but she wasn’t making any headway against her temper. If she weren’t so furious, she’d be howling.
She wasn’t ashamed to let him see her nakedness. Or her vulnerability, or the sense of being handed over to the mercy of others that she’d seen in her own eyes. Until now, she’d assumed that she had been unconscious through the entire rape. But that wasn’t so. She had just forgotten. The drugs in her cocktail had wiped out her memory of it, but she had been awake at the time. She had gone through the whole thing conscious, every damn second of it.
“I’m getting on the expressway now,” said Alessandro. “Be with you in less than an hour.”
She was still huddled motionless in the armchair, doubled up and hugging her knees to her chest. Her tears ran down her chin and dripped on her black top. “Keep talking, will you?” she asked him softly. “Say something, just so I can hear your voice.”
“Trevini’s going to be sorry for this. Trevini and Michele.”
She shook her head, thought for a moment, and then said, “I’m grateful to Trevini.”
“He only wanted to hurt you.”
“He made sure that I knew the truth.”
“But—”
“Tell me what you’ve been doing today,” she interrupted him. “All about your day. Your boring meetings, lunch. What your advisers said. Anything.”
He gave in, and his voice merged with the soft, monotonous noise of the car engine. She listened, let his words lull her, and got through the next hour that way.
Alessandro’s face might have been turned to stone. His skin looked dull and almost waxen. The flicker of the video was reflected in his eyes as Rosa paced up and down the library, biting her nails.
He didn’t say a word all through it. He had wanted to mute the sound, but a shake of Rosa’s head had stopped him. She had to hear when the moment she was waiting for came.
Distorted voices in the background merged with the rushing sound of the cell phone’s weak microphone. The pictures had etched themselves on Rosa’s retina; she had no defense against them. A fire was burning in the hearth of the room where it all took place. Probably the living room of Tano’s apartment on Charles Street, one or two floors above the scene of the party. Several people were present, but they were visible only as outlines in the dimly lit background. Michele had been filming with the cell phone; his voice was the most distinct. He had trained the camera on a broad sofa, a kind of divan with a dark cover. Cushions were scattered everywhere. Tano had swept most of them aside.
To take her mind off it, Rosa stopped in front of one of the bookcases, closed her eyes, and ran her hand over the crumbling backs of the tomes. She took out a volume, opened it in the middle, and held it under her nose. The book should have smelled better, of glue and paper, of printer’s ink. But she could smell only the dampness that had crept in between the pages.
Suddenly, among all the sounds from the video, she recognized her own voice. Alessandro looked at her and muted the video.
“No one should have to listen to this,” he said hoarsely. “Not me, most certainly not you.”
“Yes,” she protested, putting the book back on its shelf and hurrying over to him. “We’re nearly there.”
“Where?”
“You’ll see for yourself in a minute.”
Reluctantly, he looked back at the display. Because she was so insistent, he turned up the sound slightly, but his expression showed how much he disliked it.
His eyes were shining more than ever, she noticed now. She turned away to hide her own tears.
Tano could be heard more clearly now. For a moment nothing else seemed to exist, only his voice—the voice of a dead man—
His tiger face exploded. The bullet from Lilia’s pistol blew it apart like a head of cabbage.
A dead man who was still alive and well in this video.
A doorbell rang. Almost at once, it rang again. Someone put the cell phone down in a hurry. It went on filming from a fixed position.
Voices in the background, then Michele’s. “Good evening, Mr. Apollonio.”
Rosa looked at Alessandro, whose expression was still full of distaste, even revulsion.
“Ah, the gentlemen of the Carnevare clan,” said a harsh voice. “A real family party. Have you finished?”
Tano swore.
The newcomer’s tone became sharper. “You’re not being paid to have a good time.”
Alessandro glanced at Rosa, seemed about to say something, but was at