Patience of the Spider

by Andrea Camilleri

  Feeling reassured, he smiled. Then his smile turned to laughter. A spiderweb! There wasn’t a single cliché more used and abused to describe a scheme plotted in the shadows. He’d never employed it before. Apparently the cliché had wanted to get back at him for his disdain, becoming a reality and forcing him to take it into consideration.

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  Two hours later he was in his car on the road to Gallotta, eyes popping because he couldn’t remember where he was supposed to turn. At a certain point he spotted, on his right, the tree with the sign saying fresh eggs painted in red.

  The path from the road led nowhere except to the little white die of a cottage where he’d been. In fact it ended there.

  From a distance he noticed a car parked in the space in front of the house. He drove up the path, which was all uphill, parked near the other car, and got out.

  The door was locked. Maybe the girl was entertaining a client with other intentions than buying fresh eggs.

  He didn’t knock, but decided to wait a little. He smoked a cigarette, leaning against his car. As he tossed the butt on the ground, he thought he saw something appear and disappear behind the tiny barred window next to the front door that allowed air to circulate inside when the door was closed. A face, perhaps. The door then opened and a distinguished-looking, chunky man of about fifty came out, wearing gold-rimmed glasses. He was pepper-red with embarrassment.

  “Won’t you come in, Inspector?” the woman called from inside.

  Montalbano went in. She was sitting on the sofa-cot. Its cover was rumpled and a pillow had fallen to the floor. She was buttoning her blouse, long black hair hanging loose on her shoulders, the corners of her mouth smeared with lip-stick.

  “I looked out the window and recognized you at once,” she said. “Excuse me just one minute.”

  She stood up and started putting things in order. Like the first time he saw her, she was dressed up.

  “How is your husband feeling?” Montalbano asked, glanc-ing at the door to the back room, which was closed.

  “How’s he supposed to feel, poor man?”

  When she’d finished tidying up and had wiped her mouth with a Kleenex, she asked with a smile:

  “Can I make you some coffee?”

  “Thank you. But I don’t want to inconvenience you.”

  “Are you kidding? You don’t seem like a cop. Please sit down,” she said, pulling out a cane chair for him.

  “Thanks. I don’t know your name.”

  “Angela. Angela Di Bartolomeo.”

  “Did my colleagues come to interrogate you?”

  “Inspector, I did just like you told me to do. I put on shabby clothes, put the bed in the other room . . . Nothing doing. They turned the house upside down, they even looked under my husband’s bed, they asked me questions for four hours straight, they searched the chicken coop and scared my chickens away and broke three baskets’ worth of eggs . . . And then there was one of ’em, the son of a bitch—pardon my language—who, as soon as we were alone, took advantage . . .” “Took advantage how?”

  “Took advantage of me, touched my breasts. At a certain point it got to where I couldn’t take it anymore and I started crying. It didn’t matter that I kept saying I wouldn’t ever do any harm to Dr. Mistretta’s niece ’cause the doctor even gives my husband his medicines for free . . . But he just didn’t want to hear it.” The coffee was excellent.

  “Listen, Angela, I need you to try and remember something.”

  “I’ll do whatever you want.”

  “Do you remember when you said that after Susanna was kidnapped, a car came here one night and you thought it might be a client?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Okay, now that things have settled down, can you calmly try to remember what you did when you heard that car’s motor?”

  “Didn’t I already tell you?”

  “You said you got out of bed because you thought it was a client.”

  “Yessir.”

  “A client who hadn’t told you he was coming, however.”

  “Yessir.”

  “You got out of bed, and then what did you do?”

  “I came in here and turned on the light.” This was the new element, the thing the inspector had been looking for. Therefore she must also have seen something, in addition to what she’d heard.

  “Stop right there. Which light?”

  “The one outside. The one that’s over the door and when it’s dark it lights up the yard in front of the house. When my husband was still okay, we used to eat outside in the summer-time. The switch is right there, see it?” And she pointed to it. It was on the wall between the door and the little window.

  “And then?”

  “Then I looked out the window, which was half open.

  But the car’d already turned around, I just barely saw it from behind.”

  “Do you know anything about cars, Angela?”

  “Me?” said the girl. “I don’t know the first thing!”

  “But you managed to see the back of the car, you just told me.”

  “Yessir.”

  “Do you remember what color it was?”

  Angela thought about this a moment.

  “I can’t really say, Inspector. Might’ve been blue, black, dark green . . . But I’m sure about one thing: it wasn’t light, it was dark.”

  Now came the hardest question.

  Montalbano took a deep breath and asked it. And Angela answered at once, somewhat surprised at not having thought of it first.

  “Oh, yes, that’s true!”

  Then she immediately made a face, looking confused.

  “But . . . what’s that got to do with it?”

  “In fact it’s got nothing to do with it,” he hastened to reassure her. “I asked you because the car I’m looking for looked a lot like that one.”

  He got up and held out his hand to her.

  “I have to go now.”

  Angela also stood up.

  “You want a really, really fresh egg?”

  Before the inspector could answer, she’d pulled one out of a basket. Montalbano took it, tapped it twice against the table, and sucked out the contents. It had been years since he’d last tasted an egg like that.

  o o o

  At a junction on the way back, he saw a sign that said monte-reale 18 km. He turned and took this road. Perhaps it was the taste of the egg that made him realize he hadn’t been to Don Cosimo’s shop for quite some time. It was a tiny little place where one could still find things that had long disappeared from Vigàta, such as little bunches of oregano, concentrate of sun-dried tomatoes and, most of all, a special vinegar made from strong, naturally fermented red wine. Indeed he’d noticed that the bottle he had in the kitchen had barely two fingers’ worth left. He therefore needed urgently to restock.

  It took him an incredibly long time to reach Montereale.

  He’d driven at a snail’s pace, in part because he was thinking of the implications of what Angela had confirmed, in part because he enjoyed taking in the new landscape. In town, as he was about to turn onto the little street that led to the shop, he noticed a sign indicating no entry. This was new. It hadn’t been there before. It meant he would have to make a long detour. He was better off leaving the car in the little piazza that was right there, and taking a little walk. He pulled over, stopped, opened the car door, and saw a uniformed traffic cop in front of him.

  “You can’t park here.”

  “I can’t? Why not?”

  “Can’t you read that sign? No parking.”

  The inspector looked around. There were three other vehicles parked in the piazzetta. A small pickup, a minivan, and an SUV.

  “What about them?”

  The cop looked at him sternly.

  “They have authorization.”

  Why, nowadays, did every town, even if it had only two hundred inhabitants, pretend it was New York City, passing extremely complicate
d traffic regulations that changed every two weeks?

  “Listen,” the inspector said in a conciliatory tone. “I only need to stop a few minutes. I want to go to Don Cosimo’s shop to buy—”

  “You can’t.”

  “Is it also forbidden to go to Don Cosimo’s shop?” said Montalbano, at a loss.

  “It’s not forbidden,” the traffic cop said. “It’s just that the shop is closed.”

  “And when will it reopen?”

  “I don’t think it will ever open again. Don Cosimo died.”

  “Oh my God! When?”

  “Are you a relative?”

  “No, but . . .”

  “Then why are you surprised? Don Cosimo, rest his soul, was ninety-five years old. He died three months ago.” He drove off cursing the saints. To leave town, he had to take a rather labyrinthine route that ended up setting his nerves on edge. He calmed down when he started driving along the coastal road that led back to Marinella. All at once he remembered that when Mimì Augello said that Susanna’s backpack had been found, he’d specified that they’d found it behind the four-kilometer marker along the road he was on now. He was almost there. He slowed down, pulled over, and stopped at the very point Mimì had mentioned. He got out. There were no houses nearby. To his right were some clumps of wild grass, beyond which lay a golden burst of yellow beach, the same as in Marinella. Beyond that, the sea, surf receding with a lazy breath, already anticipating the sunset. On his left was a high wall, interrupted at one point by a cast-iron gate, which was wide open. At the gate began a paved road that cut straight through a well-tended, genuine wood and led to a villa that remained hidden from view. To one side of the gate was an enormous bronze plaque with letters written in high relief.

  Montalbano didn’t need to cross the road to read what it said.

  He got back in the car and left.

  What was it Adelina often said? L’omu e’ sceccu di consiguenza. Or: Man is a jackass of consequence. A glorified donkey. And like a donkey that always travels the same road and gets used to that road, man is given to taking always the same route, making always the same gestures, without reflection, out of habit.

  But would what he had just happened to discover, and what Angela had told him, stand up in court?

  No, he concluded, definitely not. But they were confirmations. That, they certainly were.

  o o o

  At seven-thirty he turned on the television to watch the evening’s first news report.

  They said there were no new developments in the investigation. Susanna was still unable to answer questions, and a huge crowd was expected at the funeral services for the late Mrs. Mistretta, despite the fact that the family had made it known they didn’t want anyone to come either to the church or the cemetery. They also mentioned in passing that Antonio Peruzzo had vanished from circulation, fleeing his impending arrest. This news, however, had not been officially confirmed.

  The other station’s news broadcast, at eight, repeated the same things, but in a different order. First came the report of the engineer’s disappearance, then the fact that the family wanted a private funeral. Nobody could enter the church, and no one would be allowed into the cemetery.

  o o o

  The telephone rang, just as he was about to go out to eat.

  He had a hearty appetite. He’d eaten hardly anything at mid-day, and Angela’s fresh egg had tasted to him like an hors d’oeuvre.

  “Inspector? This . . . this is Francesco.” He didn’t recognize the voice. It was hoarse, hesitant.

  “Francesco who?” he asked gruffly.

  “Francesco Li . . . Lipari.”

  Susanna’s boyfriend. Why was he talking like that?

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Susanna . . .”

  He stopped. Montalbano could clearly hear him sniffle.

  The kid was crying.

  “Susanna . . . Susanna told . . . me . . .”

  “Did you see her?”

  “No. But she . . . she finally . . . answered the phone . . .” Now came the sobbing.

  “I’m . . . I’m . . . sorr . . .”

  “Calm down, Francesco. Do you want to come over to my place?”

  “No . . . no thanks . . . I’m not . . . I’ve been drin . . .

  drinking. She said she didn’t want to . . . to see me anymore.” Montalbano felt his blood run cold, perhaps colder than Francesco’s. What did this mean? That Susanna had another man? And if she had another man, then all his calculations, all his suppositions went out the window. They were nothing more than the ridiculous, miserable fantasies of an aging inspector who was no longer all there in the head.

  “Is she in love with somebody else?”

  “Worse.”

  “Worse in what way?”

  “There isn’t anybo . . . anybody else. She made a vow, a decision, when she was being held prisoner.”

  “Is she religious?”

  “No. It’s a promise she made to herself . . . that if she was set free in time to see her mother still alive . . . she would go away before a month had passed. And she was talking to me as though she was already gone, already far away.” “Did she tell you where she was going?”

  “To Africa. She’s giving up her studies, giving up getting married, having children. Sh-she’s giving up everything.”

  “To do what?”

  “To make herself useful. That exactly what she said: ‘I’m finally going to make myself useful.’ She’s going away with some volunteer organization. And you know what? She’d already made her preliminary request with them two months ago, without telling me anything. All the while she was with me, she was thinking of leaving me forever. What on earth got into her?” So there wasn’t any other man. And it all made sense.

  Even more than before.

  “Do you think she may change her mind?”

  “No, Inspector. If you’d heard her voice . . . And anyway, I know her well. When she’s made a de-decision . . . But for the love of God, what does it mean, Inspector? What does it mean?” The last question was a cry. Montalbano knew perfectly well, at this point, what it meant, but he couldn’t answer Francesco’s question. For the inspector it had all become rather simple. The scales, which had long been in a state of balance, had now tipped forcefully and entirely to one side. What Francesco had just told him confirmed that his next move was the right one. And should be made at once.

  o o o

  Before making any moves, however, he had to fill Livia in.

  He put his hand over the telephone, but did not pick up the receiver. He still needed to talk it over with himself. Did what he was about to do, he asked himself, in some way mean that, having reached the end of his career, or almost, he was repudiating—in the eyes of his superiors, in the eyes of the law itself—the principles by which he had abided for so many long years? But had he in fact always respected these principles?

  Didn’t Livia harshly accuse him once of acting like a minor god, a little god who took pleasure in changing or rearranging the facts? Livia was wrong. He was no god. Absolutely not. He was only a man with his own personal judgment of right and wrong. And sometimes what he thought was right would have been wrong in the eyes of justice. And vice versa. So was it better to act in accordance with justice, the kind of justice that’s written down in books, or with one’s own conscience?

  No, Livia might not understand, and might even manage, through argument, to bring him to the opposite conclusion from the one he wanted to arrive at.

  It was better to write to her. He took out a sheet of paper and a ballpoint pen.

  Livia my love,

  he began, but couldn’t continue. He tore up the sheet and took out another.

  My beloved Livia,

  and he got stuck again. He took out a third sheet.

  Livia,

  and the pen refused to go any further.

  It was hopeless. He would tell her everything face to face, looking her straight in the eye, the next time they saw
each other.

  Having made this decision, he felt rested, serene, revived.

  Wait a minute, he said to himself. Those three adjectives, rested, serene, revived, are not your own. You’re quoting. Okay, but what?

  He thought hard, putting his head in his hands. Then, confident in his visual memory, he moved with near-total assurance. He stood up right in front of the bookcase, pulled out Leonardo Sciascia’s Council of Egypt, and leafed through it.

  There it was, on page 122 of the first edition from 1966, the one he’d read at age sixteen and had always carried around with him, to read from time to time.

  On that extraordinary page, the abbé Vella decides to reveal something to Monsignor Airoldi that will turn his life upside down, to wit, that the Arabian Code is an imposture, a forgery created by his own hand. Yet before going to Monsignor Airoldi, the abbé Vella takes a bath and drinks a coffee.

  Montalbano, too, stood at a crossroads.

  Smiling, he stripped naked and slipped into the shower.

  He changed all his clothes, down to his underpants, putting on an entire set of clean articles. He chose a serious-looking tie for the occasion. Then he made coffee and drank a cup with relish. By this point, the three adjectives, rested, serene, revived, were entirely his. One, however—which was not in Sciascia’s book—was missing: sated.

  o o o

  “What can I get for you, Inspector?”

  “Everything.”

  They laughed.

  Seafood antipasto, fish soup, boiled octopus dressed with olive oil and lemon, four mullets (two fried, two grilled), and two little glasses, filled to the brim, of a tangerine liqueur with an explosive alcohol level, the pride and joy of Enzo the restaurateur. Who congratulated the inspector.

  “I can see you’re in good form again.”

  “Thanks. Would you do me a favor, Enzo? Could you look up Dr. Mistretta’s number in the phone book and write it down for me on a piece of paper?”