He is relieved, relaxed. Elated, he walks faster past the Champs-Élysées gardens, walks with a dance in his step, humming to himself, on this wonderful June day, in this beautiful city. He, Filippo Zuliani, has an extraordinary power. What he has written is real. Not the truth, much more than that: reality. Or its opposite. He becomes a little muddled, but it doesn’t matter, he is happy.
On entering his building, he looks at himself in the mirrors in the lift, and smiles at his reflection. Attractive guy, the accomplice. Once inside his flat, Filippo showers, puts on a T-shirt and pours himself a large glass of cold water. His gaze lights on Cristina’s note, sitting on the bookshelf. Away until 26 July. So the apartment next door is empty. The apartment Cristina has never invited him to enter. He remembers their first meeting, in the hall, the polite handshake, her distant smile, and his disappointment then bitterness — the fleeting temptation to steal things from her, objects she’d left just within his reach, and to run away. Out of revenge. That was over a year ago. He’s moved on since, perhaps, but … Once he had dreamt of sitting beside her, in her apartment, at her desk. Then came the Café Pouchkine episode, the missed opportunity, his loss of control, running away. And today, ‘If you require access to the apartment…’ An invitation. A sudden urge to break in, to invade Cristina’s territory and leave his mark there. Accomplice. He not only has the urge, he has the ability.
He rummages in the kitchen drawer for an instrument with which to force the lock, and finds a slim screwdriver. He picks it up, looks at it and toys with it. There’s no mistaking it, this is the screwdriver from his dream, the one Cristina used to attack him in the prison yard — the one that stabbed Carlo through the heart. Break open Cristina’s door with the weapon that killed Carlo. A flash of anxiety, a flash from his dream. Then he shakes himself and goes to the door of Cristina’s apartment. He hasn’t lost the knack, the door gives way within moments. He stands on the threshold of the vast living room, holding his breath. No alarm, a glance round the room, no sign of CCTV cameras, the feeling that his intrusion is accepted. Desired?
As a reflex he closes the front door, jams the lock with the screwdriver for peace of mind, then takes two steps forward and looks slowly about him. Dark wooden flooring, silky smooth, designed to be walked on barefoot, white walls, two big bay windows that probably look out on to a veranda, closed off by blinds that allow minimal light to filter through the metallic slats. The dining room on the left, steel and glass furniture, sitting room on the right, bookshelves taking up an entire wall, black-and-white leather armchairs, and on a coffee table beside a ponyskin and steel chaise longue that is the ultimate in lightness and elegance, is a familiar-looking blob of colour. He goes over to it. Guidoriccio da Fogliano, the lone conqueror, features on the cover of a heavy tome. He had forgotten him ever since he began his new life, and here he is, grabbing him again. Filippo is completely shaken. There’s no such thing as coincidence, but the gods move in mysterious ways. Black letters spell out the book’s title: Siena. He leans over and opens it. On the flyleaf, a brief handwritten dedication: ‘To Cristina, so that during your exile in Paris you won’t forget the magical city where we met.’ A signature he doesn’t attempt to decipher. He tells himself that perhaps he’s jealous, and the thought amuses him. He flicks through a few pages, lots of photos of a red-and-brown brick city, which leave him with a taste of death in his mouth. A dozen photos of Guidoriccio and the surrounding landscape speak of conquests, in a language he knows well. He puts the book back on the coffee table, leaving it open at the double-page spread devoted to ‘Guidoriccio da Fogliano’, in all his majesty.
On a trolley within his reach are bottles of spirits and glasses. He selects a brandy, because he has never had one before, fills a balloon glass to the brim and takes a large gulp. He hesitates. Too rough? Too sweet? Too strong. He leaves the glass three-quarters full beside the book, goes out of the sitting room, through a door and finds the bedroom and then the dressing room, lined with dark wood. A shelf houses a collection of hats on wooden stands. He takes one down and holds it, a weird bunch of pink and white flowers with a white tulle veil. He holds it at eye level and Cristina is there in front of him, her chignon half undone. He helps her adjust her hairpins, scoop up the coppery mass, place the flowers on her hair and lower the veil over her face, blotting it out. A smile behind the veil, charm he would sell his soul for, then she disappears.
He drops the floral hat on to the floor and goes into the bathroom and switches on the light. Vast. To the left, a huge mirror lit by eight bulbs, like the ones he has sometimes seen in hair salons, a dressing table cluttered with pots, tubes and jars, and an armchair. He sits down, picks up a bottle and opens it. A fragrance. He remembers. In Rome, the stakeouts in front of the perfumeries of the Via Veneto where they used to select wealthy customers in the shops, await them at the exit, follow them in the street and snatch their bag at the first opportunity. He recalls the pleasure he felt watching them, on the other side of the window, in that luxurious, feminine world, their slow, restrained, balletic movements in tune with those of the sales assistants, the way they inclined their heads and closed their eyes to inhale the fragrance of a drop of perfume on the back of their hand, their smiles. They lived and moved in another world, and he dreamt that one day he would take the arm of one of those elegant women, instead of snatching her bag, that together they would walk up the Via Veneto, hips touching, steps chiming, that they would walk past an admiring gang of hooligans standing against the wall, Did you see how he picked up that rich bitch? and that she would introduce him to the luxury world of expensive women, the ones who smelt good.
He spins out the dream. He toys with a bottle, knocks it over, rights it, removes the stopper and rubs it on the back of his left hand, as he’d seen the women doing inside the shop, and the subtle fragrance greets him. He says aloud, ‘Mitsouko, by Guerlain’, and closes his eyes. And now … He replaces the stopper and puts the scent bottle in his pocket, gets up, switches off the light, returns to his flat, lies down on the bed and slips the bottle of perfume under the pillow. The dream machine starts up, expensive women, war and conquest, the story is already there at his fingertips. Exhilaration. Above all, don’t lose the thread. Start writing again. He has no more doubts, no more anxiety. With words, everything is possible. Writing, the weapon of victory. He is no longer bored.
CHAPTER SEVEN
27 June
Lisa stays up late every night, working at home, at her desk. She files the documents she has gathered on what is now the Filippo Zuliani affair, formerly the Carlo Fedeli affair. She discards articles that dwell on the two adorable Barbieri kids, children of the carabiniere shot during the hold-up on 3 March 1987, not to mention the little Gasparini girl, the security guard’s daughter killed in the same tragic circumstances — a sweet six-year-old child with golden curls. She retains everything on Daniele Luciani, the providential witness who belatedly came forward and accused Filippo. She keeps any articles or information she can glean from here and there, and through consulting numerous directories. In short, not much. This Daniele Luciani leaves no traces beyond an address in Milan that seems to be just a PO box and a telephone number that no one answers, no identifiable occupation, no photos, no direct contact with the press. She feels she has reached the same impasse as last year when she was trying to find out about Brigadier Renzi. It is an impenetrable ball of interwoven lies, from which she is unable to disentangle a single thread. For Lisa, there is absolutely no doubt — this morass is the hallmark of the Italian secret service, the most efficient institution in the entire country. It is now twenty years since it set itself the goal of smashing the communists’ influence. Something that back then was a matter of urgency, for the Communist Party was on the brink of being democratically elected to power, an intolerable prospect both for the Italian establishment and for America. And now they are achieving that goal through bomb attacks, massacres, and a whole array of dirty tricks. Faced with that, we on the far left, including prisoners, exiles, those turned informers, others who have dissociated themselves, or the desperate and the confused who carry on killing without knowing why: we’re incapable of coming to terms with our defeat and of salvaging our past.