Suffer the Little Children (2 page)

‘I know, I know. But it can happen, you know, that it comes on you very fast. My two boys took a long time, but I've known women who had only a half-hour, or an hour, so I figured that's what happened with her. I heard her, and
then I heard the baby, and then I didn't hear anything.'

‘And then what happened, Signora?'

‘The next day, or maybe it was the day after that – I don't remember – I saw another woman, standing at the open window and talking on the
telefonino
.'

‘In Italian, Signora?'

‘In Italian? Wait a minute. Yes, yes, it was Italian.'

‘What did she say?'

‘Something like, “Everything's fine, We'll see one another in Mestre tomorrow.”'

‘Could you describe this woman, Signora?'

‘You mean what she looked like?'

‘Yes.'

‘Oh, let me think a minute. She was about the same age as my daughter-in-law. She's thirty-eight. Dark hair, cut short. Tall, like my daughter-in-law, but perhaps not as thin as she is. But, as I told you, I saw her only for a minute, when she was talking on the
telefonino
.'

‘And then?'

‘And then they were gone. The next day, there was no one in the apartment, and I didn't see anyone there for a couple of weeks. They just vanished.'

‘Do you know if any of your neighbours noticed any of this, Signora?'

‘Only the
spazzino
. I saw him one day, and he said he knew there was someone in there because they left a garbage bag outside the door
every morning, but he never saw anyone going in or out.'

‘Did any of the neighbours ever say anything to you about it?'

‘No, not to me. But I imagine some of them must have noticed that someone was in there, or heard something.'

‘Did you speak to anyone about this, Signora?'

‘No, not really. To my husband, but he told me not to have anything to do with it, that it wasn't any of our business. If he knew I was here now, I don't know what he'd do. We've never been involved with the police before, and it always leads to trouble . . . oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say that, not really, but you know how it is, I mean, you know how people think.'

‘Yes, Signora, I do. Can you remember anything else?'

‘No, not really.'

‘Do you think you'd recognize the girl again if you saw her?'

‘Maybe. But we look so different when we're pregnant, especially at the end like she was. With Pietro, I looked like a . . .'

‘Do you think you'd recognize any of the men, Signora?'

‘Maybe, maybe I would. But maybe I wouldn't.'

‘And the woman?'

‘No, probably not. She was there, at the window, for only a minute and she was standing sort of sideways, like she was keeping her eye
on something in the apartment. So no, not her.'

‘Can you think of anything else that might be important?'

‘No, I don't think so.'

‘I'd like to thank you for coming to see us, Signora.'

‘I wouldn't have if my daughter-in-law hadn't made me. You see, I told her about it while it was going on, how strange it all was, with the men and no lights and all. It was something to talk about, you see. And then when she had the baby and then they all disappeared, well, my daughter-in-law told me I had to come and tell you about it. She said I might get into trouble if anything happened and you found out I saw her there and hadn't come in to tell you. She's like that, you see, my daughter-in-law, always afraid she's going to do something wrong. Or that I will.'

‘I understand. I think she told you to do the right thing.'

‘Maybe. Yes, it's probably a good thing I told you. Who knows what it's all about, eh?'

‘Thank you again for your time, Signora. The Inspector will go downstairs with you and show you the way out.'

‘Thank you. Er . . .?'

‘Yes, Signora?'

‘My husband won't have to find out that I've been here, will he?'

‘Certainly not from us, Signora.'

‘Thank you. I don't want you to think
anything bad of him, but he just doesn't like us to get mixed up in things.'

‘I understand completely, Signora. You can be perfectly sure that he won't find out.'

‘Thank you. And good morning.'

‘Good morning, Signora. Inspector Vianello, will you take the Signora to the front door?'

GUSTAVO PEDROLLI LAY
on the edge of the sleep of the just, curled round the back of his wife. He was in that cloudy space between waking and sleeping, reluctant to trade his happiness for mere sleep. The day had brought him an emotion different from any he had ever known, and he refused to let himself drift away from the radiance of memory. He tried to remember when he had ever been this happy. Perhaps when Bianca had said she would marry him, or on the actual day of their wedding, the Miracoli filled with white flowers and Bianca stepping up to the landing from the gondola, as he hurried down the steps to take her hand and her into his care for ever.

He had known happiness, certainly – on
completing his medical studies and finally becoming
un dottore
, on being appointed assistant chief of paediatrics – but those happinesses were far removed from the flooding joy he had felt just before dinner, when he finished giving Alfredo his bath. He had fastened both sides of the diaper with practised hands and pulled on the flannel bottoms of his son's pyjamas. Then he slipped the duck-covered pyjama top over his head, and when it emerged, had played their usual game of hunting for the child's hands before pulling them one at a time through the sleeves. Alfredo squealed with delight, as surprised as his father at the sight of his tiny fingers as they peeped through the open ends of the sleeves.

Gustavo picked him up by the waist, hefting him up and down as Alfredo waved his arms in the same rhythm. ‘And who's a beautiful boy? And who's his father's darling?' Gustavo asked. As always, Alfredo raised one of those clenched marvels, unfurled a finger, and placed it on his own nose. Dark eyes intent on his father's, he pressed his broad nose flat to his face, then lifted his finger away, only to point to himself repeatedly, throwing his arms around and squealing all the while with delight.

‘That's right, Alfredo is his
papà
's darling,
papà
's darling,
papà
's darling.' There followed more dangling, more lifting up, more waving. He did not toss the boy into the air: Bianca said the baby became too excited if they played like that before bedtime, so Gustavo merely raised
him up and down repeatedly, occasionally drawing him close to kiss the end of his nose.

He took the boy into his bedroom and carried him over to the cot. Above it hung a galaxy of floating, turning shapes and animals; the top of the dresser was a zoo. He hugged the boy to his chest, careful to exert only the gentlest of pressure, well aware of the fragility of those ribs. Alfredo squirmed, and Gustavo buried his face in the soft folds of his son's neck.

He moved his hands down and held the boy at arm's length. ‘And who is
Papà
's darling?' he asked again in a singsong voice; he could not stop himself. Again Alfredo touched his own nose, and Gustavo felt his heart turn. The tiny fingers moved through the air until one of them rested on the tip of Gustavo's nose, and the boy said something that sounded like ‘
Papà
', waved his arms and gave a goofy, toothless smile.

It was the first time Gustavo had heard the boy say the word, and he was so moved that one of his hands flew to his own heart. Alfredo fell against his shoulder; luckily, Gustavo had the presence of mind, and enough experience with frightened children, to make a joke of it and ask, ‘And who is trying to climb into his
papà
's sweater?' Holding Alfredo against his chest, he pulled at one side of his cardigan and wrapped it around the boy's back, laughing out loud to show what a wonderful new game this was.

‘Oh, no, you can't try to hide in there. Not at
all. It's time to go to sleep.' He lifted the boy and placed him on his back in the cot. He pulled up the woollen blanket, making sure his son's chest was covered.

‘Sweet dreams, my little prince,' he said, as he had said every night since Alfredo had begun to sleep in the cot. At the door he lingered, but only for a moment, so that the boy would not develop the habit of trying to delay his father's exit from the room. He looked back at the tiny lump and found tears in his eyes. Embarrassed at the thought that Bianca would see them, he wiped them away as he turned from the open door.

When he reached the kitchen, Bianca had her back to him, just pouring the penne through the strainer. He opened the refrigerator and took a bottle of Moët from the bottom shelf. He put it on the counter, then took a pair of crystal flutes, from a set of twelve that Bianca's sister had given them as a wedding present.

‘Champagne?' she asked, as curious as she was pleased.

‘My son called me
Papà
,' he said and peeled the golden foil from the cork. Avoiding her sceptical glance, he said, ‘Our son. But just this once, because he called me
Papà
, I want to call him my son for an hour, all right?'

Seeing his expression, she abandoned the steaming pasta and moved to his side. She picked up the glasses and tilted them towards him. ‘Fill both of these, please, so we can toast
your son.' Then she leaned forward and kissed him on the lips.

As in the first days of their marriage, the pasta grew cold in the sink, and they drank the champagne in bed. Long after it was gone, they went into the kitchen, naked and famished. Ignoring the dry pasta, they ate the tomato sauce on thick slices of bread, standing at the sink and feeding chunks to one another, then washed it down with half a bottle of Pinot Grigio. Then they went back to the bedroom.

He lay suspended in the afterglow of the evening and marvelled that, for some months now, he had feared that Bianca had somehow changed in her . . . in her what? It was natural – he knew this from his practice – for a mother to be distracted by the arrival of a new child and thus to seem less interested in or responsive to the father. But that night, with the two of them behaving like teenagers gone wild at the discovery of sex, had eliminated any uncertainties.

And he had heard that word: his son had called him
Papà
. His heart filled again and he slid himself closer to Bianca, half hoping she would wake and turn to him. But she slept on, and he thought of the morning, and the early train to Padova he had to catch, so he began to will himself towards sleep, ready now to drift off to that gentle land, perhaps to dream of another son, or a daughter, or both.

He became vaguely conscious of a noise beyond the door to the bedroom, and he forced
himself to listen, to hear if it was Alfredo calling or crying. But the ringing noise was gone, and so he followed it, his lips curved in memory of that word.

As Doctor Gustavo Pedrolli sank into the first and most profound sleep of the night, the sound came again, but he no longer heard it, nor did his wife, sleeping beside him, naked and exhausted and satisfied. Nor did the child in the other room, sunk in happiness and dreaming, perhaps, of the wonderful new game he had learned that night, hidden and safe under the protection of the man he now knew was
Papà
.

Time passed, and dreams played in the minds of the sleepers. They saw motion and colour; one of them saw something that resembled a tiger; and all of them slept on.

The night exploded. The front door of the apartment burst inward and slammed against the wall: the handle gouged a hole in the plaster. A man leaped into the apartment: he wore a ski mask, something that resembled a camouflage uniform, and heavy boots; and he carried a machine-gun. Another masked man, similarly uniformed, followed him. Behind them came another man in a dark uniform but without a mask. Two more men in the same dark uniform remained outside the house.

The two masked men ran through the living room and down the hall towards the bedrooms. The man without a mask followed more cautiously. One of the masked men opened the first door, and seeing it was a bathroom, left it
open and moved down the hallway towards an open door. He saw the cot, the mobiles moving slowly in the draught created by the open door.

‘He's here,' the man called out, making no attempt to keep his voice down.

The second masked man went to the door of the bedroom opposite. Still holding his machine-gun, he ran in, the other man close behind him. The two people in the bed sat up, startled by the light from the hallway: the third man had switched on the light before going into the room where the baby slept.

The woman screamed and pulled the covers up over her breasts. Dottor Pedrolli launched himself from the bed so suddenly that the first intruder was taken by surprise. Before he could react, the naked man was on him, one fist crashing down on his head, the other slamming into his nose. The intruder cried out in pain and went down as Pedrolli screamed to his wife, ‘Call the police, call the police!'

The second masked figure raised his gun and pointed it at Pedrolli. He said something, but the mask over his mouth distorted the words, and no one in the room could understand them. Pedrolli was beyond hearing him, anyway, and came at him, hands raised to attack. Instinctively, the masked man reacted. Raising the butt of his gun towards the head of the approaching figure, he caught him above the left ear.

The woman screamed, and from the other room the baby sent up an answering wail, that high keening noise of infant panic. She pushed
back the covers and, driven by instinct and no longer conscious of her nakedness, ran towards the door.

She stopped abruptly when the man without a mask stepped into the doorway, blocking her escape. She raised her arms to cover her breasts in a gesture she was not conscious of making. Seeing the tableau in the room, he moved quickly to the side of the man with the rifle that pointed at the naked man who lay motionless at his feet. ‘You fool,' he said and grabbed at the thick material of the other's jacket. He pulled the man around in a semicircle and pushed him stumbling away. He turned back towards the woman and raised his hands, palms towards her. ‘The baby's all right, Signora. Nothing will happen to him.'