The Track of Sand im-12

by Andrea Camilleri

  She resumed speaking.

  “At any rate, I’ve decided to stay another three or four days in Montelusa. I think I already mentioned that to you. I hope we’ll have a chance to meet. See you tomorrow, Salvo.”

  * * *

  He took a shower and went out on the veranda to eat.Adelina had made a salad of baby octopus big enough for four and some giant prawns to be dressed only with olive oil, lemon, salt, and black pepper.

  He ate and drank, managing only to think of idiocies.

  Then he got up and phoned Livia.

  “Why didn’t you call me yesterday?” was the first thing she said.

  How could he tell her he got drunk with Ingrid and it had completely slipped his mind?

  “There was no way.”

  “Why not?”

  “I was busy.”

  “With whom?”

  Jeez, what a pain in the ass!

  “What do you mean, with whom? With my men.”

  “What were you doing?”

  His balls were definitively broken.

  “We were having a competition.”

  “A competition?!”

  “Yes, to see who could say the stupidest shit imaginable.”

  “And you won, of course. You have no rivals in that field!”

  And thus began the usual relaxing nightly squabble.

  6

  After the phone call, he no longer felt like going to bed. He went back out on the veranda and sat down. He needed to distract himself a little, to think about something that had nothing to do with either Livia or the horse case.

  The night was calm but quite dark. He could barely see the slightly lighter line of the sea. Out on the water, directly in front of the veranda, was a jacklamp that in the darkness looked closer than it really was.

  At once a taste of lightly fried sole came back to him, between the tongue and palate. He swallowed emptily.

  He was ten years old when his uncle took him night-fishing with a jacklamp for the first and last time, after having pleaded with his wife for an entire evening.

  “An’ what if the boy falls inna sea?”

  “Whas got inna you’ head? If ’e falls inna sea, we fish ’im back out.There’s two of us, me ’n’ Ciccino, c’mon!”

  “An’ what if ’e’s cold?”

  “Gimme a sweater. If ’e’s cold, I’ll make ’im put it on.”

  “An’ what if ’e feels sleepy?”

  “He can sleep onna bottom o’ the boat.”

  “An’ you, Salvuzzo, you wanna go?”

  “Well . . .”

  He wanted nothing more, every time his uncle went out to fish. At last his aunt consented, after giving him a thousand warnings.

  That night, he remembered, was exactly like this one. Moonless.You could see all the lights along the coast.

  At a certain point, Ciccino, the sixty-year-old seaman who was rowing the boat, had said:

  “Turn it on.”

  And his uncle had turned on the jacklamp. A sort of pale blue light, very powerful.

  It gave him the impression that the sandy sea bottom had suddenly risen to the surface of the water, completely illuminated. He saw a school of tiny fish which, dazzled by the light, had suddenly frozen, staring at the jacklamp.

  There were transparent jellyfish, a couple of fish that looked like snakes, and some kind of crab crawling along . . .

  “You keep leaning out like that, you’ll fall in,” Ciccino said softly.

  Spellbound, he hadn’t even realized he was bending so far out of the boat that his face was about to touch the water. His uncle was standing astern, holding the ten-pointed harpoon, its ten-foot shaft tied to his wrist with another ten feet of rope.

  “Why,” he had asked Ciccino, also softly, so the fish wouldn’t flee, “are there two other harpoons in the boat?”

  “One is for fishing by the rocks and the other is for the open sea. The first one’s got firmer prongs, and the other’s sharper.”

  “And the one that Uncle’s got in his hand, what’s that?”

  “That’s a sand harpoon. It’s for catching sole.”

  “Where are they?”

  “They’re hiding under the sand.”

  “And how’s he see them if they’re under the sand?”

  “The sole burrow just barely under the sand, so you can still see the little black dots of their eyes. Look, you can see ’em yourself.”

  He squinted hard, but couldn’t see the little black dots.

  Then he felt the boat give a jolt and heard the harpoon swoosh powerfully into the water, as his uncle said:

  “Got ’im!”

  At the end of the fork was a sole as big as his arm, struggling in vain. Two hours later, after he’d caught about ten big soles, his uncle decided to rest.

  “Hungry?” Ciccino asked him.

  “A little.”

  “Shall I make you some?”

  “All right.”

  Boating the oars, the man opened a sack and pulled out a skillet and a little gas burner, along with a bottle of olive oil, a small bag of flour, and a smaller one of salt. He, the boy, watched the preparations, mystified. How could anyone eat at that hour of the night? Ciccino, meanwhile, had put the skillet on the burner, poured a bit of oil, covered two soles in flour, and began to fry them.

  “What about you?” his uncle asked.

  “I’ll make mine afterwards.They’re too big.Three won’t fit in the skillet.”

  While waiting to eat, his uncle told him that the hard thing about harpoon fishing was refraction, and explained what this was. But he didn’t understand a thing; all he understood was that the fish looked like it was here, when in fact it was over there.

  As soon as the sole began frying, the smell whetted his appetite. He held it over a sheet of newspaper as he ate it, burning his mouth and hands.

  In the forty-six years that had passed since that night, he had never experienced the same taste again.

  * * *

  The Milanese Kill on Saturdays was the title of a book of short shories by Scerbanenco that he had read many years ago. And they killed on Saturdays because all the other days they were too busy working.

  The Sicilians Don’t Kill on Sundays could, on the other hand, have been the title of a book that nobody had ever written.

  Because on Sundays the Sicilians go to morning Mass with the whole family, then go pay a visit to the grandparents, where they stay for lunch; in the afternoon they watch the match on television and, in the evening, again with the whole family, they go out for ice cream.Where would they find the time to kill anyone on Sundays?

  For this reason the inspector decided he would take his shower later than usual, certain he would not be disturbed by a phone call from Catarella.

  He got up, opened the French doors. Not a cloud, not a breath of wind.

  He went into the kitchen, made coffee, filled two cups, drank one in the kitchen, then took the other one into the bedroom. He took his cigarettes, lighter, and ashtray, set them down on the bedside table, and got back into bed, sitting up with two pillows behind his back.

  He drank his coffee, savoring it drop by drop, then fired up a cigarette, taking the second drag with double satisfaction. The first satisfaction was the taste of the nicotine on top of that of the caffeine; and the second, the fact that if Livia had been lying beside him, she would have issued the inevitable injunction:

  “Either you put out that cigarette, or I am leaving! How many times have I told you I don’t want you smoking in the bedroom?”

  And he would have been forced to put it out.

  Now, instead, he could smoke the whole fricking pack, and blow off the rest of creation.

  “Wouldn’t it be a good idea if you gave a little thought to the investigation?” Montalbano One asked him.

  “Would you just leave him in peace a moment?” Montalbano Two intervened, polemicizing with Montalbano One.

  “For a policeman, Sunday is a workday like any other!�
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  “But even God rested on the seventh day!”

  Montalbano pretended not to hear them and kept on smoking. When he’d finished the cigarette, he lay down in bed and tried closing his eyes again.

  Little by little, his nostrils began to fill with an ever so faint scent, very sweet, a scent that immediately made him think of the naked Rachele in her bathtub . . .

  Then he realized that Adelina hadn’t changed the pillowcase on which Ingrid had laid her head two nights before, and that his own body heat was now releasing the scent of her skin from the cloth.

  He tried to put up with this for a few minutes, but failed and had to get out of bed to avoid some perilous uprisings in the southerly regions.

  A cold shower washed away those wicked thoughts.

  “Why wicked?” Montalbano One intervened. “They’re perfectly fine and good thoughts!”

  “At his age?” Montalbano Two asked maliciously.

  When it came time to get dressed, a problem arose.

  Adelina didn’t come on Sundays, and therefore, as far as eating was concerned, he had no choice but to go to Enzo’s. But one couldn’t get served at Enzo’s before twelve-thirty. He wouldn’t come out of the trattoria for another hour and a half; in other words, around two.

  Would he have time to come back to Marinella and change clothes before Ingrid arrived? Being Swedish, she was sure to show up at three on the dot.

  No, the best thing was to get dressed up now.

  But how? Casual wear would do for the race, but what about the dinner? Could he bring along a small suitcase with a change of clothes? No, that would look silly.

  He decided on a gray suit he had worn only twice, for a funeral and a wedding. He got dressed to the nines, putting on a fine shirt and tie, and sparkling shoes. He looked in the mirror and found himself comical.

  He took it all off, down to his underpants, and sat down dejectedly on the bed.

  All at once he thought he’d found a solution: call up Ingrid and say that he’d been shot at, luckily only grazed by the bullet, but he could no longer . . .

  And what if she came running to Marinella? No problem. She would find him in bed with a great big bandage around his head. After all, he had a lifetime supply of gauze and elastic bandages in the house . . .

  “Come on, try to be serious!” said Montalbano One. “These are all excuses! The truth is you don’t feel like meeting those people!”

  “And if he doesn’t feel like it, is he still obligated to go, willy nilly? Where is it written that he absolutely has to go to Fiacca?” countered Montalbano Two.

  * * *

  The upshot was that the inspector showed up at Enzo’s at twelve-thirty in his gray suit, but with such a face . . .

  “What’s wrong, Inspector? Did somebody die?” Enzo asked him, seeing him dressed that way and wearing an expression fit for All Souls’ Day[6].

  Montalbano cursed the saints under his breath, but didn’t answer the question. He ate without interest. By quarter to three he was back at home. He had just enough time to freshen up, and then Ingrid arrived.

  “My, how elegant you are!” she said.

  She was in jeans and a blouse.

  “Is that what you’re wearing to the dinner, too?”

  “Of course not! I’m going to change. I’ve brought everything along.”

  Why was it so easy for women to take clothes on and off, while for men it was always such a complicated matter?

  * * *

  “Couldn’t you go a bit slower?”

  “But I’m going very slow.”

  He’d eaten almost nothing, and yet that little bit leapt up into his gullet every time Ingrid took a curve at seventy-five miles an hour or more.

  “Where’s the horse race being held?”

  “Outside of Fiacca.The Baron Piscopo di San Militello had a genuine hippodrome built for the occasion, just behind his villa. It’s small but fully equipped.”

  “And who is the Baron Piscopo?”

  “A very gentle, courteous man of about sixty, whose life is devoted to charitable works.”

  “And he made all his money by being gentle?”

  “He inherited his money from his father, a junior partner in a big German steel company, and made some good investments. Speaking of money, have you got any on you?”

  Montalbano balked.

  “You mean we have to pay to watch the race?”

  “No, but you’re supposed to place a bet on the winner. It’s sort of obligatory.”

  “Is there a pari-mutuel?”

  “Don’t be silly! The money from the bets goes to charity.”

  “And the people who win their bets, what do they get?”

  “The woman who wins the race rewards everyone who bet on her with a kiss. But some won’t accept.”

  “Why not?”

  “They say it’s out of gallantry. But the fact of the matter is that sometimes the winner is downright ugly.”

  “Do people wager a lot?”

  “Not too much.”

  “How much, more or less?”

  “A thousand, two thousand euros. Some wager more, though.”

  Shit! So what, for Ingrid, would constitute a large wager? A million euros? He felt himself beginning to sweat.

  “But I haven’t . . .”

  “You haven’t got that much?”

  “In my pocket I’ve got maybe a hundred euros at the most.”

  “Have you got your checkbook with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s better. A check is more elegant.”

  “All right, but for how much?”

  “Make it out for a thousand.”

  Say what you want about Montalbano, he certainly was not a cheapskate. But to throw away a thousand euros to watch a race in the middle of a sea of assholes really did not seem right to him.

  * * *

  When they were about three hundred yards from Baron Piscopo’s villa, they were stopped by a man in brand-spanking-new livery who looked like he’d stepped out of a seventeenth century painting.The one thing that clashed with the whole picture was that the man had the face of someone who had just walked out of Sing-Sing after a thirty-year stint in the cooler.

  “You can’t go any further in your car,” said the convict.

  “Why not?”

  “There’s no more room.”

  “What are we supposed to do?” asked Ingrid.

  “You can walk. Juss leave me the keys an’ I’ll park it m’self.”

  “You made us arrive late,” Ingrid lamented, as she grabbed a sort of bag from the trunk.

  “I did?”

  “Yes. Always saying, ‘Slow down, slow down . . . ’”

  Cars parked on both sides of the road, cars cluttering the vast patio. In front of the main entrance to the enormous, three-story villa with a turret on one side stood another guy in livery covered with golden squiggles. The majordomo? He looked to be at least ninety-nine years old and, indeed, was leaning on a sort of shepherd’s crook to keep from collapsing.

  “Hello, Armando,” Ingrid greeted him.

  “Hello, signora. Everyone’s outside,” said Armando in a voice as thin as a spiderweb.

  “We’ll join them straightaway. Here, please take this,” she said, handing him the bag,“and put it in Signora Esterman’s room.”

  Armando grabbed the near-weightless bag with one hand, but still it made him list to that side. Montalbano held him up.The man would list if so much as a fly landed on his shoulder.

  They crossed a great hall rather like the lobby of some ten-star Victorian hotel, another huge room jam-packed with portraits of ancestors, and another room even bigger and jam-packed with suits of armor and featuring three French doors in a row, all open and giving onto a broad, tree-lined lane. So far, aside from the ex-con and the majordomo, they had not crossed paths with another living soul.

  “Where is everybody?”

  “They’re already there. Hurry.”

&
nbsp; The lane continued straight for about fifty yards, then split into two lanes, one to the right and the other to the left.

  The moment Ingrid took the lane on the left, which was enclosed by very tall hedges, Montalbano, following behind, was met by a noisy barrage of voices, cries, and laughter.

  All at once he found himself on a lawn with small tables and chairs, big umbrellas, and chaises longues. There were even two very long tables with food and drinks and apposite waiters in white jackets. Off to one side was a little wooden cottage with a man standing in its rear window and a queue of people lined up in front of him.

  There were at least three hundred men and women crowding the lawn, some sitting, some standing, some speaking or laughing in groups. Beyond the lawn, one could see the so-called hippodrome.

  People were dressed as if it were Carnival, some in equestrian garb, others in top hats and coats and tails as if attending a reception by the Queen of England, others in jeans and turtlenecks, others in Tyrolean lederhosen and feather caps, others in forest-ranger uniforms (or so they appeared at least to the inspector), one guy in full Arab regalia, and others in shorts and flip-flops.Among the women there were some with hair so big you could have landed a helicopter on top of it, others in miniskirts up to their arm-pits, others in maxiskirts so long that anyone who came too close risked tripping up in them and breaking his neck, another in a bowler hat and nineteenth century riding costume, and a twentyish girl in skin-tight blue-jean short shorts which she could allow herself to wear thanks to the impressive hindquarters with which Mother Nature had endowed her.

  When he had finished gawking, the inspector noticed that Ingrid was no longer at his side. He felt lost. He had an overwhelming desire to turn tail, walk back up the great lane, through the villa’s salons, slip back into Ingrid’s car, and—

  “Ah, you must be Inspector Montalbano!” said a male voice.

  He turned around. The voice belonged to a man of about forty, very thin and very long, wearing a khaki bush jacket, shorts, knee socks, colonial pith helmet, and a pair of binoculars around his neck. He also had a pipe in his mouth. Maybe he thought he was in India at the time of English rule. He held out a soft, sweaty hand that felt to the inspector like wet bread.