All this came from a form of natural integrity, a sense of morality, of right and wrong that had been given them over the years, as part of the community to which they belonged. Cop or carabiniere, man or woman in the street, they needed no commands. This was how they were.
But Pino Fratelli was a detective at heart, and with a job like his came a certain kind of knowledge. He understood implicitly there were others in the world too, those who possessed no such compunctions, no sense of attachment to those around them. If someone wished to loot or rob, to murder or rape, there would be precious little even the most courageous and dedicated police officer or carabiniere could do to stop them. This bleak, distressed city possessed no fences, no barriers to keep out the wolves that lived on the periphery of society, their rapacity curtailed by a sensible fear of capture and justice that was now briefly absent. This, more than anything, more than the damage, the destruction and the occasional death, appalled him. Frightened him, if he were honest, because that nagging interior voice he’d heard since he saw the manhole fly towards the cloudy sky still whispered in his ear.
This was a day for monsters to roam, and something inside said they would. They were there already.
It wasn’t till six o’clock that the waters finally began to recede. The rain had stopped by then. Perhaps the corner had been turned, and there would be some respite from the weather. Fratelli was back at the Carabinieri station in the Borgo Ognissanti, with Marrone and a team of other officers who’d come in to help. All thought of shifts and rosters and duty were gone. They would work till they could work no more, then sleep briefly and start again.
Someone had found a camping stove and heated up what was left of Marrone’s cold lampredotto. There was still no electricity, no phones. Fratelli ate the grisly, strong meat in a bread bun and pulled on a beer that gruff old Cassini had given him.
Then Marrone came over and put a hand on his shoulder.
‘They say the Trinita bridge is open again. I’ve got a boat heading into the centre soon. Why not go and see if you can reach Oltrarno? Ducca’s trying to get home too.’
Fratelli, exhausted, so focused on what had occupied him since daybreak, blinked and felt ashamed. He’d not thought about Chiara at all. The flood had stolen every conscious thought and supplanted her in his head.
He nodded, lost for words.
‘When you get to the other side,’ Marrone added, ‘be careful. I can’t spare you a boat to take you over there. I wouldn’t trust any to cross the river that way. You have to walk across the bridge then find your own way. Is that agreed?’
‘Yes.’ He smiled at his friend. ‘Thanks, Walter. Sorry if I’ve been an idiot.’
‘You’ve been a marvel.’ He looked around them. ‘They all have. I couldn’t be more proud of any of you. Now go and see Chiara. Make sure she’s safe. This isn’t a special case, you know. I’m offering it to everyone now things are quietening down.’
Five minutes later, Fratelli got into a broad boat from one of the rowing clubs, behind a soldier and state police officer he didn’t know, with Ducca by his side.
‘Where are you going?’ he asked the young cadet.
‘I thought I’d take a look around Santa Croce. My nan lives there. She’s OK, I’m sure. Just want to see.’
Fratelli felt briefly lost for words. He leaned forward and held the young officer in his arms for a moment. Ducca looked embarrassed as they were rowed through the night along a road that was now a river.
The two men in front took the vessel down the street with their steady strokes. Soon the low, elegant shape of the Ponte Santa Trinita began to rise from a sea of black water. Pino Fratelli pinched himself. Was he really in a boat gently sculling down the Borgo Ognissanti? Could this all be just a ridiculous nightmare? Like a strange childhood in Rome, one that seemed to have happened to someone else. But hadn’t.
The pavement on the closest side was just above the flood. The two men steadied the canoe as they got there. Then Fratelli stepped on to solid ground and felt the water resume its icy grip around his ankles once again.
‘Take care, Pino,’ Ludovico Ducca called as the boat went on its way.
The sky had cleared, a bright moon cast its cold and heartless light on the tortured city. Fratelli barely recognized the neighbourhood where he’d grown up. The high narrow streets, the grand buildings of the Via Maggio as he left the bridge, the grubby square of Santo Spirito, the meaner lanes beyond… he could never have imagined them like this. The waters had, as Cassini predicted, receded with great speed. When they retreated they left behind such devastation… stretches of caking mud, wrecked cars and scooters, loose branches and small trees, broken pottery, dislodged paving, TV sets, chairs and sofas. It was as if the comforting minutiae of modern life had been stripped from the homes of Florence and scattered about by a peevish, gigantic child desperate to play in the swampy muck and sludge the flood had left behind.
Along the Lungarno, men and women trudged warily around, struggling in galoshes, greeting strangers in the street, asking questions that brought no easy answers.
Have you seen…?
No, Fratelli answered quickly. I’m a stupid, lowly carabiniere and I’ve been struggling to make sense of life on the other side of the Arno, in the Borgo Ognissanti, which is not my home and never will be, merely the place that work took me.
Do you have…?
No. I’ve nothing. Just a modest home, a beautiful wife, lots of debts and a head that hurts from thinking thoughts too dark to speak out loud.
Can you help me…?
He was a carabiniere. The badge stayed with him, off duty or on. Between the bridge of Santa Trinita and the back street he called home, Fratelli found himself asked that constantly — by strangers, by people he half knew, by friends, and by a few who loathed him. It was almost twenty hours since he’d slept. The day had been so strange and tiring he felt he might close his eyes and never wake afterwards. But he was a servant of these people, one they needed more than ever. So he helped everyone who asked, whether it was carrying or fetching, talking, comforting, or holding one tearful woman whose grandchild had gone missing for hours on end until the brat came back smirking as if this were all a stupid joke.
The reports of deaths were coming in by the time he left the station. Fratelli had no idea how many might have perished in this strange catastrophe. If someone said it was hundreds, thousands even, he wouldn’t have called them foolish, though a sense of inner reason told him the toll was usually lower than one expected. This wasn’t Hiroshima or Belsen. Only nature, which lacked the trained and tailored efficiency for death that human beings had refined so skilfully over the centuries.
Around ten he still found himself in the square of Santo Spirito, clearing debris and oozing sludge from the front door of an elderly man who was headed for hospital, short of breath, grey-faced, clutching his chest. When that was done, someone Fratelli recognized, a café owner in the square, called him over and dragged him into his narrow little bar. There were candles all round, people huddled together, chatting — laughing, even, at times. At the end of the bar was a lively fire inside a domed pizza oven. Fratelli could scarcely believe his eyes. The man was cooking, without power, handing out food for free to those who needed it.
He poured Fratelli a grappa, half a tumbler full, and pushed it over the counter.
‘On the house,’ the man said.
‘Piero,’ Fratelli murmured, remembering his name.