The Terra-Cotta Dog (26 page)

“What does that mean?”

“It means you're going to have to bring your head with you, along with everything inside it. And therefore, inevitably, you'll keep thinking about your own concerns even if we're a thousand miles away.”

“I promise I'll empty my head out before we leave.”

“And where will we go?”

Since Livia had clearly caught the archaeologicaltouristic bug, he thought it wise to play along.

“You've never seen the island of Mozia, have you? Tell you what: this very morning, around eleven, we'll leave for Mazara del Vallo. I've got a friend there, Assistant Commissioner Valente, whom I haven't seen in a long time. From there we'll head on to Marsala and eventually to Mozia. Then, when we get back to Vigàta, we'll plan another tour.”

They made peace.

 
 
Giulia, Assistant Commissioner Valente's wife, was not only the same age as Livia, but also a native of the Genoa suburb of Sestri. The two women took an immediate liking to each other. Montalbano took a bit less of a liking to Giulia, owing to the shamefully overcooked pasta, a beef stew conceived by an obviously deranged mind, and dishwater coffee of a sort that even airline crews wouldn't foist on anyone. At the end of this so-called lunch, Giulia suggested to Livia that the two of them stay home and go out later; Montalbano accompanied his friend to the office. There, awaiting the assistant commissioner, was a fortyish man with long sideburns and a sun-baked Sicilian face.

“Every day, it's something else! I'm sorry, Mr. Commissioner, but I need to talk to you. It's very important.”

“Inspector, let me introduce Farid Rahman, a friend of mine from Tunis,” said Valente. Then, turning to Rahman: “Will it take long?”

“Fifteen minutes at the most.”

“I'll go visit the Arab quarter,” said Montalbano.

“If you'll wait for me,” Farid Rahman interjected, “I'd be delighted to be your guide.”

“I have an idea,” suggested Valente. “I know my wife doesn't know how to make coffee. Piazza Mokarta is three blocks from here. Go and sit at the café there and have yourself a decent cup. Farid will come and pick you up.”

 
 
He didn't order the coffee immediately. First he went to work on a hefty, fragrant dish of
pasta al forno
that lifted him out of the gloom into which the culinary art of Signora Giulia had plunged him. By the time Rahman arrived, Montalbano had already done away with all trace of the pasta and had only an innocent, empty demitasse of coffee in front of him. They headed off to the Arab quarter.

“How many of you are there in Mazara?”

“We're now more than a third of the local population.”

“Have there been many incidents between the Arabs and the Mazarese?”

“No, very few, practically nothing compared to other cities. I think we're sort of a historical memory for the Mazarese, almost a genetic fact. We're family. Al-Imam al-Mazari, the founder of the Maghrebin juridical school, was born in Mazara, as was the philologist Ibn al-Birr, who was expelled from the city in 1068 because he liked wine too much. But the basic fact is that the Mazarese are seafaring people. And the man of the sea has a great deal of common sense; he understands what it means to have one's feet on the ground. And speaking of the sea: did you know that the motor trawlers around here have mixed crews, half Sicilian, half Tunisian?”

“Do you have an official position here?”

“No, God save us from officialdom. Here everything works out for the best because it's all done unofficially. I'm an elementary-school teacher, but I also act as a liaison between my people and the local authorities. Here's another example of good, common sense: when a school principal gave our community some classrooms to use, we instructors came over from Tunis and created our school. But the superintendency is officially unaware of this situation.”

 
 
The Arab quarter was a piece of Tunis that had been picked up and carried, unaltered, to Sicily. The shops were closed because it was Friday, the day of rest, but life in the narrow little streets was still colorful and animated. First, Rahman showed Montalbano the large public baths, the social meeting place for Arabs from time immemorial; then he took him to a smoking den, a café with hookahs. They passed by a sort of empty storefront, inside of which an old man with a grave expression sat on the floor, legs folded under him, reading from a book and offering commentary. In front of him, sitting the same way, were some twenty boys listening attentively.

“That's one of our imams, explaining the Koran,” said Rahman, who made as if to keep walking.

Montalbano stopped him, resting a hand on his arm. He was struck by the truly religious absorption of those kids, who once outside of the empty store would again let loose, shouting and scuffling as always.

“What's he reading to them?”

“The eighteenth sura, the one about the cave.”

Montalbano, without knowing the cause, felt a slight tremor in his backbone.

“The cave?”

“Yes,
al-kahf
, the cave. The sura says that when some young people prayed to God not to let them be corrupted and led astray from the path of the true religion, He made them fall into a deep sleep inside a cave. And so that there would always be total darkness inside the cave, God reversed the course of the sun. They slept for about three hundred and nine years. Also with them was a dog, who slept in front of the entrance, but on guard, with his front legs extended—”

He broke off, having noticed that Montalbano had turned very pale and was opening and closing his mouth as if gasping for air.

“What's wrong, signore? Do you feel ill, signore? Do you want me to call a doctor? Signore!”

Frightened by his own reaction, Montalbano felt faint, his head spinning, legs buckling. Apparently he was still feeling the effects of the wound and the operation. A small crowd, meanwhile, had gathered around Rahman and the inspector. The teacher gave a few orders, and an Arab ran off and quickly returned with a glass of water. Another arrived with a wicker chair in which he forced Montalbano, who felt ridiculous, to sit. The water revived him.

“How do you say in your language: God is great and merciful?”

Rahman told him, and Montalbano did his best to imitate the sounds of the words. The small crowd laughed at his pronunciation, but repeated them in chorus.

 
 
Rahman shared an apartment with an older colleague named El Madani, who was at home at that moment. Rahman made tea while Montalbano explained the reasons for his malaise. Rahman was entirely unaware of the discovery of the two young murder victims in the Crasticeddru, whereas El Madani had heard mention of it.

“What I'd like to know, if you'd be so kind,” said the inspector, “is to what extent the objects placed inside the cave correspond to what the sura says. As far as the dog is concerned, there's no doubt whatsoever.”

“The dog's name is Kytmyr,” said El Madani, “but he's also called Quotmour. Among the Persians, you know, that dog, the one in the cave, became the guardian of written communication.”

“Does the sura say anything about a bowl with money inside?”

“No, there's no bowl, for the simple reason that the sleepers have money in their pockets. When they awake, one of them will be given money to go buy the best food there is. They're hungry. But the one sent on this mission is betrayed by the fact that the coins are not only no longer current, but are now worth a fortune. People follow him back to the cave, hoping to find a treasure, and that is how the sleepers come to be discovered.”

“But in the case that concerns me,” Montalbano said to Rahman, “the bowl can be explained by the fact that the boy and girl were naked when placed inside the cave, and therefore the money had to be put somewhere.”

“Agreed,” said El Madani, “but it is not written in the Koran that they were thirsty. The water receptacle has no connection to the sura.”

“I know many legends about sleepers,” Rahman added, “but none of them says anything about water.”

“How many sleepers were there in the cave?”

“The sura is vague about this—the number is probably not important—three, four, five, six, not counting the dog. But it has become common belief that there were seven sleepers, eight with the dog.”

“If it's of any use to you,” said El Madani, “you should know that the sura is a retelling of an old Christian legend, the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus.”

“There's also a modern Egyptian drama,
Ahl al-kahf
, which means ‘The People of the Cave,' by the writer Taufik al-Hakim. In it the young Christians, persecuted by the emperor Decius, fall into a deep sleep and reawaken in the time of Theodosius the Second. There are three of them, as well as the dog.”

“Therefore,” Montalbano concluded, “whoever put the bodies in the cave must have known the Koran, and perhaps even the play by this Egyptian.”

 
 
“Mr. Burgio? Montalbano here. I'm calling you from Mazara del Vallo. I'm about to leave for Marsala. Sorry to be in such a rush, but I have to ask you something very important. Did Lillo Rizzitano know Arabic?”

“Lillo? Not a chance.”

“He couldn't perhaps have studied it at university?”

“Impossible.”

“What was his degree in?”

“In Italian, with Professor Aurelio Cotroneo. He may have even told me what his thesis was about, but I can't remember.”

“Did he have any Arab friends?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Were there any Arabs in Vigàta around '42-'43?”

“Inspector, the Arabs were here at the time of their domination, and now they've returned, poor things, but not as dominators. No, during that period there weren't any. But what are the Arabs to you?”

 
 
It was already dark outside when they left for Marsala. Livia was cheerful and animated. She was very happy to have met Valente's wife. At the first intersection, instead of turning right, Montalbano turned left. Livia noticed immediately, and the inspector was forced to make a difficult U-turn. At the second intersection, Montalbano did the exact opposite: instead of going left, he turned right, and this time Livia was too engrossed in what she was saying to realize it. To their great astonishment, they found themselves back in Mazara. Livia exploded.

“You really try a woman's patience!”

“But you could have kept an eye out yourself!”

“Your word is worth nothing! You promised me before leaving Vigàta that you'd empty your head of all your concerns, and instead you keep getting lost in your own thoughts.”

“I'm sorry, I'm sorry.”

He paid very close attention for the first half hour of road, but then, treacherously, the thought returned: The dog made sense, as did the bowl with the money, but not the jug. Why?

He hadn't even begun to venture a hypothesis when he was blinded by a truck's headlights and realized he had drifted left of center and was heading straight into what would have been a ghastly collision. He jerked the wheel wildly, deafened by Livia's scream and the angry blast of the truck's horn, and they bounced their way across a newly plowed field before the car came to a halt, stuck in a furrow. Neither of them said a word; there was nothing to say. Livia was panting heavily. Montalbano dreaded what lay in store for him, the moment the woman he loved caught her breath. Like a coward he took cover and sought her compassion.

“You know, I didn't tell you earlier because I didn't want to alarm you, but this afternoon, after lunch, I was unwell . . .”

 
 
Then the whole incident turned into something between tragedy and a Laurel and Hardy film. The car would not budge, were they even to fire cannons at it. Livia withdrew into a scornful silence. At a certain point, Montalbano abandoned his efforts to pull out of the rut, for fear of overheating the engine. He slung their bags over his shoulder, Livia following a few steps behind. A passing motorist took pity on the wretched pair at the edge of the road and drove them to Marsala. After leaving Livia at a hotel, Montalbano went to the local police station, identified himself, and with the help of an officer woke up someone with a tow truck. Between one thing and the next, when he lay down beside Livia, who was tossing in her sleep, it was four o'clock in the morning.

22

To win forgiveness, Montalbano made up his mind to be affectionate, patient, pleasant, and obedient. It worked, and Livia soon cheered up. She was enchanted by Mozia, amazed by the road just under the water's surface, which linked the island with the coast, and charmed by the mosaic flooring of white and black river pebbles in an ancient villa.

“This is the
tophet
,” said their guide, “the sacred area of the Phoenicians. There were no buildings; the rites were performed out in the open.”

“The usual sacrifices to the gods?” asked Livia.

“To god,” the guide corrected her, “the god Baal Hammon. They would sacrifice a firstborn son, strangle him, burn him, and put his remains in a vase that they would bury in the ground, and beside it they would erect a stela. Over seven hundred of these stelae have been found here.”

“Good God!” exclaimed Livia.

“It was not a very nice place for children, signora. When Dionysius of Syracuse sent the admiral Leptines to conquer the island, the Mozians, before surrendering, slit their children's throats. However you roll the dice, fate was never kind to the little ones of Mozia.”

“Let's get out of here,” said Livia. “I don't want to hear any more about these people.”