IM10 August Heat (2008)

by Andrea Camilleri

  “Where are you?”

  “We’re sailing towards Sardinia.”

  “And where’s Massimiliano?”

  “He was right beside me when I fell asleep. Now I think he’s—”

  He cut off the call, pulling out the plug.

  And what was that fucking asshole Massimiliano doing there? Singing her a lullaby?

  He went to bed with his hair standing on end.

  And it took the hand of God for him to fall asleep.

  In vain he went for another swim after waking; in vain he got into the shower, which should have been cold but was actually hot because the water in the tanks on the roof was so torrid you could have boiled pasta in it; in vain he dressed as lightly as possible.

  The moment he set foot outside the house, he had to admit to himself that it was no use. The heat was a fiery blaze.

  He went back into the house, stuck a shirt, underpants, and pair of trousers as thin as onionskin in a shopping bag, and left.

  He arrived at the station with his shirt drenched in sweat and his underpants all of a piece with the skin of his ass, so tightly were they sticking.

  Cataralla tried to stand up and salute, but couldn’t manage, falling lifelessly back into his chair.

  “Ah, Chief, Chief! I’m dying! ’Ss the devil, this heat!”

  “Suck it up!”

  He went and slipped into the bathroom. He took all his clothes off, washed himself, pulled out the shirt, underpants, and trousers, got dressed, returned to his office, and turned on the minifan.

  “Catarella!”

  “Comin’, Chief.”

  He was closing the shutter when Catarella entered.

  “Your ord . . .”

  He trailed off, braced himself against the desk with his left hand, and brought his right hand to his forehead, closing his eyes. He looked like an illustration in a nineteenth-century acting manual for the expression “shock and dismay.”

  “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus . . .” he said in litany.

  “Hey, Cat, you feel sick?”

  “Jesus, Chief, whatta scare! The heat’s got into my head!”

  “But what’s wrong?”

  “Nuttin’, Chief, go ’head ’n’ talk, I feel fine. My ears are workin’ great, iss my eyes got me seein’ tings.”

  And he didn’t move from his position: eyes shut tight, hand on his forehead.

  “Listen, in the bathroom are some clothes I just changed out of—”

  “Ya changed clothes?!” said Catarella.

  He looked relieved, opened his eyes, lowered his hand from his forehead, and eyed Montalbano as if he’d never seen him before.

  “So ya changed clothes!”

  “Yeah, Cat, I changed clothes. What’s so weird about that?”

  “Nuttin’ weird, Chief, it was juss a missunnerstannin! I seen ya come in dressed one ways ’n’ then I seen ya dressed anutter ways ’n’ so I tought I was loosinating cuzza the heat. ’Ssa good ’ting ya changed clothes!”

  “Listen, go get those clothes and put them out in the courtyard to dry.”

  “I’ll take care of it straightaways.”

  On his way out, he was about to close the door but the inspector stopped him.

  “Leave it open, so there’s a little draft.”

  The outside line rang. It was Mimì Augello.

  “How are you doing, Salvo? I tried you at home but there was no answer, and then I remembered that you don’t give a shit about August fifteenth, and so—”

  “You were right, Mimì. How’s Beba? And the kid?”

  “Look, Salvo, don’t even ask.You know what? The baby’s had a fever since the moment we got here! The upshot: We haven’t managed to have a single day of vacation. Only yesterday did the fever pass, finally. And tomorrow I’m supposed to be back on the job . . .”

  “I understand, Mimì. As far as I’m concerned, you can stay another week if you want.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. Say hi to Beba for me and give your son a kiss.”

  Five minutes later, the other telephone rang.

  “Aaahhh, Chief! Iss the c’mishner says he emergently needs to—”

  “Tell him I’m not in.”

  “And where should I tell him you went to?”

  “To the dentist’s.”

  “You gotta toothache?”

  “No, Cat, it’s the excuse I want you to give him.”

  So the c’mishner was busting his balls even on August 15?

  As he was signing some papers that Fazio explained had been piling up for a few months, he happened to look up. In the corridor he saw Catarella coming towards his office. But what was it that looked so strange about the way he was walking? The inspector knew the answer as soon as he asked the question.

  Catarella, as he walked, was dancing. That was it. Dancing.

  He was on tiptoe, arms stretched away from his body, hinting at a half pirouette every few steps. Had the heat indeed gone to his head? As he entered the office, the inspector noticed he was keeping his eyes closed. O matre santa, what had happened to him? Was he sleepwalking?

  “Catarella!”

  Catarella, who had come up to the desk, opened his eyes, stunned. He had a faraway look.

  “Huh?” he said.

  “What’s got into you?”

  “Ah, Chief, Chief! There’s a girl here you gotta see with your eyes! She’s the spittin’ image of the poor girl that got killed! Mamma mia, she’s so beautyfull! I never seen anyting like ’er.”

  It therefore was Beauty, with a capital B, that gave Catarella’s step a dancing lilt, his gaze a dreamy look.

  “Send her in and inform Fazio.”

  He saw her coming from the end of the corridor.

  Catarella walked in front of her, literally bending forward, making a bizarre movement with his hand as if he were cleaning the ground in front of her where she was about to set foot. Or maybe he was unrolling an invisible carpet?

  And as the girl approached and her features, eyes, and hair color became more and more distinct, the inspector slowly stood up, feeling himself happily drowning in a sort of blissful nothingness.

  Head of pale gold With eyes of sky blue, Who gave you the power To make me no longer myself ?

  It was a quatrain by Pessoa, singing in his head. He got hold of himself and emerged from the nothingness to return to his office.

  But he had succeeded only by dealing himself a low, malicious blow as painful as it was necessary:

  She could be your daughter.

  “I’m Adriana Morreale.”

  “Salvo Montalbano’s the name.”

  “Sorry I’m late, but . . .”

  She was half an hour late.

  They shook hands. The inspector’s was a little sweaty, Adriana’s was dry. She was all cool and fresh and smelled of soap, as if she wasn’t coming in from outside but had just stepped out of the shower.

  “Please sit down. Catarella, did you inform Fazio?”

  “Huh?”

  “Did you inform Fazio?”

  “Straightaways, Chief.”

  He walked out with his head turned backwards, looking at the girl for as long as he could.

  Montalbano took the opportunity to observe her, and she let herself be observed.

  She must have been used to it.

  Jeans clinging to very long legs, low-cut light blue blouse, sandals. One point in her favor: Her navel was not exposed. She was clearly not wearing a bra.And there wasn’t a trace of makeup on her face. She did nothing to make herself beautiful. What more could she do, after all?

  After a good look at her, one could see a few differences with respect to the photograph of her twin sister, due, no doubt, to the fact that Adriana was now six years older, and they mustn’t have been easy years. The eyes had the same shape and color but the innocence that shone in Rina’s gaze was gone from Adriana’s. And the girl sitting in front of the inspector also had a very faint line at each corner of the mouth.

&nbs
p; “Do you live with your parents in Vigàta?”

  “No. I quickly realized that my presence was a painful reminder for them. They couldn’t help but see my missing sister in me. So, when I enrolled at the university—I’m studying medicine—I bought an apartment in Palermo. But I come back often. I don’t like to leave them alone for very long.”

  “What year of study are you in?”

  “I’ve signed up for the third.”

  Fazio came in and, although he’d been prepared by Catarella, his eyes popped out the moment he saw her.

  “Hi, my name’s Fazio.”

  “I’m Adriana Morreale.”

  “Perhaps it’s better if you shut the door,” said the inspector.

  Once news got around that a beautiful girl was in his office, in five minutes the hallway would be jammed with more traffic than a city street at rush hour.

  Fazio closed the door and sat down in the other chair in front of the inspector’s desk. But this brought him face-to-face with the girl. He decided to pull back until he was off to one side of the desk, slightly closer to Montalbano.

  “Forgive me for not having you come to my place, Inspector.”

  “Not at all! I understand perfectly well.”

  “Thank you.You can go ahead and ask me all the questions you want.”

  “Prosecutor Tommaseo told us it was you who had to perform the painful task of identifying the body. I’m very sorry, but my job requires me, and I want to apologize right away for it, to ask you certain questions that—”

  At this point Adriana did something that neither Fazio nor Montalbano were expecting. She threw her head back and started laughing.

  “My God, you speak just like him! You and Tommaseo talk exactly the same way! Using the exact same words! Do they make you take some special course?”

  Montalbano felt at once offended and liberated. Offended for having been compared to Tommaseo, and liberated because he realized the girl didn’t like formalities.They made her laugh.

  “I told you,” Adriana continued,“to ask me all the questions you want.You don’t have to walk on eggshells to do it. It doesn’t really seem like your style.”

  “Thanks,” said Montalbano.

  Fazio, too, looked relieved.

  “You, unlike your parents, always imagined your sister was dead, is that right?”

  Just like that, cutting right to the quick, the way she wanted and the way everyone preferred.

  Adriana gave him an admiring look.

  “Yes, but I didn’t imagine it. I knew it.”

  Montalbano and Fazio both, at the same time, leapt slightly out of their chairs.

  “You knew? Who told you?”

  “Nobody actually told me directly.”

  “So how did you know?”

  “My body told me. And I’ve trained my body never to lie to me.”

  13

  What did she mean by that?

  “Could you please explain to me how . . .”

  “It’s not easy. It’s because we were identical twins. The phenomenon is hard to explain, but it used to happen to us now and then. A sort of confused, long-distance communication of emotion.”

  “Could you explain that?”

  “Sure. But first I want to make it clear that I’m not talking about the sort of phenomenon where if one of us skinned her knee, the other, even if she was far away, would feel pain in the same knee. Nothing like that. If anything, it was more like transmitting a strong emotion. One day, for example, Grandma died. Rina was there, but I was in Fela playing with my cousins, when, all of a sudden, I was overwhelmed by such a feeling of sadness that I started crying for no apparent reason. It was as though Rina had transmitted her emotions at that moment.”

  “Did this happen all the time?”

  “No, not always.”

  “Where were you the day your sister didn’t come home?”

  “I’d left just that morning, on the twelfth, to see my aunt and uncle in Montelusa. I was supposed to stay with them for two or three days, but I came home late that same evening after Papa called my uncle to tell him Rina had disappeared.”

  “Listen . . . on the afternoon, or the evening, of the twelfth . . . was there anything . . . you know . . . any sort of ‘communication,’ between your sister and you . . . ?”

  Montalbano was having trouble formulating his question. Adriana helped him out.

  “Yes, there was. At seven thirty-eight in the evening. I instinctively glanced at my watch.”

  Montalbano and Fazio looked at each other.

  “What happened?”

  “I had a little room of my own at my uncle and aunt’s place, and I was alone, picking out clothes to wear that evening, because we’d been invited to dinner by some friends. All of a sudden I had this feeling, but not like the other times. It was sort of physical. She was strangled, wasn’t she?”

  She was close.

  “Not exactly.What did Prosecutor Tommaseo tell you?”

  “Prosecutor Tommaseo said that she’d been murdered, but he didn’t specify how. He also told me where she’d been found.”

  “When you went to the morgue to identify the body—”

  “I asked them to show me only the feet.That was enough. The big toe on her right—”

  “I know. But afterward, didn’t you ask Tommaseo how she died?”

  “Listen, Inspector, my only concern after identifying the body was to liberate myself as quickly as possible from Tommaseo himself. He started to console me by patting me lightly on the back, but then his hand began sliding downwards, too far downwards. It’s not really like me to play the prude—far from it—but that man was a real nuisance.What was he supposed to tell me?”

  “That your sister had her throat slashed.”

  Adriana turned pale and brought her hand to her throat.

  “Oh my God!” she whispered.

  “Can you tell me what you felt at that moment?”

  “A violent pain in my throat. For a minute that seemed like forever, I couldn’t breathe. But at the time it didn’t occur to me that the pain might be related to something that was happening to my sister.”

  “What did you think it was related to?”

  “You see, Inspector, Rina and I were identical. But only physically. We were completely different in the way we thought, the way we acted. Rina, for example, would never have done anything against the rules, not even the slightest little thing, whereas I, on the other hand, would. In fact, I rather liked to, beginning around that time. So, for example, I started smoking on the sly. And that day I had smoked three cigarettes in a row, keeping the window in my little bedroom open. For no reason, just for the pleasure of doing it. So when I felt that pain in my throat, I naturally thought it was because of the cigarettes.”

  “And when did you realize that it had to do with your sister?”

  “Immediately afterwards.”

  “Why?”

  “I connected it to another thing that had happened to me just a few minutes earlier.”

  “Can you tell us what that was?”

  “I’d rather not.”

  “Did you tell your parents about . . . about this contact with your sister?”

  “No.This is the first time I’ve talked about it.”

  “Why didn’t you tell them?”

  “Because it was a secret between Rina and me. We had sworn never to tell anyone.”

  “Did you and your sister confide a lot in each other?”

  “How could we not?”

  “Did you tell each other everything?”

  “Everything.”

  Now came the most difficult questions.

  “Would you like me to send for something from the café downstairs?”

  “No, thanks. We can continue.”

  “Don’t you have to go home? Are your parents alone?”

  “Thanks, but please don’t worry. I called a friend of mine to look after them. She’s a nurse, so they’re in good hands.”


  “Did Rina ever mention to you if there was anyone, during those final weeks, who was bothering her?”

  Adriana did the same thing as before. She threw her head back and started laughing.

  “Would you believe me, Inspector, if I told you there wasn’t a single man, from age thirteen on up, who didn’t ‘bother’ us, as you put it? I found it rather amusing, but Rina would feel bad about it, or else she would get very angry.”

  “There was one specific incident that was brought to our attention, and which we’d like to know more about.”

  “I know. You’re talking about Ralf.”

  “You knew him?”

  “It would have been hard not to. While his stepfather’s house was being built, he would show up at our place every other day.”

  “What would he do?”

  “Well, he would come and then he would hide, waiting for our parents to go into town or down to the beach.Then, after we got up, he would come and spy on us through the window as we were eating breakfast. I thought it was funny. Sometimes I would throw him little pieces of bread, as if he was a dog. He liked that little game. Rina couldn’t stand him.”

  “Was he sane?”

  “Are you kidding? He was out of his mind, totally. One day something more serious happened. I was alone in the house. The upstairs shower wasn’t working. So I went and took a shower downstairs. When I came out, there he was, right in front of me, completely naked.”

  “How did he get inside?”

  “Right through the front door. I had thought it was closed, but it had been left ajar. It was the first time Ralf came into the house. I didn’t even have a towel around me. He looked at me with a doglike expression and asked me to give him a kiss.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said, ‘Please, won’t you give me a kiss?’ ”

  “Weren’t you afraid?”

  “No.Those kinds of things don’t frighten me.”

  “So, what was the upshot?”

  “I figured it was best to give him what he wanted. So I kissed him.Very lightly, but on the lips. He put a hand on my breast and caressed it, then he bowed his head and collapsed in a chair. I ran upstairs and got dressed, and when I came back down he was gone.”

  “Didn’t you think he might try to rape you?”