The Bottom of Your Heart (52 page)

I was looking at the man who had murdered my husband and my baby, Commissario; and at the same time he was my husband and the father of my child. I felt as if I had just plummeted into a nightmare without end. Why did you tell me? I asked him. For what reason?

He said nothing for a little while. Then he told me: I'm in love. And I want to experience this love without subterfuge, happily. Still, I don't want to lose my career, a career I've conquered with so much hard work, and with your presence. So I want you to know what I'm capable of. And I'm sure that you, who have made your own personal success the sole guiding principle of your life, will be very careful not to ruin everything: your son, first and foremost, would be ruined for the rest of his life. And you can't prove any of this. Absolutely none of it.

He was right, and I understood that instantly. I had no other choice.

We'll go on exactly as before, he told me. Actually, it will be better, because now everything will be so much clearer. But with our friends, our relatives, our acquaintances: the same as before.

I stopped sleeping with him. I had a bed made up in Federico's room. I was afraid to leave my son alone, I had no idea what was going through the mind of that lunatic. After a couple of days he came to ask me, as natural as could be, what kind of gift I'd like for my name day. I'll take nothing from your hands, I replied, but he just laughed and said that it was important to keep up appearances, and that included a name day gift, so I might as well tell him what I wanted. And that's when I thought of Nicola.

A few months earlier I'd happened to run into an old friend who still lived in the neighborhood and who I hadn't seen since we were children; I couldn't even tell you how we recognized each other, when we came face-to-face in the street. We'd chatted for a while, and she was the one who told me that Nicola was still waiting for me. That in all these years no one had ever seen him with a woman; he still lived with his mother, who had lost her mind, and he'd set up in business for himself, becoming the finest goldsmith in the
borgo
. Now I understood the reason behind that chance meeting: fate had shown me the way.

I told Tullio that I'd heard good things about this goldsmith, and that I'd like a ring. He was happy to have an opportunity to meet me halfway: he thought he was sealing an armistice of some sort. I later found out that he'd also commissioned a second ring for his whore, but by then there was nothing he could do to offend me.

I went to see Nicola. First at home: but I found only his mother, with the woman who looked after the apartment building. Incredibly, the mad old thing recognized me the minute she laid eyes on me. He's certainly still down in his workshop, even though it's late, the woman told me, and I went to look for him there.

When he saw me I must have seemed like a ghost to him. He told his young apprentice to go away, then he stood up and walked toward me. Lord, what had become of him. It broke my heart to think what we'd been like, as children, when we used to go down and watch the steamships set sail for America.

We talked. And we talked again, that time and the other times that I went back to that workshop, always at night, always when he was all alone in that deserted
vicolo
. He listened to me openmouthed, with a half-smile on his face, whatever I told him. He was just as much in love as he ever had been, in fact, much more than before. To his mind, which had never accepted anything else, I was his goddess, the sole custodian of the happiness he had once brushed up against.

I slowly brought him around to think what I wanted him to think. Tullio had gone to see him, to order first one ring, then the second. And Nicola would go and deliver the finished rings to him at night, at the general hospital. There was no need for anything more. I knew what he would do, even though he had never discussed it explicitly. I wanted it, he knew I wanted it. And that was enough.

One night, the last night we saw each other, he asked me what I would do afterward. If it happened that Tullio was no longer on the face of the earth, if he was made to pay for what he'd done. I didn't have the heart to lead him on, that was more than I could bring myself to do. I told him that I would look after my son, and tend to the honor of his name.

I wouldn't want anyone else beside me, I added.

He said nothing. Probably he understood. I was different from the little girl he remembered, who had been on his arm at the festival of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

That night he told me that there was a vow to the Madonna he had to keep, a vow he'd made when I left, and that he had made a heart of gold. I didn't want to see it, I already felt soiled enough as it was. I bade him farewell with a kiss on the lips. He was trembling.

I prepared myself to wait. I pulled out the pathetic letter that Ruspo wrote, the one that Tullio had laughed at some time ago, and I kept it there, knowing I could use it when the time came.

I only needed to wait. Because I knew what would happen.

I knew it, at the bottom of my heart.

W
hen Maria Carmela Iovine was done talking, it was as if no words had actually been spoken in the whispered monotone that had lulled them until now.

Maione observed the two profiles, Ricciardi's and the woman's, overlapping as if on a coin, both of them raptly following the images that the sentiments and emotions sketched in her account seemed to project in the air before their eyes.

The crickets, as if responding to a command, had begun chirping again. Maria Carmela's hand moved, snapping open the lock on her purse and searching inside. It reemerged, her black-gloved fingers holding a folded sheet of paper.

“He wrote to me. A little boy delivered this sheet of paper to my concierge, yesterday, and then took to his heels. In it he declares what he did, as if I didn't already know. I think he wanted to shield me from all suspicion. He tells me that he doesn't regret it, and that it would have been so much better if we had left together, when we were children. He hopes that I am able to give him a decent burial, even if he did what he did. And then he says that I am the only one, at the bottom of his heart. And he hopes that there is still a place for him, at the bottom of mine.”

Maione was overwhelmed by a great sense of pity for Coviello, murderer and suicide, a victim and executioner for love. And he tried to imagine the profound essence of his regret or the beauty of his perennial wait.

The widow Iovine turned slowly and, for the first time, looked at Ricciardi.

“Now do you understand why I'm here, Commissario? I owe him this. I have a friend who is a high prelate, I won't tell you his name; he spoke to a certain parish priest who will officiate at the funeral and ensure that he is buried in a Christian congregation, in the cemetery of a town near here, where no one will ask who Nicola Coviello was, a kind friend and an emigrant in his own birthplace. Who can say, he might even have been right. Perhaps we should have left together.”

Ricciardi stood up. His face was a papier-mâché mask.

“Life is full of missed opportunities, Signora. Nothing but missed opportunities. You lived by manipulating men, and you destroyed every man you manipulated; I hope you don't do the same thing to your son, who is as innocent as Coviello was. And I hope that you're able, in the nights that lie in wait, to elude the ghosts that haunt you.”

With a curt bow, he moved off. As Carmela Iovine lowered the veil over her face, her lower lip trembled.

 

For a good part of the way back, they walked in silence. Night was falling, but the activity in the
vicoli
showed no sign of diminishing. The sense of anticipation ahead of the impending celebrations for Our Lady of Mount Carmel, celebrations which would culminate with the burning of the bell tower, was palpable.

As if speaking to himself, Maione said: “There are times, Commissa', I'll tell you the truth, when I'd rather not know why certain things happen. I say: can't we just limit ourselves to finding out who did it, and be done with it? Like just now, for example, we knew that the one who threw the professor out the window was Coviello, right? Wasn't that enough?”

Ricciardi shook his head and went on walking: “Everything is connected to something else. Like a string of pearls. Every single event, everything that happens, has a root, a motive that can stretch back in time many years, as you just heard now.”

“I know that, I know, Commissa', and who am I to quibble? Still, in this case, wouldn't it have been enough for Signora Iovine to pull that letter out of her purse and show it to us? That way, we could all have just assumed that it was jealousy that drove Coviello to do what he did. He was still in love with the woman, the woman's husband comes to him to order two rings, he tries to see if the woman will come back to him, she says no, he murders his rival and then hangs himself. Wouldn't that have been simpler, more normal? Easier?”

“But when have things ever been simple, Raffaele? You're not taking into account one important element: the woman's need to stop harboring within her the evil that the professor did to her. Her first husband's murder, the miscarriage of her first baby. She sentenced the professor to death; what Coviello did was to execute him. What good is a death sentence, if no one knows that it has been carried out?”

Maione walked on a ways in silence. Then he said: “Certainly, the signora knew how to do a good job. In point of fact, she murdered the professor but kept herself safe from harm. She won't go to prison, and she'll pay no price for what she did. Certain woman seem kind and delicate, in their starched dresses and their jewelry, but deep down they have souls fouler than any sewer. Others look like sin made flesh and instead they're really just little girls, at heart.”

“You're thinking about Sisinella, aren't you? Perhaps you're sorry about the way you treated her, that poor girl? You came dangerously close to slapping her face.”

“You're right about that, Commissa', I was just on edge and I took it all out on her; but afterward I thought better of it and went back to see her, to say I was sorry. She was in terrible shape, that coward of a
pianino
player even dumped her, just like he told us he would. And I have to admit that I went by the office and got the ring, the one that the professor commissioned, and gave it to her.”

Ricciardi stopped short: “Really? But you know, don't you, that you had no right to take things into your own hands like that? The ring was part of the professor's estate, and therefore . . .”

The brigadier interrupted him: “And therefore belongs to his legitimate heirs, I know, Commissa', I know. But it occurred to me that the professor's real wishes, if Coviello had allowed him to write out his will before tossing him out the top-floor window, would have been to get the ring to Sisinella, so I did what the dead man wanted. And after all, I have to tell you the truth, Commissa': I decided that the widow and her son have plenty of money of their own, enough to live not just comfortably, but in luxury for the rest of their lives. While for poor Sisinella, that ring could spell the difference between a decent life and being forced back into the inferno. Maybe she deserved that chance, what do you think? And maybe the professor might have already given her that ring, or he might have hidden it somewhere, never to be found: who can say?”

Ricciardi started walking again: “Let's just do this, Brigadier Maione: you didn't tell me anything, and I can't remember seeing any jewelry in the professor's office except for Signora Iovine's ring. In fact, remind me to arrange to inventory everything that's in that office, so that the victim's property can be made available to the widow and her son, along with the apartment in Vomero that has, until now, been occupied by Sisinella. All right?”

Maione touched his fingers to his visor. They'd reached the front entrance of police headquarters.

“Yessir, Commissa', at your orders as always. Best regards then, I'm heading home. Tomorrow, I'm taking the day off: I'm going to take Lucia and the kids to see the burning of the bell tower, like every year. You have the day free too, don't you?”

“Yes, Raffaele, I do. Garzo gave me the day off for Livia's party; apparently the whole city is talking about nothing else. Right now I'm going to write my report, and then I'll go to the hospital to see Rosa until Bruno kicks me out: he just keeps telling me that I'm not allowed to stay in a women's ward.”

Maione, in an unusually personal gesture, laid a hand on Ricciardi's shoulder: “Commissa', I'm the last person who'd want to say this sort of thing, but the thing is, Signora Rosa . . . do you really think that we ought to wish for her to go on living much longer in this condition? We don't know if she's suffering, if she's in pain, if she wants to move but can't, wants to talk but is unable. I'm so, so sorry for her. And for you, too, Commissa'. Sir, I wanted to tell you . . . I've been thinking about this for several days now: you aren't alone, Commissa'. No, you aren't, even if Signora Rosa does go to heaven. You aren't alone, as long as there's a Maione family in Piazzetta Concordia.”

Ricciardi looked the brigadier in the eye: “I know that, Raffaele. I know. All the same, I can't imagine living without her. Now you go home, and make your children laugh; they have every right, and so does Lucia. These are festivals for a family, and you have a wonderful one.”

B
aroness Marta put down her sewing again, and sat listening. She giggled, her fingers covering her mouth like a little girl.

Rosa asked her: “And now why are you laughing, Barone'?”

Marta shook her head, as if caught red-handed: “No, it's just that people, seen from here, can be hilarious sometimes. You'll see for yourself, once you're ready and I'm done embroidering this romper for you. They really can be amusing.”