“Well,” said the young boy. “There is a difference, at least in my mind. Chance is something random. Coincidence, on the other hand, is when we see more than meets the eye.”
“What does your aunt think?”
“Auntie thinks I’m splitting hairs. What do you think, papa?”
“I agree with your aunt.”
“Because she’s much cleverer than you and I?”
“Exactly.”
The boy’s father leaned over and kissed his son goodnight. He turned off the light and went back to his study to work on the pile of documents from the courthouse.
The prosecutor found he was not in the mood for work. He put his glasses down and picked up his pipe.
As he smoked, he stared at the photo on his desk. He did not see the image the photo invited but rather a series of memories linked to the photo comprising a game of briscolo, a white swimming cap, and a chance encounter on a moonlit night. These images seemed to play in his mind in a timeless puff of smoke.
There was a knock on his study door; it was the boy’s aunt, who had come to tell him that she had packed his suitcase.
“I’ve put in three shirts, an extra tie and some underwear,” she said. “I’ve left the wash-bag on the dresser along with the parcel.”
The prosecutor thanked her. He said he was grateful for her presence of mind; he did not know what he would do without her.
“I am going to bed, Panchetta,” she said. “Is there anything else I can do?”
“Well,” he said, smiling, “I will be off rather early.”
“Do you want breakfast?”
“Really, Mimi,” he said, “don’t trouble yourself.”
“It’s no trouble.”
The prosecutor smiled. The elaborate game of manners played out like a courtship without the erotic charge.
After she had gone, the prosecutor remembered some bills. He sat down, wrote a short note and put a cheque in an envelope before going back to his papers from the courthouse.
The prosecutor’s appointments in the capital were all within walking distance of his hotel. He crossed over the river on foot and went to talk to a Monsignor M- in Palazzo “Sisto V”. After his chat with Monsignor M-, he crossed back over the river and visited a small office off Piazza Navona for his chat with a little moustachioed fellow who worked for Cisalpine Overseas Ltd. The little moustachioed fellow who worked for Cisalpine Overseas Ltd handed him an envelope, along with several holiday brochures for various islands in the Caribbean, which he secreted away in his briefcase. By mid-afternoon, he had finished all his business and returned to the hotel to freshen up.
A while later, around six o’clock, he dressed for dinner and took the parcel he had brought from home from his suitcase. Then he went out. When he arrived in the restaurant, near the Parliament Buildings, the deputy, who was already seated at the table, got up to greet him.
They exchanged pleasantries.
The prosecutor was tall, but as his nickname suggested, with a little bacon around the middle.
The deputy, who was not tall, looked for a moment with distaste before seizing on the parcel the prosecutor placed on the table.
“How delightful,” he declared, “a minzetta by the potter Del Monaco.”
Putting the box aside, he said:
“I sincerely hope there have been no half measures in oiling the wheels.”
The prosecutor smiled at the deputy’s joke.
“Parliament,” he said, “is always up in arms about something.”
The deputy did not comment, but proceeded to the menu.
There was some debate in the deputy’s mind about which would be better, the hare or woodcock sauce. In the end he came down on the side of the hare. “The woodcock,” he said, “always sticks in the throat.”
“On the other hand,” said the prosecutor, “you can never be sure to catch the hare.”
“I don’t agree,” said the deputy pointedly. “All it takes is a few good hounds.”
If the deputy was known to wags in his party as the soul of DC, the prosecutor was – with some justification – its shadow.
The deputy and the prosecutor went on discussing the state of affairs. None of that, however, concerns us. Since the intrigues of that time have lost their significance, as all intrigues inevitably do, we shall bring things forward to the end of the meal and a stroll down by the river, where we find them again, lingering a moment on the bank across from Castle Gandolfo.
After more intimate and frank exchanges, the deputy walked the prosecutor back to his hotel. They shook hands. “Remember,” he said, fixing the significance of their encounter in the newly coined adage, “all it takes is a few good hounds.”
It was not late when the prosecutor phoned his son from his bedroom in the hotel. His son was in high spirits; he had done well in a test. “My teacher gave me eight and a half, “he said. “I can’t believe it.”
The prosecutor was reminded of their conversation of the previous night. “Well,” he said. “That cannot be chance you managed to do so well.”
“I didn’t really study,” the boy said. “It was a fluke.”
“You mean, chance.”
“No, papa, I mean it was a total fluke. It was like I knew what the question was going to be, though I suppose you could call that coincidence.”
The prosecutor laughed. “That seems like synchronicity to me,” he said.
His son did not understand; the prosecutor attempted to explain. “There was a famous case of a psychiatrist interpreting a dream involving a scarab.”
“Papa,” said his son. “I don’t see what a cockroach has to do with it.”
“Not a cockroach. A scarab.”
“Well, I didn’t dream the question, I just guessed the answer. Because I knew the question, however, I was able to guess the answer.”
“You mean you had déjà vu.”
“What’s that?”
“A special kind of coincidence.”
“And not chance?”
The prosecutor laughed.
The boy asked when he was coming home.
The prosecutor promised he would be home soon.
“I miss you, papa.”
They said goodnight.
The following day the prosecutor checked out of the hotel and took a taxi to the airport.
Arriving on board the plane, he put his briefcase in the empty seat beside him. He fastened his seat belt and sat back in preparation for the take-off.
The plane climbed out of the low-lying clouds. He saw the Dome of St. Peters and the ancient city stretch out before him in all directions; then the plane tipped and he saw the sea. If for a moment he felt his head precipitating, the plane righted itself and the fasten seat belt sign went off.
The plane was flying in a southerly direction over the Mediterranean when there was an explosion.
A second before the explosion, the prosecutor happened to look out of the porthole. When he saw the flash in the sky, he told himself:
Not coincidence. Chance.