Just as his father had described it to him. Poor but dignified houses, twenty at most, red-tiled roofs and dark olive green window frames. The church, tiny, in bright stone, a simple arch supporting two bells on top of the façade. On the other side of the little square the only sign of life, two old men sitting by their front doors. Voices roll faintly up the street. The café looks like someone’s house, a cross between a bar and a village shop. Above the door, words painted in red.
Pierre would have liked to roll up under the oak tree that shaded the square and sleep for hours, after his sleepless night, exhausted from his journey, his stomach still drunk from the waves. But the tension wouldn’t leave him in peace.
Now the old men were watching him. A man came to the door, adjusting his beret. With the right music and a couple of six-guns, he could have been in High Noon. But noon had passed some time ago, and the only reason for Pierre’s hesitation was a linguistic one: Professor Fanti had assured him that everyone in Split understood Italian, and yet it seemed strange to address these people as though they were strolling along the Portico del Pavaglione. Not that there was anything strange about them: shirt, trousers, shoes, all normal enough, perhaps tailored in a way that would raise a smile in Bologna. And yet the sky seemed to have a different blue, and unimaginable smells seemed to carry on the air.
‘Hi,’ he said finally, after crossing the little square. ‘I’m looking for Vittorio Capponi. ’
The wrinkles deepened on the man’s tanned face. Eyebrows, head, shoulders and arms: his whole body said no, the name meant nothing.
‘What did you say?’ asked one of the old men.
Pierre smiled, Fanti had not been mistaken. ‘I’m looking for Vittorio Capponi, where is he?’
‘Cappone? I don’t know, don’t know him.’
Don’t know? Twenty houses in the village and they don’t all know each other? The old man spoke Italian, but he must have been a bit befuddled. Or perhaps he came from a nearby hamlet where there wasn’t even a bar, and he had come here for a chat and he’d never seen Vittorio Capponi; his father worked in Split, he had never set foot in the bar. Pierre rummaged in his jacket and pulled out the piece of paper with the address.
‘Where? Dove? Where?’ he asked tapping the paper with his hand and holding it out to the man with the beret. The man beckoned him to follow and set off under the beating sun. A herd of sheep cut across the main street, a fast white torrent driven by the cries of two grimy small boys, and slipped into a narrow side street. The man with the beret stopped at the next junction and pointed to a house halfway down the alley. Pierre thanked him with his voice and his eyes, and the man muttered something in reply, plunged his hands into his pockets and turned back towards the café.
There was no one home. Nothing strange about that: everyone would be at work at that time of day. Nothing to worry about, he would wait, he needed to sit down, just for a moment, even on the ground or on a rock, as long as it was fixed and motionless.
He leaned his back against the wall, his knees between his arms. After a few minutes his chin bounced on to his chest a few times, his eyes closed and his brain switched off.
He hadn’t eaten since the previous evening. The Slav smugglers had changed him a little money, but Pierre had only been able to think about the quickest way of getting there, walking, then a few kilometres by coach, then walking again. He still had some money, about 2000 or 3000 lire, and his stomach was protesting, no longer distracted by vomit, nausea and tension. They were bound to sell something edible at the café, but he preferred to stay put now that he was there, outside his father’s house. He would rather wait.
Before long he would see him appearing at the crossroads riding his bicycle.
An hour passed, perhaps more. A sunset dense with clouds and mist. The shadow at the top of the alley might be someone. No bicycle, but that was a negligible detail. Pierre leapt to his feet, more because he couldn’t stop himself than in order to attract attention. The man had a big knapsack over his shoulder, and was holding a bunch of keys. He glanced fleetingly at the stranger, walked past him and stopped at the next door along.
‘Excuse me.’ Pierre took a couple of steps towards him. ‘Excuse me. Do you speak Italian? I’m looking for Vittorio Capponi, he lives here, do you know him?’
‘Caponi? No, I don’t know, sorry,’ the man replied, strangely embarrassed. ‘I not here long, not know much.’
Pierre pointed to the house with both hands. ‘Here, his house, Vittorio Capponi.’
‘No, sorry, don’t know.’ The man with the knapsack pushed open the door and slipped inside. Pierre didn’t get his foot in the door quickly enough, and it closed. He knocked two or three times. ‘Excuse me, just one moment.’
In the faint light of the only street lamp, three faces appeared at various windows. One of them withdrew the moment Pierre glanced up. The others stayed there.
‘Excuse me, do you know where Vittorio Capponi is? Where is Vittorio Capponi? Does he live here?’
The heads swayed in unison, like puppets in an animated clock. Then the second face disappeared as well. Pierre turned to the only one remaining, a woman.
‘Vittorio —’
He didn’t get to finish before the woman shook her head again.
Pierre felt rage welling up inside him. He turned around all of a sudden and banged a fist against the door. He cursed. He went and sat down disconsolately once again, but he couldn’t sit still, he started pacing back and forth like an animal in a cage. His knuckles were bleeding. Every minute weighed an absolute ton.
Darkness fell, along with cold and another shadow. This one too just glanced at him and kept on towards the end of the street.
Pierre caught up with the shadow and touched it on the shoulder. The woman turned around in alarm.
‘Excuse me, miss, I’m looking for Vittorio Capponi, does he live her?’
‘Not here,’ replied the woman. ‘He gone.’
‘Gone? Where to?’
The woman started walking again at a brisk pace. ‘Where I don’t know. He gone.’
‘When? When did he leave?’ Pierre noticed that he was holding her by one arm and relaxed his grip.
‘Two or three months.’
‘Why, what happened?’
The woman stopped and crossed her hands over her chest. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know that.’ Then she started walking again, and Pierre gave up following her.
He went back towards the house, while a deluge of thoughts swept through his mind.
Gone.
Pierre tried to put his ideas in order, to organise his information, think about what was to be done. He crouched down again to calm himself, but it didn’t work for long. Then he was on his feet again, pacing back and forth in front of the door, his bones frozen and his head in flames. A letter marked ‘return to sender’, his departure from the village, the eloquent silence of his neighbours. Two months’ absence. January: the expulsion of Djilas from the League of Yugoslavian communists. It all added up. But there had been no sign of Vittorio Capponi since long before that, since March, and even then there had been just two lines on the death of Milena, and then nothing. What had happened? Only one way to find out: stay in Gramovac, keep on asking, pick up a scrap here and there, assemble the mosaic, find a gap in the wall of silence by continuing to ask, plead, even threaten. He could try to get into the house, force the door or a window, try to find something that would help him understand, a scribbled address, any kind of clue. But he had to be on his guard. If his father had problems with the police, he would have to be very careful. He couldn’t overdo it, make an awful scene, sit down outside the door for too long or frighten anyone. An Italian with a false passport and a counterfeit border stamp didn’t want to go attracting attention to himself.