Persona Non Grata by Timothy Williams

human being—a woman—is treated like an animal; with less respect than an animal. I think that Signorina Podestà merits the benefit of the doubt.” She held her head to one side, frowning and in thought. She took short steps. The leather shoes were silent on the pavement. “It is possible that she’s making it all up—it’s possible. But when so many women are raped—are being raped every day—and they don’t dare come forward … And when those women who do have the courage to come forward are dismissed as merely sex-starved spinsters …” She shook her head. “That’s too easy, Commissario.” Another vigorous shake. She was not looking at him but at the ground. “Too easy. And it’s not fair.”
    “Signorina Podestà’s not my idea of who I’d like to rape.”
    “You’d like to rape someone, Commissario?”
    “That’s not exactly what I meant. But if I was going to exert force for my …” He hesitated. “If I wanted to force myself upon a woman, there are a lot of women I’d think of before I’d think of Signorina Podestà.”
    “You’d rape me, Commissario?”
    “Of course not,” he answered hurriedly. “And anyway, you’re not the sort of woman to allow yourself to be raped.”
    “Then you think that there are women who like to be raped and others who don’t?”
    “That’s not what I meant. But with your police training, I’m sure you could look after yourself. Of course, you are an attractive young woman …”
    “You are a gentleman.” The young face broke into an unexpected smile. It was like sunshine in a cloudy sky. “But men will rape anybody—anybody or anything that moves. Including ninety-year-old women.”
    They reached the car and, while Ciuffi unlocked the door, Trotti looked at her. Her job in the Questura was hardening her; three years of dealing with the dregs of society had seriously shaken her faith in human nature. She was learning to conceal innocence beneath a series of masks, masks of hardness which she was assuming to protect her own decency.
    She caught his look and gave Trotti a hurried smile.
    “What did Podestà tell you about herself, Brigadiere?”
    They got into the car.
    “She just said that she had never married. She’d looked after her mother. But that she had once lived with a man.”
    “You pronounce the word man with disapproval.”
    Ciuffi turned on the engine and they left the parking lot. As they went past the Bar Dante, a couple of officers from the Questura looked out at the car and one of them said something to his companion who laughed.
    “A married man—a school teacher. She said that they lived together for five years. On and off. Then she discovered that he had been having an affair with her sister—a mentally retarded woman. In the end he went back to his own wife and family.”
    “They still meet?”
    “She didn’t tell me, Commissario.”
    “And you think she was raped?”
    For a moment, Ciuffi did not speak. They took via Aldo Moro—the plaques had been recently embedded into the brickwalls outside the Civic Museum—and headed towards the edge of the city.
    “You think she was telling the truth? Tell me, Brigadiere. You’re a woman. You have your intuition.”
    “You’re laughing at me.”
    “Not at all. But I want to know whether you think it’s worth my following up the whole thing—lose hours over an army buckle that was allegedly left by her phantom rapist. Or whether I could be spending my time—and yours—in other fields of enquiry.”
    The traffic lights and then the canal. Ciuffi drove well. Trotti noticed several foreign number plates—the tail-end of the tourist season, one or two adventurous travelers who had ventured beyond the Certosa eight kilometers up the road.
    Ciuffi spoke slowly. “I don’t think she’s lying.”
    Trotti noticed the hesitation in her voice. He waited.
    “But yesterday …” she started, then stopped.
    “Yes?”
    A different voice, a different subject.