The woman looked anxious again.
‘Well, I don’t know. There’s so much to do.’
‘Like what?’
‘Well, there are the pigs to feed. I meant to do it earlier, but then the water pump broke down and…’
‘Signor Ferrero will take care of all that. In view of its impeccable credentials in other respects, this establishment must surely be an equal-opportunity employer.’
He turned to Naldo, who was still standing on the same spot, seemingly lost in whatever long irresolvable internal tussle occupied his time and energies.
‘This is your opportunity to experience at first hand the rewards of plumbing and pig husbandry,’ Zen told him. ‘I’m sure we can count on you not to throw away a chance for personal enrichment which may never come again.’
Naldo turned furiously to the woman.
‘Are you going to let him talk to me like that, Marta?’
‘It was only a joke!’
Zen sensed that this was a line that had been used so many times that it was by now worn out. He also belatedly realized what it was that Naldo despised about himself: his dependency, his lack of decisive virility, his mammismo.
‘And besides,’ she went on, ‘it wouldn’t do you any harm to get a little exercise. I’ve told you over and over again that physical work activates the endorphins and helps with your depression.’
Naldo scowled his way out to the back of the premises, leaving Zen with an odd feeling that he’d just scored a point of some kind, even though he hadn’t been playing to win. Marta poured a shot of a clear spirit and a glass of wine and set them both on the counter in an unhurried way.
‘ Saluti,’ she said. ‘I don’t drink spirits myself, but I’ve been told that this one’s good.’
Zen sniffed the glass, then took a long sip. It was indeed a very good try for an area with no tradition of producing grappa, although lacking the last degree of refinement which producers in his native Veneto could achieve.
‘Excellent,’ he said, producing his cigarettes and offering one to Marta, who shook her head.
‘So why are the police after Naldo?’ she asked.
‘We’re not after him. I’m trying to help him locate and identify his father’s body, that’s all.’
He glanced at her.
‘Has he ever talked about that aspect of his life to you?’
When she did not reply immediately, he threw up his hands.
‘Sorry! You offer me a drink and the next thing you know I’m grilling you.’
‘It’s not that. I’m just not sure what you want to know, or what it would be proper for me to tell you without consulting Naldo.’
Zen nodded his understanding of the situation.
‘Let me tell you what he told me,’ he said. ‘Basically, he said that his mother claims to have had an affair thirty years ago with a man called Leonardo Ferrero. The man died shortly after she had become pregnant. Claudia passed the baby off to her husband as his. He apparently never suspected the truth. Later, after his death, she revealed all this to her son, who started using the lover’s surname as his own at his mother’s request. And she now claims that this unidentified body that’s turned up is that of her lover.’
Marta nodded.
‘That’s about all he told me, except that this Leonardo was in the army. That’s all he knows.’
She finished her wine and poured them both a second measure.
‘But you know more,’ said Zen, studying her intently.
Marta took her time about answering, but it was a silence with which she was at ease, unhurriedly working out what she wanted to say.
‘Growing up as I did, it’s difficult to trust the police. There was so much brutality and deceit… But I will trust you anyway. You have a very positive aura.’
Aurelio Zen had had his share of compliments in his time, but this was a new one. Did it have something to do with one of those sample bottles of new lines in aftershave that Gemma brought home after her meetings with the sales representatives?
‘I heard about it from one of the founders of this project, one of the original Turin activists,’ Marta said. ‘Later he decided that our work here was counter-revolutionary and went off to Mexico to try and organize the Indian rebels. Anyway, at the meeting we convened to discuss Naldo’s joining the collective, Piero was very much against it. Naldo was already calling himself Ferrero then, and he mentioned to someone that his father’s name was Leonardo. This got back to Piero, who immediately became suspicious. According to him, Leonardo Ferrero had been involved in a Fascist military plot to overthrow the government. He had revealed details of this to a journalist and was killed shortly afterwards in a mid-air explosion that was never properly investigated. Piero claimed that the whole affair was bogus. The revelations that Ferrero made to the journalist contained no substantive information, while he himself was not on the plane that blew up. The leaked hints about the conspiracy would serve to either confuse or provoke the left, while Ferrero’s presumed fate would terrify any real potential traitors in the organization.’
‘But what did all that have to do with Naldo? He doesn’t strike me as anyone’s idea of a very competent conspirator.’
Marta laughed.
‘That’s what the rest of us thought, and Piero was overruled. I think that’s when he started distancing himself from the project here, to be honest. He was used to getting his own way in a highly disciplined and hierarchical party apparatus. We still used the language and went through the motions, but the place was basically a hippie commune. He thought we were a bunch of amateurs.’
Acar drew up outside, its headlights glaring in through the windows. A horn blared three times.
‘Who was the journalist that Leonardo Ferrero allegedly spoke to?’ asked Zen, stubbing out his cigarette.
‘I forget. But he was apparently a big name back in the seventies. Widely respected on the left and widely hated on the right. He used to do a lot of work for L’Unita, Piero said. Brandoni? Brandini? Piero had known him, of course. Everyone knew everyone in those days. It was a party in both senses of the word. That was half the appeal of it, the thing that everyone tends to forget now.’
‘Did anyone ever mention this to Naldo?’
‘Of course not! The only question was whether his joining us would cause trouble in one way or another. Once a collective decision had been reached that it would not, the matter was dropped.’
‘And he never raised the issue himself?’
‘I very much doubt whether he even knows about it.’
Zen nodded.
‘Or cares. He certainly didn’t seem very interested in cooperating with me.’
‘ Naldo e quello che e. It may not be possible to help him, though I’d love to be able to. But some people would refuse a lifebelt you threw them. They would rather drown than be beholden to anybody.’
The horn sounded again. Zen went to the window and waved.
‘I’ve been here ever since he moved in,’ Marta went on in the same calm voice. ‘We even had a little fling at one point. But I don’t really know anything about him. I don’t think he does himself. Children who grow up without the parent of their own sex are often like that, I think. You have to be known in order to know, and if you don’t know yourself then it’s hard for others to know you. Does that make any sense?’
Zen wrapped his coat around him.
‘Well, thank you very much, signora. How much do I owe you for the grappa?’
Marta shrugged dismissively and walked him to the door.
‘I’m glad you enjoyed it. You must come back some time when the restaurant is open. It can get quite lively in season.’
Her tone of voice belied her words.
‘I’ll try to do that,’ Zen lied.
Once clear of the front door, the force of the wind almost swept him off his feet. He climbed into the waiting taxi, which immediately swung round in a circle and started down the dirt track. Looking back, Zen saw Marta still standing in the open doorway.
‘Good dinner?’ the driver asked.