That Awful Mess on the via Merulana - Carlo Emilio Gadda [26]
"Maid? A nice-looking girl, at last!" Ingravallo grumbled. He set the statements in order, grumbled for another minute. The three ladies were dismissed.
"You mean, we can go?" la Bertola asked then, still pale.
"Yes, Signora. Please . . ."
Donna Manuela, with a trembling of breasts that filled her blouse completely, unleashed merulanian smiles: "Well, good-bye for now, Officer. And I leave our Signor Filippo in your hands. Take good care of him for me."
Don Ciccio, mute, remained standing, the statements on the table, face to face with the subject: like a dark shrike its wings half-opened, its prey not yet in its talons.
But he insisted still, under that black poodle-coat that he had on his head, stubborn as he was.
The Commendatore took refuge behind the barricade of "experience of this world."
"Ah, women," he whimpered, "if you expect them to put in a good word . . ." He was short of breath, gasping at times; his eye sockets were like two caverns: exhausted.
"What do you mean? What would this good word be, that upsets you so much? Let's hear. What's troubling you? Tell me. You can confide . . ."
"In my position, Doctor, what could I do? Go around Rome with a ham on my shoulder? If you ask me, it's just downright nastiness, trying to argue whether the one who fired the shots was a delivery boy or wasn't a delivery boy, or whether he was the lookout for that other one, or whether he wasn't. What do I know about it? You see? Just put yourself in my shoes for a minute. Could I let people say: we saw Commendatore Angeloni climbing up Via Panisperna with a cheese around his neck, and with two flasks of wine, one tucked under each arm, like a pair of twins, carried by their wet-nurse . . . ?"
Ingravallo swung his head up and down, his gaze rooted on the typed statements. He seemed to lose his patience. He raised his voice, separating his words and their syllables: "The con-ci-erge has stated: that the other delivery boy has also come to your house a number of times. The one that was more of a kid. Is that clear? Two or three months ago, which is hardly an eternity, whatever you say. And since I am interested in this kid, since they swear that he looks very much like the other one, the one this morning— am I clear? So, if you don't mind . . ."
"I understand. I understand," the Commendatore whimpered.
"Well, then, why don't you do me a favor? . . . I'm anxious to make his acquaintance, this kid's."
It was written that number two hundred and nineteen of Via Merulana, the palace of gold, or of the profiteers, or of the sharks, as the case might be—it was written that from it, too, a lovely flower was to blossom, as from so many other buildings in this world, for that matter. The great, scarlet carnation of "well, did you ever?" With great murmurings of the tenants and of his colleagues in the Economy, not to mention the whispers of Signora Manuela, Commendatore Angeloni was kept at the police station until nine o'clock in the evening.
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From some faint hint, that is to say a word or two, from the two policemen, and from Blondie in particular, via Manuela—Menegazzi—Bottafavi—Alda Pernetti and brother (Stairway A), or else via Manuela—Orestino Bozzi —Signora Elodia—Elia Gabbi (Stairway B), it seemed, or rather one guessed, that the police suspected in this business an indirect though, of course, involuntary (and moreover, hardly demonstrable) responsibility on the part of Commendatore Angeloni: the prime mover of that coming and going of ham-bearers to the house. "He doesn't want to talk; and they're giving him the full treatment." The police had got it into their heads that Commendatore Angeloni must perforce know the grocer's boy who hadn't rung anyone's bell but had simply "flung himself down the steps the minute we heard the shots": but for some special, incomprehensible reason of his own, the Commendatore was pretending to be completely