Auntie Poldi and the Sicilian Lions (19 page)

Poldi understood this, of course, but it did nothing to lift her spirits that night as she opened and shut the lid of her expensive silver
bomboniera
and watched Russo jovially nudge dignitaries in the ribs, crack jokes, dispense kisses and simultaneously keep an eye on some three hundred wedding guests. His ex-wife and her new husband were the only people he seemed to ignore to the best of his ability, and they repaid him in kind.

Recalling the Uncle Martino rule of thumb – physical stature – for gauging whether or not a man belonged to the Mafia, Poldi surmised that all the male guests under five foot three in height were members of Russo's organization: contract killers, extortioners, consiglieri, bone-breakers, protection racketeers, purveyors of bribes, lion stealers, drug couriers, money launderers and crooked attorneys. She imagined that Russo was murmuring instructions, whispering warnings and delivering verdicts. Anyone who wasn't an insider at least knew the score and looked the other way, sealing his lips and shutting his ears – or so Poldi imagined. She wasn't frightened. It gave her a kind of grim satisfaction to be sitting there as the only steadfast champion of justice.

“And,” she confessed to me later, “I must admit it gave me a certain kick.”

Poldi caught Russo's eye from time to time, and she realized that the father of the bride was keeping her under observation. Either her or Valérie, who was sitting beside her, chatting to Mimì and Carmela about family matters.

Russo had had the interior of Torre Archirafi's derelict mineral-water bottling plant decorated for the occasion and transformed into an artificial olive grove with trees from his nursery. That could have been quite atmospheric, had the olive trees not been standing in black plastic tubs, had plastic furniture not been enlisted yet again, and if Russo had staged the whole thing in the open air or at least dispensed with neon lighting. No wonder Poldi was once more beset by melancholy memories to such an extent that she did, after all, drink a glass or two of wine. She didn't have to drive.

“I couldn't stop thinking of the time I got married to your Uncle Peppe,” Poldi told me when I was back with her again in September. “We didn't invite the family, just our hundred best friends, and we partied in the big covered market at the stall belonging to Giovanni, Peppe's special buddy. It was in the early eighties, and – not that this'll mean anything to you – we used to listen to Prince and the Police, so Prince and Sting were played as a matter of course. The Spider Murphy Gang played ‘Skandal im Sperrbezirk', but also ‘Roxanne' and ‘Purple Rain'. And everyone got drunk and smoked pot and laughed and sang and danced and screwed in the loo till noon the next day. And the next night we started all over again. That's a proper wedding for you. It's simply a question of showing respect for love.”

That was why Poldi had given the bridal pair a special present, which she handed them between the first and second main courses: Oshun, the Bantu fertility goddess, an ebony figurine with short legs, a swollen belly, little coloured chains around its neck and huge breasts proffered to the beholder in both hands. Not tourist trash but a genuine antique, at least two hundred years old. The young couple, who had no idea who the woman in the wig and red dress was, thanked her politely and deposited her bizarre gift discreetly beneath the table, where they forgot it at the end of the evening. I'm not superstitious, but I like to imagine that a young cleaner found the figure later and took it home with her, and that she was soon afterwards blessed with a happy marriage, several healthy children and lifelong prosperity.

But to revert to the wedding party, where the second main course was being served:
sarde a beccafico
, baked sardine rolls stuffed with a paste made of breadcrumbs, olive oil, pecorino, parsley and pine kernels. They're delicious and look small and innocuous. Most people would bust a gut after three, but the wedding guests shovelled mountains of them onto their plates. The general mood couldn't have been better.

Except in Patanè's case. He was sitting morosely with his equally morose-looking wife at one of the outermost tables – in other words, not in pole position, socially speaking. Poldi saw him make repeated attempts to attract Russo's attention, but his host stubbornly ignored them.

Back at the table, Poldi picked at her food without appetite, poured herself some more wine to help Mimì's commentaries on Hölderlin bounce off her, and devoted herself to sinister theories about the ties between Russo, Valérie and Patanè. In order to sort out her ideas she felt in her handbag for a ballpoint. She was momentarily puzzled to find the bag on her left-hand side instead of the right, but she'd already had a glass or two. Taking a paper napkin, she made a list of everyone currently under suspicion.

            
RUSSO

            
PATANÈ

            
TANNENBERGER

            
VALÉRIE

            
HÖLDERLIN
MIMÌ

            
TURI

“You've got to make lists in life,” Poldi advised me some weeks later. “Lists are magical – that's because they develop a life of their own. Once you start one, it insists on being continued ad infinitum. You may cross out an item from time to time, but you're never finished. A list is never complete, remember. One thing leads to another, and – bingo – it contains items you'd never thought of before. And all because you started to write them down. That's also the secret of writing in general: making a start, getting words down on paper. Just because it's suddenly there in black and white on a sheet of paper, the written word develops genuine momentum. I tell you, lists are the mechanics of the subconscious. Lists of names, for example. One name on its own doesn't make a list, obviously. Nor do two names. Three names? Still not enough. Four names qualify, but they look half-hearted. Only when there are five names, or preferably six, can you call them a list. Mind you, a list mustn't be too long or it becomes ineffective, like central heating with all the windows open in January. Remember that.”

So saying – open brackets – my Auntie Poldi summarized the reciprocal relationship between information and entropy. Close brackets.

She stared at the six names on the paper napkin, which seemed to stare back at her like reflections in a Venetian mirror. She could cross out Tannenberger right away, but the other five could all have been responsible for the phone call to Valentino, and they were all there that night. Poldi even spotted old Turi at one of the tables on the periphery. He was wearing an ancient suit far too big for him and single-mindedly devouring one sardine roll after another. Poldi was about to get up and keep him company for a bit when Valérie nudged her and pointed to the list. “You don't believe me, do you? You still think I had something to do with Valentino's death.”

“You have to admit it's strange the last call he received was made from your phone.”

Poldi made to refill her glass, but Valérie took the bottle from her and tapped the paper napkin. “You really think one of us is Valentino's murderer?”

Poldi crumpled up the napkin and stuffed it in her handbag. “Are you having an affair with Russo?”

“What?” Valérie exclaimed in bewilderment. “
Mon Dieu
, what gives you that idea?”

“Well, the way he keeps looking at you. And those kisses this morning. And the cosy way you were sitting together. A hostile relationship looks different somehow.”

Valérie stared at Poldi. “I'm going home; I've got a headache,” she said, snatching up her handbag. “Have fun.”

“Valérie.”

But there was nothing to be done. Valérie left the makeshift banqueting hall without saying goodbye to anyone. Poldi wondered whether to run after her and apologize, but she suddenly felt old and fat, overheated and rather sleepy. How many glasses had she drunk? She hadn't kept count, but it couldn't have been all that many, given the lack of liquid reinforcements.

“Bugger it,” she muttered to herself. Scanning the nearest tables for a full bottle of wine, she saw that Patanè had at last managed to have a word with Russo. From his gestures, he was pleading his innocence of something. Russo, looking annoyed, said something in reply, whereupon they both left the hall. It went without saying that Poldi had to go after them. She wasn't there just for fun, after all. Somewhat unsteady on her pins, she rose and followed the two men.

It was already getting dark when Poldi emerged into the open, somewhat bemused by wine and melancholy. In order to shake off her slight feeling of dizziness, she began by drawing a deep breath. The evening hummed her a serenade of laughter, raised voices and blatting mopeds. Redolent of diesel fumes, tobacco smoke and the sea, it bathed dilapidated house fronts in the picturesque glow of sodium lights. A fine night, perfect for embarking on a new life or ending an old one. Outside the old bottling plant, enveloped in neon lighting and swarms of mosquitoes, young friends of the bridal pair were fooling around and smoking. A little to one side, discreetly sited in shadow, stood a platoon of Portaloos with a small queue in front of them, and parked immediately behind them were the vans of the catering services. Russo and Patanè were nowhere to be seen.

In an unobtrusive and wholly professional manner, Poldi sauntered around the factory and eventually spotted Russo and Patanè in an ill-lit gap between two parked cars. They were gesticulating fiercely and appeared to be arguing. Cautiously crouching to the extent her knee permitted, my aunt stole closer – right up to an SUV, which concealed her better than the Fiat Cinquecento beside it. Although she could distinctly hear the two men's voices from there, she couldn't understand a word. Russo and Patanè were arguing in Sicilian, and that, it should be pointed out, has as much in common with Italian as Swiss German with Friesian. The gulf between Italian regional dialects is far greater than in most countries, and Sicilian is more than a dialect. It is a guttural, almost Arabic-sounding melange, the phonetic heritage of all the races that have ever occupied the island. Significantly enough, Sicilian has no future tense. On the other hand, Sicilians often use the complicated
passato remoto
in everyday speech. This tense, which elsewhere occurs only in literature and does not exist in German, describes events that lie very far back in time and are consummated and irrevocable – really, truly, officially in the past. That's that, it's over and done with.
Basta
. Sicilians would, for instance, use the
passato remoto
after their siesta, when referring to the lunch they ate earlier in the day. The message is unmistakable: we live in the here and now, and only in the here and now.

Be that as it may, Poldi couldn't understand a word. The men's body language, on the other hand, was crystal clear: Russo was pissed off with Patanè, who appeared to be furiously justifying himself. Russo grabbed Patanè by the collar and snarled at him. All Poldi could hear was “Afaculitishpacofalacha”, but she guessed it must be a curse or the threat of violence. Sure enough, when Patanè tried to free himself, Russo shoved him hard in the chest, then punched him in the face. Poldi instinctively ducked down behind the car, so she didn't see if Patanè returned the blow. She merely heard the two men panting, followed by hurried
footsteps on the other side of the SUV. Then something flew through the air and landed beside her. Red and white in colour, it lay there unmoving. It didn't shrink, didn't grow, just lay there. Poldi stared at the thing, trying to work out what it could be. Then the solution dawned on her: it was a bloodstained handkerchief. No doubt about it. Poldi obviously couldn't allow such a DNA-carrier to slip through her fingers. She fished out one of the little self-seal plastic bags she'd been carrying around in her handbag since Valentino's death, meaning to secure the handkerchief. Alas, it was too far away. Miles away. At the other end of the world. Poldi tried to stand up, but for some reason she could no longer do so; she didn't have the strength. It didn't matter, though. Necessity being the mother of invention, she simply crawled towards the handkerchief on all fours and swam through an ocean of darkness and dizziness until she could at last take hold of the bundle of viscose and bag it. Done, finished, relax.

Poldi gasped, overcome by nausea, and vomited. Cursing Russo's lousy wine, she tried to stand up – really tried – but failed because the world had decided to rotate ever faster. She heard a voice coming from somewhere and saw some shoes just in front of her eyes. Good, well-polished, men's black shoes. And they were the last thing she saw. Fade to black.

Historico-Cultural Intermezzo

When Almighty God had created the world and everything in it, He had a tiny little bit of every continent left over. He was satisfied with Himself and his work, so He casually kneaded the bits together into a lump and slapped it down on His new world, and – bingo – there was Sicily.

At that the angels came hurrying up. “Wow,” they whispered, rustling their wings uneasily. “What a beautiful thing you've created, O Lord. An absolute paradise – only the best bits from all the continents.”

“So?” the Almighty said proudly. “It's wonderful.”

“Yes,” whispered the angels, “but the other parts of the world will be green with envy. There'll be a row, a regular hullabaloo. Not a good start.”

The Almighty took their point. “Oh dear,” He said, “what shall I do?”

“You need to even things up a bit,” whispered the angels.

So He created the Sicilians.

P
OPULAR
S
ICILIAN JOKE AS TOLD BY MY
A
UNTIE
P
OLDI