and gave me a nod signifying respect. A different kind of respect from that usually paid to a lawyer.
He said he’d let me know within two days.
He was as good as his word. He came back to the office two days later and mentioned a name that carried weight in certain circles. That person sent word offering his apologies for what had happened. It had been an accident – two accidents in fact, thought I, but let’s not split hairs – that would not be repeated. He, however, was at my disposal should I need anything.
The story finished there.
Apart from the two million lire I had to fork out to put the car in order.
A few days later I discovered the identity of the new tenant in our building. Or rather, the tenant
About half-past nine in the evening I had just come back from the gym and was about to thaw two chicken breasts, grill them and prepare a salad, when the bell rang.
I spent a few seconds wondering what had happened. Then it registered that it must be my own doorbell, and while on my way to answer it I realized that this must be the first time anyone had rung it since I’d been living here. I felt a pang of melancholy, then I opened the door.
At last she’d found someone in. It was the fourth time she’d tried my door but there was never any answer. Did I really live alone? She was the new tenant, on the seventh floor. She had introduced herself to all the other tenants in the building, I was the last. Her name was Margherita. Margherita, and I didn’t catch the surname.
She gave me her hand across the invisible frontier of the doorway. It was a fine, masculine hand, large and strong.
Certain women – and especially certain men – give you a strong handshake but you realize at once that it’s for show. They want to make themselves out to be decisive, no-nonsense people, but the strength is only in the hand and arm. What I mean is, it doesn’t come from inside. Some people can actually crush your hand, but it’s as if they were doing body-building.
There are others, if only a few, who when they shake your hand tell you that there’s something behind the muscles. I held Margherita’s hand for maybe a second or two more than necessary but she went on smiling.
Then I asked her awkwardly if she’d care to come in. No, thank you, she had just stopped by to introduce herself. She was actually on her way home after being out the whole day. She had a mass of things to do, what with having just moved in. When things were more organized, she’d ask me up for a cup of tea.
She had a good smell about her. A mixture of fresh air, dry and clean, a masculine, leathery smell.
“Don’t be sad,” she said as she made for the staircase.
Just like that.
When she was already out of sight I realized that I had never really looked at her. I went back inside, half closed my eyes and tried to reproduce her face in my mind. I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t sure I’d recognize her if I saw her in the street.
In the kitchen the chicken breasts had thawed in the microwave. But I no longer felt like having them simply grilled, so I got out a recipe book I kept in the kitchen but had never used.
Tasty chicken rissoles. That sounded just the job. At least, the name did. I read the recipe and was glad to see I had all the ingredients.
Before starting I opened a bottle of Salice Salentino, tasted it, and then looked for a CD to listen to while I was cooking.
The syncopated rhythm of “Please Forgive Me” started and then, almost at once, came the voice of David Gray. I stayed near the speakers to listen until it got to the part of the song I liked best.
Then I went back to the kitchen and got down to work.
I boiled the chicken and minced it, along with a couple of ounces of cooked ham that had been in the fridge for some days. Then I put the meat into a bowl together with an egg, some grated Parmesan, nutmeg, salt and black pepper. I stirred the mixture with a wooden spoon before kneading it with my hands, having added some breadcrumbs. I shaped the mixture into rissoles the size of an egg, then dipped them into beaten egg to which I’d added salt and a little wine, then rolled them in breadcrumbs to which I’d added another pinch of nutmeg, and finally sizzled them in olive oil over a moderate flame.
I drained the rissoles – which smelled delicious – on kitchen paper and prepared a salad with balsamic vinegar dressing. I laid the table with a cloth, real plates, real cutlery, and before sitting down to eat I went and changed the CD.
Simon and Garfunkel.
I pushed “skip” until number 16 came up. “The Boxer.”
I stood and listened to it until the last verse. My favourite.
Then I turned off the CD player and went to eat.
The rissoles were excellent. So was the salad, while the wine had a bouquet and reflections danced in the glass.
I wasn’t sad that evening.
15
“The fact is that we have opted for American-style trials, but we lack the preparation the Americans have. We lack the cultural basis for accusatory trials. Look at the questioning and cross-questioning in American or British trials. And then look at ours. They can do it, we can’t. We never will be able to, because we are children of the Counter-Reformation. One cannot rebel against one’s own cultural destiny.”
Thus, during a pause in a trial in which we were fellow counsels for the defence, spake Avvocato Cesare Patrono. A Prince of the Forum. Mason and Millionaire.
I had heard him express that idea about a hundred times since the new code of criminal procedure had come into force in 1989.
It was to be understood that
Patrono liked to speak ill of everything and everyone. In conversations in the corridors – but even in court – he loved to humiliate his colleagues and, most of all, he loved to intimidate and embarrass magistrates.
For some unknown reason he had a liking for me. He was always cordial towards me and occasionally had me assist him in the defence, which was big business, from a financial standpoint.
He had just finished expressing his views on the current criminal procedure when there emerged from the courtroom, still wearing her robe, Alessandra Mantovani, Assistant Public Prosecutor.
She hailed from Verona, and had asked to be transferred to Bari to join her lover. Behind her in Verona she had left a rich husband and a very comfortable life.
As soon as she had moved to Bari her lover had left her. He explained that he needed his freedom, that things between them had gone well up to that point thanks to the distance, which prevented boredom and routine. That
