Marco Vichi - Inspector Bordelli 04 - Death in Florence (46 page)

25
.– Totò has the same name (a diminutive of the names Salvatore and Antonio) as the much-loved Totò (born Antonio de Curtis, 1898–1967), perhaps the greatest Italian comic actor of the twentieth century.

26
.– A television variety show broadcast from 1961 to 1966 on the national television station of the RAI (Radiotelevisione Italiana). The popular singer Mina was the show’s mistress of ceremonies in 1965/66.

27
.– Cigarettes are controlled by a state monopoly in Italy, giving rise to a thriving black market of smuggled and even counterfeit brand-name cigarettes. Neapolitan-made fake Marlboros, for example, were long legendary for their seeming authenticity, being nearly impossible to distinguish from real American Marlboros smuggled in, as both lacked the
monital
stamp found on all state-issued cigarettes.

28
.– Amedeo Nazzari (1907–1979) was an Italian actor of the screen and the stage, one of whose most famous roles was in
La cena delle beffe
(1941, directed by Alessandro Blasetti), a Renaissance-era costume drama derived from the stage play of the same name by Sem Benelli, in which Nazzari’s character’s famous line ‘Whoever won’t drink with me, a plague on him!’ (‘
Chi non beve con me, peste lo colga!’
) became a popular saying. Under the title of
The Jests
, Benelli’s play was a big success in New York in 1919, featuring Lionel and John Barrymore in the lead roles.

29
.– A Sicilian greeting of respect, meaning literally ‘I kiss your hands’.

30
.– All Souls’ Day in Italy is called
Il giorno dei morti
, the Day of the Dead.

31
.– As Italian morale sank during the First World War, the high command instituted a policy of literal decimation – that is, every tenth man of a recalcitrant unit was shot for refusing to jump out of the trenches to a certain death. See Mark Thompson,
The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front, 1915–1919
, Faber & Faber, 2009.

32
.–
Bordello, casino
and
postribolo
all mean ‘brothel’.

33
.– Man is the maker of his own luck.

34
.– Nationalist poet Gabriele d’Annunzio famously planned and participated in a daring flight over Vienna on 9 August 1918, to distribute flyers featuring a text written by the poet himself, in effect to taunt the Austrian enemy by showing that the Italian air force could fly unimpeded over their capital city. Some fifty thousand of these flyers were released into the air. What is less well known is that d’Annunzio’s text had been judged ineffective and untranslatable into German, and 350,000 copies of a second flyer with a less provocative and more conciliatory message, written by Ugo Ojetti, were also released on the same mission.

35
.– The Balilla was a parascholastic and paramilitary Fascist Youth organisation founded by the party in 1926.

36
.– The Alto Adige is the Italian name for the South Tyrol, a majority German-speaking area north of the province of Trent. At various times since its annexation by Italy in 1919, there have been radical Tyrolean militants willing to use force to achieve independence from Italy. Tempers have cooled in more recent times, since the region has gained considerable autonomy from Italy.

37
.– Ciacco is a mythic character who appears in Dante’s
Inferno
(VI, 52–4) and Boccaccio’s
Decameron
(Novel VIII, Ninth Day) as a personification of gluttony.

38
.– Mattonella was a famous pastry chef from the town of Prato near Florence, noted among other things for his
biscottini
. These are what are now called
biscottini di Prato
, but originally they were called, as Rosa calls them,
biscottini del Mattonella
.
Brutti ma boni
(literally, ‘ugly but tasty’) is the name of a traditional Italian biscuit.

39
.– Dante,
Inf
., Canto XIV, 116. ‘
Lor corso in questa valle si diroccia, fanno Acheronte, Stige e Flegetonta.
’

40
.– The Porcellino (‘little pig’) is a bronze fountain statue of a boar in the Mercato Nuovo in Florence, whose snout one is supposed to rub for good luck. The current statue in the Mercato is actually a copy of the Baroque original by Pietro Tacca (1577–1640), itself a copy of an Italian marble copy of a Hellenistic marble original. Tacca’s original is now in the Museo Bardini.

41
.– Dante,
Inf.
, Canto III, 109, ‘
Caron dimonio, con occhi di bragia
…’

42
.– A semi-legendary Roman youth of the sixth century
BC
who is said to have thrust his hand into a fire to prove his valour and bravery and willingness to die in battle.

43
.– A reference to to the famous ‘amnesty’ granted in June 1946 by popular communist leader and anti-Fascist Palmiro Togliatti (1893–1964) to those guilty of political and common crimes, including conspiracy to commit murder. Togliatti was Minister of ‘Grazia e Giustizia’ (‘Pardons and Justice’) in the post-war government.

44
.– Claretta was the name of Mussolini’s mistress, Claretta Petacci.

45
.– The SID (Servizio Informazioni Difesa) is a division of the military intelligence apparatus in Italy. Primo Carnera (1906–1967) was a famous Italian boxer who was world heavyweight champion in 1933/34 and known for his tremendous size.

46
.– The MSI is the Movimento Sociale Italiano, the neo-Fascist party founded in 1946 by diehard survivors of the puppet Republic of Salò regime and the original Fascist party itself.

47
.– The OVRA were the secret police apparatus of the Fascist regime from 1930 to 1943 and of the quisling Salò government from 1943 to 1945.

48
.– Also known as the Republican Alpine Redoubt (
Ridotto alpino repubblicano
), this was a fortified stronghold where the remaining Fascist diehards planned to stage their final defence of the Republic of Salò as the end drew near. A few thousand loyalist soldiers actually did begin to gather there in the winter and spring of 1945, but the whole plan came to naught after Mussolini was captured by partisans on 25 April 1945.

49
.– From September 1943 to August 1944, the Villa Triste (‘House of Sadness’) at 67 Via Bolognese in Florence lodged a unit of the German ‘political police’, the SD (
Sicherheitsdienst
), and a section of the Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale (the Voluntary Militia for National Security) of the Salò government. This ruthless Italian militia was commonly known as the Carità Gang, after its leader, Mario Carità. The Germans let the Italians use the lower floors of the building, where Carità created his ‘Special Services Unit’, made up in large part of criminals seeking amnesty for their crimes by serving the Nazi occupation government, and other mentally unbalanced individuals. The Villa Triste of Florence was one of several buildings so called in the Italy of the occupation, the others being in Rome, Milan, Trieste, Genoa and elsewhere.

50
.– The nuraghi are the archaic conical megaliths of central Sardinia.

51
.– Dante,
Inf
., Canto X, 102. Dante’s original says, ‘We see, like those who have imperfect sight, / the things,’ he said, ‘that distant are from us; / so bright still shines our Supreme Guide.’ In Dante, the word I have translated as ‘Guide’ (intended as God) is
duce
, thus allowing the exploitation and adaptation of the passage here to Fascist purposes. Indeed, the last line in the original tercet reads: ‘
cotanto ancor ne splende il sommo duce
’.

52
.– Stenterello is a traditional character of the Florentine carnival, clownish and often dressed in unmatching clothes.

53
.– The song ‘Ventiquattromila baci’ (‘Twenty-four thousand kisses’) was written by Pietro Vivarelli and Lucio Fulci to music by Andrian Celentano, and was sung first by Celentano, then by various other Italian entertainers. The lyrics translate as follows: ‘With twenty-four thousand kisses / I should know today why love / Now and then wants a thousand kisses / a thousand caresses per hour, per hour / With twenty-four thousand kisses / the hours pass happily / It’s a splendid day because / Every second I’m kissing you. / No wonderful lies … / [sound effects] / passionate words of love / [sound effects] / Only kisses I ask of youuuuuuuuu / you … ou … ou … ou … ou … ou … ou! / With twenty-four thousand kisses / Love is so frenetic.’

Shortlisted for the Crime Writers’ Association International Dagger 2013

Marco Vichi

Florence, 1965. A man is found murdered, a pair of scissors stuck through his throat. Only one thing is known about him – he was a loan shark, who ruined and blackmailed the vulnerable men and women who would come to him for help.

Inspector Bordelli prepares to launch a murder investigation. But the case will be a tough one for him, arousing mixed emotions: the desire for justice conflicting with a deep hostility for the victim. And he is missing his young police sidekick, Piras, who is convalescing at his parents’ home in Sardinia.

But Piras hasn’t been recuperating for long before he too has a mysterious death to deal with …

Out now in paperback and ebook

Marco Vichi

April 1964, but spring hasn’t quite sprung. The bad weather seems suited to nothing but bad news. And bad news is coming to the police station.

First, Bordelli’s friend Casimiro, who insists he’s discovered the body of a man in a field above Fiesole. Bordelli races to the scene, but doesn’t find any sign of a corpse.

Only a couple of days later, a little girl is found at Villa Ventaglio. She has been strangled, and there is a horrible bite mark on her belly. Then another little girl is found murdered, with the same macabre signature.

And meanwhile Casimiro has disappeared without a trace.

The investigation marks the start of one of the darkest periods of Bordelli’s life: a nightmare without end, as black as the sky above Florence.

Out now in paperback and ebook