• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1405 0

in venereal sobs addressed to the strengthener of Italy. Journalists from Itecaquan went to interview him at Palazzo Chigi,{7} noted his rare opinions, greedily, down in a notebook, in all haste, so as not to miss a single crumb. The opinions of Lantern Jaw crossed the ocean, and at eight in the morning they were already a cabled article, desde Italia, in the prensa of the pioneers, of the far-flung merchants of vermouth. "The fleet has occupied Corfu! That man is the salvation of Italy." The next morning the contradiction: desde la misma Italia. "Tail between legs." And the Magdalenes were at it: producing Sons of the Wolf for the Fatherland. The cars of the police remained "stationed": at the Collegio Romano.

It was eleven o'clock on March 17th, and Officer Ingravallo, in Via d'Azeglio, already had one foot on the tram step and with his right hand he grasped the brass handle, to hoist himself aboard. When Porchettini, all out of breath, overtook him: "Doctor Ingravallo! Doctor Ingravallo!"

"What do you want? What's wrong with you?"

"Listen, Doctor Ingravallo. The Chief sent me," he lowered his voice still further. "In Via Merulana . . . something horrible's happened . . . early this morning. They called the station, it was ten-thirty. You had just left. Doctor Fumi was looking all over for you. Meanwhile he sent me straight over there, with two men, to have a look. I kinda thought I'd find you there . . . Then they sent me to your house to look for you."

"Well, what was it?"

"You mean you don't know already?"

"How should I know? I was just going to take a little ride . . ."

"They cut her throat, they . . . sorry ... I know she's kind of a relative."

"Whose relative? . . ." Ingravallo said, frowning, as if to reject any kinship with whomsoever.

"Well, a friend, I guess . . ."

"Friend? What friend? Friend of who?" Pressing together, tulip-shape, the five fingers of his right hand, he seesawed that flower in the digito-interrogative hypotyposis customary among the Apulians.

"They found the signora ... Signora Balducci. . ."

"Signora Balducci?" Ingravallo blanched, gripped Pompeo by the arm. "You're crazy!" and he clutched it tight, until Grabber felt that a vise was crushing him, a machine.

"Sir, it was her cousin found her, Doctor Vallarena . . . Valdassena. They called the station right away. He's there too, now, in Via Merulana. I left instructions. He told me he knows you. He says," Pompeo shrugged, "he says he had gone to pay her a visit. To say good-bye to her, because he's leaving for Genoa. Say good-bye, at this time of the morning? I said. And he says he found her lying on the floor, in a pool of blood. Madonna! that's how we found her, too, on the parquet floor in the dining room, lying there, with her skirt all pulled up, in her underwear, you might say. Her head turned away, sorta . . . With the throat all sawed up, all cut up one side. You should see that cut, sir!" He clenched his hands, as if imploring, then passed his right hand over his brow. "And the face! I almost fainted! But you'll have to see it for yourself in a little while. What a slice! Not even a butcher could have . . . Just horrible: and those eyes! they were staring, wide open, staring at the sideboard. The face all drawn, drawn, and white as a clean sheet . . . did she have t.b.? . . . she looked like it had been terrible hard work, dying . . ."

Ingravallo, pallid, emitted a strange whine, a sigh, or the moan of a wounded man. As if he too felt faint. A wild boar with a bullet in his body.

"Signora Balducci, Liliana . . ." he stammered, looking Grabber in the eyes. He took off his hat. On his forehead, at the rim of the crisp black of his hair, a little line of drops: sudden sweat. Like a diadem of terror, of suffering. His face, usually an olive-white, was now floured with anguish. "Come on. Let's go!" He was damp; he looked exhausted.

When they reached Via Merulana: the crowd. Outside the entrance, the black of the crowd, with its wreath of bicycle wheels. "Make way there. Police." Everybody stood aside. The door was closed.