The Bottom of Your Heart Read Online Free PDF

and paler every day. Sit down right here and make sure you eat every last bite.
    It had never occurred to him that he might someday lose Rosa. As far back as he could remember, and even before that, the woman had always been by his side. Much more than his own mother, who had often been sick and had died young. And he couldn’t imagine no longer hearing the usual string of complaints, the litany of worries, and scoldings, that his old
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unleashed concerning the way he lived and the loneliness he imposed on himself, a loneliness she found absurd. Still, if she was unwilling to see a doctor, there was no way to force her to.
    The night before, Rosa had told him that she had sent for her niece Nelide to come help her, as he had so often asked her to do. At least he had gotten her to do that. Perhaps if she could just get some rest she’d get back on her feet and everything would go back to normal.
    The temperature was turning red-hot, though it was still early. Out an open window came a woman’s well-modulated singing voice. His thoughts jerked him suddenly to Livia, who had once been a singer and had more than once obliged him to take her to the opera. He didn’t dislike going out with her; if nothing else, those carefree evenings helped him get his mind off his work, his worries about Rosa and, most of all, Enrica’s absence.
    He knew that Livia cared for him. She herself had confessed that fact. And Ricciardi wondered why she should choose him, with all the men she could have, wealthy and attractive as she was. Perhaps, he thought to himself as he faced the last stretch of road, it was precisely because he was so uninterested in courting her that she found him intriguing; this trait must have offered a welcome change of pace.
    For that matter, he had a clear understanding with Livia: their friendship entailed only evenings at the theater or the movies. No social occasions, no dinners, no aperitifs, no get-togethers. They weren’t a couple, nor would they ever be. They shared a few pleasant hours, discussed the show they’d just seen, and made a little light conversation as she accompanied him home in her car; all this, one night every couple of weeks. She asked for nothing more, and he would have been unwilling to offer any more even if she had. The ritual never varied: her chauffeur would come to police headquarters and hand-deliver an envelope containing the tickets, the time and the date of the show; if he agreed, on the scheduled day the car would come by to pick him up at his office.
    He suspected that Rosa disliked Livia, so he avoided mentioning her. As for him, he was well aware of her allure and knew how difficult it was to take his eyes off her magnificent body sheathed in the very latest fashions, off her perfect face, and her eyes, which glittered gleefully; and there was also a certain satisfaction to walking into the theater with Livia on his arm and noticing how his companion attracted the adoring attention of the men and the sullen glares of the women. But if he were ever going to bestow his heart on anyone, if the curse of madness hadn’t been laid on him, he would have chosen sweet Enrica, whose beauty was unparalleled, at least in his eyes.
    While, in spite of himself, he shuttled, in his mind, from one woman to the other, he fetched up at the entrance to police headquarters, where he found an imposing and familiar bulk dressed in a brigadier’s uniform waiting for him in the shade.
    â€œMaione? What are you doing here?”
    The man touched the visor of his cap in a rapid salute: “What can you do about it, Commissa’? The holidays have played havoc with the shifts, and I don’t mind a little overtime with the way things are these days. I traded shifts with Cozzolino, he’s a bachelor and he needs his vacation time to find a girlfriend, though who’s going to take him I can’t imagine, with that face of his, like a snarling guard dog’s.