“As much of a connection as it needs,” he said.

  34

  Corso looked up from his book for the umpteenth time, hoping the butterfly had gone, but it was still where he had last seen it a little earlier, intent on its blind battle against the window.

  This is something we should all see, he thought, at least once in a lifetime. Anyone who has a heart, that is, even if his heart is cold and closed like mine.

  He had gone down to the school chemistry lab at the beginning of his free period to reread the pages he had circled in pencil during the last few days: an old habit, one of those surviving from his earlier life. He had known the large lab would be in shade and silent at that hour, but no sooner had he opened the book than his attention was distracted by the butterfly. It was not a gaudy one, in fact it was all brown, and its large yellow-edged wings each had a brown eye at the center. In the minutes during which he watched the distressing tenacity with which the little creature struggled to get through the closed part of the window, ignoring the open half, Corso had had the opportunity to meditate on many things, some of them indefinable, like the fact that “an image may be the more inaccessible the closer we are to it,” and that “forty minutes in the life of a butterfly may well correspond to twenty years in the life of a human.” Other ideas were firmer but more discouraging: for example, the story of the Snoring Beauties, the only imaginable clue still open, was turning out to be a blind alley, like the DNA of the hair and the signature in the register. In any case, what could he possibly have expected from a story forty years old that was no longer of interest to anyone? In the four days since their meeting in the gardens no more had been heard from Arcadipane, while Isa’s research was continuing to end “in shit.”

  “Let it go,” Corso had told her the evening before, when she had called to update him.

  “What?”

  He was holding the telephone away from his ear because of the hammering beat of the music coming out of it. He imagined her perched on a stool, her breasts pressed against the edge of a bar.

  “I said let it go,” he repeated.

  Isa paused, presumably to take a swig, or perhaps just to stare at the wet mark her glass had made on the bar.

  Finally, she spoke. “Why don’t we go back to Luda, throw the story of the snoring girls in his face?”

  Corso drank a mouthful of the instant coffee he had taken with him to the phone. During the last few days he had come up with three reasons for not going back to Luda and arranged them in order of importance. But it was late and he did not feel like discussing the subject at length.

  “Arcadipane’s right,” was all he allowed himself to say. “The snoring girls may not be connected with Autumnal in any way. No point in stirring up a hornets’ nest for nothing.”

  “It’s not fucking nothing! Those men were screwing children!”

  “Not so far as we know. And anyway, they were children forty years ago.”

  “So?”

  “The statute of limitations kicks in after ten years.”

  “Then why are you forcing me to keep struggling, and why do you keep kicking Arcadipane in the balls?”

  Corso took a second mouthful of instant coffee and said nothing, leaving her time to choose what to say next. The milk he had put in his coffee had been open for days. Even by the feeble light of his lamp he could see little white filaments floating on the black.

  “What are you doing?” Isa asked eventually.

  “In what sense?”

  “In the sense of now.”

  Her slow, velvety voice floated over the banality of the music, like a foulard drifting on the oily waters of a port.

  “I’m finishing my coffee.”

  “And then?”

  “I’ll read Kawabata.”

  “And after that?”

  “I’ll try to sleep.”

  He had identified the soporific tinkle of ice in the glass Isa was lifting to her lips. It was a thick glass. Whiskey, probably. He remembered that noise. A beautiful sound, though remembering it was less beautiful. He heard Isa take two rapid, decisive swigs.

  “Good boy,” she had said before ringing off. “Read your Kawabullshit, then go to sleep.”

  Corso got up and went to the window. The butterfly was resting quietly, perhaps in preparation for its next attempt. A combination of beauty and helplessness, unable either to destroy itself or rise to the challenge.

  Autumnal is like that too, he thought, approaching the butterfly with his index finger.

  The butterfly flew up at once. Corso guided it to the open side of the window. The insect contemplated the world outside, perhaps responding to its breath or perhaps to its voice, and it was as if the butterfly was assuming an expression of regret. The expression old people take on in the presence of excess.

  “I had no idea you were here!”

  Monica was half in the corridor and half in the room. They studied each other calmly.

  “It’s not true,” she was smiling. “I did know. I wanted to say sorry. It’s just that . . .”

  “Everything’s in place,” Corso said.

  “. . . when I see you like this, it’s not my business, but . . .”

  “It’s okay. You were right.”

  “A bit yes, though . . .”

  “Monica?”

  “Yes.”

  “Everything’s fine.”

  “Sure?”

  “Sure.”

  She joined her hands as if in prayer, as if to say “really sure?”

  “Sure.”

  “Good! I was afraid you didn’t want me as your friend anymore. Why are you holding your finger like that?”

  Corso glanced at his index finger, which was still pointing at the world into which the butterfly had returned. He shook his head to indicate it was nothing, put his hand in his pocket, and went out of the room.

  They went along the corridor and up the stairs and finally reached the second floor, surrounded by the general uproar caused by the bell. Corso had his bag on his shoulder and the book in his hand. He was wearing mountaineering pants with rectangular patches on the knees and his usual check shirt. Monica wore a cloth bag around her neck and a maize-colored blouse, her hair fastened back with a red pencil. Despite the obstruction of her long skirt, her legs were moving with the harmony that beautiful legs always have and ugly legs never do. Corso understood that kind of beauty. It was like living near the sea or at the edge of a lake, or walking beside a river. Something that works ceaselessly inside you, even when you are thinking of something entirely different.

  They stopped at the foot of the stairs.

  “What are you reading?”

  Corso showed her the book.

  “Japanese?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Monica leafed through it till she came to one of the phrases he had underlined.

  “‘To the old, death; to the young, love; only one death, but many loves.’ Comforting! What’s all that about?”

  “About old men who spend the night beside sleeping girls.”

  “Lots of sex?”

  “Apparently not.”

  “Forget it, then,” she said, giving the book back to him. “Tomorrow we’re taking class three to the Gallery of Modern Art, remember?”

  “Can’t I get out of that?”

  “You said you’d be free to come.”

  “When?”

  “At the staff meeting before last.”

  “Since when have I left it to you to decide such things?”

  “I thought you’d like to come into Turin with me. We’re friends, aren’t we?”

  “Something of the sort.”

  “Something of the sort is good enough for me.” She turned and smiled at him. “The station at eight, then.”

  Corso climbed the final flight of stairs and headed for his class.

  From inside came the usual heavy sound of voices, restlessness, and chairs scraping the floor. The atmosphere in the corridor was static and electric, as in all places that fill and empty in a hurry.

  Seeing no one near the door, Corso assumed the students must all be in the school hall for some meeting he had forgotten about. But when he came into the room he found them all sitting in their places. The buzz among the desks died down.

  “What’s going on?”

  Some stared at him in silence, while others looked down at their books, which were already open: most unusual. A couple of boys were laughing with their heads down.

  He went to the teacher’s desk, took out one of the three pens in his pocket, and started calling the roll, but looks were resting on him like the light but sharp feet of a bird.

  “Well?” he said, looking up from the list of absentees. A girl who in no way resembled her name, which was Elisabetta, settled her hands on her desk.

  “Have you really done these things?” she said.

  Bramard had no idea what she was talking about, but her obscure words could bode no good, especially in public. The class were rustling discreetly like a flock of sheep shut up in their pen. Some were looking out of the window.

  He went over to find out what they were looking at.

  The clock on the tower between the buildings in the center showed just after one. It was a hot day, though not excessively so, the sky veiled with clouds with frayed edges. Soon the large umbrellas in the market that lent color to the piazza would be beginning to close, and the two lines of cars parked at the sides of the avenue would be thinning out. Down in the courtyard, the children from the primary school were doing everything children do when they know they’ll be free in half an hour.

  Something written up in red beside the bus stop caught his eye.

  He was overcome by a sudden drowsiness, his hands on the window ledge felt tired and he longed with his whole body to sit down, shut out the light, close the door, and sleep.

  But his eyes were drawn back to those words that had not been there the day before: BRAMARD MURDERER WASN’T TWO ENOUGH?

  Corso bowed his head, something he did when he needed to think fast. His first thought was: We’re there! Then: But I wouldn’t have believed it. And finally: I should have taken it into account.

  All the other thoughts that now crowded in rapidly related to things that must now be done and he developed them as he crossed the three meters and twenty-five centimeters between the window and the door.

  35

  The telephone had been ringing for a long time. It was the second time Bramard had called. It had been about two minutes since he first tried to get through: the time he had had to wait for the only traffic light on the way out of the village to turn green.

  “Hello?” Finally, his uncle answered.

  “Corso here.”

  “I was outside hitching up the cart.”

  “I need you to do two things for me, quickly.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “I’ll tell you later, but go at once to the bar. Elena should be there working. Don’t say anything to her, but make sure no one’s taking an undue interest in her, then stay on till I get there. If she wants to go because she’s finished work, don’t let her leave, tell her she must wait for me. But if she’s not there, go to her house and wait outside it till I come. If you see a car or anyone else there, go into her house and call me. Is that clear?”

  “I think so.”

  “Before you go, take the Luger, load it, and carry it with you. But don’t use it, no matter what happens. I just want you to have it ready to give to me when I get there.”

  “If I have to hurry I can only do either one thing or the other.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the Luger’s not here, I’d have to go and get it.”

  Corso thought.

  “Then forget the Luger, just go to the bar.”

  “So I should go to the bar?”

  “Yes, at once.”

  He turned off his cellphone and looked at the time. He would be there in about twenty minutes, his uncle a little before him. He slowed down as he passed through the only built-up area on the way: a place of a few thousand inhabitants with three restaurants, only one of them any good, a tobacconist’s belonging to someone who had been in the same class as him at school, two hairdressers—one with a shop, the other working from home—a mechanic, a car-body repairer, a large workshop where they manufactured chassis for car transporters and employed more than twenty workers, a building society, a grocer, a bar with three fruit machines, and a state lottery office. Also the foundations of a gas pump that had been begun but never finished because of credit problems, a funeral parlor, a church, a kindergarten run by a mother with an ancient teaching diploma and a glass eye and a daughter with an up-to-date certificate of education, and a primary school.

  Emerging from the built-up area, Corso looked in his wallet for the ticket with the phone number, but realizing he could not simultaneously read it, dial the number, and drive, he moved to the side of the road and slowed down.

  Isa answered: “Yes.”

  Corso accelerated again, throwing up gravel.

  “They’ve made a move.”

  “How?”

  “Written up something outside the school where I teach.” He read out the words to her.

  “Autumnal?”

  “No.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Not his style.”

  “Then who was it? They can’t all be either dead or decrepit.”

  “No matter. When you said there’s a file on me, was that true?”

  “Why the fuck would I have said there’s a file if there wasn’t?”

  “What’s written there?”

  “What I told you.”

  “Nothing else?”

  Isa said nothing. In his time Corso had learned to understand why people stay silent. This was the category of silence that means the person really has nothing more to say. But he needed to be sure.

  “In the file, does it say anything about a relationship with a woman?”

  “What woman?”

  “Does it say anything, or not?”

  “No, there’s nothing there.”

  “I’ve got something I have to sort out now. I’ll get back to you this evening.”

  “And in the meantime what the fuck do I do?”

  Corso swung south from the main road. The surrounding countryside was getting greener after several nights of rain and fresh mornings. Inspiring if you had nothing else to worry about.

  “You watch Luda,” he told Isa. “See whether he has any visitors, and if he goes out check where he goes. Can you do nothing about the telephones?”

  “How can I check them when there may still be more calls to come? It’ll take a few days.”

  “Okay, just concentrate on Luda then.”

  “What about Arcadipane?”

  “Has he asked you anything?”

  “No.”

  “Then let’s leave him out of it. I’ll have a word with him this evening.”

  “But where are you going?”

  Corso could see the village in the distance. He didn’t look in the direction of his own house or his uncle’s. No extraneous thoughts, no looking back, only the present and a trajectory that would carry him a few meters farther on. It had been a long time since he had last functioned in that manner. He hadn’t believed he was still capable of it.

  “Only call me if something happens,” he told Isa. “Otherwise wait for me to get in touch.”

  36

  They had been half an hour on the road, during which time neither had said a word.

  Corso had already said most of what he had to say in the kitchen, trying to get Elena to throw some things into a bag and come with him, while Elena kept saying that she was going nowhere without an explanation. In the end they agreed Corso would tell her everything in the car.

  But it hadn’t gone that way, at least not so far. Once in the car Elena had closed herself up with her own thoughts, her head against the window and her bag in her lap, giving way to an exhaustion she seemed unable to put off any longer.

  Corso, for his part, had done little to keep his promise: any explanation would have meant going back to the beginning and he did not feel like doing that. When Elena closed her eyes, he did no more than lower the window a little and tear his eyes from her sleeping face, and that beauty she shared with deer, predatory animals, wolves, dogs, beetles, and elephants. Animals elegantly dangerous. Rapid without ever losing their composure. Terrible yet capable of enduring fidelity too.

  “Does Adrian have any part in this story?” she asked suddenly.

  “Who’s Adrian?”

  Elena kept her eyes closed and did not answer.

  “No,” Corso said, understanding. “He’s not involved.”

  They were traveling fast toward a horizon lined with mountains. There was no traffic. Occasional agricultural buildings and fortifications perched up high like stacked boxes interrupted cultivated stretches of kiwi fruits and apple trees.

  “How long will this take?” Elena asked.

  “An hour.”

  “I don’t mean the journey. How long do I have to stay?”

  “It’s just a precaution. I hope to sort everything quickly.”

  “And he’s the danger?”

  “He who?”

  “I know what happened to you. Did you think no one in the village has ever talked about it?”

  Corso slowed down. In front of him was the stern of a yacht, its rudder lashed in place with white cord. The boat was partly concealed under a gray cloth on a trailer. Pulling the trailer was a jeep with very large wheels. He moved to the left to overtake, but a tractor was coming in the opposite direction, so he reduced his speed and dropped back.

  “No. This is a different story.”

  Elena lifted her head from the window and zipped up her bag. It wasn’t nearly full, she had only picked up a few things from the bathroom and her bedroom.

  “What story? What has it got to do with me?”

  “Nothing, but someone might want to get at anyone close to me.”

  Corso felt her eyes running from his temple down his arms, finally stopping at his hands on the steering wheel. He had known that her eyes rested like that on him before, but only in the dark.

 

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