I Will Have Vengeance (16 page)

He took a deep, liberating breath, like someone who's lifted a weight off his chest. Ricciardi stood up from his chair and went over to him. He put his hand on the Brigadier's arm as he had the day he told him that his son had died with his father's name on his lips.

“On the contrary, I thank you. I know you care about me and, in my own way, I care about you, too. I apologize for being brusque at times: I have a strange personality. But believe me, I'm fine the way I am. And give my regards to your wife.”

Maione looked into his eyes for a moment, smiled and left.

 

The theater director Spinelli was quite agitated, as usual. He entered the office like a fury, stopped suddenly, and looked around.

“Here I am. I came immediately. Good day, Commissario. Is there anything new? I should be kept informed about the status of the investigation. After all, I feel that my position gives me certain rights in this regard.”

As always, Ricciardi was more abrupt than he needed to be. He felt it was the right approach to keep someone like that at bay.

“When we have news, you'll know it, Director. For now, simply answer the questions I'm about to ask you.”

Once again, Ricciardi's harshness had the power to silence the theater director, who assumed his usual air of indignation.

“I am at your disposition, Commissario.”

“Last December, Vezzi came to the city with Bassi and Marelli to finalize contractual details for the performance of
Pagliacci
. Is that correct?”

“Of course, it's all recorded. I keep an up-to-date engagement book, should I have to account for my work at the Royal Theater. I remember it clearly. They arrived on the evening of the twentieth, we had been expecting them since morning but that was nothing new with Vezzi. They came to the theater on the twenty-first, and stayed the entire morning.”

“Did they speak with you?”

“I welcomed all three, as is my duty. Then I lingered with Marelli to see to the administrative issues, let's say. Vezzi and Bassi, on the other hand, were with the stage manager, the wardrobe people and the production director, looking over the sketches, being fitted for costumes, things like that. They left at lunchtime.”

“Do you remember any episode, anything out of the ordinary?”

“No. I only recall that a small crowd of stagehands, singers and orchestra players had gathered, having learned that he had come. Vezzi was a true legend in these circles. They wanted to meet him, to get his autograph. He got irritated and insisted on being left alone. He only met with the people I mentioned earlier.”

“And then?”

The theater director looked at him, raising an eyebrow somewhat arrogantly.

“Didn't you hear me? They left, before one o'clock. They even refused my invitation to lunch together. I don't even know when they left the city.”

A
plausible dynamic of events was taking shape in Ricciardi's mind. Not so much the facts—too many loose ends still eluded him—as the emotions that had been generated. That was the way he worked: he created a scheme, a geography of the emotions he encountered. What he was able to gather from the Incident, the feelings of the individuals he questioned, the surprise, the horror of those present. Then he tried to piece together the victim's soul—its dark and light sides—from the words and looks of the people who had known him.

He didn't elaborate on the witnesses' words: there was the risk of remembering them wrong and, in any case, taken out of the context in which they were said they lost their meaning, their importance. Instead his memory focused on the speaker's attitude, his expression and passion: on the emotion that emerged, and above all that which remained beneath the surface. All told, he sensed rather than heard.

In Vezzi's murder, his being surprised by death, he sensed a single violent urge that was nonrecurring. An isolated wave of hatred, purposeful and clear, leaving destruction on the shore as it receded. And he sensed the clown caught off guard, with his last doleful song. But Ricciardi also felt that the song's words and its tone were discordant: that the victim's mood was one of sorrow and regret, whereas his song spoke of vengeance.

Over time he had learned that the Incident could also lead him off course in solving a crime. One time a murdered girl's final words had concerned her father and the investigation had proceeded in that direction. But the father she was referring to was a priest, and the man who ended up in jail was not the killer. Since then he tried to consider whatever meaning words might offer, without ruling anything out.

It was because of this dissonance, the jarring note he sensed between the song's words and the emotion, that he had summoned don Pierino again. He didn't know if it was the opera expert he wanted to meet with or the father confessor, capable of understanding people's souls though with parameters quite different from his own.

When Maione brought in the priest, Ricciardi stood up to greet him.

“Thank you for coming so quickly, Father. I really need to talk with you.”

The priest, as always, smiled.

“My dear Commissario. I have already told you that for me it is a pleasure to be of help to you. How are things going?”

“Not particularly well, I'm afraid. I think I understand a few things, but there are still a few points that are obscure to me. Talk to me, Father. Tell me about
Pagliacci
and this character that Vezzi was playing. Canio, right?”

Don Pierino settled back in his chair and clasped his hands over his belly, raising his eyes to the window that was rattled by the wind.

“Canio, yes. The raging clown. Well then, the original drama about jealousy is, as you know,
Othello
. Verdi's music, Boito's libretto based on Shakespeare's tragedy. The Moor of Venice, you recall. There we have a crescendo of emotions, culminating in Othello's suicide after he has smothered Desdemona for her presumed infidelity. In reality, Desdemona is innocent. It was all a scheme contrived by Iago, the traitor.

“In
Pagliacci
, as in
Cavalleria Rusticana
, things are different: the woman is guilty, there actually is infidelity. It's a betrayal between a man and a woman, it's real, part of everyday life and, as Tonio says in the prologue, it can happen to anyone. There's nothing strange about it, nothing exotic. There are no riches, no soldiers, no gondolas or doges.”

Ricciardi listened with the greatest attention, looking steadily at the priest.

“So, Canio, although he's a clown, is certainly not a cheerful character.”

“Exactly, Commissario. In fact, if I may say so, I think the character Canio is one of the saddest of any opera. A man condemned to make people laugh, who instead is obsessed with not appearing ridiculous. It is hearing himself reminded by Beppe, Arlecchino, to perform, while he's suffering from jealousy, that finally makes him lose control.”

“And, onstage, he kills his wife and her lover.”

“Exactly. Here too there is a traitor, Tonio, the hunchback clown. His deformity represents wickedness, malice. But actually—though it's for selfish reasons, because he has designs on Canio's wife—he tells the truth: Nedda, Colombina, does have a lover. And that's the beauty of the libretto, the real drama takes place right onstage, the province of fiction. Almost as if to say that life always comes through, in the street, in the home, and even onstage.”

“So Canio kills Tonio and Nedda?”

Don Pierino laughed.

“No, no! Nedda's lover isn't Tonio. It's Silvio, remember? I told you about him earlier. A young man from the village, not one of the troupe. Canio kills Nedda and then Silvio when he climbs onstage to help the woman.”

“So the lover doesn't perform with Canio. Is that right?”

“Yes, exactly. He's a character who is not particularly significant, a baritone.”

“And Canio, when he learns that Nedda really has a lover, goes mad with jealousy.”

Don Pierino nodded, lost in thought.

“Yes; fiction and reality become confused. Canio plays the betrayed husband and, when he finds out the truth, he tears off his costume, singing ‘
No, pagliaccio non son!
'—no, I am not a clown—and then stabs his wife.”

Ricciardi again saw the image of the clown in tears, blood gushing from the gash in his carotid artery, his hand outstretched, singing . . .

“
Io sangue voglio, all'ira m'abbandono . . .
”

“
. . . in odio tutto l'amor mio finì!
' don Pierino finished for him, clapping his hands and laughing delightedly. ‘Bravo, Commissario! So you've been studying! Very nice, that quote, and particularly apropos, since the two operas are performed together. In fact, they tell the same story and the characters are closer than you might imagine.”

Ricciardi looked at the priest, not following.

“Which characters, Father?”

“Canio and Alfio, of course! The lines you just recited, right?”

“But isn't it Canio who sings that in Pagliacci?”

“Are you pulling my leg? No, no, Alfio sings it in
Cavalleria Rusticana
. He too is a betrayed husband. They're his last lines as he leaves the stage, before the intermezzo. He sings them at the end of his duet with Santuzza, who reveals that his wife is betraying him with Turiddu, whom he kills in a duel at the end of the opera. But, if you didn't know . . . where did you hear it?”

Ricciardi was now staring into space, leaning slightly forwards in his chair. A whole new perspective had opened up, filling in many pieces of the puzzle.

“What was it you said before? The baritone . . . ”

“Alfio is a baritone, yes. He has to have a deep voice, to reflect the hard work . . . ”

“No, no, Father,” Ricciardi raised a hand, interrupting him. “What you said about the other baritone, Silvio: you said, ‘a character who is not particularly significant.' Is that right?'

Don Pierino was confused. ‘Yes, that's what I said. But he's not the one who sings the lines you quoted. Are you all right, Commissario? You look pale.'

“And who decides, in life, who is ‘particularly significant'? Every man is particularly significant as far as he's concerned, isn't he, Father?'

Ricciardi seemed to be talking to himself, even though he addressed the priest.

“How many times, in the confessional, have you listened to the feelings and emotions of people ‘not particularly significant'? Every day, from morning till night, I see the mayhem and delirium wrought by the emotions of people like that.'

Don Pierino protested vigorously.

“But I'm not referring to real people! This is the stage. You don't have to tell me that, of all people. Our Lord was the first to affirm that all men are equally significant. Your lords and masters, on the other hand'—he pointed to the two photographs on the wall—‘are you sure they attach the same significance to the murder of any common pushcart vendor in the Quartieri Spagnoli as they do to Vezzi's murder, for example?”

Ricciardi, surprised by the vehemence of don Pierino's reaction, smiled sadly.

“You're right, Father. You're right. That's not what I meant, but I owe you my apologies in any case. I can see how you might think that, but that's not what I was trying to say. The point is that, day after day, I witness the suffering that people intentionally inflict on other individuals. It's difficult for me to think of love as anything but the prime motive of these crimes. Believe me, Father, if it's not love, it's hunger, in which case it's simpler. Hunger is understandable, one can easily grasp it. It's straightforward, immediate. Love isn't; love takes other paths.”

“I can't believe you really think that, Commissario. Love has nothing to do with this butchery. Love moves the world, it's the love of fathers, of mothers, of God especially. Love is wanting what's good for those you love. Certainly not bloodshed and pain: that's damnation.'

Ricciardi stared at the priest with blazing eyes; he seemed to be nearly shaking from a raging fire within.

“Damnation. Believe me, Father, when I tell you that for you damnation is only a word. Believe me when I tell you that damnation is the relentless perception of sorrow, day in and day out. Other people's sorrow that becomes your own, that stings like a whip, that leaves wounds that won't heal, that go on bleeding, that infect your blood.”

The Commissario's voice was now a whisper, his lips barely moving. It was a sharp hiss and don Pierino instinctively leaned back in his chair, somewhat horrified.

“I see it, do you understand, Father? I see it. I feel it, the sorrow of the dead who remain attached to a life they no longer have. I know it; I hear the sound of the blood draining away. The mind that deserts them, the brain clinging by the fingernails to the last shred of life as it runs out. Love, you say? If you only knew how much death there is in your love, Father. How much hate. Man is imperfect, Father, let me tell you. I know it all too well.”

Don Pierino stared at the Commissario, wide-eyed. Somehow he understood that Ricciardi was speaking literally, not metaphorically. What was in that man's heart? What were those transparent, desperate eyes concealing? The Assistant Pastor felt an immense compassion, and a human revulsion.

“I . . . I believe in God, Commissario. And I believe that if He gives someone a greater cross to bear than others, He has His reasons. If this someone can help his neighbour more, if he can help a lot of other people, then perhaps his suffering is justified; perhaps it has some meaning, all this sorrow.”

Ricciardi slowly regained his composure; he leaned back in his chair, sighed faintly, closed his eyes and reopened them. Once again he assumed the expressionless face that characterized him. Don Pierino felt relieved, as if for a moment, only a moment, he had had a glimpse of hell.