The Sicilian Method

by Andrea Camilleri

  “I didn’t know what else I could do. I got down on my knees and unbuckled his trousers; I wanted to show him I was a real woman. But Carmelo not only did not get aroused, he started laughing. With a mocking smile on his face. Then he said he had no more time to waste and was leaving. He ordered me to put everything back the way it was, explained to me how to dismantle the puppet and put it back in the box that was on the bed, and then repeated to me not to come around anymore. But I implored him to take me with him, and despite his refusals, I followed him all the way to his house, still dressed the way I was. ‘All right, Maria,’ he then said, ‘we can do this, but then you have to promise you’ll leave. I’ll give you a gift—actually, my cock will give you one last gift.’ And he searched through his pockets, took out some pills, searched again, took out some more, and swallowed them. Then he said: ‘I’m going to lie down, because I’m tired. Put your hand on my pants, and when you see that it’s ready, you can climb on top and do what you need to do.’

  “I remember this image of myself: me sitting on the bed next to him, my white gloves on his fly, and him lying there, resting. At a certain point his face broke into an idiotic smile, and I thought the medication had taken effect. But nothing doing. Just that doltish smile still floating on his lips. Would you believe that it was that smile, Inspector, that liberated me from him? As I was looking at him I realized that I hated him, I detested him, and that I would indeed have been capable of killing him. And so, on impulse, without thinking, I grabbed a letter opener that was on the nightstand and thrust it into his heart. Carmelo didn’t move, didn’t try to stop me . . . He just kept on smiling, and I kept pressing the knife deeper.

  “Afterwards, I felt free. Free at last. I left him there on the bed. There can’t have been any traces of me in that apartment, since Carmelo had never allowed me to call on him there. Then I went back to the Via Biancamano apartment, cleaned everything that had to be cleaned, put the wax puppet back in its box, and took it away with me. I didn’t touch anything else, Inspector. I assure you I didn’t steal those shells. Then, once out of the apartment, I threw away those horrible Olwen clothes. But believe me: I regret nothing, not even for a moment. Is it possible to kill a man and not feel guilty, but only free?”

  Having finished, she collapsed, drained of strength, against the back of the armchair. Montalbano got up, approached the stage, and called to her softly: “Maria . . .”

  The girl raised her head and looked at him. Montalbano noticed that her cheeks were dry. Not a single tear had fallen from her eyes.

  “Would you give me another five minutes before arresting me?” she asked.

  “I have no intention of arresting you,” Montalbano replied.

  The girl gave a sudden start. She stood up and shouted: “But everything I’ve just told you is true! I am a murderess. Carmelo didn’t think me capable of it, but I actually did it, in reality, not in some simulated reality, some similveracity like he wanted.”

  “Listen to me,” the inspector said patiently. “The autopsy has shown that when you stabbed him he was already dead of a heart attack from a few seconds before. So, I’m sorry to say, you didn’t murder him.”

  Maria staggered. Her legs gave out, and she fell into the armchair and this time burst into convulsive, uncontrollable weeping.

  Montalbano let her get it out of her system, and when he noticed she seemed a little calmer, he said: “I’ll expect you at the police station at ten o’clock tomorrow morning.”

  Unable to speak, Maria merely nodded assent.

  “Try to get some sleep tonight,” he said, then turned around and left the theater. Once in the car, he rang Fazio.

  “Sorry to bother you, but the girl has confessed, and I told her that in any case Catalanotti was already dead. I summoned her to appear tomorrow morning at ten. Make a transcript of her report, then take her to the prosecutor, who will already have received Pasquano’s report. She should get off pretty lightly.”

  “I’m sorry, Chief,” said Fazio, “but aren’t you coming to work tomorrow?”

  “No, I’ve got an engagement. I’ll be out of town all day. Listen, I wish you a good night. See you soon.”

  He started up the car and drove off.

  * * *

  —

  When he got in the car the following morning to drive to Catania, he congratulated himself. He’d managed to make the previous evening, night, and morning pass just by wasting as much time as possible.

  Starting up the engine, he figured he would get there too early for his rendezvous. But he immediately found a solution. Once he got to Fela, he turned off in the direction of Piazza Armerina. But when he reached the town, he simply couldn’t get over the fact that he was alone in appreciating such wondrous beauty. He saw not a soul anywhere near the villa’s mosaics and enchanting allées. How the hell was it possible that in the country containing the greatest quantity of the world’s cultural treasures, the administration was incapable of organizing a tourist industry to feed everyone, instead of leaving them just poor and insane?

  Despite these thoughts, as he drove away his heart felt a little less heavy.

  He arrived exactly on time, and there was Antonia, waiting for him on the platform. She had only one suitcase, and not a very large one at that. Maybe she’d already sent on her more cumbersome stuff. There were few travelers about. The train hadn’t arrived yet. Montalbano felt momentarily awkward, seeing the young woman standing before him, smiling. Should he shake her hand, kiss her on the cheek, or just say hello? Antonia realized his embarrassment and went up to him and embraced him.

  “Thank you for coming,” she said.

  Then something terrible happened: They couldn’t find anything to say to each other.

  Antonia was the first to speak.

  “Where are you on the Catalanotti case?”

  “It’s been solved. You were right: It was the girl trying out for Olwen’s part in the play who did it. I even had a bit of luck: She practically confessed on her own initiative. But she wasn’t what killed him.”

  Antonia balked and looked at him uncomprehendingly.

  “What do you mean?”

  Montalbano told her everything that had happened in the meantime, including the bit about the wax puppet.

  Finally her train announced its arrival with a long whistle and then came to a stop. Montalbano bent down to pick up her suitcase, but instead of the bag’s handle, his hand grasped hers, which had preceded his.

  And it was as if those two hands would never come unstuck again. They both stayed that way, half crouching, holding each other’s hands and lost in each other’s eyes.

  “All aboard! . . .”

  They seemed not to have heard. They kept on looking at each other without speaking. Squeezing each other’s hands tighter and tighter. Neither one felt like letting go.

  The train started slowly moving.

  They didn’t even see it leave.

  All of a sudden they found themselves in an unreal silence. As though enclosed in a bubble outside of space and time.

  Letting go of the suitcase, they immediately found themselves in each other’s arms, in a convulsive embrace.

  “What now?” Montalbano managed to ask.

  “Now we’re here.”

  The blaze that raged all night

  and seared you to your deepest roots

  died out at dawn’s first light, lost force and vigor,

  its guttural roar become

  but a stuttering crackle.

  Then it fell silent, forever.

  It was, you knew, the final flame

  the gods allowed you in your late autumn.

  But will an Everest of ashes now suffice

  to bury that handful of embers

  still stubbornly burning?

  Author’s Note

  Th
e poetry quoted here is by Patrizia Cavalli, Pablo Neruda, and Wislawa Szymborska, respectively.

  I will repeat to the end that the characters, names, and situations, not to mention their thought processes and personal realities, are all products of my imagination.

  Not produced by my imagination, on the other hand, are certain political facts that have now become reality but at the time of the novel’s writing seemed only a nightmare to Montalbano.

  I thank General Enrico Cataldi for his precious advice.

  And thanks, as always, to Valentina for her incomparable contributions.

  Notes

  the comic who’d founded the Vaffanculo Day party: A reference to the Movimento Cinque Stelle, the “Five-Star Movement,” an independent populist party founded by the comic Beppe Grillo, originally to protest the policies of the Berlusconi government in power at the time. The party is left-wing on many issues but has little vision as to how to govern, and recently allied itself with the far right on the problem of foreign migrants to the country. In 2007, the party established “Vaffanculo Day” (roughly translated as “Fuck You Day”), also called “Vaffa Day” and “V Day,” a day for “the people” to get together to air their discontent.

  “pasta con le sarde . . . octopus a strascinasale”: Pasta con le sarde (literally “pasta with sardines”) is a classic Sicilian dish made with fresh sardines, onions, fresh wild fennel tops, sultana raisins, pine nuts, and saffron and usually served on bucatini pasta. A strascinasale means simmered in salted water and served simply with lemon and olive oil.

  Bruno Ammazzalorso, the killer of the brown bear of the Abbruzzi!: The orso bruno marsicano, also called the orso bruno degli Abbruzzi, is the Marsican brown bear, an endangered small brown bear native to the Apennine mountains of central Italy. Ammazzare in Italian means “to kill,” and Ammazzalorso, the man’s surname, therefore means “bear killer.”

  Trinacriarte: Trinacria was the ancient Greek name for the island of Sicily, which the Romans also used. The word means “three-pointed,” reflecting the island’s geography, and is represented by a proto-heraldic symbol of a three-legged head, an emblem still used today by Sicilians. Arte, in Italian, of course. means “art.”

  Gassman: Vittorio Gassman (1922–2000), known to most as a great screen actor, was originally a major figure of the Italian stage, figuring prominently in serious and avant-garde drama. He didn’t discover his comic talents until he began working in the cinema.

  “he was working on a British play by J. B. Priestley, Dangerous Corner”: The lines of dialogue quoted from Dangerous Corner are from an Italian adaptation of said play that shortened and revised much of the text. While the plot remains basically the same as in the original, the text is not the same. Therefore, the quoted passages from Dangerous Corner in this edition are translations from the Italian adaptation of the play, and not direct quotes from the original.

  sfinciuni . . . panelle: Sfinciuni (also written sfincione) is a kind of Sicilian pizza; panelle (sing. panella) are chickpea cakes.

  sartù di riso: A Neapolitan rice timbale with a great many ingredients that can include peas, meat, chicken, sausages, cheese, eggs, and a variety of flavorings.

  a parade of colors reminiscent of a circus or a painted Sicilian cart: Sicily has a long popular tradition of colorfully painted, inlaid, and decorated carts, usually drawn by a donkey or horse. The decorations are partly abstract but also often narrative, and can feature stories from Greek mythology, medieval romance (usually from the Carolingian cycle), or more recent history or legend.

  the corso: In small Italian cities, the corso is the main street in town. Larger cities often have several corsi: Rome, for example, has the Via del Corso, the Corso Vittorio Emanuele, Corso Trieste, etc.

  spaghetti alla carrettiera: A simple dish of pasta with a spicy tomato sauce containing a great deal of garlic, hot pepper, and parsley.

  involtini: Roulades.

  Valley of the Temples: The fictional city of Montelusa is modeled after the real Sicilian city of Agrigento, outside of which stands the famous Valley of the Temples, a major archaeological site of Sicilian Greek architecture. There are seven temples, all in the Doric style, mostly from the fifth century BC.

  timballo di maccheroni in crosta: A rich traditional Sicilian pastry timbale containing pasta, ground meat (usually pork and veal), eggs, peas, tomatoes, cheese, béchamel, flavorings, and spices.

  Piazza Armerina . . . the town . . . the villa’s mosaics: Piazza Armerina is an ancient Sicilian town whose original settlement dates back to the pre-Greek era, but which underwent extensive development in the Middle Ages when large influxes of Normans and Lombards settled on the island. The town’s main attraction, however, is a vast Roman villa complex, the Villa Romana del Casale, which features major mosaic works.

  certain political facts that have now become reality but at the time of the novel’s writing seemed only a nightmare to Montalbano: That is, the Movimento Cinque Stelle (“Five-Star Movement”; see note to pages 15–16) has since gained power in Italy and was briefly, at a little over 30 percent of the vote, the strongest political party in Italy. Its star, so to speak, has fallen a little in the past year or two, but it is still one of Italy’s biggest political formations.

  Notes by Stephen Sartarelli

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