Blood Curse Read online

  But, more than anything else, Brigadier Raffaele Maione couldn’t rid his mind of the perfect beauty of the healthy profile that he had glimpsed in the darkness of the room, or of the serene gaze staring into the middle distance.

  In Ricciardi’s office, back at headquarters, the shadows began to lengthen in the afternoon light. Maione sat down again after flipping the switch for the light hanging from the ceiling, which was missing a lampshade. It had broken a year earlier and had never been replaced.

  “I told ’em a hundred times to replace that shade, Commissa’. They don’t give a damn, and that’s the truth. So help me God, I’ll go down there now and slap them silly.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Let it be. I don’t need it anyway; I use my desk lamp. Let’s keep going; no point in wasting time.”

  Between them, with its lid removed, was the biscuit tin they had found under the sofa. Scattered over the desk were promissory notes, IOUs, and letters promising payment. They had found them arranged by maturity date, bound together by ribbons tied in delicate bows. Each document was accompanied by a scrap of paper bearing the original sum and, where applicable, the extensions granted.

  Maione, with the tip of his tongue protruding from his lips and his brow furrowed from the mental strain, was writing out columns of numbers on a sheet of paper as he diligently performed arithmetic operations.

  “Some saint, eh, Commissa’? A lady who helps her fellow man in exchange for three percent monthly interest. A genuine saint. A martyr, to be exact.”

  “This is no laughing matter. With all these . . . clients, anyone could have killed her. Look at this, there must be about thirty of them. Still, I keep asking myself: why didn’t they take the money?”

  They both turned to look at the three wads of banknotes, stacked one on top of the other on the table. A substantial sum: more than you’d expect to find in a little hovel in a poor part of town, in the possession of an old and ignorant woman. More importantly, it was more than you’d expect to find left behind by a killer at the scene of a ferocious murder. Maione shrugged.

  “Maybe he didn’t realize it was there. Maybe he didn’t see it—the box, I mean. The fear, the confusion. The anger, for that matter. He killed the Calise woman, then he took to his heels.”

  “No. You saw for yourself, the promissory notes and the bills are covered with blood. He rummaged through the tin, with blood on his hands; then he tossed it under the sofa. Was he looking for something? Did he find what he was looking for? And if he took what he was looking for, can we trace the crime back to him? He certainly didn’t leave behind anything that concerned him. I have a feeling that none of the clients we have here”—he indicated the small pile of documents with a wave of his slender hand—“is the man who did the kicking. Let’s keep checking, to be thorough. Let’s finish our little census of the saint’s faithful worshippers.”

  As night fell, moved to pity by the prolonged exertion of his mathematical calculations, Ricciardi told Maione, stricken by a splitting headache, to go home; he himself would stay on and complete the list of interest-paying chumps, all beneficiaries of the undeserved good fortune of their patron saint’s untimely death.

  When he was out in the open air, the brigadier heaved a deep sigh. Now the weather had definitely changed. He felt a growling in his stomach and realized he’d skipped lunch. But he also thought of Filomena Russo’s profile, and of her wound.

  Dinner could wait a little longer; he headed off toward Pellegrini Hospital.

  Ricciardi emerged from headquarters two hours later, by which time the creatures of the day had dispersed, and the creatures of the night had installed themselves in the wide street that was his route home. His head down, his hands in his pockets; on his cuffs, an ink stain or two, evidence of the long reports to be completed whenever there was a murder.

  As he walked among the eyes that followed him from the shadows of doorways or the mouths of vicoli, he paid no attention to the petty exchanges that broke off momentarily as he went by with his easy gait; nor did he pay attention to the bare-breasted women, who withdrew into the darkness of the cross streets as he passed only to reemerge immediately, offering themselves to anyone who felt the springtime pulsing in his veins, or who simply felt loneliness in his heart.

  He walked with his head lowered, his mind filled with this new mystery, the suffering, the grief that demanded peace. Step by step, he glimpsed, by the swaying light of the lanterns that hung over the middle of the street, the trail of blood on the carpet, the miserable bundle of rags, the broken neck. That waxen figure, continuing to repeat an old proverb with the half of its shattered head that was still intact.

  But he could also imagine the despair that the victim’s seedy, hidden business must have been brought to dozens of families. Usury is vile, Ricciardi thought to himself: one of the most despicable crimes, because it takes trust and turns it against those who give it. And it sucks away work, hope, opportunities; it sucks away the future.

  He smiled at the surface of the cobblestone street. What irony: the old woman practiced two professions; with one she offered hope, while with the other she took it away. She had lived off of one business and died because of the other. No differently than the mysterious and sordid humanity that now surrounded him in the darkness of the narrow recesses along Via Toledo, Carmela Calise had carved out a way of life, taking advantage of other people’s trust.

  In the end, those two professions weren’t really all that different. The fortune-teller and the money lender both sucked trust and hope away, and made a desert of the human soul. But the question was the same one as always: did she or did she not have a right to live? Ricciardi knew the answer. And he had no doubts about it.

  Maione walked into the women’s ward of the hospital, panting slightly after hurrying up the stairs. As always, the vast, high-ceilinged room was crowded with people, even at that late hour: children crying, whole families gathered, chattering on loudly around the beds without the slightest regard for those who were trying to rest. Not a doctor or a nurse in sight.

  Mopping his brow, his cap pushed back high on his head, the brigadier looked around him in search of Filomena Russo. He spotted her almost immediately because she was all alone, composed, dressed in black, in the same clothing she’d worn that morning. Maione remembered how that simple dress had been drenched in blood, the first time he’d seen it. And again he heard the thundering sound of the blood dripping in the darkness.

  He moved toward her, walking down the aisle between the two rows of beds, well aware that as he passed the conversations would cease and the looks would suddenly turn hostile.

  “Buonasera, Signora. How are you feeling?”

  Filomena turned, very slowly, as she had that morning, more toward the sound of the voice than toward the person. The right half of her face was swathed in bandages, in the middle of which could clearly be seen a red line of blood: the disfiguring slash.

  Her raven hair was encrusted with blood and sweat, her dress was dirty, her features betrayed weariness and pain. And yet, even in this condition, she was by far the most beautiful woman Maione had ever seen.

  “Brigadier. I want to thank you. With all my heart.”

  That voice. Maione remembered how Doctor Modo had spoken admiringly of Filomena’s tone of voice. As for him, he thought this must be what angels sound like: deep, sweet, vibrant, like the sound that lingers in the air after a church bell stops tolling. In a flash, the policemen could feel himself floating, from the hospital down to the water’s edge.

  After a long moment, he came to. With only one aim in mind, that of escaping the obligation to meet the gaze of that single eye, which was the color of the night, he said: “Come, Signora. Come with me. I’ll see you home.”

  XIX

  As he climbed the stairs, Ricciardi could hear the radio in his apartment bellowing out a dance song. My Tata is going deaf, he thought with tenderness. She’s a bossy, indelicate, nitpicking ballbuster, a lousy cook wit
h a rotten personality. But she’s all the family I have.

  He unlocked the door, fully aware that he could have head-butted it off its hinges without Rosa noticing a thing. He walked straight into the parlor and resolutely rotated the handle of the large, light-colored wood radio. He counted to three and then turned to face the door, at the exact instant in which his infuriated Tata appeared in the opening.

  “Well, what’s going on? So now I can’t even listen to a little radio?”

  “Of course you can, why shouldn’t you? It’s just that over at the National Museum, about a mile and a half from here, a bunch of mummies woke up and started dancing to the melodies of Cinico Angelini, and the museum director came in to complain at headquarters.”

  “Good boy, you’ve developed a sense of humor! You must have had a nice easy day, eh? Sitting there, as comfortable as can be, reading documents, while I, poor old woman that I am, and with all the pain I suffer, have to run around in circles to keep this house from falling to pieces.”

  “That’s fine, you keep on doing that while I go splash some water on my face.”

  “All right, but hurry up, I’m serving dinner in ten minutes. It’s late and you still haven’t eaten your dinner.”

  A threat and a punishment, Ricciardi thought to himself. I already know what she’s planning to inflict on me tonight. You can smell the stench of cauliflower all the way from Piazza Dante.

  He went to his bedroom, doffed his overcoat and jacket, and gave in to the temptation to walk over to the window. A few yards away, the family on the third floor was finishing dinner. From his vantage point he could see half of the large kitchen and only a section of the table where the meal was taking place.

  But even less of a view would have been enough for him. Right in his line of sight, as usual right at the end of the table to make sure that her left hand wouldn’t bother a neighboring diner, Enrica sat eating. Around her were her siblings, her parents, and the man he presumed to be her brother-in-law because he had seen him hold her sister’s hand.

  He knew every detail: dishes, glasses, tablecloth and napkins, chairs. A year of mute devotion combined with the professional habit of memorizing every detail. He didn’t even know her surname, but he didn’t care. To the contrary, for once, he had been careful not to do any investigative work.

  He liked her this way, with her timeless normality, outside of space: all calmness and gentleness, strength and quietude. Motionless, the one beacon in the fog of his unhappiness, the small, tranquil port to which he could return every night. When work kept him away, when an investigation dragged on or there was a report to complete, and he was deprived of the enchantment of that moment, a faint sense of uneasiness would take possession of him. He wouldn’t find peace until he was able to return to the window once again.

  Rosa bellowed his name from the kitchen. Angelini sketched out one last arabesque with his orchestra.

  See you soon, my delicate love.

  Maione said nothing. A hundred questions bore down on his stomach, but he remained silent.

  Filomena walked along next to him at a distance of less than three feet. As hard as he tried, Maione couldn’t get her to walk at his side. She kept just slightly behind the man in uniform, almost as if she didn’t think herself deserving of the honor: almost as if she were ashamed.

  “You must be in a lot of pain.”

  “No, not really. The doctor was very kind. He was gentle with me.”

  They walked along a little farther in silence. Maione looked down at the ground, while Filomena stared straight ahead of her. Without fear, without audacity, without pride. She held the bandage in place with her hand.

  “Signora, you must understand. I have some questions I need to ask you.”

  “But why, Brigadie’? I haven’t pressed charges and I certainly don’t intend to.”

  “But . . . Signora, this is a crime, and I’m a policeman. I can’t turn a blind eye to what happened.”

  Filomena slowed her pace, as if she were thinking over what Maione had just said.

  “You just happened to come by. I wouldn’t have called you. That is, you mustn’t think that I’m not grateful. You did something for me that not even a brother would have done. The people in my quarter . . . I don’t have many friends, as I’m sure you’ve guessed. I could have sat there bleeding for the rest of the day.”

  “Yes. I mean, no. I didn’t do anything special. I took you to the hospital, and now I’m going to see you home. Still, I need to know.”

  Maione stopped walking. They were standing on the corner of the Piazza Carità, in the faint cone of light cast by a street lamp. Somewhere, a dog was barking.

  “You’ve suffered a terrible wrong. Perhaps you don’t realize it yet, but someday soon it will become clear to you. The way they slashed your face . . . you’ll never be the same again, don’t you understand that? What happened? Who did this?”

  The light illuminated the wounded side of her face and the bloodstained bandages. The other half was in shadow and Maione couldn’t have deciphered the expression. But even though he knew it was absurd, for an instant he could have sworn that she was smiling.

  There, thought Tonino Iodice, pizzaiolo. I’m done sweeping up—not even a crumb on the floor. Everything looks as if no one had even eaten here, just as it was before. They’ve all gone home, to their wives, to their mothers. They laughed, they sang, they got drunk. They paid, too: just the right amount. Some of them will come back. I wonder when. Who knows—they may bring their friends.

  If they liked what they ate, they’ll come back again. And again and again. A bit of luck will finally come my way: my wife will look at me with love in her eyes, and my children will look up to me with respect. Because good luck brings money, and money brings respect. God gave me a little more time. If the old woman had lived, I wouldn’t have had the time I needed. I’d have had to shut this place down, and it’d be good-bye freedom, good-bye children, good-bye wife. But she died. There was so much blood, by the holy virgin. There was so much blood.

  I can’t remember the stairs, I can’t remember the street. It was God’s will that no one should see me. And I’m sorry; I’m truly sorry. But now I have time. She’s lying dead in her own blood and now I have time. I’ll go on. And I’ll wait.

  I’ll wait for the day they come to get me.

  Ricciardi was back at the window, watching. Enrica had swept up every last crumb, and the kitchen was just as it had been before, as if no one had even eaten there.

  He watched her look around, swiveling her head, cocking it slightly to one side, drying her hands on the apron that she wore tied around her waist.

  There: now she’ll nod her head ever so slightly in approval and she’ll sigh. She’ll pick up her embroidery frame, turn on the lamp next to the easy chair, right there: just next to the window. She’ll start stitching.

  Ricciardi holds his breath, slowly closes his eyes, and then opens them again. His arms are folded across his chest and he’s breathing slowly. Enrica threads the needle.

  No one on earth will ever love you the way that I love you. Me, the man who never speaks to you. You don’t see me, but I watch over you. That’s what a man does when he loves a woman, in silence, the way I do.

  On the stairs at police headquarters, the ghost of the police officer calls out to his wife, saying “Oh, the pain.” In the dark fourth floor apartment in the Sanità, the figure of the murdered old woman repeats her proverb.

  Ricciardi watches Enrica as she embroiders.

  The dead seem alive and the living seem dead.

  XX

  Lucia Maione liked to sleep with the shutters open and the curtains pulled back. It was one of those things that she thought of as having “come after”; she wanted to be able to see the sky, the heavens, at all times.

  They’d “come after” she’d lost her smile, her will to laugh, her love of the seaside. After. She split her life up into a “before” and an “after.” Before and after the dea
th of her son.

  She could still hear Luca’s voice when she came up the stairs, and she saw him in the faces of her other children; he would steal silently into her thoughts and laugh, whereas she no longer could. She had brought him into daylight, and he had extinguished that daylight for her.

  Deputy Chief of Police Angelo Garzo had already taken his overcoat off the coat rack when Ponte, the clerk, appeared at the door. As soon as he saw that his boss was on his way out, he stopped on the threshold, hesitating; it was too late to turn back, but he knew what a short fuse the deputy chief of police had when it came to administrative matters that detained him as he was getting ready to leave.

  They stood there, staring at each other, Garzo erect with his overcoat draped over his arm, and Ponte bent over in a half-bow. The deputy chief of police broke the spell.

  “Speak up, damn it. What do you want? Can’t you see I’m on my way out?”

  Ponte blushed and bowed a little further.

  “No, Dotto’, forgive me. It’s just that a woman has been murdered, in the Sanità quarter. I have the report for you right here, Commissario Ricciardi left it for me. He’s on the case. You can certainly take a look at it tomorrow, Dottore, no problem.”

  Garzo huffed in irritation, tearing the folder the man was holding out of his hands.

  “Well, of course, I should have known: Ricciardi. If there’s trouble, you can be sure that Ricciardi’s mixed up in it. Let’s have a look; maybe there’s someone important implicated in this thing and I’ll make a fool of myself at the theater tonight if I don’t know about it.”

  He quickly scanned the lines of the report and was visibly relieved. He shrugged his shoulders.

  “Nothing here, nothing at all. Some poor woman, beaten to death. You’re right, Ponte; it’s nothing that can’t wait until tomorrow. If anything comes up, I’ll be at the theater. Buonanotte.”