The Safety Net

by Andrea Camilleri

  “And so we have to wait two or three days, for the principal to submit the request to the school board, or whatever it’s called, and for her to get an answer and a board-appointed psychologist for the task. Which, in plain language, means, knowing how these things go, that it’s going to waste at least a week of time.”

  Montalbano reacted furiously.

  “What, are they insane? With all this chaos of journalists, police commissioners, and ministers demanding updates and evidence, we can’t even afford a few days without any news. We’ll be branded incompetent at the very least!”

  “In the meanwhile,” Mimì cut in, “there is something we could do.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “We can start by talking to Salvuzzo. You can come to dinner at our place this evening and stay and talk to my son for as long as you like.”

  “Wrong,” said Montalbano.

  “Why?”

  “Because you’ve just finished telling me about your difficulty in relating to Salvuzzo. You can’t possibly think he’s going to open up to me with you and Beba present.”

  “There’s a way to get around that,” said Mimì. “Right after we’re done eating, Beba and I will go out to the movies. That way you’ll even be doing us a favor, since we’ve been needing a little time together alone.”

  Considering the fact that Beba was a good cook, the inspector accepted without hesitation.

  “You’ve got yourself a deal,” he said.

  “Eight-thirty okay with you?” Augello asked, standing up.

  “Fine,” said Montalbano.

  “Guess what? A complete waste of time,” said Fazio, after Augello had left.

  “Explain.”

  “I checked the names of all the kids in class III B at the records office. I have to revise my opinion. Not one of them had any blood relations to Mafia families. What’s so strange is that normally everyone around here’s got someone in Ucciardone prison, except for the kids in this class.”

  * * *

  The moment he stepped out of the office he was faced with a dilemma: Should he buy a dozen roses for Beba, or a dozen super-fresh cannoli?

  He settled the question by heading straight for the Caffè Castiglione. He’d just ordered the pastries when Engineer Sabatello, who’d been sitting at a table with two friends, joined him at the bar, leaning on a crutch. They exchanged a warm greeting.

  “I imagine you’ve got other things on your mind these days, and so I beg your pardon, but I just can’t control my curiosity. Did you learn anything new from Sidoti?”

  Montalbano, who’d practically forgotten all about the mystery of the wall, needed a few seconds before answering. Then he said:

  “He gave me a few details about what he saw at the scene of the suicide.”

  As he was saying it, the word “details” triggered a sort of short circuit in his brain. Details.

  That was it. Sidoti had told him something that might be an important detail, or not, though at the time he had paid it no mind. Now, however, that detail seemed so alive and present in his memory, and in need of explanation, that the words rolled off his tongue before his brain had actually formulated the question.

  “Was your father bald?”

  Sabatello was momentarily taken aback, then said:

  “Yes, he was, bald as a billiards ball. But why do you ask?”

  He had him there. Montalbano didn’t know why he’d asked, and preferred to turn back to what Sidoti had said to him without answering Sabatello’s question.

  “. . . and with the other hand he was trying to clean the blood off of his head.”

  “With his hand? With a handkerchief? Or with something else?”

  “With a handkerchief, but not one of those you blow your nose with, but one of those big kerchiefs like women use to wrap their heads . . .”

  “How did your father normally cover his head, when he would go out to work in the garden?”

  Sabatello seemed even more taken aback.

  “Well . . . wait . . . he had a big straw hat. Yes, that’s it! Wow, that really brings back the memories!”

  “Didn’t he ever cover his head with one of those big, colorful handkerchiefs that peasant women use—”

  “No,” Sabatello interrupted him. “If he ever wore something like that, it was Mamma who put it on him.”

  The barman of the café handed the inspector a packet with the cannoli.

  Sabatello held his hand out to Montalbano.

  “You know something, in the attic there are three wooden chests containing Papa’s papers. They were taken from the villa. I decided to open them and have a look inside. Can I let you know if I find anything interesting?”

  “Whenever and however you like,” said the inspector, shaking the engineer’s hand.

  * * *

  Nobody talked much during dinner. More than once during the meal, Beba—who’d cooked a delicious timbale of pasta rings and eggplant—tried to spark a discussion of what had happened at the school, but her words were always met with silence from the two men, who were anxious to finish eating, and with almost total indifference from Salvuzzo, as though he didn’t even know what they were talking about.

  Finally, Beba, indignant that she hadn’t even heard so much as a word of thanks, cleared the table, put on a little makeup, and dragged Mimì out of the house.

  Salvuzzo and Montalbano didn’t even look at each other.

  Not until they heard the front door closing did they start speaking, and it was the boy who spoke first.

  “Did Papa tell you what happened at the school?”

  “Yes.”

  “And now you want to know more from me?”

  It certainly wasn’t the best of starts, but Montalbano didn’t lose heart and decided that the best approach was to go on the offensive.

  “Your dad told me you actually started crying. Why? Were you scared?”

  Salvuzzo gave a start, and then looked Montalbano in the eye.

  “I wasn’t scared. I was offended.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I saw my father being punched around and not having the courage to fight back.”

  This was exactly the answer Montalbano had been expecting when he asked his question.

  “Are you so sure your father didn’t have the courage?”

  “No. I realized almost immediately why he didn’t react.”

  “Tell me, too.”

  “Because he wanted to protect us kids.”

  At this point the inspector knew he had opened a breach in Salvuzzo’s defenses.

  Satisfied, he stood up and, as if in his own home, went over to the glass liquor case, poured himself three fingers’ worth of whisky, and was about to sit back down when Salvuzzo said:

  “Could you come into my room for a minute, Zio?”

  “I’d be glad to.”

  Salvuzzo’s bedroom was in a state of nearly inconceivable chaos, but this very fact seemed to give it a reason for being.

  The desk was like the showcase of an electronics store, with a television, computer, iPod, iPad, three cell phones, a battery charger for all tastes, books upon books upon books, and notebooks large and small. Beside it was a chair so piled up with clothes that it looked like a home version of Pistoletto’s Venus of the Rags. Completely at ease, Salvuzzo invited Montalbano to sit down on the bed—but not before having pushed aside the hundreds of CDs, DVDs, socks, and small backpacks littered across it. The inspector settled in under a Beatles poster.

  Reassured by the fraternal presence of Yellow Submarine, he took his first sip of whisky.

  “Can you give me five minutes, Zio?”

  “Of course.”

  Salvuzzo sat down at his desk, turned on the screen of his PC, and with a speed that left Montalbano wide-eyed, he opened a few
icons as windows, closed them, wrote a message, answered another message, asked a question, meanwhile reading the messages on his cell phone and composing replies to them, as noises, sounds, and words came in as he fiddled with all the many different devices he had on his desktop.

  He did a hundred things all at the same time, his fingers dancing with a lightness reminiscent of a ballerina’s feet.

  What a difference from when he, Montalbano, was his age!

  In his own childhood bedroom he’d had a desk with only a lamp on it, always in the same place. He would study one book at a time, or at most with the help of a dictionary. And his interest never strayed outside the cone of light cast by the lamp.

  How had these kids’ brains developed over time? They were capable of maintaining a simultaneous interest in a thousand different stimuli: music, images, words, sounds, symbols, noises . . . And they seemed able to absorb it all with an ease that was probably only superficial, but involved a vast, all-encompassing surface, the surface of the whole world.

  He, for his part, had been taught to dive deep, whereas they had learned to navigate on the open seas.

  He was casting no judgment, but merely taking stock of the fact, since deep down he figured that maybe in a hundred years the kids would be better equipped than they were in his day.

  Then, at a certain point, Salvuzzo stopped poking around with his fingers, turned to Montalbano, and said:

  “I’m all yours.”

  “The first thing I would like to know,” said the inspector, “is whether you’ve talked about the incident with your classmates.”

  Salvuzzo shook his head no.

  “No, Zio, since school’s been closed—”

  “But what need is there for you to see one another in order to talk when you’ve got all these phones and computers?” Montalbano asked, cutting him off. “You’re glued to them day and night!”

  “No, Zio,” said Salvuzzo. “We haven’t been in touch because, after what happened, three or four of my friends came down with a fever from the fright. And some of the other kids have been forbidden by their parents to say a single word about it, and are being kept locked up at home like they were in jail. Other parents took their kids’ phones and computers away and drove them out to the country. The only one I’ve managed to talk to is Tindaro.”

  “And who’s Tindaro?”

  “He’s my best friend. We see each other every day, do our homework together, and also share a bench at school.”

  “And when talking to Tindaro, have you guys come up with any explanation for what happened?”

  “Well, we’ve certainly thought and talked a lot about it. But in the end we always come up empty. We just don’t get it.”

  The boy suddenly smiled.

  “What are you thinking?” the inspector asked.

  “Actually, Tindaro had a theory. But it’s so far-fetched that he was the first to tear it apart, and we ended up laughing about it for the rest of the day.”

  “Let me have a laugh, too.”

  “Since the TV crews need to shoot a scene inside a school classroom with students in it, last week they did some screen tests with kids from class III A and III B. They ended up choosing us, and they even made us try on some fifties-style clothes. Man! You guys were really sharp when you were young, Zio!”

  Montalbano protested.

  “Well, for your information, I wasn’t so sharp. I wasn’t even born! Now go on.”

  “Anyway, Tindaro got this idea that the two guys that came into the class might’ve been on some kind of vendetta by class III A. But that really doesn’t make any sense.”

  “You’re right, I agree with you,” said the inspector. “Even though nowadays some people are capable of doing just about anything to get on TV.”

  Montalbano changed the subject and got straight to the point.

  “Can you tell me what your first thought was when you saw those two guys come in?”

  Salvuzzo needed only a second to think.

  “I wasn’t thinking anything, Zio. I was just kind of shocked. I just sat there with my mouth hanging open. And then I got scared.”

  “You realized it was something serious?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I immediately realized those were real guns they had. I know guns.”

  “And what did you do?”

  “Well, when I heard Tindaro beside me whisper, ‘Oh, my God, these guys are gonna kill us,’ I squeezed his hand under the bench to give him courage.”

  “And then what?”

  “And then I witnessed my dad getting punched out, and I started crying . . .”

  “And then?”

  “And then I just sat there, like this, with my hands covering my face.”

  “Until it was over?”

  “No. I was watching them through my fingers.”

  “Did you notice anything in particular?”

  “I did notice one thing, but I don’t know if it wasn’t just my impression, and so—”

  “And so you’ll tell me just the same.”

  “Well, I had the impression that the shorter guy was scared.”

  “And what gave you that impression?”

  “I could see he was sweating. There were little drops of sweat all along his hairline.”

  Montalbano was fairly impressed at Salvuzzo’s powers of observation. Nobody else—not Puleo, not Mimì—had noticed that very important detail. He continued along the same lines.

  “Whereas the taller guy seemed more decisive and self-assured?” the inspector asked.

  “I can’t really say. Maybe he just had better self-control. Which scared me even more.”

  “Why?”

  “They seemed . . . I mean, I would have felt safer . . . I don’t know how to put it . . . They seemed like they were improvising, like they were doing something they weren’t used to doing, and therefore they were afraid of making a false move . . .”

  “I see . . .” Montalbano said pensively.

  There was a brief pause, and then the inspector changed the subject again.

  “I’m told there were some cases of bullying against a classmate of yours. Is that true?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are the bullies in your class?”

  “Yeah. They’ve got it in for Luigino. Luigino Sciarabba.”

  Despite the fact that Salvuzzo’s unease was plain to see, Montalbano continued.

  “Tell me something. Is it true you intervened in his defense?”

  “Who told you that?” the boy asked, surprised.

  “Your mother.”

  “Well, it’s like this, Zio. One morning in the schoolyard they started taunting him a lot more than usual. So he reacted, and they attacked him, and it turned into a kind of free-for-all. Since it was three against one, it seemed like the right thing for me to go and help him out, and then Tindaro joined in.”

  “Why, is Tindaro his friend, too?”

  “No, he’s my friend, and seeing me joining the fight he followed me. But we got the worst of it. I came out with a black eye and Tindaro took a kick in the knee that had him limping for three days.”

  “And can you tell me the names of these three bullies?” Montalbano asked point-blank.

  If Salvuzzo had seemed ill at ease moments before, it was now clear that he didn’t want to talk anymore about the whole thing. He just stared at the inspector without answering.

  “Are you going to tell me or not?”

  “No. I ain’t no snitch.”

  “I’m not asking you to be a snitch,” Montalbano retorted. “I simply want the names of three bastards who like to push other people around for no reason and have no right to do so. And since you don’t feel like answering, I want to explain something to you. Reporting those three vi
olent bastards is not dishonorable, my friend; on the contrary: It’s an act of courage. The same kind of courage you showed when you defended your friend, and the same as your father showed when he took those punches without breathing a word. But let’s forget about that. In your opinion, what do those three boys have against Sciarabba?”

  “Bah . . . in my opinion, it’s because they’re . . . retarded.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, the whole class knows what to do with computers, cell phones, iPads. Except for them. They’re a little . . . well, slow. They just can’t manage. So it’s possible they feel envious. They’re envious of Luigino because he’s better than all of us at that stuff. And we always turn to him for advice. Know what I mean? I think they act that way out of envy. That’s all.”

  “You may be right, but I don’t think that’s a strong enough motive. Does Tindaro think the same as you?”

  “Tindaro also thinks those three have it in for him because one of them has got a crush on a girl from our class who doesn’t know he even exists because she’s always chasing after Luigino.”

  “And does Luigino feel the same way about her?”

  “Luigino doesn’t even notice. He’s always got his head in the clouds. It’s not like he has a lot of friends . . . Luigino is a loner, even though he’s never alone. I don’t know how to explain, but if you ask him something, or want a favor from him, he’ll bend over backwards for you. But then he goes straight back to his little island, closing himself off in his own world.”

  “Listen, there’s something I’m curious about. Given the fact that this business has been going on for a while, how come Luigino never went and talked to the principal about it, or with someone like Mr. Puleo, who seems like a real man to me?”

  “Come on, Zio, a teacher? The poor teachers can barely even manage to maintain order in the classroom so they can teach! Some days I feel more like I’m at the market than at school. It’s a madhouse!”

  Montalbano became convinced that Salvuzzo had nothing more to tell him. And at the same time, to his great surprise, he realized that he and the boy had spoken freely and normally, and that the problem of communicating with his class, which he had anticipated, was not a real problem. This reassured him. These kids used their own lingo among themselves, but with others they used a universal language comprehensible to all.