The Loneliness of the Spider

Chapter 12

I enter a bar. There is a table free near the window. From there I can keep an eye on the corner of Via Santa Caterina. I’m counting on the fact that if there were any developments I would sense it from here. I have a good nose for certain things. I put my overcoat on a chair and my umbrella against the wall. It makes a small puddle on the floor. The waiter, in waistcoat and tie, is standing in the doorway pinching the seam of his work pants. He’s watching the police. He doesn"t give a damn about what’s happening behind him.

"I reckon he’s from around here," he says out loud.

The girl behind the counter pulls a glass out of the steaming rack of the dishwasher and rubs it with a damp cloth. She has short hair and is cross-eyed.

"What makes you think that?" she asks.

He turns around lazily. He notices me. He shuffles across to me.

"What can I get for you?"

"A grappa."

"What kind?"

"It’s all the same."

He slips into a small room. Shortly after he arrives with the spirit. I throw down at least half of it. I swallow, with a sense of feverish discomfort. From here I can see the entrance of the Quattro Colonne, with droplets running down on top of the corrugated billboard. Shainee Gabel and "A Song for Bobby Long" come to mind. Warm and romantic New Orleans, with that detached atmosphere, of life on hold, and a vague crackle in the background like cigarettes burning. And then the rain. A downpour of water that suddenly covers the screen, drowning out the dialog with its grace and its roar. I go to the cashier. Someone might have shown up in the meantime. As soon as I’m outside I breathe the cold air. It has stopped raining. A trickle of crystal clear water is running along the street in twists and folds like an old bedspread. I head towards Via Santa Caterina. As I go closer I see it open up slowly, like a boiled clam. It"s such a narrow alleyway that two people could talk to each other from one window to another without even raising their voices. It recalls the medieval villages, the streets of Venice, and if it were not for the noise of the storm it would seem impossible that something has happened there without anyone noticing a thing. When he sees me, the guy in loden spreads his arms and beckons to me to come.

"Any news?" I ask.

"Some guy has arrived. He knew the boy. They lived together."

"Where?"

"Up there?"

He points to a building. He has bad breath. An acrid stench of onion and rotten teeth. I step back. He comes after me. I light a cigarette and hit him with thick, full-bodied clouds of smoke.

"What did he do when he saw his friend on the ground?"

"He put his hand over his mouth. Like this..."

He simulates the gesture.

"Where is he now?"

"He"s trying to contact the family," says a girl.

She is wearing a woolen cap on her head that separates two even-cut slabs of straight hair. Her facial features are angular, the eyebrows very thin.

"Did you know him?" I ask her.

She thinks about it.

"By sight. I work as a salesgirl in the shoe shop opposite. I used to see him go by."

"Listen, I"m a journalist. Do you have any idea of what might have happened?"

"The only thing I know is that he worked as a waiter at Calamannaro. It’s near Piazza D"Armi, in the back streets. A friend told me."

"Nothing else?"

"No, I"m sorry."

I look around. I observe people"s faces. There is no amazement, there is no horror. Just curiosity. We are accustomed to all kinds of obscenities. I saw the images on television once of a journalist shooting himself in the head. A piece of brain ended up out of the frame. I feel a twitch of rebellion, a confused sense of repressed unwillingness. I would like everyone to go away, and return to floating placidly in the pond of their tepid lives. I"m wasting time, I should leave the plethora of contingencies and understand what the cops are thinking. They’re the experts, the truffle dogs. I look for my old friend. I run my eyes through the crowd. I see him. He is wearing a gray overcoat and his hair is still black, despite his age. A group of people is moving around him, without saying a word. It"s strange to see him at work. People who do that type of work usually have a brusque, hasty manner, the temperament of people who are accustomed to dealing with pimps and rapists. You have to know how to squeeze their balls without batting an eyelid. He doesn"t seem the type to me, though. He is tranquil, quiet. He does his job without ruffling the waters. I"m about to approach him when I notice a girl. She is on the opposite side of the street, with her hands in her pockets. The thick red hair, flattened by a beret, makes her look like a budding actress from the Comédie-Francaise. She has an asymmetrical, uneven face, as if there were not a single trait the same as another in her whole body. She"s like a Picasso painting, one eye up and one down, the hand with four fingers, but in the end everything recomposes into an idea intrinsic to beauty. I stand in awe, hopelessly seduced by her cold misgiving. I don"t believe in elective affinities. Goethe was a cheat, a peddler of snake oil. He invented the story and blurted it out like a segment of truth unveiled. What is it then? The girl could be in her twenties, give or take a few years. I am convinced that she is involved in the thing up to her neck. I can read it in her eyes. There is no way of deceiving me, there is no possibility of dismissing me. I am a hound, the king of games, the incorruptible Cerberus who exercises his humble office with rigor and skill.

She is keeping to herself, cut out and aloof. A lock of hair slips from her beret, bouncing into the void like a crimson spring. A small diamond of light shines for just one moment, in the corner of one eye. Then it disappears.