Cosi Fan Tutti - 5 (14 page)

never seen anything like these two. When I suggested

that maybe a little flexibility was in order, they accused me of dragging their darling fishes into disrepute and left me to walk home!’

Zen nodded. Taking Dario’s arm, he led him across the

street towards the flight of steps.

‘It sounds as if it’s high time they were taught a lesson, and I think you’re the man to do it. After the way they’ve treated you, it would be satisfying as well as lucrative.’

‘What do you have in mind?’

‘I’m a friend of the Squillace family. They’re horrified at the idea of their girls getting mixed up with a couple of low-lifes like your friends, and they’re willing to pay good money to ensure it doesn’t happen. Now as luck

would have it the flat below mine has been let to a couple of young ladies who have just arrived here and are desperate to - how shall I put it? - place themselves under

the protection of someone who can help them get on in

the world. And they’re not too particular how.’

Dario nodded rapidly.

‘You aim to fix them up with Gesualdo and Sabatino?’

‘Exactly. The problem is that your friends know I’m in

with the Squillaci, so they don’t trust me. Which is where you come in. I need you to act as go-between, monitoring the situation, smoothing out any difficulties that may

arise and generally doing your best to get our star-struck young lovers to fall head over heels for someone new. If you bring it off, the Squillace family will make it well worth your while.’

He paused as they came to a small square halfway

down the steps, overlooking the sea. Navigation lights

twinkled in the velvet immensity of the night.

‘These neighbours of yours,’ Dario began. ‘Are they

young? Pretty? Do they know how to turn it on?’

‘They’ve got everything it takes to drive a man crazy.

But why don’t you come and see for yourself? My house

is just down there.’

Dario shrugged.

‘Why not?’

They heard the music first. It reached up to them, sinuous and insinuating, rhythmic but unsettling, a long

melisma skidding around between keys without ever settling down. It got ever louder as they approached, booming

and bending off the high stone walls of the alley. Then the house itself came into view. The first floor was a blaze of lights, the shutters and windows thrown open and the strange, oriental music blaring out.

‘Oh, ragazzeV Zen called loudly.

Two heads appeared simultaneously at the windows, a

blonde to the right, a brunette to the left.

‘Let me introduce Dario De Spino,’ Zen continued. ‘If

anyone can fix you up, he can.’

A squeal of excitement from above.

‘How wonderful!’

‘What it is to have friends!’

Zen unlocked the front door. The note he had left earlier was no longer there.

‘So what do you think?’ he asked De Spino as they

climbed the stairs.

‘They’re the oddest looking creatures I’ve ever seen!

And that accent! Where the hell are they from?’

‘Albania.’

‘Albania!’

‘They left earlier this year. Paid someone a fortune to smuggle them over to Bari. But there was no work there, so they’ve come up to Naples to try their luck.’

‘So how come they speak Italian?’

‘Watching television. It was never effectively jammed,

apparently’

He pushed open the door of the lower apartment.

Dario De Spino entered the room, staring wide-eyed at

the two women who stood facing him. They were dressed

in late-sixties outfits which no doubt represented the

height of underground chic in Tirana: polyester tank

tops, extremely short miniskirts and calf-length white

boots. Their hair was long and straight, their make-up

primitive but copious.

Zen rubbed his hands together and turned back to the

doorway.

‘Well, I’ll leave you three to get acquainted.’

‘I’m Libera,’ said the brunette, advancing on Dario De

Spino. ‘And this is Iolanda. We’re so pleased to meet you.

We’ve just arrived in the city, and we don’t know a soul here.’

‘If only we could get in touch with the right people,’

sighed Iolanda. ‘People with connections. It’s hard for two girls all alone, with no friends or family to help …’

The voices faded as Zen walked upstairs to his own

flat. The door was open and the lights on, but there was no sign of anyone home. Then he continued up the spiral

staircase giving access to the roof extension and there they were, standing out on the terrace, smoking cigarettes and gazing up at the twinkling lights of a passing plane.

Given the delays considered normal at Capodichino, it

might even be the one entrusted with the safety of their darling girls.

Che figure interessanti

Twenty minutes later, as Aurelio Zen walked up the steps and down the street to the turn-of-the-century palazzo where Valeria Squillace lived, it was with a sense of a job, if not well done, at least well begun. Putting Dario De Spino on the payroll had definitely been an excellent inspiration, and the crucial negotiations with Gesualdo and Sabatino had gone much more smoothly than he had feared.

Initially the two men had seemed distinctly suspicious

of ‘Alfonso Zembla’, and had asked a great many questions about his life, work, residence in Naples and

relationship to the Squillace family. For all of ten minutes they had interrogated him like a couple of cops, while

Zen fed them a mixed diet of innocuous facts, half-truths and outright lies. Yes, he was from the North, from

Venice. He worked in the port of Naples as a customs

inspector, and was distantly related to Valeria Squillace on her father’s side.

As for this sudden interest in Orestina’s and Filomena’s private lives, he explained that he had become a sort of uncle to the two girls, who confessed things to him that they would not tell their mother. He understood the latter’s doubts and anxieties about this double liaison, so

unsuitable on the face of it, but considered them

unfounded. That was why he was taking advantage of a

combination of circumstances which had arisen to give

Gesualdo and Sabatino a chance to redeem themselves in

the eyes of the girls’ mother.

As an act of charity, he explained, Signora Squillace

had responded to an appeal on behalf of the Albanian

refugees who were flocking to Italy, seeking work and a better future. The nuns who sponsored the appeal were

housing and feeding many hundreds of these immigrants

in their own facilities, but the demand exceeded their

capacities and they had appealed for help to many of the city’s wealthier families, including the Squillaci, who had responded positively to similar appeals in the past.

Zen hinted obliquely at some dark secret which Signora

Squillace felt obliged to expiate by allowing some

vacant rental property she owned to be occupied temporarily by deserving cases selected by the nuns. It was

only after doing so that she had seen a newspaper report suggesting that some of these supposed ‘refugees’ were

in fact criminals and prostitutes who had left Albania to escape justice, and who were continuing to carry on their trade in Italy.

Her anxieties had been alleviated to some extent by the knowledge that he, Alfonso Zembla, was on the premises

to keep an eye on what was going on. Unfortunately an

exceptional situation which had arisen at work meant that for some time he was going to have to spend a considerable amount of time away from home, starting tonight…

‘What sort of situation?’

The question came from Gesualdo. The tone was dry,

almost ironic, as though he already knew the answer. He really would have made an excellent interrogator,

thought Zen.

‘An undercover operation/ he replied. “I can’t say any

more. It’s all strictly hush-hush.’

Zen was gratified to see that the two men exchanged a

significant glance. He had chosen his professional cover partly to explain his presence in the port area, if they should find out about it, but partly with a view to giving them a further incentive to comply with his request. Given their presumed line of work, the prospect of having an ally in the Customs might be expected to exercise a powerful appeal.

Now it was time to emphasize the other benefits which

they stood to gain.

‘What I want to be able to do is tell Valeria - Signora Squillace - that I’ve left the place in safe hands, and she has no reason to worry that it’s being used as a whorehouse, or worse. So we kill two birds with one stone. I can

concentrate on my job, while you two get the credit for defending the Squillace family property against the

depredations of the Muslim hordes.’

‘We can’t just sit around here all the time,’ Sabatino

protested. ‘We’ve got work to do, too.’

‘That’s no problem. The main thing is that you spend

the night here, and check up on the situation whenever

your other responsibilities permit. I take it that your families can spare you for a few days? That’s all it’ll take, just until this emergency situation at work blows over…’

A lot more negotiation, maneuvering and mutual mendacity had followed on both sides, but in the end the two

men agreed, albeit somewhat grudgingly, to what Zen

proposed. He had given them a brief tour of the flat,

pointing out such details as the tricky gas tap and the trip switches which went if you attempted to use more than

one electrical appliance simultaneously, reminded them

to double-lock the door and turn off the lights when they went out, then picked up the overnight bag he had

packed earlier and left before they had time to change

their minds.

Some weeks earlier, when they had first discussed this

idea, Valeria had mentioned that since he was putting

himself out in this way on behalf of the family, the least she could do in return was to provide him with a roof

over his head. He had assumed that she was thinking in

terms of a hotel room, but when the issue came up again she had pointed out that with her daughters away there

were two vacant bedrooms in her apartment, and that he

was welcome to stay there.

It had never for one moment occurred to Zen that this

invitation was the result of anything other than expediency, and perhaps the thrift which notoriously characterized

wealthy families. What with the costs of the girls’

trip to London, to say nothing of Zen’s incidental

expenses, which Valeria had agreed to underwrite, this

was going to end up costing her several million lire. What more natural than that she should wish to save the additional extravagance of hotel accommodation for her collaborator?

It

was only when Valeria came to the door to greet him

that another possible scenario occurred to Zen. It was

indeed thrust upon him, in the form of the formidable

and breathtakingly visible bosom which nuzzled him in

the ribs as Valeria leaned forward to give and receive

their usual - and, as he had always thought, entirely conventional - peck on the cheek. Her black gauze gown, cut

very low both front and back, left just enough to the imagination to arouse interest. A pervasive scent, subtle but

heady, completed these discreet provocations.

‘So how did it go?’ she asked, bolting the door behind

Zen and taking his bag.

‘Fine, excellent, perfect, great, no problem,’ he burbled incoherently.

Valeria produced a smile he had never seen before, like someone unwrapping a fragile family heirloom from its

cocoon of tissue paper.

‘You’re a wonder!’ she said.

The Squillace apartment could not have offered a

greater contrast to the building in which it was situated, a ponderous and brooding edifice seemingly cobbled

together from discarded designs for a museum, railway

station or opera house. Its pointlessly grandiose dimensions suggested the pretensions and insecurity of recent

riches rather than real power and permanence, an

impression strengthened by the large quantity and low

quality of the decorative details, which betrayed a vulgar terror of the unadorned and the asymmetrical.

But once inside the apartment, everything was light,

bright, sparse and stylishly luxurious. The overall tone was Milan: ranks of cupboards in white polyester resin

with bare wood fittings, lots of glass and steel shelving and tables, long low sofa units, bare parquet floors with one or two oriental rugs, pale grey walls enlivened with a few large modern oils.

‘We used to entertain a lot when Manlio was alive, so

we needed the space/ Valeria said as they entered the

salon, which stretched some thirty feet across the entire width of the apartment, divided into a sitting and dining area. Through the open windows, a scattering of lights

and a vast blankness hinted at the fabulous view which

the place must command by day.

Valeria guided Zen to a corner of the sofa set and seated herself beside him.

‘But it’s not worth moving now/ she continued. ‘As

soon as the girls get married, I’ll go home.’

‘Where’s that?’

Terrara.’

He looked surprised.

“I didn’t realize you were from the North.’

‘Oh, yes, and o/it, too. I only moved down here because of Manlio. For the girls it’s different, of course. They were born and brought up here. To them it’s their home.’

‘So how did you meet your late husband?’ Zen asked

politely.

‘At a wedding. He was the best man and I was one of the bridesmaids. The groom was a cousin of Manlio who looked after certain business interests he had in EmiliaRomagna.