Marco Vichi - Inspector Bordelli 04 - Death in Florence (21 page)

A minute later he was snoring like a train …

While Bordelli sleeps, the rivers of the Mugello and the Aretino burst their banks, flow downstream and further swell the Arno. The Valdarno is flooded, as is Pontassieve, where a bridge collapses and a house is washed away …

The night falls on our heads

the rain upon us pours

the people smile no more.

A little while later the Arno begins to splash against the tops of the Ponte Vecchio’s arches and overflows in the La Lisca district of the town of Lastra a Signa. The Tuscany–Romagna trunk road, and all communications between Florence and Empoli, are cut off. At 2 a.m. the Mugnone bursts its banks and floods the Parco delle Cascine. The stables there are full of horses. The thoroughbreds are saved in a hurry, but less attention is paid to the others, and they drown. At half past two, the Arno bursts its banks at Nave, Rovezzano and Villa Magna …

The world is changing presently

and will change again by and by

But take a look up and you’ll see

big patches of blue in the sky.

At 3 a.m. the great spate of the Arno reaches Florence. On the left bank, between the Ponte alle Grazie and the Santa Trinita bridge, the drains are chucking up mud. The river is now as high as the parapets on the Lungarno. At half past three the Anconella aqueduct is overwhelmed by the wave of mud, and an overseer, Carlo Maggiorelli, becomes the first casualty of the Florence flood. He was on the phone, answering a call from someone telling him to get out, when he was swept away by the water’s fury. Basements flood, a few boilers explode, home taps run dry …

We see an old world come

crashing down upon us now …

but what fault is it of ours?

At 4 a.m., in the already flooded parts of the city upstream,
carabinieri
and army personnel with boats and dinghies ferry people to safety. The Arno bursts its banks at Rovezzano and floods the districts of San Salvi, Varlungo, Gavinana and Ricorboli. Gavinana is under a foot and a half of water. Only half an hour later, the river has conquered the Lungarno Cellini, courses down Via dei Renai and submerges the San Niccolò quarter. Mayor Bargellini is asleep at home in Via delle Pinzochere. He is woken up by a phone call from the commissioner of police, gets dressed in a frenzy and goes out. A car takes him to the Ponte Vecchio, where he meets the commissioner, the prefect and a few journalists. The river rumbles like force-nine seas, and the iron railing around the statue of Benvenuto Cellini is vibrating like a string on a double bass. Uprooted trees bourne on the swell thud loudly against the pillars of the bridge. Amid the muddy waves one sees carcasses of cows, cars, splintered wardrobes, a large bus caracoling like a dead whale. The men on the bridge do not know yet that there are areas both downstream and upstream from Florence that are already well under water: San Colombano, Badia a Settimo, Vingone, Rimaggio, Guardiana. Bargellini would like to go home to warn his family but the streets have become impassable because of the torrents of mud flowing fast everywhere. He stops in at the offices of
La Nazione
, inaugurated just a month ago and still sparkling new, then continues on towards Palazzo Vecchio.

How many times have they smiled sadly and said

the dreams of the young are all smoke

They are tired of struggling and no longer

believe in anything

now that they’re so close to the goal.

By order of the prefect the jewellers of Ponte Vecchio are alerted by the night patrols and run to save what they can from their shops. At 5 a.m. the sewage drains of San Frediano are spewing muck. A putrid stream flows down Borgo Ognissanti, and a short while later the Baroque church and old barracks of the
carabinieri
are flooded. All night Dante Nocentini, head of the Florentine office of the National Press Agency, has been walking up and down the Lungarni to monitor the river’s progress. In the end he decides to stop in Piazza Cavalleggeri, in front of the unsightly Biblioteca Nazionale, which at night takes on a gloomy and simultaneously ridiculous appearance. Suddenly the Arno rises over the parapets and a stream of slimy water begins to inundate the cobblestones. Nocentini starts running towards Piazza Santa Croce, chased by the water advancing inexorably down Corso dei Tintori. He runs to Via dei Pucci, to the offices of the National Press Agency, races up the stairs and broadcasts the news to Rome: the Arno is flooding Florence.

It will be a fine society

founded on liberty.

By 6 a.m. Borgo Ognissanti has become a raging torrent and Piazza Gavinana is under ten feet of water. The Arno enters Borgo San Jacopo and Via Maggio in triumph, and at half past six is coursing from Bellariva towards the centre of town, churning down the Via Aretina. Moments later, the parapet at Piazza Cavalleggeri collapses, and the raging Arno vents its fury on the Biblioteca Nazionale and the Santa Croce quarter.

It matters not that someone on life’s path

should be prey to the ghosts of the past

Money and power are deadly snares

that have worked for so very long.

Nearly the whole city and a few neighbouring towns are without electricity, gas or telephone service. Around seven o’clock the river inundates Piazza Alberti, San Frediano, Santo Spirito, Piazza dei Giudici, the Lungarno degli Archibusieri, Por Santa Maria … It courses with frightening speed, overturning cars, crashing through front doors and metal shutters, pouring out into the streets what it stole in the Valdarno: dead animals, trees, shattered furniture, oil drums … The Lungarno degli Acciaioli collapses, along with certain stretches of the Lungarno Corsini. By eight in the morning, in Via dei Neri, where Rosa lives, there are ten feet of water, and the level keeps rising …

And if we’re not like you

there must be a reason

and if you don’t know it

what fault is it of ours?

He opened an eye in the darkness and, hearing the dull sound of the rain, huffed in annoyance. He was surprised to see thin shafts of light filtering through the cracks in the inside shutters. It couldn’t possibly be morning. How long had he slept? Twelve hours at the very least. He hadn’t slept like that since childhood. He felt a mountain of blankets weighing down on him and smelled a strong odour of sweat from the night. Groping beyond the edge of the mattress, he found the lamp switch and pressed it, but there was no light. As usual, he didn’t have any spare bulbs and would have to unscrew one from the light fixture in the entrance hall. He didn’t feel like turning on the overhead light. He couldn’t stand bright electric light right after waking up. Without sitting up, he opened the drawer in the bedside table and pulled out an electric torch. He always kept it within reach, a habit he had picked up during the war. Turning it on, he lit up the clock. Twenty past eight. He thought he heard someone talking loudly in the street. It was strange, on a holiday like that.

He still felt weak, but the fever seemed gone. He reached out and grabbed the thermometer, which he stuck under his arm, then lit up the ceiling with the torch. He knew every single crack and little stain in the plaster. They hadn’t changed for years, and were like unshakeable certainties. Little by little, something began to surface from the dark well of his memory, a long night of rain during the war, inside a tent with three men from his battalion, drinking cordials and talking about women. Never had so many lies been told in a single night, but it was merely a way to keep the thought of death at bay.

Thirty-six point seven. He’d done it. He’d beaten the fever. And it had taken only one night. He was a sapper from the San Marco, after all. That must be worth something. He turned off the torch, rolled on to his side and closed his eyes. Perhaps it was best to wait for it to stop raining before sticking his nose outside. He could hardly rush off to Piazza della Signoria for the commemoration ceremony. Any doctor would have forbidden it. He would sleep for a few more hours and then dawdle about the flat, enjoying a bit of
dolce far niente
as he hadn’t done for centuries. A nice cup of coffee, a few phone calls, a hot bath … It would be interesting to see what was on the telly in the morning. He imagined these trifles with great pleasure, like a child waiting for his mother’s goodnight kiss. He remained in bed, snug and warm, head full of hazy memories ceaselessly overlapping. In his drowsiness he thought he heard an explosion in the distance, but decided he’d probably dreamt it.

Before long he got tired of lying in bed and decided to get up. Setting his feet down on the floor, he yawned with gusto. He felt much better than he had the previous night. When his eyes adjusted to the penumbra, he finally stood up. Taking his trousers from the chair, he slipped them on, staggering. He went over to the window to open the blinds, then peered through the slats in the shutters … and his jaw dropped. Where the street had once been there was now a river of muddy water coursing fast towards Piazza Tasso. Throwing open the window and the shutters, he saw dozens of people looking out of their windows, wrapped in overcoats. Incredulous like him, staring at the flooded street. The rain was still falling just as forcefully as the night before. The water was almost high enough to cover the front doors of the buildings, flowing swiftly and carrying with it cars, trees, broken furniture …

He looked at the spot where he’d parked his Beetle, but it was gone. Why hadn’t anyone called him from headquarters? He ran to the phone and picked up the receiver. It was silent. Then he remembered unplugging it. He plugged it back in, but there was still no dialling tone. He tried turning on the overhead light. Nothing. All power had been knocked out. He put on his coat and returned to the window.

‘It’s still rising,’ he said to himself out loud. The turbid river was swelling before his eyes, carrying debris away and staving in shutters and doors. A number of women wept in silence, scratching their cheeks with their fingers. Small children looked out, wide-eyed and bewildered. One storey below him, old Signora Cianfroni was leaning out over the windowsill with her little dog in her arms. Somewhere a newborn was screaming desperately.

‘The shop … the shop …’ whimpered a man above him whom he couldn’t see. The water continued rising. Bordelli lived on the third floor. The water could never rise that high, he repeated to himself.

‘Down there … a dead body …!’ a woman cried.

And indeed, a stiff corpse floated by on the water, one arm extended over its head. Bordelli realised it was only a mannequin washed out of a shop somewhere but said nothing. He didn’t feel like talking. He went into the bathroom with the torch and set it down on a shelf. After flushing he turned on the tap, but only a dull gurgling sound came out. Cursing, he went back to the window. The water had risen even more. Seeing a man at the window smoking a cigarette, he went to look for his own. He quickly counted how many he had left in the packet. Just six. He would have to make them last, not knowing how long he would be held prisoner by the flood. He lit one and rested his elbows on the windowsill to smoke it, resigned to waiting. The smoke fluttered indifferently in the air, swirling and vanishing. In the distance he heard the melancholy sound of a helicopter.

He smoked till his fingers burned and then tossed the butt below. Touching the radiator, he found it almost cold. The water had flooded the basement and the boilers were no longer functioning. With the window open, his flat was getting cold. He thought of Botta in his basement flat. If he’d gone home last night, had he managed to escape in time? Or had he been overwhelmed by the mud in his sleep? At any rate, the few things he owned were lost by now. Poor Ennio. He also thought of Rosa, who lived almost right next to the Arno, in a ‘hole’, as the Florentines called it. He imagined her looking out from her little terrace, which gave on to Via dei Neri, eyes downcast and puling while the cats played in the sitting room. She was in no danger on the fifth floor. Diotivede likewise was safe. To reach as high as l’Erta Canina where he lived, the water would have to submerge the Palazzo Vecchio. Piras lived on the third floor in Via Gioberti, and by that hour should already have been on duty at the station. He thought of his cousin Rodrigo. He’d never seen his new place, but had heard that it was at the top of a hill. Zia Camilla, Rodrigo’s mother, lived in Via Boccaccio, almost at San Domenico, where Dante watched over Florence from the hilltop.

Bordelli heard the sound of a few transistor radios and remembered he had one. Turning it on, he went back to the window, holding it close to his ear. They were saying that the Arno had burst its banks in Florence and the city was under water, isolated and cut in two …

Suddenly the water sort of hiccupped and started rising even faster. Ten minutes later it had come up another two feet, coursing ever faster and bubbling, dragging away everything in its path. Cars crashed against buildings, banging into one another, knocking down street signs. The helicopter was still flying over the city, but nobody could actually see it. A Volkswagen Beetle floated by like a boat. After uprooting a street sign it went and smashed into the corner of Via dell’Orto before continuing on towards Piazza Tasso. It was probably going to keep his car company, Bordelli thought, suppressing a desire to light up another cigarette.

After the initial shock and despair, a sort of feeling of resignation settled in. Nobody was talking any more. It was as if a community of ghosts had come to watch the end of the world. The only sounds were from the rain and the swashing of the mud. The level continued to rise. Good thing the fourth of November was a holiday, Bordelli thought. If this had happened on a regular workday, the city would have been full of people, cars and parents taking their children to school …

Time seemed to have stopped. The only thing moving was the sludgy mass flowing through the streets, gaining inch after inch on the façades of the buildings. There was nothing to do but wait and watch the muddy monster as it swelled between the blocks of flats. One man started taking photographs and was soon imitated by others.