This went for the church of Santa Maria del Rosario as well. As soon as you escaped from the heat through one of the side doors or the bronze west door, with its reliefs of sea monsters and saints, and entered the chill of the little nave, the density of the air seemed to change, becoming lighter. In fact everything seemed suddenly lighter, as if it were about to take off and hover. Everything in the church was directed upwards and heavenwards, every gilded plaster curlicue, every little cherub with his toy harpoon, every hand of the Madonna, every eye of every saint in the massive oil paintings on the walls. Even the gilded octopods, sea serpents and swordfish on the organ loft were fervently striving to leap out of their plaster waves and soar to heaven as though summoned by a mighty voice and exempted from the laws of gravity. Such is the impression you gain on entering Santa Maria del Rosario in Torre Archirafi in the parish of Riposto in the district of Catania in the region of Sicily in Italy: that it is relieving your shoulders of a burden you may not have known you were carrying around. Your breathing becomes easier, your fingertips tingle and, drawn there by the architecture as a whole, your gaze rises to the vaulted ceiling and lingers there in awe.
For up there, life sings and shouts and exults and laments. Up there rages a battle between angels and demons, colourfulness and baroque kitsch. Like a carretto siciliano, the ceiling is parcelled into separate pictorial panels that fast-forward biblical scenes from the Creation to the War in Heaven to the Temptation of Saint Anthony. They are opulent scenes replete with Sicilian knights, buxom village belles, walrus-mustachioed footpads, muscular fishermen, lecherous putti, shy mermaids, volcanoes and sea monsters. In the seventeenth century, some Principe Uzeda or Barone di Longarini must have taken it into his head to plant the little church on the foundations of a fishermen’s chapel like a marzipan mandarin on a dead branch. Possibly for his mistress, possibly to impress his kinsfolk, possibly from sheer boredom or plain, honest piety. Not, at all events, out of a desire for understatement.
Poldi had a thing for places that exuded power, and understood them. She always sensed at once whether they were good or not, whether they drained you of vitality or infused you with an abundance of it, whether they set you back on your feet and made you vibrant. And Santa Maria del Rosario, with its sensual baroque kitsch, which celebrated the miracle and adventure of life, was one of the most power-infused places Poldi had ever set foot in.
“They’re usually churches,” Uncle Martino told me once as he gently dunked a gigantic octopus in simmering water, ash from the fag in the corner of his mouth dribbling down his vest. “Why, you ask? Beh, it’s quite simple. Because people have always found places where goodness issues from the ground like sulphuric gas from a fumarole on Etna. Humanity’s very earliest cult sites were erected in such places. In the Bronze Age a shrine for an earth spirit would have been built there, later perhaps a Roman temple of Minerva, and at some stage the first church. Whatever you do or don’t believe in, these places are a reality, anyone can sense that. And there are more of these power-filled places in Sicily than anywhere else on earth. Nothing can change that, not us Sicilians, nor our ignorance and fatalism, nor climate change, environmental pollution, the euro crisis, the CIA or the Mafia.”
Which brought Uncle Martino back to his favourite subject: the links between the CIA and the Sicilian Mafia. But more on that another time.
By the time Poldi entered the small but well-filled church that Sunday morning, bobbed and crossed herself, the service was in full swing. Or rather, Padre Paolo was. He had just embarked on his sermon, the highlight of all his Masses. Poldi located her friend Signora Cocuzza and sat down beside her.
The invariably sad and taciturn signora, who ran the only café bar in Torre with her sons, frowned disapprovingly. “You’re late, Donna Poldina.”
“I was detained.”
A meaningful look.
Signora Cocuzza raised her eyebrows and leant forward. “Don’t tell me . . .”
Poldi put two fingers to her lips and kissed them in the traditional Sicilian sign language signifying “dead as a doornail.”
Signora Cocuzza crossed herself, torn between horror and delight. “Santa Maria! Who?”
“Later. I may need your help.”
“You can count on me, Donna Poldina.”
Just then: “I am the vine and my Father is the wine grower!” Padre Paolo thundered at his awe-struck fan base, aiming a Judgement Day glare at Poldi and the sad signora.
The two ladies stopped whispering, and Poldi was unsurprised that Padre Paolo should be speaking, today of all days, about wine. To my Auntie Poldi there were no chance occurrences in life, only the infinitely complicated system of the universe, which we shall never understand, and which deluges us with bucketloads of good fortune and disaster in turn.
“Jesus spoke thus to his disciples,” the priest went on, satisfied with the undivided attention he was now receiving. “‘Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away.’ What is that meant to tell us, dear brothers and sisters?” Pause for effect. “That there are Christians who, no matter how pious and devout, remain infertile and are ultimately severed altogether from the vine of Christ. Pruned! Cut off! Cast aside forever!” He gave Poldi another meaningful glance before continuing. “On the other hand, the Lord purifies and tends every vine that bears fruit. The divine wine grower is merciful. He dissolves the crusts of idiotic egoism and dull-witted sensual pleasure. He prunes away uncontrolled growth and lascivious desire. He pulls up the weeds of sloth. For only in that way, dear brothers and sisters, does he enable healthy shoots to sprout, to thrive, to yield knowledge and understanding and a harvest of sweet, ripe grapes—the fruits of the Lord.”
“A fine sermon,” Poldi told the priest when the three of them were sitting together outside the café, their invariable habit after Mass every Sunday.
She had just brought her new friends up to date, which was why a momentary hush had descended on their little table. The sad signora was sipping her coffee, Padre Paolo spooning up his mulberry granita and puffing at his cigarette between mouthfuls. It could have been said that smoking was a sure sign that Padre Paolo was still alive.
“But there’s something I don’t understand,” Poldi went on, when the silence began to irk her. “If the Almighty is a wine grower himself, how can he have anything against getting drunk?”
In default of an immediate answer, Padre Paolo stirred his sorbet into a mush. “When Noah emerges from the fuggy, cramped interior of the Ark after forty days,” he said eventually, “and his rheumaticky legs tread terra firma once more, what’s the first thing he plants? A vine! Yes indeed, making wine is the first thing that occurs to him, and the wine he makes isn’t half bad. It’s drinkable, so one day the inevitable happens: Noah has one over the eight, and the next morning he finds himself lying in his tent, not only naked but with no recollection of how he got there. Imagine, a man of his age!”
“I get you,” said Poldi, stung by the priest’s less than subtle innuendo. “The Almighty is hopping mad, of course, because his best man has let him down.”
“Wait, Donna Poldina, not so fast. The Almighty doesn’t punish Noah for getting drunk, he punishes someone else. Noah’s sons are naturally shocked to see their father so plastered.”
“Naturally.”
“Beh. So Shem and Japheth cover the old man up, but Ham finds nothing better to do than to publicise the embarrassing episode.”
“These days he’d have taken a selfie with the poor man and posted it on all the social media,” said Signora Cocuzza. “Disgraceful!”
“Brava, signora. And that’s why Ham and his descendants were accursed of God.”
“Am I supposed to infer something from all this?” Poldi demanded suspiciously.
Padre Paolo sighed. “You must have a care, Donna Poldina. There are evil people who exploit weakness unmercifully. You’re a public figure now. You have responsibilities.”
Signora Cocuzza gave a vigorous nod.
“Can’t you be a bit more specific, Padre?” Poldi said plaintively.
The priest threw up his hands. “Madonna, what if Avola got you drunk and seduced you merely to provide himself with an alibi?”
Poldi considered this.
“No,” she said, shaking her head, “it doesn’t make sense.”
“So how are we going to proceed?” asked Signora Cocuzza.
Poldi stared at her. “We?”
“What else, Donna Poldina! A hand or two of gin rummy once a week and you making our mouths water? You’d like that, wouldn’t you. No, no, we’re a team now. Go on, Padre, say something.”
Padre Paolo nodded, and it was the nod of a man who has already looked into every pit of abomination—a man who knows he’s embarking on a distasteful mission, but someone has to do it. He folded his hands on the table. “You’re the boss, Donna Poldina, but on one condition . . .”
A meaningful gaze. Signora Cocuzza nodded sternly. Poldi already knew what this signified. No more blackouts. No falls from grace, no Signor Bacardi, nothing to drink before four, nothing after nine.
“So be it.” She sighed.
“Et Spiritus Sancti,” said the padre.
“Namaste,” said the sad signora.
“All right, you comedians,” said Poldi. She thought for a moment. “We must discover the connection between this murder and Elisa Puglisi’s. Padre, as a respected figure, please sound out my neighbour Dottore Carbonaro. He’s a district attorney in Catania himself, so he’s bound to have known Elisa Puglisi. Also, Etnarosso may mean something to him. Can you manage that in an unobtrusive way?”
The padre rubbed his hands. “I’m only a shrivelled little grape on the Lord’s vine, but I’ll be damned if I don’t squeeze something out of Carbonaro. He gets up my nose in any case, with all those girlfriends he picks up on dating sites and brings here for weekends, leaving his wife back in Catania with the children.”
“Padre!” said Poldi, wagging her finger at him with a mixture of reproof and satisfaction. If he had worn a police uniform instead of a cassock, he would have fitted perfectly into her scheme of things.
“I might have some ideas on the Etnarosso front,” Signora Cocuzza broke in, framing her words in the conditional—not an unusual practice for an Italian. Whenever emotions, suppositions or vague or ticklish subjects are concerned, the Italian language tends to shift down a gear. It’s all connected with the bella figura principle, the glue that holds Italian social life together in everyday matters, business and road traffic: “Make sure you never look foolish yourself and never make other people do so.”
Poldi was amazed. Scarcely had she been compelled to accept the existence of a team than the investigative machine had begun to function like clockwork.
“I’m all ears, my dear.”
“Love doesn’t exist, only evidences of love.” Thus Picasso, and he should have known. Poldi thought so too, because she knew a thing or two about love. Not that this made things any easier. Whenever she surrendered herself and her heart, she yearned for evidences of love—not for gold or bling, though she always gladly accepted them, but for the small gestures, words and surprises men can sometimes think of bestowing when they’re genuinely in love. Above all, there were two words that bore clearer witness to love than any other, and which never, ever became hackneyed: thank you.
Not that Poldi had expected any thanks from Montana for her fall from grace, certainly not, but she hoped for at least a sign of clemency. So she tensely awaited her commissario’s arrival and valiantly resisted the urge to have a little drink.
The doorbell rang at about half past eleven. Montana was even greyer and more crumpled than his suit, if that were possible, but Poldi did not delude herself. It was not a sign of weakness, for the man outside her door looked about as exhausted and innocuous as a Russian nuclear reactor on the verge of a meltdown. Sure enough, when Poldi leant forward to kiss him in the doorway, he brusquely raised his hand.
“May I come in?”
With a sigh, Poldi stepped aside, and Montana, having marched into the inner courtyard, lit an MS. Poldi thrust a cold beer into his hand, and the commissario took it without a word.
“Do sit down.”
“No need, I’m not staying.” He surveyed the courtyard, on which a thick layer of volcanic ash had already settled. “Don’t you have anyone to help you with that? You need to get rid of that stuff. One shower of rain and it’ll block up all your drains. Sets like concrete.”
Poldi, construing this as a good omen, said nothing. With the utmost self-control, she left the next move to Montana. And he made it. He drew in his breath in preparation for meltdown.
“How could you do it, Poldi? You’re simply shameless.”
“Do what?”
Montana began to pace up and down the courtyard, kicking up such clouds of volcanic ash at every step that it looked as if he were rising from Hades. “Oh, don’t give me that!” he yelled. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. I’ve hardly left your bed before you’re screwing the first wine grower that comes along. Madonna, I just don’t get it! Well, was he good? Wasn’t I enough for you?”
My Auntie Poldi became quite calm, as she did whenever a man began to make demands of her, shout at her, turn nasty or be aggressively jealous. Not that Poldi wouldn’t have felt flattered by male jealousy, especially as she herself suffered from that emotion because of the handsome commissario’s continuing failure to end his affair with that woman Alessia. She set great store by her independence, however, and on principle refused to be dictated to. Cool as Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate, she gracefully crossed her legs and regarded Montana with the Anne Bancroft expression she had mastered so well. It could dissect a man like a cute little laboratory animal.
“In the first place, my dear Vito, I had a mental blackout and have no idea what I did or didn’t do. Secondly, I’m no more accountable to you for whom I screw than you are to me. And thirdly . . . oh, vaffanculo, forget it. Was that all?”
“No, not by a long chalk! Still, maybe it’s all over between us. Is that what you want, Poldi? To call it a day, finito, basta?”
“No, Vito. I want you to calm down, and it would be nice if you put out your cigarette in the ashtray. The courtyard may look like one, but it isn’t.”
Montana stared first at Poldi, then at the butt between his fingers. With a grunt, he stubbed it out in the ashtray on the table.
“And now, please sit down.”
Montana did as he was bidden, still tense but reasonably approachable.
“Another beer, tesoro?”
“Dai!”
Poldi brought him one at once. She would have liked to join him but controlled herself.
“Thanks,” he said grudgingly.
And, ecco là, there it was, the magic word that portended hope and a silver lining, somewhat perfunctory but uttered nonetheless. Poldi breathed a sigh of relief.
“Just as a matter of interest,” she said warily, “what did Avola say? I mean, did we do ‘it’ or not?”
“He says you did.”
Poldi sighed. “I’d have been surprised if we hadn’t. But you know what? I’ve had more than one mental blackout in my life. I’m not particularly proud of that, but it happens now and then. I meant to, I admit. Not because you’ve stopped being enough for me—that’s far from the truth, you know that perfectly well—but I was just . . . well, feeling bad about the way you treated me the last time we were together. I don’t mean that as an excuse, to be clear, only as a backstory.”
She waited to see whether Montana would comment on this, but he merely glared at her and sipped his beer, so she added rather venomously, “So what else is new? How’s your beloved Alessia?”
Montana brushed the question aside like an annoying insect. “We’ve arrested your wine grower.”
“You’re joking. Just because we—”
“No, of course not,” he growled. “Because he confessed to the murder. It’
s as simple as that.”
Even my Auntie Poldi was momentarily speechless.
“I’ll get straight to the point,” Montana went on, seemingly relishing her consternation. “I always begin by asking, ‘Did you commit this murder?’ Well, Avola nodded and made a thorough confession.”
“I don’t believe it,” Poldi whispered in dismay. “Anyway, when could he have done it? He was with me.”
Montana shrugged his shoulders. “Beh. We have his confession on record.”
“And his motive?”
“We’re working on that. Right now he refuses to say anything more. I’m awaiting the results of the DNA analysis. So, now I want to know why you were at Avola’s place at the time of the murder.”
Without more ado, Poldi told him all about the wine bottle and the label.
“You’re incredible, Poldi!” he said. “It was pure coincidence.”
“Oh yeah? And the fact that Madame Sahara was murdered in that very vineyard the next day—that was one too? Let me tell you something, Vito: I’ve discovered something that escaped you and hit the bull’s-eye. Russo’s involved—you should concentrate on him. And on Etnarosso.— Any idea what that means? And don’t go telling me it’s a designation of origin.”
Montana shook his head.
“Did you check out that American?”
“We did. He’s clean. A tourist.”
“He was . . . I don’t know, weird somehow. You ought to—”
“I want you to keep out of this, Poldi. I genuinely mean that. It’s been hard enough hanging on to the case and getting rid of those dickheads in the Carabinieri. They were all for interrogating you as a suspect, and I should really do the same. After all, on the night of the murder, you and the probable killer were . . .”
Auntie Poldi and the Vineyards of Etna Page 9