Death in August

‘Right. The mechanism.’ At this point Bordelli could wait no longer to light his cigarette, and took two deep puffs, immediately shaking away the first ashes.

‘How the hell did they do it?’ Bordelli repeated, talking mostly to himself.

Piras not only didn’t smoke, he couldn’t stand smoke. Stepping back instinctively, he started waving his open hands in the air to dispel it, as if only now finding the courage to vent his dislike. Bordelli pretended not to notice.

‘All right, let’s begin the game again,’ the inspector said. ‘Let’s pretend we have the killers here before us. We know they did it, and they know we have no proof. What, at this point, would you do?’

‘I think it would be totally pointless to apply any pressure on them before having first demolished their alibi. In short, we must figure out how …’ All at once he stopped to swat away the smoke in the air around him, assumed a very serious expression and pointed to the pack of cigarettes on the table. ‘Did you know, Inspector, that every one of those things shortens your life by one hour?’

Bordelli was well aware of this, but like all smokers he calculated only the damage done by a single cigarette, without ever tallying the final sum. He crushed the still-long butt in the ashtray, if only so that Piras would stop waving his arms in the air in disgust.

‘I know it’s a stupid vice, Piras, but it’s not so easy to quit. I started during the war.’ Piras was satisfied with the destruction of that cigarette and resumed his lecture.

‘I was saying we need to work out how they managed to kill her from afar.’

‘We’ve been circling round it for an hour.’

‘Let me finish. The killers feel protected by their alibi, and they’re right, in a sense. But once we discover their trick, we’ll strip them down to their underwear by showing how flimsy their alibi is. And at that point we can try to make them confess.’

‘Think so?’

‘We can try, I say. If they lose their alibi, they’ll get scared. I don’t see any other way.’

Bordelli remained lost in thought for a good minute, chin in hand, eyes trained on Piras’s wooden face. Then he looked at the sky outside the window as a breath of wind blew in, at long last. A distant rumble of thunder revived his hope for a good storm. It was almost nine, always the most melancholy time of the day for Bordelli. Down on the street, somebody called after his dog. The swallows were gobbling up insects, flying low and screeching between the buildings.

The inspector sat there for a long time staring out of the window, lulled by a string of vague thoughts, which often happened to him at that hour. He wasn’t thinking of anything specific, but was rather in a state akin to daydreaming. The screeching halt of a car snapped him out of it. He stuck another cigarette in his mouth and reassured Piras with a hand gesture.

‘I’m not going to light it. It’s just to console myself.’

Piras said nothing, but his silence was as eloquent as his father’s had been. His indignation and bitterness over this sordid killing could be read in his eyes.

‘Let’s rack our brains a little, Piras. We need to wipe out this damned alibi.’

‘I’m doing my best, Inspector, but it’s not a game. It’s like trying to understand the composition of water by watching the rain fall.’

Piras could see that Bordelli was running out of steam and asked him again whether he wanted to be taken home, but the inspector refused.

‘Thanks, Piras, but I can make it on my own.’

‘As you wish.’ They parted with a look of understanding.

Bordelli settled a couple of matters and then tried to phone Rodrigo — for the hell of it, just to find out how things were going with his belle — but there was no reply. He imagined his cousin half naked, clinking glasses with his woman, properly drunk and happy to be so, the flat a shambles, a splendid layer of filth on the bedroom floor, the phone ringing and ringing with neither one of them paying any mind, the once untouchable desk covered with dirty dishes.

He turned off the light and sat for a while in his office, watching the sky turn slowly red. At last he lit the cigarette he’d been craving for the past half-hour.

It wasn’t quite eleven when Bordelli lay down in bed and turned out the light. The air smelled of zampironi, but the mosquitoes continued to buzz round his face. He lit his thousandth cigarette and smoked it, sweating and thinking of Elvira. He concentrated all his thoughts on her, in the hope of forgetting her more quickly that way. Perhaps it was only his fatigue, but he pictured her on the beach, next to his aunts from Mantua, then lying on the marble floor playing with him at two o’clock in the afternoon. Maybe it was because she looked like somebody else from long ago and who-knows-where. He saw Elvira’s bare feet again, her pink mouth standing out on her tanned face … She was smiling at him, looking him straight in the eye as she lay back in bed, opening her arms, and he ran to kiss her, caressing her fragrant blonde hair, holding her tight until her bones began to crack … Maybe that was it … She resembled someone else from half a century before, during a summer with his aunts, a sixteen-year-old housemaid who seemed like a grown woman to him at the time. What was her name? Mariolina, Giannina, Annina … something like that, a name that ended in ina. Maybe Annina, yes, blonde with big green eyes and an imperfect little nose that he loved to death. He was about eight years old at the time, give or take a year, with eyes wide open, curious to see the world.

‘I can scrub your back for you. Would you like that?’

‘Yes.’

Annina leaned over him, smiling. She began running her hand up and down his back, all the way up to the nape of his neck. He felt the waves of warm water on his skin and closed his eyes in pleasure.

‘Do you want the sponge?’ he asked.

‘No, I don’t need the sponge,’ she said, letting her soapy hand slide over his little neck and shoulder, over his chest and then down, under the water, over his belly … And this became a little game … Who knows how it started, or why … a shudder down his spine and butterflies in his stomach. Then he arched his whole body so that his little thingy came out of the water, and he held it with his fingers so that it would stand up straight.

‘Look! There’s an enemy periscope!’ he shouted. She laughed and reached into the water.

‘I’ll take care of it,’ she said. And she took the periscope between two fingers and squeezed it gently. He shuddered and plunged back into the water, feeling as if the space around him had expanded.

‘Do you want to see it again?’ he asked in a daze.

‘No need. I know where to find it,’ she said, smiling. And she rolled up her sleeve and immersed her arm in the water to look for the submarine. She found it at once, and with a complicitous smile she splashed all about down there. He just stared at her, not moving, as his periscope began to change form. It became hard and straight and almost hurt at the tip. He couldn’t see it, but could feel its weight. It had grown so huge, it seemed to him, he was afraid to look at it. At last a flash of heat burned his neck, and his lips started trembling, hot and tingly. The periscope turned red hot and seemed to explode, and he started bucking like a colt with a strength completely unfamiliar to him, splashing water all over the floor. Annina was laughing for joy. She continued fondling the submarine for a few more seconds, then took her hand out of the water and caressed his wet hair.

‘Did you like that?’ she asked, drying her hands on her skirt. She had a face like the Blessed Virgin. He looked at her with eyes half shut and a great desire to sleep. She put her hand on his head, shaking it affectionately.

‘Hey, little submarine, don’t go telling your aunties about this, or they won’t let us play any more. It’s a secret, okay?’

He nodded yes and grabbed the rim of the tub to keep from sinking into the water.

‘I mean it, okay? Don’t tell anybody.’

‘I promise,’ he said, finger over his lips. Annina blew him a kiss and opened the door to leave.

‘Annina!’

‘What is it?’

‘Can I ask you something?’

‘Make it snappy.’

‘Can I take a bath every day?’

Annina burst out laughing.

‘Well, won’t that make your aunties happy!’ she said. She blew him another kiss and left, singing to herself,