That Awful Mess on the via Merulana (18 page)

This posthumous medical chart of Liliana was then filled in by the pity of her woman friends and those whom she had benefited: orphan girls who wept, nuns from the Sacred Heart who didn't weep because they were sure she was already in Paradise by now, they could take their oath on it: and Aunt Marietta and Aunt Elvira, in weeds, and a pair of other aunts from Banchi Vecchi, also rather black: and diverse acquaintances, numbering among them the Countess Teresa (la Menegazzi) and Donna Manuela Pettacchioni, as well as some other neighboring ladies from two hundred and nineteen: the two antagonistic trios: Elodia, Elia Bolenfi, Giulietta Frisoni (Stairway B) on the one hand, and on the other la Cammarota, Signora Bottafavi and Alda Pernetti (Stairway A), who also had a brother that counted for an extra six. All of them women with
widespread sensitivity
then: though of the kind that Liliana . . . kept at a distance. A widespread and delicate ovaricity, that's the word, permeated the whole stalk of their soul: like ancient essences, in the ground and the meadows of the Marsica, in the stalk of a flower: pressed at length until they explode in the sweet perfume of the corolla: but their corolla, these women's, was the nose, which they could blow as much as they pleased. Women all, both in their memories and their hope, and in the hard, obstinate pallor of their reticence and the purple of their non-confiteor: which Doctor Fumi elicited in those days into a mindful analysis, with the tact and the diplomacy which distinguished him throughout his hard-working career (and which have made him today, deserved reward! subprefect of Nucanaro,
adnuente Gaspero
^{24}
:
or rather, no, better still! of Firlocca, a delightful little place, where he has ample opportunity to display all his fine qualities) and with that warm voice ... the voice that indicated his presence immediately, even before the sound of the bell (room number 4), to the ears of every corporal and every thief, the moment he set foot inside the office.

The funeral, against the expectations, or more precisely, the pale hopes of the police, didn't carry the investigation a step forward; it only increased the gossip. The newspapers wouldn't let up, the thousand, pitying glosses crackled like flames through a field of stubble in October, without arriving at an idea. The cortege left the morgue at the General Hospital at eight A.M., Monday, March 21st: a rather chilly day, considering it was the official beginning of spring, neither foul nor fair, the sky cloudy. The obsequies were respectful and quite private, not to say hastened, in compliance with the desire of the authorities, who in the end were getting annoyed with all that mess. A few priests in the lead, and a bunch of little girls and some nuns, but with "a large affluence of people," as the papers put it, and especially of women, who formed a line that never ended, they took the shortest route along Viale Regina Margherita, which had been extended in that direction about a year before, and at eight-thirty or eight-forty they reached San Lorenzo, Verano, stirring up a bit of dust, since the street there hadn't yet been asphalted, though barrels of tar were already on the site. The authorities were annoyed at the thought that in Rome, in broad daylight, and in the same building, two crimes like that had taken place, the second more terrible than the first. And then, and then: the arrest of Valdarena, seeing how things were going, wouldn't hold water: and the taking into custody of Commendatore Angeloni . . . that hadn't added up to anything either, since the Commendatore, poor man, had nothing to do with it. In justification of the work of the police and of the higher authorities in the ethic state, it must be said, on the other hand, that the very day before, Sunday the 20th, there had disembarked at Naples' Bever-ello pier, at eleven or half-past, the Maharajah of Sherpur, coming from the banks of the Brahmaputra on a visit to the Artificer of the Fatherland's new destiny, and possibly the grave of the two procreators and the birthplace of the same, which is a two-bit hovel, however. With him he had six or seven slobs with chocolate faces, in white silk pants where their legs were lost, despits the fact that the men, too, in those parts, are fat, unless they do penance and fast for a couple of months every now and then, to gain their Paradise, since they have one of their own. This Maharajah of Sherpur, on his forehead, right in the midst of his turban, had had sewn two diamonds that sent off sparks and a spiky plume that was the longest of all Asia and Europe put together, but the plume of our Chief of State was even longer: and he, the Indian Maharajah, had expressed for some years, through the normal diplomatic channels of our consuls, whom our Chief had sent even to India, the hope of visiting our General Hospital and our Milk Center. The Center didn't exist yet, at that time, and the typhoid of the Year Fifteen
^{25}
hadn't yet occurred: as for the general hospital, he wanted to build one just like it at Sherpur on the banks, more or less, of his native Brahmaputra: a slightly smaller one, of course, but not for that less beautiful than our own: at Sherpur, the city where he was born twenty years ago, and where the Treasure is located, the State Mammon. The visit was arranged in this fashion: it was scheduled for Monday, March 21st at eleven, by which time it was presumed that the damn funeral of the poor signora would long be over. Whence the justified haste of the Authorities, which about ten o'clock turned into a headlong rush. Don Ciccio, once he reached San Lorenzo, slipped into the crowd—his ears pricked up—as it entered the church, and his bloodhounds did the same. And the same again, half an hour later, at the exit. With small results. Signor Remo had followed the hearse with his hat in hand, his face haggard, in a group with the aunts, who were almost all there, and with the close relatives. When the Mass had been said, and final absolution given the coffin, and then, inside Verano, when the grave had been blessed, where white lilies and carnations fell amid desperate sobs "good-bye, Liliana, good-bye!", the black Ingravallo stuck to the side of Don Lorenzo, like a boxer at the side of a giraffe, suitably dressed, and didn't let go of him till they were in the sacresty. He allowed the priest to undress, then loaded him into his car (if his old tin can could be called that!) and took him off to Santo Stefano.

Where, taking him into the office of Fumi, the latter expressed the opinion . . . that the distinguished man of God could give them some additional light on the condition . . . the spiritual condition of the lamented lady: in order to assist the police authorities in a deeper examination of the case and the final redaction, "of what you might call the psychological report." A comma or two, a dot on an
i,
the brokenhearted prudence of Don Corpi did add to the report-synthesis. The visits and the implorations of the Signora Balducci to the church of the Santi Quattro, at certain happy seasons in the celestial calendar, or at the less sad ones, were, one might say, daily. Both to the Confessional and to Our Lady's altar: or else to the rectory, along the portico, all around the "fine cloister of the thirteenth century." The square sky was all light, as if through the eternal presence of the confessors, the sainted four: one on each side. The poor soul sought help in her suffering: the sweet word of hope, the compassionate word of charity. Of faith she had more than anyone. Don Lorenzo remarked, without of course losing sight of the seal of the sacrament, basing his words exclusively on extra-sacramental confidences and on the invocations of the person who had chosen him as the confidant of her private anguish, he remarked that he could fully confirm what was written above, that is to say, what had emerged from the amnesic uncertainty of
afterwards,
encouraged by the police to become certainty, verified, and from the intuition and complementing wisdom of the cousin and, why not?, the husband. Authoritative and massive, after that early and now overcome embarrassment of the first time (trip to Roccafringoli, delay, however voluntary, in "presenting himself to the authorities," and in "producing the will of the deceased"), with his hair cut short, in a tone of clairvoyant pity that asserted full lucidity in any value judgment, he affirmed, almost swearing to it, that the poor dead woman was the most chaste of souls, of the most pure, intentionally speaking . . . "What do you mean by that?" Doctor Fumi said. He went on. The long, black, and super-shined shoes seemed to con-validate his testimony: such an investment in Shinola, such energetic work of the elbow (of whomever) cannot be superimposed upon falsehood and disorder. The idea of divorce or annulment of the marriage, apart from all canonical difficulties, seemed abominable to her: no, Liliana wouldn't think of it. She "loved" too much and respected her husband, the man she had chosen: given to her, at the time, by God. Her desperation and her hope (vain) had coagulated into a melancholy madness (Don Ciccio understood this at once, Doctor Fumi a little later, and only approximately): they seemed to find their salvation in that intention, in that mania (the word escaped him), in that great charity of adoption: the legal adoption of a child. But at the same time she seemed to wait, to wait, as if she hoped, one day, to be able to have something better: from day to day she was waiting for a child, from year to year: and whose, after all? A future child, a future god-child: at this point he, Don Corpi, couldn't figure out from where, or from whom.

"The cousin!" exclaimed Doctor Fumi.

And in the meanwhile, as if to while away her desperation, she
did
adopt. She adopted "temporarily," adopted after a manner of speaking. She spoke of adopting: although, however, she had already replaced one will with another. Three times she had asked for the yellow envelope back, with its five wax seals. Three times she had torn away the seals, then had re-created the monogram. "Holograph Will of Liliana Balducci." She adopted, by word, though with a true effusion of the spirit, with all the sincerity of a hope resurgent at every new encounter: at every new abandonment, disappointed. She adopted, temporarily, those fine figures of girls: a whole line, by now, a string of pearls. Each better than the last. Four, she had brought into the house, in three years, one after the other, including Gina, poor little thing.

With the full permission of Signor Remo, who used to say to her: "do as you please, do whatever you think best," each time, so long as there was a little peace in the family, for a little while. So long as he knew she was at home with some female company, while he slipped off with Cristoforo after a hare, to try out the dogs on the Cimino. And, in any case, always with the advice of Don Corpi. Though with so many souls around him, with so much to do in church and not knowing those girls at all (he didn't even know who they were or where they came from), he limited himself each time to counseling prudence, prudence—so he stated and it was likely that it was so—to warning her ("mark my words!": but she, to such advice, turned a deaf ear), to urging her not to dissipate in sudden adventures of emotion her gift ... the treasure ... of an ineffable awareness of woman's great mission: which had been given her, certainly, by God. Four! in three years! "A great heart, poor Signora Liliana."

And she patted the maids and always forgave them if they broke a dish. She comforted them and told them to hope in the Lord. For in their case, vice versa, it was not so much hope as fear, what they felt: fear of having the kid a bit too soon, perhaps. The Lord, she told them, and she was a hundred per cent right, never denies life to those who desire life, and the continual resurrection of life. "It's a desire many women have," Fumi thought.

Don Lorenzo, with all due respect for the living and for the poor "deceased," then mentioned the three young girls that Liliana Balducci had welcomed as daughters, and then dismissed: and the various motives which, in turn, had determined the secession, more or less easy, more or less spontaneous, of the three would-be wards. The fourth, now, this Gina from Zagarolo, who was the niece presently on active service, benefited in the place of them all. The
carabinieri
of Tivoli had already questioned the mother, and the butcher too; Irene Spinaci wanted to come to Rome: but when she heard that Gina was at the Sacred Heart, she shut up: after all . . . what was the use of her coming? Just throwing away money? When she didn't even have enough to get on the train?

Don Lorenzo, once he had overcome a certain hesitation, then opened his bag of . . . charitable prudence. First, he turned his hat around on his knees a couple of times, nice and slow: with those hands (and with those feet) that made him look like Saint Christopher. Caught, priest though he was, by the vivid and pathetic eyes of Doctor Fumi (for once, they, rather than his tongue, were on duty), he gave way to the magnetic traction of those bulbs, so gently rolling, each parallel to the other, in their respective sockets, that is to say in the binding of those lids: black irises, as of deep velvet, like two spheres of tourmaline under the velvety shadow, the slightly melancholy shadow of the lashes: heart-rent flames, yet glowing with persuasion and with sliding dialectics, in that white face, paternal, pensive, inviting: welcoming as a trap. Beneath that other snout hanging on the wall, the Predappian
^{26}
fezzer, in his frame, making boogey-man faces at the dried flies on the wall opposite: lips extended in a booby's pout, a three-year-old macaroni, to make all the Marie Barbigie
^{27}
of Italy swoon: with that fez on his head and the Emir's plume. An Emir of mardi gras.

Three girls. The first, Milena, a little freckle-faced thing, after barely a month of that good food at the Balduccis', with that pure wool mattress under her and a warm comforter over her in the bed, had promptly started putting on fat: two round little melons under her blouse, a neat hemisphere, behind. But with this calf-fat she had also developed a taste for stealing, and a proportionate one for telling lies. She stole from the sideboard, and from the purse on the night table: and she lied with her mouth. Her tongue followed her nails, without giving it a thought, like your tail goes behind your ass, if you're a horse.