The Marshal's Own Case, page 17
For the first time in days a little smile lit his face.
‘He made it himself? For me?’
‘At school. You can’t imagine how long it took him, he’s so clumsy with his hands.’
‘Like me.’
‘He was so afraid he wouldn’t have it ready in time. He overdid it a bit with the glue.’
‘Yes.’
‘There’s a little something for you from me and from Giovanni too, but they can wait until tomorrow when you’re rested. Let’s go to bed.’
When they were settled and the light was out, she sensed that he was lying awake beside her.
‘Can’t you sleep?’
‘I’m all right. I was just thinking . . .’
‘Think tomorrow. You’re worn out.’
‘Yes, but . . . All that time . . .’
‘What?’
‘All the time that Totò was going through . . . He was working on my present . . .’
‘Ever since term began.’
‘And I thought, I really thought, that day he attacked me that he hated me. If you’d seen his face . . .’
‘Salva! He’s only a child. He loves you—if anything, he’s more attached to you than to me, even though Giovanni looks so much more like you . . . It’s funny. It’s because he loves you that he reacted so strongly. He was so upset and a child can’t always sort out the difference between love and hate.’
‘Perhaps adults can’t either . . . And all the time he was making me a tray.’
‘Of course.’
‘I’ll never understand people. You . . . Teresa, I wish I’d let you talk to the Luciano woman.’
‘I would have done, if you’d let me. It must have been a terrible shock for her.’
‘It was. Perhaps she didn’t mean the things she said.’
‘What did she say?’
‘It doesn’t matter, now. You’ll call her, will you?’
‘I’ll do it first thing tomorrow. But the boy . . . You should be the one to talk to the boy, Salva. Surely something can be done?’
‘I’ll try.’
She was right, of course. And the boy had come looking for him, frightened, and had been sent away. He’d done everything wrong, clumsy as usual . . . all that glue . . . He was no good with his hands and people were laughing at him as he tried to push them through the grille but they were too big. The cat thrust its head at him, purring, but he was too clumsy to help. He’d used as much glue as he could but where did glue come into it anyway? He must be falling asleep, that’s what it was. He’d have to try again tomorrow.
‘Have you seen the mother?’ Ferrini asked.
‘Just long enough for her to give me a nasty look. She talked to the Prosecutor.’
‘The wife didn’t come?’
‘No. She took the first available plane to Finland with the child.’
‘Can’t say I blame her. Well . . .’ Ferrini pushed his chair back and lit up. ‘I think that’s about it. A case brilliantly solved according to the manual. At least, that’s how it will look to the instructing judge now that we’ve written him a good script.’
Ferrini and the Marshal had completed their reports in a borrowed office at Borgo Ognissanti, working, once again, late into the night. The Marshal was hunched over the mound of papers, looking gloomy.
‘You could be a bit more cheerful. We’ve done a good job.’
‘Sorry. It’s this business of Peppina.’
‘Oh, come on, the worst it can come to is receiving. He’ll get off lightly.’
‘I know—but he’d planned to get out, to give up prostitution, and now . . .’
‘Listen, Marshal, I don’t want to speak out of turn but I don’t think you should give too much credence to what that sort tells you. They’ll all give you hard luck stories and say they want to get out, but believe you me, they never do it, or not more than one in a million. You don’t find that amount of tax-free money working in an office, you know.’
But the Marshal was unmoved. ‘Nobody would have them in an office. Anyway, Peppina was hoping to set up a little fashion business. He’d got as far as signing on to do the exam at the Chamber of Commerce. I talked to him this morning. He’s already scared to death of turning up for the exam even though they’ve no legal excuse to refuse him.’
‘Hm. Well, I admit that if he’s signed on for it that sounds a bit more convincing. Anyway, if you feel that strongly about it why don’t you try getting the Prosecutor to drop the charge? You’ve got him in the palm of your hand right now. He’s had his picture in the paper three days running.’
‘I could try.’
‘Try. After all, it’s thanks to you that the business of the traveller’s cheques has been dropped as far as Carlo Fossi’s concerned.’
‘And rightly so.’
‘Rightly so, if you like, but it could have been pursued.’
‘It would have been useless cruelty. He’s already got so many aggravating circumstances against him, malice aforethought, use of a poison, damage to the corpse. He’s only got one life to spend in prison, and it won’t be a long one either. It seems his mother was telling the truth about his bad heart.’
‘I agree with you. I doubt he’ll ever set foot out of prison except for his trial. But, given the motive, I wouldn’t be surprised if he got very little more than the minimum twenty-one years while if the Prosecutor tried for the profit motive . . . Well, as you say, he’s only got one life—That reminds me, how’s young Bruno?’
‘All right but quieter.’
Bruno, who had been like a kid playing Cowboys and Indians from the day they found Lulu’s remains until the night of the arrest, had grown up apace when stricken by the sight of the criminal he’d been so enthusiastically chasing. A sawn-up body had failed to shock him but the broken travesty of a human being which had once been Carlo Fossi had both moved and frightened him. He was now, as the Marshal said, quieter.
‘I think I will talk to the Prosecutor, if you feel it’s worth it.’
‘I’m sure it’s worth it—but try not to take it too much to heart if it doesn’t come off. They’re not the sort of people you can help because they don’t help themselves. I know a good many of them and the only one with any sense is Carla—but even he doesn’t get out, though he’s been talking about it for years.’
‘It can’t be an easy decision,’ the Marshal pointed out, ‘to have the final operation, especially for someone like Carla who seems to have found some sort of equilibrium at the half-way stage. How can anyone know how they’d feel . . . afterwards.’
‘There’s some truth in that. It’s not the real reason, though, if you ask me. Do you know what I think? I think it’s a sort of arrogance—unconscious maybe, but it’s there. They don’t think they’re something less than a real woman, they think they’re something more because they’ve been brought up in a culture dominated by men and they won’t be in any hurry to give up the three or four extra ounces that entitles them to keep one foot in the winning camp.’
‘You think so?’ The Marshal pondered a moment. ‘It hadn’t crossed my mind, I must admit.’
‘Only an opinion—and you’d better not bring it up with the Prosecutor when you’re making your appeal for Peppina!’
‘I wouldn’t dream—’ But Ferrini was laughing at him.
‘I wasn’t serious. You have to laugh in this job or it gets you down. By the way, there’s a rumour going about . . .’
‘A rumour?’ Was he joking again?
‘About a promotion. Well, don’t tell me if you don’t want to, of course.’
‘There’s nothing to tell.’
‘You don’t mean you turned it down?’ Ferrini’s face was incredulous.
The Captain’s face had been equally incredulous.
‘You understand you may never get such a chance again?’
‘Yes.’
It was possible now for a non-commissioned officer to be offered a commission if he showed particular aptitude. The Marshal had not only rejected the idea out of hand, he had appeared positively horrified. The Captain had talked to him at some length but hadn’t succeeded in making him budge an inch.
‘I can understand your reluctance. You have a family and, of course, you’d have to leave them for some time. Even so . . .’
He found himself, as so often happened with Guarnaccia, talking to a blank wall. The Marshal was glad he understood about not wanting to leave his family after all the years he’d had to wait to have them with him in Florence! He wasn’t going anywhere, not even if they made him a general, never mind a lieutenant. That’s what made him reject the idea out of hand. What horrified him was something else. There was some studying involved, exams! No, no . . .
‘No, no . . .’ he said again, now, shuddering at the thought.
‘You mean you didn’t turn it down?’
‘No, I mean I did. I think we’ve finished for tonight, don’t you?’
‘If you say so.’ Ferrini stubbed out his current cigarette in the overflowing ashtray and switched off the desk lamp. He stretched himself and stood up. ‘It’s been a long day.’
‘Yes.’ But there was still something the Marshal had to do. He had to see the Luciano boy and was embarrassed to have to ask Ferrini where he was to be found. Having got the directions, he stood up himself and started getting into his coat, carefully avoiding Ferrini’s cynical glance.
‘A family from my home town . . . You know how it is . . .’
Ferrini made no comment but turned out the main light as they left.
The boy was sitting on a bench under a dark and dripping tree. If the Marshal’s headlights hadn’t picked up his pale, crossed legs he’d have missed him despite the white globes of the nearest lamp. He got out of the car and approached the seated figure.
‘What do you want? I haven’t done anything.’
His wig was damp and looked slightly askew. Above the bare legs and short skirt he was huddled as deeply as he could into an old windjammer.
‘Don’t you know who I am?’
‘Oh . . . It’s you.’ But he didn’t look the Marshal in the face. His glance strayed from left to right and back again anxiously, as if afraid that the Marshal’s presence might frighten away potential clients, though none of the passing cars showed any sign of slowing down. The Marshal knew he was blocking the boy from view but he stood where he was, looking down at the huddled, shivering figure, his hands thrust deep in his pockets.
‘Your mother’s worried about you.’
The boy only shrugged, his eyes still swivelling. Could it be that he was expecting a pusher rather than a client?
‘You could just give her a call. There’s no need to give her your own number if you don’t want to.’
‘I haven’t even got a phone.’
‘Even so, you could—’
‘No! You don’t know what you’re talking about!’ He was staring straight up at the Marshal now. His painted face was grotesque, almost comic, but the eyes were desperate. ‘You can’t imagine—if she once gets me in her clutches again . . . It’s taken me so long to get free and now I’m staying away!’
‘Listen, your mother—maybe your mother can’t help being what she is—’
‘What do you mean by that? What do you mean— “what she is”? What do you know about it?’
‘I only meant—’
‘You’ve no right to say anything against her!’
‘I wasn’t—’
‘She’s my mother! You’ve no right . . .’ He subsided, hugging the old jacket to him tightly.
‘I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m only trying to say that I understand you wanting to be independent. She knows, anyway, that you’re alive and well. I’ve told her that. It was only natural that she should be worried. She hadn’t seen you since just after your accident.’
‘What accident?’
‘She told me you’d had a car accident, that you were in plaster last time you went home.’
‘There wasn’t any accident,’ the boy said sullenly. ‘I had to hide the operation, that’s why my chest was in plaster. I’d forgotten I’d said it was a road accident. I told her I’d broken a rib or some such story. It wasn’t even plaster, it was a sort of brace thing. I bought it.’
‘You mean—’
‘What do you think I mean? I don’t sit out here for my health, do I? Why don’t you just go away and leave me alone? I’ve got my living to earn.’
‘There are other ways of earning a living. Why don’t you get out before it’s too late? It’s dangerous, you know that by now, and it’s not too late for you.’
‘It is. It is too late, now. I’ve started some hormone treatment. Nobody wants transvestites any more, that’s why I had to get breasts done. I might as well go the whole hog. That way I can earn more and once I’ve got rid of my beard I’ll be able to afford to have my face done. Then I can make as much as they do.’ He glanced along the avenue where the queue of cars was moving slowly. ‘I might even be able to afford a flat of my own one day. That’s what I want.’
‘And you don’t want your mother taking money off you, is that it?’
‘No, it’s not! I’ll send her some money when I get on my feet, you can tell her that if you want. It’s not money, it’s . . . all of it. That life . . . She used to leave me with all the kids. Once, the littlest kid got sick. It was in the middle of the night. It was only a baby and it went all rigid and screaming and then it died. I was eight years old, for Christ’s sake, so what was I supposed to do? I tried to give it some water from a bottle but it screamed and screamed and then it died. When she came back she nearly killed me because I was asleep. What could I do if it was dead? I fell asleep . . . I decided then I’d get out as soon as I was old enough. I like my life the way it is now. Nobody expects anything off me except what they pay for and the rest of the time I don’t exist for anybody. I’m free.’
The Marshal stood a moment, immobile, hands still in his pockets, staring down at the puny legs, the scruffy high-heeled shoes. There was some sort of truth, some sort of half-baked logic in what the boy said. If you were neither male nor female, just a toy for rent at certain hours, you were indeed nobody and free of human responsibilities.
‘And what sort of freedom is it?’ he insisted. ‘The freedom to be chopped to bits by some crazy client, or catch Aids or die of an overdose? What sort of freedom?’
But the boy only stared hopefully at the passing headlights.
‘What does it matter?’ he said. ‘You have to die of something. In any case, when I’ve made enough money, I can always give it up. When I’m about thirty or something and my life’s over I’ll maybe give it up . . .’ He stiffened as a passing car slowed down, but the driver must have spotted the Marshal’s uniform and he didn’t stop. The boy went on staring hopefully down the long, lamplit avenue where reflected lights moved in an almost unbroken rhythm along the wet black road.
The Marshal got back in his car and drove home.
When he got there he braked as quietly as he could, avoiding a noisy spray of gravel. He switched off the engine and lights and sat there, shoulders hunched, staring out at the darkness. He was so still he might have been asleep. But he soon shook himself and got out of the car, shutting the door gently so as not to disturb the complete silence around him. His heavy footsteps crunched towards the doorway, then stopped. Why was it so unnaturally quiet? He had to think for a while before he realized what it was. It had stopped raining. He looked up. The sky was black and dotted with stars. It was colder, too. Tomorrow would be clear and sunny. Tomorrow was Thursday, his day off. His footsteps crunched on, a little bit lighter now. Tomorrow, after lunch he could take a walk through the Boboli Gardens with Totò. Not the whole family, just himself and Totò, and though he knew himself too well to think they would talk much, they might, if they walked near the fish pond, surprise the others by bringing home the little orange and white cat.
THE END
Magdalen Nabb, The Marshal's Own Case
