IM2 The Terra-Cotta Dog (2002)

by Andrea Camilleri

  He rang Fazio at headquarters and asked him to bring all mail home to him and to buy an extension cord for the phone. The mail, he added, should be brought to him at home each day, as soon as it arrived. And Fazio should pass the word on: anyone who asked for him at the office must be given his private number by the switchboard operator, with no questions asked.

  Less than an hour passed before Fazio arrived with two unimportant postcards and the extension cord.

  Whats new at the office?

  Whats new? Nothing. Youre the one who attracts the big stuff. Inspector Augello only gets the little shit: purse snatchings, petty theft, a mugging here and there.

  I attract the big stuff ? Whats that supposed to mean?

  It means what I said. My wife, for instance, is scared of rats. Well, I swear, she draws them to her like a magnet. Wherever she goes, the rats soon arrive.

  For forty-eight hours hed been like a dog on a chain. His field of action was only as large as the extension cord would allow, and therefore he could neither walk on the beach nor go out for a run. He carried the phone with him everywhere, even when he went to the bathroom, and every now and thenthe mania took hold of him after twenty- four hourshe would pick up the receiver and bring it to his ear to see if it was working. On the morning of the third day a thought came into his mind:

  Why bother to wash if you cant go outside?

  This was followed by another, closely related thought:

  So what need is there to shave?

  On the morning of the fourth day, filthy and bristly, wearing slippers and the same shirt since the first day, he gave Adelina a fright.

  Maria santissima, signuri! Whata happen to you? Are you sick?

  Yes.

  Why don you call a doctor?

  Its not the sort of thing for a doctor.

  He was a very great tenor, acclaimed in all the world. That evening he was to sing at the Cairo Opera, at the old theater, which hadnt yet burned down, though he knew well that it would soon be devoured by flames. Hed asked an attendant to inform him the moment Signor Gegat down in his box, the fifth from the right on the second level. He was in costume, the last touches having been applied to his makeup. He heard the call: Whos on next? He didnt move. The attendant arrived, out of breath, and told him that Signor Geg who hadnt died, this was well known, hed escaped to Egypt hadnt shown up yet. He dashed onto the stage, looking out into the theater through a small opening in the curtain: it was mobbed. The only empty box was the fifth from the right, second level. He made a split-second decision: he returned to

  his dressing room, took off his costume and put his regular clothes back on, leaving the makeup, including the long, gray beard and thick, white eyebrows, untouched. Nobody would ever recognize him again, and therefore he would never sing again. He well understood that his career was over and he would have to scramble to survive, but he didnt know what to do about it. Without Gege couldnt sing.

  He woke up bathed in sweat. In his own fashion, he had produced a classic Freudian dream, that of the empty theater box. What did it mean? That the pointless wait for Lillo Rizzitano would ruin his life?

  Inspector? Its Headmaster Burgio. Its been a while since

  we last spoke. Have you any news of our mutual friend?

  No.

  Monosyllabic, hasty, at the risk of seeming impolite, he had to discourage long or pointless phone conversations. If Rizzitano were to make up his mind, he might think twice if he found the line busy.

  Im afraid the only way well ever get to talk to Lillo, if youll forgive my saying so, is to hire a medium.

  He had a big squabble with Adelina. The housekeeper had just gone into the kitchen when he heard her start yelling. Then she appeared in the bedroom.

  Signuri, you dint eat nothin yesterday for lunch or dinner!

  I wasnt hungry,Adel

  I work mself to death cookin dlicious things and you jes turn up ya nose at em.

  I dont turn up my nose at them, Im just not hungry, as I said.

  An this houses become a pigsty! You don want me to wash the floor, you don want me to wash ya clothes! For five days you been wearin the same shirt anna same shorts! You stink, signuri!

  Im sorry, Adelina. Ill snap out of it, youll see.

  Well, lemme know when you snap out of it, and Ill come back. Cause I aint settin foot back in ere. Call me when ya feelin better.

  He went out onto the veranda, sat down on the bench, put the telephone beside him, and stared at the sea. He couldnt do anything elseread, think, writenothing. Only stare at the sea. He was losing himself in the bottomless well of an obsession, and he knew it. He remembered a film hed seen, perhaps based on a novel by Datt, in which a police inspector stubbornly kept waiting for a killer who was supposed to pass through a certain place in the mountains, when in fact the guy would never come through there again. But the inspector didnt know this, and so he waited and waited, and meanwhile days, months, years went by . . .

  Around eleven oclock that same morning, the telephone rang. Nobody had called since Headmaster Burgio, several hours before. Montalbano didnt pick up the receiver; he froze as though paralyzed. He knew, with utter certainty though he couldnt have explained whywho would be there at the other end.

  He made an effort, and picked up.

  Hello? Inspector Montalbano?

  A fine, deep voice, even though it belonged to an old man.

  Yes, this is he, said Montalbano. And he couldnt refrain from adding: Finally!

  Finally, the other repeated.

  They both remained silent a moment, listening to their breathing.

  Ive just landed at Palermo. I could be at your place in Vig by one-thirty this afternoon at the latest. If thats all right with you, perhaps you could tell me exactly how to find you. Ive been away a long time. Fifty-one years.

  25

  He dusted, swept, and scrubbed the floors with the speed of a slapstick silent movie. Then he went into the bathroom and washed up as he had done only once before in his life, when, at age sixteen, hed gone on his first date. He took an interminable shower, sniffing his armpits and the skin on his arms, then doused himself, for good measure, with eau de cologne. He knew he was being ridiculous, but he chose his best suit, his most serious tie, and polished his shoes until they looked as if they had their own internal light source. Then he got the idea to set the table, but only for one. He was, it was true, in the throes of a canine hunger, but he was sure he would not be able to swallow.

  He waited, endlessly. One-thirty came and went, and he felt sick and had something like a fainting spell. He poured himself a double shot of whisky and gulped it down. Finally, liberation: the sound of a car coming up the driveway. He quickly threw the front door wide open. There was a taxi with a Palermo license plate, and a very well-dressed old man got out, holding a cane in one hand and an overnight bag in

  the other. The man paid the driver, and while the car was maneuvering to leave, he looked around. He stood erect, head high, and cut an impressive figure. Immediately Montalbano felt he had seen him somewhere before. He went out to meet him.

  Is it all houses around here? the old man asked.

  Yes.

  There used to be nothing, only brush and sand and sea.

  They hadnt greeted each other or introduced themselves. They already knew one another.

  Im almost blind, I see very poorly, said the old man, seated on the bench on the veranda. But it seems very beautiful here, very peaceful.

  Only then did the inspector realize where he had seen the old man. Actually, it wasnt exactly him, but a perfect double, a jacket-flap photo of Jorge Luis Borges.

  Would you like something to eat?

  Youre very kind, said the old man after a moments hesitation. But just a small salad, perhaps some lean cheese, and a glass of wine.

  Lets go inside, Ive set the table.

  Will you eat with me?

  Montalbano had a knot in the pit of his stomach, but above all he felt strangely
moved.

  Ive already eaten, he lied.

  Then, if you dont mind, could you set me a place out here?

  Rizzitano had used the Sicilian verb conzare, meaning to set the tablelike an outsider trying his best to speak the local language.

  What made me realize youd figured almost everything out, Rizzitano said while eating slowly, was an article in the Corriere. I cant watch television anymore, you know; all I see are shadows that hurt my eyes.

  TV hurts my eyes, too, and my vision is excellent, said Montalbano.

  But I already knew that you had found Lisetta and Mario. I have two sons; ones an engineer, the others a teacher like me, both married. One of my daughters-in-law is a rabid leghista, an insufferable imbecile. Actually, shes very fond of me, but she considers me an exception, since she thinks all southerners are criminals or, in the best of cases, lazy. She never misses an opportunity to say to me: You know, Papa, down in your partsfor her, my parts extend from Sicily up to and including Romein your parts so-and-so was murdered, so-and-so was kidnapped, so-and-so was arrested, so- and-so planted a bomb . . . Well, one day she said: In your own town, inside a cave, they found two young people murdered fifty years ago...

  Hows that? Montalbano interjected. Does your family know youre from Vig?

  Of course they know. However, I never told anyone,

  not even my wife, rest her soul, that I still owned property in Vig. I said my parents and most of my relatives had been wiped out during the bombing. In no way could anybody connect me with the corpses in the Crasticeddru; they didnt know that it was on a piece of my land. But when I heard the news, I got sick, with a high fever. Everything started coming violently back to me. But I was telling you about the article in the Corriere. It said that a police inspector in Vig, the same one whod found the bodies, had not only succeeded in identifying the two young victims, but had also learned that the terra-cotta dogs name was Kytmyr. Well, that made me certain youd managed to find my university thesis. And so I knew you were sending me a message. I lost some time persuading my sons to let me come here alone; I told them I wanted to revisit, one last time before I die, the place where I was born and lived as a boy.

  Montalbano was still not convinced on this point, so he went back to it.

  So everybody, in your home, knew that you were from Vig?

  Why should I have hidden it? I never changed my name, either, and have never had false documents.

  You mean you were able to disappear without ever wanting to disappear?

  Exactly. A person is found when somebody really needs to find him, or really sets his mind to it ...In any case, you must believe me when I say that Ive lived my life

  with my real first and last names; I entered competitions and even won, I taught, I got married, had children, and I have grandchildren who bear my name. Now Im retired, and my pension is made out to: Calogero Rizzitano, birthplace Vig.

  But you must at least have written to, say, the town hall, or the university, to request the necessary documents?

  Of course. I did write to them, and they sent me what I needed.You mustnt make a mistake of historical perspective, Inspector. At the time, nobody was looking for me.

  But you didnt even claim the money the city government owed you for the expropriation of your land.

  That was precisely the point. Id had no contact with Vig for thirty years, since the older you get, the less you need documents from your birthplace. But the documents required for the expropriation money, those were a little risky. Somebody might have remembered me then. Whereas I had turned my back on Sicily long before that. I didnt wantI still dont wantto have anything to do with it. If there existed some kind of special device that could remove the blood circulating in my veins, Id be happy.

  Would you like to go for a walk along the beach? Montalbano asked when his guest had finished eating.

  Theyd been walking for five minutes, the old man leaning on his cane but holding onto Montalbano with his other arm, when Rizzitano asked:

  Would you tell me how you were able to identify Lisetta and Mario? And how did you figure out that I was

  involved? Forgive me, but walking and talking at the same time is very taxing for me.

  As Montalbano was telling him the whole story, now and then the old man would twist his mouth as if to say that was not how it went.

  Montalbano then felt Rizzitanos arm weighing heavier on his. Wrapped up in his own words, he hadnt noticed that the old man was tired from the walk.

  Shall we go back?

  They sat down again on the bench on the veranda.

  Well, said Montalbano. Why dont you tell me how things really went?

  Yes, of course, thats why Im here. But it costs me a great deal of effort.

  Ill try to spare you the effort. Tell you what: Ill say what I think happened, and you correct me if Im wrong.

  All right.

  Well, one day in early July, 1943, Lisetta and Mario came to your house at the foot of the Crasto, where at that moment you were living alone. Lisetta had run away from Serradifalco to rejoin her boyfriend, Mario Cunich, a sailor from the Pacinotti, a mother ship that was supposed to leave a few days later

  The old man raised his hand and the inspector stopped.

  Excuse me, but thats not what happened. And I remember everything, down to the smallest details. The memory of the aged becomes clearer and clearer with time. It has no pity. On the evening of July 6, around nine oclock, I

  heard someone knocking desperately at the door. I went to see who it was, and there was Lisetta, who had run away. Shed been raped.

  On her way from Serradifalco to Vig?

  No. By her father, the night before.

  Montalbano didnt feel like opening his mouth.

  And that was only the beginning, said the old man. The worst was yet to come. Lisetta had confided to me that, now and then, her fatherUncle Stefano, as I used to call him, since we were relatedused to take certain liberties with her. One day, Stefano Moscato, who, not long before, had come out of prison and been evacuated to Serradifalco with the rest of the family, discovered the letters that Mario had sent to his daughter. He told her he wanted to talk to her about something important, then took her out to the country, threw the letters in her face, beat her, and raped her. Lisetta was ...shed never been with a man before. But she didnt create a scandal; she had very strong nerves. The next day she simply ran away and came to see me. I was like a brother to her, more than a brother. The following morning I went into town to tell Mario that Lisetta had come. Mario showed up early that afternoon. I left them alone and went for a walk in the country. When I got back home around seven that evening, Lisetta was alone. Mario had returned to his ship. We made some supper, and then we went to the window to watch the fireworksthats what they looked likeof the Allied strike on Vig. Lisetta finally went up

  stairs to sleep, in my bedroom. I stayed downstairs and read a

  book by the light of an oil lamp. That was when . . .

  Rizzitano broke off, exhausted, and heaved a long sigh.

  Would you like a glass of water?

  The old man seemed not to have heard him.

  ...that was when I heard someone shouting in the distance. Actually, at first it sounded to me like a wailing animal, a howling dog. But in fact it was Uncle Stefano, calling his daughter. The sound of that voice made my hair stand on end, because it was the agonized, agonizing cry of a cruelly abandoned lover who was suffering and screaming out his pain like an animal; it was not the voice of a father looking for his daughter. It upset me terribly. I opened the door. Outside was total darkness. I shouted that I was alone in the house. I said: Why come looking for your daughter at my house? Then suddenly there he was in front of me, as though catapulted. He ran inside like a madman, trembling, insulting me and Lisetta. I tried to calm him and approached him. He punched me in the face and I fell backward, stunned. Finally I noticed he had a pistol in his hand. He said he was going to kill me. Then I made a mistake:
I retorted that he only wanted his daughter so he could rape her again. He shot at me but missed; he was too agitated. Then he took better aim, but another shot exploded in the room. I used to keep a loaded shotgun in my room, near the bed. Lisetta had taken it and fired at her father from the top of the stairs. Struck in the shoulder, Uncle Stefano staggered, and his weapon fell from

  his hand. Coldly, Lisetta ordered him to get out or she would finish him off. I have no doubt she would have done so without hesitation. Uncle Stefano looked his daughter long in the eye, then began to whimper with his mouth closed, and not only, I suspect, because of his wound. Then he turned his back and left. I bolted all the doors and windows. I was terrified, and it was Lisetta who gave me back my courage and strength. We remained barricaded inside the next morning as well. Around three oclock Mario arrived, we told him what had happened, and he decided to spend the night with us. He didnt want to leave us alone there, since Lisettas father would surely be back. Around midnight a horrific bombing raid was launched over Vig, but Lisetta remained calm because her Mario was with her. On the morning of July ninth, I went to Vig to see if the house we owned in town was still standing. I strongly advised Mario not to open the door for anyone and to keep the shotgun within reach.

  He stopped.

  My throat is dry.

  Montalbano ran into the kitchen and returned with a glass and a pitcher of cold water. The old man took the glass in both hands; his whole body was shaking. The inspector felt keenly sorry.

  If youd like to rest awhile, we can resume later.

  The old man shook his head.

  If I stop now, Ill never resume. I stayed in Vig until late afternoon. The house hadnt been destroyed, but it was a

  tremendous mess: doors and windows blown out by the shock waves, upended furniture, broken glass. I cleaned up as best I could, and that kept me busy till evening. My bicycle was gone from the entranceway, stolen. So I headed back to the Crasto on foot. It was an hours walk. Actually I had to walk by the side of the main road because there were so many military vehicles, Italian and German, moving in both directions. The moment I arrived at the top of the dirt road that led to my house, two American fighter-bombers appeared overhead and started machine-gunning and dropping fragmentation bombs. The planes were flying very low to the ground and roaring like thunder. I threw myself into a ditch and almost immediately was struck very hard in the back by something that I first thought was a large stone sent flying by an exploding bomb. In fact it was a military boot, with the foot still inside, severed just above the ankle. I sprang to my feet and started running up the driveway, but I had to stop to vomit. My legs were giving out, and I fell two or three times, as behind me the noise of the airplanes began to fade and I could hear the cries and screams and prayers more clearly, and the orders being shouted between the burning trucks. The instant I set foot in my house, I heard two shots ring out upstairs, quickly, one right after the other. Uncle Stefano, I thought, had managed to get inside the house and carry out his revenge. Near the door there was a big iron bar that was used to bolt it shut. I grabbed it and went upstairs without a sound. My bedroom door was open; a man was standing just