Authors: Michael Dibdin
‘Aldo Vincenzo was one of the producers I selected more than thirty years ago as worthy of a place in the cellar I then decided to create,’ he declared solemnly, replacing the bottle on the stack with as much care as a baby in its cot. ‘And now he’s dead and his son is in prison, all on the eve of what promises to be one of the great vintages of the century! That’s the reason why you have been “summoned here”, as you put it.’
‘You want to complete your collection.’
‘Exactly!’
‘To continue your horizontal tastings.’
His host regarded Zen sharply, as if suspecting some irony.
‘They might be that,’ he remarked, ‘if one actually swallowed all the wines on offer. Such, of course, is not the way in which a
vertical
tasting is conducted. But in any case, if you imagine that I have any chance of personally enjoying this year’s vintage at its best, you credit me with the longevity of a Methuselah. The patriarch, not the bottle.’
Zen struggled mutely with some internal paroxysm, then sneezed loudly, spraying gobs of sputum over the adjacent wine bins. The famous director grasped him once again by the arm and led him back the way they had come.
‘Enough! We’ll continue this talk upstairs.’
‘I’m all right,’ Zen protested. ‘It’s just this cold I’ve felt coming on for …’
‘I’m not worried about
you
! But sneezing in a cellar risks half the bottles turning out corked. So they say, at any rate. As for the presence of a menstruating woman, forget it! The whole business of wine is full of that sort of lore. I both believe and disbelieve, but with an investment like this I can’t afford to take chances.’
Giulio closed and locked the massive door giving into the vaults and led the way up a long, winding staircase and through an archway leading to the ground floor of the
palazzo
. They passed through several suites of rooms to the book-lined study where he had received Zen on the latter’s arrival, and gestured him into the armchair which he had occupied earlier.
‘As I was saying, the idea that I’m collecting the Vincenzo wine of this year – assuming there is any – for my own benefit is, of course, absurd. If the vintage is even half as good as has been predicted, it will not be remotely approachable for ten years, and won’t reach its peak for another ten. By which time I will be, if not defunct, at least “sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything”, as Shakespeare says.’
‘Then why should you care?’ demanded Zen, lighting a cigarette, which induced another massive fit of coughing. The other man eyed him keenly.
‘Do you have children,
dottore
?’
‘No. That’s to say … Yes. One.’
‘Boy or girl?’
‘A boy. Carlo.’
‘How old?’
There was a long pause.
‘He’s just a baby,’ Zen replied at length.
‘Congratulations! But they grow up rapidly. Hence my interest in this year’s Vincenzo wines. I have two sons, both in the most repulsive period of their teens. At present they regard my interest in wine as just another example of their father’s dotage. If they drink at all, it’s some obscure brand of imported beer, although Luca at least shows promising signs of becoming a
collezionista
about that, too, hunting down limited-release Trappist brews and the like.’
He set about the meticulous business of cutting and lighting a massive cigar.
‘I believe – I
have
to believe – that in time they will come to appreciate what I have bequeathed them, and perhaps even set about extending the cellar far into the next millennium as a heritage for their own children.’
A triumphant puff of blue smoke.
‘But that is to look too far into the future. For the moment, all that concerns me is this harvest! Unless we act now, the grapes will either be sold off to some competitor or crudely vinified into a parody of what a Vincenzo wine could and should be.’
Aurelio Zen tried hard to look suitably concerned at this dire prospect.
‘But what can I do about it?’ he asked. ‘If the son is already under arrest …’
‘I don’t believe for a moment that he did it,’ the famous director exclaimed impatiently.
Zen produced a crumpled handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose.
‘Nevertheless, I’ve been given to understand that the Carabinieri have concluded their investigation. They have pressed charges against Manlio Vincenzo and the case is now in the hands of the judiciary. I don’t see where I come in.’
His host exhaled a dense barrage of smoke.
‘Perhaps you should be more concerned about where you go out,’ he said.
Zen frowned.
‘Go out? You mean, from this house?’
For the first time, Giulio smiled with what appeared genuine amusement.
‘No, no! All appearances to the contrary, I am not planning to immure you in some lost recess of my cellars. Nevertheless, a not dissimilar fate might well await you.’
He eyed Zen keenly.
‘I refer to your next professional posting.’
‘That is a matter of departmental policy,’ Zen replied, drawing on his cigarette.
Another smile, a shade more meaningful.
‘Exactly. And in that regard I wish to draw your attention to various facts of which you are aware, and to another which is as yet privileged information. I shall be brief. Firstly, the current Minister is a man of the Left. Many of his friends and associates in the former Communist Party dedicated their lives to the struggle against organized crime. Some of them were killed as a result.’
His eyes met Zen’s, and slid away.
‘In addition, you have recently been reassigned to work for Criminalpol after your brilliant exploits in Naples where, as the whole country knows, you were instrumental in smashing the terrorist organization known as
Strade Pulite
.’
‘But that was …’
‘A major coup! Indeed. All this you know,
dottore
. What you do not know – what no one outside the Minister’s immediate circle knows – is that he is in the process of forming an élite pool of senior officers who are to be drafted to Sicily to spearhead the coming campaign against the organization which took the lives of his comrades.’
Giulio waved his hand negligently.
‘We’ve all heard this before, of course, every time some judge or police officer was gunned down or blown up. But that was in the days when the Mafia had its men here in Rome, in the highest circles of power. Everyone understood how the game worked. Any over-zealous official who looked like doing some worthwhile work was transferred or killed, the government put up a token show of force, the Mafia made a token show of backing off, and in a few months it was back to business as usual.’
He glanced at Zen, who stifled a cough.
‘But this time, so I am assured, it will be different. A fight to the finish, with no quarter offered. The Mafia’s links to Rome have all been cut, and the new government is eager to show that it can deliver on what its predecessors endlessly promised. As a result, a process of internal head-hunting has been going on for officers of proven experience, ability and – shall we say? – independence.’
He broke off to relight his cigar, holding the tip at a respectful distance from the flame.
‘Your dossier, Dottor Zen, revealed you to have been severely compromised in the eyes of the former regime. This fact, needless to say, put you at the top of the list under the new management. Add to this your evident astuteness and ability to get things done, and you became a natural candidate for the new squad.’
‘They’re sending me to Sicily?’ gasped Zen.
His host nodded.
‘Oh, yes. I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do about that. There’s promotion in it, of course, and a substantial pay rise, but you’re definitely going to have to go south. The only question is when and where.’
For a moment Zen looked as though he was about to burst into tears, but all that emerged was another massive sneeze.
‘Salute!’
said his host. ‘Speaking of which, Sicily is notoriously insalubrious, particularly for newly arrived policemen who might well be drafted straight to the capital. If one were to arrive a little later, on the other hand, once the central command structure had been set up and all posts in Palermo filled, it might prove possible to secure an assignment in some relatively pleasant spot. Do you know Syracuse? An ancient Greek settlement in the least troubled portion of the island, possessing all the charm and beauty of Sicily without being tiresomely … well,
Sicilian
.’
Zen raised his eyes to meet those of his interlocutor.
‘What guarantees do I have?’
A look of pain, almost of shock, appeared on the famous director’s face.
‘You have the guarantee of my word,
dottore
.’
‘And your interest is?’
‘I thought I’d made that clear. I want Manlio Vincenzo released from prison in time to make the wine this year.’
‘Even if he murdered his father?’
A shrug.
‘If he turns out to be innocent, so much the better. But let’s assume that he did kill Aldo. It’s absurd to believe that Manlio Vincenzo poses a threat to any other member of the community. And in the meantime there’s a potentially great wine – maybe
the
great wine of the century – which demands the skill and attention only he can provide.’
He shrugged again, more expansively.
‘After that, I don’t really care what happens to him. In a year the estate will have had time to reorganize, to get another wine-maker or sell out to Gaja or Cerretto, either of whom would be only too glad to get their hands on the Vincenzo vineyards. But for now, Manlio’s my only resource. Just as I’m yours.’
Zen sat trying to catch his breath through the layers of phlegm which had percolated down into his lungs.
‘Why me?’ he demanded point-blank.
The famous director waved the hand holding his cigar, which left a convoluted wake of smoke hanging in the still air.
‘I made various enquiries, as a result of which someone mentioned your name and sketched in the details of your record. Most promising, I thought. You appear to be intelligent, devious and effective, compromised only by a regrettable tendency to insist on a conventional conception of morality at certain crucial moments – a weakness which, I regret to say, has hampered your career. In short,
dottore
, you need someone to save you from yourself.’
Zen said nothing.
‘In return for the services which I have outlined,’ his host continued seamlessly, ‘I offer myself in that capacity. I understand that at one time you enjoyed the favour of a certain notable associated with the political party based at Palazzo Sisti. His name, alas, no longer commands the respect it once did. Such are the perils of placing oneself under the protection of politicians, particularly in the present climate. They come and go, but business remains business. If you do the business for me, Dottor Zen, I’ll do the same for you. For your son, too, for that matter. What was his name again?’
‘Carlo.’
The famous director leant forward and fixed Zen with an intense gaze, as though framing one of his trademark camera angles.
‘Do we have a deal?’
Zen was briefly disabled by another internal convulsion.
‘On one condition,’ he said.
The man known to his friends as Giulio frowned. Conditions were not something he was used to negotiating with the class of hireling which Zen represented.
‘And what might that be?’ he asked with a silky hint of menace.
Aurelio Zen sniffed loudly and blew his nose again.
‘That when you next give a party here, I get an invitation.’
There was a moment’s silence, then the famous director roared with what sounded like genuine laughter.
‘Agreed!’
The meal over, the three men pushed back their chairs and returned to work. At first glance they appeared as interchangeable as pieces on a board. Gianni was slightly stockier than the others, Maurizio was significantly balder, while Minot, who was shorter and slighter than either of the two brothers, wore a foxy moustache above his cynical, down-turned lips. But their similarities were far more striking. They were all of an age, which might have been anywhere from fifty to eighty, worn down by constant labour and near-poverty, with proud, guarded expressions that revealed a common characteristic: the fierce determination never to be fooled again. Their clothes, too, were virtually identical: dark, durable knits and weaves, much patched and mended, each garment a manuscript in palimpsest of tales that would never be told.
They had eaten in silence, waited on by the only woman in the house, Maurizio’s teenage daughter Lisa. Back in the cellar, the long-maintained silence continued. It was not an empty silence, the void remaining once everything sayable has been said, nor yet the relaxed stillness which implies an intimacy or familiarity such that speech has become an irrelevance. This silence was tense with unspoken thoughts, facts and opinions not alluded to, a mutual reticence about things better left unsaid. It could be defused only by activity – filling mouths, or bottles.
The only light, from a single forty-watt bulb attached to a huge beam in the centre of the ceiling, died a lingering death in the lower reaches of the cellar, as though stifled by the darkness all around. The only sounds were repetitive and mechanical, muffled by the wooden casks mounted on wooden trestles which lined the walls. For lack of any other distractions, odour had it all its own way – an over-whelming profusion of smells fighting for prominence like plants in the jungle: yeast, mildew, alcohol, damp, fruit, corruption, fermentation. Their luxuriant variety created an olfactory arena whose dimensions apparently far exceeded those of the cellar itself, and this sense of concentration, of too much crammed into too little, gave an almost choking intensity to the musty reek which filled the lungs of the trio working silently in the gloom.
The division of labour had been established years before, and remained constant. Gianni Faigano, the elder of the two brothers, took the bottles from the rack of wooden pegs where they had been turned over to dry after being washed and sterilized. He filled each with a stream of red wine from a plastic tube inserted into one of the barrels, then passed the bottle to his brother, who positioned it under a metal lever loaded with a cork, which he rammed down into the opening. Maurizio then handed the bottle on to Minot, a neighbour who came by every year at this time to help out with this chore by applying the labels and capsules.