this is the same quarter as . . . as that other thing, you know what I mean.”
“Well, so what?”
“So we just hope that they connect the two things and arrive at that . . . ”
“Ah! Got it, now I understand. Well, at least I can follow that line of reasoning. But, unless someone comes by in the next five minutes, I don’t think that . . . ”
“You’ll see, someone will come by any minute now. How long have we been here, anyway? Ten minutes? At this time of the morning, it’s perfectly normal not to see anyone out and about.”
“And what if they come to collect the trash?”
“So? The trashmen would find her. Plus, as you know, I checked into it yesterday and they came at ten o’clock. I don’t see why they should come any earlier today. Let’s not worry about it. After all, that’s why we stayed behind to keep an eye out. And, even if I do say so myself, this choice of a lookout post was just perfect: we’re not so far away that we can’t see, but we’re not so close that we can be seen. We can . . . ”
“Look! There’s someone! He’s coming from the other direction, though. What if he . . . ”
“No, no. He’s stopped. He’s looking around. Maybe she . . . he must have heard something.”
“Right, look: he’s walked over to her. Who do you think he could be?”
“Who knows. Now let’s keep an eye out and see where he goes next. Anyway, he’s picked her up. There was no guarantee: somebody walks past a dumpster and finds . . . finds something like that, they might get scared and run away. This is a city where people are afraid of anything they’re not familiar with, and I can’t say I really blame them.”
“There. He’s taking her inside. Maybe he’s a . . . he’s one of them. So much the better, no?”
“That’s right, so much the better. They’ll know what to do. You’ll see.”
“I don’t know if we did the right thing. Maybe we should have acted as if . . . as if nothing had happened, and kept on according to plan. That way . . . ”
“I’m begging you, don’t get started again. This was the only solution. Now, enough’s enough.”
“Okay. Okay. Let’s get out of here, now, though. I can’t stand being here any longer.”
“Right, let’s get out of here. And we’ll never talk about this again. Never again. Right?”
“Right. Never again.”
III
By now his day had turned into something like the score of a single sad song.
At the end of every shift he went out to buy something to cook for dinner and then headed home. He didn’t want to give in to the temptation to eat standing up, chowing down panini that reeked of plastic or stale old fried foods: it would only have worsened the sense of hanging by a thread that already pervaded his life to such an extreme degree. Plus, cooking distracted him, it was a manual activity that demanded focus, and so for a while he could stop thinking.
After eating dinner and clearing up, he’d sit on the sofa and watch TV. He’d painstakingly search for a program that had some chance of interesting him, however minimal.
At first, he’d enjoyed going to the movies, imagining somehow that the presence of other people, the darkened theater, and the big screen would force him to concentrate more completely: actually, though, it was just worse. No, he had to try to stay home, to make sure that his home remained just that: a genuine home. In the long run, going out every night would only turn those rooms into an icy inferno, much more so than they already were. So, no movie theaters. And no restaurants or fast food places, except when they were absolutely indispensable.
Sitting in front of the TV set, he always just fell asleep. Whether it was a soccer match or one of those pointless political talk shows, he soon surrendered to the exhaustion of the long day. Everything bored him to a terrible degree. He couldn’t even take interest when the subject had to do with the work he did: sometimes, deep inside, he laughed mockingly at the psychologists, criminologists, sociologists, or magistrates who claimed to be able to reconstruct the mechanics of a murder or the deformations of a criminal mind, as if they always followed the same patterns: clear paths, which could be charted as if on a road map.
Bullshit, he thought to himself. Complete bullshit. Every murder has a story all its own, and every damned criminal has his own twisted mental meanders. That is, provided he has them at all because, as likely as not, behind a murdered man, there’s nothing but a red film that drops over someone’s eyes. A sudden rage that arms your fist. That and nothing else.
Rage was Warrant Officer Francesco Romano’s main problem. He was now a duty officer on the staff of the Pizzofalcone police station. It was a problem that dated back quite some time, a problem that he’d always managed to conceal behind a reclusive but apparently relaxed personality, seemingly well balanced and untroubled.
Rage.
It was rage that, one cursed unfortunate morning, had driven him to take a damned drug pusher by the neck. The man had spoken to him with insolent familiarity, and it was that very thing—he’d realized, looking back—that had pushed him over the edge. Addressing him in the familiar tone of Italian grammar. Calling him “tu”. The way you’d speak to a waiter in a café who’d knocked over your coffee. Or a newsstand vendor who handed you a paper you hadn’t asked for. “Hey, you.” Ehi, tu.
As he struggled to wrench free, he’d even given one of his partners a black eye, as the officer tried to help subdue the suspect. This wasn’t the first time it had happened, but it was certainly the last: the opportunity his superior officers had been waiting for to ship him off in a hurry to some other precinct, to unload him elsewhere.
Rage.
A red film descending over his eyes, an explosion rising out of his belly and bursting into his brain, casting a shadow over all reason. Blinding rage, deafening rage. The rage that takes possession of your arms, your hands. Rage.
Romano thought that, all things considered, a man ought to be forgiven for a moment of rage. If he’s honest, thoughtful, purehearted, if he’s a good policeman, if he works conscientiously, with dedication, if he’s someone who would never do anything wrong or bad, if he’s someone who’s proof against corruption or bribery or any other skim-offs that might help make up for the miserable pittance of a salary. If you can say that a man is good and reliable, shouldn’t there be an allowance for a moment’s bewilderment?
And what if he’s a good husband?
Because Romano’s real problem—the thought he couldn’t get out of his mind for so much as an instant, day or night, waking or sleeping—was Giorgia.
Giorgia who had abandoned him, leaving behind a tearful, pointless letter on the dining room table. Giorgia who had overlooked the years they’d spent together, first as boyfriend and girlfriend, and then as man and wife, and had gone back to live with those two asshole parents of hers. Giorgia who wouldn’t even answer the phone anymore when he called her.
Giorgia, who had had her lawyer send him a demand for divorce.
Now, Romano asked himself, doesn’t a wife have a duty to understand her husband? Shouldn’t she be at his side at a difficult time like the one he was going through on the job? A wife ought to be on your team, against the world. But not Giorgia. Instead, she had chosen to walk off the field entirely and turn her back, without even bothering to go through the locker room on her way out.
That smack he’d given her had been nothing more than a