THE EVIL THAT MEN DO

CONCLUSION

Photo by imen on Unsplash

The days seemed to slip by with a slow, steady, somnolence, bringing with it a torpid heat that seemed to mesmerize—not just the city—but maybe it was me, as well? I can’t really say, but it was difficult to understand what I expected of myself. I should actually rephrase that, and say that it was difficult for me to pretend that nothing had changed; that everything was the same. And I would have to accept that my whole world had been turned upside down, and torn apart. I knew I couldn’t say anything, or else Zia would know that I’d somehow overheard what they were talking about in signora Rabizzi’s room.

Scaramucci would be showing up for his payment within the next day or two, and I didn’t want to bring the subject up. I knew it was bothering Momma because she was short with me, snapping at me for no reason; Zia was no better. I tried to ignore them both; tried avoiding them, but there was nowhere for me to hide. With school finished, I was expected to work behind the counter. Momma said I was old enough to serve the customers. I tried to tell her that it was something I’d been doing on weekends and school holidays since I was old enough to see over the counter, but she just nodded, going about her business like she didn’t even hear me.

Benjamin Messenger was still playing his violin in the alley behind the shop, and even he seemed to be distracted. Signora Rabizzi was no different. The hours passed by slowly. The customers were mostly tourists—Germans, Americans, English, and French—and they entered the shop in growing numbers, drawn in by the music they heard. They tried to speak to me, of course, their Italian mixed into whatever language they spoke, and I’d smile, holding up small menus I fanned in front of them like playing cards. They picked whatever they needed, written in the languages they spoke. It was easier than trying to figure out what they were saying.

“Lorenzo,” Momma said, calling me from the back room. “Come here for a moment.”

I put a full tub of gelato into the cooler, removed the lid, and walked into the back room. Momma was sitting at the small table with Zia, and they both seemed nervous. I looked at Zia but she turned away, pretending to examine the day’s receipts, as Momma sorted through the mail. The music in the alley stopped abruptly and Benjamin Messenger came in through the wide doors, bowing his head briefly and smiling at Zia. His smile looked undeniably forced.

“We’ve had a good day,” Momma said, looking over at Zia.

“They come in to ask where the music was coming from,” I said, smiling at Benjamin Messenger.

“I hope you told them where I’ll be playing next week?” he smiled.

“I did,” I said. “Always. I mean, when they asked,” I added.

Zia reached across the table for an envelope poking out from under a stack of papers, and gave it to Momma. She took it, holding it in her hands as if she didn’t want it, and looked at Zia, who furrowed her brow and nodded.

“I want you to give this to Scaramucci, and tell him we don’t want him here,” Momma said.

“What? Me? Why me?” I asked.

“Because I said so,” she snapped.

“He won’t hurt you,” Zia said, and for a moment I thought she’d read my mind.

“How can you be so sure?” I asked.

“Signore Messenger will go along with you, insurance, a just in case,” Zia added.

I looked at him and he smiled. Maybe he thought it was a reassuring smile, I don’t know; it didn’t make me feel any safer. I took the envelope and put it in my back pocket, taking my bib apron off and laying it across the empty chair.

“Honestly?”

“You can do this,” Zia said.

“He’s not going to be happy to see me,” I said.

“He will when you tell him you’ll be the one giving him his money from now on.”

“What? Momma, no,” I said, taking the envelope out of my pocket and dropping it on the table. She picked it up and grabbed my hand, forcing me to take it.

“You have to!”

“Isn’t it enough that he threatened to kill me?” I reminded her, looking at the envelope in my hand.

“He’s trying to scare you—”

“It’s working—” I said.

“He won’t hurt you—not if you give it to him in the street, he won’t.”

“Why, Momma? He’s always come here to pick it up.”

“He can’t. Not anymore,” Zia said. “You tell him that. It’s not safe for him to be on the streets, and by extension, us. Someone’s already tried to kill him once. What if they try again? When he’s collecting from us? You tell him that, too. You’re protecting what’s yours—like your father would’ve wanted.”

“Go up and see signora Rabizzi. You tell him you’re making her payment, too,” Momma said; her tone was dismissive, her voice harsh.

“I’m supposed to work the counter,” I reminded them.

“We can watch the counter while you’re gone,” Zia smiled.

“I thought signora Rabizzi didn’t have to pay?” I said, and Momma looked at me with a quizzical tilt of her head.

“Where did you hear that?” she asked.

I could feel myself blushing, the heat creeping up as I stammered, trying to find a suitable answer and all the while knowing I’d been trapped in my own lie. I tried to speak, but my throat was dry. I looked at Momma and Zia, stammered again, and looked down at my feet.

“The kid’s old enough to have figured things out for himself,” Benjamin Messenger laughed. “It’s not as if the bastard was hiding it from everyone.”

Zia nodded. “I suppose,” she said. “But it’s none of your business,” she added, looking at me and perhaps seeing I wasn’t the child she thought I was.

I looked at Momma. She was sorting through the mail again, and suddenly stopped, looking at an envelope addressed to me. It was from the Conscript Commissioner.

“What? What is it?” Zia asked.

“His papers.”

“What papers?” Zia asked, reaching for the envelope.

Momma pulled the envelope away. “The army.”

“I’ll look at it when I get back,” I said, too stunned to think of what else to say.

We left the shop and took the lift up to signora Rabizzi’s apartment. Benjamin Messenger was carrying his violin case, swinging it to the rhythm of his steps. We walked in silence, the sound of his shoes on the tiles echoing in the spacious courtyard—the tattooed rhythm of his footsteps as assertive as a metronome. He waited as I paused to feed the fish, and then we rode up the lift in that same smothering silence. He told me he was going to his room to put his violin away, and left. I closed the door to the lift, then went to signora Rabizzi’s door, slicked my hair into place, and knocked on her door using our secret code.

It took her a moment to answer the door, looking as she always did to me lately, stunning. She smiled when she saw me, telling me to wait where I was and to not move before stepping back into the living room. I could hear a man’s voice telling her he’d take care of it—there was nothing for her to worry about—and then the sound of an old man’s sliding footsteps across the floor. It was only a moment later when the man stepped out of the living room. I stepped aside, opening the door for him just as Benjamin Messenger came around the corner. I put my hand up for him to stop and he backed against the wall as the old man left. I could see a large knife under his jacket.

The old man’s eyes were a deep blue, his hair sparse, and he paused to look at me. He smiled at me as he put his hat on and stepped passed.

“This is Lorenzo’s boy,” signora Rabizzi said, and the man paused to look at me, shaking his head as he stepped past.

“No he isn’t. Anyone who knew Lorenzo, knows that.”

“I wasn’t expecting you,” signora Rabizzi said to me as she reached for a light shawl. “Wait here,” she said, following the old man out into the hall and escorting him to the lift. She kissed his cheeks, and pulled the door open; closing it when the man was inside the lift.

“He’s a little different,” I noted.

“Let’s hope he’s a buyer,” Benjamin Messenger said, stepping through the open door

When signora Rabizzi came back I said, “Zia told me I should come up and take your payment to Scaramucci.”

“She did, did she? And what if I tell you that I made other plans?” she replied, closing the door behind her.

“When? Because we were just leaving to deliver it. Momma asked Signore Messenger to accompany me.”

“Why?” she asked, looking at him.

“To make sure nothing happens,” I replied.

“I assure you, signora—” Benjamin Messenger started to say. She turned and smiled at him, patting his cheek. “I’m sure you mean well,” she said before turning to look at me, “but honestly, Lorenzo, what do you expect him to do?”

“What do you mean?” I smiled.

“I mean,” she said, and turned to look at him. “I’m sorry, no offence—”

“I understand,” Benjamin Messenger said with a light shrug.

She turned back to me again. “Does signore Messenger strike you as a man who knows how to deal with gangsters? The man’s a musician,” she added.

“Momma thinks that if he comes along, Scaramucci won’t do anything.”

“And why would she think he’d do anything? The man’s not a fool. Besides, do you even know where to find him?” she asked, lightly tying her shawl around her shoulders. “No? Well, I do.”

“You do?”

“He has an apartment across from the Ponte Rotto, it’s in the Old Jewish Quarter of the city.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he’s been living there since before the War,” she replied, stepping into the hall and waiting for us to follow her out so she could lock the door.

“Are you sure this is the wise course?” Benjamin Messenger said.

“Why would you say that?” she asked.

“No reason,” he replied.

“Good,” she said, dropping the key into her purse. “And besides, I have an auto. We can be there in fifteen minutes. Unless you’d rather walk?”

“I don’t want to walk,” I laughed.

“Good. Because I also know a little bistro in the Trastevere where we can stop and have lunch after.” 

We skirted along narrow streets and alleyways where tourists seldom ventured, avoiding the traffic around the Vatican, until I finally saw the river in the distance. It was grey and sleek, narrow, following its winding course, slipping in and out of view. It hadn’t taken long for me to get lost, I realized. I had no idea as to where we were going, or where we were. I knew little of Rome beyond my own neighbourhood, it seemed; I’d always trusted that the metro would get me to where I wanted to go, and so trusted that signora Rabizzi knew her way about the city.

In some places, it was as if we’d traveled back in time. The buildings looked to be hundreds of years old, a part of the city’s past that had refused to step into the future. We followed the ancient Wall until it disappeared behind a curtain of the present, where new buildings replaced the old ones as the city prepared for next year and the Olympics.

We followed the river’s embankment, along the Raffaello Sanzia, until we reached the Ponte Garibaldi and signora Rabizzi turned onto the Trastevere motorway, before making an immediate left. I didn’t know where we were, or where we were going. Signora Rabizzi seemed to know exactly where we were going, and parked in a narrow alleyway off the motorway, behind a large building. We walked along streets and through alleyways that called themselves streets, but they were no more than winding paths someone had scratched out of the mud hundreds of years ago. No one had bothered changing the streets through the intervening years because they were the only streets leading into the old Jewish Quarters where Scaramucci had his apartment. She pointed to the building, which stood close to the Synagogue.

We made our way to the Ponte Cestio following the foot traffic, slipping through the shadows of the San Giovanni Calabitta Church, and the hospital on our right. As we crossed the ancient Ponte Fabricio I could see the Ponte Emilio in the distance—the Ponte Rotto people call it—the river washing around its broken foundation, trees and vines growing wild. The city cuts them back once every other year or two, but I’ve always thought it added character to the ruins.

We crossed the river and entered the Jewish Quarters, now a major tourist destination. There were shops and restaurants, gelaterias, bistros, and endless street hawkers selling paintings of the broken bridge and other sights in the city.

“Maybe you should buy a gelato?” signora Rabizzi suggested.

“Why? I’m not a child anymore.”

She smiled. “Not for you, for Scaramucci. Doesn’t your mother always give him a gelato when he does his collections?”

“He’s not at the shop, though, is he?” I replied.

“Lorenzo. You’re frightened of the man. Don’t you think bringing him a gelato might make it easier for him to accept that you’ll be the one paying the bill—not Zia, or your mother? Sometimes in life, you have to do things to appease others. This would be one of those times.”

“Aren’t you at least going to wait for me?”

“It’s that building, right there,” she said, pointing to it. “Apartment 55. You’ll have to use the stairs, though. There is no lift.”

“Of course,” I said, watching them make their way into the building. Two men were coming out and held the door for them, both of them admiring signora Rabizzi. One man tipped his hat, the other simply leered.

The gelateria was a block away, near the synagogue. I took my time walking. I was in no hurry to see Scaramucci, and as much as the idea of buying him a gelato ate at me, I told myself the longer I took, the better it made me look. I stood in a line-up of five people. Americans—loud, brash, and equally awkward—and listened as they gushed about the beauty and wonders of the Eternal City.

I looked around. All I saw was dirt and garbage, filth and graffiti, all the things someone who lives in a city will see; it made me realize I was living in a city I’d always taken for granted. I didn’t see two thousand years of history staring me in the face.

I left, napkins in hand, and was almost at the apartment when both Benjamin Messenger and signora Rabizzi stepped through the door. Signora Rabizzi looked upset; Benjamin Messenger had his arm around her, helping her walk down the short flight of seven steps.

“What? I just bought the gelato,” I said. It was starting to melt.

“You eat it,” Benjamin Messenger said. “I need a phone. We need to phone.”

“Who do you need to phone?”

“The police!” he said. “Here, help her,” he said, looking across the street.

“What about Scaramucci?” I asked.

“He’s dead. Someone shot him,” signora Rabizzi said.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because sometimes, the evil that men do is visited back on them tenfold,” she said. She shuddered, running her hands up and down her body, pushing things back into place, straightening her hair, her skirt, her blouse. She looked at Benjamin Messenger.

“You don’t need to phone the police,” she said. “They already know.”

I know this was long, and I apologize. Please, leave a heart, or leave a comment, to let me know you were here. Leave a little donation…a cup of coffee a month?