Auntie Poldi and the Sicilian Lions

by Mario Giordano

  Her problem was how to make the contents of the transparent folder fit this hypothesis, because the photograph she’d taken simply failed to enlighten her. My cousin Samuele, the computer salesman son of Aunt Luisa, had casually waved the magic wand of commercial image enhancement software over the photo. He enlarged it, adjusted the focus and contrast, lightened the shadows a little, and – bingo – one could more or less make out what Russo and Patanè had been studying with such interest. But only more or less, because the image remained badly pixelated like a photograph of a galaxy on the outskirts of the universe, and required no little imagination. With the best will in the world, it was impossible to make out any lion, mosaics, country houses or ancient art treasures on the photo, however hard Poldi gazed at it from every angle. Rather, it seemed that the exposed sheet inside the folder was a document of some kind with an illustration beneath it. The text of the document was illegible, pixelated mush, and Poldi surmised that the three-colour illustration was a structural drawing or diagram. Or something quite else.

  “Hell’s bells,” she said in a disappointed growl as she pinned up the photo. Then, because she didn’t want to seem ungrateful to the mechanics of chance, she added, “Namaste, camera.”

  Because everything in the world, my Auntie Poldi felt convinced, possessed a soul. To her there were no inanimate objects, only mute ones, so it was better to treat them with respect. If you did, they could sometimes prove remarkably generous.

  Vague threats had never deterred my Auntie Poldi from anything, so she showed up at Russo’s tree nursery the very next day and spoke to his workers again. When was the last time they’d seen Valentino, what was his relationship to the boss, and had they noticed anything unusual about the recent behaviour of either man? She had no more success than she’d had on the two previous occasions.

  One of her interlocutors was Turi, the old man with the missing little finger. “Look, signora,” he said unhappily, purging his Italian of as much Sicilian dialect as possible, “we aren’t allowed to talk to you – the boss has expressly forbidden us to. We don’t know anything anyway. Poor Valentino was a good lad, and that’s the way we all want to remember him. So please, signora, leave us to do our work in peace and go home. It really would be the best thing for everyone.”

  Poldi was about to persist, needless to say, but before she could tackle poor Turi again she saw him stiffen with panic. Remarkably agile despite her bulk, she spun round and saw two dappled brown shadows streaking towards her. Not Oscar and Lady, the friendly mongrels, but two nightmares on four legs. Even before she could utter a cry, they sprang at her and knocked her over on her back amid the pruned olive trees. She caught a glimpse of her wig as it came adrift and flew up into the summer sky, then all she could see was a pair of vicious canines barking furiously in her face.

  In shock, she simply stared at the German shepherds for one, two, three seconds. Then she emitted a full-throated yell that conveyed all the rage and fear within her.

  “GETOFFMEYOUFILTHYBRUTES.”

  This left the dogs quite cold. They continued to bark just as loudly and didn’t retreat an inch, snapping at my aunt if she stirred but not biting her.

  “Hans. Franz. Enough. Heel.”

  A crisp command in German, with a strong Italian accent. It’s an odd thing, the Italian predilection for ordering dogs around in German. I have no idea how it originated.

  The dogs pricked up their ears and got off Poldi. This enabled my aunt to sit up and obey her immediate impulse: she groped for her wig in the dust and hurriedly replaced it just before Russo’s shadow fell across her.

  “We meet again, signora.”

  He sounded as dispassionate as a supermarket cashier, almost bored. Poldi tried to scramble to her feet but was defeated by her bad knee. Kneeling in front of Russo in a supremely humiliating way, she made another vain attempt to rise. At a sign from Russo, two members of his staff eventually set her back on her feet. Hans and Franz continued to growl at her viciously.

  “I must have failed to express myself clearly enough yesterday,” Russo began, once Poldi was standing in front of him, panting.

  “Would you put on a show like this if the police were here?” she growled.

  “Glad you reminded me. I must call the Carabinieri at once and report a case of trespass. It wouldn’t surprise me if something has been damaged or stolen.”

  “If you think I’m going to piss my pants, you arrogant bastard, think again,” she yelled at him in Bavarian.

  “Have a nice day, signora.”

  Russo turned on his heel and clicked his tongue, whereupon the German shepherds sheered off and trotted back to the administration building. Poldi adjusted her wig, striving to convey dignity and composure. She was aware that she had made an enemy.

  Fuck him, she said to herself.

  Montana turned up that same afternoon.

  “Would you care to tell me what you’ve been up to?”

  He was looking positively furious. Poldi thought it suited him better than his hangdog expression. Far more in keeping with his dark-blue suit and dark-blue shirt, aviator sunglasses and well-polished brogues. He didn’t look creased and crumpled any more, but filled with indignation and Italianità. He seemed impervious even to the heat. “He’s smartened himself up,” was Poldi’s first thought when she answered the door. Her second thought was adults only.

  “I told you to keep out of it,” he thundered. “Even here in Sicily, the police are responsible for murder inquiries. No one else.”

  Poldi treated him to a long, meaningful look. “Are you through?”

  Montana drew a deep breath. “No, far from it.”

  “Then you’d better come in, you’re standing right in the sun. Coffee?”

  “I mean it, Donna Poldi,” Montana insisted as he followed her into the house. “You’re merely making trouble for me and hampering my inquiries.”

  “How?”

  “Don’t you understand? When Russo makes a complaint, he naturally goes to the very top. Colonello La Rosa of the Carabinieri is a good friend of his.”

  “But you’re State Police.”

  “That’s just it. The colonello naturally calls my chief at once and gives him hell. What’s all this about some German woman conducting unofficial inquiries into the Candela case, not to mention harassing honest citizens and breaking the law? My boss and the colonello detest each other and seize any opportunity to get a dig in. The chief was naturally incensed by this. He calls me, reads me the riot act and threatens to take me off the case unless I get things under control.”

  Poldi handed Montana a cup of coffee and proffered the whisky bottle. “Like a dash?”

  “Dai,” growled Montana.

  Pleased by this imperative in the familiar second person singular – it meant “Go ahead” – Poldi topped up his cup and treated herself to a dash as well.

  This time, Montana downed his espresso immediately.

  “I get it,” said Poldi. “You’re scared of being taken off the case. Or even of being fired.”

  He gave a little bark of laughter. “Nonsense, I’m not scared. Nobody’s going to take me off the case or fire me – I’d like to see them try. Nobody else wants the confounded case, but I don’t want to look like the kind of fool who can be led by the nose, not in front of my colleagues.”

  Montana held out his coffee cup and Poldi promptly poured him another slug. “Ah, now I get it,” she said. “You don’t want to look bad.”

  This cupful, too, went straight down the hatch. “Precisely,” he said.

  For this is the worst thing that can happen to any Italian male, especially a Sicilian. Economic crises, volcanic eruptions, corrupt politicians, emigration, the Mafia, uncollected rubbish and overfishing of the Mediterranean – he can endure anything with fatalism and a bella figura. The main thing is never to present a brutta figura, a figuraccia. Bella figura is the Italian credo. The basic equipment for this includes a well-groomed, unostentatiously fash
ionable appearance, a pair of good shoes and the right make of sunglasses. Above all, though, bella figura means always looking good, never foolish. For an Italian this is a must, not an option, and quite indispensable. It also means you don’t embarrass your fellow men. Impatience is unacceptable and direct confrontations are taboo. You share restaurant bills with your friends, don’t put your foot in it, never receive guests in a dirty or untidy home, ask no intimate questions, address anyone with a university degree as dottore, bring some dessert with you when invited to dinner, and – even at the risk of rupturing your abdomen – finish everything on your plate. You put your faith in beauty and proportionality and try to make the world a better place. Sometimes you even succeed.

  My Auntie Poldi and the commissario were standing close together, coffee cups in hand like little security barriers. Poldi didn’t speak, just looked at Montana expectantly, and he got the message.

  Which was that he first had to deliver.

  “We’ve found various clues on Valentino’s body. That’s all I can tell you.”

  Poldi pulled a disapproving face.

  “Soil on the soles of his shoes and traces of gorse pollen,” Montana amplified. “But there’s gorse all over Sicily. We’re still checking where the soil came from.”

  “Not from the beach, in other words.”

  “We’re working on it.”

  “What about the red sand?”

  “It’s not from around here, anyway, because it doesn’t contain any volcanic particles.”

  “Can you hazard a guess?”

  Montana shrugged his shoulders. “Sicily’s a big island.”

  “What about the autopsy?”

  He shook his head. “No signs of a struggle. Valentino was simply shot at point-blank range.”

  “And his mobile phone?”

  Montana shook his head again.

  Poldi thought for a moment, then nodded. “Okay. I promise not to bother Russo again.”

  “You must promise to stay out of the case altogether.”

  Poldi wouldn’t go as far as that. “Come with me. I want to show you something.”

  She led Montana to the corkboard in her bedroom. Logically enough, she also combined this with a subtle innuendo conveyed by the discreet scent of roses with which she had previously perfumed her bed.

  Montana, still holding his empty espresso cup like a protective talisman, groaned when he saw the collage of photographs, newspaper cuttings and woollen threads.

  “This must stop, signora.”

  Poldi tapped the photos of Valentino and Russo, which were linked by a thick red thread. “I feel sure that Valentino had been doing some kind of dirty work for Russo. Among other things…” – she ran her finger along a green thread leading to another photo – “the theft of a lion sculpture from Femminamorta. Valentino’s conscience may have pricked him and he wanted out. That made him a risk, so he had to be eliminated.”

  “That’s utterly implausible,” Montana exclaimed nervously.

  “Wait,” cried Poldi, and she pointed to the pixelated photo of the transparent folder. “Yesterday I happened, purely by chance, to see Russo and Patanè putting their heads together in Taormina. They were poring over this. What do you think it is?”

  Montana examined the photo, peevishly at first. Then he detached it from the big collection of items on the wall and looked at it more closely.

  “Well?” Poldi said tensely.

  He handed the photo back. “Part of a topographical map, I’d say.”

  Poldi would never have thought of that.

  “Exactly,” she cried. “And of what area?”

  “How should I know? What’s it supposed to prove, anyway? Do you have a copy?”

  “Keep it,” she said magnanimously.

  Montana pocketed the print as if it were the business card of some irksome sales rep. “Listen to me: Italo Russo enjoys a spotless reputation. He’s one of the biggest local employers and a generous patron of various social institutions and projects.”

  “A typical Mafioso,” was all Poldi said. “And don’t tell me the Mafia is an invention of the North Italian fascists.”

  With a sigh, Montana put his coffee cup down. “I must go. You’ve made me a promise.”

  “Don’t worry, commissario. I take a keen interest in your bella figura.”

  Poldi no longer found it hard to keep her promise after her encounter with the attack dogs. But she got no further with the case; she simply got stuck like an old lift and felt as if her brakes had locked at high speed. Not even Montana’s suggestion got her any further. Riposto’s public library contained dozens of volumes of maps of the surrounding area, but having combed them without success she gave up. Especially as there was no certainty that the map in question showed part of the immediate vicinity.

  In the hope that Montana would again show up at her house with some new suggestion or on some threadbare pretext, Poldi spent the ensuing days simply waiting. But he didn’t come on Saturday, nor on Sunday, nor on Monday. Nor did he phone her. Instead, she received a call from Mimì Pastorella di Belfiore. Although he spoke German as before, my aunt didn’t immediately recognize his sibilant whisper.

  “But Donna Isolde, we had such a lively discussion about Hölderlin.”

  The penny dropped with an unpleasant clang.

  “Er… Oh yes, of course.”

  “I feel we should pick up the thread of our joint passion once more and as soon as possible. Don’t you?”

  Poldi broke out in a sweat. “What did you have in mind?”

  “How about dinner this evening, Donna Isolde?”

  “Er, no, I’m awfully sorry, Signor Pastorella, but —”

  “Mimì. Please call me Mimì, Donna Isolde.”

  “I’m awfully sorry, Mimì, but I’ve got a family engagement this evening.”

  “I quite understand. Then make it tomorrow night. There’s something I’d like to show you.”

  “I’m afraid I won’t be able to make it tomorrow night either, Mimì. The whole of next week is out, and the one after that is even busier – I’m completely booked up.”

  Mimì didn’t speak. Unable to hear anything but his faint breathing, Poldi was afraid she might have given him a stroke.

  “How about if I call you when it’s convenient?” she asked in a bright, conversational tone.

  “Please do that, Donna Poldina.” His voice sounded even fainter and more feeble than before. “I shall await your call.”

  Poldi hung up in a lather. “My God, that’s all I bloody well needed.” Then, as if the phone were to blame for everything, she snarled at it: “Don’t call me again. Don’t put anyone through unless it’s Montana, capisci?”

  But zilch. No Montana. They were difficult days. Never had her thirst seemed greater, the heat more unbearable, life more complicated, the next step more arduous. But Poldi kept a grip on herself. She didn’t touch a drop, even though it demanded titanic self-control.

  She would have liked to sit on her roof terrace, gazing out over the sea and smoking like Etna, but her right knee was playing up again and made it agony for her to climb stairs. So she pinned a notice to her front door – “SONO AL BAR” – and plonked herself down outside the Bar Cocuzza, where she drank ice-cold almond milk and smoked one MS after another.

  “Namaste, life,” she sighed, gazing at the sea, and gave the sad signora a friendly nod. “The rest of the world can kiss my ass.”

  All she did apart from that was hanker for nightfall, for Montana, for a sign, an idea – for something. At least she wasn’t waiting for death any more. That was a start.

  6

  Describes how Poldi crosses swords with an incorruptible public servant at Valentino’s funeral and makes a discovery. On the following Sunday she goes mushroom-picking and promptly makes two further discoveries. She then does something out of character and is reminded of Ruppertstrasse in Munich.

  My Auntie Poldi did not see Montana again until Tuesday, at Valentin
o’s funeral. Although she hadn’t received an invitation, she was fortunate that Signora Anzalone from next door was always au courant where funerals were concerned.

  The little cemetery was situated in a suburb of Acireale near the motorway, amid lemon orchards, expanses of wasteland and unofficial rubbish dumps. Isolated cypresses and palm trees reared their heads behind the drystone walls, which were plastered with old advertising posters. Poldi noticed as she drove through the little suburb of Aci Catena that they included a lot of advertisements for fortune tellers and palmists.

  By the time she got to the cemetery car park, the mourners had already assembled in front of the gateway, which resembled a small, overly pretentious provincial railway station. Poldi found this somehow appropriate. Montana was not among the mourners, she was disappointed to note. Nor was Russo, but she did spot Valentino’s parents. Standing beside the coffin with the padre, they were heatedly haranguing an elderly man, who was stubbornly shaking his head. There was clearly a problem of some kind.

  Poldi was once more wearing her black dress, plus a veil for camouflage. She had really meant to remain inconspicuously in the background, observing everything with forensic professionalism, but her curiosity was aroused by the dispute, which was becoming ever more heated and involved the noisy participation of more and more of the mourners. As far as she could gather when she had edged a little closer, it was about a missing marca da bollo on the burial permit.

  The principle is both simple and effective. In Italy, the payment of administrative fees is certified by little official stamps or stickers affixed to the documents in question. These marche da bollo can be purchased in tabacchi, which, in addition to cigarettes, purvey lottery tickets, picture postcards, local bus tickets, newspapers, stationery, chewing gum, gossip and useful information about the neighbourhood.

  The document which Valentino’s father was brandishing in the old man’s face was adorned with an administrative stamp of this kind. An insufficient one, however, because instead of the requisite twenty-three euros fifty cents only sixteen had been paid. And because of the missing seven euros fifty cents the cemetery janitor was refusing to allow the Candelas to enter. There was nothing to be done – he simply shook his head with adamantine obstinacy and invoked the regulations. Needless to say, someone had already set off for the nearest tabacchi to purchase the missing stamp, but he seemed to have gone missing too.