The Edge of the Horizon

15

Twenty years ago the Tropical was a small nightclub with a shady atmosphere catering to American sailors. Now it’s called the Louisiana and it’s a piano bar with couches and table lamps. On the drinks list, on a green velvet noticeboard near the main door, it says: Piano player — Peppe Harpo.

Peppe Harpo is Giuseppe Antonio Arpetti, born in Sestri Levante in 1929, struck off the register of doctors in 1962 for his over-lavish prescription of addictive drugs. In his university days he played the piano at little parties. He was quite talented and could do perfect imitations of Erroll Garner. After the drug scandal he took to playing at the Tropical. He played mambos and pop songs through evenings thick with smoke, five hundred lire a drink. The emergency exit, behind the curtains, opened onto a stairwell where, above another door, a neon sign said: Pensione — Zimmer — Rooms. Then at a certain point he disappeared for six or seven years, to America, people said. When he reappeared it was with small round eyeglasses and a greying mustache. He had become Peppe Harpo, the jazz pianist. And with his return the Tropical became the Louisiana. Some said he had bought the place, that he’d made money playing in bands in America. That he had made money no one found strange. He seemed capable of it. That he had made money banging on the piano left many unconvinced.

Spino sat down at a table to one side and ordered a gin and tonic. Harpo was playing “In a Little Spanish Town,” and Spino supposed his entry had passed unobserved, but then when his drink came there was no bill with it. He sat on his own for a long time, slowly sipping his gin and listening to old tunes. Then towards eleven Harpo took a break and a tape of dance music replaced the piano. Spino had the impression, as Harpo came towards him through the tables, that his face wore an expression at once remorseful and resolute, as if he were thinking: ask me anything, but not that, I can’t tell you that. He knows, a voice inside him whispered, Harpo knows. For a second Spino thought of putting the photo of The Kid as a child down on the table and then saying nothing, just smiling with the sly expression of one who knows what he knows. Instead he said straightforwardly that perhaps the time had come for Harpo to return him that favor. He was sorry if that was putting it bluntly. The favor, that is, of helping him find somebody, as he had once helped Harpo. A look of what seemed like genuine amazement crossed Harpo’s face. He waited without saying anything. So Spino pulled out the group photograph. “Him,” he said, pointing at the boy.

“Is he a relative of yours?”

Spino shook his head.

“Who is he?”

“I don’t know. That’s what I want to find out. Perhaps his name is Carlito.”

Harpo looked at Spino suspiciously, as if expecting a trick, or afraid he was being made fun of. Was he mad? The people were wearing fifties-style clothes, it was an old photograph. The boy must be a man now, for God’s sake.

“You know perfectly well what I’m talking about,” Spino said. “He’s got a dark beard now. His hair is darker too, not as light as in the photo, but his face still has something boyish about it. He’s been in my freezer for a few days. The people who knew him are keeping quiet, nothing, not even an anonymous phone call, as if he’d never existed. They’re wiping out his past.”

Harpo was looking around rather uneasily. A couple at a nearby table was watching them with interest. “Don’t speak so loud,” he said. “No need to disturb the customers.”

“Listen Harpo,” Spino said, “if a person doesn’t have the courage to go beyond appearances, he’ll never understand, will he? All his life he’ll just be forced to keep playing the game without understanding why.”

Harpo called a waiter and ordered a drink. “But who’s he to you?” he asked softly. “You don’t know him, he doesn’t mean anything to you.” He was speaking in a whisper, uneasy, his hands moving nervously.

“And you?” Spino said. “Who are you to yourself? Do you realize that if you wanted to find that out one day you’d have to look for yourself all over the place, reconstruct yourself, rummage in old drawers, get hold of evidence from other people, clues scattered here and there and lost? You’d be completely in the dark, you’d have to feel your way.”

Harpo lowered his voice even further and told him to try an address, though he wasn’t certain. His face told Spino that in giving him that address the favor had been repaid in full.