The Patience of the Spider Read online

  Praise for Andrea Camilleri and the Montalbano series

  “The idiosyncratic Montalbano is totally endearing.”

  —The New York Times

  “Like Mike Hammer or Sam Spade, Montalbano is the kind of guy who can’t stay out of trouble…. Still, deftly and lovingly translated by Stephen Sartarelli, Camilleri makes it abundantly clear that under the gruff, sardonic exterior our inspector has a heart of gold, and that any outbursts, fumbles, or threats are made only in the name of pursuing truth.”

  —The Nation

  “Once again, violence is muted, complications rule, politics roil, but humor…prevail[s] in the end. Italy is good to visit, even if only in print. And what better way to shorten a flight to Palermo than by gobbling this tasty snack along the way?”

  —Los Angeles Times

  “[Camilleri’s mysteries] offer quirky characters, crisp dialogue, bright storytelling—and Salvo Montalbano, one of the most engaging protagonists in detective fiction…. Montalbano is a delightful creation, an honest man on Sicily’s mean streets.”

  —USA Today

  “The Montalbano mysteries offer cose dolci to the world-lit lover hankering for a whodunit.”

  —The Village Voice

  “The reading of these little gems is fast and fun every step of the way.”

  —The New York Sun

  “Wittily translated from the savory Italian, Camilleri’s mysteries…feature the sardonic Inspector Salvo Montalbano, whose gustatory adventures are at least as much fun as his crime solving.”

  —Rocky Mountain News

  “Camilleri once again thrills with his fluid storytelling and quirky characters.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  Also by Andrea Camilleri

  The Shape of Water

  The Terra-Cotta Dog

  The Snack Thief

  Voice of the Violin

  Excursion to Tindari

  The Smell of the Night

  Rounding the Mark

  A PENGUIN MYSTERY

  Elvira Giorginanni

  THE PATIENCE OF THE SPIDER

  Andrea Camilleri is the author of many books, including his Montalbano series, which has been adapted for Italian television and translated into nine languages. He lives in Rome.

  Stephen Sartarelli is an award-winning translator and the author of three books of poetry, most recently The Open Vault.

  THE PATIENCE OF THE SPIDER

  ANDREA CAMILLERI

  Translated by Stephen Sartarelli

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:

  80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published in Penguin Books 2007

  Translation copyright © Stephen Sartarelli, 2007

  All rights reserved

  Originally published in Italian as La pazienza del ragno by Sellerio Editore, Palermo.

  Copright © 2004 Sellerio Editore.

  Publisher’s Note

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Camilleri, Andrea.

  [Pazienza del ragno. English]

  The patience of the spider / Andrea Camilleri; translated by Stephen Sartarelli.

  p. cm.

  “A Penguin mystery.”

  ISBN: 978-1-1012-0162-6

  I. Sartarelli, Stephen, 1954–II. Title. PQ4863.A3894P3913 2007

  853'.914—dc22 2006051527

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Author’s Note

  Notes

  THE PATIENCE OF THE SPIDER

  1

  He jolted awake, sweaty and short of breath. For a few seconds he didn’t know where he was. Then the soft, regular breathing of Livia, who lay asleep beside him, brought him back to a familiar, reassuring reality. He was in his bedroom in Marinella. What had yanked him from his sleep was a sharp pang, cold as a knife blade, in his wounded shoulder. He didn’t need to look at the clock on the nightstand to know that it was three-thirty in the morning—actually, three-twenty-seven and forty seconds. The same thing had been happening to him for the last twenty days, ever since the night Jamil Zarzis, a trafficker in small third world children, had shot and wounded him, and he had reacted by killing the man. Twenty days, but it was as though the mechanism of time had got stuck at that moment. Some gear in the part of his brain that measures the passing hours and days had gone “clack,” and ever since, if he was asleep, he would wake up, and if he was awake, everything around him would stop in a sort of imperceptible freeze-frame. He knew very well that during that split-second duel, it had never crossed his mind to check what time it was, and yet—and this he remembered very clearly—the moment the bullet fired by Jamil Zarzis penetrated his flesh, a voice inside him—an impersonal, female voice, slightly metallic, like the voices you hear over PA systems in train stations and supermarkets—had said, “It is three-twenty-seven and forty seconds.”

  “Were you with the inspector?”

  “Yes, Doctor.”

  “Your name?”

  “Fazio, Doctor.”

  “How long has he been wounded?”

  “Well, Doctor, the exchange of fire took place around three-thirty. So, a little more than half an hour ago. Oh, Doctor…”

  “Yes?”

  “Is it serious?”
>
  The inspector was lying down, utterly still, eyes shut, which led everyone to think he was unconscious and they could speak openly. Whereas in fact he heard and understood everything. He felt simultaneously dazed and lucid, but had no desire to open his mouth and answer the doctor’s questions himself. Apparently the shots they’d given him to kill the pain had affected his whole body.

  “Don’t be silly! All we have to do is extract the bullet lodged in his shoulder.”

  “O Madonna Santa!”

  “There’s no need to get so upset! It’s a piece of cake. Besides, I really don’t think it did much damage. With a bit of physical therapy, he should recover one hundred percent use of his arm. But why, may I ask, are you still so concerned?”

  “Well, you see, Doctor, a few days ago the inspector went out by himself on an investigation…”

  Now, as then, he keeps his eyes closed. But he can no longer hear the words, which are drowned out by the loud, pounding surf. It must be windy outside, the whole shutter is vibrating from the force of the gusts, emitting a kind of wail. It’s a good thing he’s still convalescing; he can stay under the covers for as long as he wants. Consoled by this thought, he decides to open his eyes just a crack.

  Why could he no longer hear Fazio talking? He opened his eyes just a crack. The two men had stepped a short distance away from the bed and were over by the window. Fazio was talking and the doctor, dressed in a white smock, was listening, a grave expression on his face. Suddenly Montalbano realized he had no need to hear Fazio’s words to know what he was saying to the doctor. Fazio, his friend, his trusty right-hand man, was betraying him. Like Judas. He was obviously telling the doctor about the time he’d found the inspector lying on the beach, drained of strength after the terrible chest pain he’d had in the water…Imagine the doctors’ reaction upon hearing this wonderful news! Before ever removing that goddamned bullet, they would give him the works: examine him inside and out, poke him full of holes, lift up his skin piece by piece to see what there was underneath…

  His bedroom is the same as it’s always been. No, that’s not true. It’s different, but still the same. Different because there are Livia’s things on the dresser: purse, hairpins, two little perfume bottles. And, on the chair across the room, a blouse and skirt. And though he can’t see them, he knows there’s a pair of pink slippers somewhere near the bed. He feels a surge of emotion. He melts, goes all soft inside, turns to liquid. For twenty days this has been his new refrain, and he doesn’t know how to put a stop to it. The slightest thing will set it off and bring him, treacherously, to the point of tears. He’s embarrassed, ashamed of his new emotional fragility, and has to create elaborate defenses to prevent others from noticing. But not with Livia. With her he couldn’t pull it off. So she decided to help him, to lend him a hand by dealing firmly with him, not allowing him any opportunities to let himself go. But it’s no use. Because this loving approach on Livia’s part also triggers a mixed emotion of happiness and sadness. He’s happy that Livia used up all her vacation time to come and look after him, and he knows that the house is happy to have her there. Ever since she arrived, when he looks at his bedroom in sunlight it seems to have its color back, as though the walls had been repainted a luminous white.

  Since nobody can see him, he wipes away a tear with a corner of the bedsheet.

  White all around, and amidst the white, only the brown of his naked skin (Was it once pink? How many centuries ago?). A white room, in which he’s being given an electrocardiogram. The doctor studies the long strip of paper, shakes his head in doubt. Terrified, Montalbano imagines that the graph the doctor is examining looks exactly like the seismograph of the Messina earthquake of 1908, which he once saw reproduced in a history magazine: a crazy, hopeless jumble of lines traced as if by a hand driven mad by fear.

  They’ve found me out! he thinks to himself. They realize that my heart functions on alternating current, higgledy-piggledy, and that I’ve had at least three heart attacks!

  Then another doctor, also in a white smock, enters the room. He looks at the strip, at Montalbano, and at this colleague.

  “Let’s do it over,” he says.

  Maybe they can’t believe their eyes, can’t understand how a man with an electrocardiogram like that is still in a hospital bed and not on a marble slab in the morgue. They look at the new strip, their heads now very close together.

  “Let’s do a telecardiogram,” is the verdict. The doctors seem perplexed.

  Montalbano wishes he could tell them that, if this is the way it is, they shouldn’t even bother extracting the bullet. They should let him die in peace. But, dammit, he forgot to make a will. The house in Marinella, for example, should definitely go to Livia, so that some fourth cousin doesn’t show up and claim it.

  Right, because the house in Marinella has been his for a few years now. He never thought he’d be able to buy it. It cost too much for the salary he earned, which barely let him set anything aside. Then one day his father’s former partner had written to him saying he was ready to liquidate his father’s share of the vineyard, which amounted to a considerable sum. So not only had he had the money to buy the house, but there was a fair amount left over to put away. For his old age. And that was why he needed to draw up a will, since, without wanting to, he’d become a man with property. Once again, however, after he got out of the hospital he couldn’t bring himself to go see the notary. But if he ever did get around to seeing him, the house would go to Livia, that much was certain. As for François, the son who wasn’t his son but could have been, he knew exactly what to leave him. Enough money to buy himself a nice car. He could already see the indignant expression on Livia’s face. What? And spoil him like that? Yes, ma’am. A son who wasn’t a son but could (should?) have been one should be spoiled much more than a son who’s really a son. Twisted logic, yes, but still logical. And what about Catarella? Surely he had to put Catarella in his will. So what would he leave him? Certainly not any books. He tried to recall an old song of the Alpine regiment called “The Captain’s Testament” or something similar, but couldn’t remember it. The watch! That was it. He would leave Catarella his father’s watch, which his business partner had sent to him. That way he could feel like part of the family. The watch was the answer.

  He can’t read the clock on the wall in the cardiology unit because there is a kind of greyish veil over his eyes. The two doctors are very attentively watching some sort of TV screen, occasionally moving a computer mouse.

  One of them, the doctor who’s supposed to perform the operation, is named Strazzera, Amedeo Strazzera. This time the machine spits out not a strip of paper but a series of photographs or something similar. The two doctors study and study them, then finally sigh as though worn out after a long walk. Strazzera approaches while his colleague goes and sits down in a chair—white, of course. The doctor looks sternly at the inspector and bends forward. Montalbano is expecting him to say:

  “You must stop pretending you’re alive! Shame on you!”

  How does the poem go?

  “The poor man, not knowing how much he’d bled, / kept on fighting when in fact he was dead.”

  But the doctor says nothing and begins to sound his chest with the stethoscope. As if he hasn’t already done this at least twenty times. Finally he straightens back up, looks over at his colleague, and asks:

  “What do we do?”

  “I would let Di Bartolo have a look at him,” says the other.

  Di Bartolo! A legend. Montalbano had met him a while back. By now he must be over seventy. A skinny old man with a little white beard that made him look like a goat, he could no longer conform to human society or the rules of common courtesy. Once, after examining, in a manner of speaking, a man known to be a ruthless loan shark, he told the patient he couldn’t tell him anything because he was unable to locate his heart. Another time, in a café, he said to a man he’d never seen before, who was sipping a coffee, “Do you know you’re about to have a heart atta
ck?” And lo and behold, he had a heart attack right then and there, maybe because a luminary such as Di Bartolo had just told him it was coming.

  But why do these two want to call in Di Bartolo if there is nothing more to be done? Maybe they want to show the old master what a phenomenon this Montalbano is, the way he inexplicably goes on living with a heart that looks like Dresden after the Allied bombing.

  While waiting, they decide to take him back to his room. As they’re opening the door to push the stretcher through, he hears Livia’s voice call out desperately:

  “Salvo! Salvo!”

  He doesn’t feel like answering. Poor thing! She’d come down to Vigàta to spend a few days with him and got this nice surprise instead.

  “What a nice surprise!” Livia had said to him the day before, when, upon his return from a check-up at Montelusa Hospital, he’d appeared in the doorway with a large bouquet of roses in his hands. And she’d burst into tears.

  “Come on, don’t start!” he’d said, barely holding back himself.

  “Why shouldn’t I?”

  “Well, you never have before!”

  “And when have you ever given me a bouquet of roses before?”

  He lays his hand on her hip, but gently, so as not to wake her.

  He’d forgotten—or else hadn’t noticed during his earlier meetings with him—that Dr. Di Bartolo not only looked but also sounded like a goat.

  “Good day, everybody,” he bleats upon entering, followed by ten or so doctors, all dressed without fail in white smocks and crowding into the room.

  “Good day,” replies everybody—that is, Montalbano, since he’s the only body in the room when the doctor appears.