He’s not afraid of anything. His father once punched some highranking Fascist official to shut him up.”
Magnani spoke of the incident with pride. Evidently the Woodsman was all he himself had never managed to be.
“What’s he like? Physically, I mean.”
“A beast, all one hundred and ten kilos of him. He could kill you with one punch. He’s as solid as a safe.”
“So it would be hard to miss him.”
“He always wears the felt hat of the Alpino regiment, with the feather.”
“Does he ever come here?”
“He leaves it to his daughter to come down to the village. He’s completely antisocial.”
“Ever since Palmiro and Capelli abandoned him. Is that right?” the commissario said, inhaling the smoke from the cigar he had lit while talking.
“Well, a great many things originate there. Before those two got rich, they were all as thick as thieves. Once the Woodsman saved Palmiro’s life, up on Lake Bicchiere. He’d fallen in because he’d failed to notice a crack in the ice, which collapsed under him. The Woodsman stretched out full length on his belly, risking going under himself, and dragged Palmiro to safety by brute force. From that time on, Palmiro made him a present of some money every year, at Christmas, on the anniversary.”
“Even recently? Seeing that things are not going too well?”
“What were a couple of coins to him? And anyway, who says things are not going so well? I’ve heard that the Rodolfis have millions and millions salted away in some fund somewhere.”
“And he could always turn to the villagers,” Soneri said.
Magnani stopped short, as though he had been stung by a wasp. “Not much hope there. You won’t get much from a village of peasants and shopkeepers, and one way or another they all work for the Rodolfis now.”
“Palmiro must have come here,” the commissario said, tentatively.
“This was his bar. He always came here until the other one opened,” Magnani said, with unmistakable resentment.
The door swung open and an old woman came in pushing a wheelchair with a man wrapped in a blanket, the one who on the night of Palmiro’s disappearance had claimed to be a friend of his. The woman manoeuvred the chair round and positioned the man next to the heater. She lifted away the blanket, folded it neatly and turned to Magnani. “No wine, mind.” She went out without another word, leaving her husband uttering curses behind her.
“Don’t get annoyed, Berto,” said one of the men in the group. “Women rule the roost the world over nowadays.”
The old man, as impassive as a block of wood, said nothing.
“She brings him here every afternoon. That way she gets rid of him for a bit. He’s off his head,” Magnani said.
“Was he really all that friendly with Palmiro?”
“He was more than a friend. He was his faithful retainer. He turned his hand to everything for him — slaughterman, cheese maker, gardener, chauffeur. It wasn’t the same with Capelli and the Woodsman. They treated Palmiro as an equal, but Berto took orders.”
Soneri’s cigar had gone out, and as he relit it he looked around the bar at all those ageing men, a company that could have included his father had he been blessed with only slightly better fortune. A deep weariness took hold of him. There were times and places where he was particularly and painfully susceptible to an awareness of the unstoppable march of time, of its inevitable ending and of the vanity of all things. He rose decisively to his feet and made for the door, meeting the glassy stare of Berto, who with difficulty raised a hand to him in greeting.
Once outside, he rang Angela. She answered in a drowsy voice. “Am I interrupting something? Are you in good company,” he said, trying to sound ironic.
“Yes, of unreadable documents. You sound as though you are trying to be funny, which leads me to think you’re not at your best. What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. A mood that comes and goes.”
“Comes and goes, as regularly as a bus service.”
“Listen,” he said, changing the subject. “You know a lawyer called Gennari, don’t you?”
“We were at university together.”
“He’s the Rodolfis’ lawyer.”
“Well done, Commissario! Did you think I didn’t know? I seem to remember telling you.”
“I know. It was just to get the conversation going. The story here is that they are in a liquidity crisis, that they can’t raise the cash to pay back a loan. In other words, they’re on the brink of bankruptcy.”
“You couldn’t resist it, could you! You’ve been dragged into the investigation. So much for the dear old mushrooms.”
“No, you’ve got it all wrong. The story’s very mysterious, but very private. The only problem is that Sante, the boss of the Scoiattolo, is worried sick and has asked me to help him out.”
“What’s he got to do with it?”
“Palmiro asked the villagers for what they call ‘nursemaid’ money.”
“What on earth is that?”
“It’s a loan given in the way things used to be done in the old days in the villages. A few pages to jot down the transfer of cash, the interest agreed verbally, a signature and a handshake.”
“And people still do that?”
“You know what it’s like. In these parts, everybody knows everybody else, they trust each other and the Rodolfis are above all possible suspicion.”
“If you were to go about telling people that story, nobody would believe you.”
“It’s a system which has worked for a long time and nothing has ever happened. Honesty still counts up here,” Soneri said, with a touch of pride.
“Are you sure of that? Things are much the same all over the world, I hear, and we’ve learned the worst vices from each other.”
“This is a complicated story. There are some things I don’t quite get.”
“Gennari’s putting a brave face on it all, but he hasn’t got the whole picture, especially on the financial front.”
“What has he told you?”
“I haven’t had a chance to sit down with him properly, but when I simply mentioned the subject, he was hesitant and gave nothing away. Knowing him as I do, that is not a good sign.”
“So there really is a crisis.”
“Finally he admitted it. He gave me to understand that the outlook is grim, but he hasn’t got to the bottom of it all yet. He says that no-one really understands the accounts, except, perhaps, Paride Rodolfi and those closest to him.”
“Do you think the position can be saved? There’s talk here about some account that could be unfrozen.”
“I don’t know. Talking to Gennari, my sense is that the whole show is going belly up. I’m telling you this based on impressions only. You know how women have a special intuition.”
“It would be a catastrophe for the folk here. They’d be ruined and have no hope of other work.”
“If you want my opinion, that account they’re talking about simply doesn’t exist. It’s a trick to win time, to keep the creditors quiet while they search desperately for funds to paper over the cracks. It’s not the first time the Rodolfis have pulled this stunt, did you know that?”
Soneri mumbled a “no” between his teeth, but once again he felt himself overwhelmed by a strong emotion — like the one he had felt a short time before in the Olmo. The image of the Rodolfi trademark came back into his mind, an image which ever since his boyhood had been a symbol of security and solidity, but which now seemed to represent not only yesterday’s lost world but also today’s threat of destroying people with its collapse.
“Perhaps that’s why the old man was going round collecting money,” Angela said. “I don’t understand even now why he didn’t send his son. After all, it was he who caused the trouble in the first place.”
“He’s scarcely had any contact with the people in the village. He’s seldom seen around the place, and he ponces about posing as a manager. He doesn’t even speak the dialect. He’s more comfortable with English.”
“A typical social climber.”
