Life Embitters (57 page)

I must have been asleep for some time when a loud bang at the door, made with a hard object – I thought – woke me up. I automatically sat up in bed. The light was switched on, I’d evidently left it like that – carelessly. I was about to jump off my bed to find out what was happening when a second bang, probably a foot kicking the bottom part of the door, suddenly swung one side open. A man was standing on the threshold, silhouetted against the dark passage, holding a shiny object – an object that, the fear coursing through me imagined was a revolver, a revolver aimed, naturally, at where I was sitting. It lasted a moment; he seemed young, was elegantly dressed in black, with a perfect parting on his bare head between shiny, greased hair. I also thought his hard, taut facial features had a healthy color. I don’t remember what I did. I didn’t say a single word. I was filled by a grotesque fear; “grotesque” being exactly the right word! I only remember that after a while, from under the bedding I’d pulled over me, I vaguely heard someone say
“pardon”
in a French that wasn’t at all nasal. I heard the door creak slightly, very slowly: it was evidently being pulled to. Then a mysterious, profound, heavy silence descended.

It didn’t last long, it was broken by a loud clipped sound that did echo long and loud. I imagined it was a shot that had been fired not faraway, in an adjacent bedroom. I thought the noise would bring all the people in the boarding house rushing. But I heard nobody. The place was almost empty and staff slept on the upper floor. I took my head from under the blankets and opened my eyes. The light had been switched off. A key lay next to the door and I imagined the man with the revolver had turned it before leaving. I peered into the darkness: strips of light shone through the cracks in the door that had merely been pulled to. I imagined that the passage or at least the Viennese lady’s bedroom – the door opposite mine – was open and lit up.

I now jumped bravely out of bed and tiptoed toward the door that I locked, making the least noise possible, with a cold shiver down my spine.
Locked in from the inside, I breathed again. The reappearance of light boosted my spirits even more. I looked in the mirror and saw I had the usual color in my cheeks. I lit a cigarette and soon felt sufficiently calm to hear everything happening in the Viennese lady’s room opposite.

For a long time I heard only a muffled conversation, conducted in an angry, scornful tone, by brusque but relatively quiet voices. The dialogue was sustained and quick moving; there were silent moments in the fiery altercation. Then I noted the presence of a third person who was grunting indignantly and a noise as if someone was struggling to get out from under a bed or inside a wardrobe. The words I caught were in German.

The exchange went on for over a quarter of an hour, interrupted by these strange noises. Then it changed from nervous muttering to confused shouting. All of a sudden I heard a woman’s shrill scream and the sound of a body hitting the ground. From then on there were only isolated interjections: shouts accompanied by frantic activity, as if they were anxiously searching the room in a wild free-for-all, throwing open drawers, pushing chairs over, rustling paper, and brusquely forcing open suitcases and locked items. Finally, I hear the characteristic noise of a balcony opening, the balcony that looked over the cul-de-sac. Of course, it wasn’t impossible to make an escape via the balcony. Helped by the guttering to the immediate wall, you could clear the five meters to flat ground. I heard no more words after the balcony was opened. Only steps followed by something that made me extremely curious; I suddenly heard the lady’s bedroom door open onto the corridor and someone tiptoeing cautiously along …

This last unexpected incident gave me my first general view of this business. There are three protagonists, I told myself: a lady and two gentlemen … Someone must have been caught
in fraganti
, I reflected as I turned in my bed, with an unpleasantly chill feeling in my whole body and an extinguished cigarette on my lip.

These strange events I have recounted were followed by long period of peace and quiet that lasted until the police arrived.

Early the next morning, the whole Pensione Fiorentina was assembled in the manager’s officer before an inspector flanked by two
carabinieri
wearing three-cornered helmets. The Viennese lady was the only absentee and, of course, she was sick. The manager was beside himself, didn’t know what it was all about, and spoke in an unusual voice as if he was whimpering. The less immediate witnesses were questioned first. Those who’d slept on the fourth floor hadn’t noticed a thing. The flat above was occupied by offices that were empty at night. The maids, who had slept like logs, didn’t have a clue about what had happened.

Then the lady’s nurse was summoned. She was rather an elderly plumpish lady, stiff in manner, with a pale yellow to mauve-purple complexion as is sometimes the case with mature Nordic ladies; her clothes were dingy. She answered the questions put to her in an affected, supercilious manner, occasionally looking round, as if seeking the approval of those sat there. However, most had left, after making statements that had been read out. Only the manager, crestfallen in one corner, and I were left.

I should add that the subsequent questioning seemed rather disorganized and too spur of the moment. I didn’t understand why people were being questioned in front of others. However, as I heard later, first enquiries tend to be relatively relaxed, with a nervousness that is only natural in first exchanges.

The nurse said she’d spent the night in the bedroom wardrobe, that she was more dead than alive, because she’d not been able to overcome her fear.

I was really surprised this lady had spent the night in a wardrobe because she generally slept away from the house. Of course, she stayed over on the
odd day, but I’d often bump into her in the passage, after dinner, when she was leaving, after the table had been cleared.

“Were you shut in the wardrobe against your will?” the inspector asked. “No, I decided to climb in. I was scared. The thief seemed crazy and was holding a revolver …”

“Did you see how he fired?”

“No, I just heard it.”

“Where was your lady when the shot was fired?”

“I don’t know … She was in the bedroom …”

“Of course … Do you remember the face of the person who fired? “Vaguely: I think he was swarthy, average height and wore an elegant tuxedo. An Italian … He was a thief.”

“You keep repeating he was a thief. Did you in fact see him grab something, take off with …”

“I couldn’t say. I couldn’t say …”

“Do you recall seeing him anywhere else?”

“Never before last night …”

The policeman summoned me.

“Why was the light on in your room in the early hours?”

“It was an oversight. I forgot to turn the electricity lever.”

“Do you always sleep with your door unlocked?”

“No, sir. That was another unforgivable oversight.”

“Too many oversights, perhaps …”

“I agree.”

“Did you see the thief? Could you describe him?”

“Was he really a thief?”

“Well, whatever he was … Could you describe him?”

“He kicked my door open and stood in the doorway for a while, holding
a revolver. I expect he wanted to check whether the surrounding bedrooms were occupied. He looked respectable, was very well dressed, and perfectly self-possessed. If I’d not noticed he was aiming a revolver at me, I’d have deduced he was a sportsman who wanted to play a practical joke on me …”

“Was he tall or short?”

“I couldn’t tell. I was terrified for a moment. I remember his silhouette, but I couldn’t be more precise. I can say he was well dressed because that was what immediately struck me. In our kind of country one always expects someone ordinary looking to appear in these situations. What I do remember clearly is the way his revolver glinted. It was a small, white metal weapon …”

“How long did he stay in room no. 11?

“No more than twenty minutes.”

“Did you hear any fisticuffs?”

“Only the verbal kind.”

“Did you hear the front balcony being opened? Was that the way he made his escape?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you hear any other noise? A car engine starting up, for example?”

“No, sir.”

“From your vantage point, did you notice anything else?”

“Yes, sir. After the balcony was opened, somebody left no. 11 through the door to the passage.”

“Oh!”

“Absolutely true.”

The Pensione Fiorentina saw policemen, inquisitive journalists and all kinds of people come and go throughout the day.

The manager was beside himself and greeted people as if there was a dead
body in the house. Above all, that fine man couldn’t understand how his porter, the porter in his renowned hotel, had gone missing from his place of responsibility for most of the night. As a result he was making all manner of wild conjectures. However, only one was valid and coherent: pleasantly relieved by the reduced number of boarders, the porter had decided to spend a couple of hours drinking with friends in the nearest trattoria. That’s natural enough in Italy – or anywhere else!

From all the gossip I heard I gathered the nurse spread the idea that it had the ingredients of a full-blown robbery. That woman volubly promoted this explanation. The Viennese lady kept her thoughts to herself and didn’t let slip even the most basic comment on the subject. It was generally accepted the robbery had been committed by a hotel burglar. The idea seemed so likely and was so easily accepted I thought it must be the kind of clichéd solution people had decided on quite willfully. Rome’s evening newspapers devoted large swaths of their third pages to the crime in the Pensione Fiorentina. Journalists didn’t have the slightest evidence, but they too opted for the theft explanation.

Two days later there was a sensational development. The papers devoted column inches to it; not every single one, to be sure, or those deemed to be the most serious and responsible. Despite the restrictions imposed on the news item, everyone found out, that is, I mean, the countless people gripped by the case. In effect: the papers related that one of the city’s best known, most elegant rakes had gone to police headquarters – people said that he was a ruined Sicilian marquis – and stated that on the night of the 14th of October he had entered bedroom no. 11 in the Pensione Fiorentina with no untoward intent, that he was ready to explain himself to the police and rejected most indignantly the robbery theory that had been broadcast so publicly. “If I stole anything from lady X in the Pensione Fiorentina,”
went the note published by the dailies, “I invite the said lady to specify the item that was stolen.”

It would have probably been naïve to expect any kind of response. One never came. The Viennese lady continued to be as self-absorbed and sickly as ever in the boarding house. People claimed the ruined marquis had been arrested. I wasn’t able to confirm that. What really
did
happen then was this, people buried the journalistic aspect of that business. It suddenly disappeared from the newspapers.

However, the investigation continued.

I was frequently invited to appear at the requisite time in the anteroom in the judge’s office, on Piazza de Gesu. I often bumped into the Austrian lady’s nurse. Sporadically I also came across other elements from the house. The manager had gone from a state of dejection to a state of indignation. He demanded at the top of his voice that the case be closed; in his view, it was damaging his commercial credibility.

The judge’s office was in a huge, gloomy, overbearing Renaissance palace, a labyrinth of corridors, secret or visible little staircases, and countless small and large rooms. Rome’s judiciary was centralized in that enormous barn. The square was slightly away from the bustle of the city; it was peaceful and quiet, and that seemed to make the atmosphere in the palace even more tense and dramatic.

Sometimes, the nurse and I walked along the whole of the glassed in gallery that looked over a courtyard while waiting to be summoned by the judge. It was a deserted courtyard crossed at very irregular intervals by a
carabinieri
in a three-cornered helmet. The nurse was still of the opinion that it was a common-or-garden robbery. I did nothing to dissuade her. On the contrary: fantasies should be respected. The nurse was sad and extremely dejected.

“Of course, you must be worried about losing your job …” I’d say.

“Naturally! My lady is at her wit’s end. She’ll leave Rome. In fact, she was already planning to do so. I’m old now: it will be hard to find a steady job. I don’t have any simple way out of …” she whimpered, nervously looking for a handkerchief in her black leather bag and wiping a tear away.

“Don’t you have any family?”

“None. I’ve been living in Italy for years.”

“Are you German?”

“I’m Prussian, from Rostock.”

“It must be very pleasant looking after that well-mannered Austrian lady …”

“Absolutely. I love her. She is a good, relaxed person and extremely courteous.”

“Are you really sure she will leave?”

“In her place I’d have already left! The daily papers print only lies and slander. Look at what the thief said!” the poor woman said with a sob, waving her hand as if chasing away a vision of hell.

“But don’t you think your lady might have a lover? A passionate affair? It wouldn’t be at all strange, she’s an experienced woman, I’d say …”

She gave me a look that was both frightened and suspicious.

“I couldn’t give you an answer.”

“Couldn’t or don’t want to?”

“It makes no difference. I can’t enter into the slightest dialogue …!” she retorted forcefully, making that gesture I’d seen her make so often, as if chasing off some dastardly vision.

But it was Don Antoni Logotete who gave me the biggest shock in all the time I spent in the palace on Piazza de Gesu. We bumped into each other in the enclosed gallery. My naïveté made me assume he was there because of something related to his case, the case of the plaster slabs.

“Is it going well?” I asked.