That Night in Trieste

The reason I was staying in Trieste is that I’m a James Joyce specialist and there was a conference on that winter. The author of Ulysses spent about a decade there between 1904 and 1914, which makes it a big Joyce ‘destination.’ Don’t worry, though, I’m not going to talk about Finnegan’s Wake; I only mention it to explain what I was doing in the city when the laundress died.

On this particular night the weather was vile. The bora scura was blowing, scouring the streets with snow and the bitterness of an Arctic winter. The sea was so restless that the stays of the yachts in the marina clinked like windchimes and white spray jumped up at the sides of the dock. All I wanted to do was to curl up in bed with a book. Unfortunately, though, I needed to do some laundry.

For reasons I never learned, my apartment didn’t have a washing machine. Checking my phone for the nearest laundromat, I saw there was one about five blocks from my apartment. I packed my clothes in a waterproof bag, put on a raincoat and stepped out into the bitter night.

When I got to the destination, I almost walked right past it because it looked more like someone’s living room than a laundromat. Through the window, lit by the warm orange glow of an antique lamp, I saw an overstuffed sofa, armchairs and a well-stocked bookshelf. Against the wall facing me stood a free-standing clothes rack full of coats, shirts, blouses and trousers. In the center of the room, between two armchairs was a table with a bowl of caramels and books of crosswords. Still doubting myself, I double checked the door; sure enough there was a sign saying ‘Lavanderia’.

As I opened the door, it set off a tinkle of little bells attached to the top. Walking in, I saw that there were washing machines and driers in a recess. I was in the right place after all.

The walls and tables were plastered with typed notes, a weird mix of hospitality and paranoia: ‘You can read these books but do not steal them’, ‘These caramels are for the enjoyment of customers only. Take one and no more’, ‘I know you stole the red lamp. Next time I will call the police’, ‘Please be CIVILIZED and keep this area clean!!!’, ‘FREE clothes for educated people only.’

Above the machines were twelve pages of typed-up instructions. Some of the text was written in ALL CAPS or highlighted or underlined. I gazed at the instructions in dismay, wishing there were another laundromat in walking distance but knowing there wasn’t.

Selecting the smallest machine, I began loading it with clothes. The bells on the door tinkled behind me and felt a blast of cold air at my back. I turned to see a tall, hollow-eyed woman of about 80. She wore a fur coat and brown leather gloves.

“Good evening,” I said.

She did not reply but came close to look at my laundry. She pointed a gloved finger at it.

“This is cotton?”

“Yes,” I smiled.

“Then why,” she said, “Do you have the temperature up here? That is not good for colors!”

She pointed to the temperature button.

“Oh,” I said, embarrassed.

“What’s this?” she gasped, seeing a box in my bag.

“It’s laundry detergent,” I said.

“Cabbage!” she tore her hair. “How many times do I have to tell you people not to use detergent?! It’s included! Can’t you read?”

I do read Italian pretty well but there are occasions when it’s an advantageous to pretend that I don’t. This was one of those occasions. I shrugged.

“Uh…non capisco bene…” I said in my worst Italian accent.

“Speak English?” she asked.

I nodded. She suddenly relaxed a little and even became relatively kindly.

“No put soap,” she said, wagging her finger. “Soap incluso.”

“Ahh, OK!” I said.

She walked over to a door pinned on which was a note that said ‘Vietato’—forbidden. She opened it with a key and disappeared into the room in a way that reminded me oddly of a dog slinking away with a juicy piece of meat.

After starting the wash, I walked over to the bookshelf, pulled out a dog-eared Iris Murdoch and settled into the armchair facing the door. No sooner had I done so than the door opened again and a peculiar woman stumped in with the help of a cane. She must have been about the same age as the laundry’s proprietor. She was very short and squat with a wide displeased looking mouth, giving her a toadish aspect.

“Good evening,” I said.

“Evenin’,” she said in a low raspy voice, then spent some time shaking out a bright-yellow umbrella that seemed much too small for her. Carefully, she folded it up and put it in the umbrella stand.

The novel was failing to hold my attention, so I peeked over the page at the odd woman. She did not have any laundry bag with her and ignored the washing machines. Instead, she stumped over to the clothes rack against the back wall. Leaning on the cane with one hand, she used the other to whisk a coat along the rail by its hanger. She paused to inspect it briefly then whisked it along to see the next garment. When she’d finished doing that, she hobbled over to a large box containing second-hand shoes and started inspecting them.

There came a noise of coins clinking behind the ‘forbidden’ door. The toad woman paused mid-rummage and lifted her face to listen with an expression that was hungry and alert. I could have sworn that she sniffed, as if smelling the air. As if aware of my gaze, her beady eyes slid over to my face. Instead of being embarrassed by my astonishment, she seemed amused and her wide mouth bent into a sly grin. Taking a child’s red shoe, put it in her handbag, tapped the side of her nose knowingly at me, then hobbled out into the blizzard again.

I shivered, not just because of the icy blast of air. There was something unsettling about the toad woman’s manner; I suspected she was not quite right in the head.

About five minutes later another person entered. This was a raggedy man, whistling, carrying a black plastic garbage bag. He said hello to me and then started loading up the machine with his clothes. He smelled pungently of stale body odor and strong liquor. It seemed probable that he was someone who slept in doorways.

While he was putting clothes in the machine, the forbidden door opened and the laundress emerged. Immediately she went over to the man and looked at his clothes, in much the same way she had with me.

“No shoes!” she snapped.

“No shoes?” he said.

“Can’t you read?” she said and pointed at one of the notes.

“Ah, sorry ma’am, my apologies,” he said and removed the shoes—a pair of tattered old sneakers. “By the way, ma’am, how much is it to wash?”

“It says right here,” she said jabbing the note again.

“I see,” he said, scratching his head. I realized he probably really couldn’t read.

Her eye caught sight of a box of laundry powder on top of the machine.

“Do not use this,” she said. “It will ruin the machine and I’ll have to call someone to get it fixed.”

“But ma’am, I need to wash my clothes. This is a lavanderia, right?”

“There is soap already in the machines,” she said imperiously.

“There is?” he scratched his head.

“Yes.”

“But ma’am, can I use this?” he pointed to the box of laundry powder.

The woman looked as if she was going to explode.

“No you can’t!”

“Huh,” he said. “But where do I put the soap? In the top or in here with the clothes.”

“Nowhere! You don’t put soap anywhere!” the woman shrieked. “You don’t use it at all. It’s included! Are you an idiot? Do you have some kind of brain disease? I just told you not to use it!”

Pursing his lips and, his hands shaking, the man pulled the clothes out of the machine.

“Very well ma’am,” he said quietly. “I will not use your machine.”

“Good, I don’t want idiots to use it and wreck everything.”

The man stuffed the clothes into his plastic bag, stood up straight, looked right into her face and quietly recited a couple of sentences in a strange language. His eyes burned as he spoke and his voice was surprisingly musical and rich, with a lilting assonance, as with a poem. I realized it was a curse, meant very seriously. Even though I didn’t know what he was saying, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

He turned on his heel, slammed the tinkly door and went into the freezing night.

“Good riddance,” muttered the old lady, waving her hand contemptuously. Then she caught sight of the yellow umbrella and froze.

“Is that umbrella yours?” she asked me sharply. “It wasn’t there before.”

“No…another lady. Ten minutes ago.”

The laundress immediately looked worried.

“I go now,” she said to me. “I return soon. You will be here?”

“Yes, yes,” I nodded.

“Good,” she said. “You will watch for them.” The last sentence was meant more for herself than me, a kind of reassurance. I personally did not find it very reassuring. Who were ‘they’? Did she mean the toad woman and the garbage-bag man? Somehow I didn’t think so.

Then who?

I started reading my book again and was lost in a reading trance until my washing machine beeped and it was time to load the drier. The moment I closed the drier door, I heard the bell tinkle again. I was beginning to dread that cheery sound.

This time it was two little girls, identical twins by the looks of it, maybe about the age of ten. They were soaking wet, thin cotton dresses and seemed malnourished and sick—their pale skin had a sickly greenish tinge. And

“Girls,” I said, shocked. “Aren’t you freezing? Here, let me get you some dry clothes. There will be something you can wear from from this rack here.” They looked at each other and giggled at some private joke.

One of the girls promptly came out with a poem:

Never get cold

Never get hot

The witch got old

But I did not.

They then giggled together and raced over to the sofa, where they leaped up and started playing a game that involved rhyme and rhythmic clapping.

I looked at them squiggle-eyed for a while. I tried to read but couldn’t help worrying about these children running loose in a freezing gale. Where were their parents? The laundromat would close in an hour, and then what would happen to them?

“Girls, are you hungry?” I asked. “Would you like a caramel?”

I held out the plate to them. The taller one looked at it disdainfully. In unison they started chanting another clapping rhyme:

I have no need for bread

I have no want of wine

with sand I will be fed

my tongue be wet with brine.

For the second time in a half-hour the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. It wasn’t just the grisly lyrics, but the fact that I was seeing something that appeared to be physically impossible: Even though they were still sopping wet, the sofa was still completely dry.

Rather than stay in the room with these two fey children, I decided to go for a little walk around the block to clear my head. I hurried out into the night and found some comfort in the cold, fresh air. The borasuddenly seemed like a friend, something I’d never previously thought possible.

I ducked into a bar and had a glass of wine to use up the time left before my clothes dried. Feeling much braced, I returned to the laundromat in fifteen minutes. To my surprise and relief, the girls were gone. I hastily gathered my dry laundry and was about to leave when I noticed that the ‘forbidden’ door was slightly ajar.

I took a second look at it and noticed that there was shoe stuck at the bottom. I think at that moment I knew. As reluctant as I was, I felt I had to check, just to make sure. I walked to the door and pushed it open gently.

The laundress lay on her back, staring lifelessly at the ceiling. In her hand she clutched the yellow umbrella. I was so frightened that I couldn’t scream. I ran across the road to the butcher’s shop and asked them to call an ambulance. But there was nothing that could be done.

It was a strange experience and it shook me up for a few days. Then life moved on, as it does. I returned home to Brisbane and forgot about it until I got an email from one of my colleagues who’d been at the same conference. I provide it here in full:

Hey Ann!

Long time no hear. Seems like ages since the conference. How are you?

Just thought you might be interested in this article, since I remember you were there the night the old lady was found.

Woman Revealed to be Murderer in 50-Year-Old Cold Case

Police have determined that Elisabetta Gobbo (87) a woman found dead in a laundromat last December is the probable killer of dozens of people missing from the Trieste area in the last few decades.

Detectives report that Gobbo had posted a computer print-out on the wall of the laundromat where she worked. The document was a confession of kidnapping and murder, listing 25 people who had disappeared from the city over several decades. It also detailed how their bodies had been disposed of.

Further investigation in the laundromat and Gobbo’s house revealed items that belonged to many of the missing people. At the time of her death, Gobbo was holding an umbrella that belonged to Serena Sartori, a ten-year-old girl who disappeared along with her sister Arana in 1972.

Relatives of the victims have expressed shock at the revelation, but also relief at having closure on decades of doubt.