“Orders? Just the humblest of requests. The Honorable Deputy wants you to know that a mistake was surely made in that matter involving the carpenter who was arrested. A mistake on your part, Don Memè.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yes. And being too friendly with the prefect is also a mistake.”
Don Memè turned pale.
“I’d like to explain,” he began.
The other looked at him, cold as ice.
“To me? You want to explain things to me? I don’t understand the first thing about these matters. I only do what I’m told. If you’ve got anything to explain, you’ll have to explain it to the Honorable Deputy.”
He got back on his horse in one bound and set off at a gallop without saying so much as good-bye.
After Don Memè, pale but determined, frantically recounted all this to the Lumìas, husband and wife, the signora sent for Captain Villaroel. Pale in turn, but equally determined, she explained to the captain how Saint Anthony had appeared to her in a dream and enlightened her, bringing her memory back. It was she herself who had hidden the jewels, afraid that a new maid might steal them, and then she had completely forgotten about it. They had to take immediate action. An innocent man such as the carpenter, wrongly accused, must not be allowed to spend another minute in prison. She was ready to pay damages for the false accusation.
“I’m so delighted your innocence was rehognized,” Bortuzzi said to the trembling old man standing in front of him. “But before you go home, I would like to ask you something of no importance.”
“I’m your humble servant,” the carpenter managed to mutter.
“Would you be so hind as to explain to me why you were so against the staging of The Brewer of Preston in Vigàta?”
The carpenter gave him a befuddled look. He was ready for anything except that question, and he became convinced that the prefect was actually deigning to joke around with someone like him.
“Do you mean that seriously, sir?”
“Huite seriously, my friend.”
The carpenter thought it over for a moment; then, feeling reassured, he began.
“Excellency, I was born in eighteen hundred and five. My father was poor, and sometimes we went hungry in our house. The moment I turned six, I was taken on as a helper by Foderà the carpenter, who was a distant relative of my mother’s. Foderà was a master woodworker known all over Palermo, a real artist. He began to grow fond of me, and took me everywhere with him. Once, when I was about ten, Master Foderà took me to the palazzo of a German man who went by the name of Marsan, I think, and who needed some minor repairs done on two antique armoires. But the German was very jealously protective of his furniture, and he insisted that the work be done in his palazzo, even if this cost him more. And since he liked to come and watch us while we worked, he sometimes played his flute in the same room we were working in. One day a baron by the name of Pisani paid him a call. This baron kept talking about how, a few years before, he had gone to the Real Teatro Carolino and heard an opera that I think was called Fannu tutte accussì by a certain Mozzat, and that although this opera had seemed magnficent to him, no one else in Palermo had liked it. And so the baron had made up his mind to bring another opera by this same Mozzat to Palermo, the one called U flautu magicu, and all at his expense. He had the singers, orchestra, décor, and everything else brought from Naples, paying it all out of his own pocket. Anyway, the baron told the German that the following day there was going to be this performance and that he didn’t want anyone else from Palermo in the theatre, only the German. I still don’t know why, at that moment, I dropped what I was working on, planted myself in front of Mr. Marsan, and asked him if I could also come to the performance. The German started laughing, and then he looked at the baron, who nodded yes. The next day, there were only the three of us in the theatre: the baron and Mr. Marsan sat in the biggest box, and I went all the way up, near the roof. After the orchestra had been playing and the singers singing for barely five minutes, I’m sure I must have had a high fever. My heart was beating fast, and I felt really hot one minute, and really cold the next, and my head was spinning. Then I sort of turned into a soap bubble, the light and transparent kind that little kids blow with straws for fun, and I started to fly. Yessir, that’s right, to fly. You’ve got to believe me, Excellency. I was flying! And the first thing I saw was the theatre, from the outside, then the piazza with all the people and animals in it, then the whole city, which looked really tiny to me, and then green countrysides, the great rivers of the North, the yellow deserts they say are in Africa, and then I saw the whole world, a little ball colored like an egg yolk. After that I came close to the sun, and I went even higher and ended up in heaven among the clouds and fresh air all painted light blue and some stars that were still shining. Then the singing and music ended; I reopened my eyes and saw that I was now alone in the theatre. I didn’t want to go outside. I could still hear the music inside me. I fell asleep, and then I woke up, fainted, and then came to again; I laughed and I cried, I was born and I died, with the music playing inside me all the while. The next day, still feverish, I asked Mr. Marsan to teach me how to play the flute, and he did. And that’s the story, Your Excellency. Ever since that day I go to hear concerts and operas, sometimes I even take the train, and I’m always looking and looking, but I can never find what I’m looking for.”
“What are you loohing for?” asked the prefect, who had risen to his feet without realizing it.
“For some music, Excellency, that will make me feel as happy as I did then, that will let me see what the heavens are like. Now, this Brewer, Your Excellency, is probably all right, as music goes, I won’t say it’s not, but—”
“Never mind,” Bortuzzi said brusquely.
An ordinary-looking young man
An ordinary-looking young man presented himself at Puglisi’s office at around three o’clock in the afternoon, when the lieutenant’s cojones were still smoking from the words he had exchanged with Dr. Gammacurta’s son half an hour earlier.
“But why were neither you nor your mother worried when your father didn’t come home last night?”
“Mamà was convinced that my father had gone to spend the night with that whore of a midwife, as he often did.”
“All right, but I know that when the doctor did not go to see her during the night, and didn’t show up at his office in the morning, the midwife, not the whore, as you call her, got worried and even came to your house to ask if Dr. Gammacurta was sick. Is this true or not?”
“Yes, it’s true, the whore came to our place.”
“And?”
“Mamà told the whore that wherever my father happened to be was of no concern to a whore like her.”
“But, good God, if your father was missing—since even the wh—, I mean the midwife, was worried about him—how come you didn’t race down here to tell me you had no news of him?”
“Excuse me, Lieutenant, but if my mother and I had first come to you, let’s say, at the crack of dawn this morning, would my father have been saved?”
“No. When I found him he was still alive, but he’d already lost too much blood.”
“And so?”
Puglisi pounded his fist on the table, hurting his hand, cursed the saints, got up from his chair, circled twice around the room, and finally felt calmer.
“Excuse me, Lieutenant, but what’s this behavior of yours supposed to mean?”
“Son, it means that your father was absolutely right to get shot, seeing that he was condemned to live in the company of people like you and your mother. Good day.”
The ordinary-looking young man who entered the office after Gammacurta’s son had left did not seem so ordinary to Puglisi the moment he said a few words.
“My name is Mario Filastò,” said the lad, “and I’m a specialist with the Property Insurers’ Association of Palermo.”
Puglisi looked at him. The young man was wearing a rumpled suit with a torn pocket hanging from the jacket, and his hands and face were blackened with soot. Filastò immediately noticed the policeman’s curiosity.
“I apologize for the state I’m in, but I got all dirty when I was inspecting the theatre.”
“And how do I look?” Puglisi countered brusquely, not having managed to change his clothes, which, after being soaked with wet salt, were now clinging to his body as they began to dry, solidifying as if they were made of quick-drying cement.
“You see, sir, the moment I arrived in Vigàta, everybody told me the theatre caught fire by accident, perhaps from somebody dropping a still-burning cigar. But if what people are saying is right, then the company I represent will have to pay for the damages—there’s no getting around it, just like when you play blackjack. But if they’re wrong, and the theatre was set on fire deliberately, then that changes everything and my company is no longer required to pay so much as a counterfeit sou. Do you see what I’m saying?”
“I see what you’re saying. And what do you yourself think?”
“I think the theatre was set on fire deliberately.”
“You’re supposed to think that way, if you don’t mind my saying so, because, if you can prove what you think, you’ll save your company a pile of money. The problem is that what you think is not enough.”
“Actually, sir, I don’t think anything. I have a firm conviction that is borne out by certain facts. Believe me, we have a criminal case on our hands. That’s why I came to see you, to ask you to come to the theatre with me. There’s something I want to show you. You’ll see that what I’m saying is not just hot air.”
“Right now?”
“Right now,” was young Filastò’s implacable reply.
A peasant-drenching rain was falling, the kind whose fine little drops make it seem as if it’s hardly raining at all, and so the peasant keeps working in his field until evening and in the end comes home more drenched than after the Great Flood. As the two men were heading to the theatre, Puglisi felt his clothes softening, his trousers now allowing him a smoother step.
“Take my word for it,” said Filastò. “I have a lot of experience with fire. I know how it starts, how it grows, how whimsical it can be, how the slightest thing is enough to change its mind, its direction, or its strength. The fire in the theatre started at the rear of the building, not in the auditorium where the people were.”
“I’ve got a vague idea of my own as to where the fire started,” said Puglisi.
They arrived in front of the little door leading to the understage. It was all burnt up, the black and white marks of the flames extending onto the wall above the door frame.
“The fire, as we can see, was blowing from here,” said the insurance inspector. “And this is where it started. Then it turned halfway around and began attacking the back of the stage. From there it moved on towards the auditorium. Exactly the opposite of what people think. Whoever started the fire also broke the panes of the transom windows to get a better airflow. You see, Lieutenant? The shattered glass fell into the understage area, not outside. Now follow me.”
They entered, descending the stairs that had survived the blaze. Once inside, Filastò lit an oil lamp he had set down at the foot of the stairs during his earlier inspection.
“Look here,” he said, pointing to a spot right beside the small door. “Here the stagehands said there were a number of rolled-up backdrops that had been placed near the door, ready to be taken outside and loaded after the performance. Look. What are these shards of clay, in your opinion?”
“I dunno, they look like remnants of a jug or a pitcher. Definitely something to hold drinking water.”
“No, sir, you’re wrong. Follow me.”
The young man set down the lamp, dropped into a crouch, and started putting the pieces of earthenware in order, fitting them together. When he had finished, he held in his hands a clay object that threatened to fall back to pieces at any moment. He turned to Puglisi.
“It’s not a jug or a pitcher. It’s not made for holding water. Have a good look.”
“It’s a money box, a piggy bank,” Puglisi said in amazement.
“Right,” said Filastò. “And there are other pieces from a second money box over there, where the opera troupe’s costumes were kept.”
“It certainly seems odd that everyone in the troupe would suddenly feel like saving money,” commented Puglisi, who didn’t know what to make of it.
Filastò let the pieces of the money box fall back onto the floor. Two remained in his hands, and he thrust these under Puglisi’s nose.
“Smell,” he said.
Puglisi brought his nose closer and inhaled. A wrinkle appeared on his brow.
“Smells like kerosene,” he said.
“And would you believe me if I said that the other pieces of the second piggy bank also smell like kerosene?”
“I would. What does it mean?”
Filastò didn’t answer. He put the two fragments down and wiped his hands on his suit, whose original color was now lost to the world.
“Is there anyone in town who makes or sells ceramics?”
“Yes, there’s Don Pitrino.”
“Let’s go pay him a call.”
“While we’re at it,” said Puglisi, resigned, throwing his hands up.
On their way there, the lieutenant felt he should compliment the young man.
“You certainly have to have an eye to realize that those shards were not from something that was broken during the fire.”
“Yes, you have to have an eye for it. But it’s like a game, a challenge. You look at all the damage caused by the fire, you look very carefully, and then you look again and you say: there’s something here that doesn’t add up. And so you look yet again, until you finally find what it is that doesn’t add up.”
Zu Pitrino, who liked Puglisi, greeted the policeman with a smile.
“My friend here,” said Puglisi, “would like to buy a piggy bank for his little boy.”
“I’ve got ’em in all sizes.”
“He’s interested in one about so big.” And he held out his hands to show the size.
“I’ve got half a dozen that size,” said the old man. “Come out to the yard.”
Behind the little house, the yard was crammed full of jugs and pitchers big and small, carafes, amphorae, vases, pots, and roof tiles. As the old man was showing them where the piggy banks were lined up, he suddenly froze, speechless.
“What’s wrong?” asked Puglisi.
“What’s wrong is that yesterday afternoon I counted the piggy banks like your friend wants, and there was six of ’em, and now there’s only four. See the empty space there, and the two little circles where they were? I guess some son of a whore jumped the fence last night and stole ’em.”
Filastò and Puglisi exchanged a quick glance of understanding. The old man bent down to pick up one of the four remaining banks.
“This one all right?”
It was all right. Filastò then asked him to fill the piggy bank with kerosene, which was among the items one could buy in the old man’s shop. Although it was an odd request, Zu Pitrino asked no questions and did as he was told, but not without some difficulty. Filastò also asked him for a piece of cloth. Puglisi paid and they both left. Some ten paces from the old man’s house, they were already in the open country. Filastò then gave the lieutenant a practical demonstration of how the combination of piggy bank, kerosene, and rag worked.
As they walked away, the grass, twigs, and brush that the young man had piled up behind them were still burning from the piggy bank he had crashed against them, despite the fact that they were all sodden with rain.
“How did you figure it out?”
“You mean how the two piggy banks were used this way? I
didn’t figure it out myself, I merely remembered something. Our insurance company is a big firm. It has offices all over Italy, and these offices exchange information on the many different ways people manage to screw their insurers. I recalled that our agent in Naples and another in Rome had brought to our attention a couple of cases where—”
“In Rome, you say?” Puglisi interrupted, suddenly very attentive.
“Yes, in Naples and in Rome.”
“Sorry, but I would like your opinion on something. Why do you think they set fire to the theatre?”
“Bah, I wouldn’t know. Maybe because there are some people in Vigàta who want to screw the prefect more than the prefect has managed to screw himself.”
“Sorry again, but are you really convinced that the fire broke out a few hours after everything was over and people had already gone home? Let me rephrase that: after more than the reasonably plausible amount of time needed for an accidental fire to catch and grow?”
“There’s no doubt about it: the fire was started from scratch, a few hours after calm had returned to Vigàta.”
“I’m not convinced.”
“Of what?”
“That some Vigatese, after everything had calmed down, would have second thoughts like a cornuto and set fire to the theatre. That’s not the way people do things here. This was done by an outsider.”
Back in the center of town, Filastò took leave of Puglisi.
“I’m going back to the theatre to look for more evidence. So you agree, in principle, that it was a case of arson?’
“I do.”
They exchanged a look of sympathy and said good-bye. Puglisi then turned his back and practically started running towards police headquarters.
“Saddle my horse, quick,” he said upon entering.
Halfway to Montelusa, with the rain coming down hard again, he fell off his horse from fatigue, got his clothes even dirtier, hurt his shoulder, climbed back into the saddle, and resumed galloping as fast as the sodden ground would allow the beast to go. At the commissariat everyone looked at him in curiosity and bewilderment because of the state he was in, and even Dr. Meli, “u tabbutu”—or, “the tomb”—said aloud what the others had been thinking but hadn’t expressed.
The Brewer of Preston_A Novel Page 15