Montalbano's First Case and Other Stories Read online

  “My what?” Mery asked, amused, eyes glistening.

  “It’s not your birthday?”

  “My birthday? It’s your birthday!” said Mery, unable to hold back her laughter.

  Montalbano, flummoxed, could only look at her. It was true.

  When they got back to her place, Mery opened an armoire and pulled out a package all gussied up in what shop owners like to call “gift-wrapping,” an orgy of colored ribbons, bows, and bad taste.

  “Happy birthday.”

  Montalbano unwrapped it. Mery’s present was a heavy sweater, for the mountains. Quite elegant.

  “It’s for your winters in Mascalippa.”

  As soon as she’d said it she noticed that Salvo was making a strange face.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Montalbano told her about his promotion and conversation with Inspector Sanfilippo.

  “. . . So I don’t know where they’re going to send me.”

  Mery remained silent. Then she looked at her watch. It was ten-thirty. She shot out of the armchair to her feet.

  “Excuse me, I have to make a phone call.”

  She went into the bedroom and closed the door so she wouldn’t be heard. Montalbano felt a slight pang of jealousy. On the other hand he could hardly object to Mery having a relationship with another man. A few minutes later, she called to him. When he entered the bedroom, Mery was already in bed, waiting for him.

  Later, as they lay in each other’s arms, Mery whispered into his ear.

  “I called my Uncle Giovanni.”

  Montalbano balked. “And who’s he?”

  “My mother’s younger brother. He adores me. And he’s a big cheese at the Ministry of Justice. I asked him to find out where you’re going to be assigned. Was I wrong to do it? . . .”

  “No,” said Montalbano, kissing her.

  The next day, Mery called him around six p.m. at the office.

  She said only one word.

  “Vigàta.”

  Then she hung up.

  2

  Thus it was not some common soothsayer in the lofty reaches of the Roman Olympus, the Empyrean Palazzi of Power, who had uttered those three syllables—Vi-gà-ta—but a supreme Deity, a God of the Religion of Bureaucracy, one whose word marked immutable destinies. And who, when duly implored, had given a clear, precise response quite unlike the oracular utterances of the Cumaean Sibyl or the Pythia or the god Apollo at Delphi, which always needed to be interpreted by high priests who were never in agreement about the actual meaning. “Ibis redibis non morieris in bello,” the Sibyl would say to the soldier about to go off to war. Sincerely yours. But one had to put a comma either before or after that non for the soldier to know whether he would leave his hide on the battlefield or come away safe and sound. And deciding where that comma should go was the job of the priests, whose interpretation usually depended on the amount of the offering made. Here, on the other hand, there was nothing to interpret. Vigàta, the Deity had said, and Vigàta it would be.

  After receiving Mery’s phone call, Montalbano was unable to remain seated at his desk. Muttering something incomprehensible to the guard on duty, he went out and started walking around on the streets. He had to make a great effort, while walking, to restrain himself from breaking into a boogie-woogie, which was the rhythm to which his blood was circulating at that moment. Jesus, how nice! Vigàta! He tried to remember the place, and the first thing that came to mind was a sort of picture-postcard image showing the port with the three jetties and, to the right, the squat silhouette of a massive tower. Then he remembered the corso, the main street, about halfway down which was a large café that even had a billiards room with two tables. He used to go into that room with his father, who liked to play a round from time to time. And while his father played he would regale himself with an enormous, triangular chunk of ice cream, usually what they called a pezzo duro, or “hard piece,” usually of chocolate and cream. Or cassata. The ice cream they made there had no equal. He could still taste it. Then the name of the café came back to him: the Castiglione. Who knew whether it still existed and still made the same incomparable ice cream? Two blinding colors then flashed before his eyes, yellow and blue. The yellow of the very fine sand and the blue of the sea. Without realizing, he had come to a sort of lookout point from where he could admire a broad valley and the mountaintops in the distance. They were hardly the Dolomites, of course, but they were still mountaintops. Normally they were enough to plunge him into the gloomiest sort of melancholy, a sense of unbearable exile. This time, however, he was able to look at the landscape and even enjoy it a little, comforted as he was by the knowledge that soon he would never see it again.

  That evening he phoned Mery to thank her.

  “I did it in my own interest,” said Mery.

  “And what interest is that? I don’t understand.”

  “If you were transferred to Abbiategrasso or Casalpusterlengo, we wouldn’t be able see each other anymore. But Vigàta’s only about two hours from Catania. I looked at a map.”

  Montalbano didn’t know what to say. He felt touched.

  “Did you think I was going to let you go so easily?” Mery continued.

  They laughed.

  “One of these days I want to dash down to Vigàta, to see if it’s still the way I remember it. Of course I won’t tell anyone that I . . .”

  He trailed off. An icy serpent slithered fast up his spine, paralyzing him.

  “Salvo. What’s wrong? Are you still there?”

  “Yes. It’s just that something occurred to me.”

  “What?”

  Montalbano hesitated. He didn’t want to offend Mery, but his sudden doubt was stronger than any sense of etiquette.

  “Mery, can we trust this Zio Giovanni of yours? Are we absolutely certain he—”

  Her laughter rang out on the other end.

  “I knew it!”

  “You knew what?”

  “That sooner or later you would ask me that. My uncle told me your place of assignment has already been determined, already been written down. You needn’t worry. Actually, tell you what. When you decide to go to Vigàta, let me know a few days in advance. That way I can request a leave of absence for that day and we can go together. Will I see you tomorrow?”

  “Of course.”

  “Of course what? Of course we’re going to Vigàta together, or of course I’ll see you tomorrow?”

  “Both.”

  But he knew at once that he had told a lie. Or at least a half lie. The following day he would of course be going down to Catania to spend the evening with Mery, but he had already made up his mind to go to Vigàta alone. Her presence would definitely have distracted him. Actually the verb that had first come to mind was not distract but disturb. He had felt a little ashamed of this.

  Vigàta was more or less the way he remembered it. There was, however, some new construction on the Piano Lanterna, horrendous sorts of mini-high-rises some fifteen or twenty stories tall, whereas the little houses once built into the marlstone hillside, stacked one on top of the other and forming a tangle of little streets throbbing with life, were all gone. They were all hovels, more or less, single-room dwellings that during the day got air only through the front door, which was necessarily kept open. As one walked through those little streets, one might get a glimpse of a child being born, a family quarrel, a priest giving last rites, or a great many people getting ready for a wedding or a funeral. Right before one’s eyes. And the whole thing immersed in a babel of voices, cries, laughter, prayers, curses, insults.

  He asked a passerby how all the small houses had disappeared, and the man replied that terrible flooding and landslides had washed them all the way down to the sea a few years before.

  He’d forgotten the smell of the port. A combination of stagnant seawater, rotting algae, dirty cabling, su
nbaked tar, naphtha, and sardines. Each single element making up that smell might not be so pleasant to the senses when taken alone, but together they formed a highly agreeable aroma, mysterious and unmistakable.

  He sat down on a bollard, but didn’t light a cigarette. He didn’t want the newly rediscovered scent to be polluted by the smell of tobacco. And he stayed there a long time, watching the seagulls, until a rumble in his stomach reminded him that it was time for lunch. The sea air had whetted his appetite.

  Returning to the corso, which was actually called Via Roma, he immediately spotted a sign that said: TRATTORIA SAN CALOGERO. Putting his trust in the Good Lord above, he went inside. There wasn’t a single customer. Apparently it wasn’t time yet.

  “Can one eat?” he asked a waiter with white hair who, hearing him enter, had come out from the kitchen.

  “No need to ask permission,” the waiter replied drily.

  Montalbano sat down, angry at himself for asking such a stupid question.

  “We’ve got antipasto di mare, spaghetti in squid ink or with clam sauce or with sea urchin.”

  “Spaghetti with sea urchin’s not so easy to make,” Montalbano said, doubtful.

  “I’ve got a degree in sea urchin,” the waiter said.

  Montalbano wanted to bite his tongue into little pieces. Two to nothing.

  Two idiotic statements and two intelligent replies.

  “And what’ve you got for the second course?”

  “Fish.”

  “What kind of fish?”

  “Whatever kind you like.”

  “And how is it cooked?”

  “It depends on what fish you choose.”

  He’d better sew his lips shut.

  “Just bring me what you think best.”

  He realized he’d made the right decision. By the time he left the restaurant, he’d eaten three antipasti, a dish of spaghetti with sea urchin sauce big enough to feed four, and six striped surmullet fried barely one millimeter deep. And yet he felt light as a feather, and so infused with a sense of well-being that he had a doltish smile on his face. He was convinced that, once he moved to Vigàta, he would make this his restaurant of choice.

  It was already three o’clock. He spent another hour dawdling about town, then decided to take a long walk along the eastern jetty. And he took it one slow step at a time. The silence was broken only by the surf between the breakwaters, the cries of the seagulls, and, every so often, the rumble of a trawler testing its diesel engine. At the end of the jetty, directly below the lighthouse, was a flat rock. He sat down on it. The day was so bright it almost hurt, and the wind gusted every so often. After a spell he got up. It was time to get back in his car and return to Mascalippa. Halfway up the jetty he stopped abruptly. An image had appeared before his eyes: a sort of white hill, blindingly bright, descending in terraces all the way down to the water. What was it? Where was it? La Scala dei Turchi, that’s what it was! The Turks’ Staircase. And it mustn’t be too far away.

  In a flash he got to the Caffé Castiglione, which was where it had always been. He’d checked beforehand.

  “Could you tell me how to get to the Scala dei Turchi?”

  “Of course.”

  The waiter explained the route to him.

  “And I’d like a pezzo duro, please, in the billiards room.”

  “What flavor?”

  “Cassata.”

  He went into the back room. Two men were playing a round, with a couple of friends looking on. Montalbano sat down at a table and began to eat his cassata slowly, savoring each spoonful. All of a sudden an argument broke out between the two players. Their friends intervened.

  “Let’s ask this gentleman to settle the matter,” said one of them.

  Another turned to Montalbano and asked:

  “Do you know how to play billiards?”

  “No,” said Montalbano, embarrassed.

  They looked at him disdainfully and resumed their argument. Montalbano finished his ice cream, paid at the cash register, went out, got in his car, which he’d parked nearby, and headed off to the Scala dei Turchi.

  Following the waiter’s directions, he turned left at a certain point, went a short distance downhill along a paved road, and then stopped. The road ended there. One had to walk on sand the rest of the way. He removed his shoes and socks, put them in the car, locked the car, rolled up the bottoms of his trousers, and walked to the beach. The water was cool but not cold. Just past the promontory, the Scala dei Turchi suddenly appeared.

  In his memory it had seemed much more imposing. When you’re small everything seems larger than life. But even cut down to size, it retained its astonishing beauty. The silhouette of the marlstone hill’s crest stood jagged against the crisp blue of the cloudless sky, crowned by hedges intensely green. Towards the bottom, the point formed by the last few shelves of land descending into the turquoise sea sparkled in the sunlight and took on nuances of color tending to bright pink. The part of the hill that stood farther back lay instead entirely on yellow sand. Montalbano felt so dazzled by the bright colors, which practically screamed at him, that he had to close his eyes and cover his ears with his hands for a moment. He was still about a hundred yards from the base of the hill, but he chose to admire it from a distance. He was afraid he might end up inside the unreality of a painting, a picture, afraid he might himself become a spot—surely jarring—of color.

  He sat down on the dry sand, spellbound. And he remained there, smoking one cigarette after another, mesmerized by the chromatic variations in the glow of the sun on the lower steps of the Scala dei Turchi as it slowly set. Once it had set, he got up and decided to drive back to Mascalippa after dark. He figured it was worth his while to have another meal at the Trattoria San Calogero. Walking slowly back to his car, he turned around every so often to look. He really didn’t want to leave.

  He drove back to Vigàta at practically ten miles an hour, bombarded with insults and obscenities by other drivers who had to pass him on the rather narrow road. But he didn’t react. He was in the sort of state of mind where, even if someone were to cuff him on the head, he would turn the other cheek. At the gates of town he stopped at a tobacco shop and stocked up on cigarettes for the journey home. Then he went to a service station to fill up the tank and checked the tires and oil. He glanced at his watch. He had another half hour to waste. Parking the car, he walked back to the port. Now there was a large ferryboat docked at the wharf.

  A line of cars and trucks were waiting to go aboard.

  “Where’s it going?” he asked a passerby.

  “It’s the mail boat for Lampedusa.”

  At last it was late enough to go to the restaurant. And, indeed, when he entered, three tables were already taken. The waiter now had a younger man helping him. He approached Montalbano with a grin on his face.

  “Shall I decide for you, like we did earlier?”

  “Yes.”

  The waiter bent down towards him.

  “Did you like la Scala dei Turchi?”

  Montalbano looked at him in astonishment.

  “Who told you I . . . ?”

  “Word gets around quickly here.”

  They probably already knew he was a cop!

  A week later, as they were lying in bed, Mery came out with a question.

  “Did you ever end up going to Vigàta?”

  “No,” Montalbano lied.

  “Why not?”

  “I didn’t have the time.”

  “Aren’t you curious to see what it’s like? You said you’d been there when you were a kid, but it’s not the same thing.”

  Damn, what a pain! If he didn’t make an immediate decision, the questions might go on forever.

  “We’ll go next Sunday, all right?”

  They agreed that Mery would set out in her car and wait for him at t
he bar at the junction for Caltanissetta. Mery would then park her car in the lot and they would go the rest of the way in Montalbano’s car.

  And thus he was forced to return to Vigàta pretending he hadn’t just been there a few days before.

  Montalbano took Mery first to the port and then to the Scala dei Turchi.

  She was enchanted. But, being a woman—that is, belonging to that species of creature who is able to combine the loftiest heights of poetry with the hardest of concrete facts—she turned to Montalbano, who couldn’t take his eyes off all that natural beauty, and said, in Sicilian:

  “I’m really hungry.”

  Thus Montalbano found himself confronted with the most Shakespearean of dilemmas: Should he go to the Trattoria San Calogero and risk being recognized by the waiter, or try a new restaurant and risk, with a high degree of probability, being served a bad meal?

  The idea of having to drive all the way home with his stomach churning, at grips with food that even dogs would have refused, dispelled all doubt. Back in Vigàta, he maneuvered things so that he and Mery ended up as if by chance under the sign of the familiar trattoria.

  “Shall we try here?”

  Once inside, he tried to catch the waiter’s eye and succeeded.

  They needed exchange only the briefest of glances.

  You have never seen me before, said Montalbano’s eyes.

  I have never seen you before, replied the waiter’s eyes.

  After feasting in heavenly fashion, Montalbano took Mery to the Castiglione, advising her to order a pezzo duro.

  When she’d finished her ice cream, Mery said she needed to go the restroom.

  “I’ll wait for you outside,” said Montalbano.

  He went out onto the sidewalk. The main street was practically deserted. Before him stood the city hall building with its little colonnade. Leaning against one column, a beat cop was talking to two stray dogs. A car approached slowly from the left. Then all at once a sports car appeared at high speed. Right before Montalbano’s eyes, the sports car skidded slightly and sideswiped the slow-moving car as it passed it. Both drivers stopped and got out. The one driving the slow car was an elderly gentleman with glasses. The other was a young sort of ruffian, tall and mustachioed. As the elderly gentleman bent down to assess the damage done to his car, the young man put a hand on his shoulder and, when the old man stood up to look at him, punched him hard in the face. It all happened very fast. As the old man fell to the ground, a fat man got out of the sports car with a determined look on his face, grabbed the youth, and forced him back into the car, which then set off again with a screech of the tires.