Get him, get him! It put me in mind of all the times I was cornered as a child, of all the beatings I"d taken, of Ragnar who broke my head so that I had to go to Accident & Emergency and have twelve st.i.tches.
I glanced out over the square in front of the ma.s.sive basilica and soon caught sight of the little man with his felt hat and cane. The little homunculus was walking up and down the piazza lunging at pa.s.sers-by with his bamboo stick as if the little thing was a rapier, but no one paid him any notice. He ought to get a grip, I thought. Metre Man was in danger of turning into a parody of himself.
Luigi appeared to have changed the subject, for he sud- denly asked: "Do you know anything about a novel called Triple Murder Post-mortem?"
I flinched. He must have noticed my reaction. It was Robert"s crime novel which had been published in Oslo a couple of years earlier.
"There is a Norwegian novel of that t.i.tle," I said. "I don"t think it"s anything for your market, Luigi."
His laugh was almost one of resignation. Then he said: "Oh yes, I"ve heard of the Norwegian version too, and that"s part of the reason I"m talking to you. But I also have in mind a German novel which has recently been translated into Italian. The Italian publisher told me he was rather dismayed to discover, only a few days ago, that there is a Norwegian novel based on exactly the same story, published in the very same year as the German one. The stories are said to be so similar that there"s no question of coincidence."
I felt my cheeks begin to burn. So Maria had struck again.
I tried to conceal my trembling hands from Luigi.
I remembered clearly that Maria and I had been together on the campus, it was at the time we were trying to conceive a child. We had gone out to the communal kitchen and fried some bacon and eggs before mooching back into her bed-sit and settling down on the sofa-bed again. It was then that I told Maria the story of the triple murder post-mortem. I made the story up then and there, scribbling down a few rough notes when I got home, but I hadn"t given it another thought until I"d pulled it out for Robert years later. Then I"d given the story a Flemish setting because his mother was a Flemming.
"And what"s the name of this German writer?" I asked.
"Wittmann," said Luigi, "Wilhelmine Wittmann."
He"d stubbed out his cigarillo and now sat gazing out across the Piazza Maggiore. "It almost looks as if The Spider has become a trifle forgetful in his old age," he said.
He didn"t know how his words rankled. I"d always exercised the greatest care to ensure that duplicates never occurred. The only person who"d had any sort of privileged position was Maria, but that was almost thirty years ago, and long before Writers" Aid had got going. We hadn"t spoken for twenty-six years, and now, suddenly, she"d begun to stir. Obviously I had to make contact with her at once, it was quite unavoidable now. But then something struck me, something I hadn"t realised before: I"d never asked Maria her surname. It may sound odd, but we"d only known each other for a few months, and surnames weren"t much used in the seventies. The door of her bed-sit on the campus had sported a ceramic tile with the name MARIA which she"d painted on it in large, red letters.
As soon as the idea of pregnancy was mooted, she must have consciously withheld both her address and surname.
I only had Maria"s own word for the fact that she"d taken a job as a curator in one of the Stockholm museums. I mused at how small the world is, and yet how large a haystack when you"re looking for a needle.
"So, there"ll be exciting times ahead," I remarked. "We must keep up with developments. I"m not The Spider, but of course I"ll keep my eyes open. As soon as I hear anything, I"ll ..."
He cut in: "That"s good, that"s really good, Petter."
I felt stupid. I felt tired. I"d been tired since mother died.
I looked at him: "What shall I do, Luigi?"
"Get away from Bologna," he said, "the sooner the better."
He said it with a smile, but his smile was equivocal.
I laughed. "I think you"ve been reading too many crime novels," I said.
His smile broadened. Luigi had always been a joker.
Could he be bluffing when he said someone was threatening my life?
Perhaps Cristina and Luigi had guessed that I was The Spider, had taken a leap in the dark, and now Luigi was sitting there mocking me? Triple Murder Post-mortem could have been a t.i.tle he"d got from a Norwegian publisher, or he could always have taken an option on the book, and then been surprised at how the same story had been written twice by two different authors. It wasn"t even certain that there had been an article in the Corriere della Sera.
"You may need protection," he said.
A bodyguard, I thought. The idea was a new and painful one.
I felt even more foolish. For once I was bereft of imagination. External pressure had laid a heavy lid on the force that welled up from within. I was empty of words. The most intelligent thing I could find to do was laugh. But it was far too cheap a reaction, and certainly nothing to boast about.
"It"s no laughing matter," Luigi said.
I was incensed. I was furious because I couldn"t tell if he was bluffing. I got up and left some money on the table for the wine.
"Are you staying at the Baglioni?" he asked.
I made no reply.
"Where will you go?"
When I didn"t answer that either, he stuck his thumb in the air.
"Maybe you should be a little careful with women," he said.
"What do you mean by that?"
He grinned. "You have the reputation of being a bit reckless. It"s supposed to be your only weakness. What do you think?"
I didn"t think he seriously intended me to answer. I didn"t answer. He understood, Luigi was no fool. Were two men going to sit in a cafe discussing what they did with women?
It was certainly not worth raking over, it would be too tacky for words.
"They might send a decoy. Perhaps some old girlfriend."
I snorted. "You read too many spy novels," I said. I tried to laugh. I couldn"t tell what he was playing at!
He handed me his card. "Here"s my phone number," he said.
I picked up the card and read it. I can memorise num- bers easily. Then I tore it up and put the bits in the ashtray. I looked into his eyes. I knew I might never see him again.
"Thanks," I said and left, turning quickly as I felt a tear begin to squeeze out.
It wasn"t the threat of a conspiracy that had upset me.
Deep down I thought that Luigi had been thrashing about in the dark. He probably thought we"d be having a drink together at the fair tomorrow afternoon. But I knew that Writers" Aid was nothing more than a memory now. It didn"t feel like liberation to me, more like coercion.
I walked down to the hotel feeling as if my feet had lost all contact with the ground. Perhaps the problem was that my feet had never touched the ground. I"d been on a cloud all my life, I"d been floating around on a cloud. I"d been operating as a brain divorced from everything. There had been only two spheres: the world and my brain, my brain and the world.
I"d had more imagination than the world could make use of. I"d never really lived life, I"d been compensating for it. I didn"t know if I"d been punished by my mother, or by Maria or by myself.
I slept for a few hours and was in the hotel lobby at the crack of dawn next morning. It was quiet out in the Via Indepen- denza, but I felt I was being watched by a young man as I checked out. He was sitting in a leather armchair, pretty well hidden behind a newspaper. It was impossible to judge if he"d just got up, or if he hadn"t yet made his way to bed. When I went out into the street and got into a taxi, he followed. I didn"t see him get into a car, but I believe I caught a glimpse of him again at the airport. He had an earphone in his ear, and it didn"t suit him. I think I must have been quicker off the mark with my boarding card than him.
When I arrived at the gate, boarding had already begun, and just a few minutes later we taxied out and took off. I was in seat 1A, I had asked for it specially. I preferred to look out to my left. I was bound for Naples, it was the first flight from Bologna that morning. Twenty minutes later there was a plane to Frankfurt with a connection for Oslo.
As soon as we"d reached cruising alt.i.tude, I lowered the back of my seat, and an almost transfiguring peace en- veloped me. Soon an episode from my childhood returned to my mind. It was a real memory, but it was something I hadn"t thought about since I"d been a boy. Everything had pa.s.sed so quickly, I was already as old as my mother when she died. This was the story:
I"d learnt to read and write by the time I was four. My mother didn"t teach me, she thought I should wait until I started school. I learnt to read by myself, and I seem to recall that I"d pulled an old ABC from the bookshelf completely on my own initiative. I didn"t consider it inordinately difficult to keep track of twenty-nine letters.
Once when I was at home on my own, I picked up a red crayon and went into my mother"s bedroom. Her bedroom had two large windows with blue curtains in one wall with a fine view out over the city. White wardrobes occupied another wall, but on the other two there was nothing but white wallpaper. It was boring. I think I felt sorry for my mother. At least I had a picture of Donald Duck on my wall.
I had made up a lovely fairy tale in my head, I"d been working on it for days, but I hadn"t let on about it to my mother. The fairy tale was to be a surprise. I took the red crayon and began to write on the white wallpaper. I had to stand on a chair to begin with because I needed the entire wall, I needed both walls. Several hours later I was finished. I lay down on mother"s bed and read all through the long story I"d written on the wall. I was so proud, now my mother could lie in bed every evening and read the lovely story before going to sleep. I knew she"d like it, it was a beautiful story, and perhaps she"d like it even more because I"d made it up specially for her. If I"d invented a story for myself it would have been different, and if I"d cooked up a fairy tale for father, it would have been different again. But my father no longer lived at home, he hadn"t done since I was three.