But Poldi had no intention of allowing the musket to indulge in any shenanigans. She merely wanted to make a bit of an impression. And so, with the muzzle-loader at the ready and her stomach still churning with rage, she crept step by step up the stairs to the roof, whence the staccato noises were coming. By now, she had guessed what was going on up there. Anxious to exploit the surprise effect, she paused on the last step, drew several deep breaths, counted up to three, and then burst out onto the roof.
“FREEZEHANDSUPORIFIREDOWNONYOURKNEESANDBEQUICKABOUT IT.”
All of it in German, of course, to enhance the effect still further.
The figure, which had been attacking the cemented gate lion with a cold chisel, uttered a startled cry and spun round. It was dressed in black, together with gloves and a face mask such as bikers wear beneath their helmets.
Poldi gripped the musket even tighter and aimed the bayonet at the intruder. “Don’t move. Down on your knees or I’ll run you through.”
Again in German, or rather, Bavarian, because excitement had robbed Poldi of her fluency in Italian and she felt it would be counterproductive, under the circumstances, to stammer.
But the intruder didn’t move. Rightly so, really, because “Freeze” and “Down on your knees” were rather self-contradictory and no one threatened with a musket wants to do the wrong thing.
For safety’s sake, Poldi repeated everything in Italian. “Down on your knees, I said. Hands above your head, move.” Anyone who has watched TV police procedurals for several decades will have items in their vocabulary suitable for such occasions. However, the man with the chisel still seemed unimpressed.
“Drop that chisel. Take off your mask.” In order to underline her demand, Poldi lunged at the intruder as if about to skewer him with her bayonet. “Haaa.”
That did the trick at last. The intruder dropped the chisel and raised his hands, but before Poldi could say more, he turned and climbed over the parapet. Or rather, he rolled over the low wall, because he didn’t appear to be very athletic.
“Freeze or I fire!” Poldi shouted at the top of her voice.
But the intruder had already landed with a thud on the terrace of Dottore Branciforti’s next-door house and gone sprawling. Poldi heard a smothered cry. Leaning over the wall, she saw the intruder scramble to his feet with a groan, hobble across the terrace and start to climb down a creeper on the far side.
“I’ll fire,” yelled Poldi. “I’ll fire on three. One… two… three… Bang. Bang. Bang.”
“Did you really shout ‘Bang’?” I asked Poldi on my next visit, when she was giving me as detailed a description of the incident as her memory of it allowed.
“Of course. Why, what else was I to do? At that moment the gun and I were – to all intents and purposes – a single entity. My basest human instincts had been aroused. Higher brain function on standby, nothing but the spinal cord in action, know what I mean? What was it Chekhov said? If a gun appears in the first act, it’s got to go off in the fourth at the latest. Make a note of that; it was good advice given to a young writer. Of course the gun wanted to go off, and it did. Lucky that old musket was deactivated, or I’d have shot the man down in cold blood. That’s because something had been triggered – inside me, I mean. Something atavistic and elemental. In other words —”
“The hunting instinct. I get it.”
“Exactly. No need to roll your eyes like that, I was in extremis. I know a thing or two about extreme situations.”
I nodded – always the best policy with Poldi in such circumstances.
“Would you really have pulled the trigger if the gun had been activated?”
An awkward question, I know, but somehow I didn’t want to let Poldi get away with her big talk so easily.
“You’re trying to trip me up, aren’t you? The fact is, the fellow winced when I shouted ‘Bang’, which proves he thought I was capable of shooting him.”
“He got away from you, though.”
“Yes, temporarily. Only temporarily. The truth is, I’d pegged him long ago.”
I naturally wanted her to elaborate, but she yawned and said she was going to bed. Whether or not she was also a trifle stung by my scepticism, she deferred the sequel to her nocturnal adventure until the following evening.
I spent the whole of the next day working doggedly on my novel. I tried to conceive of it as a kind of weapon with which I had only to become a single entity for it to fire. But my novel behaved like a musket with the barrel welded up. It wanted, it genuinely wanted to go off, to hit hearts and shred nerves, penetrate skin, flesh and bone, I could sense it, but all that ever emerged in the end was an ineffectual “bang”. I did, however, include in the first chapter a muzzle-loader with which my Great-Grandfather Barnaba, beside himself with fury, plans to shoot the white donkey that had kicked him not long before. Barnaba swears that he will stalk the white donkey to the ends of the earth. Still limping, he corners it in the macchia of Acireale and takes aim. The donkey fixes him with its trusting, unsuspecting gaze. And then comes the transformation. Barnaba repeatedly hesitates, takes aim once more, hesitates yet again, and hasn’t the heart to pull the trigger. In the end, he breaks down and begs the donkey to forgive him. A very emotional and affecting scene between man and beast, with a powerful pay-off of the kind I’d learnt at the writers’ workshop. Just as a weeping Barnaba is about to hurl the musket into the crater of Etna like Frodo jettisoning the ring, he notices something engraved on the barrel, but all he can decipher is the name of a city: M-u-n-i-c-h.
To that extent, my musket had gone off after all. Thanks, Chekhov. By that evening I suspected I would have to delete the whole load of rubbish the next day, but first, exhausted by my fragile day’s work, I flopped down on the sofa in the living room, where Poldi was already sipping a leisurely gin and tonic.
“Where did I get to?”
“To ‘Bang’.”
“Oh yes, that was it.” She seemed to be thinking – or concentrating, like a pianist about to play.
I was on the point of giving her a nudge when she started afresh.
“By that time, of course, the racket had woken half the town, but the intruder was long gone.” She fell silent again.
“And then?”
“Why, then I called Montana.”
Montana, cradling the musket like a vet holding an anaesthetized alligator, ran his thumb experimentally over the blade of the bayonet. “You might have killed him with this, Poldi.”
“Why sound so accusing? I had to defend myself.”
It was already getting light outside. A new day was seeping into the town, sweeping shadows from the streets, sharpening silhouettes and raising new questions. Looking east from the roof terrace, one could already make out the skyline beyond which the sun would soon arc out of the sea like a golden bubble rising from the depths. Down in the Via Baronessa, voices were fluttering like startled pigeons.
My Auntie Poldi guessed that the whole of Torre Archirafi already knew what had happened. Seated in a basketwork chair, she drank one espresso after another as she watched Montana’s colleagues from forensics attacking the lion with brushes loaded with colophony. The lion stoically submitted to this treatment, sullenly hugging its coat of arms and defiantly crouching on the terrace wall as if determined never to abandon that position. The intruder had knocked off half its hind paws and half its tail in his attempt to detach it from the wall. How sad, thought Poldi, filled with compassion for the gallant beast.
Adhering to the inside of her arm was a plaster where the doctor on call had taken a blood sample. She was utterly exhausted, longing for sleep and oblivion. And for a beer.
Montana propped the musket against the parapet and sat down beside her. “Did you really shout ‘Bang’?”
“I blurted it out in the heat of battle, so to speak.”
She eyed Montana closely to see if he was grinning. He wasn’t at all.
“And you didn’t recognize him?”
“He was wearing a mask.”
“What about his movements, his voice?”
She shook her head. “He wasn’t particularly athletic, that’s for sure.”
“Anyone you suspect?”
“Well, putting two and two together, he’s probably the person who slipped me the knockout drops.”
Montana nodded. “What else can you remember?”
“Nothing. Almost nothing. Black shoes.”
Montana held out the bag containing the bloodstained handkerchief, which she had previously given him. “Whose is this? When and why did you bag it?”
“I told you, Vito, I don’t remember. I don’t have the faintest idea.”
“What’s the very last thing you remember?”
Poldi sighed. “I’d like to get some shut-eye now, Vito. I didn’t have a very good night, you know.”
“You were extremely lucky, Poldi. If you hadn’t been sick, you’d have been out for far longer.”
“For good, you mean?”
Montana cleared his throat, and Poldi could see he was genuinely concerned. That pleased her.
“We’ll see what the lab says.”
“Perhaps it was the same stuff you found in Valentino.”
“Not that that would prove anything.”
“Oh, Vito.”
The forensics team were packing up their equipment.
Montana got to his feet. “Assistente Rizzoli will stay with you today, just in case.”
“Can’t you stay?”
Having briefly checked to see if his colleagues were watching, Montana grasped her hand. “I’m going to find the bastard. We’ll be seeing each other again very soon.”
Poldi felt like crying; not only because of her physical condition, but because it was always the same: whenever anyone had told her “See you soon”, he or she had really meant “Goodbye forever”. To Poldi, that sentence belonged in the shredder like “There’s a lot to be said for it”, or “I’m really going to leave it at one beer tonight”. She had a whole list of such self-deluding headlines. “See you soon” was in fourth place. First place went to the unbeatable “I really have changed”.
But she pulled herself together and even managed to smile.
“Go get him, tiger.”
Aunt Teresa, who turned up an hour later, shooed Poldi into bed and joined Assistente Rizzoli, a chubby-cheeked young police sergeant, in keeping watch while she slept. Poldi slept all that day and all the following night. The aunts took turns and Assistente La Rosa relieved Assistente Rizzoli, who relieved Assistente La Rosa. Uncle Martino brought reinforcements in the shape of Totti, and Totti lay down outside Poldi’s bedroom door and refused to budge. Poldi was unaware of all this. She never knew that Montana had paid a flying visit and dashed off again, or that Valérie had also looked in, dismayed by the night’s events and the condition of her lion.
“They’ll soon catch him, of course,” said Aunt Caterina.
But Valérie brushed this aside. “There’s absolutely no hurry. I’m just worried about Poldi. Do you think she’s still in danger as long as the lion is here?”
Good question.
The aunts, who naturally feared the worst, decided to have a serious talk with Poldi.
But she didn’t emerge from her bedroom until the next day, after almost thirty hours’ sleep, reasonably refreshed, showered, made-up and looking like a resurrected saint in her white caftan.
“Some scrambled eggs and a big pot of coffee would be just the job.”
She got them, followed by the serious talking-to.
“You must give up this investigation,” Aunt Teresa told her. “It’s becoming too dangerous.”
Poldi looked at each of her sisters-in-law in turn, then at Uncle Martino, Assistente Rizzoli and Totti.
“Is that what you all think?”
The aunts nodded, Uncle Martino nodded, and Totti looked concerned. Assistente Rizzoli gestured defensively and abstained.
Good lad, thought Poldi. She continued to drink coffee and listen to the sounds spilling into the courtyard from the street.
“The case may soon be solved,” she said at length.
“That makes it all the more unnecessary for you to go on investigating. Montana will soon catch Valentino’s murderer,” said Aunt Caterina.
Assistente Rizzoli backed her up. “Sure thing.”
“Has Montana called?” asked Poldi.
“He looked in briefly and asked after you.”
“I see. So he asked after me. Hasn’t he arrested anyone yet?”
“Poldi.” Teresa’s tone became a mite sharper. “You’re off the case.”
“Says who?”
The aunts just looked at Poldi. Uncle Martino and Rizzoli kept out of it. Totti continued to look worried.
Poldi had never been the type to welcome interference in her life. On the contrary; as soon as she scented even the slightest attempt to manipulate her, she turned stubborn. She addressed herself to the dog. “What do you say, Totti?” They conducted a brief dialogue without words, then Poldi sighed and sat back in her chair. “What day is it today?”
“Sunday.”
“Sunday again already. My, how time flies. Life simply trickles through one’s fingers.”
“You’re off the case, Poldi,” Teresa repeated softly.
Poldi waved this away. “Of course. I may be tired of life, but I’m not stupid. If anyone ends my mortal existence before time, it’ll be me and nobody else.” She drew a deep breath as if that said it all, relishing the aunts’ surprise at her unresisting acquiescence. “So what shall we do with the rest of Sunday?”
“Let’s go to the lido,” Aunt Luisa cried eagerly.
It should be explained that my Aunt Luisa had scaled the Olympus of Catanian high society some years ago by becoming a member of the exclusive Lido Galatea, a sort of fashionable beach club without a beach, because the entire lido was concreted out into the sea on volcanic rock and was little more than a big swimming pool with a shack beside it.
As a rule, a lido is a private section of beach where loungers, sun umbrellas and cabins can be rented. It usually boasts a small restaurant, or at least a snack bar, and, of course, toilets and showers. Usually inexpensive, these amenities certainly make for more comfort than lying on a towel on the sand. In addition to comfort, however, a lido provides a definite boost to one’s bella figura. Most Italians consequently have a favourite lido on their favourite beach and are as steadfastly loyal to it as they are to their local football club. In this connection, my Auntie Poldi once told me the following joke. Two shipwrecked Sicilians are rescued after years on a desert island. The captain of the rescue ship is amazed to see that the pair have installed three lidos on their island. “Why three?” he asks in bewilderment. “Well,” replies Carmelo, “one for me, one for Massimo, and one we don’t patronize.”
Any regular patron of a lido usually rents a changing cabin for the whole season from Easter to the end of October. No form of membership is necessary unless the lido is a particularly smart one with all the trimmings. A lido designed for certain people who prefer to remain among their own kind and are happy to pay for the privilege. One that possesses a privacy wall, a supervised car park and security in general, together with childcare and handsome young lifeguards in briefs and polo shirts adorned with badges, miniature umbrellas in the drinks and Wi-Fi. A lido that is turbo-charged in respect of bella figura. One like the Lido Galatea, named after the nymph that turned the head of Polyphemus the Cyclops. Appropriate somehow, given that heads are always turning to look at someone in the Lido Galatea, which is noted for its abundance of nymphs accompanied by Cyclopes of mature years. By dint of perseverance and a lucky break, Aunt Luisa had acquired membership and shared a cabin there with her friend Ilaria. And the best part of being a member was that one could bring guests.
In the best of spirits, Aunt Luisa showed her membership card at the entrance and watched with satisfaction as Poldi, Teresa and Caterina were each han
ded a guest card.
“If you’d like a drink, Poldi – a lemonade or a granita, I mean – I’ll give you my card and they’ll put it on the tab. It’s very practical.”
“Aha.”
Poldi surveyed the establishment with a jaundiced eye. She had no objection to sunning herself a little, paddling in the sea with Prosecco in hand and having a good time, but she harboured a fundamental aversion to any kind of smart set. For Luisa’s sake she refrained from passing any remarks about plutocratic Cyclopes and their nymphs, made herself comfortable on a lounger in the sun, and marinaded herself in coconut oil. When in Rome, she told herself.
But a leopard can’t change its spots. The sun’s rays gradually restored Poldi’s vitality, and the more desperately she strove to recall what had happened before her blackout, the more dangerously her level of melancholy rose like the juice in a battery on charge. From the sunlounger upon which she was sucking orangeade through a straw, Poldi sneered at all the oiled flesh, tasteless designer bikinis, men in tanga briefs and noisy children staring at their brand-new smartphones and texting each other or experimenting unsupervised with their fathers’ spearguns. Meanwhile, the fathers stood around in groups in the tepid water, pleasurably scratching their hairy chests and pontificating about the stock market, their mothers’ cooking or their nymphs’ physical assets. When Poldi’s melancholy level passed the critical threshold, her patience snapped and she succumbed to a little attack of socialism.
“Just look at those big shots,” she growled to the aunts, who had no idea what was going on. “They’re criminals, I tell you, all of them. What’s more, they think they can buy back their youth with the proceeds of their exploitation, the filthy neocons. They worship the god of profit – they’d unscrupulously sacrifice all the achievements of the Enlightenment to it, plus the rainforests, personal privacy and the future of Africa. Constitutional democracy and the United Nations – those are the bugbears of oligarchs and Mafiosi. All they’re interested in is consecrating the global market and bending the entire world to their will. They aim to dominate humanity, and we all play along. We happily dance the rumba of decadence and consumerism.”
Auntie Poldi and the Sicilian Lions Page 19