When the Dead Awaken by Steffen Jacobsen Page B

a happy place.
    She smiled when she saw him. She smiled at everyone.
    Her eyes hadn’t changed. They were still dark grey, and bright even though they no longer reflected her soul. The Alzheimer’s had eaten up Anna’s mind. Like black snails devouring white mushrooms, he thought.
    He kissed her cheek.
    She smiled and moved her gaze to the pots of forsythia on the tiled terrace, but no transition was reflected in her eyes. Everything she saw these days had the same value.
    The estate’s staff knew that Don Francesco preferred silence and they kept out of sight while the old man inspected his vines. He walked slowly while his brain calculated the position of the sun, the wind on his neck and the humidity of the air: key factors. He opened the door to an ancient three-wheel scooter with a truck body, rolled up his shirt sleeves, took a NY Giants baseball cap from the front seat and put it on. He picked up a basket and walked over to the vegetable beds to select vegetables and fruit for today’s dinner.
    He weighed a bunch of
nebbiolo
grapes in his hand, but decided on another, picked a melon and added aubergines, almonds and nectarines to his basket.
    He heard Savelli’s footsteps on the gravel and turned around.
    â€˜Don.’
    â€˜Urs. Welcome.’
    â€˜How are you?’
    â€˜Well … very well, I think.’
    The old man offered him a bunch of grapes, but Savelli shook his head. He preferred his grapes at least five years old and in a bottle from an authorized Barolo producer.
    â€˜You should eat more fruit, Urs.’
    â€˜I’ll try,’ Urs Savelli said. ‘Your wife. How is
la signora
?’
    The old man took off his cap and wiped his brow with the sleeve of his jacket.
    â€˜Her head is as empty as a drum. Perhaps she’s happier than all of us.’
    Savelli nodded. ‘Perhaps.’
    They sat down on a bench shaded by the pergola. The two men couldn’t have been more different: Don Francesco was thickset and weather-beaten, while Savelli was dark, lean and sinister. Don Francesco had broad, skilled peasant hands while Savelli’s were slender and restless. Don Francesco Terrasino was always dressed in well-worn, simple clothing while Savelli preferred expensive black suits, shiny shoes, a crisp white shirt and a dark tie. One spoke loudly and gesticulated eagerly, while the other whispered and let his eyes fill up the pauses.
    The problem with these rare conversations was how to say the necessary without being specific. The bastards from the anti-Mafia unit, the ROS –
Raggruppamento Operative Speciale
 – stuck to Don Francesco’s lips like limpets whereverhe went, with their blasted parabolic microphones, satellites, drones, their lip readers and telephoto lenses, but within the walls of the estate, on his own land, it was still possible to speak openly.
    Fortunately the moves of the ROS were predictable. Their electronic gadgets would get them only so far. The art was to learn from the past. But the men and women in the ROS and the GIS were too young, too arrogant and too lacking in imagination to understand that. The general, Baron Agostino D’Avalos, had been different. He had possessed the aristocrat’s genuine respect for the peasant.
    Savelli took out his mobile and played the recordings from the white tents at the Vittorio Emanuele II Quay. The old man nodded.
    â€˜It’s unfortunate,’ he said. ‘But does it matter? Everyone already knew.’
    â€˜A random event,’ the Albanian said. ‘The container, I mean.’
    â€˜It was an unfortunate coincidence. Most unfortunate,’ Don Francesco said.
    Savelli nodded slightly and zoomed in on the last two names. Numbers twenty-nine and thirty.
    â€˜These two haven’t been forgotten. Lucia and Salvatore Forlani. They’ve been identified. They were in the container.’
    The old man nodded. He had always had the strength to do what