Big Italy Read Free Page A

set the labelless bottle between his thick thighs and now the cork came out with a noisy pop. “I think I’ll stick to Peruvian transvestites.”

4: Sandro
    “I WAS BORN in Acquanera but I went to school in Santa Maria. We used to see the American bombers on their way back from Milan.”
    “They didn’t try hard enough.”
    “From the hills we could see Milan burning. Castellani was telling me over eighty percent of the buildings in Milan were hit by bombs or incendiaries. Didn’t try hard enough? Consider yourself lucky you’ve never lived through a war, Magagna.” Trotti made a gesture of irritation. “I lived in Santa Maria for eight years with my aunt and my cousins Anna Maria and Sandro. We were poor, but there were no bombs.”
    “That’s where you intend to spend the evening of your life? In Santa Maria?”
    “The afternoon of my life.”
    Magagna had turned on the old television set to catch the local news on RaiTre. The volume was low and the picture flickered, unwatched by the two men at the kitchen table.
    “With Sandro,” Trotti said. “Together we’re doing the old place up. There’s an architect he knows in Brescia. We should be able to make something really beautiful. An old house—the foundations are more than three hundred years old. On the edge of the town, in a grove of chestnut trees. It’s where our grandparents used to live. And it’s where I spent the happiest years of my life—despite the war.”
    “You’d be a lot happier on Lake Garda, commissario, at your villa.”
    “The Villa Ondina belongs to my wife.”
    “You’re not divorced.”
    Trotti replied simply, “I want a place of my own.”
    “I thought you loved Garda.”
    “I’ve spent some glorious times on the lake.” Trotti ran a hand across his chin. The wine had tinted the corners of his lips. “When she was a little girl, Pioppi always loved the Villa Ondina. Still does. Last summer she brought Francesca. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Pioppi quite so happy.”
    “Why on earth go off into the hills of the OltrePò? Stay with your daughter—and with your granddaughter.”
    “I need a place to myself.”
    “Your daughter needs you.”
    “She has a husband and a family of her own. Why does Pioppi need me? I’d only get in the way.” The rigidity in his face softened. “Pioppi’s taken to being a mother like a duck to water. She doesn’t need an old man getting between her feet. She has her own life to lead. She’s radiant now.”
    “Pioppi always was lovely.”
    “Radiant—but that’s why women are luckier than us, Magagna. What satisfaction do we men have? We have to work for it—power, wealth, fame, success. And once we’ve got what we want—the cheese in the mousetrap—it seems to crumble through our fingers.” He added, his eyes on Magagna, “Pioppi’s even overweight.”
    “You’ve always worried too much about your daughter.”
    “Perhaps.”
    “You don’t have confidence in other people.”
    “I still worry about her.”
    “You worry about everything.”
    “Pioppi is a lovely girl.” Trotti nodded proudly. “She has a good job in Bologna—but her real interest in life is her family. Her husband and her little girl. And soon there will be a new one.”
    “If I didn’t know you, commissario, I’d think you were beginning to doubt your own immortality.”
    “You sound like my wife.” Trotti raised the glass of Sangue di Giuda to a picture frame on top of the refrigerator, beside the small parcel.
    The photograph was of a middle-aged woman holding a little girl and smiling with unrestrained delight into the camera.
    “The woman I married—and now she’s a grandmother.”
    “Self-doubt, Trotti?”
    He turned fast. “What makes you say that?”
    “I don’t think self-doubt can be very good for you. It makes you human.”
    “Scarcely.”
    “Tell me about your granddaughter.”
    “Francesca?” Trotti put his glass down, stood up and took the photograph. “The