Traitors to All by Giorgio Scerbanenco Page A

obviously very Milanese, even though she spoke standard Italian, dressed in rather good taste, in a dark green tailored suit, with brown hair which went well with the suit, and a dark brown handbag just like her hair. She immediately told him, with admirable Milanese honesty, that she was pregnant, she had had a urine test and unfortunately there was no doubt, and she also told him that she was unmarried, and that she did not want the baby. Then, to encourage him, she told him that she was the owner of a perfume shop, right here, in the Via Plinio area and that a girl, Signorina Marelli – did he know her? – had told her that he was a good doctor who could help a woman in difficulty.
    Good. She might, Duca thought, have had the delicacy to come to him on a day other than Mother’s Day. But these were subtleties. ‘Do you mean Signorina Marelli, the assistant from the butcher’s shop?’
    ‘Yes,’ she said, happily. She must have been close to thirty-five, she wasn’t alluring in any way, but someone, perhaps out of politeness, had made her pregnant.
    ‘Did you know that Signorina Marelli is dead?’ he said, but only out of idle curiosity, without even looking at her, looking rather at the beautiful green light that came from the window, like the light reflected off a pine grove high in the mountains – and yet, incredibly, they were in Milan.
    ‘Oh, yes, I do know, poor thing, they’ve even closed thebutcher’s shop, that’s why it came into my mind,’ she said, unaware of her own immorality. ‘As soon as I read the newspaper I thought: if only I could find that doctor.’
    ‘Why, did Signorina Marelli give you my name?’
    ‘No, all she said was, my doctor in the Piazza Leonardo da Vinci, and you’re the only doctor here. I was lucky to find you so quickly.’
    Yes, very lucky. He remained silent, looking at her every now and again, but only briefly, he preferred to look at Mascaranti who was listening out in the hall. In the end, she could hold back no longer.
    ‘My mother is quite elderly, she has a bad heart, if she found out about this, not to mention what people would say … I have means, you know, you mustn’t think I want to take advantage of you, poor Signorina Marelli could tell you if she was alive, the shop is small but I earn enough, otherwise you’d tell the tax people, we women spend without thinking when it comes to creams, lipsticks, nail polish, things you wouldn’t believe, there are maids who spend all their wages in my shop, so just name your price, oh, no offence meant, doctor, I’m sorry.’
    Her anxiety, long repressed, seemed quite sincere, but he had long ago decided to ignore sincerity and other similar virtues. ‘How long had you known Signorina Marelli?’ he interrupted her coldly. She had died, had Signorina Marelli, in her red dress coat, and she had died a virgin.
    ‘You know,’ she said, intimidated by his angry tone, ‘the butcher’s shop is there, my shop is here, and Frontini’s is there.’
    ‘Frontini’s café?’
    ‘The café and pastry shop, yes, I love the panettone there, it’s better than all the others, you know. We used to meet there in the morning for a cappuccino and in the afternoonfor another cappuccino, and sometimes also for an aperitif, but mostly she came to my shop for nail polish, it was an obsession, she bought nail polish in every colour, though she always left them natural in the end. She once told me she only put on nail polish for the butcher, that the butcher liked painted nails, but only when she was with him, she would paint her nails the oddest colours, sometimes each nail a different colour, but then afterwards she always left them natural. And so we became almost friends, in fact very good friends.’
    She was getting confused, because of the way he was looking at her, she didn’t know if she had been almost friends or very good friends with the girl from the butcher’s shop. ‘And did Signorina Marelli tell you why she