Escape (17 page)
On the fifth morning, when the two security guards come out of the building, the man peels himself away from the wall, hurries over and speaks to them.
‘Excuse me, gentlemen…’ The guards stop, wary.
‘…I’m sorry to bother you, and I don’t want to delay you.
I’m a friend of Filippo Zuliani’s. I work at La Défense and I was told he works here too. I’m trying to find him…’
‘Too late, mate, he handed in his notice at least a week ago.’
‘And you don’t know…’ The two men have begun to move off, quickening their pace.
‘No, we don’t know anything. Sorry, mate.’
One of them mutters, ‘Dodgy-looking guy!’ as they vanish into the Métro. Next morning the lookout is no longer there.
Filippo has begun writing again, feverishly. In order to replay the aborted date at the Café Pouchkine, obliterate the disaster, conquer Cristina. Her magnificent copper hair is like that of the girl Carlo kissed in the mountains, and Filippo loves this game of mirrors and echoes. He wants her, he convinces himself that he needs her because she’s rich, beautiful and cultured. He still feels like an imposter in the world he has now entered, constantly playing a part, afraid of betraying a lack of taste or of suffering a memory lapse, liable to be thrown out at any moment. With her on his arm, he would be adopted as a member of the family, and so become truly legitimate. Today, because he has grown up since the Café Pouchkine, he has the strength to conquer – he is no longer the same man. Back then, he was still a petty crook, capable of little more than arousing in her a formidable and mortifying protective instinct. Now he is viewed as the accomplice of an almost legendary criminal, Carlo Fedeli. A much more fascinating character. That makes anything possible. Cristina is attainable.
The best way to set about winning her back is to begin writing again. It is the only pretext he can think of for getting in touch. He works from home, at the kitchen table in his studio flat in Neuilly, barely going out. In front of him is a bottle of Mitsouko, which he caresses from time to time, occasionally removing the stopper and inhaling the fragrance until he feels nauseous. He has tacked Cristina’s note saying she’ll be away on to the wall, the reverse side facing him, but the message is
still clear. When he is stuck, demoralised, can’t think of the right words, he contemplates it, and pictures himself in the empty apartment on the other side of the wall, ensconced in an armchair in the sitting room, a notepad on his knees and a glass of brandy close at hand, writing. Sometimes, that is enough to set the dream machine in motion again.
Filippo spends hours wandering disconsolately around Paris, haunting the smartest and most expensive neighbourhoods. He strolls around, nostrils quivering, sniffing out sensations and chance encounters. He likes telling himself he is free to invent his life.
Place Vendôme. He walks around the square, lingering before each shop window. This is the home of Paris’s most famous jewellers. He’s never been particularly interested in jewellery – he prefers perfume. He stops outside Guerlain. On the other side of the glass, a tall woman has her back to him. A customer. He’s mesmerised by her mass of coppery hair, pulled back into a precariously perched chignon, artificially casual, held in place by two big wooden hair slides. He stares at her intricate curls, dreams of caressing the wisps of hair on the back of her neck, of removing the slides one at a time, then burying his face in the cascade of flaming hair finally set free. The woman turns towards him. She has sprinkled a drop of perfume on the back of her hand and inhales it deeply. She hesitates, appears to be considering, takes a few steps, her eyes
half-closed
, then returns to the counter. She is Italian, he’s certain from the way she holds herself, walks and smiles. She picks up a bottle and holds it out to the sales assistant behind the counter. Mitsouko – he recognises the shape. In Rome, he had once furtively peddled dozens of cut-price bottles on the streets around Termini station. He loves little details that resemble echoes, or like signposts mapping out his path. Luciana’s coppery hair in the mountains and that of the stranger in Place Vendôme; the bottle of Mitsouko on the Rome streets and at Guerlain.
The woman finishes paying and emerges from the shop. An Italian with coppery hair, that perfume.
Don’t stop to think, go for it
.
He walks over to meet her, bows to her, grasps her hand and gives it a ceremonious kiss, without being over-insistent. He says to her in Italian: ‘Mitsouko, unless I’m mistaken. An excellent choice.’
She laughs, surprised and amused. Her eyes are amber like her hair. She replies in Italian: ‘Yes, of course, Mitsouko. How clever! And how do you know that I’m Italian?’
‘Your entire body speaks Italian.’
She cocks her head to one side, with a half-smile. She likes the expression. Filippo continues talking slowly, moving on a few steps.
‘Actually, to be completely honest, I’ve been looking for you in Paris for days…’ She follows close behind. Encouraging. ‘…I needed you, your elegance, your warmth. I’ve written a book, I wrote it for you, to make you look at me, listen to me, walk beside me, as you are doing now…’
By now they have crossed the entire Place Vendôme. It’s in the bag. He stops. ‘…and so that you’d agree to have a drink with me.’
She stops too, and laughs.
‘Around here? Out of the question. The Ritz is full of the wrong kind of people. Rue de Rivoli? Swarming with tourists.’
She hesitates for a moment, torn between curiosity and prudence.
‘Why don’t we go to my place instead? I live around the corner – just above the Tuileries gardens. I’ve had a busy day. When you tried to pick me up…’
‘I’m not trying to pick you up…’
‘Oh really! When you tried to pick me up, I was on my way home. I’d love to go home. It’ll be peaceful, I’ll make you a tea, and you can tell me about your books.’
When they reach the fifth floor she rummages in her bag. He waits while she finds her keys, opens the door and goes inside. He follows. It is a precious moment; he savours the invitation to enter her private world. Before him is a large, sparsely furnished room, airy and spacious; opposite, three French windows that must open on to a south-facing balcony. The sun filters through the closed louvered shutters, which she does not open. A magnificent, dark, highly polished wood floor, white walls, a few items of glass-and-steel
furniture around a dining table. A sitting area with squat leather armchairs on steel frames, and a coffee table at the base of a vast bookcase that covers an entire wall.
‘Sit down and I’ll make the tea.’
She vanishes through the left-hand door into the kitchen. So the bedroom must be off to the right. He sits down, tense, on the alert for the slightest sound, the slightest indication of her presence. She moves around in the kitchen, opens a cupboard, closes it. A sound of cups rattling, water running, then a silence. What is she doing? The water boils. She comes back carrying a tray with two cups and a china teapot on it. She has kicked off her shoes and is walking barefoot on the dark wood floor. He watches her, fascinated by her relaxed manner. He desires her, his throat tight, his muscles paralysed. She sits down facing him and pours black tea into the two cups. He takes a sip of the scalding brew, rises and goes to kneel beside her, removes a slide from her chignon and the edifice slowly collapses – the second slide and her hair cascades down her back. She does not resist, her eyes are closed. He bathes his hand in the silky, slightly damp mass, the scent of warm amber. Can a person die of desire? He stands up, and gathers her in his arms. She is light, and he walks towards the bedroom door, which yields at his touch. In the half-darkness, he makes out the shadowy shape of the bed in the centre of the room, covered in a voluminous white duvet. He lowers her into the hollow of this whiteness and with infinite tenderness leans over towards the face, the mouth, the hair that he has always desired.
He has the beginnings of a story.
Vicenzo had warned her that things might not move very fast and that academics had no sense of urgency. In July the notion of time is even more elastic. And the long weekend of the 14th of July slows communication down still further. After several phone conversations and a few long
explanations, it is only on coming home from work on the evening of Monday 18th July that Lisa finds a package in her letter box. It contains a charming handwritten note from Jacques Chamrousse, professor of contemporary economic history at a Paris university.
Dear Ms Biaggi,
As I said to you over the telephone, I am not an expert on the history of Italian banking. While trying to find the answers to your questions, I came across this book, a history of the Piemonte-Sardegna bank, published to celebrate its centenary, so naturally it has all the drawbacks of this type of publication. But I was able to verify that it is a fairly reliable study, based on numerous established facts, and I hope it contains the information you are looking for. If it doesn’t, don’t hesitate to contact me again and I’ll see if I can find any other more ‘orthodox’ works. It is an Italian publication, there is no French edition, but of course that won’t be a problem for you.
Yours sincerely,
Jacques Chamrousse
Lisa climbs the stairs to her apartment, the book under her arm, and settles down comfortably to skim through it. A beautiful edition with photos of starchy bankers, luxurious offices, lavish, formal commemorations. In 1949, a takeover of the Tomasino family bank, the biggest bank in Brescia and the region. Not a word about its fascist past, but that was only to be expected. The most interesting contribution of the Tomasino bank is its property portfolio, the jewel of which is the building housing the Milan branch of the bank, at number 10, Via Del Battifolle, Milan. What a shock … That address … The very one where Carlo was assassinated. And opposite the
article, a full-page photo of a magnificent art deco building, in which the bank only occupies part of the ground floor. It was there, on that pavement … Shock makes Lisa burst into tears. She places a trembling hand on the photo, closes her eyes and waits, without moving, until she feels calm again. There is no such thing as chance: this is proof.
A phone call to Roberto: ‘SOS, I need your company this evening. I can’t be on my own. Haven’t got the strength. And no questions.’
Her voice is uncertain and Roberto recognises the signs. They meet at the Chinese restaurant, which always stays open very late. Lisa swings between exhilaration and despondence, underpinned by profound anguish. She grazes rather than eats and downs large amounts of iced tea. Roberto remains calm and waits for her to speak. It is the only thing to be done, he is used to it. After a very long silence: ‘Roberto, I need you.’
He smiles.
‘Our conversations often begin like this. Can you be more precise?’
‘When I told you about Pier-Luigi, you said you could help. You said, “help with anything specific”. That’s exactly what I need. Help with something specific.’
‘So you haven’t dropped this Pier-Luigi business?’
Lisa smiles.
‘Of course not. Did you really think I’d let it go?’
‘I don’t know. You haven’t mentioned it to me for the last two or three weeks.’
‘I’m missing a central piece of the puzzle. Until I have it, I don’t want to talk to you about it. You’ll say I’m crazy and paranoid.’
‘I’ve never said you’re crazy or paranoid.’
‘No. But you’ve certainly thought it. And I don’t blame you.’
‘So what do you need me to do?’
‘I want to know if Carlo ran into a certain Daniele Bonamico or a Daniele Luciani when he was in prison.’
Surprised, Roberto raises his eyebrows.
‘I don’t know when exactly he changed his name. I didn’t ask Pier-Luigi the right question, and it’s too late now, he didn’t leave me a forwarding address.’
‘It’s impossible to ask the right questions when you don’t know the answers. I didn’t know that Luciani was supposed to have met Carlo.’
A silence. Lisa offers no further details.
‘Right, tell me what you want me to do.’
‘I want you to ask our lawyers to obtain that information. They can easily find out from Carlo’s solicitor in Italy. And they promised to help me.’
‘Why don’t you ask them yourself?’
‘Because I don’t want to have to answer their questions. I can just picture their faces. “And why do you need this information? What are you up to?” I don’t want to say anything until I’ve got all the information I need. It will be easier for you to say nothing because you don’t know anything.’
‘Do you badly need to protect yourself, Lisa?’
‘Yes, you know I do, and I’m relying on you to help me fend off trouble, as usual.’
‘OK. I’ll do it tomorrow. Let’s go back to your place and have a coffee, it’s better than here, and then you can make up a bed for me on the couch – it’s much too late for me to go home.’
‘Thank you.’
Sitting in the big armchair, his back to the window, Roberto sips an iced coffee.
‘There you go. It took a little while, but I finally managed to get the information you want. Daniele Bonamico was in jail at the same time as Carlo in 1986, in the high-security prison. He
had the benefit of a reduction in his sentence and was released a month after Carlo’s transfer to the second prison.’
Roberto stops speaking. Lisa is ashen, her features hard, set, she is no longer listening.
Exactly the answer I was expecting and I was preparing myself for. Even so, it’s a hell of a shock. Carlo, ten years of underground struggle. As a rule the group’s logistics ran without a hitch, everything except a bolt from the blue. In prison, the love of my life became the friend of a
right-wing
extremist, a killer, thinking it was OK to associate with him, that he was apolitical and reliable. What ravages prison can wreak. Worse than exile. When he escaped, Carlo was already dead inside. He fell apart in prison, and I knew nothing about it. My love for him, a huge chapter of our lives in shreds. Will I survive? What for?