The Silence of the Wave Read Online Free PDF

time I hadn’t noticed that poster. Unless you only just put it up. But it was there before, wasn’t it?”
    The doctor looked at the image of Louis Armstrong and smiled.
    “Yes, it was. It’s been there for a couple of years. Do you like it?”
    “Yes … the words are … I don’t know about jazz, I don’t know all that much about it, but I think it’s true in lots of cases: there are things you’ll never understand if you need to have them explained.”
    For a few seconds, silence fell. Roberto was aware of a clock ticking loudly. He searched for it with his eyes but couldn’t locate it.
    “Shall we resume wherever we finished last time?” the doctor asked.
    Roberto nodded, as if he had been called to order. He wondered if the doctor really didn’t remember at what point they had broken off the previous Thursday or—more likely—if he was just trying to test his level of concentration.
    “Yes. From then on most of my work took place at night, in discos and clubs. Apart from my first informants—and only very few of them—nobody knew I was a carabiniere. For the people who hung around those places, I was one of the many characters who spent their nights in clubs either killing time, picking upgirls, or conducting various kinds of shady business.”
    “Forgive me if this question is a stupid one, but did you consider the time you spent in those places work time?”
    “At first there wasn’t a clear distinction. Then my superiors realized that my going to those places and rubbing shoulders with those kinds of people was generating leads for them. I was picking up items of news, telephone numbers, car registration numbers, addresses. I was talking to lots of people, and all the information I collected was leading to investigations, with surveillance, stakeouts, wiretaps, and all the rest. When the news was about the arrival of a consignment or the presence of narcotics in a particular place, we’d go straight in: raids, arrests, confiscations. Gradually my superiors started giving me more and more freedom, until I stopped keeping to strict office hours.”
    “Did you limit yourself to collecting the information or did you also take part in the arrests and everything else?”
    “At the beginning, yes, when it was possible. Sometimes someone would tell me there were drugs in such-and-such an apartment, or at the back of such-and-such a shop. The place didn’t belong to the person who had spoken to me, and when you do that kind of work, taking part in the raid and the arrests is important. It’s a major part of the … How can I put this?”
    “The job satisfaction?”
    “Yes, that’s it. The satisfaction. We’ve already talked about how arrests made me feel. But the deeper I got inside certain circles, the less advisable it was for me to be seen with my colleagues. In other words, as time passed, my work became more and more about being with dealers, pimps, and traffickers, and less and less about listening to phone calls or conducting searches, confiscations, and arrests.”
    “Did you immediately feel at ease in that situation?”
    “That’s a good question. Yes, I was at ease, and I think I liked it, but it’s something I find hard to remember.”
    “Was it
enjoyable
?”
    “Enjoyable?”
    Enjoyable.
    Had he enjoyed that period? Yes, probably, even though he would never have admitted it. But, whether or not it was correct to talk about
enjoyment
, he had liked that irregular life, where he was allowed to break almost all the rules of his normal work and the normal life of a normal carabiniere.
    The doctor broke into his thoughts.
    “Does the word bother you?”
    “Maybe a little, yes. I’m not sure why, but it does bother me.”
    “Never mind. Carry on.”
    And maybe you could tell me why it bothers me. I mean, I think it does, but you could explain why, you could try not always leaving things hanging, that way I’d have a clearer idea of what’s happening inside me.He tapped his