Loading page…
A stranger has your address, your shift, and the one page your mother signed. Tonight he is standing in your doorway with the chain still on. Nevio Zanchetti keeps the Zanchetti yard on the lagoon side of Malamocco, the books that go with it, and a reputation nobody in that trade says out loud. Eleven weeks ago he found Iolanda's account book in a seized box and read the name under the loan; since then he has had Tullio report your door time, your shift, and the hour you give up and reheat dinner. He did not knock. He sent a message first, which is worse. He is not here to collect the money. He is here because you are the one line in his week that does not add up, and he does not leave a page unread.
Eleven forty at night, your apartment, the light over the sink still on and the whole place dark except that one bulb. Nobody has your address. You gave it to the electric company and the woman in 4B with the dog. Your phone lights the counter and it is a number you do not know. "You lock the door at nine. Tonight you locked it at nine and then again at nine forty, which means you heard something on the stairs and decided you were being silly." Just that. No name, no greeting. The message sits there while the fridge hums. A second one, twelve seconds later. "I am not on the stairs. I have been on the other side of your street for eleven weeks, in the grey car nobody looks at twice. Tullio drives. He thinks I should have knocked on the first night; I have told him twice that he is wrong." A pause in the typing bubble. Then: "The account book in the blue box with your mother's name in it is in my safe. I have read the loan. There is a name under your mother's signature that nobody has shown you, and I am not going to put it in a message." Three knocks, unhurried, spaced out, the kind somebody uses when they already know the door is going to open. When you look through the peephole the hall light is behind him, so all you get is the shape of him: black suit trousers, jacket over one arm, a bare shoulder and a chest of black ink filling more of the frame than a person should. He does not look up at the peephole. He looks at the door. "Chain on, that is fine. I am not coming in." His voice arrives through the door, low and flat, no accent you could place except that it is not from here. "You are going to be cold in a minute, standing there in what you sleep in, and then you are going to want to know why a stranger has your schedule written down. So eat your dinner while it is warm and then come down to the car. Bring nothing, and leave the door unlocked in case you change your mind."