Big Italy Read Free

doing good work here.”
    “I should never have left Pescara.” The younger man caught his breath. “Pescara—I sometimes wonder whether I’ll ever get back there.”
    “You have a holiday due.”
    “Get back to living, commissario. Not for the holidays but forever. Take the wife and the boys.”
    “You think things are better in the South?”
    “I should never have come to Lombardy.” Magagna rapped the Formica table-top with his knuckles. “And to think I voted for the League at the last election.”
    “You’re a Southerner.” A pained sigh.
    “Pescara’s not part of the South.”
    Trotti briefly ran cold water on to the tight coils of spaghetti. “Milan’s part of the South, Magagna. Italy’s the South—ever since we kicked out the Austrians.”
    “You voted for the Lega, too, commissario?”
    “I gave up voting years ago—and never noticed the difference.”
    Magagna shook his head. “Italians just can’t enjoy themselves anymore. Money, drugs, sex—whatever happened to the old pleasures?” He got up from the chair and turned on the television.
    “Like starving, Magagna?” Trotti went to the stove, gave the tomatoes a final stir before tipping the spaghetti into a glass dish.
    “Your problem, commissario, is you’re too …”
    “My problem’s I don’t have any problems.” Trotti winced. “I’m happy.”
    “Happy?”
    “Another ten months and I retire.”
    “Happy? You’ll be bored out of your wits. Are you going to live with your daughter?”
    “Her husband’s looking for a job in Milan.”
    “Must be mad.”
    “Worse places than Milan, Magagna.”
    “I can only think of Sarajevo.” The large face clouded. “If I have to get out of Lombardy, it’s for my boys.”
    “Come back here. You were happy here. And from next September I’ll be out of your hair.” Trotti nodded to a parcel on top of the old Zanussi refrigerator, next to the noisy clock. “There’s a little present for Mino.”
    “If I didn’t know you, I’d think you were human.”
    “How’s Mino?”
    “Eight years old and he thinks his parents were born yesterday.”
    “I’ve always thought you were born yesterday.” Trotti took dishes from the oven. “And his little brother?”
    Magagna smiled proudly. “An angel.”
    “There’s a bottle of wine from the hills in that cupboard. Instead of telling me about your voluptuous transvestites, perhaps you could remove the cork.”
    “Wanted to whet your appetite.” Magagna shook his head. “I swear to God, Trotti, I’d never’ve guessed it was a man. For heaven’s sake, I saw the nipples.”
    “And nipples still get you excited?”
    “You don’t have a libido, commissario?”
    Trotti frowned.
    “And you’re going to get excited over goats and chickens in the hills?”
    “I’m a happy man.”
    “You could’ve fooled me.”
    “Peace of the senses, Magagna.”
    “You’re a miserable old bastard. You’ve always been miserable, you’ve always complained. You’ve always been an old man.”
    “Every morning I wake up and I’m glad to be alive apart from the occasional toothache. I’m smiling as I make my coffee.”
    “The last time you smiled was during the Rome Olympics.”
    Trotti laughed. “One of the best, Magagna.” Uncharacteristically, he slapped him on the shoulder. “I never understood why you wanted to leave this place, damn you.”
    “A wife, a child, commissario. Promotion—a man needs promotion to survive.”
    “I don’t need any of that. I don’t need transvestites. I don’t need AIDS. I don’t need being told what to do by younger men.” He laughed. “And I don’t need nipples.”
    “Not sure I approve of your peace of the senses.”
    “I’ve been like a mouse running after cheese. And now I discover there’s no cheese. No cheese and no mousetrap.”
    “You’ll die of boredom.”
    “I’ll be free.”
    “You’ll die of boredom in the hills, with just your animals to talk to,” Magagna said. He had