Auntie Poldi and the Sicilian Lions

by Mario Giordano

  “From Turi, one of Russo’s workers. His nephew Alfio is in the Carabinieri – he was first on the scene. After you, I mean.”

  “Has a Commissario Montana called on you already?”

  “A good-looking, oldish man? Yes, yesterday. Why?”

  “He’s not as old as all that, but never mind. Did he ask about me?”

  “Yes, indeed. He wanted to know exactly how we met, but I don’t think he suspects you. He seemed more… interested, if you know what I mean.”

  “How about you?”

  Valérie laughed. “I don’t think he suspects me.”

  “I mean, do you think I killed Valentino?”

  “Mon Dieu, no.”

  “You hardly know me.”

  Valérie looked at Poldi. “Believe me, Donna Poldina, I think you might be capable of a lot of things, but murder? Never.”

  Poldi drew a deep breath. A gentle breeze laden with a faint scent of rosemary and hibiscus was rustling the bougainvillea that trailed halfway across the house. Turning her head a little, Poldi caught sight of one of Valérie’s friendly mongrels dozing under an avocado tree in the garden. Turning a little further, she saw the sea glittering below. Valentino was dead, but here, at this moment, everything was filled with promise, imbued with life. The sheer, overwhelming superabundance of it was unbearable. But that was Sicily.

  “Poldi? Mon Dieu, are you crying again?”

  Poldi shook her head. “No, I was only thinking it’s time we called each other ‘tu’.”

  Valérie smiled. “How about some coffee?”

  It tasted as frightful as ever, like burnt rubber gaskets. Poldi would have liked to lace it with some brandy, but she was determined to remain stone cold sober during her investigations, so she copied her new friend and sweetened it with five spoonfuls of sugar. Quite apart from the undeniable awfulness of Valérie’s coffee, coffee-drinking in Italy is nothing like the activity portrayed by television commercials. It has nothing to do with coffee as a beverage, only with sugar. Coffee is merely a hot, aromatic, caffeinated liquid designed to dissolve sugar, so you don’t need much of it. It can be small as long as it’s strong, but sweetness is paramount. That’s why many baristas mix coffee and sugar in the filter itself. There’s nothing more bizarre to a Sicilian than drinking an espresso without sugar. Mind you, having a cappuccino after lunch and cycling along the Provinciale are probably considered more bizarre still.

  Valérie regarded my aunt attentively over her coffee cup. Poldi showed her the pieces of glazed ceramic. “You aren’t by any chance missing the floor these came from?”

  Valérie shook her head, but she seemed to get the point.

  “No. I’m missing a lion, though.”

  “Exactly when did it disappear?”

  Valérie thought awhile. “I noticed it was gone on Wednesday. Why are you interested?”

  “Do you still assume it was a warning from Russo?”

  Valérie shrugged her shoulders.

  “Looking at it from another angle,” Poldi persisted, “what would a lion like that be worth on the open market?”

  “Mon Dieu, I’ve no idea. A couple of thousand euros, maybe? Are you going to tell me what this is about?”

  The shaggy mutt beneath the avocado tree stretched and got to its feet. It gave Poldi a pathetically mournful look, shook itself briefly and trotted off as if that said it all. Poldi felt a familiar itch beneath her wig and drew a deep breath.

  “I may have an idea why Valentino had to die.”

  5

  Tells of Poldi’s tenacity and of how she follows up her original suspicion. In this connection, she finds it useful to resort to behaviour she often engaged in at anti-imperialist demos in the distant past. She has an unpleasant encounter and takes a photograph in Taormina. Vito Montana wears a smart suit and is at pains to present a bella figura at all times.

  “Why Russo?” Valérie asked uneasily.

  “It’s obvious,” said Poldi. “One, Valentino probably belonged to a gang that looted old country houses. Two, Valentino worked for Russo. Three, Russo wants to put you under pressure, so he stole your lion.”

  “That’s only a suspicion, though. I can’t prove anything.”

  “But just assume it’s true. Russo would need trustworthy henchmen like Valentino.”

  “But, mon Dieu, why should he have murdered him?”

  The question of motive was a sore point with Poldi, who dodged it like a police press officer. “Well,” she said, “our inquiries are still at a very early stage.”

  “Our inquiries?”

  “Commissario Montana’s and mine. Does Russo have a son as well as a daughter?”

  “No.”

  “Ah, I knew it.”

  “I don’t understand, Poldi.”

  “Look, that night at your Uncle Mimì’s, Russo said something significant: that Valentino had a lot of potential. He seemed positively hurt, as though the boy had disappointed him in some way. I suspect he was fond of him – he may even have regarded him as a son. What if Valentino let him down badly over something and he blew a fuse?”

  “I’m afraid you’re getting carried away, Poldi.”

  “Just wait and see.”

  It was no use arguing. Resolutely, Poldi marched across Valérie’s garden and invaded Russo’s arboreal empire for a second time, intent on questioning his workforce. In an exalted, forensic frame of mind, she strolled, as if blown there by some capricious gust of wind, through the orderly ranks of palms, olive groves, lemon trees, bougainvilleas, oleanders and strelitzias. She was so busy nodding affably in all directions, she narrowly missed being run over by a mechanical digger. “Mizzica,” the driver swore at her in Sicilian. “L’occhi su fatti pi taliari.”

  Poldi found this neither comprehensible nor impressive.

  “Good morning. Lovely day, isn’t it? What a nice machine you’ve got there – you must be the foreman. Tell me, did you know Valentino?”

  Without a word, the driver put his digger in gear and stepped on the gas again. Poldi was enveloped in a cloud of dust as it roared past her.

  “Hey, wait,” she cried in vain.

  Next attempt: two young workmen repotting palm shoots.

  “Good morning. My, you’re good at that. How quick you are – very impressive. Have you worked here long?”

  They merely stared at her in silence. Undeterred, she pressed on.

  “Did you know Valentino?”

  “The guy with the trinacria tattooed on his arm?”

  “Yes, that’s him. Valentino Candela. Terrible, isn’t it? What was his relationship like with your boss?”

  A brief exchange of glances, then they turned away as if in response to a command and simply plodded off, leaving Poldi standing there.

  “Hello? Signori. Please don’t walk off.”

  Next attempt: an elderly workman pruning some young olive trees. Poldi noticed that one of his little fingers was missing.

  “Good morning. Please excuse me, but I think I’ve lost my way.”

  “Where did you want to go?”

  “To see Signor Russo.”

  “The boss is bound to be over there in the main building. But you’ll need an appointment, signora.”

  “Thanks, very nice of you. Hey, isn’t it awful about Valentino? They say he was like a son to Signor Russo.”

  That was as far as she got.

  “Signora?”

  Poldi turned to see the two security guards familiar to her from her previous visit. They were still wearing identical shades, the narrow, wrap-around sort that resemble reptilian eyes.

  “Kindly come with us.”

  “Where to, if I may ask?”

  “Off the premises.”

  “Is it forbidden to have a little chat with someone? This is plain ridiculous.”

  “You’re trespassing on private property, signora. Please don’t make any trouble.”

  “Who’s making trouble? Only you two comedians, that’s who.”


  The men looked like twins. They seemed rather uneasy, but a job was a job. One of them stepped forward and touched Poldi on the arm in an attempt to get her to move at last and come with them. “Please, signora.”

  But no one did that to my Auntie Poldi. In the grip of old reflexes, she fiercely wrenched her arm away. “LET GO OF ME,” she yelled at the two shades. “HOW DARE YOU. THIS IS DEPRIVATION OF LIBERTY. HELP. HEEELP.”

  She was giving vent to her wide experience of demos. Too young for the Munich riot of 1962, there was scarcely a demo in which Poldi had not taken part after 1968, when she turned sweet sixteen. She marched everywhere against state tyranny and the Shah, emergency legislation and the arms race, chanted in favour of women’s rights, sexual liberation and equality of education, and slept with revolutionaries, rock stars, honest biology students, budding terrorists and future government ministers. Until the mid-1980s she had regularly participated in peace marches and sit-ins against NATO’s “double-track” decision, Pershings and dumping sites for nuclear waste, chained herself to railings and thrown flour bags at politicians. So it might be said that my Auntie Poldi had some experience of dealing with the forces of law and order.

  Yelling alternately in Italian and Bavarian, she went berserk like a dervish on khat or Rumpelstiltskin on a caffè doppio ristretto. The scene she made did not fail to have an effect on the two security guards, who stood rooted to the spot, staring in astonishment at my fiercely gesticulating, loudly vociferating aunt, and only half-heartedly fending off her furious blows.

  Russo’s workers, who had rapidly gathered around the scene of the action, anxious not to miss anything, were highly entertained by all this. No one laid hands on Poldi and no one made any further attempt to hustle her off the premises. She had won.

  However, it wasn’t long before she ran out of breath and had to abandon her antics. It should be borne in mind that Poldi was no longer sixteen, but sixty. So she automatically ceased to be a virago and became an elderly woman, perspiring and rather breathless. She was fully aware of this, of course, but before she allowed the security guards to lead her away, she turned and sketched a curtsey to the workmen around her. My Auntie Poldi knew how to quit the stage: namely, to a round of applause.

  “Mon Dieu, what happened over there?” Valérie exclaimed when Poldi returned to Femminamorta, exhausted but not dissatisfied. “I heard you shouting. And then, applause?”

  Poldi straightened her wig and looked Valérie in the eye. “That, my dear, was only the start. I shall repeat the procedure every day until someone bloody well talks to me.”

  “Did Russo appear?”

  “Afraid not, but give me time. Hey, do you think I could have a glass of water? Or maybe a little prosecchino for my nerves?”

  “I thought you were supposed to be on the wagon,” I said when Poldi told me about this later.

  “Oh, come on, one little Prosecco isn’t a drink.”

  “Er, no?”

  “No. Look at it this way. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards used to drink and smoke grass till it came out of their ears, but now they’re all clean and teetotal, eat their muesli like good boys and don’t touch alcohol any more. Only champagne.”

  As threatened, my Auntie Poldi went back the next day and repeated the procedure. She began by strolling around Russo’s property for a while, then chatted to a few of his workers. Then the security men turned up. Having performed her little routine once more, Poldi meekly allowed them to remove her from the premises. It was a reprise of the previous day, but with one minor difference: Russo’s workers spotted my Auntie Poldi from afar and waved to her, gleefully awaited her performance and sent her on her way with loud applause. Poldi graciously acknowledged this, waving and blowing kisses in all directions. But Russo didn’t appear.

  The following day, Wednesday, she had to suspend her investigations in order to attend her usual Italian lesson with Michele in Taormina. She couldn’t possibly play truant for two reasons:

  (a) Michele himself; and

  (b) the Vigile she’d recently photographed.

  Although Michele was definitely too young for Poldi’s taste, being in his mid-thirties, she had no intention of missing a chance to feast her eyes on him.

  Far be it from me to be envious of Michele. He’s a good friend of mine, he’s amusing and a first-class teacher and businessman. He likes classical literature and gypsy swing, has seen something of the world and is on the introverted side. But appearance-wise, even an average sort of guy who has turned out more or less okay is a dead loss compared to Michele, and that’s a bit hard to cope with. Because Michele looks like a top male model, like a heroic figure dreamt up by one of Mussolini’s sculptors. I’ll say no more. Michele didn’t choose his personal appearance, nor did he parlay it into a profession; he founded a language school. No disrespect to Michele, but his courses were attended almost exclusively by (discounting Poldi) anorexic Scandinavian girls whose languishing eyes construed his every gesture as erotic. Or so I imagine.

  Anyway, Poldi never missed her Wednesday Italian lesson. She took advantage of the lunch break to go for a little walk through the old quarter of Taormina in search of the Vigile she’d recently photographed, hoping to make his acquaintance. She failed to see the traffic cop, but sighted Italo Russo and Corrado Patanè instead. They were seated at a small table outside the Wunderbar Café on the Corso Umberto, deep in conversation and leafing through some illustrations in a transparent folder.

  It didn’t take Poldi long to decide what to do; her Oberreiterish instincts simply took over. She threaded her way nimbly to the café through a bevy of tourists, sneaked around behind the two men’s table and sat down a little to one side, where she had a good view of the table and Russo wouldn’t see her unless he turned his head at least ninety degrees. She wasn’t afraid Patanè would spot her because his attention was so exclusively focused on Russo.

  From where she was sitting, Poldi couldn’t make out the pictures in the transparent folder, but she tried to take a few unobtrusive snaps of them in the hope that subsequent processing in a computer would reveal more, the way it always does on TV. In order to do this, however, she had to stand up again. This, in turn, seemed to indicate to a German couple in practical, functional clothing that her table was free. They at once made a beeline for it, pushing past Russo and Patanè and leaving a turmoil of apologies and jogged chairs in their wake. The man’s rucksack caught in Patanè’s chair and almost tipped it over. Poldi had only just sat down again and stowed the camera in her handbag when she saw Patanè jump to his feet, spilling his coffee over the transparent folder. Patanè swore and the German vacationer mumbled an apology. That would have been that, had not Patanè caught sight of my aunt and promptly recognized her. He stared at Poldi for an instant, then nudged Russo and pointed in her direction.

  She could detect no emotion on Russo’s face other than momentary surprise. He simply looked at her and came over to her table.

  “Our paths seem to have crossed a lot in recent days, signora.”

  “Often but far too seldom, alas,” Poldi trilled.

  “And you’ve been making such efforts to impress me, haven’t you?”

  “Well, have I? Impressed you, I mean?”

  Russo’s tone changed abruptly.

  “What exactly are you after, signora?”

  “Just a few answers on the subject of Valentino.”

  “I’m afraid I must disappoint you, signora. I must also ask you to discontinue your performances on my property. Otherwise…”

  “Otherwise?”

  Russo drew a deep breath. “It’s hot in August, signora, and the ice is thin.”

  “Eh?” I exclaimed when my aunt described the confrontation later.

  “Those were his actual words.”

  “So what did they mean?”

  “You mean you don’t get it? It was a straightforward death threat.”

  “As straightforward as a corkscrew, more like.”

&nbs
p; “You simply don’t have a feel for criminality, my boy. Me, I naturally interpreted it as an unvarnished death threat, and as things turned out not long afterwards, I was barking up the right tree.”

  Poldi’s father, Detective Chief Inspector Georg Oberreiter, had taught her that the success of any police inquiry depends on two things: notebooks and corkboards. She had also learnt from her father that nothing is more dangerous to an investigation than preliminary theories to which one clings for too long although the facts have long been pointing in another direction – a classic pitfall besetting inexperienced doctors, motor mechanics, palaeontologists and detective inspectors alike. Poldi kept the danger of the preliminary hypothesis at the back of her mind, but until something better presented itself she steadfastly and doggedly continued to pursue her original suspicion.

  First, however, she bought herself a notebook in which she recorded every lead, every clue, every name, every phone number, every fart – absolutely every last thing. The most important leads she neatly transferred to a card index and pinned up on the wall of her bedroom, together with photographs, newspaper articles and a map of Sicily. Any items she believed to be connected in some way were linked with lengths of coloured wool. Thus her bedroom wall gradually sprouted a peculiar species of lichen, an autonomous creature that whispered unintelligible things to Poldi when she went to bed and when she woke up. One day – of this she was firmly convinced – that creature on her bedroom wall would tell her, point-blank, who had murdered Valentino. Until then she must simply feed it well, ask questions and keep her ears open, make a nuisance of herself and kick up a fuss. My Auntie Poldi was particularly good at this last activity.

  Uncle Martino combed the Internet and the local newspaper archives for reports of art thefts and thefts from construction sites and brought Poldi masses of material, which she conscientiously pinned to her corkboard. When she looked at it at night, she seemed to be staring into an abyss that threatened to engulf half of Sicily, so much was being stolen from the island’s palatial country houses. Even though she eschewed the M-word as far as possible, she felt there was only one conclusion: that a well-lubricated criminal machine must be behind it all. Headed by Russo.