“I want a real home, nice clothes, a car, and some things I can rely on. I don’t care what I have to give in exchange. My dreams, if there are any, can come later. For now, there’s nothing but bare necessities and things I want to forget. And I intend to wipe them out, all of them, one by one.”
She smiles. But there’s no happiness on her lips, only bitter traces of regret.
“Today, thanks to you, I learned three things. The first thing is that I can be beautiful too. The second thing is that, for better or worse, I can decide how to live my life. The third thing…”
She falls silent. I push to know more. Not out of curiosity, just a strange and sadistic form of personal euthanasia.
“The third thing?”
She smiles in a different way and steps close to me. She sets all her bags down on the sidewalk. She stands back up and in her high heels she’s almost as tall as me. She tilts her face up, throws her arms around my neck, and places her lips on mine. She closes her eyes as she does it. She stays there, motionless, forever. Then she pulls away and time resumes flowing normally.
“The third thing, if you don’t mind, I’ll keep to myself for right now.”
She picks up the bags again and starts off, leaving me rooted to the sidewalk, alone in a way I hadn’t thought possible. I catch up with her, because I can’t do anything else. We walk in silence, side by side, looking at the world while the world looks back, until we reach my car. I open the trunk and add the bags and packages to the ones already stowed away. If I consider myself as a businessman, I can just think of this as an investment for the future.
We get in the car and we pull away from the Galleria del Corso and the Crota Piemunteisa, a bar where I once ate about two metric tons of frankfurter and sauerkraut sandwiches, when I first came to Milan. Not because I was a snob, but because other people were snubbing me.
Just to lighten the atmosphere, I steer the conversation onto more worldly topics.
“Are you hungry?”
“Starving. Where are we going to eat?”
“In one of the restaurants that I find it necessary to frequent, from time to time. We have an appointment there with Cindy and Barbara, the girls I told you about.”
She instinctively asks the question.
“Is it expensive?”
She said it in such an apprehensive tone of voice that this time I’m the one who bursts out laughing.
“Don’t worry about it. It’s my treat. Moreover, I herewith authorize you to assume that the days of packing a sandwich before you leave the house are over.”
I give her time to metabolize what I just told her. It’s important that she believe. Confidence in the future makes your eyes shine, and it gives you a certain strength. Carla needs that strength right now the way she needs oxygen. Confidence is allure and allure is power.
And power equals money.
I talk to her about practical things to erase memories and ward off sadness.
“It seems to me that you no longer want to go home. Until you find a better place to live, you could stay at the residence in Piazzale Principessa Clotilde. It’s very popular with models these days. It’s a good showcase for the work we have to do.”
I forestall any further financial analysis.
“And don’t ask me how much it costs. I guarantee that you’ll be able to afford it.”
She looks at me. I can’t decipher her expression.
“Can I stay at your house again tonight?”
Perhaps I wait a little longer than I need to before answering. And maybe I ask the wrong question.
“What for?”
“No reason. I just don’t feel like being alone. Too many things have happened, and all too quickly.”
I’m surprised to hear my voice giving permission for something I would never have allowed any other person in any other case.
“All right. Tomorrow, while you’re working, I’ll find you a place to stay.”
Carla relaxes and smiles.
“I’m hungry and tonight, since it’s on you, I want to have a feast. You know I’ve never tasted champagne?”
We laugh heartily at the thought and it occurs to me that to someone watching us from outside we must look like an ordinary couple, our car full of packages, heading home after an afternoon shopping spree. What we really are is tucked away deep inside, and we have the whole evening ahead of us to avoid thinking about it. Meanwhile, an oddly indulgent traffic flow has allowed us to move quickly down Via Ripamonti and to drive past the intersection with Via Antonini. We keep driving and take a left turn. A short distance later we’re parked outside a renovated farmhouse where a sign confirms that we have arrived at the restaurant called Ricovero Attrezzi—the Toolshed. The cars parked in the dim light are nearly all powerful and expensive. I can guess that later this evening some of these cars are likely to be pulling into the parking lot of a casino somewhere outside the town of Opera. Or maybe they’ll be parking at the Charly Max or they might be double-parked outside Nepentha, with a lavish tip left to the attendant to make sure the car’s parked properly as soon as a space opens up. I slip my pathetic little Mini between a couple of grown-up cars, handing a thousand lire to Nino, the parking attendant, so he’ll keep an eye on it.
We walk into the place, and Carla stops just inside the door. Her entrance was like tossing a bowling ball at a cluster of pins. I don’t know if it was a strike, but she definitely knocked down quite a few. Within a couple of seconds dozens of eyes swivel to stare at her.
I’m used to it.
But she isn’t.
I take her arm and I can feel that she’s slightly tense. I smile at her and she can sense the amusement in my voice.
“It’s all just like I told you it would be, isn’t it? You just have to get used to it. Come on. Barbara and Cindy are already here.”
The girls are sitting in a small room in the back, visible at a diagonal angle from the front door. I walk ahead of Carla. Passing by sharp glances and silverware, we make our way through the main dining room of the restaurant, furnished in a style that matches the age and nature of the building. Wood, amber lights, slightly rough plaster in a light yellow hue, oaken tables. As in all fashionable restaurants, the food is no good at all and the prices are astronomical. This is the magic of Milan by night, mysterious alchemies that transform lousy food into solid gold. Maybe many years ago this really was a toolshed, but whoever renovated it turned it into a shed where they hang rich people out to dry. Actually, now that I think about it, many of those rich people really are nothing but tools. So in a way, its original purpose has been preserved.
As we walk over to the table, I can see Cindy and Barbara unstitch the clothes on Carla’s back and count the money in her purse.
By the time we sit down, she’s already been identified and cataloged as a dangerous rival, although neither of them would admit it, even under torture. But in this case the point of reference is me, and none of them have ever had any reason to complain, about their pride or their pocketbooks. Of course, certain minor jealousies can be tolerated, especially if there’s caviar and champagne to go with them.
I make the introductions.
“Carla, meet Cindy and Barbara.”
Barbara is a brunette, a daughter of the Mediterranean, with dark eyes and an olive complexion. She is self-possessed, with a magnificent figure and a cheerful temperament. Cindy is the diametric opposite. She’s tall and slender, with nice curves where it counts, fair-skinned, with a blond pageboy and blue eyes. She’s a little neurotic and slightly introverted but, I am told, just unbelievable between the sheets.
Voice of the people, voice of Eros itself.
The two girls both look at me with a very similar expression, tacitly asking the same question. I assuage their concern and curiosity by completing the introductions.
“Girls, this is Carla. From now on, she’s working with us.”
They’re evidently relieved, to some extent. This means that the conversation can at least be free
wheeling, no matter what there might be to say. There’s no time to add anything more. A waiter promptly shows up at our table bearing four leather folders containing our menus. Before he leaves, I order mineral water and a bottle of champagne, as promised. Carla watches what the other girls do and behaves accordingly. I look around at the three women’s faces as they immerse themselves in the reading of the menu to determine whether to order fish or fowl. Restaurants are one of the few places where it’s possible to establish with confidence whether it’s one thing or the other.
While the girls study the menu, I study the dining room. There are a couple of television personalities, a few leading celebrities of the Milanese milieu, and lots of people I don’t recognize, possibly provincials who’ve made the long journey into the city just to see and be seen.
At the far end of the room are two women, alone, eating dinner. One of them has her back to me. The other has salt-and-pepper hair. She’s pretty, a very attractive forty-five-year-old, nicely attired in a dark outfit that must have cost a fortune. Her complexion speaks eloquently of beauty masks and Caribbean sunlight. Her name is Margherita Boni and I know her very well. The name means a husband who’s almost always away for work and a huge amount of money to spend on her pastimes. She nods her head in my direction and swivels her gaze toward the door of the bathroom, on the wall to the right of where I’m sitting. Then she stands up, picks up a clutch bag from the chair next to hers, crosses the room, and slips into the restroom.
“Order whatever you like, just no onions and no garlic. I want your breath to be sweet as a rose tomorrow. When I get back I’ll explain everything you need to know. Order me a steak, blood rare, and a salad.”
I stand up and I join Margherita in the bathroom. She’s waiting for me in front of the bathroom sinks, checking her makeup, which has absolutely no need of a touch-up. I doubt that she invited me there to snort a line of coke. She knows I never touch the stuff. I find out the real reason immediately, and it’s exactly what I thought.
“Who is that girl?”
I understand exactly who she means, but I’m feeling lively this evening and I sense that my prey is about to walk into the trap. And the trap is poised to snap shut on her checking account.
“What girl?”
“Don’t act stupid. The girl who walked in the front door with you.”
I move over next to her and start washing my hands. Our conversation continues between our reflected images in the mirror.
“Her name is Carla.”
“I want her.”
Margherita is a lesbian and on more than one occasion I’ve supplied her with the toys she requires to satisfy this innocent diversity of hers. There are plenty of girls in my network who are AC/DC, or, as we say in Italian, who run on both sail and steam. But where Carla is concerned, we haven’t yet established how far she’s willing to go.
I let my uncertainty become hers.
“She’s a new girl and I don’t know her well enough to be sure. What about Barbara, the brunette: Don’t you like her? She’s bisexual.”
“The other two are local talent and nothing more. They’re pretty, but it’s stamped on their faces just what they are. Carla’s a dream, and I want her to come true.”
Now the preliminaries are over. It’s time to talk business.
“If I can swing it, she’ll cost you.”
“Has money ever been a problem?”
“I’d have to say no.”
“Very good. I’ll wait to hear from you at the usual number.”
She picks up her clutch bag from the bathroom counter and leaves, while I remain behind to consider my expression in the mirror.
It’s the eternal conflict between having and being.
Some time ago somebody heavily curtailed my possibility of being. What remains to me is the possibility of having. Which is a pretty miserable surrogate, unless you own half the world. But even in that case, sooner or later you’ll wind up running into the person who owns the other half, and then things turn ugly. I feel like I’m the owner of that thin line that marks the boundary, and nothing more, for now.
Sooner or later I’ll have everything I’m looking for, and when that happens, I can go back to being, to some extent.
I dry my hands and toss the hand towel into a burnished metal receptacle. In one corner of the bathroom is a phone for clients to use. I slip a token into the slot and dial Remo Frontini’s number. I looked him up in the phone book and committed the number to memory, the way I have all the others.
He picks up on the third ring.
“Hello?”
“Signore Frontini?”
He must be unaccustomed to being addressed in those terms, because his answer, when it comes, is a little hesitant.
“Yes. Who’s this?”
“This is Bravo, your neighbor. We talked the other evening, do you remember?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Excellent. I just wanted to let you know that the transaction we discussed can be completed the day after tomorrow. Does that work for you?”
There’s a hesitation. A long pause. I think I must have ruined this decent man’s sleep, involving him in something that he feels is much bigger than him. He must be frightened for his part, especially because I went a little heavy on the threat that pulling out might have some unpleasant consequences.
I do my best to reassure him.
“Don’t worry about a thing. It’s going to go smoothly and you’re going to be a person with no more uncertainties in life.”
“Okay. What do I have to do?”
“Around eleven o’clock you’ll be outside the bank where you have your safe-deposit box, with a photocopy of the winning lottery ticket to prove that you actually have it. In exchange, you’ll be given the money we agreed upon. Once you’ve made sure that it’s the correct amount, you’ll go into the bank, you’ll place the money in the safe-deposit box, and only then will you take the original ticket and hand it over to me. Do you think that this procedure ensures your safety?”
The voice that comes through the receiver after due consideration strikes me as relieved. Maybe he too had been trying to think of a way to make sure he couldn’t be made the victim of some unpleasant machinations, and this solution is probably better than anything he was able to come up with.
“It seems good to me. The bank is the Credito Romagnolo, on Via Roma, in Cesano Boscone.”
I’m about to hang up, but then I decide that I still owe him a little advice, whether or not he can make use of it.
“Just one more thing, Signore Frontini.”
“Yes?”
“You know, a fortune has rained down on you out of a clear blue sky. Do your best not to ruin it for yourself. Take it easy with the money. Don’t change your life from one day to the next. Just go on living the same way for a while, let the world forget about things, and then move away, maybe to another city if you can. That sum of money can be a nice gift for you and your wife, but it can also mean a very nice future for your children.”
There’s a brief, silent moment of thought on the other end of the line.
“I think I understand.”
“I hope you do. Have a good evening, Signore Frontini. Sleep tight. You’re going to be a wealthy man very soon.”
As I hang up, a fleck of remorse arrives to flap its black wings over my certainties. It’s not something that happens very often, but this man has won my sympathy from the minute I met him, in all his disarming humanity. I feel as if I’m standing surety for him with myself and with the others, guaranteeing that nothing’s going to go horribly wrong.
I leave the bathroom and return to the table. Here I’m greeted by the awkward gazes of the three young women and the smirking expression of the man sitting with them in my chair. He’s a guy of average height, skinny, with a dark shirt and jacket that both need dry cleaning and pressing. His skin is slightly pockmarked by adolescent acne, he has an aquiline nose, and his broad, thin mouth needs only the
hint of a smile to resemble the Jolly Joker. I know him very well, too, for a couple of reasons.
The first is the work that I do for a living; the second is the work that he does.
He’s Stefano Milla, a detective working out of the police station on Via Fatebenefratelli.
10
When we get to Byblos, Lucio is already performing.
He’s wearing his sunglasses and his hair is unkempt as usual. He’s sitting on a stool in the middle of a raised dais, his back to the wall, under an array of spotlights that he can’t see. I’ve always wondered whether the lighting of a stage is designed to put the star at the center of attention or whether it actually serves to keep him from seeing whether the room is empty or full. I imagine, as a person who lives in a reassuring penumbra, that both options can be a source of considerable anxiety. In any case, Lucio is the least likely person on earth to help me solve this riddle. I would guess that his relationship with his audience is much more olfactory than visual.
On the floor behind him is a stand with a classical Spanish guitar perched on it. What he’s holding in his lap right now is a Martin acoustic, on which he’s playing a very commendable personal version of Traffic’s “John Barleycorn.”
Lucio plays very well; he has both technique and heart. Although he doesn’t have a standard voice, it can transmit the kind of feeling that in a club like this one silences the noises in the room.
To keep from making noise during the performance, Carla and I stand by the bar until the performer is done with the song and has received the applause he deserves. Then we head for an empty table more or less in the middle of the room, the boundary between people who are there to listen to music and people who are there to drink and talk about everything without realizing that they’re actually talking about nothing.
I check with Carla.
“Is this table okay with you?”
She simply nods her head and sits down. Her eyes are focused on the stage. It’s clear that she loves music. I saw the expression with which she listened to the piece while we were waiting at the counter.
Without a word, Lucio replaces his acoustic guitar with the classical Spanish guitar and begins a piece by José Feliciano entitled “La Entrada de Bilbao.” The notes emerge and ricochet as Lucio’s fingers pinch and torment the nylon and copper of the guitar strings. I sit, relaxed, waiting to order my drink. I listen to the music, I look at Carla, and I do my best to put some order into everything that happened at the restaurant.