The Night of Rome Read online

  Mariani reached the lakefront in a heartbreaking spectacle of light. The red of the sunset was fading into pale hues of purple and pink that lightened the dark blue sheet of the water’s surface. The air was still and sweet-smelling. He picked up a few smooth round rocks and started skipping them along the water, counting the splashes as they bounced. Like a little boy. Happy as a little boy.

  He heard someone calling him from behind.

  “Ciao, Danilo. You look absolutely marvelous.”

  He didn’t need to turn around, he recognized that voice.

  Sebastiano.

  Mariani stood frozen in place for a few seconds. As if a giant, invisible hand were slowly crushing him in on himself. From above toward the ground. Emptying him of all strength, and taking his breath away.

  Until he heard Sebastiano’s voice again.

  “What’s the matter? Aren’t you going to turn around? Aren’t you going to give me a hug? Aren’t you happy to see me here?”

  This time, he had the strength to turn around. But what he saw terrified him.

  Sebastiano’s face was twisted in a grimace of ferocity that he’d never seen before. His eyes were glassy, expressionless. And in his left hand he held a velvet bag from which poked something that resembled the grip of an antique dagger.

  Sebastiano answered his fears.

  “Do you want to know what I brought you?”

  With his right hand he extracted the stiletto and took a few steps toward Danilo.

  “This dagger is called ‘Mercy.’ It was a weapon they used in the Middle Ages to finish off the wounded on the field of battle, those too badly hurt to be transported. The men for whom they could do nothing more than to entrust them to the judgment of God. Normally, at the end of a battle, the bishop would kneel over the poor wretches, impart last rites and extreme unction, and then, with a nod of the head, he’d order them to proceed. The blade would go in near the top of the sternum and split the heart in two. A single blow. A ‘mercy,’ in other words. Here it is, I’ve brought you what you deserve, Danilo.”

  Danilo gulped and sensed a sudden dryness of the mouth, while his arms, reaching back, tried to imagine any object they could seize.

  “Listen, Sebastiano, you wouldn’t think that . . . Polimeni, I mean, I . . . ”

  Those were his last living words.

  Sebastiano stabbed him right at the center of his throat, severing the carotid in one blow.

  Danilo clutched at his throat with both hands, as he slowly drowned in his own blood. He collapsed onto his back. His face looking up at the sky, fiery with sunset.

  Sebastiano stood there, panting, contemplating Mariani’s death throes. He rinsed the weapon in the crystal clear lake water and put it back into its velvet bag. He turned to look one last time at Mariani’s dead body.

  “You didn’t even deserve to be stabbed in the heart. You never had one.”

  XXIV.

  EPILOGUE

  VERANO MONUMENTAL CEMETERY, LITTLE EGYPTIAN TEMPLE.

  Politicians and ordinary people. Old comrades, resigned, and young men and women, indignant. All Communist Rome was there, Communists now or one-time Communists. There was all of secular Rome.

  They’re all here, in the Little Egyptian Temple, down in the depths of the Verano Monumental Cemetery.

  It’s the Rome that refuses to surrender.

  There are even three aging anarchists with a faded banner with the A in a circle: who knows in what moment of their pasts they ran into Polimeni, and what mysterious paths created who knows what affinity. There’s no saying. But they’re here. Here to bear witness. And maybe they too are thinking, along with the long snaking line of people walking slowly under a driving lunar rain, behold, behold, the sky is weeping for a Just Man.

  Malgradi moved away from the annoying correspondent from who knows what left-wing radio network—did they still exist? Just unbelievable—who had managed to worm his way onto the dais prepared for the final farewell to Polimeni. That young man’s rhetoric irritated him. But this was not the time to display such emotions as disgust. Better to maintain a rigid, sober demeanor, as befits a man who represents the democratic institutions. Malgradi stepped aside, and settled back to enjoy the show.

  Martin Giardino was there. Shaking with sobs he simply couldn’t control. Chiara Visone was there, pale and dignified like a widow of bygone times. The grief that she displayed looked for all intents and purposes to be authentic.

  Chiara Visone in mourning was a tremendous hoot. Maybe she even believed in the show she put on. After all, hadn’t she and Polimeni been an item, once?

  The loudspeakers that, up until that moment, had broadcast the heartbreaking notes of Bach’s Cello Suite No. 4 in E-flat major, fell silent. Someone handed Martin Giardino a microphone. The mayor shook his head no: he wasn’t up to it. From the crowd arose a sincere burst of applause. The microphone wound up in the hands of Chiara Visone. The Honorable Visone uttered a few impassioned words: “Adriano Polimeni wanted to change Rome, and he was succeeding. A murderer’s hand stopped him. But we will continue in his footsteps.” More applause, but with palpably less conviction.

  Quite the performance, thought Malgradi appreciatively. And he drew close, to shake her hand. But Chiara avoided all contact and fled, with a rapid, indignant step.

  You’ll come back, oh, you’ll come back, Malgradi sighed. And you’ll come back too, sooner or later, Alice Savelli, because you feel a little uneasy and you’re starting to ask some serious questions about politics. And about yourself. Excellent, go on asking those question. Because sooner or later you’re even going to have to give yourself some answers. And that’s when you and I will have it out, the two of us.

  A man in his early fifties stepped forward, dressed in a black suit. Ah, this was the priest who was such a close friend of the dearly departed. Now let’s hear what he has to say for himself.

  Don Giovanni grabbed the microphone.

  “Wealth devoid of generosity makes us believe that we’re all-powerful, like God. And in the end, it deprives us of the best thing there can be: Hope. Blessed are the poor in spirit. We must rid ourselves of our attachment to wealth, and we must ensure that the riches that have been given to us are spent for the common good. The only way. Open your hand, open your heart, open the horizon. But if your hand is closed, your heart is closed, like that man who held banquets and wore luxurious clothing. Then you have no horizons, you can’t see the others who are in need, and you will wind up like that man: far from God. With these words, dear brothers, Your Holiness Pope Francis . . . ”

  A rumble arose from the crowd. The bishop ran a hand over his forehead and nodded.

  “You are right, all of you. I ask your forgiveness. If Adriano had been here beside me, my good friend Adriano, he would have told me to go soak my head. And he would be right. Forgive me. You are secular humanists, your faith . . . this word that I really can’t do without . . . your faith is very different, and Adriano was like you. He didn’t believe in an afterlife. But I do, I believe that there is an afterlife, and that it is ready and waiting to take in even those who have spent their whole lives here on earth denying its existence. I am talking about the good and the just, and Adriano was both good and just. And I am about to commit, here, publicly, what constitutes for those like me who hold our faith, a sin of pride: But I swear to you that Adriano Polimeni has already entered that afterlife of the good and the just. And if it hasn’t happened yet, I promise you that I will make very sure that it does.”

  Giovanni dropped the microphone and abandoned the stage, his head low. They watched him go in silence, the crowd opening to let him through.

  Malgradi watched him go for a long time. The bishop stopped for a few seconds in contemplation of a grave with a yellowed inscription. Mauro P., 1976–1983. A child. Who on earth could ever have decided that the temple of secular ceremonies s
hould lie cheek by jowl with the area of children’s graves. A terrible idea, Malgradi reasoned.

  Children are innocent.

  Politicians have nothing to do with the innocent.

  Nothing at all.

  Then the ceremony resumed. Malgradi, with a gesture, pushed away the microphone when it was offered to him. As Samurai had once said, enough is enough, and too much is too much.

  Chiara was wandering down the Via Tiburtina, holding tight to her umbrella and her last memories of Adriano. When she felt herself seized and hustled into the shade of an apartment house door, she put up no resistance. Sebastiano stared at her with a manic glare that was unusual for him.

  “It wasn’t me, Chiara. And it wasn’t us, either. Think. Polimeni’s death was of no benefit to any of us. We had a pact, and now everything’s blown sky high. Who ever killed him did it to damage us, not to help us.”

  “Are you done?”

  “You have to believe me, Chiara.’

  “Does it matter, Sebastiano?”

  “Nothing else matters to me.”

  Chiara shook her head, unconvinced.

  “Okay, I believe you. It was a madman, a serial killer, someone from Mars. Okay? Can I go now?”

  Sebastiano clenched his fists.

  “I loved you, Chiara. I should have told you so before this, but I hoped . . . I believed that with you, it might be possible . . . to change . . . ”

  “You? Change?”

  “Yes, me. Change. The jubilee would be the last maneuver. And then . . . ”

  He was humiliating himself. He was playing the emotional card. Chiara felt the rage rise within her. She lunged at him, scratched his cheeks, pounded him with her fists. Sebastiano let her. She placated herself eventually.

  “Sure, I believe you, Sebastiano. For you it was all a matter of convenience, of self-interest. We, them . . . but he was Adriano. It shouldn’t have happened. No one should have laid their hands on Adriano.”

  “I’ve already taken care of that.”

  Suddenly she felt helpless. She gestured vaguely, as if to say, “I believe you about that, too,” and nodded.

  “Sure, sure, you’ve taken care of it. Of course you have. People like you never change.”

  Sebastiano went online to purchase his plane ticket to Rio de Janeiro. The flight departed early the next morning, at seven o’clock. He had a fair amount of cash, and from Brazil, with no particular hurry, he could shape up his accounts. It would take him a few days to calculate his exact share of the whole amount. He didn’t mean to take a single penny more than what was due him. He’d get Alex to help him, on the more complex operations. And from Brazil he’d write Setola, explaining the reason for his irrevocable decision. Setola would report to Samurai, and Samurai would arrange to appoint a successor. But he wouldn’t recommend Wagner to him. Over time, he’d grown fond of that feral child of the streets. He’d watched his progress, he’d appreciated his constant efforts to better himself. And so he wouldn’t hand Wagner over to Samurai’s tender mercies. He wouldn’t push him into the slavery that he himself had lived through. Samurai might very well have guessed already. The signals that kept coming to him through Setola were unequivocal. The race was at an end, it was time to turn over a new leaf. He checked his passport one last time, then he went to his appointment with Wagner.

  At first, he was clear and laconic with the young man. The war was over. The army was being disbanded.

  “What about Fabietto?”

  “That’s none of my business now.”

  “And Samurai?”

  “No longer any of my concern.”

  “Are you turning your back on everything, Sebastia’?”

  “On everything. And without regrets. Actually, I do have one regret: I waited too long.”

  Then he ordered two beers and opened his heart to Wagner.

  “Things are going to happen in the next few days.”

  “Such as what?”

  “Such as everything collapses. Things grind to a halt on the public works of the jubilee. The supervising contractor’s company gets shut down. Samurai’s sentence is confirmed in final appeal by the Supreme Court, and they throw away the key. Such as Fabietto becomes the king of Rome. Such as utter ruin, Such as the bitter end. And roughly speaking, I’d also say that the government will appoint an Extraordinary Commissioner for the Great Public Works of the Jubilee. Maybe a High Prefect, therefore, a cop. I’ll tell you something else, after the death of Polimeni, I think we’re going to see the German tiptoe offstage, too. But that’s no longer a problem that concerns me, I’d say . . . ”

  “Sebastia’ . . . ”

  “Don’t interrupt. So there’s a little money for you. You’ll get it in the next two or three days. It’s up to you to decide what to do with it. You can keep your crew and go back to beating up negroes and gypsies, if anyone comes and asks you to do it, that is. You can go, in my name, to the lawyer Manlio Setola and put yourself at Samurai’s service. You can throw yourself at Fabietto’s feet and pray that he takes you on. Or else . . . ”

  “Or else?”

  The young man was hanging on his words. Sebastiano took a long drink of beer. He stood up and laid a hand on Wagner’s shoulder.

  “Or else I can give you the keys to my house. You start studying, you find an honest job and a girl who loves you. And you turn your back once and for all on this shitty life.”

  “Sure.”

  Wagner saw him leave, his back bowed, and understood that this was goodbye forever. And he wondered how it could be that someone like him, a boss, could have fallen so low. But it had been because of that woman, the Honorable Visone, or maybe because things hadn’t gone right with Fabietto, or both things, or else Sebastiano had simply changed, and you tell me whether changing means going forward or back.

  In any case, the money would be arriving, and that was a sign of friendship, as well as a piece of good news. He ordered another beer and drank to the health of his lost friend, the Master who had abandoned him and bestowed such benefits upon him. Now, as for what he ought to do with the money that was coming . . . Wagner considered for an instant the option of normality. Start studying, find a job. Where he came from, the ones who studied left quickly, and the ones who stayed, even if they had a job, were considered just a step above the losers, the failures. And even Sebastiano, who had studied and had maybe even had a normal job, at some point, wasn’t he a wreck himself now? Work and break your back and maybe raise some kids, spend the weekends at Ostia. And so . . .

  There was another choice that Sebastiano had forgotten. Peddling drugs, but on a serious basis. After all, even the mythical boys of the Magliana gang had gotten their start that way. They’d pulled a robbery, and invested the money from the take. He, Wagner, had ideas, he had men, and he had many, many years ahead of him. Why not take advantage?

  As he was heading back to his scooter, Sebastiano’s sage advice and his grief already seemed to him like a fading ditty.

  He started the scooter, whistling “The Flight of the Valkyries,” and lost himself in the evening that was scented with cheesewood blossoms.

  By the time Sebastiano headed home it was the middle of the night. Along the way he’d stopped in a couple of bars, said hello to a few old friends, treated others to whiskies, and accepted offers of whisky from others; in the back of a restaurant in San Lorenzo he’d smoked a really kickass joint, and it had taken him a good half hour before he recovered a little. But nothing mattered now. He was a free man. Lightness and euphoria accompanied him on the last Roman night of his life.

  He leaned against the parapet of the Ponte Sant’Angelo. He looked up at the silhouette of St. Peter’s. As if lost, the seagulls whirled in the white light cast by the headlights against the banks of the river below.

  The cold pistol barrel came to rest on the back of his neck.


  Fabio Desideri’s voice rang out mockingly.

  “Good night, my friend.”

  Rome, June 24, 2015.

  NOTES ON THE TEXT

  The verses in Chapter X are taken from the song Testarda io by Cristiano Malgioglio and Roberto Carlos, as sung by Iva Zanicchi.

  The quote in Chapter XXI is from Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, translated by Oliver Ready, Penguin Books, New York, 2014.

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  Carlo Bonini is a writer and investigative journalist. @carlobonini

  Giancarlo De Cataldo is an author and magistrate. He writes novels, essays, and screenplays for TV. He lives in Rome.