In the late afternoon, golden sunbeams flickered hither and thither across the Roman Castelli hills, between cracks in a low grey belt of sluggish cloud. The sunbeams sneaked across lush fields and verdant vineyards, and rose to drench the city of Rome in a celestial glow. Domes and rooftops radiated magnificently in the setting sun, and windows in high-rise suburban apartments reflected the golden light like so many twinkling mirrors.
And the sunbeams found their way into the kitchen window of one small apartment in the centre of the city, and illuminated the face of Rebecca Martini gazing down on the street below. The lambent light made a halo around her inclined head of long, heavy brown hair, and it outlined the contours of her body.
Rebecca could not remember how long she had been standing at the window. Immersed in thought, she had lost track of time. She hardly noticed the rumbling traffic and the pedestrians walking the narrow pavements; she hardly noticed the sun setting in the distance until the dusk had surreptitiously slipped into the panorama of her thoughts, and she heard the voice of Cecilia, her fourteen-year old-daughter.
“Mama, I bought this for Papa.”
Rebecca turned around, now a silhouette against the bright windowpane. She looked carefully at her daughter in the semi darkness of the kitchen. Cecilia was tall for her age, and she had her same color hair. Her wide brown eyes contrasted with the paleness of her complexion; she was very pretty, Rebecca thought, dressed in jeans and a light blue pull-over, she was now a young lady.
“What have you bought for Papa?” she asked in a voice that she knew feigned interest.
“A tie!” said Cecilia. “Look, it’s a genuine silk tie! Do you think he’ll like it?”
“Do I think he’ll like it?” she echoed. Taking the striped tie in her hands, she felt the silky texture as she stretched it out to its full length. “It’s beautiful, Cecilia. Your papa’s going to love this!”
“I thought he would like the red stripes, and he looks so handsome when he wears a tie and a suit.”
Cecilia’s words resonated in her head. He was handsome when they first met. She back tracked in time and remembered when he was dating her; she remembered the summer evening walks to the light-house that commanded a sweeping view of the sea. She could still hear his seductive voice and the warm embrace and the excitement of first kissing. Everything seemed so enchanted at the time: the starry night sky, the blanched moon, the balmy sea breeze. She had given herself up entirely to this man who she believed would be her life-long companion.
“When’s he arriving?”
Cecilia’s question brought her back to reality.
“What’s that?” she said, fumbling to regain a sense of what was about to happen. “He’ll be here soon. I heard he would be here by eight o’clock.”
“I can’t wait!” Cecilia sang out happily. “Ten years and it’s Papa’s first time with us on Christmas Eve!”
Rebecca felt she needed to remind Cecilia that her father could only stay for one day. She wanted to explain that he was under house arrest.
He had been released from prison on condition he remained at home.
But she refrained from speaking her thoughts; she could not bring herself to spoil her daughter’s excitement. It would not be fair. She had suffered enough, never seeing her father for over ten years except for sporadic visits to the prison.
“Have you set the table, darling?” she asked.
Cecilia switched on the overhead dining room light. The table was set impeccably: three knives and forks, three plates and glasses.
“All done, Mama,” she replied laughing. She moved to the table, “you sit here, I’m next to you, and Papa will sit at the head of the table!”
Rebecca moved over to the gas stove where a large saucepan of water was already boiling. From the shelf, she took a packet of salt and poured two teaspoonfuls into the bubbling water. He would be here soon, she thought to herself, a man found guilty for numerous connections with the mafia; his life long prison sentence was on the murder of a magistrate who he killed for financial recompense. He had nothing against the magistrate he shot in the chest three times. He did not know him; he did not know why he was paid to kill him. It was simply a contract - an order he obeyed; an order that came to him in the dead of night – always in the dead of night – and he was a killer, a professional one.
He was well paid for his work, but the assassination of the magistrate ended abruptly when his Alfa Romeo, speeding away from the murder scene, careened out of control and crashed into one of the many cypress trees aligning the narrow Via Appia Antica. The mist was thick, and the damp of the night had already set in while he was driving, headlights piercing the darkness, wheels squealing on the asphalt, until the trunk of the tree reared up like a towering phantom in the blackness, and it was too late to avoid collision. The next thing he knew, he was in hospital, with multiple injuries, alive, but in handcuffs.
And all of this was ten years ago and today her husband, a silver-haired, fifty year old man, short in stature, with a corpulent body that told a story of time wasted in over-eating and lack of exercise, was coming home.
* * * *
Roberto Martino arrived at the block of flats where his wife and daughter lived and scanned the names on the dimly lit panel of bell buttons. He had forgotten so many families lived in this condominium. With his forefinger he pressed the button marked Martino, tarnished and barely decipherable, and waited for an answer. With a heavy, discordant noise, the metallic lock on the front gate was automatically released. He pushed open the gate and walked down the narrow corridor that led to the elevator and staircase. He chose to walk up the two flights of stairs to the second floor instead of risking the claustrophobia he invariably suffered when he took an elevator. Wearily he climbed the stairs, one by one, stopping from time to time to catch his breath, realising that he smoked far too much.
In his own mind, he was not sure how this was going to work out. He could never find the right words to say either to his wife or daughter. He loved them dearly and he was repentant, truly and profoundly repentant for his infamous past.
Now he was serving a life sentence and these visits home filled him with a mixture of joy and anguish.
Now he was standing outside the door. He waited, aware of his heartbeat fluttering with a strained, emotional uneasiness, and he found himself unable to push the stained yellow button that would ring the bell. Behind the door he could hear movement: the clatter of plates from the kitchen, the muted television, and the sound of his daughter’s voice, although he was unable to discern what she was saying.
And then tears came to his eyes. Soft, slow tears of a dead man. He hastily brushed them aside with the palms of his hand, and his body began to shake in quick convulsions, and his breathing grew faster and faster. What was this hidden emotion welling up from the bottom of his unconsciousness? He understood, then, this was love; the love he felt for his wife and the love for his daughter. He also understood this was regret: life had led him along tortuous paths of aberration, straight into a cell.
The tears ceased; his body had become calm. He was suddenly self-composed and in control of his feelings.
Behind the door the television had been turned up. The voice of a young pop star sang a melody, beautiful and heart wrenching. He listened to the crescendo of emotion as the song unfolded a story of sorrowful, unrequited love.
Driven by an impulse that defied all rational thought, he turned around quickly and descended the staircase. Within a few minutes he was out of the block of flats and walking at a quick pace down the street aligned with parked cars.
He stopped momentarily and looked up at the softly illuminated apartment window. He saw the silhouette of his wife pass by slowly and gracefully, and realised he too had become nothing more that an outline in their lives. There was nothing substantial in him; he was an emptiness, a ghost, a memory that warranted no remembering. Like an epiphany in the stark nakedness of the urban night, he would not see them again, and there would be no returning home.
He started walking. With numb hands dug deep in his pockets, and his shoulders slightly arched against the chilly breeze blowing lightly, he was nothing more than a silhouette himself, a retreating figure, fast-fading into a perfect kind of anonymity.
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