‘They don’t know which way to turn, poor things! They dug up the girl’s uncle less than a week ago: headline, Giuseppe Montesi accused of murder and now, pff, there’s that bubble burst and they’ve got to blow another even bigger one.’
‘Lucky the move on that poor uncle didn’t work, eh, Gaggia? I’ve a feeling he was a comrade as well, that one.’
His voice becomes heated. ‘It’s because they’ve really cocked up, so they’re trying to salvage anything they can. Because forgive me, let’s say poor Wilma did get fucked by her uncle, or someone else, someone who wanted to fuck her, let’s say it had nothing to do with Piccioni and Montagna. What difference does it make? Montagna’s a criminal anyway, he had friends in high places, the various chiefs of police have bent over backwards to shelve the investigations. Piccioni, ok, he wouldn’t come up smelling of roses, but Piccioni isn’t the problem!’
At the end of the street, under the lime trees that were shedding their leaves, a bicycle appears.
‘Walterún! Walterún!’
He stops. He looks annoyed.
‘D’you know what’s happened to Capponi?’
‘Capponi? Isn’t he in Imola? With Garibaldi, Bortolotti, Melega. There was the funeral of that really famous partisan, what was his name?’
‘Bob! That’s right! Luigi Tinti, known as Bob. Walterún, you must know him, he fought in Milan!’
In a flash, Bob ousts Scelba, Wilma Montesi, Trieste. The people who knew him well, like Capponi, are all in Imola, but even those who were too old, or too young, know at least an anecdote, and drag it out, asking whether he was really the protagonist or whether it might have been someone else. Almost all of them are stories that we have already told each other a day or two ago, when the terrible news arrived and Capponi wanted to send us all home, then he decided to stay, to drink to the Commander’s health and remember his exploits. In the end we left after midnight, and the bar was fuller than it had been at six. Even the men from the Section arrived, and people we’d never seen here before, and for the first time since we’d known him Benfenati didn’t say a word, he sat there in silence, listening to the stories, then he hugged Capponi and went home.
Today the speeches are more or less the same, but no one is complaining, because it’s better to repeat some things one extra time than to forget them.
But no sooner has Walterún said goodbye than Capponi and the rest of the gang turn up, Garibaldi, Melega, Bortolotti and Bottone.
Someone complains about the surprise closure, without even a note, a sign. Capponi replies that since Benassi sold him half of it, he too has the power to decide whether the bar should stay shut. And today, never mind the bar, he had to go to Imola so don’t make a fuss.
‘Garibaldi, you’re good at this kind of thing, how many people would have been there?’
‘At least 15,000.’
‘And a few more. All the mayors of all the villages in the mountains were there, Bulow was there, and Teo and Piccolo carrying the coffin, there were partisan sections from the whole of Italy. Bergonzini was there, he gave the public oration along with the mayor, there were so many people there that they couldn’t all get into the Piratello cemetery, there was a band, what did they play again?’
‘The Eroica, by Beethoven.’
‘That’s the one. And they buried Bob with the other fallen of the 36th, in a part of the cemetery that also has Andrea Costa and all the best citizens of Imola.’
Bottone breaks away from the group and shakes his head. ‘It’s almost a good thing that he died so quickly.’
‘What was that you said, Bottone?’
‘Another ten years and who would have remembered Commander Bob?’
‘You’re wrong, Bottone,’ Garibaldi corrects him. ‘It’s easier to be forgotten while you’re alive, when you can still wind people up, than when you’re dead, hoopla, you’re a big hero again, time to get the banners out, sing a bit, and say that the spirit of the Resistance never dies. That’s how it is, mark my words.’
Meanwhile Capponi is already inside and heating up the coffee machine, while Bortolotti hurls himself at the television and turns it on, he’s wild about it now, and loads of us don’t agree, we should all be able to make the decision, and only if there’s something interesting on, not like that, not just for the sake of it. But what do you expect, it’s a taste for novelty, and Bortolotti says there’s no point having something if you don’t use it. In fact, since they’ve had the table football he’s almost stopped playing billiards, and he spends all his time fiddling with those little men. The coffee machine, the television, the table football, the gas stove and the new lights: all stuff bought with Pierre’s money.
‘But Brando, do we really know for certain that he won all that money at the casino?’
Brando doesn’t reply, partly because he has to reply to Bortolotti’s hand, but above all because he’s been really down lately, poor guy. Pierre has left, Sticleina’s got married, he’s found a real job as a nurse in Piacenza and gone to live there, Gigi has found another girl who’s a mambo fan and he doesn’t much feel like dancing the filuzzi with his friend the barber.
Capponi walks over to the wall, to where his medal is framed, and beneath it he tacks up two photographs, neatly aligned, with drawing pins.
One is a picture of Commander Bob, in uniform, hair combed back, half his face in light and half in shade. It looks a bit like a holy image, but it’s best not to point that out. The other is more blurred, two guys, isn’t that one Pierre? Hey! That means the other one must be Vittorio. They are hugging and smiling, and above them is written, in marker pen: Greetings from the New World to all our friends in the Bar Aurora.
‘Oh, Capponi, where on earth have they gone? To Venezuela?’
Then, in an undertone: ‘And yet Melega says that Pierre was in no great rush to leave just because of his father. It seems there’s something to do with Montroni’s wife, who actually did leave more or less around that time.’
‘Did she go to Venezuela as well?’
‘Who knows?’
‘It’s all bollocks as far as I’m concerned. Do you really reckon Signora Montroni would cuckold her husband with a barman?’
‘But she didn’t marry the barman. ’
‘Ah, women, women. ’ says Stefanelli from the next room.
From the television, right next to the two photographs, comes the voice of the presenter, who is interviewing some characters who are passing through Rome.
‘Why don’t you switch that thing off?’
Garibaldi’s request is the only sign of anyone paying attention to the television since Bortolotti switched it on. And you can bet that that will still be the case until closing time, because here in the Bar Aurora we haven’t the slightest interest in some famous actor who happens to have arrived in Rome today, or some politician, and if it weren’t for the football and the cycling we wouldn’t have bought the television in the first place. We’ve got Bottone, with his atom bombs, and La Gaggia, who knows the Montesi case like the back of his hand. We have to work out whether Garibaldi is narrowing his eyes because he wants a certain card or because the smoke’s annoying him. Benfenati takes care of any political doubts we might have, and any doubts about the pools, like the Carrarese — Parma game, are dealt with by Melega and Bortolotti. Everything else is just opinion: Montroni’s wife, Pierre’s money, how cold it’s getting. And Gas, who knows where he ended up, because he still owes us the money for the old TV.