Authors: Giorgio Scerbanenco
‘He was supposed to give him the M6, but he didn’t, he kept it for himself.’
‘And then?’
‘Then Ulrico found out that Silvano would be going to get the M6 from Turiddu that evening, to get it circulated, and if Turiddu told Silvano that Ulrico hadn’t given him the M6 he’d got in Genoa, Silvano would have known that he still had the M6, so he went to the Binaschina and crashed into Turiddu with his car and pushed him and his lady friend into the Naviglio.’
This too was quite logical: the courier keeps the drugs for himself, instead of passing it to the man who distributes it to the salesmen – it’s more advantageous to work for yourself – then kills the distributor to cover up the fact that he didn’t hand it over to him. ‘And then?’ he said to Claudio Valtraga, disgusted.
‘And then, as soon as Turiddu died, we waited a couple of days to see if the police had found the M6 on him but it was obvious from the start that you lot hadn’t found anything, because he’d never received it, and we went to Ulrico, and he told me he’d handed the M6 over to Turiddu, and I believed him, that’s why I can’t forgive him.’ He’d cut him in half with a saw, but he still couldn’t forgive him.
Duca felt his stomach heave up into his throat, a wonderful sensation of moral nausea. ‘Go on, toerag,’ he said in a muted voice.
He went on. ‘It’s because if Ulrico had handed the drugs over to Turiddu, then the person who killed Turiddu had to have been Silvano, who’d got the M6 off him and then, to keep it for himself instead of circulating it, threw him, Turiddu, in the Naviglio. That’s why I had to deal with Silvano and Giovanna. Because as soon as THEY found out that Ulrico had handed the stuff over to Turiddu, they told me, Deal with it, and I dealt with Silvano, but Ulrico had tricked me.’ His anger at having been tricked distorted his
face even more than it was already distorted by the sticking plasters and he looked even more repulsive, sitting there with the sun still beating down on him. ‘It wasn’t Silvano who’d taken the stuff from Turiddu, it was Ulrico who’d kept it for himself.’
Inside himself, Duca started to laugh: Carrua was right, it was a good thing they were killing each other, a good thing they were betraying each other, a good thing they were stealing drugs from each other. Those three falls into the Naviglio and the Lambro made perfect sense now: it was an internal feud among the members of a large concern with wide and varied activities, both national and foreign. There was only one thing that still remained obscure. ‘So what happened to the two loads of mescaline 6?’
‘Ulrico hid them, but I couldn’t get him to tell me where, he kept saying he didn’t know anything about it, and then – then I lost patience.’
Of course, a person can lose patience, and that’s when he kills. Duca lowered his eyes and looked at the ground, in order not to see that piece of trash, and luckily at that moment an officer came in with the coffee with the grappa and the other officer who was already there served it to the citizen Claudio Valtraga, to give him a bit of a pick-me-up because he was feeling very down, and, until he had had a proper trial, it was forbidden to call him a killer.
‘When he’s finished his coffee,’ Duca said, his eyes still lowered, ‘take him back to his cell. I want him out of my sight.’
Yes, Dr Lamberti,’ Mascaranti said.
And when the officer had left the room with the citizen Claudio Valtraga, Duca looked up and said to Mascaranti, ‘We’ve finished here, I’m going home,’ He lit a cigarette. ‘The only thing left is the business of those two bags of
mescaline 6. If Ulrico kept the bags for himself, he may have given them to his old friend Rosa Gavoni to hide. These idiots didn’t think of looking at her place. Go there and talk to her, for me the whole thing’s over.’
‘She’s in hospital,’ Mascaranti said. ‘She was taken there in shock after she identified the body of Ulrico Brambilla.’
It was a lot more than shock, he understood her very well. ‘Question her as soon as you can, she’s bound to talk, to get her revenge on the people who killed her man.’
They left the office with the broom abandoned in a corner and went upstairs, to Carrua’s office. Carrua was writing. ‘Well?’ he said.
‘Mascaranti wrote it all down, he’ll tell you,’ Duca said. ‘I’ve finished and I’m going home.’
‘We’re getting some big fish here,’ Carrua said, ‘You wouldn’t believe some of the names I’ve arrested.’
‘Be careful they don’t break your net, if they’re that big.’
‘And you’re breaking my balls.’ He looked daggers at him, a furious Sardinian.
Whereas Duca Lamberti, the furious Emilian, looked at him with a smile. ‘That’s why I’m going. I’ve finished. There are some drugs that are missing, it’s still a bit unclear what happened to them, but Mascaranti can deal with it. I’m going.’
‘Wait a minute. I wanted to tell you you did really well. This was the biggest gang in the North of Italy.’
‘It was good of you to trust someone like me,’ Duca said. ‘You’re a talent scout, you recognise genius.’
‘Sit down a minute, I have to talk to you, don’t be such a smart alec.’
‘I won’t sit down, thanks, I’ve been sitting down all this time looking at a toerag.’
‘I just wanted to tell you you did very well.’
‘You already told me.’
‘Let me talk, Duca, otherwise I’ll get angry.’ He was speaking in a touchingly low voice. ‘You did very well and I can see to it that you get put on a salary here.’
‘I’d like that, and I like the work. How much will the salary be?’ A hundred and forty thousand, maybe, because he was recommended by Carrua, plus travel expenses every now and again, if he was good. If a criminal shot him and blinded him, for example, they would send him at the State’s expense to a school for the re-education of blind people, and they would teach him to be a switchboard operator: hadn’t there been, up until a few years ago, a switchboard operator in Headquarters who was a blind former police officer?
‘Yes, I knew you’d answer that way,’ Carrua said, ‘but with a hundred and forty thousand lire a month you can’t support your sister and niece.’
He’d guessed right, a hundred and forty thousand, he could guess the future, he could even become a psychic. ‘Well, then?’
‘I think I can have you put back on the medical register,’ Carrua said, ‘not the same way as that other fellow, what was his name, the one who reminded me of Solvay soda?’
‘Silvano Solvere.’ He had stopped smiling.
‘That’s right, Silvano Solvere, he promised you he would get you put back on the register, I can’t promise it for certain, but I can tell you that if you write me a letter, just a few lines, you know, within a month you may be able to reopen your clinic and I’ll come there for a consultation because – ’
‘Forget about that, just tell me what kind of letter I need to write.’ He was very serious now.
‘There’s no point in making a face like a rabid dog,’ Carrua shouted now, and carried on shouting, ‘I have to explain something to you and I’ll explain it even if you’re rabid.’
‘I
am
rabid.’
‘And I’ll explain it all the same. The letter has to go something like this: I did three years in prison for having, in my capacity as a doctor, killed a patient of mine with an injection of ircodine, for the purpose of euthanasia. I recognise now that, even though driven by idealistic and humanitarian motives, I made a mistake. Euthanasia is an absolutely inadmissible practice, the death of each individual must come only for reasons independent of the will of man and, beyond the duty to help every individual by any means possible, an individual has the right to hope until the last moment of his life. And admitting this mistake I give my word that I will never do it again and I asked to be readmitted to the medical register, etc., etc.’
‘Yes,’ Duca said.
‘What do you mean, yes? If you mean you’ll write it, there’s the typewriter, write the letter, sign it, give it to me and I’ll see to the rest.’
‘ “Yes” means I’ll think about it.’
Carrua was about to start shouting again, but restrained himself. ‘It doesn’t seem to me there’s much to think about, but all right, think about it. But hurry up. The professor who may be able to help me is only in Milan for a few days.’
‘All right, I’ll hurry up,’ he said icily. ‘Can I go?’
‘Yes, you can go,’ Carrua said.
He left the Headquarters building, at the corner with the Via dei Giardini he lit a national-brand cigarette and smoked all of it, to calm down, which was easy enough to do, because Milan at the moment was so beautiful, it didn’t even seem like Milan, with that clear air, the light like the Swiss mountains, maybe there had been some meteorological error, and having smoked his cigarette he went on his way, he entered the galleries in the Piazza Cavour, and went to
the big bookshop, a kind of gleaming ark containing all the books in existence. He went to this bookshop every now and again, he was friendly with the intelligent-looking young man who worked there, and also the tall young woman who worked there and also looked very intelligent, pleasantly intelligent. They were both there, and they both smiled at him.
‘Excuse me,’ he said to the young man, ‘do you have the edition of the works of Galileo Galilei edited by Sebastiano Timpanaro?’
‘The one from 1936? I think so.’ Quickly, efficiently, he sent another young woman to look for the edition and after a couple of minutes there they were, the beautiful volumes bound in parchment, with the top edge gilded, the absolutely complete writings of Galileo Galilei. Duca had looked through them once, as a student, at a friend’s house.
‘I can do you a special discount,’ the young man said.
‘I don’t have any intention of buying them,’ Duca said: he would have liked to buy them and read them, read all the volumes, all the pages, but he would satisfy such a desire in another life, not in this one, there wasn’t time. He started leafing through the first volume, looking for the index.
The young man smiled. ‘If you want to have them to look through for a few days …’
‘That’s very kind, I’ve already found what I was looking for, here it is, in the Galilean Chronology, page 1041 of volume 1:
Recantation.
But maybe I can take advantage of you. Do you have a typewriter I can borrow for a couple of minutes and a sheet of paper?’
‘The typewriter’s over there, and here’s the paper, it’s headed, does that matter?’
‘No, it doesn’t matter, thanks.’ There was a kind of little desk, with a little typewriter on it, and a high-backed chair behind it, as if for a university professor, and they gave it up
to him with a gentle smile. He sat down, put the paper in the typewriter, in delicate lettering at the top of the paper were the words
Cavour Bookshop,
and under it he wrote: Recantation, copying from page 1041 of the works of Galileo Galilei, volume 1, then he lit another cigarette and continued copying:
I, Galileo, son of the late Vincenzo Galilei, of Florence, aged seventy years, arraigned personally before this tribunal, and kneeling before your Most Eminent and Reverend Lords Cardinals, Inquisitors-General of the entire Christian commonwealth against heretical depravity, having the Holy Gospels before my eyes and touching them with my hands, swear that I have always believed, now believe, and with the help of God will in the future believe, all that is held, preached, and taught by the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. But whereas after an injunction had been judicially made against me by this Holy Office, to the effect that I must abandon altogether the false opinion that the sun is the centre of the world and is immovable, and that the earth is not the centre of the world, and moves, and that I must not hold, defend, or teach the said false doctrine in any manner whatsoever, either verbally or in writing, and after it had been signified to me that said doctrine was contrary to Holy Scripture, I wrote and printed a book in which I treat of this same doctrine already condemned, and adduce arguments of great cogency in support of the same, without presenting any solution of these, and for this reason have been judged by the Holy Office to be grievously suspected of heresy, that is, of having held and believed that the Sun is the centre of the world and is immovable, and that the earth is not the centre and moves. Therefore, desiring to remove from the minds of your Eminences, and of all faithful Christians, this grievous suspicion justly entertained towards me, with sincere heart and unfeigned faith I abjure, curse, and detest the said errors and heresies, and generally every other
error, heresy, and sect that is contrary to the said Holy Church, and I swear that I will never again in the future say or assert, either verbally or in writing, anything that might give rise to a similar suspicion against me; but that should I know of any heretic, or person suspected of heresy, I will denounce him to this Holy Office, or to the Inquisitor or Ordinary of the place where I may be.
Poor man, not only was he recanting but, at the age of seventy, he was undertaking to be a spy and to denounce other heretics like himself. History is the teacher of life, and we learn many fine things. With two fingers, but very quickly, he finished copying Galileo Galilei’s recantation:
I, the said Galileo Galilei, have abjured, sworn, promised, and bound myself as above and in witness thereof have with my own hand subscribed the present document of my abjuration,
and recited it word for word, he had even had to recite it,
at Rome, in the Convent of Minerva, this twenty-second day of June, 1633.
And he finished:
I, Galileo Galilei, have abjured as above with my own hand.
‘Thank you,’ he said, standing up, to the young man. ‘Thank you,’ he said to the tall young lady and went out. In the tobacconist’s shop, he bought an envelope and an express stamp, wrote on the envelope
Superintendent Carrua, Milan Police Headquarters,
put it in one of the two new postboxes next to the tram stop in the Piazza Cavour, then walked home, stopping in three bars on the way. In each of them he ate a toasted sandwich, without drinking anything, and at home he drank the water from the tap that didn’t really taste of a mountain stream – on the contrary – then went to bed and tried in vain to sleep.