The Sicilian Method

by Andrea Camilleri

  The pile of papers waiting on his desk to be signed made him change his mind immediately.

  “Actually, you know what I say? I say we go and see him right now.”

  “Okay,” said Fazio, standing up.

  As soon as Catarella realized they were on their way out, he stopped them.

  “Ahh, Chief, Chief!!! Don’ go! Iss th’end o’ the woild! Iss rilly dangerous ousside, Chief! ’Ey e’en called for rinforcerments o’ carabbinieri. Iss th’end o’ the woild, Chief!”

  “What are you talking about? What happened?”

  “Chief, ya know the Bellofiore cement woiks? When the woikers went a woik ’iss mornin’, ’ey foun’ the gates to the factory closed. ’Ey was all sacked! Tree hunnert families ’at won’t ’ave nuttin more to eat from now on.”

  “Let’s go and have a look,” Montalbano said to Fazio.

  They went outside, but no sooner had they turned to the left than they could no longer see anything at all, finding themselves in front of a wall of smoke inside which they could hear shouts and explosions. Apparently the police were firing tear-gas bombs.

  “Inspector,” said Fazio, “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

  At that moment they saw a man staggering out of the cloud as though drunk, holding one hand behind his neck and the other over his forehead. The man then fell forward onto his knees and started crawling towards them.

  Montalbano sprang to his aid. The man had a gash over his right eye that was bleeding. He grabbed onto Fazio. He’d probably been clubbed by police.

  “Let’s bring him into the station,” said Montalbano.

  The man was groaning as tears ran down his face. They took him into the waiting room and laid him down on the sofa. Officer Cumella, who was also trained as a nurse, arrived with a first-aid kit, disinfected the wound, which luckily was not very deep, and dressed it.

  Only then did the man look around as if slowly coming to. In a faint voice, he asked: “Where am I?”

  “At the police station,” said Fazio.

  As if by instinct, the man crossed his arms over his face in a gesture of self-protection.

  “Ahhh! You gonna keep beating up on me, eh?” he cried desperately. “I’m out of a job and you wanna bust my chops, too?! Who’s gonna feed my three kids?”

  Montalbano turned on his heels, went into his office, and locked himself inside. He was disgusted with himself, and with his chosen profession. Disgusted with the carabinieri, with law enforcement, with the government. Disgusted with the world, with the very order of the universe.

  What kind of world was this that took away a person’s right to work and earn an honest living?

  So the state’s answer, when these poor bastards dared to protest, was to greet them with billy clubs, tear gas, arrests, and convictions?

  For how many years had he been a loyal servant of this state?

  Had he worked honestly and respectfully with others?

  Most of the time, yes, even if he didn’t always succeed.

  Apparently the majority of his colleagues had a different idea of what it meant to serve the state.

  There was no escape.

  He sat down, resigned, at his desk, grabbed the first paper from the pile, and signed it.

  Around two o’clock, as he was practically drowning in paper and in need of air, the good guys came to the rescue in the nick of time, just like in an old ’Murcan movie.

  They took the form of the door flying open and crashing against the wall with the usual boom.

  But Montalbano barely heard it. The sound merely made him look up for a second at Catarella, who was standing in the doorway, carrying a paper tray with both hands.

  “Beg yer pardon, Chief, but I hadda knock wit’ my foot,” he said, coming in and setting the tray down on the desk.

  Under Catarella’s self-satisfied gaze, Montalbano lifted the paper sheet covering the tray: sandwiches, sfinciuni, fritters, croquettes, panelle—manna from heaven!

  “What are we celebrating, Cat?”

  10

  Catarella smiled. “We ain’t cillibratin’, Chief. I’s jess a li’l worried ’at cuzza the diminstrations you migh’ not get outta ’ere before dark, an’ so I took a vantage of a moment o’ calm an’ ran into a bar an’ bought everyting I cou’ find.”

  “Well done, Cat . . .”

  “Wait a secon’ an’ I’ll bring yiz a li’l wine.”

  He went out and returned with half a flask of wine.

  “Can you keep a secret, Cat? Come here and sit down with me. But you mustn’t tell anyone else about our little feast.”

  “Ya wan me t’eat wit’ yiz, Chief?” Catarella asked in a quavering voice, standing at attention, as stiff as a board.

  “Of course. Now close the door, take two glasses out of the closet, and come over here.”

  Catarella did as he was told and sat down in front of the inspector, taking a little pizza for himself. And in the time it took him to make this movement—ever so slowly, with hesitation and almost fear—Montalbano was able to gobble down two whole sandwiches.

  But then he had to get up in a hurry to help Catarella because a bite of pizza had gone down the wrong way and he was choking and coughing as his eyes filled with tears.

  The inspector slapped him on the back with his open hand and had him drink a little wine, but then Catarella stood back up.

  “Ya gotta ’scuse me, Chief, but I can’t manitch t’eat wit’ yiz. Iss such a honor, iss too much. It chokes me up, an’ I can’t swallow!”

  “Okay,” said Montalbano, walking him to the door and opening it. “Oh, and how much did you spend?”

  “Nah, nah, Chief, ya gotta ’scuse me, but iss on me.”

  Montalbano closed the door and conscientiously, with method and discipline, dispatched the rest of the food on the tray. After which he threw it into the wastebasket and leaned back in his chair, sighing with satisfaction. The door opened again, this time noiselessly, and the Archangel Catarella appeared with a steaming cup of coffee in hand, which he set down before the inspector. Without changing position, Montalbano brought two fingers to his lips and blew his assistant a kiss.

  Catarella staggered and stumbled out of the room as if he’d taken a blow to the head. The inspector sipped his coffee, got up, went over to the window, opened it, and fired up a cigarette. He felt light and was digesting to perfection when, all of a sudden, Livia’s note with her drawing of a death’s-head came back to him.

  Immediately he began to feel a great heaviness in his stomach. His digestion was henceforth irremediably blocked. He decided that as soon as he got home he would remove that piece of paper from the fridge and carefully hide it, to be retrieved only right before Livia’s next visit.

  There was a knock at the door, and Catarella reappeared.

  “Chief, ’ere’s some kine o’ Spanish guy ’at came a li’l oilier than aspected, cuz ’e was asposta come at four an’ now iss only tree forty-five, an’ so ’e ast if you cou’ see ’im—”

  “Tell me something: Is this Spaniard’s name by any chance Lopez?”

  “I tought it was Gomez, but ’at cou’ be right, too.”

  “Is Fazio around?”

  “Yeah, Chief, ’e’s onna premisses.”

  “Okay, send me Fazio first, then you can show the Spanish gentleman in.”

  Fazio barely had time to sit down before Ernesto Lopez, lawyer, came in. It was impossible to assign an age to him: A balding redhead at least six foot three, as gaunt as death, he could have been anywhere between thirty and seventy years old. He was the one who had agreed with Maria del Castello during the commemoration. Today he’d tried to dress up for the occasion, without success: His tie was crooked and his jacket full of wrinkles. He walked as if swaying in a strong headwind, and Montalbano became immediately worried he might not make it
as far as the desk. Luckily he did, but to sit down it took him a good ten seconds to descend from his height. He opened the discussion himself:

  “I am at your service, Inspector,” he said in a basso profondo voice. “I’m told you questioned Eleonora this morning.”

  “Yes,” said Montalbano, “and she told us about the auditions for your production and Catalanotti’s rather unusual methods. How did things go with yourself?”

  Lopez gave a little laugh.

  “As you probably know, Inspector, Willie, the Beckett character, is unable to walk and can only crawl along the ground. Before finally giving me the part, Carmelo had me drag along the ground for a whole month, explaining to me in detail the difference between the way a snake moves and the way a worm does. He wanted me to become a complete worm, even in my way of thinking. And since Willie is always wearing a suit, you can imagine the quarrels I had with my wife over the fact that I was ruining a jacket a week—”

  Montalbano interrupted him.

  “But do you know whether Catalanotti just pulled this method out of a hat, or was he inspired by something or someone else . . .”

  “Inspector, as Eleonora probably told you, Carmelo didn’t talk much about himself. One evening, however, during one of these individual auditions, when I specifically asked him about it, he replied that the idea had come to him many years earlier during a trip to Rome for work. He’d noticed that a theater there was devoting a whole week to Jerzy Grotowski, the Polish director, and his productions. So he went, and he was fascinated by what he’d seen. He managed to meet the main actors and talk with them at great length, but not with the director himself, who was not in town. Later he studied the man’s theories in a book called Towards a Poor Theatre. I’ve read it myself, and if I had to give you my honest opinion, Inspector, I would say that Carmelo didn’t have in fact the clearest grasp of its ideas, but he possessed an almost hypnotic power of pursuasion over actors. His system always managed in one way or another to work.

  “Eleonora and I long remained very strangely attached to him. But he didn’t feel the same way. He tried to avoid us. Once a show was staged, it no longer existed. He would do everything in his power to erase all trace of it. The very opposite of how people like us, theater people, feel about it. For us, the photos and posters become a kind of documentation of a memory, a way not to forget. Carmelo, on the contrary, demanded oblivion. For him, the show’s life ended the moment the curtain fell. And he was the same way about his private life. Which, I must admit, used to make me sort of angry. What is this? You can turn me inside out like a sock and I’m supposed to remain completely in the dark about your life? One time I happened to be walking past the big picture window of a café and I saw him inside. He was sitting down and speaking softly with a woman who had her back to me.”

  “Was she blond?” Montalbano asked with interest.

  “No, no. I continued spying on him for a few minutes through the window. He seemed to have a strange rapport with the woman, because they kept their heads close together, like lovers in intimate conversation, but in fact, as I realized after a few minutes, they were in that pose so that nobody else would hear them. As I was making these observations he suddenly looked up and saw me. And was transformed: With an angry expression on his face, he stood up, grabbed the woman by the arm, and left the establishment without deigning even to glance at me. That was Carmelo.”

  “Was that the only time you ever saw him outside of rehearsals?” asked the inspector.

  “Well . . . now that you mention it, I’m remembering another time we crossed paths, but only very briefly. It happened about three or four months ago. I’d gone to visit a friend who was in Montelusa hospital, and right in the entrance I practically ran straight into Carmelo. He recognized me, no doubt about that, but he didn’t say hello and kept right on his way as if he didn’t know me. And I guess that’s all. I don’t know what else to tell you . . .”

  “I can tell you something you surely don’t know,” said Montalbano. “He was also a moneylender.”

  Lopez had no reaction.

  “You’re not surprised?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I can’t really explain. You see, I always thought that a man like him, who was able to unearth the innermost secrets of others, would be capable of anything. I think he derived a certain pleasure whenever . . .”

  Signor Lopez fell silent.

  “Go on,” Montalbano encouraged him.

  “Whenever he discovered some hidden cause for shame in one of us. There, I said it.”

  The inspector didn’t feel like going any further down this path.

  “Did you have discussions together, at least about the theater?”

  “Yes, that we did. I myself have read quite a bit of dramatic theory, and one day I had to tell him that he was wrong, that he might well be applying Grotowski’s method, but he was mixing it up with that of La Fura dels Baus.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “A Catalan troupe that does a physical kind of theater, resorting even to forceful, violent actions. Anyway, Carmelo replied that he wasn’t looking for the sort of stage realism that basically everyone who works in theater aspires to. Realism over falseness. Verisimilitude. He didn’t like this word, and so he turned it around and called it ‘similveracity,’ which was supposed to mean something different, but I could never quite figure out what.”

  “I’m sorry, but if you realized that Catalanotti’s system was confused and maybe even, so to speak . . . unprofessional, why did you consent to such trying auditions?”

  “I repeat: Carmelo had an exceptional gift for drawing people into his game, by knocking down our defenses little by little. He was a snake charmer.”

  Montalbano turned around to look at Fazio, as if to ask him if he had any questions. Fazio shook his head.

  The inspector stood up, and so did the other two. He held out his hand to Lopez.

  “I thank you for your information. You’ve been an immense help. I’ll be in touch if I need to know anything else. Thank you again. Have a good day.”

  “Glad to be of service,” said Lopez, taking leave of the inspector and heading off behind Fazio, who was leading the way.

  By this point Montalbano felt he knew enough about Catalanotti’s method. He decided to ring Maria del Castello, but as he was dialing he changed his mind. It would have been a waste of time; all the girl would have told him would have been more stories of abuse at the hands of the director. Never mind. Fazio returned almost immediately and sat down.

  “Want to hear my opinion?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Chief, do you think it’s possible Catalanotti was murdered in some kind of rebellion?”

  “Explain what you mean.”

  “Chief, if that guy was capable of turning human beings into his puppets, isn’t it possible that one of these puppets could have rebelled during a particularly bizarre audition?”

  “If what Lopez was saying is true, your hypothesis is certainly plausible. But it doesn’t limit the area of investigation. On the contrary, it broadens it, because it wasn’t necessarily one of the actors who rebelled; it could have been one of the many people he used to meet with to include in his productions.”

  As Fazio was listening to him, a furrow appeared on his brow.

  “I’ll explain,” said the inspector. “When Catalanotti couldn’t find a victim within the regular troupe, he would go looking for one outside, among common folks. The transcriptions of the auditions he did with them are in his bedroom.”

  “And how many are there?”

  “About a hundred.”

  “Shit!”

  “Exactly. There’s work to be done.”

  “And where do we start?”

  “At the moment I can’t really say. I’ll think it over tonight and get
back to you on it tomorrow.”

  There was a knock at the door, and Mimì Augello came in.

  “Hello there, Mimì. Got any news?”

  “Enough. Before anything else I went and talked to Enzo.”

  Fazio gave a start in his chair.

  “And what’s Enzo got to do with any of this?”

  Montalbano briefly filled him in on the story of Catalanotti’s dinners with the blonde on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.

  “Well,” Augello intervened, “that’s not exactly correct.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning they didn’t always eat together on those days. Sometimes they would skip it, sometimes they didn’t go to Enzo’s. Rather often, actually.”

  “What else did he tell you?”

  “Enzo said the whole thing was of no importance, but when I pressed him, he remembered that he’d once heard Catalanotti call the blond woman Anita. That’s as far as I got. I was hoping to bring you somewhat more concrete information. And what have you guys got to tell me?”

  Montalbano gave him a quick résumé of what Ortolani and Lopez had said.

  Mimì twisted up his mouth.

  “A man like that is potentially very dangerous,” he said.

  “I agree,” Montalbano concurred.

  Mimì got up, said good-bye to both, and went out.

  The inspector looked over at Fazio.

  “What do you say? Is it too late, or do you think we can still drop in on Nico?”

  “Let’s go, Chief.”

  When they got to Via Pignatelli, Fazio rang the buzzer.

  “Who is it?” asked a female voice.

  “This is Inspector Montalbano.”

  “Ah, please come in and come upstairs,” the voice said contentedly. It was clearly Margherita.

  They climbed two flights of stairs. Margherita was waiting at the door with a big smile on her face.

  “Come in, come in,” she said.

  They went in and found themselves in a dining room with at least ten people staring at them who then suddenly said, in chorus: “Good evening!”