The inspector returned to his office and saw that it was almost eight o’clock. His appointment with Piras was for half past nine. As he didn’t have much appetite, he went out for a bite in the bar across the street and then bought a couple of cold beers. He put one in the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet and then uncapped the other with his house key. During the fifteen years he’d been working in that office, not once had he ever remembered to bring a bottle opener from home. Lighting a cigarette, he dialled Rodrigo’s number. He let it ring for a long time, but there was no reply. He redialled the number half an hour later, with the same result. What a pain in the arse. Now he would actually have to go there. He had no desire to talk to Rodrigo, but since he’d promised Zia Camilla, he couldn’t back out. Well, there were worse things in life than a peevish, pedantic cousin. Anyway, he was curious to find out what was behind this business of not shaving … He had never seen Rodrigo unshaven.
Round about nine o’clock the heat in his office became unbearable. It was like being caught between the fingers of a gigantic hot and sweaty hand. Bordelli didn’t feel like going home. He lit another cigarette, his fourth or fifth, he couldn’t remember. Not a bad tally, he thought. A few months ago, by that hour he would already have smoked a good thirty. There was still a little light outside. Clouds were still gathering, every so often you could hear some distant thunder, but still no rain. A good downpour would have made the night a little less asphyxiating.
Bordelli picked up the receiver and dialled Fabiani’s number. The psychoanalyst was very pleased to be invited to dinner. He, too, always stayed put in August. He seemed in good spirits, though there was, as always, a note of deep sadness in his voice. When Bordelli had first met him, Fabiani was still tormented by remorse over a work-related incident that had ended tragically. It gave him no peace. They agreed on dinner and said goodbye.
Bordelli sat in silence, staring into space. Without knowing how, he found himself thinking about the woman of his life, the one he had never found. He tried to picture her, to imagine what she might look like, but he couldn’t see anything. He had no precise idea of her, but he was certain that if she stood right in front of him, he would know at once that she was the one. And it would be a triumph. Then he realised that by now it was getting late. If he found her now, at fifty-three, it would only be a defeat. Maybe he’d done everything wrong. He had always been waiting for something special, the way little girls believe in Prince Charming, languishing in their illusions. Falling in love with the wrong women had only reinforced his desire to find the right one, making him more and more rigid and hard to please. Sometimes, just to escape the loneliness, he would throw himself into brief, sordid relationships with women who didn’t understand him and only left him wanting to be alone. And now here he was, fifty-three years old, his only satisfaction that of having the same dream in his head, but with no hope of fulfilling it. He took comfort in the thought that he could never have done otherwise, and if he were reborn he would do the very same things. A heroic melancholy enveloped his head like a hot rag … Bordelli, the solitary knight, beloved of all women …
At 9.30 sharp, there was a knock at the door. Rousing himself, Bordelli felt ashamed of his silly dreams.
‘Come in.’
It was Piras. He walked in and remained standing in front of the desk.
‘Any news, Inspector?’
‘One thing. But don’t just stand there, sit down.’
Piras dropped into the chair, impatient for Bordelli to speak. Chasing the remaining scraps of dream from his head with the help of a sigh, the inspector readied himself to satisfy the Sardinian’s curiosity.
‘It’s no longer a game, Piras. Signora Pedretti was murdered.’ And he told him in minute detail what he had learned from Diotivede. Piras’s mouth tightened.
‘Interesting,’ he said.
Bordelli denied himself another cigarette, pleased at such willpower, and reclined in his chair, bending the springy back.
‘Are you free Wednesday evening?’
‘I get off work at eight.’
‘I’m having a dinner party at my place, a little thing among friends. Care to join us? I should warn you I’m the youngest of the lot.’
Piras looked visibly pleased.
‘That’s fine with me, Inspector. I’ll bring some Sardinian pastries.’
‘I’ll bet they’re
‘How did you know?’
Bordelli smiled and recalled a cold morning in ’44.
‘Once, during a mortar attack, your father explained to me in great detail how those biscuits are made, and I’ve been wanting to taste one ever since. But I wanted to tell you another thing. Tomorrow at noon, Signora Pedretti’s two nephews are coming to see me. I want you to be there, too. You can man the typewriter and write the report, but mostly I want you to try to figure out what’s going through their heads.’
‘That’s fine with me.’
Piras left. After a few minutes of listless reflection, Bordelli slapped himself on the forehead.
‘Rodrigo,’ he said. He immediately dialled his cousin’s number and let the phone ring for a long time, but it was no use. Bordelli hung up and promised himself he would drop by his cousin’s place the following day. He was becoming seriously intrigued by this business of not shaving.
A little rain fell around midnight, so sparse you could count the drops. They were as big as eggs and splatted on the road with a slapping sound, evaporating in seconds on the still-hot asphalt. Bordelli had lain down in bed with a book by Fenoglio on his belly. Even immobile, he still sweated. A moribund fly kept going from one end of the room to the other, ceaselessly crashing against the walls in search of a way out. The mosquitoes were having a ball in the only apartment in town without DDT. Reading was impossible. It was easier to sink into the usual unwholesome melancholy. Warm gusts of wind blew through the wide-open windows, and still more mosquitoes, and the creaking sounds of old bicycles. Now and then a lone automobile, or a faraway train. Vito, known as Vinaccia, also passed by. He was an old alcoholic who talked to himself. He never left the San Frediano quarter. Bordelli recognised his stumbling, wine-sodden step. The drunk was muttering to himself, in the usual angry tone. The inspector set aside Fenoglio and turned off the light. He heard Vito stop to catch his breath. Then he suddenly raised his voice.
‘They’re all whores, the lot of ’em … nothin’ you can do about it … all whores …’
Poor Vito. Bordelli heard him set off again with difficulty, cursing through clenched teeth. Then he stopped at the end of the street and started yelling the same things as before. He even banged on the steel shutters of a few shops, choked on his own voice, coughed to the point of fainting, and then, after spitting theatrically, resumed his grumbling. In the penumbra of the bedroom, Bordelli remembered another old madman from many years before, also an alcoholic who talked to himself. People called him Villoresi, but nobody knew his real name. Nor did anyone know how old he was. He had a monstrous nose exploding in the middle of his face like dripping wax, dilated pores as red as open wounds, two pale blue imbecilic eyes popping out of his death’s-head as though blown out from within by force, and a rotten, perpetually open mouth. He dragged himself about, holding up walls with one hand, taking short little steps, like Vito, always speaking aloud to someone who wasn’t there, question and answer in quick repartee, almost always angry, head dangling to one side. He would spit out insults at an invisible enemy and curse him for eternity. Whenever any women saw him approach, they would cross to the other side of the street, avoiding his gaze. Realising this, he would start yelling.
‘Fucking whores! Yeah, you wish! Fucking whores is what you are!..’
He had a deep, hoarse voice, and the more he yelled, the more his imprecations stuck in his throat, his face turning red from the effort. Children were a little afraid of him and used to taunt him for the thrill of it. They would hide round street corners and shout a name at him — ‘Bertolaniiiii!’ — which functioned as a sort of magic word that, for obscure reasons, made him fly into a rage. ‘Bertolani! Bertolaniiii!’ Villoresi would straighten himself with a start and look all around to stare down the culprit, screaming a litany of curses against the whole world: ‘Damned pigs … sons of whoring sows … I’ll kick your arses one by one …’ The children would take to their heels, pursued by his oaths.
Almost everyone in the neighbourhood was fond of the old man. If a day went by without any sign of him, they would ask one another: ‘Where’s Villoresi?’
Bordelli swatted at a mosquito humming in his ear. It was even hotter than before. The weary buzzing of the fly had not ceased for a single moment. He closed his eyes, hoping to fall asleep, and before drifting off he saw a medieval village from the Marches region whose name he couldn’t remember. To enable the Allies’ tanks to pass
