The Namesake Page 14

  ‘I packed it for a different reason,’ said Blume. He did not feel like adding any more but if he was supposed to find out as much as he could about Hoffmann, he needed to make an effort to seem friendly. ‘It’s been there for some time. I’m supposed to be moving in with my girlfriend.’

  ‘Girlfriend. Ah. That’s good. Have you been with her for long?’

  ‘A while,’ said Blume. ‘She’s a colleague.’

  ‘Super. So you see each other all the time.’ Konrad stepped out and closed the camper door, then locked it.

  ‘Yes. Being always in contact with her is . . .’ His phone rang again.

  ‘You can answer that,’ said Hoffmann. Blume glanced at it, saw Caterina’s name, and cut it off. ‘It’s stopped. Look, can I just check something in my case before we go?’

  ‘Inside the camper?’ Hoffmann’s blue eyes widened in exaggerated surprise.

  Reluctantly, he unlocked the door and Blume stepped inside. He noted two matching soft leather suitcases nestling against each other in the back, and beside them, his own oversized and antiquated cream one. The interior was furnished with plastic wood and the metal edges with fake wood-grain siding, which suddenly disinterred a buried memory of a Buick station wagon someone’s mother used to drive. He remembered sitting in the back, his bare legs stuck to the vinyl bench seats, as the car, an enormous thing, glided down the freeway like a fat boat on a muddy river. In Europe, you could always feel the rumble of the wheels. You were always aware of the surface of the road.

  Stuck to the fake wood-board above the curtain that separated the living area from the front cab was a photo of a young woman. To judge from the pale-blue tint that had washed away most of the bright colours, it was at least fifteen years old. The girl was blonde, smiling, and possibly pretty, but the flat colour and absence of shadow made it hard to form a clear idea of what she was like. She was standing in front of a camper van, which, Blume guessed, was the one he was standing in.

  He felt Hoffmann’s eyes on his back and realized he had been under observation. What with the careful positioning of the photo in the dead centre of the small living space, above a stiff divider curtain that reminded him of a tabernacle. Blume stretched out his hand as if to touch it.

  ‘Don’t touch that!’

  He turned around, making a show of being surprised to find Hoffmann there. ‘Touch what? Oh, you mean the photo. Who is she?’

  ‘An old friend.’

  ‘You mean a young friend,’ said Blume. ‘But I guess you were just as young when this was taken.’

  Hoffmann tapped a clear plastic watch on his wrist. ‘Thanks to you we will be driving in the hottest hours of the day.’

  ‘It’s only two and a half hours to Naples, maybe a bit more in this thing. And from Naples to Positano another hour.’

  Blume sat down in the passenger seat beside Hoffmann and, in a second effort to come across as friendly and helpful, began to explain the best way to get from Via Orvieto to the A1. ‘Basically, back the way we’ve just come. Straight on till Cinecittà, then we need to go . . .’

  Hoffmann pulled out a SatNav from the glove compartment beside him and stuck it to a suction mount on the windscreen.

  Blume folded his arms and lapsed into offended silence.

  As they left the city limits Hoffmann accelerated and the camper van responded with a soft lurching movement as if its suspension was made from marshmallows. It was showing an alarming tendency to yaw as well as pitch and roll as Konrad, like any northern European driver dealing with Italians, found his efforts to set an example of careful driving being undermined by his own paroxysms of rage, resulting in much braking and accelerating.

  ‘Take it easy, Hoffmann.’

  ‘My name is Konrad.’

  ‘Konrad, OK.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘You can call me Alec, if you feel you have to.’

  ‘OK, Alec. Why have you been assigned to ruin my holiday?’

  Blume considered his response.

  ‘I am here because I’ve been told to keep an eye on you, and find out what you’re up to. So maybe if you just tell me, I can get out, get a taxi back, and return in triumph with a complete report.’

  Konrad pointed at a fast-moving swarm of vehicles ahead. ‘In Germany, we would never have vehicles come on the road before vehicles go off.’

  ‘I have no idea what you are talking about,’ said Blume.

  ‘This is what I mean.’ Konrad pointed out the window. ‘Those cars are coming on to the road from the right and must come into the flow of the traffic. That is the entrance, no? And here, fifty metres farther on, we have the exit. So all the cars that want to go off must cross at high speed in front of all the cars that are coming on. This is very bad engineering.’

  ‘Our apologies,’ said Blume.

  Ten minutes later, Konrad pointed to the side of the road. ‘Do you notice that?’

  Blume checked. The road signs seemed normal, the hilly land behind the guardrail was so dry it looked like a collection of sand dunes. One sign told him the next Agip service area was fifteen kilometres. No cars were coming on or going off the highway in an unGerman manner. ‘Notice what?’

  ‘Evidently you don’t.’

  ‘Is this some sort of German version of I-spy?’

  ‘Ich seh’ etwas, was du nicht siehst. Yes.’

  ‘Konrad, I have a headache and a loaded gun. Please tell me what you are talking about.’

  ‘I am talking about the rubbish. It is constant in Italy. There has been an unbroken line of rubbish along the road from your house to here. I was just wondering if after some time you stop noticing.’

  ‘Sometimes I notice,’ said Blume.

  ‘Italy is like Africa in this respect. Have you ever been to Africa?’

  ‘Does Morocco count?’ said Blume.

  ‘Technically yes, but not Arab Africa. Below. I was in Conakry for a week. They have the same problem as you. Plastic refuse everywhere. It’s a sign of a failed state.’

  ‘It gets tidier as you move north in Italy,’ said Blume. ‘By the time you get to Germany, everything is perfect.’

  ‘Have you read Jeremy Bentham?’

  ‘Can’t say I have,’ said Blume.

  ‘He founded utilitarianism – but he copied Kant, of course. As a utilitarian, I say there is an argument to be made for inflicting the death penalty on someone who throws rubbish on the street or defaces a public building.’

  Blume was trying to read his companion’s face. Right now, Konrad’s mouth was showing an excess of gum, which possibly meant he was smiling.

  But as Blume began forming a complicit grin, Konrad closed his mouth into a tight line and straightened his face. ‘It is a serious point. Take a landscape that has been ruined as completely as this. We can calculate it on the felific index. First, you must add up all the distress of the hundreds of thousands of people who pass through it, the sense of disgust and depression, as well as the anger, frustration and what I must imagine is self-hatred and justifiable sense of inferiority among many Italians. If you total the negative emotions, and keep in mind that these are feelings people experience over and over, every day, as they drive or walk by all these ruined sites, then you can say that the sum of human harm done must exceed the harm done by a single murder, or even multiple murders.’

  ‘Throwing an ice-cream wrapper equals mass murder . . . You’re not Catholic, are you?’

  ‘I am atheist,’ said Konrad.

  For the next forty minutes they continued in silence. The road was clear and they were making good progress.

  Eventually Konrad said, ‘Do you like music?’

  ‘That definitely depends,’ said Blume warily. He had heard German death metal, Bavarian brass bands and the alienated electronic squawks of experimental stuff from Berlin. He looked at the flaking silver buttons on the car stereo.

  Konrad followed his glance. ‘I was not saying I would play music, I just wanted to know if you liked i
t.’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ said Blume.

  ‘I like lieder by Schumann, Schubert, Wolf and Mahler. I know the entire Winterreise. Do you know it?’ Konrad unexpectedly took an exit from the autostrada.

  ‘No. Where are we going? We should have stayed on the autostrada.’

  ‘Schubert’s most famous song cycle? I learned it many years ago, and I can play the piano accompaniment, too. They say I have a very fine singing voice.’

  ‘Do they? Why are we taking this exit?’

  ‘It is my holiday, no?’ Konrad rolled to a stop at the toll gate, and slotted a credit card into the machine. The machine sucked it in, thought about it a bit, then spat it out and flashed a message.

  Konrad tried again, without any better luck.

  ‘Use mine,’ said Blume. ‘I’ve got fastpay on it.’

  ‘That is very kind.’

  The machine deducted another 14 euros from Blume’s disastrous bank account and the barrier lifted. As Konrad handed back the card, Blume’s phone, his ‘proper’ one as he now thought of it, started ringing.

  ‘Caterina! I was just about to call you.’

  ‘Are you avoiding me?’

  ‘No. I’ve been busy. I couldn’t take calls. Has anyone been on to you about me?’

  ‘Nobody has contacted me.’

  ‘Someone from the DCSA or the Questura should. Basically, to explain that I’m going away for a few days –’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘At the moment, we’re just entering Campania. But I’m not sure if I am supposed to tell you even that. I’m sure I can talk about it later.’

  ‘You said “we”. Who else is there?’

  ‘Another policeman. A sort of policeman. Really, I’m not going to say more.’

  ‘How many days?’

  ‘I don’t know. Two, three. Caterina, stop asking questions.’

  ‘Fine. But you . . .’ Her voice became a metallic stutter as they passed an area of poor reception, but Blume did not ask her to repeat whatever she had said. It sounded like a reprimand of some sort, or maybe it was the robotic quality of her voice.

  ‘This is not a good line,’ he said.

  ‘I can hear you perfectly well. Why aren’t you calling me?’

  ‘Stuff, you know. Unexpectedly busy, I’m calling you now.’

  ‘No, I called you.’

  ‘Yeah, well we’re both holding a phone and talking, so my basic point still stands.’

  ‘If holding the phone is tiring you . . .’

  ‘No, no. Of course not.’

  His new phone vibrated and chimed cutely in his pocket. Having two phones was going to be as stressful as having a watch. The display showed a message: ‘Text from Mamma.’

  He jabbed at the icon, but the touch screen had evidently been designed for some future elfin race with tapered fingers and a steady aim. Even giving it his full attention, he could not manage to tap the animated envelope on whatever magic spot might reveal the text they had sent him. He pulled out a pen and struck at it in vain. He slapped the phone several times against the top of the dashboard, which drew a disapproving scowl from Konrad who was now hurtling down a secondary road at full speed like he knew where he was going and someone’s life depended on it.

  ‘Alec?’ said Caterina.

  ‘Yes,’ said Blume, throwing his new phone on the floor in front of him. ‘I’m still here.’

  ‘I have to go up to Milan in a few days. Magistrate Bazza, the one who took over the case then decided not to tell me anything? I don’t much like the sound of this magistrate.’

  ‘No?’ said Blume. ‘Why not?’

  ‘I just said: he held back information from me when I was investigating.’

  ‘That’s normal enough, Caterina.’

  ‘I know, but a good magistrate holds back for strategic reasons. The point is to trip up the suspects, not the investigators.’

  ‘Maybe you’re being too sensitive.’

  ‘Too emotional and female, you mean?’

  ‘That’s not what I meant at all, but now that you mention it . . .’

  ‘A good magistrate’s interest in a case is always based on a desire to know what might be useful. That’s what Arconti was like, wasn’t it?’

  ‘I guess,’ said Blume.

  ‘From what I’ve seen, this Milan magistrate is interested in this case because he likes to know things that others don’t.’

  Blume was about to advise her to be careful dealing with the magistrate in Milan, if only for the sake of her career prospects, but Konrad decided to roll down his window and fill the cab with thunderous warm wind, and then started singing.

  ‘Soll denn kein Angedenken

  Ich nehmen mit von hier?’

  ‘Just keep doing what you’re doing!’ Blume roared into the mouthpiece and pressed his phone harder against his ear.

  ‘It’s noisy where I am!’ he explained, motioning at Konrad to roll up the window and shut up. Konrad ignored him. Blume cupped both hands over the earpiece.

  ‘Alec, you would tell me, wouldn’t you, if your journey was connected to the Arconti case?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No you wouldn’t tell me, or . . .’

  ‘Wenn meine Schmerzen schweigen,

  Wer sagt mir dann von ihr?’

  Blume put the phone down. ‘For Christ’s sake, Konrad!’ He brought it back to his ear. ‘Listen, let’s not mix things up, Caterina. I’ll call you back soon.’ He hung up abruptly.

  Konrad stopped singing. Blume couldn’t decide whether he had been serious or was engaging in some sort of exercise in humour that only Germans appreciated. Konrad’s tenor voice had, in fact, been quite good.

  The real problem was Konrad’s driving. He was bouncing in his seat and swinging the steering wheel left and right like a five-year-old pretending to steer as he swerved around the potholes and sought to avoid the bumps in the road. The sunlight was lighting up his fiery hair and streaming directly into his face so that there was no way he could possibly see where he was going.

  ‘That was not the right exit for Positano, or Naples, or even Salerno,’ shouted Blume above the rushing air.

  ‘I am perfectly aware of where I am going,’ said Konrad, his tone now scornful. He swerved around one pothole but hit a second, larger one, almost bouncing Blume into his lap.

  Blume steadied himself. ‘Oh yeah, and where might that be?’

  ‘To the gates of hell,’ shouted Konrad, facetious as ever.

  22

  Near Pozzuoli, Naples

  ‘We could get a bite to eat at that osteria,’ suggested Blume.

  Konrad continued driving.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ said Blume. ‘It’s past two. We’re going to miss lunch if we don’t stop. If I skip a meal, first I get a blinding headache, then I start killing Germans. Seriously, I need to eat. It’s a blood-sugar thing.’

  ‘You are a diabetic,’ said Konrad. It did not sound like a question; it sounded more like a reprimand. ‘That osteria is abandoned. You can see it has not been painted or restored in fifty years. I did a course in urban tracking in 2002. We were taught to see things at a glance. The trick is to see the whole thing and the details, and keep moving, while you consider the implications of what you have captured in the first glance.’

  The camper van dipped and its suspension groaned as Konrad drove them through a series of potholes and over a lattice of tree roots that had burst out of the tarmac.

  ‘So you’ll have noticed the five cars and the van parked outside it?’ said Blume, when the rocking had stopped.

  ‘Yes, of course I saw them.’

  ‘So, Konrad, it is not abandoned. It is still serving lunch.’

  Konrad slowed down. ‘My point is that eating at this time of the day is bad for clear thinking.’

  ‘OK. Forget it. You’re obviously in a hurry to get to . . . where is it you want to get to?’

  ‘Lake Avernus,’ said Konrad. ‘But now I am looking for a place to turn, so t
hat we can go back.’

  ‘To the abandoned osteria?’

  ‘I now recognize that it is not abandoned. I was not focused at the time. Now it is all clear in my mind’s eye.’

  The osteria served food directly to the table without any menu. Two bottles of water, a jug of wine and a basket of bread sat between them. Walking quickly by, the waiter placed two dishes of caprese in front of them. Konrad tried to say something in Italian to the waiter, who listened patiently, an expression of pity verging on concern in his eyes. When Konrad had finished his incomprehensible sentence, the waiter gave him an encouraging smile and moved away to deal with normal people.

  Blume quartered his mozzarella, speared a tomato slice and, with the help of a piece of bread, pushed the mozzarella on to his fork. It was sweet and creamy.

  ‘My speaking skills are rusty,’ said Konrad.

  ‘Corroded, I’d say,’ said Blume. ‘I didn’t understand a word.’

  ‘Non è che io non sappia parlare italiano, sai?’ said Konrad.

  ‘Now I understand you fine,’ said Blume. ‘How come you didn’t speak like that to the waiter?’

  ‘I was speaking Campanian dialect.’

  This time, there seemed to be no humorous undertow in Konrad’s demeanour. ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Of course. Perhaps the waiter isn’t from these parts.’

  ‘Apart from the fact you were entirely incomprehensible . . .’ Blume replayed Konrad’s phrases in his mind and began to laugh. ‘Dialect . . . with that accent. You should be on Zelig.’

  ‘What is this Zelig?’

  ‘A TV show for stand-ups.’ Blume tried to suppress his laughter. The trick was not to think of . . . No, it was no good.

  Three minutes later, drying his eyes with the back of his hand, Blume said, ‘No foreigner can ever speak dialect. You might pick up some of the accent if you stayed here long enough, but you can’t speak dialect.’ He looked at Konrad’s plate. ‘You haven’t touched your caprese. Why are you not eating that mozzarella di bufala? That is local produce, and this is the best area in the country for mozzarella.’