The Silence Of The Wave Part 1

The Silence of the Wave.

Gianrico Carofiglio.

1.

For the third time he pa.s.sed her outside the doctor's front door. It was on a Monday, at the same hour as usual. But he was certain he had seen her somewhere even before these encounters, although he had no idea where or when.

Maybe she was also a patient and had an appointment at four, he said to himself as he climbed the stairs to the doctor's office.

He rang the bell. After a moment or two the door opened, and the doctor let him in. As usual, they walked in silence down the corridor, between shelves filled with books, came to the office, and sat down, Roberto in front of the desk, the doctor behind it.

"So, how are things today? Last time you were in a bad mood."

"I'm better today. I don't know why, but as I was coming up the stairs, I remembered an old story from my first years in the Carabinieri."

"Tell me."

"After finis.h.i.+ng the officers' training academy, I was posted as a sergeant to a station in a small town in Milan province."

"Was that normal for a first posting?"

"Oh, yes, perfectly normal. It was a quiet place. Too quiet in fact; nothing ever happened. The commanding officer-an elderly marshal-was a peaceable character who always liked to sort things out in a good-natured way. I don't think he even liked arresting people. Not that there were many arrests anyway. A few petty crooks, a few small-time drug dealers at most."

"How about you?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Did you like arresting people?"

Roberto hesitated for a moment.

"When you put it like that, it doesn't sound very good, I guess, but yes, I did. A real law-enforcement officer-and not all carabinieri, not all policemen are-lives for arrests. From a professional point of view, I mean. If you do your work well, in the end you want to see the result, and there's no point in denying that the result you're looking for is someone ending up behind bars."

Roberto thought a moment longer about what he had just said. It was something he'd always taken for granted but, formulated as a coherent thought and uttered out loud, it acquired an unexpected, even unpleasant significance. He shook his head, and made an effort to get back to his story.

"One day I'm at the barber's when I hear shouts from the street, and I look out and see a woman running, dragging a child after her. I stand up and remove my towel. The barber's really alarmed and tells me not to do anything stupid. But we're in the North, I think to myself, why's he telling me that? Things like this happen in the South. I tell him I'm a carabiniere, though he already knows that, and then I run out and catch up with the woman."

"What had happened?"

"There was a bank robbery in progress, about a hundred yards away."

"I see."

"I remember everything very well. I took out my pistol, slid the rack back to load it, lowered the hammer to avoid a shot going off accidentally, and moved. When I got to the corner, just before the entrance to the bank, I noticed a Volvo with its engine on, but n.o.body inside."

"It was outside the bank?"

"No, it was around the corner. About thirty yards from the entrance, but on a side street. The bank was on the high street. I got in, switched off the engine and took the keys."

"But why had they left the car unattended?"

"The two who had gone into the bank were taking their time, and the driver had gone in to tell them to hurry up. Obviously, we only found that out later. I'd just turned the corner when I saw them all come out. I tried to remember what they'd told us in training about what to do in such a situation."

"What had they told you?"

"Not to do anything stupid. If there was a robbery, we had to call for backup and keep an eye on the situation, but avoid going in on our own."

"So the barber wasn't wrong."

"That's true."

"And then?"

"At that particular moment, I forgot all about what I'd been taught."

"They were armed, obviously?"

"Two guns. When I saw them come out I shouted 'Halt! Carabinieri!' I remembered that because I'd repeated it so many times to myself, waiting for the first opportunity to arise."

It struck Roberto that he had almost never told this story before, and he had the feeling that behind this one memory were a whole heap of others. For a few moments he felt overwhelmed, and couldn't continue. He didn't think he could tell any story at all, because he'd be unable to choose which one to tell.

"So you said, 'Halt! Carabinieri!' And then what happened?"

The doctor's voice set the stalled mechanism back in motion.

"In their report, my superiors wrote that the robbers opened fire and Sergeant Roberto Marias responded with his service pistol. But I don't really know who fired first. All I know is that a few seconds later, one of them was on the ground, in front of the entrance to the bank, and the other two were running away. What happened immediately after that is the part I remember best. I knelt down, took aim, and fired off a full magazine of bullets."

Roberto told the rest of the story. A second robber went down, hit in the leg. The third was stopped later. The one shot in front of the bank was seriously wounded but pulled through. A few days after the shootout Roberto was summoned by the commander of the criminal investigations unit, who congratulated him, told him he would certainly be decorated, and asked him if he would like to be transferred to Milan. Roberto accepted, and that was how, at not even twenty-three, he found himself doing the job for which he had joined the Carabinieri: detective.

"So that's how it all started?" the doctor said.

"That's how it all started."

"And you say this story came back into your mind as you were climbing the stairs to come here?"

"That's right."

"And before that you'd been thinking of something else to tell me about?"

"Yes. I wanted to tell you about a dream I had last night."

"What did you dream about?"

"Surfing. I dreamed I was on the waves."

"Surfing? Is that a sport you've ever practiced?"

Roberto was silent for a while, seeing remote, silent waves and thinking about how pungent the ocean smelled, although he couldn't bring the smell back.

"I surfed when I was a boy, before I came to Italy with my mother."

He was about to continue but then either couldn't find the words or the memories, or else couldn't summon up the courage. So he remained silent and avoided looking at the doctor, who waited a couple of minutes and then said that would be enough for this afternoon.

"See you next Thursday."

Roberto looked at him, waiting for him to add something. It always seemed as if he had something to add, but he never did. See you next Monday. See you next Thursday. And that was it. Roberto would leave the office with a vague sense of frustration, although lately that had been combined with a touch of relief.

Life had started to take on a semblance of order after so many months of drifting.

He was even managing to sleep. With the help of sleeping pills, of course, but nothing in comparison with a few months earlier, when he'd had to take really powerful pills that would plunge him into a deep, leaden sleep.

He'd also started to do a bit of exercise, every now and again he tried to read the newspaper, he had almost stopped drinking, and he'd cut his cigarette consumption down to less than ten a day.

And then there were the walks.

The doctor had suggested he go for long walks. So long that he got back home tired, or rather, exhausted. He had been quite skeptical at first, but he'd gone along with it, the way you go along with a medical prescription-what else was this, after all?-and almost immediately had realized, to his surprise, that for one reason or another the walks worked.

He would concentrate on his steps, mentally repeating the sequence. Heel, sole, push, move. And again heel, sole, push, move. Ad infinitum, like a mantra.

This newfound awareness had a hypnotic effect and helped to drain away his bad moods. Sometimes Roberto would walk up to three or four hours nonstop, and it seemed quite healthy to feel tired at the end. It was nothing like the exhaustion and confusion of the previous few months.

It wasn't that he didn't think about anything during these walks. That, of course, would have been the best thing. But the speed and the concentration on movement stopped the thoughts from lingering too long in his head. All kinds of things would come into his mind, but they would immediately slip away to be replaced by others.

The days and weeks had taken on a rhythm. The week gravitated around his two appointments with the doctor, on Monday and Thursday. The day revolved around his endless, hypnotic walking.

Occasionally, one of his colleagues would phone him and ask him if he'd like to go out for a coffee or maybe a pizza. At first he'd always refused politely, but they would insist and after a while he'd realized that it was less of a bother to accept the invitation. He would humor his colleague's attentive if guarded att.i.tude toward him and wait for the moment when he would be able to say good-bye and leave. Sometimes he would feel as if he were hanging over an abyss. But then he would return home and listen to the stereo or watch TV until it was time to take his drugs and fall into a chemical sleep.

Giacomo

I saw my father last night. When you put it like that, it doesn't sound so strange-seeing your father-even if it was at night.

But the thing is, he's dead.

Four years ago, he left home after an argument with Mom and never came back. It wasn't until much later that they told me he was dead. I was seven and a half.

This was the first time I'd dreamed about him since he went away. In the dream he was smiling-he didn't often smile-and for some reason it reminded me of the time he took me to the zoo for my seventh birthday, the last one we spent together.

I met my father on a tree-lined avenue in the middle of a beautiful park full of lawns and woods. He came toward me and held out his hand, as if introducing himself. I thought that was a bit strange, but when I shook his hand I felt good and everything appeared perfectly natural. My father didn't say anything, but I understood that I was supposed to go with him, and so we started walking along the avenue.

After a few minutes (to tell the truth, I don't know if it was a few minutes or much longer: time doesn't work the same way in dreams as it does when you're awake) we saw a big Alsatian lying asleep on the gra.s.s at the side of the avenue. When we reached him, he got up and walked toward me, wagging his big, hairy tail. He let me stroke him and licked my hand.

It was a weird experience, because I'm scared of dogs, and if I see one in the street-especially if it's an Alsatian or another big dog like that-I certainly don't stop and stroke it. I was really pleased that I wasn't frightened.

"What's his name?" I asked my father, and that was when I realized he wasn't there anymore.

My name's Scott, chief.

The answer appeared in my brain, and it was halfway between a voice that existed only in my head and a caption, like a speech bubble in a comic.

"You can talk."

It's not quite true to say I can talk, chief. Actually, you can't hear me. This is my real voice.

And after he said that, he barked, which was a very deep sound, almost a growl, although there was something rea.s.suring about it. And that sound I heard very well. In fact it was the only sound, apart from my voice, that I heard in the whole dream.

"Why did my father leave?"

Scott didn't answer the question.

Shall we go for a walk, chief?

He started moving and I followed him, even though I was a bit upset that Dad wasn't there anymore. I thought, though, that if I'd met him once, it might happen again, and then we'd be able to talk.

Although it was a dream, everything seemed very real: I could feel the cool wind on my skin, I could smell the gra.s.s, and the sunlight, if I tried to look in that direction, was really blinding.

Then I remembered something I'd forgotten a long time ago. My father once said he'd buy me a dog. I just had to be big enough to look after it. I liked the idea a lot and asked him when, exactly, I'd be big enough, and he replied that eleven or twelve was the right age, because that's when you stop being a child and start to become a man.

As I was remembering this, I woke up.

I stayed in bed, waiting for my mother to come in and tell me it was time to get up and go to school. It occurred to me that it would have been great to have Scott with me during the day, to take him everywhere and maybe even have him come and pick me up from school. I'm sure some of the other guys would be much more careful about what they said and did if they saw me with Scott.

2.

He turned the corner just in time to see her come out, walk a few yards, open the door of a car-a little runabout-and get in. Roberto walked slowly toward the front door of the building and was about to ring the bell when he heard a dull noise coming from the car, like the angry sc.r.a.ping of a jammed mechanism. He stopped his finger in midair just as it was about to press the b.u.t.ton, turned, and walked toward the car.