road right now. No doubt I’d see him appear on the square any minute now. I looked over at the entrance to the village but the road was empty, the two houses towering over the bend in the road were closed and silent. I could see them clearly from where I was in the booth, and nothing moved all around, just the leaves in the trees swaying slowly in the wind. I hadn’t hung up yet and Biaggi’s voice could still be heard in the receiver, Biaggi’s monotonous voice coming from nowhere and talking into the emptiness. Then the voice was still and the higher-pitched, almost piercing beep sounded in the receiver and things were quiet once more. I didn’t hang up, but held my breath and didn’t say a thing. The magnetic answering machine tape must have been winding in Biaggis’ living room, it must have been turning slowly and recording all of the imperceptible variations of my silence. Because I kept perfectly still, I’d contracted the muscles of my hand and didn’t make the slightest movement in the booth, while the tape must have continued turning inexorably in the living room of the Biaggis’ villa, winding silently inside the machine as it recorded my silence.

When I hung up I realized that there was someone on the jetty. A man dressed in a blue sailor’s jacket was at the dock, I could see him in the distance through the window of the phone booth. Otherwise the port was deserted, and I watched as the man walked over to the stone block where I’d been sitting just a few moments ago and passed it without stopping. I was still standing in the phone booth, and I followed him with my eyes while he continued along the jetty without seeming to notice me or even suspect I was watching. He stopped in front of a fishing boat and took a good look at its hull, and after tossing the little knapsack he was carrying on board he jumped in with a single bound, rocking the boat for a few moments before it stabilized bit by bit alongside the dock. He remained standing in the boat while untying the moorings, and, tossing them onto the pier, he grabbed a big wooden oar that he then thrust vertically into the water to push the boat out to the middle of the bay. He was now much closer to where I was and I could almost make out his features, his dry, angular face was chiseled by the wind. I didn’t move in the booth and kept watching from a distance, my body half hidden by the gray mass of the telephone. He’d gone back to the stern now and, kneeling down on the bench to start the motor, he gave the cord three long pulls, lifting his arm high in the air. The motor fired up and, sitting down in the stern, he grabbed the rudder and left the port at an extremely slow speed, his body perfectly immobile in the back of the boat and his eyes fixed on the horizon. I kept watching him from behind the window of the phone booth and could only see his back now as the boat headed out into the open sea toward — there was no longer any doubt — Sasuelo Island.

Back in the hotel I’d gone to bed and was trying in vain to get back to sleep. The shutters were closed and there wasn’t a hint of daylight in the room. My son was asleep beside me and I lay like that in the darkness, my body covered by the blankets. I didn’t want to leave the hotel now, I didn’t want to be seen in the village anymore, and, my head full of diverse forebodings, it seemed to me that all of the sounds coming from outside were like so many vague menaces gradually taking shape around me. It was now almost half an hour since I’d left the telephone booth and, lying on the bed in the shadowy light of my room, I thought that Biaggi must be looking for me in the village right now, perhaps even together with the man who’d called him that morning to tell him I was on the jetty, while at the same time the other man, the one who’d sailed off toward Sasuelo Island, must have arrived by now and, having left his boat in a little protected inlet, must have walked up the path along the rock face to the lighthouse where on entering the cabin he’d discovered the stiff, wide-eyed body of the cat lying in front of him on the ground.

I was still lying on my bed in the darkness and I thought that the man wouldn’t be long in coming back now, and that as soon as he got back to the port he’d no doubt also start looking for me in the village, and that, not finding me, he’d probably come see if I wasn’t at the hotel. I got up and quickly put on my clothes, then I crossed the room silently and opened the shutters. It was still just as gray outside, rainy and bleak, and I looked out at the empty road leading up toward the Biaggis’ house. There wasn’t a sound in the village, and I stayed there at the window, hidden in a fold of the curtains, keeping my eyes fixed on the hotel entrance whose front steps I could see down below through the corner of the window. My son was now awake, I could hear him babbling away behind me in the room, and I turned around now and then to watch him play in his cot, amusing himself with the old plastic sandal we’d found on the beach a couple of days earlier, trying in vain to fold it in half, his face concentrated and his little lips pursed with effort. Then, still just as concentrated, looking thoughtful and serious in his white pajamas, he started smacking the sandal against the bedpost. And it was then — when I’d stopped watching the hotel entrance for just a moment — that someone knocked on the door of my room.

There was someone behind the door, someone was now standing in the hall behind the door to my room. The door wasn’t locked, I knew perfectly well that it wasn’t locked because I hadn’t taken the time to lock it when I’d come back in, and I stood there in the room watching this immobile door, which wouldn’t be long in opening. Another knock came and I didn’t move. Then I heard the sound of a key in the lock. Why was the key turning, why was the key turning if the door wasn’t locked? Was someone trying to lock me in? Was someone trying to imprison me in the hotel to prevent me from escaping? When the door had been locked from outside — I was locked in now — I saw the knob turn forcefully and heard someone try to open it from outside, but the door resisted. Immediately the key turned in the other direction and the door opened. The owner stood there in front of me in the shadow of the hall, one hand still on the doorknob and a bucket and broom at his feet, and, seeing that I was still in the room, he apologized and closed the door again right away, saying he’d come back a bit later to do the room. After that I stayed in all morning and no one else appeared, all I heard was the muffled sound of footsteps in the hall several times.

In the early afternoon I decided to go over to the Biaggis’ house while my son was having his nap. The hotel was completely silent when I left my room and, coming downstairs, I saw a suitcase against the wall near the entrance that must have belonged to a guest who was just arriving or departing. I lingered in the hallway for a moment peering through the glass doors, fearing that someone could be posted there to see if I left the hotel, but apparently there was no one on the road. In the abandoned lot across the way I saw that the lone donkey had come up to the fence and was staring over at the hotel. All of a sudden it gave its head and mane a violent shake, after which it came slowly back to its initial position, gently nodding its head. I watched it for a few more moments, then left the hotel and started up the road toward the Biaggis’ house. I’d almost left the village and was now at the bend in the road beside the dump. The wire cage was now empty, and the only things on the ground were several scraps of garbage that must have fallen from the bags when the dump truck passed, lying there beside an upturned coffee filter whose contents were spread out in the grass nearby. I continued along the cliff and looked out at the sea stretching off into the distance, strangely calm around Sasuelo Island. The sky was completely dark now on the horizon, overcast by large rain clouds that the wind was slowly pushing toward the coast. The road had entered a dense grove of trees and was still deserted in front of me, and I’d just started along the wall of the Biaggis’ property when I saw that the gates were open.

I slowed down a little, stopping a little away from the entrance when I saw a man in the garden — massively built, with broad shoulders and closely cropped gray hair, the man who’d been in the telephone booth that morning. He hadn’t seen me, and was busy raking the dead leaves in the garden. There was a little pile of dead leaves beside him on the lawn, and I noticed that the old gray Mercedes was parked on the gravel driveway a little farther off. The shutters were still closed along the front of the house but the garage door was now open, and in the distance I could just make out the contours of an upturned fishing boat and several jerry cans containing oil and gas against the far wall. The man still hadn’t seen me, and continued to rake the lawn without suspecting I was observing him. I stood there at the entrance to the property, my body hidden in an angle of the gate, watching the man move back and forth in the park with the rake in his hand, and, following him with my eyes, I couldn’t help wondering if this man who seemed so at home in the garden wasn’t simply the caretaker. Everything seemed to point to it, in fact, and yet for all I could remember the Biaggis’ caretaker, the man who took care of the garden and guarded the house in their absence, wasn’t this man in front of me but a very friendly old guy who I’d seen once or twice when he came to water the garden in the summer and who everyone had always called Rafa, without my ever knowing if that was his first name or his last name, Mr. Rafa.

I’d taken a couple of steps forward and the man had seen me by now. He stopped raking when I entered the property and watched me come over to him without moving. When I got to where he was it was clear he was waiting for me to say something. I nodded hello and he nodded back, and I explained I was a friend of the Biaggis’. He went back to raking with another nod, as if this simple sentence had satisfied his curiosity as far as I was concerned and allowed him to resume his work in peace. We exchanged another couple of words and, as I remained standing beside him on the gravel driveway looking up at the closed shutters of the Biaggis’ house, I felt that my presence in the garden didn’t bother him at all. We didn’t really converse, I just stood there next to him and watched him rake, from time to time lifting a stray leaf with the tip of my shoe, putting it mechanically back in the little pile on the grass, and, as he continued to rake a little further down the lawn, he finally said that this wasn’t the first time he’d seen me, that he’d already seen me walking in the village with my son, and wondered who I might be. You’re the one with the baby, right? he asked. I said that yes, I was the one with the baby. Yeah, I’ve seen you around, he said, and I noticed then that he had a little stain on his pant leg, a little grease stain that was quite recent and that hadn’t had the time to dry, which made me think — I don’t know why — that it could be boat motor oil. The sky was increasingly menacing over the property and soon the first drops of rain started to fall in the garden, very large droplets that were still spaced far apart, suggesting that a major cloudburst was on its way. Gusts of wind blew the clouds across the sky, shaking the leaves in the trees, and in less than a minute the rain came pounding down, suddenly and brutally, and started to flood all of the paths in the garden as we rushed off the lawn and ran to take shelter in the garage, bending down under the pouring rain.

We stood side by side in the garage doorway, our shoulders and faces slightly wet, watching the rain fall in the garden without saying a word. The grounds across from us were very dark and the gate at the end of the gravel driveway was still open. Far off we could see the rain falling onto the road where it formed into two rivulets and flowed slowly over the asphalt onto the shoulder. The lawns were soon completely soaked, and as the earth must already have been saturated with water from all the showers in recent days, in just a few minutes a large puddle had formed across from us on the driveway into which the rain clattered down, splashing water all around. The man stood beside me without moving and finally took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, and, without a word, held it up to offer me a cigarette. Then, with the same gesture I’d already seen him use that morning, he slowly brought the pack to his mouth to pull out a cigarette with his lips. He searched for a lighter in his pocket and gave me a light before lighting his cigarette. This could go on for a while, he said, taking a long drag, this could go on for a while. He moved off toward the back of the garage and, passing the upturned fishing boat, he went and hunched over beside a big wooden box, no doubt a toolbox, from which he took out two pairs of pliers and a screwdriver, putting them on the ground beside him. I’ll be back, he said picking up the tools, and, opening the little metal door at the back of the garage, he disappeared inside the house.

I stayed alone in the garage and looked for a moment at the little metal door that he’d just closed behind him. The garage was very dark, and the upturned fishing boat took up almost all the room. Diverse objects lay here and there in the dim light, two or three spades in a pail, some tools, a couple of flower pots lining the walls. The downpour hadn’t let up and the rain continued to fall onto the roof of the garage, reverberating on the corrugated metal above my head. The gravel driveway looked almost like a swamp by now, with dead leaves drifting in puddles all around, while a curtain of rain continued to beat down on the lawns. Ten or so minutes had already gone by since the man had disappeared and I could now hear sounds in the house, indefinable sounds of steps and objects being moved, then the steps came closer and the man reappeared in the garage to say that I might as well wait out the rainstorm inside the house. I joined him in the back of the garage and he led me through into the cellar, shutting the door behind me. But wasn’t it a mistake to follow him? Because Biaggi was in the house perhaps. Biaggi was in the living room of the house right now.

There was almost no light in the cellar, a single naked bulb hung from the ceiling, and I followed the man into the kitchen where some old sheets of newspaper were spread out to protect the floor. The door under the sink was open, revealing an iron bucket full of dirty, stagnant water under a bent water pipe. The man collected the tools and tidied up the newspaper, which he rolled into a ball and threw into the garbage before turning off the kitchen light and heading into the living room. I followed him down the hall, where all of the lights were off and all of the shutters closed. When we got to the living room he walked over to the bay window in the darkness and pulled several times on the cord to raise the metal blind, slowly letting the gray light of day into the room. Even when the blind was completely open the living room was still very dark. We could have switched on the light but neither of us bothered to do it. I’d gone over to the fireplace and was now standing behind the couch beside the little sideboard containing the aperitif bottles. Our wet shoes had left traces on the floor, two long streaks whose separate itineraries you could follow across the room, one heading to the fireplace and the other straight over to the window where the man was still standing pensively, a pair of muddy old tennis shoes on his feet, watching the rain fall in the garden without paying me any further attention. I took a few random steps, my hands in the pockets of my coat, lingering for a moment in front of the bookshelf. Then, while the man continued to stand at the window with his back to me, I walked silently over to the telephone and bent down discreetly over the little transparent window of the answering machine to look at the tape inside. It had turned since the last time I’d seen it, there’d been one call without question, no more, a single call, the call I’d made that morning in all likelihood, but no one had listened to my message.

I’d sat down in one of the leather armchairs facing the couch to wait out the downpour, and I remained sitting there in my coat, with my legs crossed and my hands in my pockets. The man hadn’t moved from the window, he’d lit a cigarette and was smoking it while looking outside, only leaving his place to come flick his ash in the little hexagonal ashtray that lay across from me on the coffee table. He bent down for a moment right in front of me, his jacket almost brushing against my face, before immediately taking up his post again at the window. A very soft light still pervaded the living room while the muffled sound of the rain continued to reach us from outside, lessened somewhat by the thick windows. I picked up an old magazine that was lying on the coffee table and flipped through it absently with one hand, looking just at the photos or an occasional headline. Finally I put it back down and, setting it on the table just as the man was coming over once again to stub out his cigarette, I asked him why Rafa wasn’t there. He took the time to put out his cigarette in the ashtray and, lifting his eyes for a moment, he told me while returning to the window that Rafa had gone to hospital for heart surgery. A vasectomy, he said, indicating the location of his heart on his shirt, where he started to trace precise little drawings with his finger to give me a quick overview of the operation. It’s not very serious, he said, but he’s got to rest, you understand. I said that yes, I understood.

I’d gone over to join him, and now we were both standing at the bay window looking out. It was still raining outside and the window was dotted with a network of raindrops, some of which trickled slowly down the pane. A bit of condensation had formed, a slight veil of vapor behind which the garden furniture was visible on the terrace. The old gray Mercedes was parked a little farther off down the driveway, the doors and windshield dripping with rain, and I looked at it pensively from behind the window. The man didn’t move beside me, he was also looking outside, and it struck me then that the old gray Mercedes must have been his, that in fact it was his car, and that each time I’d seen it in the village he was the one who’d been driving it, and that each time I’d seen it parked somewhere he was the one who’d parked it. And that he was also the one who collected the mail from the Biaggis’ mailbox and put it inside the house. I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. Could it really be him? Could it be, to sum it all up, that the Biaggis had been absent from Sasuelo ever since I’d arrived, and that every time I thought I’d detected a sign of their presence, it was in fact this man’s presence I’d sensed?

After dinner that evening I went out on the terrace for a breath of air. There were still a few guests in the dining room when I got up from the table, and I walked over to the window, sliding it back softly and leaving the hotel. The sky was completely clear over the treetops, a limpid and transparent blue-black, cloudless and washed by the rain. A long, untroubled puddle of water stretched out on the ground, and I advanced over the terrace, leaving the low rock wall that was being built behind me on my right. I walked on until I got to the edge of the terrace, from where the jetty and the sea were visible behind the grove of tamaris. The water was calm and silent, with the stillest of waves lapping up against the crevices in the rocks, while silvery wrinkles of moonlight reflected off its surface in the distance. I leaned for a moment against the low wall at the edge of the terrace and looked out at the water, no longer thinking about a thing. It was then that a small light bobbing imperceptibly in the port caught my eye. It looked like a lantern, the quivering ray of a lantern lighting up a silhouette in a boat. I looked more closely and thought I could see who it was, not that I recognized his features at all, it was more the cut of his figure and his massive back and shoulders now covered by a thick jacket.

Down at the jetty I had no problem recognizing the man, and I walked along the pier to where the boat was anchored. He lifted his head when I arrived and didn’t really say hello, more like just acknowledged my presence. Not that he was at all put out, my arrival didn’t seem to bother him in the least. He was sitting on an overturned wooden box on the floor of the boat, preparing trolling lines in the light of a little metal lantern hanging from the side of the tiny cabin. The hull swayed slowly beside the dock, and the shadows inside the boat shifted as the lantern swung back and forth. I’d sat down on the jetty beside a heap of fishing nets left lying there in the dark, and continued to watch the man prepare his trolling lines in front of me in the boat. You’re going out fishing now? I asked him. Tomorrow, he said, and he slipped a fresh piece of bait onto one of his hooks. I took a look at the bait for a moment, a fish head fixed in the darkness to a bit of line. The weather’s going to be good, he went on, but I was hardly listening, I was staring at the bait as he explained that he hadn’t been able to go fishing all week because of the bad weather. The last time he’d been fishing, he said, was, was — he stopped to think. It was the day the cat was murdered. He couldn’t remember, Tuesday or Wednesday, and I looked at his face in the shadows, his massive features and thick crew cut lit from the side by the trembling light. There was no sound around us, just the continual squeak of moorings in the port and sometimes the very short thud of a hull against the wharf, and I continued to look at the man facing me in the shadowy light when I heard the sound of furtive steps coming from the mound of dried seaweed that stretched out on the other side of the port. Hardly had I noticed where the steps were coming from than a black cat appeared in front of me on the jetty and stared at me with luminescent green eyes. The man gave a loud shout that made me start, and hurled the cloth he was holding in its direction, so that it landed with a feeble plop on the jetty.

He then explained it to me in detail how the cat had died accidentally a couple of days ago. Just like tonight, the day before the cat died the man had prepared trolling lines to go out fishing the next day, leaving them overnight in the boat. It was still dark when he came down to the port the next morning, and two black cats had followed him onto the jetty. Just as he was about to board the boat they’d jumped in and pounced on the bait, running off immediately when the man got in and shooed them away. But one of them had gotten a hook snagged in its mouth and was caught by the fishing lines. Struggling furiously, it had become tangled in all the lines on the deck of the boat so that, seeing as it was impossible to get it under control, the man had grabbed a little knife and cut the line to free the cat, which, thrashing around in panic with the hook in its mouth, had finally jumped overboard and drowned in no time as the man looked on. He had then gone out fishing, and it was only later that I myself came down to the jetty, discovering the dead cat in the port and the man’s old gray Mercedes parked on the village square in the dim morning light.

I didn’t go back to the hotel right away that night, instead I walked down to the big sandy beach that stretched out for a mile or so behind the village. Leaving the village behind me I walked down the little path to the beach, avoiding here and there the large puddles of water that had formed in the ruts and were dimly lit by the moon. There was a field in the darkness on the edge of the path, a silent, abandoned field enclosed by a rickety old fence. Walking along the deserted path I soon started to hear the sound of the sea in the distance, the regular murmur of the sea that little by little eased my senses and my mind. Down at the beach I took off my shoes and socks and walked slowly toward the shore, my feet bare and my shoes in my hand. I felt the cold contact of the humid sand under my feet and between my toes, and with each step I dug my feet deeper to immerse myself more and more in the sensation of well-being that I felt with the contact of the wet sand. Finally I sat down at water’s edge and didn’t move, looking out at the sea in front of me. The lighthouse on Sasuelo Island turned regularly in the night and everything was perfectly still. I sat there all alone on the beach in a dark coat, my bare feet in the wet sand. A boat appeared on the horizon, a ferry that slipped slowly across the sea all lit up in the night, moving imperceptibly over the surface of the water until it finally disappeared behind Sasuelo Island.