By My Hand by Maurizio de Giovanni, Antony Shugaar Read Free Book Online Page A

you, Enrica. And if loving someone means wanting what’s best for them, how can I condemn you to a life with me? How can I force you to share the existence of a man who walks among the dead? You who don’t have to see them, you who can smile happily in a place where I see shrieking corpses just paces from where I stand: would you want to be condemned to have a man like me by your side?
    I love you, Enrica. And there’s nothing in the world I’d like more than to hold you in my arms, safeguard your dreams, kiss your smiling lips. But precisely because I love you, I have to stay away from you. And believe me when I tell you that it hurts me more to condemn myself to life without you than it does to see, in this very instant, the ghost of a hanged woman who calls out for her lost love.
    I’m heartbroken at the sight of your shuttered windows; but I’m happy because they protect you from me.
    I love you, Enrica. And I’ll always love you, in the darkness of my soul.
    Â 
    A gust of wind rattled the windowpanes.
    His eyes gazing into the middle distance, Ricciardi slowly picked up the letter he’d written and tore it into a thousand pieces. Then he stood up, opened the window, and gave the shreds of paper to the chilly night wind.

VIII
    T he morning of the Saturday before Christmas was special. Venerable traditions mingled gleefully with new customs, and women with enormous baskets of eggs balanced on their heads walked along followed by swarms of children dressed in junior Fascist
balilla
uniforms, on their way to attend the rally in the square.
    On the sidewalks along the more expensive shopping streets there were hundred of stalls selling everything imaginable, robbing space from pedestrians and therefore actually depriving themselves of customers. Chinese vases, wartime relics such as binoculars and spyglasses, combat boots and bayonets, military shoulder patches and hats: each vendor shouting the merits of his wares at the top of his lungs so as to be heard over the roar of the waves.
    Maione and Ricciardi walked against the chilly wind along the Via Santa Maria in Portico. As they went past, the beggars and vendors, recognizing the brigadier’s uniform, stepped aside, looking away and lowering their voices. It was as if a black wing were sweeping through the market.
    Neither of them was in a particularly good mood. They were on their way to the convent of the Reparatrix Sisters of the Sorrow of the Blessed Virgin, which was where the Garofalos’ daughter attended school; the idea of coming face-to-face with a little girl who’d just lost both her parents wasn’t an appealing prospect.
    Ricciardi asked, without breaking step:
    â€œWhat did you find out yesterday, from the neighbors? Any interesting information about the lives of Signor and Signora Garofalo?”
    â€œNo leads, Commissa’. Apparently he, Emanuele Garofalo, was a centurion of the port militia: you know, that Fascist agency that’s based down at the harbor and oversees the transit of goods as well as monitoring fishing. He’d been promoted a couple of years ago, the accountant was telling me, that Finelli. It seems that the promotion was for special merits, though he didn’t know what they might have been.”
    Ricciardi nodded, and went on walking.
    â€œMerits, these days, means that he spied on someone. Well, what else?”
    Maione continued, huffing and puffing to keep up with his commanding officer.
    â€œThe neighbors confirm the family’s complete integrity and respectability. I would guess that, since he was a member of the Fascist voluntary militia, they were afraid to say anything bad about him. I heard too many lines like ‘he was a wonderful person,’ and ‘respectable people.’ All too perfect, in other words. Even the doorman, that Ferro, was far too deferential. Could it be, Commissa’: not a single piece of gossip, no backbiting at