He can feel the mastiffs hot breath on him. But the growling has stopped. The brute is sniffing him curiously, gazing blearily at him through muddy old eyes, drool spooling from his drooping lips. The professor can see that the old fellow is nearly toothless.
"What's this, Lido? We catch you a filthy off-season tourist and you're not even going to chew off a leg or two?"
"He says his name is Pinenut, Lido! Professor Pinenut! Ha ha! There's a tidbit for you!"
"Pinocchio — ? Does my nose tell me true, is it really you?"
"Alidoro — ?!"
"Ah, Pinocchio! My old friend!" cries the dog, his voice phlegmy with age and deep emotion. He throws his paws around him, laps him on the face and behind the ears, his stub of a tail wagging. Alidoro's coat is mildewy and flyblown, almost suffocatingly rank, but the professor hugs it to him like the sweetest balm, burying his face in it and weeping like a baby. "What has happened, my friend? What has brought you to this miserable state?"
"If you only knew!" the aged traveler wails. "This infernal — sob — night! I'll never — ! The misfortunes that have — boo boo! — rained down on — !"
"The little stronzo was waking up the whole neighborhood, Lido, making a bloody nuisance of himself with his drunken racket — then he tried to break into this old abandoned mansion here. We caught him with his — "
"Keep your mouth out of this, goose-brain! You're breaking my pockets!" Alidoro roars. "Can't you see I'm speaking with this gentleman?" He tugs the professor's coat collar up around his ears, licks his frozen pate with a warm tongue, then wipes it gently with a big soft paw, covers it with a few tufts of hair, torn from his own breast. "So, my friend "
"It was terrible, Alidoro!" he sobs. "Just imagine! The airport was fogged in and I had to take the train from Milan and it was overheated, I don't even know what time it was! I had no hotel reservation and the tourist office was closing and the woman dropped the spoon. I mean the key. But the porter had a friend so he brought me here, it was just two steps away, and they were dressed up for Carnival. Only the room wasn't heated, so we had supper in the Gambero Rosso, it was included in the price, but I got lost. The snow — I couldn't see! My old eyes — I nearly died! Someone threw water on me and I got chased by a lion who flew into a belltower! Then I saw the viva abbasso and I came here but it was dark. I was getting sick. I threw my watch — ! All my bags — choke! — my computer! My floppies! Oh, Alidoro! My life's work — !" He's not sure if any of this is comprehensible. He doesn't understand it himself, he's crying like a cut vine, it's all just streaming out of him, words, tears, terrors, the lot, as Alidoro hugs him close. "In there-! Everything's in there — !"
"Gentlemen," says the dog, "this is a dear friend of mine. We once saved each other's lives. We are like bread and cheese, friends by the skin, do you understand? He is the most truthful person I have ever known. I'm sure he is all he says he is. You should believe everything he says."
"He says he knows the Pope."
"Well, almost everything." Alidoro raises his heavy snout and sniffs, then leaves the professor and goes to nose about the blackened doorway of the old palazzo. "Now, I think we should open up, gentlemen. There's something decidedly foxy on the air."
"La Volpe — ?!"
"Very nasty, whatever it is. Hop to it now!"
One of the policemen fumbles with a big ring of keys. "It gives me a hell of a fright to go in here at night," shudders another, and a third laughs nervously: "Afraid of ghosts?" "A ghost — you know, that woman who died here in the fire." "Fire?" "That's just a legend," says the policeman with the keys, as he pushes the door open. "Beam one of those spotlights in here!" "Whew, when was the last time this pesthole was opened up?" "They say she was waiting for the return of a beloved brother or son who had abandoned her and that maybe in sorrow she set the fire herself. The place hasn't been used since." "Except by cats. It stinks worse than the old man in here!"
"The woman," gasps the old professor, startled by the tale, his voice reduced now after all the hysterics to a hoarse whisper, "did she have did she have blue hair?"
"Blue hair!" they laugh. "Whoever heard of such a thing!"
"Well, like you can see, Lido. The old ruin's as bald as your pal's conk."
"There's still a kind of smoky smell in this place. Like she's still burning or something. Let's get out of here — !"
"Wait a minute! What's this over here? Someone shine a light!"
"It's a watch! Do you recognize this, old man?"
"Yes, it's mine." This is not going to turn out well. The truth is beginning to sink in. And the story of the woman dying by fire has left him feeling frightened and confused. He knows about fire. He once burned his own feet off. He thought he was going to have to walk through life on his knees. Fire is his greatest fear.
"Did they steal your watch?" rumbles Alidoro, peering up from the shadows where he's been sniffing around.
"No. I threw it through a window. To wake them up."
"To wake who up?"
"His friend the Pope, no doubt. Lido, your mate's got his head in a sack of shit! He's a raving lunatic!"
"Let's take him to the Questura and lock him up. This place makes my blood freeze!"
"Really, Lido, come on, this is a complete waste of time. There's nothing else here except catshit and an old umbrella."
"Yes, that's mine, too. The umbrella, I mean."
"Aha! Did you throw that through the window, too, you daft old geezer?"
"No " But there is something confusing about this, too. When he burned his feet off, they felt as if they belonged to somebody else. Which is how his head is beginning to feel now "There was a blind monk — "
"A blind monk — ! Madonna! What next — ?!"
"He's gone from God's grace, this one, Lido! He's completely pazzo!"
"Maybe," sighs Alidoro, nosing at a piece of candle wax. "But they were here, just the same."
"You mean — ?"
"I mean, gentlemen," rumbles Alidoro, stepping into the light from the doorway and rising to his full height, "that this distinguished visitor — and, indeed, more than a visitor, this native son returned here to his beloved homeland — has been the innocent and very nearly tragic victim of two of our city's most notorious felons. They have lured him here to this lonely site under false pretenses, no doubt playing upon his natural sympathies for the maimed and the infirm, for my friend is famous for his good heart, and here have robbed him of all his earthly goods. He's been sent for a walk, as they say in the trade, taken for a ride, put in the sack, he's been shorn, fiddled, landed, and gaffed. He's been worked like farm butter, boys, he's been had on toast. He's taken a crab and left his feathers in it, lost both lye and soap, do you follow? He was the pigeon, the pup, the one in the middle — am I right, my friend?"
"Yes! That's true, when we went to the Gambero Rosso, they made me walk between — "
"Then, having separated him from his possessions, they abandoned him to the elements — and on a night such as this! Gentlemen! The charge is not murder, not yet, but it might as well be! No hand was raised against him, true, but it was quite enough to lock all the doors. No hand, gentlemen, except your own!"
"Come on, mate, we were only doing our duty "
"You're no shinbone of a saint yourself, Lido!"
"I know, I know, no one's paws itch for an occasional turn of tourist-bashing more than mine, you know that, boys, I'm not pulling your ear, I'm not hitting you with a paternale, I wouldn't think of it! All I'm saying is, you've done a duck here, this gentleman is not who or what he might seem, and you owe him an apology and a little courteous attention. I know him as a comrade, lads, I know his life, death, and miracles, as the expression goes, and believe me, he's good pasta, this one, a grand fellow and brave. When you're in over your head and it's drink or drown, when the fat hits the fire and the shit the fan, this is the man, speaking loosely, you want by your side! When Nature made him, as that old hound Ariosto Furioso once said, she broke the mold!"