Glass Souls Read online

  ALSO BY

  MAURIZIO DE GIOVANNI

  The Crocodile

  IN THE COMMISSARIO RICCIARDI SERIES

  I Will Have Vengeance:

  The Winter of Commissario Ricciardi

  Blood Curse:

  The Springtime of Commissario Ricciardi

  Everyone in Their Place:

  The Summer of Commissario Ricciardi

  The Day of the Dead:

  The Autumn of Commissario Ricciardi

  By My Hand:

  The Christmas of Commissario Ricciardi

  Viper:

  No Resurrection for Commissario Ricciardi

  The Bottom of Your Heart:

  Inferno for Commissario Ricciardi

  IN THE BASTARDS OF PIZZOFALCONE SERIES

  The Bastards of Pizzofalcone

  Darkness

  for the Bastards of Pizzofalcone

  Europa Editions

  214 West 29th St., Suite 1003

  New York NY 10001

  [email protected]

  www.europaeditions.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously.

  Copyright © 2015 by Maurizio de Giovanni

  This edition published in arrangement with

  The Italian Literary Agency and book@ literary agency

  First publication 2017 by Europa Editions

  Translation by Antony Shugaar

  Original Title: Anime di vetro. Falene per il commissario Ricciardi

  Translation copyright © 2017 by Europa Editions

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  Cover Art by Emanuele Ragnisco

  www.mekkanografici.com

  Cover photo by Massimiliano Ghionna

  ISBN 9781609454104

  Maurizio de Giovanni

  GLASS SOULS

  MOTHS FOR COMMISSARIO RICCIARDI

  Translated from the Italian

  by Antony Shugaar

  To Mamma Edda, for her song and for all the songs.

  To Patrizia, enchantment within enchantment.

  GLASS SOULS

  PROLOGUE

  The young man narrows his eyes in order to accustom them to the room’s dim light. The blazing afternoon sun stretches its fingers through the slats of the tightly fastened shutters, and dust dances in the light. The woman of indeterminate age who ushered him in now slips silently away, closing the door behind her with a faint click.

  The young man stands there. He can just make out the outlines of the furniture, piles of books, and a shapeless mass, perhaps an armchair, from which comes the sound of labored breathing. He waits. He shifts the weight of his body from one foot to the other. Maybe the man’s asleep, he thinks to himself; the woman didn’t say a word. I wonder who she is: a housekeeper. His daughter. Some relative.

  He makes up his mind to venture a greeting and says buongiorno, in a faint voice.

  Welcome, says the armchair. Open the window, if you please.

  The voice is scratchy, the words slurred. He must have been sleeping, thinks the young man, feeling he’s been rude. Forgive me, he murmurs, you’d asked me to come at three and I . . .

  I know that, says the armchair, brusquely. Open the window, just one side though. If you please.

  Taking care where he sets his feet out of fear he might knock something over or step on something, the young man makes his way to the window and opens one shutter. The light comes flooding in, a powerful glare that makes him blink. He takes a quick glance out at the stunning panorama, though it impresses him less than it did before, when he sat on the low wall outside for a full hour, waiting for the appointed time. The sea stretches out, glittering, before him, and the island seems close enough to reach out and grab.

  He turns around. The light washes over a dusty bookcase packed to bursting with volumes, phonograph records, knick-knacks, and objects of all shapes and sizes. The room isn’t particularly large, or perhaps it just looks smaller because of the immense number of things in it. The young man’s eyes wander the room curiously. Now the armchair, set off to one side, just out of the shafts of light angling in through the window, reveals its guest.

  I know what you’re looking for, says the old man. It’s right behind you.

  The young man turns around and sees it; or perhaps we should say, he sees the case containing it. He steps aside, moving away from it as if driven by an impulse of respect and shyness. The old man laughs softly.

  Bring it here, he says. And come over here and sit by me.

  As he says it, he clears a bundle of papers off a low stool, a foot or two away from the armchair. By now his eyes are used to the light, and the young man recognizes the musical staffs, the notes that run the width of the paper. Outside, a dove coos insistently for a couple of seconds, and then flies away.

  You play the mandolin very well, says the old man. You’re good. Really good.

  The young man is tempted to ask how the old man knows that and where he heard him play. But the old man hadn’t asked him a question, and the young man has learned to answer only when he is asked.

  The old man goes on: I came once to hear you play. I’d been told about you, and when you asked to meet with me, I became even more curious. You’re good. And you have a nice voice, too.

  He sits without speaking for a while, and the young man finally can’t resist: did you really come to hear me play? Then why didn’t you let me know you were there? I . . . it would have been an enormous honor. It was, certainly, an enormous honor. I’d have . . . well, I’d have welcomed you in the manner you deserve.

  Once again, the old man laughs softly. That’s exactly why I didn’t let anyone know. I wanted to hear you the way you are. I wanted to hear what you know how to do. Give it to me.

  The old man takes the case in his hands. He can’t play, thinks the young man. His hands are gnarled and twisted with arthritis, and if I’m not mistaken they’re shaking. He’s an old man. I was wrong to come, there’s nothing he can give me. An old man.

  You must be thinking that I’m an old man, says the old man. Nothing but a poor old man. And you look at my hands, all twisted. They’re shaking. And you’re probably thinking: how on earth can he even play?

  No, no, says the young man, how can you say such a thing? You . . . your name is a legend, for all of us. I’d never dare.

  The old man nods.

  It’s true, I’m old. And I wouldn’t be able to play, if you only used your hands to play. Not the way you do, when you play with just your hands.

  There’s a certain harshness in the old man’s voice. Like an accusation. And yet there’s been no change in his tone, which remains flat and low. A shiver runs through the young man, who asks: Why do you say that? What do you mean?

  The old man doesn’t answer right away. He looks at the light pouring in through the window: from where he’s sitting he can’t see the water, nothing but a patch of sky with a cloud that’s half white and half pink in the slanting beams of the setting sun.

  I mean that there’s more than just one way of playing. There are plenty of ways. You play the mandolin well and you have a fine voice, you don’t hit wrong tones and you even have nice finger technique. That’s a good foundation.

  Foundation for what? the young man would like to ask. But he restrains himself. There’s something about that old man that keeps him from speaking. He thinks confusedly to himself that he ought to be asking questions, expressing opinions. I’m the one who asked to see him, after all. He must think I’m a fool, he tells himself.

  He clears
his throat. I, in other words, didn’t come here for . . . yes, the mandolin is fine. But I’d also like . . . I know that I’m good. That is, people tell me so, they come to hear me play. But I think, I think that there ought to be something more, no? I have a teacher, I still study, I’ve already graduated, but I know that I need to keep studying. And that’s why I’ve come to see you.

  The old man coughs into a handkerchief, a thick, rheumy cough. He reaches a hand out toward the side table, and the young man leaps to his feet and gets him a glass half full of water. The old man drinks, thanks him with a nod of his head, and puts the handkerchief away in one of the pockets of his smoking jacket. For the first time, the young man catches a conscious whiff of the smell of old age that fills the room: a pungent aftersmell underlying the old paper, the dust, and the years.

  The old man uses his thumbs to snap open the latches on the case. Ever since he asked the young man to hand it to him, he’s been holding the case in his lap as if it were a baby.

  The sound is perfectly synchronized, as if those two latches were just a single latch. A sharp snap, a gunshot.

  The deformed, hooklike hands pull the small, fat-bellied musical instrument out of the case. The young man greedily eyes the gentle curves of the body, the neck inlaid with mother-of-pearl and ivory, the four pairs of strings. He realizes that he’s been holding his breath and he exhales, rather loudly. He’s in the presence of a legend.

  The old man shifts forward in the armchair, slightly bending one leg and carefully setting the case down on the floor. His trembling fingers run the length of the instrument until they reach the pegs. The young man realizes, to his enchantment, that the old man is adjusting the tension of the strings by memory, without listening to the sound. Impossible, he thinks. That’s impossible.

  The old man looks up at the young man. Now his face is perfectly lit and the young man can see the web of deep creases, the complexion as dark as leather, the sparse white hair, too long, and the thin lips. The eyes, whitened with cataracts and yet still curious, intense.

  In his right hand a pick has appeared. The young man wonders where that popped out from, because he never saw him extract it from the case or from his pockets: maybe, he thinks to himself, it was stuck between the strings. The old man strums a harmonious chord, proving that, incredibly enough, he has perfectly tuned the instrument. The deep sound hovers and throbs in the air for several seconds.

  The young man tries to break the inexplicable tension that has seized hold of him. He says: Maestro, I wanted to ask you if you’d give me a few lessons. I know that you don’t give lessons to anyone, that you say there is no one deserving of . . . That no one knows anymore what it means to really play the instrument. But I, I’m really in love with this music, and I’d like . . . I want to learn. I’m not looking for success, you saw for yourself, you’ve been told that lots of people come to hear me play. People are satisfied with how I play. But it’s me that . . . I’m not satisfied, Maestro. I study and study, I play and I play, but I’m never happy with what comes out. I want to learn, really learn, Maestro. I’m begging you.

  The old man has dropped his gaze to the array of wood and strings that he holds in his hands. He caresses that object, as if the young man’s words were nothing but the sound of the wind coming through the window and rattling the sheets of paper on the desk.

  A story, says the old man.

  What? asks the young man, caught off guard.

  A story. Every song is a story.

  The young man decides that the old man hasn’t heard a word he said and is simply following his own line of thought. He’s an old man, after all. A poor senile old man. He can’t teach me anything, I’m just wasting my time here. He is sorely tempted to get up and walk out of that grim old antiques shop.

  Just as he’s about to get to his feet, the old man plays.

  It’s the introduction to a very famous song, one of the songs that he, the young man, plays every night to the impassioned applause of his audience; the same chords, the same tempo. And yet the young man feels as if he’s hearing it for the first time. The old man’s hands, those shaky, deformed claws, have turned into the wings of birds, running up and down the mandolin’s short neck, as light as air, as intense as water.

  At the end of the introduction, the old man stops, and looks up, into the young man’s face.

  You play very well. But you’re not satisfied, and you’re right not to be, because you’re far away, very far from the place you want to reach. Because you sing, but you don’t tell a story.

  What do you mean, Maestro? The lyrics? Do I need to improve my delivery, should I . . .

  The old man laughs, and it sounds like sandpaper against wood.

  No, not just the lyrics. The instrument, you see it? It tells the story, and it must say what the words to the song say. It’s not there as accompaniment, the instrument: it needs to tell the story too. It has its own words, it comments on everything you say, it underlines it.

  And it sings on its own.

  The young man is afraid even to draw a breath, and his expression looks like a question mark. The old man laughs again.

  Do you know “Palomma ’e notte”? Do you really know what the song says?

  The song that he plays every night, the applause, the dissatisfaction deep within.

  Maybe I don’t, Maestro. Maybe I don’t know at all.

  The old man nods. Bravo. Bravo. That’s the way you ought to be: humble. You’re a part of the instrument, just like the strings, just like the spruce wood the body is made of. Maybe I don’t know, he said. Did you hear him?

  He’s talking to his instrument, thinks the young man. What am I doing here? Then he remembers about the introduction, and decides to sit still on that stool.

  The old man talks as if he’s telling a fairy tale to a child.

  He is forty-five years old, and she is twenty-six. She writes him a letter, she tells him that she’s in love with him, head over heels in love. He doesn’t know what to do: she is beautiful, she is tall. Lovely. He likes her very much. But he feels like an old man. He thinks: this isn’t what’s best for her, this love. “I” am not what’s best for her.

  He tells her these things, but she insists: what’s best for me is my decision. If you don’t want me, you just need to tell me: I don’t want you. But he does want her, he very much wants her indeed; so he can’t tell her that, in all good conscience. He thinks it over: what should he do? It’s evening and he’s at the window, and a gust of sweet, warm wind is coming in just like now, and a palummella, a moth, approaches, drawn by the flame of his sleepless candle.

  That’s what a song is good for. A song tells a story. A song enters into a story and changes it. He writes a poem, goes to a friend of his who’s a musician. And that is how he tells her.

  The old man drops his gaze, caresses the instrument.

  And he sings, with a young man’s voice. The young man thinks, as he listens: no, not a young man’s voice, a man’s voice. The voice of a forty-five-year-old man, speaking to a young woman.

  Tiene mente ’sta palomma,

  comme ggira, comm’avota,

  comme torna n’ata vota

  ’sta ceroggena a tentà!

  Palumme’, chist’è nu lume,

  nun è rosa o giesummino,

  e tu a fforza ccà vvicino

  te vuo’ mettere a vulà!

  Vattenn’ ’a lloco!

  Vattenne, pazzarella!

  Va’, palummella, e torna,

  e torna a ’st’aria

  accussí fresca e bella!

  ’O bbí ca i’ pure

  mm’abbaglio chianu chiano,

  e ca mm’abbrucio ’a mano

  pe’ te ne vulè caccià?

  (Watch this moth,

  the way it spins, the way it flutters,

  the way it tur
ns once again

  to venture close to this candle!

  Little butterfly, this is fire,

  not a rose or a jasmine

  and you insist on flying

  so very close to it!

  Get out of here!

  Get away, silly thing!

  Go, little butterfly, and go back

  go back into this air

  so cool and clear!

  You see that I, too,

  am slowly being dazzled

  and that I’m burning my hand

  as I try to shoo you away?)

  I

  Sitting looking out at the September night, Ricciardi contemplated his new solitude.

  This solitude was a different companion from the solitude he had always known. The solitude that had gone before was his awareness that he existed along a borderline; a place of madness and despair, filled with screams of the dying and the living, screams that go on echoing, but only to his unfortunate senses. The solitude that he had known from his earliest childhood was a subtle, all-pervading malaise, a reminder of sorrow that continually surfaced to break the skin of an existence that had no way of being normal.

  Through the half-open window came a breath of wind that tossed the curtains in the darkness. Far away, but enhanced by the silence, a voice was singing who knew what song, carrying all the way to his ear incomprehensible sounds that distance stripped of any harmony. September. The memory of warmth, the promise of coolness. Windows open, windows closed.

  And yet, thought Ricciardi, this new companion, compared to the old one, is like the sea compared to a lake.

  These days, he no longer slept more than a few hours every night. He, who had always found in deep, untroubled sleep his refuge and comfort from the muted cries that echoed in his head as he walked through the dead and the living, cries that maliciously and insistently befuddled his senses. He, who had never taken more than a few minutes to fall asleep, turning off all sensory perceptions as if he’d flipped a switch in search of peace, at least during the nighttime.