A Fine Line Read online

  “What poetry. The bluish smoke that hovers in the light of evening. Who are you, Szymborska? If you like, I can roll one for you, too.”

  “Best not. Do you like Szymborska?”

  “Very much.”

  “Me too. I’ll get you an ashtray and open the window.”

  She rolled her cigarette, lit it, smoked half and let it go out.

  “If you don’t want to do it, I’ll understand. I already told Larocca that I couldn’t guarantee you’d accept. I know I’m asking you for something a bit out of the ordinary, but on the other hand I understand the man’s state of mind. For someone who does that kind of job, it’s quite a blow to find out you’re implicated in something as nasty as that.”

  “You like the sound of your own voice, don’t you? Did I say I don’t want to do it? I was just… emphasizing the unusual nature of the assignment. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to accept. It’ll cost you, though.”

  “Larocca insists on making a down payment.”

  “Congratulations,” she said, relighting her cigarette. “You’ve told me what he told you, but you haven’t told me what you think.”

  “I don’t think anything. I don’t have enough to go on yet.”

  “He isn’t a pleasant man.”

  “Not really, you’re right about that. But I’d be quite surprised if I discovered that he took a bribe to get someone released.”

  “Why?”

  “Maybe I’m biased in his favour, but I find it hard to believe that someone so competent and with such an illustrious career behind him would run the risk of squandering it all for a bit of extra cash, like any old crook. I’m not saying I consider him morally incapable of doing so. I have no idea. For me, it’s a matter of… personal strategy, intelligence, the ability to weigh up the pros and cons of situations. He’s an intelligent man, and an intelligent man wouldn’t do something as stupid as that. That’s how I see it, anyway.”

  “They say he might become the next president of the court.”

  “Precisely. Who’d risk an opportunity like that for something so petty?”

  “Okay, let’s try. It’ll do me good to get away for a few days from betrayed husbands seeking revenge. I’ll ask a few questions around and see what comes up. As soon as I find out anything – or as soon as I realize I won’t be able to find anything – I’ll give you a call. And thanks: it was nice to smoke a cigarette in peace in a place that’s not a balcony or the door of a restaurant.”

  9

  Every now and again people ask me, with the guarded expression reserved for eccentrics, why I carry on boxing. The implication is: now that you’re the age you are, maybe it’s time you learnt to play golf and stopped engaging in fisticuffs with guys young enough to be your sons. Depending on the moment, my mood and the person asking me the question, I reply: that it’s as good a way as any other to keep fit; that I practise boxing because it’s a literary sport (possibly throwing in a quote from Hemingway or, if I want to seem self-important, George Bernard Shaw); that I like having conversations with the punchbag I keep in my living room; that I appreciate the picturesque ambience of the gym, the characters you run into there, even the smells, which are often not very pleasant.

  There’s an element of truth in all these answers, but the real reason – which I almost never give – has to do with the magic power of ritual.

  I continue to box because the always identical liturgy of training takes me back to a mythical period in my life, when I was a boy and the world was a place that glittered with possibilities. In that world, in that mythical territory, twice a week I would go to the gym, empty my bag, change, skip with the rope, do press-ups and pull-ups, shadow-box, then bandage my hands, put on my gloves and work on the punchbag, try out techniques with an opponent, and at the end of that always identical sequence I would take a shower and let the pains and tiredness slip away along with the shampoo and cheap shower gel, while my head was empty and free and light and everything was perfect. So much for Monsieur Nizan and his disciples.

  Nowadays, twice a week, I go to the gym, empty my bag, change, skip with the rope, do press-ups and pull-ups, shadow-box, then bandage my hands, put on my gloves and work on the punchbag, try out techniques with an opponent, and at the end of this always identical sequence I take a shower and let the pains and tiredness (and the fear, which I didn’t know about in those days, because as a boy you’re immortal) slip away along with the shampoo and the shower gel.

  For an hour and a half, twice a week, I’m the boy I was many years ago. An explanation you don’t really want to give when you’re talking to someone in a bar.

  I was doing pull-ups, counting the repetitions with stifled groans, when I heard the phone ringing in my bag. I considered ignoring it, but when I saw it was Annapaola I changed my mind. I moved to the door of the changing rooms, away from the sign saying The use of mobile phones is forbidden. Offenders will be punished, which in a boxing gym sounds quite menacing.

  “Hi.”

  A few seconds’ silence, then: “Were you jogging, or do you just get excited when you hear my voice?”

  “I’m a bit out of breath… I’m at the gym.”

  “I have to talk to you, I have some news,” she said, leaving the sentence hanging.

  “What kind of news?”

  “I’d rather not talk about it over the phone.”

  “Okay. I just need to take a shower, and then I’ll join you.”

  “Better if I come there. It’s complicated, getting to my place. Where is the gym?”

  I told her the address: a godforsaken spot in the heart of the Libertà district.

  “That’s not a place for mummy’s boys. What gym is it?”

  “Boxing. Why should it have been a place for mummy’s boys?”

  “I’d have said you were the kind of guy to go to a fitness club in the city centre, with all that ridiculous apparatus and bored women who go there to get picked up.”

  “This is the perfect place to get picked up. If you like men with squashed noses and bad grammar.”

  She gave a brief, harsh laugh. “See you in half an hour.”

  Exactly half an hour later, Annapaola was outside the gym with her black leather jacket, black helmet, black shoulder bag and carbon-coloured motorbike. She wasn’t exactly inconspicuous.

  “Take this,” she said, holding out another helmet, also black.

  I wasn’t dying to go by bike. I don’t like motorbikes in general, I don’t like riding on them as a passenger, and above all (no offence) I don’t like riding as a passenger with a woman at the controls. It’s not a sexist prejudice. Rather, it’s a kind of post-traumatic phobia. Once, many years ago, I let myself be persuaded to go out with a girl who looked like Gene Wilder, smoked big joints and rode her brother’s Enduro 600 without having any aptitude. She was convinced that doing stupid, reckless things while under the influence of cannabis and laughing smugly while I begged her to stop was an effective seduction technique. Inevitably, we ended up plunging down an embankment. Luckily, neither of us was hurt, but the bike was ruined. The adventure ended with the arrival of an ambulance, a breakdown truck and her brother, the owner of the bike – or what remained of it. He took me aside and, with an inquisitorial expression, started asking me repeatedly who was driving when the accident happened, while ignoring my answers. At the fourth repetition of the question, I told him in a neutral tone that if he asked me again I’d smash his face in. There followed a few seconds in which he must have been wondering about the meaning to ascribe to the expression I’ll smash your face in. Joke? Metaphor? Genuine threat? I don’t know what interpretation struck him as the most appropriate. I only know that, after throwing me a final, not very cordial glance, he turned and walked away.

  I never saw him again, just as I never saw any member of that family again.

  The episode didn’t increase my liking for motorbikes, especially not motorbikes ridden by girls who looked like Gene Wilder.

  It should
be said that Annapaola didn’t look anything like Gene Wilder, but all the same I had a moment’s hesitation when she told me to put on the helmet and jump on. Now, though, I didn’t have much choice: I should have thought of it earlier and told her that we could meet at my office. So, with little enthusiasm but trying to appear as casual as possible, I obeyed.

  Annapaola rode very differently from Eleonora – the girl I’d tumbled down the embankment with.

  Calm, careful and fast. Relaxing, almost. The bike glided between the cars, producing a muted roar like the friendly cry of a domestic pet. A big cat purring. For about ten seconds I even closed my eyes, breathing in almost voluptuously the smell of her leather jacket.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, barely raising my voice.

  “You haven’t had dinner, have you?”

  “No.”

  “If you like, we could go somewhere quiet where we can talk and have a bite to eat. I’m starving. But if you don’t think that’s very professional, we could go to your office and talk on an empty stomach.”

  I felt like laughing. In itself the line was nothing special. It was the way she said it. That’s always the case. With jokes and with almost everything else.

  “Let’s go and eat. As long as the bar association doesn’t hear about it.”

  She rode calmly for a few minutes, leaving behind her the Libertà district, sailing through the Murat district and its square, regular streets, running between the lighted windows of the shops selling clothes and shoes and electronics, skimming past the groups of young people starting to gather in front of the nightclubs. I could have gone on a journey with that bike and that rider. I could even have dozed off. How great to cross the country and the cities, ride along the coast, without being imprisoned by the windows of a car.

  “Are you still there? Or have you fallen off and will I have to turn round and pick you up?”

  “I almost never go by motorbike. I was enjoying the ride.”

  A couple of minutes later, she stopped outside a wine shop. “We’ve never eaten together. I hope you’re not a teetotaller?”

  “As a child, I was.”

  “Where we’re going, they don’t have wine. We have to take our own, if you don’t want to drink just tea. Wait for me.”

  She went into the shop and came out with a wrapped bottle. She gave it to me and we set off again. After another three or four minutes we arrived at our destination, in front of an old door in Via Celentano – one of the streets of the city most populated by Africans. I decided not to ask any questions and just wait. Annapaola pressed the entryphone a couple of times. Nobody answered, but soon afterwards a boy with an olive complexion and Middle Eastern features appeared and propped the bike in the entrance.

  “Let’s go up,” she said. By this point, not asking questions had become a matter of principle, so I followed them in silence up the dimly lit stairs as far as the second floor. Over one of the doors that faced the landing, there was something written in Arabic. The boy opened the door and let us in. I found myself in a restaurant with low lights, dark wooden tables and chairs and a frieze of small indigo bricks around the walls. There were a few customers having dinner, the air smelt of spices, and an Arab tune was playing.

  A man of about fifty who looked like the boy came towards us.

  “Hello, Khalid,” Annapaola said.

  “Ahlan, Anna.” He turned to me with a very slight bow. “At your service,” he said, making a ceremonious gesture with his hand.

  “Thanks, Khalid. I brought wine, can you open it for us?”

  “Of course. Will you order or shall I see to it?”

  “Is there anything you don’t eat?” Annapaola asked me.

  I shook my head and she told Khalid to go ahead.

  “What is this place?” I asked her when we were alone.

  “A private club, sort of.”

  “And you’re a member?”

  “Sort of.”

  “I see. Sort of. Is the food good?”

  “The only other place I’ve eaten such good Middle Eastern cuisine was in Beirut. The only drawback is the thing about wine.”

  She was right. The dinner was amazing. So amazing, in fact, that I forgot the reason we had met.

  When the last glass was drained, the last piece of baklava swept away and the table cleared, it struck me that the moment had come to talk about work.

  “Fantastic food. Maybe you have something to tell me.”

  “Do you want the narghile?”

  “Better not, or I might feel like having a cigarette.”

  “When did you quit?”

  “Almost ten years ago. But right here and now, I’d smoke half a packet.”

  She looked at me for a few seconds, as if checking that my words didn’t hide a double meaning.

  “Your client is in trouble,” she said. “Serious trouble.”

  “So there are proceedings in Lecce?”

  “The Prosecutor’s Department did its investigation, along with the customs police, and even filed a petition for a custody order.”

  “Are you joking?”

  “To be precise, the Prosecutor’s Department asked for your client to be put under house arrest on a charge of judicial corruption. Luckily for him, the judge who received the petition rejected it for lack of evidence.”

  “I assume it’s pointless to ask if you’re sure of your information.”

  “I assume it is.”

  “And I assume it’s pointless to ask you how you got hold of it.”

  “Someone owed me a favour. That’s how it works. Exchange of favours, exchange of information. Or rather, not to be hypocritical: traffic of information.”

  “And after the petition was rejected, the Prosecutor’s Department didn’t contest the decision?”

  “It did. That’s why I’m able to tell you about it.”

  “This isn’t my evening. I don’t understand.”

  “The Prosecutor’s Department contested it and the documents were sent to the appeal court, which, apparently, hasn’t yet fixed a date for the hearing. It’ll take several weeks, but you would have found out soon enough anyway, when you received notification of the appeal and the date of the hearing. The person who helped me owes me several favours, but wouldn’t have told me the whole story if there hadn’t been this new development.”

  “A harmless infraction of the rules, in other words.”

  “Although I wouldn’t feel very sure of that as a line of defence in any possible trial for breach of confidentiality.”

  “Nor would I. Did he pass on any papers? The prosecutor’s petition, the judge’s ruling…”

  Annapaola looked me straight in the eyes as if I had made a really inappropriate request. This lasted a few seconds. In the end she leaned down to the big bag she had placed next to her chair, opened it, took out a red folder and passed it to me. Without changing her expression.

  “Consider them copies released on an emergency basis. Which influences my fee, obviously.”

  I took the folder. It was cheap and anonymous, without writing or logos. Before opening it, I measured the thickness of it between my fingers. An old habit, a neurotic little game: I try to guess by touch the number of sheets of paper in a file. I usually get quite close.

  “About thirty.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Nothing. I was saying the number of pages out loud.”

  I glanced at the papers. The petition for the custody order was much longer than the judge’s ruling. I resisted the temptation to start reading there and then.

  “I can keep them, right?”

  “I told you they’ll cost you extra. So of course you can keep them. If by any chance the customs police come to your office to notify you of the date of the hearing, put them neatly through the shredder. You do have one in your office, don’t you?”

  “Couldn’t I have a memory stick with the files instead?”

  “Memory sticks are dangerous. Files leave more traces tha
n a dog in mud; anyone who’s any good can track down the computers they come from, even when you think you’ve deleted everything. Good old printed papers are more manageable. After they’ve been through the shredder, there’s no way anyone can put them back together, except in films.”

  “I’ll see you home,” she said when we were out in the street.

  “There’s no need, thanks. I can get there on foot in five minutes.”

  “All right. So we’ll talk on the phone after you read these.”

  We were about to say goodbye when we heard someone yelling. Annapaola raised her head, as if to sniff the air. “It’s coming from Via De Giosa.”

  “I’m going to see what’s happening.”

  I turned the corner of Via Celentano and Via De Giosa. Some fifty yards away, over towards the Petruzzelli, a small, disorganized crowd had gathered. Some were shouting insults, others running about, and I thought I heard someone weeping. As I increased speed, I noticed that Annapaola had joined me. In her left hand she was clutching a baseball bat.

  “Where did that come from?” I asked, walking quickly.

  “Mind if I tell you later? It looks like someone’s getting beaten up.”

  She was right. Some boys of about fifteen were taking turns attacking a plump boy who seemed a little older than them. Maybe that was why the image was particularly humiliating, even obscene. He was leaning against the wall, shielding his head with his hands and weeping, saying “Please, please” between his sobs. The others were laughing, punching him on the head, slapping his ears. One of them, who probably practised some martial art or other, hit him with a flying kick to the face. Another was filming it on his mobile phone.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I said, approaching the group. I grabbed the first one within reach by the jacket and pulled him away. I took it for granted that I’d give them a few slaps and disperse them. The last thing I expected was for them to turn against me.

  “Fuck off, shitface,” was the not very ambiguous phrase snarled by the biggest of them, as he landed me a punch that was as nasty as it was futile. I was so unprepared I didn’t even try to dodge it, but a moment later I reacted: I dropped the gym bag and responded with a left hook to the face. He collapsed to the ground like an empty sack.