“You are awaited outside the Tank at 9:30 A.M.. Chief inspector Corsini wants to talk to you. Subject: the exhibit found in your bedroom.”
A discouraged moan came out from his half-open mouth and a knot formed in his intestine. An inspector wanted to talk to him? Ok, fine.
He looked around him as if he was looking for something. But he wasn’t, if not a lifeboat to which he could cling before his thoughts went astray.
At 9:30.
He grabbed the fax with the daily deliveries. There were three. At 9:00 A.M., at 3:00 P.M. and at 5:30 P.M.. Good. Only twenty minutes until the first one.
He got ready, making an effort to remained anchored to what he was doing. This unexpected interview had disoriented him and, however precise could every input from his brain be, his mind insisted on making conjectures, depict scenarios, prepare answers to questions he still hadn’t been asked.
He should have expected it, however. He couldn’t really think that the NMO would just drop the whole thing. He had no doubt that since he had delivered the diary – or maybe even since he had informed the Home Office he had found it – a bureaucratic process inevitably ending with a direct confrontation with him had started. And the moment had come.
With the first delivery three rapists came, escorted by Scalp and a new guard with a slightly dismayed look. The first thing Giovanni usually did when a newcomer came was to give him a secret nickname, but that day nothing came to his mind. He went on with the Unloading mechanically, too worried for the interview to focus on anything else. He almost got the Code wrong; and he would have, hadn’t he checked the date on the fax.
While Scalp (Lorenzo, if his memory served him correctly, was going back to the elevator, Giovanni wondered if he should try informally asking him a couple of questions. Did he, by any chance, know Inspector Corsini? Were there any news on the diary he had found? What did they want to know from him? But he would just waste time and words, he was perfectly aware of that. So he kept his mouth shut.
He checked the time on his watch: 9:14.
He went back to his apartment and looked out of the window, watching the van with the two EGs go back to the Center, heart and brain of everything that happened in the Camp. Giovanni thought that from that small built up area, way over there, Good and Evil came for him, good and bad new, instructions, commendations, convictions, threats, rancors, solidarity, envy… everything. Everything came and everything went. But maybe, thinking again, the heart of the Camp wasn’t there. The brain was, but the heart… he was the heart. Not him as Giovanni Corte, of course; but the Tank, which he represented. The whole Camp 9 existed in function of the Tank, that enormous justice-handing cylinder. It was a true honor to be somehow a physical symbol of it, its only referent and supervisor. His mantra was I am the NMO, but he should probably change it to I am the Tank, jokingly paraphrasing the Sun King.
Once he had wondered why the New Moral Order would rather choose a civilian to be the Keeper and not use the military ranks at his disposal. He had shared this with some of the guys who had taken part to the selections with him, and they had turned the question to the instructors; they were explained that sending a soldier – who was clearly trained for other activities – to the Tank would have been a waste, also tanking the semestral alternations in consideration. Moreover, involving civilian in the Order’s organic without forcing them to join the army was one of the policies the NMO had adopted. So, there he was: Giovanni Corte, Keeper of Tank 9, halfway through his path with all the high and the lows thereof.
He stretched the corners of his mouths. Why would he think about that now? Well, it was one way of killing time without grooming on the confrontation awaiting him.
Resting his head against the windowpane he tried to see the reflection of his own eyes, and succeeded despite the light.
“Don’t be scared.” He told himself.
Then, instinctively, his gaze looked farther away and caught sight of the car coming from the Center. He didn’t know the model (he could rarely recognize them), but he could see it was long and black. And he understood with a wave of discomfort that it was time for him to go.
The car stopped about ten meter away from the Tank in the same exact moment Giovanni got out of the lift.
A BMW, he noticed. Seeing one was weird in a context of seemingly only vans and other military vehicles.
Two men got out. One, the passenger, was probably Corsini: medium height, an elegant, dark suit, a silver tetragram pinned to the collar of his jacket; his hair was worn back and the reflexes hinted he used some kind of styling gel. The other one, who was also the driver – but couldn’t be just the driver, or he would have stayed in the car – was a bit slimmer, brown-haired, less meticulously combed; the sweat stains under the sleeves of his white shirt were clearly visible.
Giovanni went to met them and quickly they introduced to each other. The first one introduced himself as chief inspector Nunzio Corsini, investigative department. Vigorous handshake, very martial. The second one mumbled a surname (Adelfi? Adelchi) Giovanni couldn’t grasp. His handshake wasn’t as strong, it was actually pretty soft; that particular, which could be seen as a symptom of shyness or discretion, was immediately belied by his eyes, which were were bright and clasped to Giovanni’s like hooks.
“Good, mister Corte. I immediately was to tell you that I have no intention to waste your time.” Corsini’s voice was calm, but it gave away an unmistakable feeling of authority.
“No problem, inspector. I’m at your disposal.”
In the meanwhile, the man with the unintelligible surname had taken a step forward. He kept his hands on his low abdomen, one over the other – he could be mistaken for a football player waiting for a penalty kick – and his eyes wouldn’t get off Giovanni’s face. It was embarassing, other than annoying.
“You have found a manuscript, some days ago.”
“That is correct.”
“Hidden under your bed.”
“Between the frame and the mattress.
“Right.”
It was obvious that this premise was just a recap, like in TV shows. And it was as obvious that he question because of which the inspector had come wouldn’t be delayed for long.
“And… an irregular communication had aroused your suspicions, so to speak.”
Giovanni coughed and scratched his chin. Adelfi (of Adelchi) tilted his head a bit, staring at him as if he was a painting. Could he be a bodyguard? He didn’t have the right physique and he couldn’t understand where could be possibly concealing a weapon. It was way more possible – sure, actually – that Corsini was the armed one, probably a gun under his jacket.”
“It is so, inspector, you can check the records…”
Corsi nodded, to cut it short, and Giovanni regretted that last sentence. Of course he had checked.
“When you informed the Center, you added a personal note.”
Giovanni bit his lower lip, assuming the expression of someone trying to remember something.
The inspector help him in this regard. “You wrote that, in your opinion, those sheets were a recollection of memories of the previous Keeper. Am I right?”
“Yes, right. I wrote that.”
“Did you read the diary in its entirety?”
He hesitated for a second. Corsini’s partner squeezed his eyes as if he had sunlight in his eyes. But the sun was on the other side of the Tank, whose shadow embraced them in a pleasant cool.