I shrugged and shook my head. “I don’t know. This was worth a try. I can’t think of anything else that makes sense.”
“So what do we do?”
“We wait for the appeal hearing, hoping we get a bright idea, or that something happens.”
“It won’t.”
“If nothing new happens, the only sensible thing to do is to plea-bargain. As I told you. As I already told him.”
“In other words, he gets a reduction in his sentence and stays in prison.”
“Theoretically, after the plea-bargaining we could try asking for house arrest. However…”
I left the sentence hanging. It didn’t take me long to realize why. The idea of him coming home, even if he was under house arrest, was unbearable, unthinkable.
“However?” Her question wedged itself into my thoughts and my shame.
“Nothing. A technical matter. After the plea-bargaining we can try asking for house arrest. I wouldn’t hold out too much hope, because such a large quantity of drugs was involved. But we can try.”
“And if they don’t give him house arrest, how long will he have to stay inside?”
Once again I had the same strange feeling I’d had before. The feeling I didn’t quite understand the real reason for the question. Did she want to know how long she would be separated from her husband, or did she want to know how much time she had at her disposal?
How much time we had at our disposal.
Was she really asking that or was I projecting it onto her?
Because I was certainly wondering it myself. I can see that clearly now: at the time I was aware of it in a vague kind of way – although clearly enough to feel a mixture of shame and longing.
Longing for her – Natsu – and for the child. For the family I didn’t have. The family of a man who was in prison, a man I should be protecting and defending.
The longing of a thief.
“It’s hard to say right now. Even after the sentence has been made final, it’s still possible for there to be some reduction, time off for good behaviour, day release. It depends on a lot of factors.”
I paused.
“Certainly it’ll be a few years, even with the most optimistic forecast.”
She didn’t say anything. I couldn’t figure out the expression on her face. I was searching for the words to say that we could see each other again. Outside the office. Like last night. Go for a drive, listen to a little music, talk. Other things.
The longing of a thief.
I couldn’t find the words. My hypocritical phrase about the most optimistic forecast was the end of the conversation, and of our encounter.
When Natsu left, I told Maria Teresa that I didn’t want to answer the phone for half an hour, let alone see any clients who dropped by, as sometimes happened, without having an appointment.
Then I went back to my chair and took my head in my hands. The situation was out of my control, I told myself.
18
By the time I closed the office, Maria Teresa had been gone for a while.
I got home, took some ice cream from the fridge, ate it, spent half an hour with the punchball, did push-ups until my arms were numb, then got into the shower.
I wondered where Margherita was at that moment, what she was doing, but I couldn’t imagine it. I probably didn’t want to.
I dressed and went out. Alone and without an aim, as was happening more and more often.
I had the impulse to call Natsu and ask her if she wanted me to drop by and see her.
I didn’t do it. Instead I walked around the windswept city.
Something strange and unpleasant was stirring inside. Maybe what had happened when Sara left me was about to happen again: insomnia, depression, panic attacks. The idea was a worrying one, but no sooner had I thought it than I realized it wouldn’t happen.
I was a permanent misfit now. I had secured a stable, mediocre unhappiness for myself, I thought. I’d insured myself against overwhelming unhappiness by settling for a permanent feeling of dissatisfaction and unmentionable desires. Then I thought, no, these were banal, pathetic musings, I was just feeling sorry for myself. I’ve always hated people who feel sorry for themselves.
So I decided to go and buy some books.
At that hour – it was eleven-I would find only one place open where I could buy books and also chat. The Osteria del Caffellatte, which in spite of its name is a bookshop.
It opens at ten o’clock at night and closes at six in the morning. The owner, Ottavio, is a former schoolteacher who suffers from chronic insomnia. He hated his work as a teacher all the years he was forced to do it. Then an old aunt, who didn’t have any children or any other relatives, left him some money and a small building right in the centre of town. A ground floor and two apartments on the upper floors, one on top of the other. It was the opportunity of a lifetime, and he jumped at it. He moved into the second-floor apartment and converted the ground floor and first floor into a bookshop. As he couldn’t sleep at night, he came up with those unusual opening hours. Many people said it was a ridiculous idea, and yet it worked.
There are always people in the Osteria del Caffellatte. Not many, it’s true, but there are people there all the time. Obviously, there are some strange characters among them, but most are normal people. Who must be the strangest of all, if they’re out buying books at four o’clock in the morning.
There are three small tables and a small bar counter, if you want to drink something or eat a slice of one of the cakes Ottavio makes in the afternoon before he opens. Early in the morning you can have breakfast with the same cakes and a caffe latte. If you’re in the shop when it closes, he offers you any left-over cake, says see you tomorrow, closes the shop, and then stands in front of the entrance and smokes his only cigarette of the day. Then he goes for a walk around the awakening city, and just as other people are starting work he returns home and goes to sleep, which is something he can only do by day.
Inside the bookshop, there were three girls sharing a joke. Every now and again they looked in my direction and laughed louder. So, I thought. My trajectory is over. I’m a ridiculous man. Or more likely, I’m just terminally paranoid.
Ottavio was sitting at one of the little tables in the tiny bar area, reading. When he saw me come in, he waved and then went back to his reading. I started walking around between the counters and the shelves.
I picked up a copy of Musil’s The Man without Qualities, leafed through it, read a few pages, and put it back. I’ve been doing that for some years. Forever, in fact. With Musil, and above all with Joyce’s Ulysses.
Every time, I’m confronted with my own ignorance and I tell myself I ought to read these books. But I never even get as far as buying them.
I don’t suppose I’ll ever know first-hand the adventures – if that’s the right word – of Stephen Dedalus, Leopold Bloom or Ulrich. I’ve resigned myself to that, but whenever I’m in a bookshop, I still leaf through those volumes, as a kind of ritual of imperfection. My own.
After a little more wandering, I was attracted by a beautiful cover with a very beautiful title. Nights in the Gardens of Brooklyn. I’d never heard of the author – Harvey Swados – or the publisher – Bookever. I read a few lines of the introduction by Grace Paley, was won over, and decided I’d get it.
A young policeman came in. He went up to Ottavio and asked him something. There was a police car double-parked outside.
I spotted a book called Nothing Happens by Chance. I decided it referred to my case – whatever my case was – and I’d get that one, too. The policeman went out with a book in a small bag. It’s a kind of bag you only find in Ottavio’s shop. On one side there’s a drawing of a steaming cup of caffe latte, a blue cup without handles, and the name of the shop. On the other side, printed on the plastic, a page of a novel, a poem, a quotation from a sage. Things that Ottavio likes and wants to pass on to his nocturnal customers.