Patience of the Spider

by Andrea Camilleri

  As Enzo was working for him, he drank a third glass of liqueur at his leisure. The restaurateur returned and handed him the number.

  “People around town have been talking about the doctor,” he said.

  “And what are they saying?”

  “That this morning he went to the notary’s to do the pa-perwork for donating the villa he lives in. He’s going to move in with his brother, the geologist, now that his wife has passed away.” “Who’s he donating the villa to?”

  “Oh, apparently some orphanage in Montelusa.” From the restaurant phone, Montalbano called first Dr.

  Mistretta’s office, then his home. There was no answer. No doubt the doctor was at his brother’s villa for the wake. And no doubt only the family was there, unbothered by policemen or journalists. He dialed the number. The telephone rang a long time before somebody picked up.

  “The Mistretta home.”

  “Montalbano here. Is that you, Doctor?”

  “Yes.”

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “Look, we can do it tomorrow after—”

  “No.”

  The doctor’s voice cracked.

  “You want to see me now?”

  “Yes.”

  The doctor let a little time elapse before speaking again.

  “All right, though I find your insistence quite inappropriate. You’re aware that the funeral is tomorrow?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will it take very long?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “Where do you want to meet?”

  “I’ll be over in twenty minutes, maximum.” Exiting the trattoria, he noticed that the weather had changed. Heavy rain clouds were approaching from the sea.

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  17

  Seen from the outside, the villa was in total darkness, a black bulk against a sky black with night and clouds. Dr. Mistretta had opened the gate and stood there waiting for the inspector’s car to appear. Montalbano drove in, parked, and got out, but waited in the garden for the doctor to close the gate. A faint light shone from a lone window with its shutter ajar; it came from the dead woman’s room, where her husband and daughter were keeping watch. One of the two French doors in the salon was closed, the other ajar, but it cast only a dim light into the garden, because the overhead chandelier was not lit.

  “Come inside.”

  “I prefer to stay outside. We can go in if it starts raining,” said the inspector.

  They walked in silence to the wooden benches and sat down like the time before. Montalbano pulled out a pack of cigarettes.

  “Want one?”

  “No, thank you. I’ve decided to quit smoking.” Apparently the kidnapping had led both uncle and niece to make vows.

  “What was it you so urgently needed to tell me?”

  “Where are your brother and Susanna?”

  “In my sister-in-law’s room.”

  Who knows whether they’d opened the window to let a little air into the room? Who knows whether there was still that ghastly, unbearable stench of medication and illness?

  “Do they know I’m here?”

  “I told Susanna, but not my brother.”

  How many things had been kept, and were still being kept, from the poor geologist?

  “So, what did you want to tell me?”

  “Let me preface it by saying that I’m not here in an official capacity. But I can be if I want.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You will. It depends on your answers.”

  “Then get on with your questions.”

  That was the problem. The first question was like a first step down a path of no return. He closed his eyes—the doctor couldn’t see, anyway—and began.

  “You have a patient who lives in a cottage off the road to Gallotta, a man who flipped his tractor and—”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know the Good Shepherd Clinic, which is two and a half miles from—”

  “What kind of questions are these? Of course I know it. I go there often. So what? Are you going to recite a list of my patients?”

  No. No list of patients. L’omu è sceccu di consiguenza . And you, that night in your SUV, with your heart racing madly, your blood pressure soaring because of what you were doing—since you had to deposit the helmet and backpack in two different places—what roads did you take? The ones you knew best! It was almost as though you weren’t driving the car, but it was driving you . . .

  “I just wanted to point out to you that Susanna’s helmet was found near the path leading to your patient’s house, and the backpack was recovered almost directly in front of the Good Shepherd Clinic. Did you know?” “Yes.”

  Matre santa! Bad move! The inspector would never have expected it.

  “And how did you find out?”

  “From newspapers, the television, I don’t remember.”

  “Impossible. The newspapers and television never mentioned those discoveries. We succeeded in letting nothing leak out.”

  “Wait! Now I remember! You told me yourself, when we were sitting right here, on this very bench!”

  “No, Doctor. I told you those objects had been found, but I didn’t say where. And you know why? Because you didn’t ask me.”

  And that was the snag which at the time the inspector had perceived as a kind of hesitation and couldn’t immediately explain. It was a perfectly natural question, but it hadn’t been asked, and actually stopped the flow of the discussion, like a line omitted from a printed page. Even Livia had asked him where he’d found the Simenon novel! And the oversight was due to the fact that the doctor knew perfectly well where the helmet and backpack had been found.

  “But . . . but Inspector! There could be dozens of possible explanations for why I didn’t ask you! Do you realize what kind of state I was in at the time? You want to construct God-knows-what out of the flimsiest of—” “—the flimsiest of spiderwebs, perhaps? You have no idea how apt the metaphor is. Just think, initially my construction rested on an even flimsier thread.”

  “Well, if you’re the first to admit it . . .”

  “Indeed I am. And it concerned your niece. Something Francesco, her ex-boyfriend, said to me. Do you know Susanna has left him?”

  “Yes, she’s already told me about it.”

  “It’s a touchy subject. I’m a bit reluctant to broach it, but—”

  “But you have to do your job.”

  “Do you think I would act this way if I was doing my job? What I was going to say was: But I want to know the truth.”

  The doctor said nothing.

  At that moment a female figure appeared on the threshold of the French window, took a step forward, and stopped.

  Jesus, the nightmare was coming back! It was a bodiless head, with long blond hair, suspended in air! Just as he’d seen at the center of the spiderweb! Then he realized that Susanna was wearing all black, to mourn her mother, and her clothes blended in with the night.

  The girl resumed walking, came towards them, and sat down on a bench. As the light didn’t reach that far, one could only barely make out her hair, a slightly less dense point of darkness. She didn’t greet them. Montalbano decided to continue as though she wasn’t there.

  “As often happens between lovers, Susanna and Francesco had intimate relations.”

  The doctor became agitated, uneasy.

  “You have no right . . . And anyway, what’s that got to do with your investigation?” he said with irritation.

  “It’s got a lot to do with it. You see, Francesco told me he was always the one to ask, if you know what I mean. Whereas, on the day she was kidnapped, it was she who took the initiative.” “Inspector, honestly, I do not understand what my niece’s sexual behavior has to do with any of this. And I wonder if you know what you’re saying or are simply raving. So I’ll ask you again, what is the point?” “The point is that when Francesco told me this, he said Susanna may have had a premonition . . . But
I don’t believe in premonitions. It was something else.”

  “And what, in your opinion, was it?” the doctor asked sar-castically.

  “A farewell.”

  What had Livia said the evening before her departure?

  “These are our last hours together, and I don’t want to spoil them.” She’d wanted to make love. And to think that theirs was to be only a brief separation. What if it had been a long and final goodbye? Because Susanna was already thinking that regardless of whether her plans came to a good or bad end, they inevitably spelled the end of their love. This was the price, the infinitely high price, that she had to pay.

  “Because she’d put in her request to go to Africa two months before,” the inspector continued. “Two months. Which was surely when she got that other idea.”

  “What other idea? Listen, Inspector, don’t you think you’re abusing—”

  “I’m warning you,” Montalbano said icily. “You’re giving the wrong answers and asking the wrong questions. I came here to lay my cards on the table and reveal my suspicions . . .

  or rather, my hopes.”

  Why had he said “hopes”? Because hope was what had tipped the scales entirely to one side, in Susanna’s favor. Because that word was what had finally convinced him.

  The word completely flummoxed the doctor, who wasn’t able to say anything. And for the first time, out of the silence and darkness came the girl’s voice, a hesitant voice, as though laden, indeed, with hope: the hope of being understood, to the bottom of her heart.

  “Did you say . . . hope?”

  “Yes. The hope that a great capacity for hatred might turn into a great capacity for love.”

  From the bench where the girl was sitting he heard a kind of sob, which was immediately stifled. He lit a cigarette and saw, by the lighter’s glow, that his hand was trembling slightly.

  “Want one?” he asked the doctor.

  “I said no.”

  They were firm in their resolutions, these Mistrettas. So much the better.

  “I know there was no kidnapping. That evening, you, Susanna, took a different road home, a little-used dirt road, where your uncle was waiting for you in his SUV. You left your motorbike there, got in the car, and crouched down in back. And your uncle drove off to his villa. There, in the building next to the doctor’s villa, everything had been prepared some time before: a bed, provisions, and so on. The cleaning woman had no reason whatsoever to set foot in there. Who would ever have thought of looking for the kidnap victim at her uncle’s house? And that was where you recorded the messages. Among other things, you, Doctor, in your disguised voice, spoke of billions. It’s hard for people over a certain age to get used to thinking in euros. That was also where you shot your Polaroids, on the back of which you wrote some words, trying your best to make your handwriting legible, since, like all doctors’ handwriting, yours is indecipherable. I’ve never been inside that building, Doctor, but I can say for certain that you had a new telephone extension installed—” “How can you say that?” asked Carlo Mistretta.

  “I know because the two of you came up with a truly brilliant idea for averting suspicion. You seized an opportunity on the fly. After learning that I was coming to the villa, Susanna called in the second recorded message, the one specifying the ransom amount, as I was speaking with you. But I heard, without understanding at first, the sound a phone makes when the receiver on an extension is picked up. Anyway, it wouldn’t be hard to get confirmation. All I need to do is call the phone company. And that could constitute evidence, Doctor. Shall I go on?” “Yes.”

  It was Susanna who’d answered.

  “I also know, because you told me yourself, Doctor, that there is an old winepress in that building. Thus there must be an adjacent space with the vat for the fermentation of the must. I am willing to bet that this room has a window. Which you, Doctor, opened when you took the snapshot, since it was daytime. You also used a mechanic’s lamp to better illuminate the inside of the vat. But there’s one detail you neglected in this otherwise elaborate, convincing production.” “A detail?”

  “Yes, Doctor. In the photograph, right below the edge of the vat, there’s what appears to be a crack. I had that detail enlarged. It’s not a crack.”

  “What is it?”

  The inspector could feel that Susanna had been about to ask the same question. They still couldn’t figure out where they’d made a mistake. He sensed the motion of the doctor’s head as it turned toward Susanna, the questioning look in his eyes, even though these things were not visible.

  “It’s an old fermentation thermometer. Unrecognizable, covered with spiderwebs, blackened, and so encrusted into the wall that it looks like it’s part of it. And therefore you couldn’t see it. But it’s still there. And this is the conclusive proof. I need only get up, go inside, pick up the phone, have two of my men come and stand guard over you, call the judge for the warrant, and begin searching your villa, Doctor.” “It would be a big step forward for your career,” Mistretta said mockingly.

  “Once again, you’re entirely wrong. My career has no more steps to take, neither forward nor backward. What I’m trying to do is not for you, Doctor.”

  “Are you doing it for me?”

  Susanna sounded astonished.

  Yes, for you. Because I’ve been spellbound by the quality, the intensity, the purity of your hatred. I am fascinated by the fiendish nature of the thoughts that come into your head, by the coldness and courage and patience with which you carried out your intentions, by the way you calculated the price you had to pay and were ready to pay it. And I’m also doing it for myself, because it’s not right that there’s always someone who suffers and someone who benefits from the other’s suffering, with the approval of the so-called law. Can a man, having reached the end of his career, rebel against a state of things he himself has helped to maintain?

  Since the inspector wasn’t answering, the girl said something that wasn’t even a question.

  “The nurse told me you wanted to see Mama.” I wanted to see her, yes.To see her in bed, wasted away, no longer a body but almost a thing, yet something that groaned, that suffered horribly . . . Though I didn’t realize it at the time, I wanted to see where your hatred had first taken root and grown uncontrollably with the stench of medications, excrement, sweat, sickness, vomit, pus, and gangrene that had devastated the heart of that thing lying in bed.The hatred with which you infected those close to you . . . But not your father—no, your father never knew a thing, never knew that it was all a sham . . . He anguished terribly over what he believed was a real kidnapping . . . But this, too, was a price you were willing to pay, and to have others pay, because true hatred, like love, doesn’t balk at the despair and tears of the innocent.

  “I wanted to understand.”

  It began to thunder out at sea. The lightning was far away, but the rain was approaching.

  “Because the idea of taking revenge on your uncle was first born in that room, on one of those terrible nights you spent taking care of your mother. Isn’t that so, Susanna? At first it seemed like an effect of your fatigue, your discourage-ment, your despair, but soon it became harder and harder to get that idea out of your head. And so, almost as a way to kill time, you started thinking of how you might make your ob-session a reality. You drew up a plan, night after night. And you asked your uncle to help you, because . . .” Stop.You can’t say that. It just came to you now, this very moment.You need to think it over before—“Say it,” the doctor said softly but firmly. “Because Susanna realized that I had always been in love with Giulia. It was a love without hope, but it prevented me from having a life of my own.” “And therefore you, Doctor, on impulse, you decided to collaborate on the destruction of Antonio Peruzzo’s reputation. By manipulating public opinion to perfection. The coup de grâce came when you replaced the money-filled suitcase with the duffel full of scrap paper.” It began to drizzle. Montalbano stood up.

  “Before leaving, to set my con
science at rest . . .” His voice came out too solemnly, but he was unable to change it.

  “To set my conscience at rest, I cannot allow those six billion lire to remain in—”

  “In our hands?” Susanna finished his sentence. “The money is no longer here. We didn’t even keep the money that was lent by Mama and never given back. Uncle Carlo took care of it, with the help of a client of his, who will never talk.

  It was divided up, and by now most of it has already been transferred abroad. It’s supposed to be sent anonymously to about fifty different humanitarian organizations. If you want, I can go in the house and get the list.” “Fine,” said the inspector. “I’m leaving.” He indistinctly saw the doctor and the girl stand up as well.

  “Are you coming to the funeral tomorrow?” asked Susanna. “I would really like—”

  “No,” said the inspector. “My only wish is that you, Susanna, do not betray my hope.”

  He realized he was talking like an old man, but this time he didn’t give a damn.

  “Good luck,” he said in a soft voice.

  He turned his back to them, went out to his car, opened the door, turned on the ignition, and drove, but had to stop almost at once in front of the closed gate. He saw the girl come running under the now driving rain, her hair seeming to light up like fire when caught in the glare of the headlights. She opened the gate without turning around to look at him. And he, too, looked away.

  o o o

  On the road back to Marinella, the rain started falling in buckets. At a certain point he had to pull over because the windshield wipers couldn’t handle it. Then it stopped all at once. Entering the dining room, he realized he’d left the French door to the veranda open, and the floor had got all wet. He would have to mop it up. He turned on the outdoor light and went outside. The violent rainstorm had washed away the spiderweb. The shrub’s branches were sparkling clean and dripping wet.

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  AU T H O R ’ S N OT E

  This story is invented from top to bottom, at least I hope it is.

  Therefore the names of the characters and business, and the situations and events of the book, have no connection to reality.