Persecution (9781609458744) (31 page)

Why was he dragging it on like that? Leo wondered. Why irritate the judge, who seemed so serene? Basically Leo had a tremendous desire to answer. Leo had never had such a desire to answer as at that moment. Now that he finally had before him a man with the right questions, to which the right answers could be given.

“So shall we begin, sir, or not?”

And Leo saw out of the corner of his eye that Herrera was assenting, still with that very guarded manner.

Meanwhile the judge had turned to the young woman, who without hesitation handed him a substantial file. Doubtless some of the documentation that had been gathered over all those months.

“So, professor, yesterday afternoon a search was made in your house. Over which I presided. It lasted some hours, and was conducted in the presence of your wife.”

He said these things in an extremely impersonal way, as if he were reading a report. Even if it was obvious that he was reading nothing.

Rachel? The judge and Rachel had met? They had been in the same rooms for some time? They had spoken to each other? While he was rotting in isolation? It was something that he really couldn't imagine. For the first time since he had sat down across from that man, Leo felt an impulse of hostility toward him.

What was it? Jealousy? Or shame? Or both?

Certainly Leo had some trouble picturing Rachel and the investigator going through the house, laying hands on his things. He wondered how Rachel had faced that further humiliation. After two months of having had no relationship with his wife, Leo could say with certainty that he no longer had the slightest idea of who that woman was. That's how things go. It had taken twenty years to get to know her and he had forgotten her in a few months. Was that why he encountered so many difficulties in imagining how she had reacted to the violation of domestic intimacy by a group of thugs directed by the judge? A mad thought led him to consider that she, in her ridiculous zeal, had helped them, thanks to the same scruples that led her to help carpenters and upholsterers. Another, no less irrational thought suggested that she had protested. Had flown into a rage. Shouting that they could not take such liberties, it wasn't possible, this was not something she could tolerate. Another still (perhaps the most likely) was that she had docilely submitted to the will of those people. Her husband was a frightening criminal, her husband had put
them
in that position, demonstrating a lack of responsibility equal only to his perversion: it was right that she should allow those people to do something so serious and humiliating. Because only a thing so serious and humiliating could throw a little light on that endless terrible history.

A search. Is there anything more contemptible in the world? Leo thought of the January day some years earlier when, coming home from Anzère, he, Rachel, Telma, and the boys had found the house turned upside down. During their absence thieves had gone in and cleaned it out. Leo remembered Telma's shrill whining as she kept saying, “Signora . . . signora . . . ” But he also remembered the sense of rage and humiliation that had assailed him. The sense of rage and humiliation that had assailed them all. A disbelief charged with of bitterness. How could someone dare lay hands on their things? Money, pictures, silver, Rachel's jewelry, the boys' television, his watches, even some of his records, and many other things. But the stuff was the least of it, it could be replaced. And if it couldn't, you could live happily without it. The problem was the violation. The outrageous violation. Those hands everywhere. Hands in the most tender place of all. In the place built with tenderness to welcome and protect the Pontecorvos. That was the frightening thing.

A spasm of anguish made Leo's stomach contract and filled his mouth with saliva as he imagined the judge and his henchmen who, before Rachel's sorrowfully compliant gaze, stuck their hands everywhere.

At that point the magistrate, who up until then had behaved impeccably, said something that to Leo seemed definitely out of place.

“I must say, professor, that you have a remarkable record collection.”

How could he take such a liberty? Was he trying to be funny? Or was he speaking seriously? In either case it was a shamefully inappropriate comment. What? You throw me in jail, after tearing me to pieces, and now you start talking about records? My records? My wife and my records? As if to emphasize that while I was rotting in here you were enjoying yourself in my house, with my family, with my kinds of comfort? For a moment the surreal thought surfaced that soon—with him out of the game—this man would take his place in his life, would install himself, like the most arrogant of the Suitors, in his home, listening to his precious imported records. But he immediately chased that absurdity from his brain.

Yet Leo still hoped that he hadn't heard right. That he had made a mistake. He was ready to be asked “Where were you that afternoon at that time?” He was ready to be asked “Do you have someone who can testify that you were there that day?” He was ready to have addressed to him all the questions he had found in the paperback mystery books he had been so fond of as a boy. But he wasn't ready to talk about records. And he was also very surprised that Herrera, till then so quick to interrupt out of turn, had not taken to task this son of a bitch. Who, in fact, continued his meditations unperturbed.

“Your Ray Charles collection: really priceless. You've got some amazing records.”

No, the amazing thing was not that, over the years, Aunt Adriana had sent him from the United States some “priceless” Ray Charles records. The amazing thing was that this man—the fierce prosecutor of Mafiosi and camorrists, the incorruptible judge—wouldn't stop talking about records. And that the only response of his lawyer (a shark of the law courts) was to remain stubbornly silent. And that the assistant, without turning a hair, continued to transcribe every word without looking at him in suspicion and astonishment. That was what was amazing. Certainly not the priceless records.

Was it a joke? Or a brand-new interrogation technique, just imported from the United States, to make both the guilty and the innocent
sing
? First you get them talking about their passions, then you catch them? Watch out, Leo. Watch out.

“Thank you, sir,” Leo hissed, trying to impress on his voice all the sarcasm he was capable of. Hoping that this would irritate both the judge and Herrera. Or at least force them to come to their senses.

“And also books, I must say. Really not bad. You have taste, professor.”

And Herrera still nothing.

“You know, I looked at those books,” he added. “Rather, we all did,” he corrected himself, taking in with a single glance all the people there, as if they were not in a cramped little room in a maximum-security prison but in a sophisticated book club.

“And we formed some very precise ideas about your tastes. And your likes. Truly refined, professor.”

Leo no longer had the strength to thank him or to reply. Professor. Professor. What at first had seemed a sign of respect, a recognition of his social position, now began to be irritating.

“We noticed that you also have the habit of underlining in books. With a pencil, of course. A pen would be barbaric. With a pencil you can also erase.”

“Meaning?” Leo said, encouraged. And immediately he felt a tug from Herrera. As if he were being called to order. It's true, he thought, Herrera had said to him, “Never say yes or no. Don't comment. Speak as little as possible.” He had repeated it ad nauseam. But this wasn't a normal circumstance: the investigator was talking about books. About books underlined in pencil. Was it possible that Herrera didn't have the authority to bring the interrogation back to something logical? Possible that Leo was the only one who felt how out of place everything that was happening was?

“So, professor. I marked some sentences you underlined, which seem to me very interesting. Which deserve comment, reflection. For example, listen here. A passage underlined by you in a very famous book. ‘The norm of Roman law on the basis of which a girl could marry at twelve was adopted by the Church and is still in force, if tacitly, in some States of America. The age of fifteen is legal everywhere. There is nothing wrong, both hemispheres declare, if a forty-year-old brute, blessed by the local priest and full of alcohol, tears off his underwear, dripping with sweat, and thrusts up to the hilt in his young bride. In temperate and stimulating climates . . . girls mature near the end of their twelfth year.' Interesting. Professor, don't you find it interesting?”

“To tell you the truth, I don't understand why you're reading me these things. I don't know what you're talking about. I don't even know what book it is.”

“You don't understand, eh? And then let me read another passage underlined by you. Same book, same author. ‘Marriage and cohabitation before puberty are not at all exceptional, even today, in certain regions of India. Among the Lepcha, eighty-year-olds copulate with girls of eight and no one cares. After all, Dante fell madly in love with Beatrice when she was nine . . . '”

The investigator wouldn't stop reading. And Leo began to understand what he should have understood some time ago. It wasn't so difficult. Those passages evidently underlined by him were, according to the investigator and his group, proof of his perversion. Was this what he had in hand? Was this one of the reasons they had arrested him? Because he had underlined certain passages in a book? If he had underlined passages that discussed the slaughter of the Armenians would they have indicted him for genocide? Was this what was happening?

“Dottore, I don't see,” Herrera finally interrupted, “the relevance of all this to . . . ”

“You don't see the relevance? And you don't, either, professor? Not even you see? Then here's another of your books. This one is also very famous. Listen. This has also been underlined: ‘A forty-year-old dishonors a girl of twelve: might it have been the environment that incited him?'”

“I still don't understand,” Herrera was saying. “What do you want to know from the professor?”

“It's obvious,” said Leo, by now careless of all caution and increasingly angry. “Don't you see, Herrera? The honorable judge prosecutor is making insinuations. The honorable judge prosecutor is skillfully, or perhaps only clumsily, reconstructing the psychological profile of a pervert.”

“Quiet,” Herrera said to him. “Christ, be quiet.”

“No, don't be quiet. Go on talking. Tell me. Is that what you think I'm doing? What we're doing? A psychological profile? Very interesting. Really very interesting. Well, apropos. Here are some other nice things we found in your study in the basement. They were hidden behind your precious records.”

The investigator had the woman pass him another folder, from which he took some fairly well-creased pornographic magazines. Which Leo immediately recognized. He had bought them on a long, solitary lecture tour in the United States. Erotic and pornographic magazines. Having in common names that alluded to the young age of the models who were depicted in more or less explicit poses.
Just Eighteen
,
Barely Legal
,
Lolitas
, and so on.

For Leo it was a real shock to see those magazines, which for years had been lying behind his records. But not because they had any meaning, not because they proved who knows what. All of them in that room knew that they were perfectly legal magazines. Magazines for adults that any adult could buy. And that a responsible adult like him had taken care to keep out of sight of his underage sons, by hiding them.

The reason Leo was so stricken was that in his mind he pictured the scene of the discovery of that pornographic material, which had presumably happened in the presence of Rachel. Leo thought of Rachel's humiliation. Now, all wives worthy of the name know that their husbands every so often need that type of material. All wives with common sense know that conjugal sex is one thing and jerking off another. And that, despite the fact that jerking off is so depressing, it's a thousand times better than adultery, habitual or occasional. But the idea that Rachel had seen those magazines. The idea that they had been found in front of her. The idea that after the discovery she had been looked at with censure. The idea that she could imagine her husband in the bathroom masturbating over that stuff. Those girls. Well, that was an intolerable idea. Which humiliated him, annihilated him, and made him even angrier.

“And what are these things evidence of, sir? You want to ask me if a respected and respectable professor in his forties with a beautiful wife and two fine sons still masturbates? Well, yes, he still does. Where's the problem?”

“It doesn't seem to me that I said anything about problems. There is no problem. You are doing it all. You do and undo. I am confining myself to showing you some things that intimately concern you. Like this.”

This time the investigator picked up an art catalogue and a photographic catalogue.

“What can you tell me about these articles? These, too, belong to you. They were in your bookshelf.”

“What can I tell you about these? Let me see. This is a catalogue of a show that my wife and I saw in Switzerland some years ago. Of one of the most famous contemporary artists. Balthus. And these . . . let's see. These are postcards. They also come from some exhibition. These are photographs taken by a great writer. A writer wrongly considered a children's writer. In reality he was an outstanding artist, whose weakness was that he photographed pubescent girls. I treat them. He photographed them. His name was Lewis Carroll. My name is Leo Pontecorvo. This photograph, if I'm not mistaken, shows Alice Liddell playing the part of a beggar. As for this one who is pretending to play the violin I don't know what to tell you. But I find it very beautiful, very expressive. I find very evocative both the sepia color of the photograph and the melancholy expression of the girl. That's how I imagine
Alice in Wonder­land
. Just like this. You know, I've always loved that book. I even made my children read it. But I believed everything, everything, except that one day I would find myself in Wonderland. Because that's what this place is called, right? Wonderland? You know it, sir, Wonderland? But of course you know it. You are a sophisticated man, honorable judge. You know very well that the photographs of Lewis Carroll have no significance. Likewise you know very well that a catalogue of Balthus means nothing. Balthus paints only naked girls? Carroll photographs them? Try to arrest them if you can. You try to enter Wonderland.”