a wealth of sophistical arguments, to explain to her the difference between formal good manners – hers – and real substantial good manners. Mine, of course.
At the time it didn’t even remotely occur to me that I was being no better than an arrogant lout. On the contrary, as I was so good at twisting words to suit my purpose, I even persuaded myself that I was right. This led me to behave worse, including in the meaning of “worse” a series of clandestine affairs with girls of dubious morality.
I came to realize all this when we had already separated. I had several times thought back on our relationship and come to the conclusion that I had behaved like a right bastard. If I ever had an opportunity I would have to admit it and apologize.
Perhaps seven or eight years later, I came across Rossana again. In the meantime she had gone to work in Bologna.
We met at the house of some friends during the Christmas holidays, and she asked me if I’d care to have a cup of tea with her the next day. I said yes. So we met, we had tea and stayed chatting for at least an hour.
She’d had a daughter, was separated from her husband, owned a travel agency which made her a pile of money, and was still very beautiful.
I was glad to see her again and felt relaxed. It therefore came quite naturally to me to tell her that I’d often thought of when we were together and that I was convinced I’d behaved badly towards her. I just felt like telling her, for what it was worth. She smiled and looked at me in a rather strange way for a few moments before speaking. She didn’t say exactly what I expected.
“You were a spoilt child. You were so intent on yourself that you didn’t realize what was happening around you, even very close to you.”
“What d’you mean by that?”
“You didn’t so much as suspect that for nearly a year I had someone else.”
I’d like to have seen my face at that moment. It must have been a pretty picture, because Rossana smiled and the sight of me seemed to amuse her.
“You had someone else? Excuse me, but in what sense?”
At that point she stopped smiling and began to laugh. Who could blame her?
“How d’you mean, in what sense? We were together.”
“How d’you mean, you were together? You were together with
“In the evening, almost every evening. When you took me home. He was waiting for me round the corner, in his car. I waited in the doorway and when you’d gone I went round the corner and got into the car.”
My head started spinning rather weirdly.
“And where… where did you go?”
“To his place, on the Walls in Old Bari.”
“To his place. In Old Bari. And what did you do on the Walls in Old Bari?”
Too late I realized I had said something too stupid for words, but I wasn’t connecting very well.
She realized it too, and did nothing to ease matters.
“What did we do? You mean, at night in his flat on the Walls?”
She was tickled to death. I wasn’t. I had gone to have a cup of tea with an ex-girlfriend and found I had to rewrite history.
I discovered that his name was Beppe, that he was a jewellery salesman, that he was married and rich. The place on the Walls, to be precise, was not his home but his bachelor pad. At the time of these events he was thirty-six and had a sterling wife.
At the time of these events I was twenty-two, my parents gave me 40,000 lire a week, I shared a bedroom with my brother and – I was now discovering rather late in the day – I had a whore for a girlfriend.
I reached the coast, turned left towards the Teatro Margherita, and headed for San Nicola, passing below the Walls. Just where this Signor Beppe had his bachelor pad. Where he used to take
By now it was daylight, the air was fresh and clean, and it was an ideal day for a walk. I continued as far as the Castello Svevo and then further still towards the Fiera del Levante, to arrive perhaps two hours and several miles after leaving home at the pine wood of San Francesco.
It was practically deserted. Only a few men running and a few others seated, preferring to let their dogs do the running.
I chose a good bench, one of those green wooden ones with a back, in the sun. I sat down and read my book.
When I finished it, about two hours later, I was feeling pretty fit and thought I’d take another ten minutes’ rest before setting off for home. Or perhaps for the office, where they certainly must have begun to wonder what on earth had happened to me.
It was starting to get hot, so I took off my jacket, folded it up into a kind of pillow and stretched out with my face in the sun.
When I woke it was past midday. The joggers had multiplied, there were pairs of young boys, women with babies, and old men playing cards at the stone tables. There were also two Jehovah’s Witnesses trying to convert anyone who didn’t show them a sufficiently hostile front.
Time to be gone. Very much so.
19
As soon as I got home my eye fell on my mobile and I ignored it. When I went to the office in the afternoon it was in my pocket, but still turned off.
Maria Teresa engulfed me the very moment I opened the door. They’d been hunting for me all morning, at home and on my mobile. At home there was no answer and the other was always off.
Naturally – I thought – because I was in the pine wood, taking the sun, in defiance of the lot of you and without the damn phone.
That morning all hell had broken loose.
Surely I hadn’t forgotten some hearing? Ah, just as well, I thought not. Lots of people looking for me? No matter, they’ll call again. No, certainly I hadn’t forgotten that the time limit for Colaianni’s appeal expired tomorrow.
Liar! I had completely forgotten. Just as well I had a secretary who knew her job.
They’d called three times from the prison since midday? Why was that?
Maria Teresa didn’t know. It was something urgent, they said, but they hadn’t explained what. The last to call had been a certain Inspector Surano. He had asked me to call him back as soon as I was traced.
I called the switchboard of the administration building, asked for Inspector Surano and, after a wait of at least three minutes, I heard a low, hoarse voice with the accent of the province of Lecce.
Yes, I was Avvocato Guerrieri. Yes, I was acting for the prisoner Abdou Thiam. Yes, I could come to the prison, if he would first be good enough to tell me the reason.
He told me the reason. That morning, following visiting hours, the prisoner Abdou Thiam had put into effect an attempted suicide by means of hanging.
He had been rescued when he was already swinging from a rope made of torn-up sheets plaited together. He was now in the prison infirmary with a round-the-clock watch on him.
I said I’d be there as soon as possible.
As soon as possible is a very ambiguous concept if it is a matter of getting to the prison from the centre of Bari on a working afternoon.
However, in scarcely over half an hour I was outside the admin building and ringing the bell. Having parked the car illegally of course.
The warder in the guardroom had been alerted to my arrival. He asked me to wait and called Inspector Surano,
