The Bottom of Your Heart (12 page)

“Yes, Commissa'. It took me a little while to find him, that place is a labyrinth and at that time of night the custodians had all gone home. The professor had explained that he was on the top floor.”

Maione cut in: “How did he look to you? Did he strike you as angry, upset, worried?”

Coviello thought it over, then said: “No, Brigadie'. He was just like the other two times. Brisk, even a little brusque, but calm. I wanted payment in full for the first ring: he inspected my work, read the engraving, and paid. The bigger ring, the one with the engraving that read ‘Sisinella,' he put in a desk drawer. He set the other one down on the top of the desk.”

Ricciardi leaned forward: “Do you remember anything particular about the office? Was the window closed?”

“In this heat? No, Commissa', it was open. And that high up there was even a bit of a breeze. Climbing the stairs I'd turned into a sweaty mess, and I remember that the five minutes I spent up there gave me a little bit of relief.”

“And he didn't say anything to you, the professor?”

“No, Commissa'. He didn't even compliment me on the work I'd done. Maybe that wasn't his style. But he must have been satisfied, because the rings had turned out well.”

There was a pause. Ricciardi was trying to reconstruct the situation. Then he asked: “What time was it when you left?”

“Hmm, it must have been ten thirty, or a quarter to eleven. The church bells near my house rang eleven o'clock just as I was arriving; it takes about twenty minutes to get back from the general hospital, so right around that time.”

“Did you get the impression that he was still expecting someone else?”

“We just said goodbye, nothing more, but yes, I think so.”

Maione took a step forward.

“And what made you think that?”

“There was someone in the hallway.”

Ricciardi sat up straight in his chair: “Could you be a little more specific?”

“I didn't get a look at his face, it was really dark, the lights were off, but when I walked out of the office he was sitting on the bench. A man, for sure. And a big one, too. He looked like the mountain at night.”

P
apà
? How are you,
papà
? I don't even know if you're sleeping or you just prefer to lie there with your eyes closed, fighting your battle.

I don't know anything. I don't understand anything.

You know,
papà
, I just sit here watching. Watching how useless I am. How helpless.

Don't you think,
papà
, that this is a fine piece of irony? Someone like you, who has always battled against disease, who has conquered it so many times, been beaten only by a few, but who has never given up, never stopped searching for new solutions and new paths, now has to lie here, in the shadows, doing nothing. Nothing at all.

Motionless, waiting for nightfall.

I'd like to ask if you're thirsty, but I hear your regular breathing.

If you can't do anything, you who are a genius, the smartest man I've ever known, then what use am I?

Me, I'm nothing, no one. All I know how to do is disappoint you.

You never told me that I disappointed you. You were stern, no question, you always wanted me to do my best. But I expected you to show me the way, so that all I needed to do was walk.

Now what should I do,
papà
?

I tried. I'm not like you, I'm not a genius like you, but I'm stubborn, and I'm strong. Physically strong, strong in my heart. If I get it in my head to do something, I do it; if you tell me to do it, I do it. With all my self, with all my soul.

Medicine, for instance, was never easy for me. I don't understand it right away, I have to read it over and over again. And maybe I could have asked you for some explanations; but you know I would never have done that.

How are you,
papà
? I hear you struggling to breathe. Perhaps your lungs are giving out too.

With all the studying I did, I'd almost made it. God, what I would have given for your last smile. It would have been the best reward; but I just wasn't good enough.

Still I tried.

I burned plenty of candles, studying. When everyone else was out enjoying themselves in bordellos, cabarets, gambling dens, I was studying. When everyone else was asleep, I was studying. When the others were giving up, I kept trying.

You don't necessarily have to be a genius, you know,
papà
? It's enough to try, and keep trying, and try again and again. In the end, you almost always succeed. Almost.

I know, there were times when it helped to have your same last name. They all love you, I could tell from the smiles on their faces when my name came up at roll call. All except for one.

And yet I knew it,
papà
. From the very first time. I know that it's the most important subject for me: it's the area of your expertise. I know that you cared about that subject more than any other, and I knew that you were worried, but you wouldn't tell me why. I couldn't understand why he wasn't satisfied with that answer: I told him what was written in the book, word for word, and he still didn't like it.

And he didn't like it any better the second time.

Or the third time.

It was a race between him and your illness, you busy dying and him busy flunking me, a race to see who could hold out longer. I could see the fear in your eyes, and I felt I was losing my mind. I'd have smashed his desk in half, I'd have taken him by the throat in front of everyone. You know it,
papà
, I'm strong. So very strong.

The last time, I didn't even want to come back home. I wandered around for hours. I took a carriage and told the driver: just go. I was sobbing with rage, sorrow, helplessness. The city streamed past me: the sea, the churches, the monuments. I was crying the tears that I didn't want you to cry.

For me, the only thing in the world is you,
papà
. It's always been just you. I never talked to
mamma
, I don't have friends: just you, you alone. And I disappointed you, even if you say that it's his fault, that there was disagreement between the two of you years and years ago, that he has nothing against me, but against you. But I know it,
papà
, that if I'd been good, really good, I'd have passed all the same, and you'd have been able to die easy, without fighting, without having to take on this terrible battle, this struggle to last long enough to see me take your place.

I know,
papà
. I know I disappointed you.

To go see him. To look him in the eye, not in front of the other students, not in front of his assistants. Man to man, face to face, force against force. To go see him and ask him why, what do I have to do, what else do I have to study. I'll paint the sun if he asks me to; I'll do anything to keep from disappointing you. To go see him and beg him, if necessary.

Papà
? You'll wake up, won't you,
papà
? I'll be able to look at you and make a sign so you understand that everything's all right now, that I finally succeeded? That's the way it'll go, isn't it,
papà
?

There are times when I think I can hear the sound of the beast that's devouring you from within. Gnawing, slowly, relentlessly, at your flesh. It's as if I can actually hear it.

I don't know what's going to happen. If he doesn't understand, if he doesn't realize. If it weren't for him, you know,
papà
, I'm sure that everything would turn out all right. It would be the way it's always been. All I'd have to do is burn more midnight candles, listening to my classmates call me a crazy elephant, enormous and silent, who doesn't know how to have fun. They never say it to my face, I know they're afraid of me, but I can hear them mutter it under their breath as I go by.

I don't have time for fun,
papà
. They don't know the things I have to do. How I have to work, to keep from disappointing you.

To go see him, that's right. That's what I have to do. Because if it weren't for him, everything would turn out fine, and I'd be able to see your gaze, contented and reassured.

And then you'd be free to go.

I don't want you to go,
papà
. But I especially don't want you to go without having forgiven me.

And you know that's why I don't just press a pillow down on your face,
papà
. Because before that I want your forgiveness.

I need to go see him. Talk to him man to man.

Because if it weren't for him, everything would be all right.

C
avalier Giulio Colombo was about to do something that went against all his instincts and the core of what he considered to be a businessman's ethics: he was about to eject a customer from his store.

To tell the truth, Signora Carbone wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary: when the weather took a turn for the worse, and that morning the July heat really was something fierce, she liked to spend a few hours in the Cavalier's nice shop, at the corner of Via Toledo and Piazza Trieste e Trento, close to the church of San Ferdinando, a shop which specialized in hats, umbrellas, walking sticks, and gloves. It wasn't because she had any intention of making a purchase, though there were days when she finally toddled out the front door with a package or two in her hands. It was because she found the Cavalier and his sales clerks to be such lovely company, the finest company a lonely, wealthy woman could enjoy before teatime.

That day, though, there was something Giulio Colombo had to do, and to do it he had leave his shop for a few minutes; and that would be impossible as long as Signora Carbone continued clutching at his arm with her crooked fingers as she chatted away.

“. . . and so you see, Cavalie', since I don't perspire the way I used to, the heat makes my head spin and now and then I lose my balance. I just don't perspire the way I once did, Cavalie', because I've turned into an old woman. A decrepit old woman.”

As he mulled over his own affairs, Giulio replied in accordance with the standard shopkeeper's script: “What on earth are you saying, Signora! Why you're still just a young thing, you know!”

Signora Carbone smiled, toothless and coquettish: “No, no, Cavalie', I've grown old. You're such a gallant gentleman that you pretend it's not true, but if you only knew the aches and pains in my back. There are mornings when I can't even get out of bed. Just today, for example . . .”

Colombo's gaze chanced to meet that of the old woman's housekeeper, who was standing by the door. It was an exchange of reciprocal suffering. He did his best at least to bring the conversation back to the subject of shopping: “Signora, why don't you take these gloves here? They're light and translucent, you see? The air passes right through them, you'd think you weren't wearing gloves at all.”

Signora Carbone felt them suspiciously: “You think so? But you can see the skin right through them, and from a distance they hardly seem black. I wouldn't want people to think that Signora Carbone has put off mourning. You know very well, Cavalie', I've made up my mind to wear black for the rest of my life, ever since the day my poor husband died, thirty-one years ago. That's how it ought to be for any woman whose husband dies, not like it is now, when the poor man's body is still warm and these sluts are already out dancing with some other man. What a world we live in! There are times when I wonder if I shouldn't have been born in another century, not in these modern times where there's no more morality, no sense of decorum, no more . . .”

Colombo couldn't afford to wait for Signora Carbone to complete her ethical analyses, which would customarily be followed by companion pieces on politics and social mores. He summoned Marco, one of his employees and the husband of his second-oldest daughter, Susanna, and told him: “Oooh,
madonna santa
, I just realized I forgot to take my medicine! I have to run out to the pharmacy. Do me a favor and just look after Signora Carbone, make sure she has whatever she needs, I'll be back soon. Forgive me, Signora, it's just that you're so utterly charming that you make me forget everything, even what time I'm supposed to take my medication. With your permission, I have to go.”

The woman, torn between disappointment and the urge to learn more, tried to ferret out some information: “Don't you feel well, Cavalie'? What seems to be your trouble? Because if you need it, I can recommend a different doctor for every kind of malady . . .”

Marco, who was a sharp, intelligent young man, perhaps a shade overambitious, but above all else quick on the uptake when necessity called, strode over to the woman with a dazzling smile: “At last I can take over and serve this lovely signora; the Cavalier likes to keep you all for himself. How can I be helpful today?”

Annoyed though she was not to have been given a full report on the Cavalier's state of health, the woman felt flattered by this shower of compliments and curled her lips into a smile, with an aesthetically horrendous effect: “I don't know, I'm not certain. In your opinion, how do these gloves look on me?”

Colombo picked up his hat and his cane and, as Signora Carbone's housekeeper shot him a conspiratorial glance, he excused himself again and left.

He had to admit that his son-in-law, with whom he engaged in extended, combative arguments about politics on a nightly basis, was becoming increasingly invaluable in the running of his business. His skills were such that he could almost be forgiven for his fervent support of the Fascist Party, and for his belief that the Mussolini government would restore Italy and Rome to their place atop the world, which to the Cavalier, an old-school liberal, constituted an absurd pipe dream, as false as it was dangerous to the future of international relations. As he headed off at a brisk walk toward Gambrinus, he was surprised to realize how pleased he was at the young man's enterprising spirit, even if he had detected a glint of curiosity in his eyes. He certainly wasn't about to confide in him what he was about to go do. He wouldn't tell that to anyone.