Dead Lagoon - 4 (31 page)

Ada can remember a time, and not so long ago either, when things were very different. Weeks would go by without her seeing her nephews. Even worse, she was treated to midnight visits by mocking simulacra who borrowed Nanni’s clipped, high-pitched voice and Vincenzo’s stooping stance for their own malign purposes. They led her a merry dance for a while, these apparitions, but in the end she turned the tables on them – and with a vengeance!

Nothing’s too much trouble for Nanni and Vincenzo nowadays. They call on her every day, run errands for her, do her shopping, bring presents and generally lavish attentions of all kinds on her. And if by any chance they happen to be forgetful or remiss she need only mention Aurelio Battista, son of her old friend Signora Giustiniana, whom she helped out with some cleaning work when her husband went off and got lost in Russia. ‘Dispersed’, they called it in the papers, but Ada knew what that meant. People used to vanish in those days. It was almost normal. A child here, a man there, a whole family …

For her part, Ada still thinks of Aurelio Battista as that effeminate, long-haired lad she used to dress up in Rosetta’s clothes while his mother went the rounds of the neighbourhood, trying to make ends meet. But apparently for other people, Nanni and Vincenzo included, he is – she giggles at the thought – a Very Powerful and Important Official. Having cleaned the boy’s bottom when he had an accident, Ada remains unimpressed by these trappings of authority, but Nanni and Vincenzo seem to be completely taken in. The happy result is that whenever she wishes to bring her nephews to heel, she has only to drop a passing reference to her friend’s son – the merest casual comment, such as ‘Dottore Zen called by yet again yesterday, but I pretended to be out’ – and in an instant, as though by magic, the boys become completely tractable! It is a weapon all the more effective in that she hardly ever has occasion to use it.

This evening, though, had been one. Having been molly-coddled as children – Ada had warned her sister time and time again that central heating rots one’s moral fibre, but would she listen? – Vincenzo and Nanni are reluctant to venture out in what they call cold weather. They should have seen the winter of ’47, when the canals froze over and people walked across to the Giudecca! But as usual, all Ada had to do was mention quite casually, in passing, that her friend the policeman had dropped round again and tried to get her to implicate her nephews so that he could have them arrested and thrown into prison to await trial, and how after a while she had started to wonder if it might not be easier just to give him what he wanted and be rid of this new harassment, which was almost as bad as the previous one …

Speak of the devil! There
is
Aurelio Battista, picking his way towards them along the snow-encrusted alley. She knows by the way the grip on her elbows tightens that Nanni and Vincenzo have seen him too. A flurry of anxiety, the first for days, troubles the surface of her new-found serenity. She hopes there won’t be a scene, just when everything has worked out so nicely.

The tall figure striding towards them glances up, taking in the trio ahead. He eyes them each briefly, his gaze lingering a moment on Ada, then passes by without the slightest glimmer of recognition. Vincenzo glances at Nanni, who lets go of his aunt’s arm. Crouching down, he scoops up a double handful of the soft wet snow, moulds it firmly into a ball as hard as a rock and, before Ada can work out what he has in mind, hurls it. She watches bemusedly as it speeds through the darkening air, then Vincenzo yanks her round and marches her along the street towards Daniele’s house.

Behind them, a cry rends the silence. Ada wriggles free of her nephew’s grasp and looks round. Aurelio Battista stands rubbing the back of his head and staring at her. His hat lies capsized on the snow near by. Ada wonders what can have happened. Perhaps he’s troubled by migraine, poor boy. She suffered from it herself at one time, before that role was usurped by other and greater torments, and she dimly recalls that just this sort of cold, wet weather often brought it on. Something has certainly made Giustiniana’s boy very tense and snappy. Snatching up his hat, he strides towards her.

‘Come along, Auntie,’ croons Vincenzo softly.

They have almost reached their goal. Dear Daniele! How pleased he will be to see them. He used to be rather sweet on her at one time – well, besotted, actually. And under different circumstances she might easily have been tempted, because Daniele Trevisan was then one of the handsomest lads in the neighbourhood, and with very winning manners, considering his origins. But for a Zulian to ally herself with someone whose father was in trade was of course quite out of the question.

They have arrived. Nanni is already ringing Daniele’s bell, while Vincenzo brushes a trace of fluff off the sleeve of her coat. What dear, thoughtful boys they are!

But what’s this? Aurelio Battista suddenly shoves his way rudely between them, fixing her with his eyes, waving his finger in her face. ‘Give them to me, Ada!’ he spits out.

‘Give them to me, and I’ll tell you what really happened to Rosetta.’

At least, that’s what he seems to say, but of course it’s quite impossible that he could have spoken those words, or indeed anything remotely resembling them.

‘Don’t you want to know the truth, Ada, after all these years? Give me your nephews and I’ll tell you!’

It is only now that she belatedly realizes that the figure before her is not Aurelio Battista at all, but some species of demon which has assumed his form. As always, the knowledge that she is not faced with anything real and irremediable is both disturbing and obscurely comforting. She is determined to retain the initiative, however. She is an old hand when it comes to dealing with this sort of thing.

‘What do you know about it?’ she demands with a sneer.

The creature before her leans closer.

‘I know about Rosa Coin.’

It steps back, nods once, then turns and walks off, merging almost immediately into the massed shadows.

‘Come on, Auntie dear,’ urges Nanni.

Before her, in the open doorway, Daniele stands looking at her with the same smile as all those years ago, when he used to stand for hours beneath her window, waiting for her to show her face.

‘You’ll catch your death standing out there in the cold,’ he tells her kindly.

But she is not standing. She is sliding, slipping to the icy pavement where she thrashes about like a landed fish, gasping for air, biting her tongue in a vain attempt to silence the endless screaming in her head.

 *

By the time Zen reached home he had got the trembling under control, but his breath was still spastic and his heart clamoured for attention. It was only when he saw lights on in the house that he remembered that Cristiana was waiting for him.

Her presence, so ardently desired just a little while ago, now seemed an inconvenience he could well have done without. After what had just happened he needed time to unwind, to unclench his knotted psyche and become himself again, the self he recognized and was prepared to take responsibility for. The last thing he wanted at such a moment was to have to play sophisticated and ambiguous courtship games with the daughter of an old family friend.

Cristiana must have heard the front door open, for she was waiting for him at the top of the stairs. The tight-fitting red sweater and jeans she was wearing emphasized the contours of her figure. As Zen reached the landing, she stepped forward and laid her hand on his shoulder. She was bending forward, as if to kiss him, when she saw the expression on his face and drew back.

‘What’s wrong?’

He shook his head.

‘Nothing.’

He led her inside the living room and closed the door behind them, shutting out the world.

‘I ran into Ada Zulian out walking with her nephews,’ he said as he took off his coat and hat. ‘One of them threw a snowball at me. It sounds childish, but it actually hurt quite badly. It hit me on the ear, and he’d squeezed it down to a ball of ice.’

‘What did you do?’

Zen shrugged awkwardly.

‘There were only one thing to do, really, and that was ignore it.’

‘You could have thrown one back.’

‘That would really have been stupid. Besides, it would have missed. I’m a hopeless shot.’

Cristiana disappeared into the kitchen.

‘Isn’t there a law against assaulting police officials?’

‘Of course, but I can’t invoke it. Everyone knows that I tried and failed to bring that pair to court. If I charged them with assaulting me with a snowball, I’d make myself a complete laughing-stock. Which is precisely what the little bastard was counting on.’

Cristiana reappeared with a bottle of spumante and two glasses. Zen forced a smile.

‘What are we celebrating?’

‘My freedom.’

As she untwisted the wire cage securing the cork, Zen had an involuntary mental image of Enzo Gavagnin’s blue, partially severed thumbs.

‘How do you mean?’

Cristiana popped the cork and filled their glasses.

‘Finish telling me about Ada Zulian. What
did
you do in the end?’

‘Oh, I was wonderful! I ignored the nephews and went for Ada herself.’

She handed him his drink.

‘Cincin!’

They clinked glasses.

‘What do you mean, you went for her?’ asked Cristiana.

Zen sighed deeply.

‘I’ve had quite a stressful few days, one way and another, and getting hit by that snowball was the last straw. I’m afraid I went completely over the top.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I …’

He broke off, biting his lip.

‘Christ, it was unforgivable!’

Cristiana took his hand and drew him down to the sofa.

‘I’ll forgive you.’

He sat staring blankly at the worn patch of carpet which covered the centre of the floor.

‘I told her that I knew what had happened to her little girl, the one who disappeared.’

He turned to meet Cristiana’s eyes, then looked away again.

‘I said I’d tell her if she agreed to testify against her nephews.’

Cristiana nodded briskly, as though all this was quite in order.

‘And what did she say?’

Zen laughed harshly and gulped at his wine.

‘She didn’t say anything. She threw a fit. Collapsed in the snow, writhing around, foaming at the mouth, screaming her head off.’

‘God!’

‘It happened right in front of Daniele Trevisan’s house. He and the nephews took her inside.’

He glanced at Cristiana.

‘I’d like to know how she is. I don’t suppose they’d talk to me, but …’

‘Of course.’

She picked up the receiver and dialled.

‘Mamma? I’m over at Wanda’s. She says that Lisa Rosteghin heard from Gabriella that Ada Zulian has had some sort of fit in the street right outside Trevisan’s place. Have you heard anything about it? No? Well, listen, could you phone Daniele and find out? We can’t, you see, because he’d want to know how we found out and then it might come out about Gabriella and Beppo Raffin, the kid who lives across the street, whereas you could make out you heard from Signora Vian …’

She paused, gazing vaguely into indeterminate space.

‘No, don’t call us. We’re … we’re not actually at Wanda’s. We went out. I’ll phone back in a few minutes. Okay?
Ciao
.’

She turned back to Zen and sipped her wine.

‘And your freedom?’ he asked.

She laughed.

‘That was just an excuse to open some bubbly. Do you know what my bastard husband has done? Flown to Rome with that bitch Populin! He’s got a cover story – some televised debate on the break-up of Italy – but basically we’re talking dirty weekend.’

She touched Zen’s hand.

‘Have you got a cigarette?’

He dug out his battered pack of
Nazionali
. It had a rumpled, collapsed look. Zen squeezed the sides experimentally.

‘Precisely one,’ he said, shaking the remaining cigarette free.

‘Oh, I won’t take it if it’s your last.’

He removed the cigarette from the packet and placed the tip against her lips.

‘Let’s share,’ he said.

‘It wouldn’t be so bad if I hadn’t been trying so hard to act the good little wife for the benefit of the press,’ Cristiana went on, inhaling deeply.

Zen squeezed her hand sympathetically.

‘Quite apart from that,’ he murmured, ‘it might not be such a bad idea to keep a certain distance from Dal Maschio.’

Cristiana passed him the cigarette.

‘You mean he’s in some sort of trouble?’

He put the tip, damp from her saliva, into his mouth.

‘Would that bother you?’

She glanced at her watch.

‘I’d better see what Mamma has found out before she gets impatient, tries Wanda’s number and discovers that she hasn’t seen me since yesterday.’

Rosalba Morosini had evidently found out quite a lot, and proceeded to give her daughter a lengthy account which Cristiana subsequently passed on to Zen in abridged form.

‘Ada’s all right. They were about to call a doctor when she came out of it. The nephews tried to get her to lodge a complaint, but Daniele refused to testify against you.’

‘Good for him.’

Cristiana stared at him.

‘Do you really know what became of the little girl?’

Zen handed her back the cigarette.

‘No more than I know what became of my father.’

She crushed out the cigarette and poured them more wine.

‘And Nando?’

Zen tried to shrug it off.

‘Oh, I expect I’m just jealous, that’s all.’

She looked at him acutely.

‘That’s not all.’

He looked away.

‘Not quite all, perhaps.’

She took his hand between hers and carried it to the upper slope of her breast. They looked at each other.

‘This is strictly confidential, of course,’ he began.

‘Of course.’

Somewhere in the distance, a ship’s hooter sounded a long, mournful note.

‘There is no evidence against Dal Maschio himself,’ Zen murmured, moving his hand slightly. ‘But some of his associates appear to be implicated in a number of investigations currently proceeding …’