The Day of the Owl (5 page)

'And did you love him?'

'Of course; we were married.'

The sergeantmajor came back, reeking of barber's cheap eau-de-Cologne. 'Nothing,' he said, then moved behind the woman's back and mimicked frantically towards the captain to get rid of her, that there was red-hot news, amazing news about the woman.
'Zicchinetta
be damned,' his head-high, rotating hand seemed to say.

The woman was shown out. Breathlessly the sergeantmajor poured out the news that she had a lover, a man called Passerello, a dues-collector from the electric light company. Reliable information, from Don Ciccio the barber.

The captain showed no surprise. Instead, he asked about
Zicchinetta,
thus reversing the good old custom of giving priority to the passionate elements of a crime, if they exist.

'Don Ciccio,' said the sergeantmajor, 'states categorically that there is no one in the town with that name or
ingiuria;
and in such matters Don Ciccio is infallible ... If he says poor Nicolosi was a cuckold, then the fact's signed and sealed. So let's get hold of this Passerello and put the squeeze on him ... '

'No,' said the captain, 'we'll take a little trip instead, and pay a visit to your colleague at B.'

'I get it,' said the sergeantmajor, rather put out.

They drove along the coast to B. in silence, the calm sea reflecting the muted tones of the sky. They found the sergeantmajor in his office; conspicuous on his desk was a dossier concerning one Diego Marchica, known as
Zicchinetta,
released from prison only a month or so before thanks to an amnesty. The dossier was in such a conspicuous position because of some new information about gambling, and
zecchinetta
in particular, a game that Marchica was wont to play at the sportsman's club, losing largish sums and settling them on the spot, almost impossible for an unemployed farmhand to do unless he had secret - and certainly illicit - sources of income.

Born in 1917, Marchica had begun his career in 1935: housebreaking; convicted 1938; arson. Those whose evidence had convicted him for theft had had their sheaves of grain burned on the threshing-floor: acquitted for lack of evidence. August 1943: armed robbery; retention of military weapons; criminal association. Tried by the Americans: acquitted (with what justification was not clear). 1946: membership of an armed band; captured during a shooting incident with the carabinieri: convicted. 1951: murder; insufficient evidence; acquitted. 1955: attempted murder during a brawl; convicted. The 1951 murder charge was interesting. It was a murder committed on behalf of a third party, according to the confessions of his accomplices to the carabinieri, confessions which of course melted like snow during the preliminary proceedings. The two men who had confessed displayed bruises, abrasions and excoriations to doctors and judge, all due, of course, to torture by the carabinieri. It was odd that Marchica, the only one not to talk, should have no single bruise to show to the judge. A sergeant and two carabinieri were put on trial for obtaining confessions extorted by violence, and found innocent. This meant that the confessions should have been considered spontaneous. But the case was never reopened, or maybe the file was on its rounds in the labyrinth of the law.

The notes described Marchica as a very shrewd and cunning criminal, a reliable hired assassin, but capable, when gambling or in his cups, of sudden outbursts of rage, as indicated by the charge of attempted murder during a brawl. In the file there was also a report on a political meeting held by the Honourable Member Livigni. This gentleman, encircled by the flower of the local mafia, on his right the local grey eminence, Don Calogero Guicciardo, and on his left Marchica, had appeared on the centre balcony of the Alvarez palazzo. At a certain point in his speech he had said, verbatim: 'I am accused of being associated with members of the mafia and so with the mafia itself. But I assure you that I have never yet been able to find out what the mafia is or even if it exists. I give you my word with the clear conscience of a good Catholic and a citizen, that I have never met one member of the mafia.' Whereupon, from the direction of Via La Lumia, at the end of the piazza where the communists usually congregated during an opposition meeting, a loud voice demanded: 'And those characters up there with you, what are they? Seminarists?' A wave of laughter swept through the crowd, while the Honourable Member, ignoring the question, plunged into a peroration about his programme for agricultural reform.

This report was included in Marchica's dossier as a warning of the protection which he might have in the event of his arrest. The sergeantmajor of B. knew his job.

'There's something afoot,' said the old man, 'something I don't like. The police are up to something.'

'They're shadow-boxing,' said the young man.

'Don't get the idea all police are stupid. Some could take the shoes off the likes of you and you'd be walking barefoot before you realized ... In '35,
I
remember, there was a sergeant here with the nose of a bloodhound, he even looked like one. When something happened, off he'd go on the trail and get you like a newly-weaned hare. What a nose he had, that son of a ...! He was born a policeman, as one is born a priest or a cuckold. Don't you believe that a man wears horns because a woman puts them there or becomes a priest because, at a certain moment, he gets a vocation; they're born to it. And a man doesn't become a policeman because he needs? job or reads a recruiting poster; he becomes one because he was born one. Mark you, I'm only talking about real police; some, poor things, are as good as gold; but I don't call them police. A decent man like that sergeantmajor who was here during the war - what was his name? - the one who got on so well with the Americans, nobody could call him a policeman. He'd do us favours; and we'd return them, with cases of pasta and demijohns of oil. A gentleman. Not a born policeman, but not stupid either ... We are inclined to call policemen all those with that flame emblem and V.E. on their caps ... '

'They've no V.E. any more ...'

'Nor they do; I always forget we've no king now ... But among them there are stupid ones, good ones and then real police, born so. It's the same with priests. Could you call Padre Frazzo a priest? The best one can say of him is that he's a good father to his children. But, take Padre Spina, there's a born priest for you.'

'And what about the cuckolds?'

'I'm just coming to them. Suppose a man finds his wife has been betraying him and makes a shambles; he's no born cuckold. But if he pretends not to notice or resigns himself, then he is ... Now I'll tell you what a born policeman is like. He arrives in town; you begin to make up to him, do him favours, ingratiate yourself. If he's married, you even take your wife to call; your wives become friends, you become friends; people see you and think you are all friends together. You kid yourself that he thinks you're a nice person, considerate, a loyal friend; but for him, you're always what his office files say you are. If you've ever been fined, then in his eyes, all the time, even when he's drinking coffee in your parlour, you're a man who's been fined. If you happen to break the law, a trifle, even if only you and he know and not even God Almighty has seen you, he'll fine you just like that. So if it's anything more serious ... In '27, I remember, there was a sergeantmajor of carabiniere who practically lived in my house. Not a day passed without his wife and children paying us a visit. We were such friends that his youngest son, a kid of three, used to call my wife "aunt". One day he turned up in my house with a warrant for my arrest. It was his duty, I know; they were difficult times - there was Mori - but the way he treated me ... just as if we'd never met, never known one another ... And the way he treated my wife when she went to the barracks for news. He was like a rabid dog. Whoever takes up with a copper can say goodbye to his wine and cigars, so they say. With that sergeantmajor I certainly said goodbye to a good deal of mine, the amount he drank and smoked.'

'In '27,' said the young man, 'during fascism, things were different. Mussolini named members of Parliament and mayors. Did just what he liked. Nowadays it's the people who elect.'

'The people,' said the old man, sneering, 'the people were cuckolds then and they still are. The only difference is that fascism hung only one flag on the people's horns and democracy lets everyone hang one on his own horns and choose his own colour. We're back to the old argument. Not only men, but entire nations are born cuckolds, cuckolds from olden times, generation after generation ...'

'I don't consider myself a cuckold,' said the young man.

'Nor do I. But we, my dear boy, walk on the horns of others; like dancers ... ' and the old man got up and did a few tripping dance steps, mimicking the balance and rhythm of one hopping from the tip of one horn to another.

The young man laughed; it was a pleasure to hear the other talk. The cold astute violence for which he had been famous in his youth, the calculated risk, the presence of mind, the swiftness of hand, all the qualities, in short, which had caused him to be regarded with such respect and dread, sometimes seemed to ebb from him like the sea from the shore, leaving empty shells of wisdom on the sands of the years. 'He becomes a real philosopher at times,' thought the young man, mistaking philosophy for a sort of play of mirrors in which a long memory and a brief future reflect twilit thoughts and vague distorted images of reality. At other times the older man would reveal how hard and merciless he had been; and it was strange that when he was delivering his severest and most realistic judgments on the world, his speech was literally strewn with the words 'horns' and 'cuckold', often with different meanings and nuances, but always to express scorn.

'The people, democracy,' said the old man, sitting down again, slightly out of breath after his demonstration of how to walk on people's horns, 'are fine inventions; things dreamed up at a desk by people who know how to shove one word up the backside of another, and strings of words up the backside of humanity, with all due respect... With all due respect to humanity, I mean. Humanity's a forest of horns, thicker than the woods of Ficuzza when they really were woods. And d'you know who the people are who have fun walking on its horns? Firstly-bear this well in mind - priests. Secondly: politicians; and the more they say they're with the people, out for the people's welfare, the more they trample on their horns. Thirdly: people like you and me ... It's true that there is the risk of putting a foot wrong and being gored, for me as for priests and politicians; but even if a horn rips into my guts, it's still a horn; and anybody who wears one on his head is a cuckold. The satisfaction of it, by God, the satisfaction! I'm done, a goner, but you, you're nothing but cuckolds ...!

'By the way, speaking of cuckolds, I wonder about that
Parrinieddu ...
with all this coming and going of police .. he has a hand in it I suspect... he must have. Yesterday, when I ran into him, his face changed colour; he pretended not to see me and vanished up an alley. I say to myself: "I've let you play the spy because you've a living to earn, I know; but you must do it with discretion, not set yourself against Mother Church" '; and by Mother Church he meant his own inviolable self and the sacred knot of friendships which he represented and protected.

Continuing to address himself to
Parrinieddu
as though the man were present, he said with icy solemnity: 'And if you set yourself against Mother Church, my friend, what can I do about it? Nothing. I can only tell you that in your friends' hearts you're a dead man.'

They were silent a while, as though reciting a requiem for the man who was dead in their hearts. Then the old man said: 'Diego ought to go away for a little holiday, I think. I seem to remember he has a sister in Genoa ...'

*

Diego Marchica was arrested at 9.30 in the evening at the sportsman's club. The sergeantmajor of B. had intended to kill two birds with one stone but caught only one. He had hoped to catch gamblers red-handed playing
zecchinetta
and to run Diego in, but all the players, including Diego, had been engaged in an innocent game of
briscola;
evidently a lookout had tipped them off about the arrival of the carabinieri. However,
briscola
or no, Diego, at first indignant, then submissive, was hauled off to the barracks amid the comments of bystanders. Those which reached the ears of Diego and the carabinieri were of surprise and commiseration ('What's he done? Just minding his own business, wasn't he? Not interfering with anyone, was he?'); but,
sotto voce,
almost inaudibly, they expressed almost unanimous hopes that Diego would spend the rest of his life behind the bars he was so used to.

While Diego was being arrested at B., at S.
Parrinieddu
became the number which, in the art of foretelling lottery numbers, is assigned to the victim of a violent death; the only form, apart from his immortal soul, in which he was to survive.

The last twenty-four hours of the life of Calogero Dibella, known as
Parrinieddu,
were spent in a kind of dream, of crossing a boundless forest, thick as a bramble-bush and so lofty and dense that it shuts out the light. For the first time in his career as an informer he had given the carabinieri a thread to pull which, if they went about it the right way, could unravel a tissue of friendships and interests interwoven with his own existence. Usually his information only concerned people outside these friendships and interests; youths who saw a holdup at the cinema one night and went out next day and held up a bus; small-time crooks, in fact, isolated and without protection. But this time things were different. It was true that he had given two names, of which one, La Rosa's, had nothing to do with the case; the other, though, was the right thread, a certainty. And ever since he had mentioned that name he had known no peace; his body was a terror-soaked sponge, absorbing even a gnawing liver and agonizing stabs at the heart.