IM8 The Patience of the Spider (2007)

by Andrea Camilleri

  This is the first Ive heard of it. And so? So Ive been asking myself some questions. And you want me to answer them? If possible. Im willing to answer one question only, provided I can.

  Make your choice. The boy asked his question at once. Clearly it was the first on his list. Do you think it was Peruzzo who put clippings instead of money in that bag?

  Dont you?

  Francesco attempted a smile, but didnt succeed. He only twisted his mouth into a grimace.

  Dont answer a question with a question, he said.

  He was sharp, this kid. Alert and clever. It was a pleasure to talk to him.

  Why shouldnt I think it was him? said Montalbano. Mr. Peruzzo, according to what weve learned about him, is an unscrupulous man with a penchant for dangerous gambits. He probably sized up his situation. The essential thing, for him, was to avoid getting drawn into the case, because once he was, he could only lose. Therefore, why not take yet another risk and try to save six billion lire?

  And what if they killed Susanna?

  He could claim, as a last resort, that hed paid the ransom and that it was the kidnappers who hadnt kept their word. Because there was always the chance that Susanna might recognize one of them, which would have made it necessary to eliminate her. He would have cried and wailed in front of the TV cameras, and some people would have ended up believing him.

  And would you have been one of those people, Inspector?

  I plead the Fifth, said Montalbano.

  Montalbano? This is Minutolo. I spoke with the commis

  sioner.

  Whatd he say?

  He said he didnt want to take advantage of your courtesy.

  Which, translated into the vernacular, means the quicker

  I get my ass out of the way, the better. Precisely. Well, my friend, what do you want me to say? I guess Ill

  go back to convalescing and wish you all the best. But if I need to exchange a few ideas with you, can I Whenever you like. Did you know that the Customs Police have found truck

  loads of incriminating stuff in Peruzzos offices? Everybody thinks hes screwed for good this time.

  He picked up the photographic enlargements that hed had Cicco De Cicco make and put them in an envelope, which he managed, with some effort, to fit in his jacket pocket.

  Catarella! Your orders, Chief. Is Inspector Augello around? No, Chief. Hes in Montelusa cause the cmishner wants

  Specter Augello to be the inner-in-chief. So the cmishner had finally marginalized the inspector

  and was speaking only to Augello, the inner-in-chief. What about Fazio? He aint here, neither, Chief. He went for a minnit over

  to Via Palazzolo, cross from the alimentary school. What for? Theres some shopkeeper who dint wanna pay per

  tection money shot at the guy who axed him for it but e missed. So much the better.

  Smuch the bitter, Chief, but tmake it up he got some guy whos passin by in the arm.

  Listen, Cat. Im going home to resume my convalescence.

  Straightaway straightaway?

  Yes.

  Can I come see you sometimes when I wanna see you sometimes?

  Come whenever you like.

  Before returning to Marinella, he dropped in at the grocers where he sometimes got his provisions. He bought green olives, passuluna black olives, caciocavallo cheese, fresh bread sprinkled with giuggiulena, and a jar of Trapanese pesto.

  Back at home, he set the table on the veranda while the pasta cooked. After shilly-shallying a bit, the day had finally surrendered to the late spring sunshine. There wasnt a cloud in the sky, not a breath of wind in the air. The inspector drained the pasta, dressed it with pesto, took the dish outside, and began to eat. A man was walking by along the water, and for a moment he stopped and stared at Montalbano on the veranda. What was so strange about him that a man should eye him as if he were a painting? Perhaps he really was a painting, one that might be titled: The Solitary Pensioners Lunch.The idea made him suddenly lose his appetite. He kept eating his pasta, but listlessly.

  The telephone rang. It was Livia. She told him shed made it back without incident, that everything was all right, she was cleaning her apartment, and would call him back that

  evening. A brief phone call, but long enough to let the pasta turn cold.

  He didnt feel like eating any more. A wave of black melancholy had come over him, conceding him only a glass of wine and a bit of giuggiulena bread. He tore off a piece, put it in his mouth, and with the index finger of his right hand began searching about for giuggiulena seeds that had fallen from the crust. He pressed them against the tablecloth with his fingertip until they stuck, then brought his finger to his mouth. The joy of eating bread with giuggiulena lay primarily in this ritual.

  Flush against the verandas right-hand wallon the outside, that iswas a wild shrub that over time had grown in width and height to the point where it now came up to the level of someone sitting on the bench.

  Livia had told him many times that they needed to uproot it, but this had become a difficult proposition. By now the shrubs roots must have grown as thick and long as a trees. Montalbano didnt know why, but he suddenly had the urge to cut it down. He needed only turn his head a little to the right for the whole bush to enter his field of vision. The wild plant was reviving. Here and there amidst its yellow scrub a few green buds were beginning to emerge. Near the top, between two small branches, a silvery spiderweb sparkled in the sunlight. Montalbano was certain it hadnt been there the day before, because Livia would have noticed and, with her fear of spiders, would have destroyed it with the broom. It must have been made during the night.

  The inspector stood up and leaned over the railing to get a closer look at it.

  Spellbound, the inspector counted some thirty threads in concentric circles that decreased in diameter as they approached thecenter. The distancebetween threadswas thesamethroughout, except in the middle, where it greatly increased. The circular weave, moreover, was held together by a regular sequence of radial threads that emanated from the center and stretched to the outermost circle of the web.

  Montalbano guessed that there were about twenty radial threads of uniform distance from one another. The center of the web was made up of the points of convergence of all the threads, which were held together by a thread different from the rest and spiral in shape.

  How patient that spider must have been!

  It certainly must have encountered some difficulties. A gust of wind shredding the weave, an animal that happened to pass and move a branch ...But no matter, the spider had carried on its nocturnal labor, determined to bring its web to completion, whatever the cost, obstinate, deaf and blind to all other stimuli.

  But where was the spider? Try as he might, the inspector couldnt see it. Had it already left, abandoning everything? Had it been eaten by some other animal? Or was it lurking hidden under some yellow leaf, looking keenly around, with its eight eyes like a diadem, its eight legs ready to spring?

  All at once, the web began ever so delicately to vibrate, to quiver. Not from any sudden breath of wind, for the nearest leaves, even the flimsiest, remained still. No, it was an artificial movement, created intentionally. And by what, if not the spider itself? Apparently the invisible arachnid wanted the web to be taken for something elsea veil of frost, a wisp of

  steamand was moving the threads with its legs. It was a trap.

  Montalbano turned back towards the table, picked up a tiny piece of bread, broke it up into even smaller crumbs, and threw them at the web. Too light, they scattered in the air, but one did get caught in the very middle of the web, right on the spiral thread, and stayed there for only a split second. It was there one moment and gone the next. Darting out like a flash from the upper part of the webwhich remained hidden under some leavesa grey dot had enveloped the breadcrumb and vanished. But more than actually witness this movement, the inspector had sensed it. The swiftness with which the grey dot had moved was astonishing. He decided he wanted a better
look at the spiders reaction. He took another crumb, rolled it into a tiny little ball slightly bigger than the last one, and hurled it right into the center of the web, which shook all over. The grey dot pounced again, arrived at the center, covered the bread with its body, but did not return to its hiding place. It held still, perfectly visible, in the middle of its admirable structure of airy geometries. To Montalbano it seemed as if the spider was looking at him, gloating in triumph.

  Then, in nightmarishly slow succession, as in an endless cinematic fadeout and fade-in, the spiders tiny head began to change color and form, going from grey to pink, its fuzz turning to hair, the eight eyes merging into two, until it looked like a minute human face, smiling with satisfaction at the booty it held tightly between its legs.

  Montalbano shuddered in horror. Was he living a nightmare? Had he drunk too much wine without realizing it? All

  at once he remembered a passage in Ovid hed studied at school, the one about Arachne the weaver, turned into a spider by Athena...Could time have started running backwards, all the way back to the dark night of myth? He felt dizzy, head spinning. Luckily that monstrous vision didnt last long, for the image began at once to blur and reverse the transformation. Yet before the spider turned back into a spider, before it vanished again amidst the leaves, Montalbano had enough time to recognize the face. And, no, it wasnt Arachnes. He was sure of that.

  He sat down on the bench, his legs giving out from under him. He had to drink a whole glass of wine to regain a little strength.

  He realized that it must also have been late one nighton one of many nights of anguish, torment, and ragethat the other spider, too, the one whose face hed just glimpsed, had decided to weave a gigantic web.

  And with patience, tenacity, and determination, never once turning back, that spider had woven its web to completion. It was a marvel of geometry, a masterpiece of logic.

  Yet it was impossible for that web not to contain at least one mistake, however minuscule, one tiny, barely visible imperfection.

  He got up, went inside, and started looking for a magnifying glass that he knew he had somewhere. Ever since Sherlock Holmes, no detective is a true detective if he doesnt have a magnifying glass within reach.

  He opened every last drawer in the house, made a mess of the placecoming across a letter hed received from a friend six months before and never opened, he opened it, read it,

  learned that his friend Gaspano had become a grandfather (Shit! But werent he and Gaspano the same age?)searched some more, then decided there was no point in continuing. He could only conclude, apparently, that he was not a true detective. Elementary, my dear Watson. He went back out on the veranda, leaned on the railing, and bent all the way forward until his nose was almost at the center of the spiderweb. Then he recoiled a little, suddenly scared that the lightning-fast spider might bite his nose, mistaking it for prey. He studied the web carefully, to the point that his eyes began to water. No, the web appeared geometrically perfect, but in reality it wasnt. There were at least three or four points where the distance between one strand and the next was irregular, and there was even one spot where two threads zigzagged for very brief stretches.

  Feeling reassured, he smiled. Then his smile turned to laughter. A spiderweb! There wasnt a single clichore used and abused to describe a scheme plotted in the shadows. Hed never employed it before. Apparently the clichad wanted to get back at him for his disdain, becoming a reality and forcing him to take it into consideration.

  16

  Two hours later he was in his car on the road to Gallotta, eyes popping because he couldnt remember where he was supposed to turn. At a certain point he spotted, on his right, the tree with the sign saying fresh eggs painted in red.

  The path from the road led nowhere except to the little white die of a cottage where hed been. In fact it ended there. From a distance he noticed a car parked in the space in front of the house. He drove up the path, which was all uphill, parked near the other car, and got out.

  The door was locked. Maybe the girl was entertaining a client with other intentions than buying fresh eggs.

  He didnt knock, but decided to wait a little. He smoked a cigarette, leaning against his car. As he tossed the butt on the ground, he thought he saw something appear and disappear behind the tiny barred window next to the front door that allowed air to circulate inside when the door was closed. A face, perhaps. The door then opened and a distinguished-looking, chunky man of about fifty came out, wearing gold-rimmed glasses. He was pepper-red with embarrassment.

  Wont you come in, Inspector? the woman called from inside.

  Montalbano went in. She was sitting on the sofa-cot. Its

  cover was rumpled and a pillow had fallen to the floor. She was buttoning her blouse, long black hair hanging loose on her shoulders, the corners of her mouth smeared with lipstick.

  I looked out the window and recognized you at once, she said. Excuse me just one minute.

  She stood up and started putting things in order. Like the first time he saw her, she was dressed up.

  How is your husband feeling? Montalbano asked, glancing at the door to the back room, which was closed.

  Hows he supposed to feel, poor man?

  When shed finished tidying up and had wiped her mouth with a Kleenex, she asked with a smile:

  Can I make you some coffee?

  Thank you. But I dont want to inconvenience you.

  Are you kidding? You dont seem like a cop. Please sit down, she said, pulling out a cane chair for him.

  Thanks. I dont know your name.

  Angela. Angela Di Bartolomeo.

  Did my colleagues come to interrogate you?

  Inspector, I did just like you told me to do. I put on shabby clothes, put the bed in the other room ...Nothing doing. They turned the house upside down, they even looked under my husbands bed, they asked me questions for four hours straight, they searched the chicken coop and scared my chickens away and broke three baskets worth of eggs ...And then there was one of em, the son of a bitchpardon my languagewho, as soon as we were alone, took advantage . . .

  Took advantage how?

  Took advantage of me, touched my breasts. At a certain

  point it got to where I couldnt take it anymore and I started crying. It didnt matter that I kept saying I wouldnt ever do any harm to Dr. Mistrettas niece cause the doctor even gives my husband his medicines for free ...But he just didnt want to hear it.

  The coffee was excellent.

  Listen, Angela, I need you to try and remember something.

  Ill do whatever you want.

  Do you remember when you said that after Susanna was kidnapped, a car came here one night and you thought it might be a client?

  Yessir.

  Okay, now that things have settled down, can you calmly try to remember what you did when you heard that cars motor?

  Didnt I already tell you?

  You said you got out of bed because you thought it was a client.

  Yessir.

  A client who hadnt told you he was coming, however.

  Yessir.

  You got out of bed, and then what did you do?

  I came in here and turned on the light.

  This was the new element, the thing the inspector had been looking for. Therefore she must also have seen something, in addition to what shed heard.

  Stop right there. Which light?

  The one outside. The one thats over the door and when its dark it lights up the yard in front of the house. When my

  husband was still okay, we used to eat outside in the summertime. The switch is right there, see it?

  And she pointed to it. It was on the wall between the door and the little window.

  And then?

  Then I looked out the window, which was half open. But the card already turned around, I just barely saw it from behind.

  Do you know anything about cars,Angela?

  Me? said the girl. I dont know the first thing!

  But you
managed to see the back of the car, you just told me.

  Yessir.

  Do you remember what color it was?

  Angela thought about this a moment.

  I cant really say, Inspector. Mightve been blue, black, dark green ...But Im sure about one thing: it wasnt light, it was dark.

  Now came the hardest question.

  Montalbano took a deep breath and asked it. And Angela answered at once, somewhat surprised at not having thought of it first.

  Oh, yes, thats true!

  Then she immediately made a face, looking confused.

  But . . . whats that got to do with it?

  In fact its got nothing to do with it, he hastened to reassure her. I asked you because the car Im looking for looked a lot like that one.

  He got up and held out his hand to her.

  I have to go now.

  Angela also stood up.

  You want a really, really fresh egg?

  Before the inspector could answer, shed pulled one out of a basket. Montalbano took it, tapped it twice against the table, and sucked out the contents. It had been years since hed last tasted an egg like that.

  At a junction on the way back, he saw a sign that said montereale 18 km. He turned and took this road. Perhaps it was the taste of the egg that made him realize he hadnt been to Don Cosimos shop for quite some time. It was a tiny little place where one could still find things that had long disappeared from Vig, such as little bunches of oregano, concentrate of sun-dried tomatoes and, most of all, a special vinegar made from strong, naturally fermented red wine. Indeed hed noticed that the bottle he had in the kitchen had barely two fingers worth left. He therefore needed urgently to restock.

  It took him an incredibly long time to reach Montereale. Hed driven at a snails pace, in part because he was thinking of the implications of what Angela had confirmed, in part because he enjoyed taking in the new landscape. In town, as he was about to turn onto the little street that led to the shop, he noticed a sign indicating no entry. This was new. It hadnt been there before. It meant he would have to make a long detour. He was better off leaving the car in the little piazza that was right there, and taking a little walk. He pulled over, stopped, opened the car door, and saw a uniformed traffic cop in front of him.