The Terra-Cotta Dog (30 page)

 
 
On the midnight edition of the news, Nicolò Zito devoted more time to the story and showed photos of the two corpses in the Crasticeddru, zooming in on the images in detail.

Provided courtesy of the ever-eager Jacomuzzi,
thought Montalbano.

Zito isolated the body of the young man, whom he called Mario, then that of the young woman, whom he called Lisetta. Then he showed the airplane dropping rose petals and gave a close-up of the words on the strips of paper. From here he went on to weave a tale that was part mystery, part tearjerker, and decidedly not in the Free Channel style, but rather more like TeleVigàta fare. Why were the two young lovers killed? What sad fate led them to that end? Who was it that took pity on them and set them up in the cave? Had the beautiful woman who showed up at the advertising agency perhaps returned from the past to demand revenge on the victims' behalf? And what connection was there between this beauty and the two kids from fifty years ago? How were we to understand the word “reawakened”? And how did Inspector Montalbano happen to know even the name of the terracotta dog? How much did he know about this mystery?

 
 
“Salvo? Hi, it's Ingrid. I hope you didn't think I ran off with your money.”

“Come on! Why, was there some left?”

“Yes. The whole thing cost less than half the amount you gave me. I've got the rest with me. I'll give it back to you as soon as I return to Montelusa.”

“Where are you calling from?”

“Taormina. I met someone. I'll be back in four or five days. Did I do a good job? Did it go they way you wanted?”

“You did a fantastic job. Have fun.”

“Montalbano? It's Nicolò. Did you like the reports? I think I deserve some thanks, no?”

“For what?”

“For doing exactly what you wanted.”

“But I didn't ask you to do anything.”

“That's true—not directly, at least. Except that I'm not stupid, and so I gathered that you wanted the story to get as much publicity as possible and to be presented in a way that would touch people's hearts. I said things I will never live down for the rest of my life.”

“Well, thanks—even though, I repeat, I still don't know why you want me to thank you.”

“You know, our switchboard has been overwhelmed with phone calls. The RAI, Fininvest, Ansa, and all the national newspapers have asked for a videotape of the report. You've made quite a splash. Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“How much did the airplane cost you?”

 
 
He slept splendidly, as gods pleased with their handiwork are said to sleep. He'd done everything possible, and even something impossible. Now there was nothing to do but wait for an answer. The message had been sent out, in such a way as to allow somebody to decipher the code, as Alcide Maraventano would say. The first phone call came in at seven in the morning. It was Luciano Acquasanta of
Il Mezzogiorno
, who wanted to corroborate one of his opinions. Was it not possible the two young people were sacrificed in the course of some Satanic rite?

“Why not?” said Montalbano, polite and open to anything.

The second call came fifteen minutes later. It was Stefania Quattrini, from the magazine
Essere Donna
. Her theory was that Mario was caught making love to Lisetta by another, jealous woman—we know what sailors are like—who did away with both of them. She probably then skipped the country, but on her deathbed confided in her daughter, who in turn told her own daughter of the grandmother's crime. This girl, to make good in some way, had gone to Palermo—she spoke with a foreign accent, didn't she?—and arranged the whole business with the airplane.

“Why not?” said Montalbano, polite and open to anything.

Cosimo Zappalà of the weekly magazine
Vivere!
communicated his hypothesis to Montalbano at 7:25. Lisetta and Mario, drunk on love and youth, were in the habit of strolling through the countryside hand in hand, naked as Adam and Eve. Surprised one unlucky day by a contingent of retreating German soldiers, also drunk, but on fear and ferocity, they were raped and murdered. On his deathbed, one of the Germans . . . And here this version linked up curiously with Stefania Quattrini's.

“Why not?” said Montalbano, polite and open to anything.

At eight, Fazio knocked on the door and brought him all the dailies available in Vigàta, as he'd been ordered to do the night before. The inspector leafed through them while repeatedly answering the phone. All of them, with greater or lesser degrees of emphasis, reported the story. The headline that most amused him was the one in the
Corriere
, which read: POLICE INSPECTOR IDENTIFIES TERRA-COTTA DOG DEAD FOR FIFTY YEARS. All of it, even the irony, was grist for his mill.

 
 
Adelina was amazed to find him at home and not out, as was usually the case.

“Adelina, I'm going to be staying home for a few days. I'm waiting for an important phone call, so I want you to make my siege comfortable.”

“I din't unnastand a word you said.”

Montalbano then explained that her task was to alleviate his voluntary seclusion by putting a little extra imagination in her lunch and dinner dishes.

 
 
Around ten, Livia called.

“What's going on? Your phone is always busy!”

“I'm sorry. It's just that I've been getting all these calls in reference to—”

“I know what they're in reference to. I saw you on TV. You were so unselfconscious and glib, you didn't seem yourself. It's obvious you're better off when I'm not around.”

He rang Fazio at headquarters and asked him to bring all mail home to him and to buy an extension cord for the phone. The mail, he added, should be brought to him at home each day, as soon as it arrived. And Fazio should pass the word on: anyone who asked for him at the office must be given his private number by the switchboard operator, with no questions asked.

Less than an hour passed before Fazio arrived with two unimportant postcards and the extension cord.

“What's new at the office?”

“What's new? Nothing. You're the one who attracts the big stuff. Inspector Augello only gets the little shit: purse snatchings, petty theft, a mugging here and there.”

“I attract the big stuff? What's that supposed to mean?”

“It means what I said. My wife, for instance, is scared of rats. Well, I swear, she draws them to her like a magnet. Wherever she goes, the rats soon arrive.”

For forty-eight hours he'd been like a dog on a chain. His field of action was only as large as the extension cord would allow, and therefore he could neither walk on the beach nor go out for a run. He carried the phone with him everywhere, even when he went to the bathroom, and every now and then—the mania took hold of him after twenty-four hours—he would pick up the receiver and bring it to his ear to see if it was working. On the morning of the third day a thought came into his mind:

Why bother to wash if you can't go outside?

This was followed by another, closely related thought:

So what need is there to shave?

On the morning of the fourth day, filthy and bristly, wearing slippers and the same shirt since the first day, he gave Adelina a fright.

“
Maria santissima
, signuri! Whata happen to you? Are you sick?”

“Yes.”

“Why don' you call a doctor?”

“It's not the sort of thing for a doctor.”

 
 
He was a very great tenor, acclaimed in all the world. That evening he was to sing at the Cairo Opera, at the old theater, which hadn't yet burned down, though he knew well that it would soon be devoured by flames. He'd asked an attendant to inform him the moment Signor Gegè sat down in his box, the fifth from the right on the second level. He was in costume, the last touches having been applied to his makeup. He heard the call: “Who's on next?” He didn't move. The attendant arrived, out of breath, and told him that Signor Gegè—who hadn't died, this was well known, he'd escaped to Egypt—hadn't shown up yet. He dashed onto the stage, looking out into the theater through a small opening in the curtain: it was mobbed. The only empty box was the fifth from the right, second level. He made a split-second decision: he returned to his dressing room, took off his costume and put his regular clothes back on, leaving the makeup, including the long, gray beard and thick, white eyebrows, untouched. Nobody would ever recognize him again, and therefore he would never sing again. He well understood that his career was over and he would have to scramble to survive, but he didn't know what to do about it. Without Gegè he couldn't sing.

He woke up bathed in sweat. In his own fashion, he had produced a classic Freudian dream, that of the empty theater box. What did it mean? That the pointless wait for Lillo Rizzitano would ruin his life?

 
 
“Inspector? It's Headmaster Burgio. It's been a while since we last spoke. Have you any news of our mutual friend?”

“No.”

Monosyllabic, hasty, at the risk of seeming impolite, he had to discourage long or pointless phone conversations. If Rizzitano were to make up his mind, he might think twice if he found the line busy.

“I'm afraid the only way we'll ever get to talk to Lillo, if you'll forgive my saying so, is to hire a medium.”

 
 
He had a big squabble with Adelina. The housekeeper had just gone into the kitchen when he heard her start yelling. Then she appeared in the bedroom.

“Signuri, you din't eat nothin yesterday for lunch or dinner!”

“I wasn't hungry, Adelì.”

“I work m'self to death cookin' d'licious things and you jes turn up ya nose at 'em.”

“I don't turn up my nose at them, I'm just not hungry, as I said.”

“An' this house's become a pigsty! You don' want me to wash the floor, you don' want me to wash ya clothes! For five days you been wearin the same shirt anna same shorts! You stink, signuri!”

“I'm sorry, Adelina. I'll snap out of it, you'll see.”

“Well, lemme know when you snap out of it, and I'll come back. 'Cause I ain't settin' foot back in 'ere. Call me when ya feelin' better.”

 
 
He went out onto the veranda, sat down on the bench, put the telephone beside him, and stared at the sea. He couldn't do anything else—read, think, write—nothing. Only stare at the sea. He was losing himself in the bottomless well of an obsession, and he knew it. He remembered a film he'd seen, perhaps based on a novel by Dürrenmatt, in which a police inspector stubbornly kept waiting for a killer who was supposed to pass through a certain place in the mountains, when in fact the guy would never come through there again. But the inspector didn't know this, and so he waited and waited, and meanwhile days, months, years went by . . .

Around eleven o'clock that same morning, the telephone rang. Nobody had called since Headmaster Burgio, several hours before. Montalbano didn't pick up the receiver; he froze as though paralyzed. He knew, with utter certainty—though he couldn't have explained why—who would be there at the other end.

He made an effort, and picked up.

“Hello? Inspector Montalbano?”

A fine, deep voice, even though it belonged to an old man.

“Yes, this is he,” said Montalbano. And he couldn't refrain from adding: “Finally!”

“Finally,” the other repeated.

They both remained silent a moment, listening to their breathing.

“I've just landed at Palermo. I could be at your place in Vigàta by one-thirty this afternoon at the latest. If that's all right with you, perhaps you could tell me exactly how to find you. I've been away a long time. Fifty-one years.”

25

He dusted, swept, and scrubbed the floors with the speed of a slapstick silent movie. Then he went into the bathroom and washed up as he had done only once before in his life, when, at age sixteen, he'd gone on his first date. He took an interminable shower, sniffing his armpits and the skin on his arms, then doused himself, for good measure, with eau de cologne. He knew he was being ridiculous, but he chose his best suit, his most serious tie, and polished his shoes until they looked as if they had their own internal light source. Then he got the idea to set the table, but only for one. He was, it was true, in the throes of a canine hunger, but he was sure he would not be able to swallow.

He waited, endlessly. One-thirty came and went, and he felt sick and had something like a fainting spell. He poured himself a double shot of whisky and gulped it down. Finally, liberation: the sound of a car coming up the driveway. He quickly threw the front door wide open. There was a taxi with a Palermo license plate, and a very well-dressed old man got out, holding a cane in one hand and an overnight bag in the other. The man paid the driver, and while the car was maneuvering to leave, he looked around. He stood erect, head high, and cut an impressive figure. Immediately Montalbano felt he had seen him somewhere before. He went out to meet him.

“Is it all houses around here?” the old man asked.

“Yes.”

“There used to be nothing, only brush and sand and sea.”

They hadn't greeted each other or introduced themselves. They already knew one another.

 
 
“I'm almost blind, I see very poorly,” said the old man, seated on the bench on the veranda. “But it seems very beautiful here, very peaceful.”

Only then did the inspector realize where he had seen the old man. Actually, it wasn't exactly him, but a perfect double, a jacket-flap photo of Jorge Luis Borges.