A Fine Line (4 page)

4

Consuelo called Bronzino. She told him it was over, that he had been acquitted, that there would be no follow-up, that it really was over. When he got back to Italy and dropped by the office, we would decide whether or not to bring a case demanding compensation for unfair imprisonment. No, there was no urgency, he could pay by transfer or with a credit card, we would send him an email with all the necessary instructions. The court had already passed on the documents to the prosecutor in order for him to charge Di Cosmo with slander. No, of course he hadn't lodged any complaint, it was good of him not to harbour feelings of revenge, it had been an autonomous decision of the court, slander is an offence it is compulsory to indict. Yes, that means there's no need for a complaint. All right, then, best of luck, speak to you soon, all right, I'll tell Avvocato Guerrieri. Yes, we're pleased too, goodbye.

Consuelo had parked her car in the courthouse car park. She asked Annapaola if she wanted a lift.

“No thanks, I have my motorbike,” Annapaola said, pointing to a kind of chrome-plated monster next to the sentry box.

“You ride that thing?” I asked.

“Beautiful, isn't it?”

“Are you in a gang, like the Hells Angels or the Bandidos?”

“Oh, sure. One day I'll pick you up and take you for a ride. It goes like a bat out of hell, but I'm sure you'll be fine.”

Then she gave Consuelo a high five and blew me a slightly mocking kiss.

“How about you, boss?” Consuelo asked me while Annapaola disappeared in an unmistakable roar of pistons.

“Thanks, I'll walk. I may stop on the way and have a bite to eat. See you in the office this afternoon.”

I didn't stop anywhere. As I walked steadily towards the centre it struck me that it had been far too long since I'd last had lunch at home. I began an inner conversation, the kind where, if there's someone close to me, he asks me after a while if I'm crazy. I start moving my lips, clearly (but silently) articulating a dialogue between Guido 1 and Guido 2. I used to do that when I was a child. Then, to avoid being made fun of (which happened quite frequently), I managed to stop. When I grew up, I started again.

Yes, Guerrieri, it's true, you never have lunch at home. But why should you? You live alone. Much better to sit down where someone knows you and then you can have a bit of a chat. Having lunch on your own is one of the saddest things there is, and it's even a bit sordid.

As usual, you're overstating your case. Sordid, is it? That sense of precariousness you're talking about is only made worse if you try to escape solitude at all costs.

Did you read that profound thought in a cheap magazine? The kind of magazine for men that always publishes the same articles: how to drive her crazy in bed, how to get muscles of steel in three weeks with five minutes' training a day, what food to eat in order not to get ill, and various items about mental health, how to overcome sadness, depression and boils on your nose? Plus recently, a few suggestions on
how to prevent an enlarged prostate, a subject which should actually be of some interest to you.

Very witty. You make me laugh like a drain.

Do you even have anything to eat at home? Is there anything in the fridge apart from pathetic ready meals?

I don't have ready meals. I have good, fresh, abundant food, because I know perfectly well that you and people like you are always lecturing me, and I try to pre-empt them. I make myself fantastic salads and seitan burgers. I should also have some strawberries, and anyway, that's enough, I'm going home.

Seitan burgers? Are you turning vegetarian, Guerrieri? Don't tell me that because I couldn't bear it. You've quit smoking, after two glasses of wine you say you've had enough, and gradually you've stopped eating anything that has any taste, like wonderful fried food, burnt hamburgers and fat tasty sausages, mortadella, desserts with cream, pizzas with lard instead of olive oil. You no longer drink spirits, and let's not even mention sex, for heaven's sake, because you're not getting any of that, and now you're even becoming a vegetarian? Do you drink nettle juice?

All right, I almost never eat meat these days. What of it?

You're a vegetarian.

Let's just say I'm thinking seriously about whether or not it's morally acceptable to eat meat.

What? Thinking seriously about what? You've gone mad. Or rather no – you're getting old and you're starting to have obsessions.

Getting old?
You've
gone mad.

How old are you?

Forty-eight. What of it?

When you were a child, what did you think of a man who was nearly fifty?

It's the wrong question. When I was a child a man of fifty was… very grown-up. But now—

When you were a child you thought that at the age of fifty a man was almost old. Your grandfather was seventy, he had friends who were younger, and to you they were all old. Is that true or not?

I arrived home and the conversation fizzled out as quickly as it had started.

For a few moments, as I entered my apartment, I felt legitimate pride. A few days earlier, after many years, I had decided to tidy up a bit.

Actually it hadn't really been a choice. The situation had got out of hand, particularly because of the books. Apart from those on the shelves, there were books everywhere. On the floor, on the tables, on the sofas, in the bathroom, in the kitchen – and let's be honest, not all of them were indispensable.

Even just getting to the punchbag, which hung ever more angrily in the middle of the living room, had become quite difficult. Then, one night, surfing the Internet, I came across the term
disposophobia
.

Disposophobia, also known as pathological accumulation or compulsive hoarding, is a mental disorder characterized by the obsessive need to acquire a large number of objects without using or throwing them away, even if they are useless, dangerous or unhealthy. Compulsive hoarding hampers and significantly damages basic activities like moving about, cooking, cleaning, washing and sleeping. As it happened, cleaning and moving about, at the very least, had become quite complicated in my apartment. The condition is egosyntonic, according to experts. That is, it is not perceived as disabling. On the contrary, the individual concerned finds a thousand justifications to continue his own compulsive
accumulating. Until the point of no return is reached, and the sufferer realizes that the work he'll need to do to tidy up and clear the space is immense and impossible and finds himself torn between the need to keep things and the necessity to get rid of them in order to survive.

I had read enough. I have a certain aptitude for recognizing in myself the symptoms – or at least the early warnings – of the most varied psychiatric conditions. That web page was clearly about me, and I'd have to run for cover before it was too late. To cut a long story short, the following Saturday I got hold of lots of boxes and for several hours filled them with books, to be given to jumble sales or thrown in recycling bins. The idea of throwing books into recycling bins may be upsetting, but what else can you do with volumes called things like
Meditations for the Bathroom
,
Practical Manual of Self-Hypnosis, 101 Cures for Insomnia, How Proust can change your Life
and many other similar titles?

I had bought those books. When I go into a bookshop, my inhibitors become deactivated, and I can buy all kinds of things. It's only later that I can't remember why and wonder what kind of entity possessed me in the half-hour I spent between the shelves.

It had been rather an exhausting Saturday, but on Sunday morning, when I woke up, I'd felt it had been worth it. The windows seemed larger and the light spread more freely. If the opportunity presented itself, I might even be able to invite someone to dinner.

After enjoying the spectacle of tidiness for a few moments and saying hello to my friend Mr Punchbag, I went to make lunch.

The conversation with my shadow, though, had shaken me a little, and in order to avoid further sarcastic remarks
I decided, just for the day, to do without food that was too healthy. The seitan, the Brussels sprouts and the soya chunks stayed in the fridge and the pantry, waiting for better times. I prepared a dressing of garlic, oil,
very
spicy chilli pepper, black olives, anchovies and fried breadcrumbs, boiled two hundred grams of spaghetti from the Abruzzi, drained it while it was still hard and tossed it in the pan. I also decided to break the
No alcohol at lunch
rule. I opened a bottle of Primitivo and drank a good half of it. At that point, it occurred to me that I could even allow myself a little nap. As I slipped into the delicious no man's land of an afternoon nap, I vowed that it wouldn't become a habit.

Maybe.

5

About ten days had passed since the Bronzino trial and I had just got back to the office after a pointless hearing, which had finished in the afternoon with the umpteenth postponement.

As soon as I entered, Pasquale came to meet me, an almost desolate expression of apology on his face. The expression of someone who would like to have done something to avoid an unpleasantness, but hasn't been able to.

Pasquale Macina has worked his whole life in lawyers' offices. He began at the age of nineteen as a deputy clerk (it isn't true, I invented the rank) in the practice of a leading barrister who was a friend of my grandfather's. He continued with another famous criminal lawyer, also of the old school, a contemporary of my father's. And now, well past sixty, he's with me.

His existence is founded on a few basic, unbreakable rules. Some of these have to do with hierarchies – understood as a metaphor for the necessary order of the universe – and their corresponding rituals. For example, you never call the lawyer you work for by his first name, although it is taken for granted that said lawyer calls you by your first name. Otherwise the relationship, deprived of its form, is impoverished, doesn't work and may lead to negative consequences. Don't think I've invented all this out of my inclination towards conjecture.
Oh, no, it was Pasquale himself, in a memorable conversation a few days after he began working in my office, who explained it to me.

“Pasquale, I have to ask you a favour. I called you by your first name, it seemed quite natural, and I'd like it if you did the same, otherwise I'd feel awkward.”

“You mustn't, Avvocato, but I can't call you by your first name.”

“Then maybe I shouldn't call you by yours. That'd be more correct.”

As I said this, I saw it for what it was. An abstraction, banal and stupid.

“If you don't mind me saying so, I think it would be wrong. Very wrong. Our relationship is honest, sincere and, if you don't mind my saying so, friendly, because it goes along the right tracks. We must see that it stays on those tracks. I'm convinced that we're friends. I think, however, that this friendship follows rules that are a little different from what I might call traditional friendships. They are rules that help to guarantee loyalty and spontaneity between us.”

And that was all.

“He's back,” Pasquale said.

With a sigh, I dropped my bag on the floor and let my shoulders droop. “That's not possible. What are we going to do with him?”

“I'm sorry. As usual, he rang the doorbell and when I opened, there he was. If you'll allow me—”

“Pasquale, please don't say: if you'll allow me. Just say what you have to say.”

“The fact is, Ignazio comes to you because you give him too much rope. When the other people in the building meet
him, they pretend not to see him, they don't even answer him and he loses interest. You're too—”

“Pasquale, let's just drop it. Where is he?”

“In the conference room. He switched on the TV. He's watching – what do they call it? – that channel the kids watch—”

“MTV.”

“That's the one.”

Ignazio is a young man with serious mental health problems. Up until the age of twenty-three, apparently, he was normal. Then, overnight, he went mad. I realize that isn't a perfect description from a psychiatric point of view, but I think it describes what happened to him effectively enough.

He has an invalidity pension and takes various drugs, he lives with his parents in an apartment in the same building as my office, he's harmless (I hope), and above all, he loves animals. The problem is that he's convinced he can talk to them and, at least a couple of times a month (but sometimes, as at this particular time, even more frequently), he comes and tells me what they've told him, because it's usually information about important crimes.

I walked into the conference room. He didn't hear me because he was concentrating very hard on a video – the volume wasn't exactly moderate – and was following the images and the rhythm of the music with unsynchronized movements of his head and shoulders.

“Ignazio!”

He turned, still moving, and gave me the usual gentle, sad smile. “Avvocato Guido, hello.”

“Hello, Ignazio, what's up?”

“Something very important. Do you have a cigarette?”

“No, Ignazio, you know I haven't smoked for years.”

“Well, I have cigarettes,” he said with perfect consistency, searching in a pocket of his jacket and taking out two packets of Marlboro Lights, both open. “Would you like one?”

“No, thanks, Ignazio, I told you I don't smoke.”

“It's all right to smoke here, isn't it?”

“Sure, but open the window.”

He went to the window, opened it, looked out, waved at someone – probably a dog passing with its master – and went and sat down. He lit his cigarette with a Zippo. “Can I throw the ash on the floor?”

“It's best not to. I'll give you an ashtray.”

He took two or three almost ferocious drags at his cigarette, then went back to the window as if he'd suddenly remembered something he had to check. “We have to tap his phone,” he said at last, abruptly.

“Whose phone, Ignazio?”

“The owner of the pork butcher's where my mother goes. I'm not eating the mortadella ever again.”

“Why, what's the matter with the mortadella?”

Ignazio lowered his voice and leaned towards me, blowing smoke in my face. “He makes it with dog meat.”

“How do you know?”

“There's a rumour going around among the neighbourhood dogs. They're very worried. The problem is, I told my parents and they don't believe me.”

“No?”

“No, they think the things my friends tell me are bullshit. But they're true. Luckily, you believe me.”

There. Pasquale was right.

“But are you sure? How does he manage to get hold of the dogs without their masters realizing?”

He made a gesture of polite self-importance, like a kind
teacher dealing with a stupid pupil. “He takes strays that wander the streets at night.”

“But there aren't any stray dogs in this city.”

“There are hardly any left because he's taken almost all of them. To make mortadella. The few remaining are hiding. They're afraid. That's why we have to tap his phone, don't you see? Do you have a cigarette?”

“No, Ignazio. I don't smoke.”

He lit another cigarette, silently, concentrating hard. Then he turned to me again. “This is the number of the pork butcher's, for the phone tap,” he said, taking out a little piece of squared paper, like a page from a school exercise book, and holding it out to me. “I wrote it out secretly from mother's diary. It's the number she calls to have the shopping delivered. I don't want to go there. Do you think it's possible he makes the smoked ham out of dogs too?”

“I don't think so. I think that would be difficult.”

“So I can eat the smoked ham?”

“Yes, I'm sure you can. You'll be safe with the ham.”

“Oh, I'm pleased, because I really like smoked ham. I like rolls with smoked ham and cheese slices. Do you like them, Avvocato Guido?”

“Actually, it's a long time since I last ate that kind of roll. But yes, I used to like them.”

“Then one day I'll bring two and we can eat them together.” He let about ten seconds go by and assumed an expression of polite impatience. “So what about the phone tap?”

“We'll do it next week.”

He looked at me with disappointment and a hint of suspicion in his eyes. “Can't you do it right away?”

“Unfortunately not, Ignazio. We need to fill in a form.”

“What form?”

“We need to get a form from the court, write down everything for the phone tap, and give it to the judge.”

“So we have to go to the judge? We should go together.”

“There's no need, I'll go, don't worry. That's a lawyer's job, isn't it?”

He turned pensive. He was processing the information I'd given him. At last, he nodded resolutely. “If I hear anything else in the meantime, I'll let you know right away.”

“Excellent idea. Now, Ignazio, you'll have to go because I have an appointment with another client and I don't want to keep him waiting.”

“Of course, of course.” And after a brief pause: “Avvocato Guido, can you give me your mobile number? Then, if there's an emergency, I can call you and you can come right away.”

“I'd be happy to give it to you, Ignazio. The problem is that I'm changing contracts right now and I think I'll have a new number by tomorrow. There's no point in my giving you the old one, is there?”

“You know something, Avvocato Guido?”

“What, Ignazio?”

“I'm happy when I come to see you, because you understand what I'm saying. Other people are crazy. I tell them what I hear from my animal friends and they look at me with an expression that tells me they don't believe me. You understand, you're more intelligent.”

“Thank you, Ignazio, that's nice to hear.”

He looked at me for a few moments longer as if to underline the concept, to confirm that he really meant what he had said.

God knows how he was when he was a child. God knows what he dreamt of doing and what his parents dreamt for him. Maybe they imagined he would become a doctor, or a lawyer, or an engineer, and that he would be with them in
their old age, instead of which they had found themselves trapped by life, with a fear of dying that was different from the one we all have: the fear of leaving their son, a child in a man's body, alone and helpless.

“Can I give you a little kiss, Avvocato Guido?”

“All right, Ignazio.”

He approached and I smelt the stale smell of hundreds of Marlboros, smoked one after the other, with which his clothes and his hair were impregnated. He gave me a delicate kiss on the cheek, like a child kissing its father.

“Now you must excuse me, Avvocato Guido, I have to go. I'll be back soon, though. Please see to that matter.”

“Don't worry, Ignazio, I'll deal with it. Let me walk you to the door.”

We walked down the corridor together, watched from the other offices.

“We'll see each other soon. Right now, I'm going to work.”

“Where are you going, Avvocato Guido?”

“I'm going to my office, to work.”

“Do you have a cigarette?”

“No, Ignazio, I don't smoke.”

“Then take one of mine,” he said, taking out the two packets.

“Don't light it now, or the smoke will linger on the stairs and the other people in the building will get angry. Light it when you're in the street.”

“But isn't it forbidden to smoke in the street?”

“No, you can smoke in the street. It's in church that you can't smoke.”

A few days earlier, he had been caught for the umpteenth time smoking in church, and for the umpteenth time the parish priest had kicked up a fuss, threatening to call the local health authority, the municipal police, the paratroopers.

“Can you give me money to buy cigarettes?” he said, even though he still had the two half-used packets in his hand.

I took out my wallet, extracted a ten-euro note and gave it to him. “Since you already have cigarettes, keep the money. Or else get yourself an ice cream or fruit juice.”

“But when I finish them, can I buy more with these ten euros?”

“Yes, Ignazio, you can.” I managed to hold myself back from saying that he ought to smoke less, that smoking is bad for you, and so on. Apart from the fact that it would have been futile, I wondered if it would have been
right
. I once knew a lady, a client, whose two children had been killed in a road accident. She smoked a lot, but not in a nervous way. Methodically, you might say. She would drag fiercely at the smoke, and it was as if each mouthful spread through her body like a medicine that a mad doctor had forced her to take regularly. Once – we were in a break during the trial for culpable homicide of the lorry driver who had killed her children – someone told her that she ought to quit.

She replied, in a calm tone that sent shivers down my spine: “I'm alone, with a grief that won't leave me until I die. I can only bear it thanks to these cigarettes. If I didn't smoke I'd go crazy. And if I go crazy with grief, what do I care about the risk to my heart, or the risk of tumours and all that stuff? I'm killing myself anyway, so it's better to do it this way.” And there was nothing else to add.

“All right, goodbye, then,” Ignazio said, unaware of the intense activity in my mind.

The afternoon passed normally. Even just a few days later I wouldn't have been able to remember what had happened, but a few minutes before eight a call came in.

“Yes?”

“Avvocato, there's a call for you.” There was something odd about Pasquale's voice that I couldn't figure out.

“Who is it?”

A brief pause. “Judge Larocca.”

Now I was the one who paused for a moment. “Judge Larocca? The head of the appeal court?”

“Yes.”

“Put him through.”