‘Growing up as I did, it’s difficult to trust the police. There was so much brutality and deceit… But I will trust you anyway. You have a very positive aura.’
Aurelio Zen had had his share of compliments in his time, but this was a new one. Did it have something to do with one of those sample bottles of new lines in aftershave that Gemma brought home after her meetings with the sales representatives?
‘I heard about it from one of the founders of this project, one of the original Turin activists,’ Marta said. ‘Later he decided that our work here was counter-revolutionary and went off to Mexico to try and organize the Indian rebels. Anyway, at the meeting we convened to discuss Naldo’s joining the collective, Piero was very much against it. Naldo was already calling himself Ferrero then, and he mentioned to someone that his father’s name was Leonardo. This got back to Piero, who immediately became suspicious. According to him, Leonardo Ferrero had been involved in a Fascist military plot to overthrow the government. He had revealed details of this to a journalist and was killed shortly afterwards in a mid-air explosion that was never properly investigated. Piero claimed that the whole affair was bogus. The revelations that Ferrero made to the journalist contained no substantive information, while he himself was not on the plane that blew up. The leaked hints about the conspiracy would serve to either confuse or provoke the left, while Ferrero’s presumed fate would terrify any real potential traitors in the organization.’
‘But what did all that have to do with Naldo? He doesn’t strike me as anyone’s idea of a very competent conspirator.’
Marta laughed.
‘That’s what the rest of us thought, and Piero was overruled. I think that’s when he started distancing himself from the project here, to be honest. He was used to getting his own way in a highly disciplined and hierarchical party apparatus. We still used the language and went through the motions, but the place was basically a hippie commune. He thought we were a bunch of amateurs.’
Acar drew up outside, its headlights glaring in through the windows. A horn blared three times.
‘Who was the journalist that Leonardo Ferrero allegedly spoke to?’ asked Zen, stubbing out his cigarette.
‘I forget. But he was apparently a big name back in the seventies. Widely respected on the left and widely hated on the right. He used to do a lot of work for L’Unita, Piero said. Brandoni? Brandini? Piero had known him, of course. Everyone knew everyone in those days. It was a party in both senses of the word. That was half the appeal of it, the thing that everyone tends to forget now.’
‘Did anyone ever mention this to Naldo?’
‘Of course not! The only question was whether his joining us would cause trouble in one way or another. Once a collective decision had been reached that it would not, the matter was dropped.’
‘And he never raised the issue himself?’
‘I very much doubt whether he even knows about it.’
Zen nodded.
‘Or cares. He certainly didn’t seem very interested in cooperating with me.’
‘ Naldo e quello che e. It may not be possible to help him, though I’d love to be able to. But some people would refuse a lifebelt you threw them. They would rather drown than be beholden to anybody.’
The horn sounded again. Zen went to the window and waved.
‘I’ve been here ever since he moved in,’ Marta went on in the same calm voice. ‘We even had a little fling at one point. But I don’t really know anything about him. I don’t think he does himself. Children who grow up without the parent of their own sex are often like that, I think. You have to be known in order to know, and if you don’t know yourself then it’s hard for others to know you. Does that make any sense?’
Zen wrapped his coat around him.
‘Well, thank you very much, signora. How much do I owe you for the grappa?’
Marta shrugged dismissively and walked him to the door.
‘I’m glad you enjoyed it. You must come back some time when the restaurant is open. It can get quite lively in season.’
Her tone of voice belied her words.
‘I’ll try to do that,’ Zen lied.
Once clear of the front door, the force of the wind almost swept him off his feet. He climbed into the waiting taxi, which immediately swung round in a circle and started down the dirt track. Looking back, Zen saw Marta still standing in the open doorway.
‘Good dinner?’ the driver asked.
‘They were closed.’
‘I’m not surprised. Who in his right mind would drive all the way up here? But you can’t talk sense to these yuppies from the north. They come down here looking for the simple life and authentic values. I could tell them a thing or two about that! My father used to farm around here. Not as a sharecropper — we owned the land. Of course, all the kids had to do their bit too, but as soon as he died we sold up. Un lavoro massacrante, dottore. Back-breaking labour, hour after hour, day after day. These incomers are pleasant enough people in their way, but frankly they don’t have the brains that God gave hens. Finti contadini is what they are. It’s all make-believe. The real country people couldn’t wait to quit, any who had the chance. Some of my friends even volunteered for the carabinieri or the army, just to get out. When we were in our teens, we used to go down to the sea on a Saturday night in summer, looking for some fun. All the girls used to laugh at us with our peasant tans that stopped at the biceps, the nape of the neck and the knees. But we were out in the sun all day working! Mind you, that was back before they put cancer in the sunlight.’
He broke off briefly as they approached the junction with the paved road.
‘Have you booked a hotel, dottore?’
‘No, I…’
‘I can recommend a very good one. Modern, clean, quiet and very good value, right by the…’
‘Do any night trains stop at Pesaro?’
A brief pause. The man obviously didn’t know, but equally obviously wasn’t going to admit it.
‘Well, yes. A few. Are you heading north or south?’
‘North.’
‘Milan?’
‘Switzerland.’
A much longer pause.
‘Ah, well, in that case you want to take the plane from Bologna. Too late now of course, but you can get a good night’s sleep at this hotel I was talking about, run by a friend of mine as it happens, so there won’t be any problems about you arriving so late, and then get off bright and early tomorrow morning.’
‘No, I think I’ll look into the trains.’
‘But it’ll take hours, dottore! Maybe even days!’
‘That’s fine. I need some time to think.’
XII
‘ Il Paradiso e all’Ombra delle Spade.’ Yes, he thought. ‘Paradise lies in the Shadow of the Swords.’ He must have passed the First World War memorial at the heart of this part of Rome, the district he called his ‘village’, at least twice a day for over twenty years, but the concluding phrase of its simple, poignant inscription never failed to move him.
The sun had already slid down below the line of rooftops to the west, casting shadows that reached across the broad boulevard. Alberto moved like a tank through the groups of afternoon shoppers shuffling about as aimlessly as the windblown dead leaves of the lindens that lined the kerb.
All’Ombra delle Spade. He had lived there all his life, but what did they know of such things, these infantile adults in their quilted acrylic jackets and two-tone designer sports shoes? He tried not to despise them, although he knew that they would despise him. They were rather to be pitied. Yes, get the latest-style clothing, the latest
