Auntie Poldi and the Vineyards of Etna

by Mario Giordano

  Anyway, I imagine that Oscar’s behaviour rang a discordant bell that jangled annoyingly somewhere in my aunt’s superbrain.

  But whatever may have caused the dog to emit that deep, heartfelt growl, it evaporated as soon as he was called by one of Valérie’s workers from the palm plantation. Filled with curiosity and scenting the possibility of food, the dog jumped up and scampered off.

  The occupants of the sun loungers suddenly stirred. As if in obedience to an unseen choreographer, the Germans rose with a grunt, hauled their loungers back into the shade and continued to stew. Doris caught sight of my aunt and waved to her. Poldi instantly felt her nagging crown again: a slight pain on the right-hand side of her upper jaw, like a distant thunderstorm irresistibly bearing down on her. She returned the wave half-heartedly, hoping that this wouldn’t be construed as an invitation to chat. Luckily, it wasn’t. Doris had more important things to do at present. Having purposefully creamed herself some more, she eyed the Japanese disapprovingly and rolled over onto her stomach.

  The “alga,” who had meanwhile concluded his dance with the tree, straightened up in a single, fluid movement and looked over at the house. Poldi could detect no form of emotion on the man’s face, which was not unfriendly but mask-like. It was as if the celebrated Butoh dancer had just bestowed all his emotions on the palm tree and the ground.

  Plump Aki, by contrast, sprang to life. Picking up a silk kimono that was lying ready to hand, he hurried over to his charge and helped him into it.

  Seemingly weightless and without bending so much as a blade of grass, the pallid “alga” came over to Poldi. He bowed and said something very softly in Japanese.

  Now, at close quarters, it struck Poldi how small and translucent-looking Higashi-san was. He resembled a teenage girl who had not yet decided if she would ever become a woman. Everything about him was dainty and delicate and reminded my aunt of a masterpiece by an old porcelain artist. He wore his black hair gathered into a neat bun, and nothing but his really tiny pecker, which Poldi had briefly glimpsed, betrayed his gender, yet—pecker or no—he seemed to have none. The very question was nullified by his face and body as if it were wholly unimportant. Poldi began to sense why, apart from his talent as a dancer, Higashi-san was a star in his native land: he was, quite simply, unique.

  “Higashi-san is delighted to make the acquaintance of the estimable Signora Poldi,” Aki translated. “He wishes you much success with your investigations.”

  “How . . . ?” Poldi started to say, looking astonished.

  “Moi,” said Valérie. “Higashi-san is very interested in criminology.”

  “Well, well, is he really?”

  Still perturbed by Oscar’s uncharacteristic behaviour, Poldi looked at the Butoh dancer more closely, like someone examining a rare orchid and wondering why nature indulges in such a complex form of beauty. Wondering too, perhaps, what abyss lies hidden behind it. She noticed that the “alga” was regarding her with similar curiosity.

  Higashi-san said something else in Japanese, speaking as softly as before, and Aki translated.

  “Higashi-san would be delighted if the estimable Signora Poldi could sometime tell him more about her investigations, but only if it’s not too much trouble.”

  “Tell Signor Higashi I’m flattered. I’m most impressed by his art and would like to learn more about it.”

  The “alga” waited for the translation. Then he bowed, said something and watched Poldi intently while Aki translated.

  “Higashi-san looks forward to an exchange of information, even though his contribution to it will be very modest.”

  Having bowed several times, the dancer allowed Aki to shepherd him off to his room, and Poldi momentarily felt as if he were taking a little of the world’s beauty with him—as if the air in the garden had suddenly become a trifle staler.

  “What a man,” said Poldi. “One’s immediate thought is that he must be a very unhappy person.”

  “Mon dieu, how true,” Valérie said with a sigh, turning to face her friend. “Alors?”

  “Alors what?”

  “A report, of course! I want to know everything, every last little detail. I won’t let you go until I do!”

  So Poldi spent the next two hours updating her friend on the current state of affairs. Valérie listened attentively, punctuating my aunt’s remarks with an occasional “Mon dieu!” and drinking one cup of coffee after another.

  “So what do you think?” Poldi asked when she had concluded her account with a description of her meeting with Russo.

  “You’ve got a problem,” said Valérie. “You’ve got a whole heap of problems, of course. Your jealous commissario, that wine grower, this surprising new admirer . . . Mon dieu, how on earth do you manage it? But you’ve got one problem above all: you’re running out of time.”

  Poldi gave a start. She couldn’t help thinking of her dream about Death in a hoodie—if it really had been a dream.

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, Montana will be too quick for you. He’s more experienced and he’s got a laboratory and so on. He can do things you can’t: search premises, arrest and interrogate people, shoot them or whatever. His, um, forensics people—isn’t that what they’re called?—have probably found something long ago, some DNA or something, and when they’ve evaluated it, voilà!”

  “Voilà?”

  “Time is against you, Poldi. You’ve gone astray, if you ask me. You’re doggedly going through your list of suspects and questioning them, but they lie through their teeth to you. Your mago-and-murderer’s-aura idea was just a feeble attempt to take a short cut. How many suspects do you propose to canvass before you find Madame Sahara’s murderer? And it isn’t a sure-fire procedure, either. Even if you’re lucky enough to find the murderer before Montana, he won’t be pleased, and that will complicate your relationship even more. Men don’t like it when women are smarter and more successful than they are. No man does. Believe me, I know a bit about such things.”

  So did Poldi. She pondered Valérie’s words like someone reflecting on a long-recognised but not yet accepted truth. Her old crown passed a vitriolic comment on these thoughts in the form of a throbbing pain. She had to admit that things were going far from smoothly.

  “By the way,” Valérie said, “how’s that nephew of yours?”

  “Eh?”

  “Well, your nephew from Germany, the writer you’re always talking about. Will he be paying you another visit soon? Bring him with you sometime. I think he’d like it here, if he’s really as full of phoenix-like energy as you always say.”

  “I don’t believe it!” I broke in, gobsmacked. “She said that? ‘Bring him with you sometime’?”

  “I can’t remember her exact words. In fact, she may not have said it at all.”

  I ignored that. “So you talk about me to other people?”

  “Well, only the way you talk about your relations when you’ve run out of conversation.”

  “What was all that about ‘phoenix-like energy’?”

  Poldi dodged the question. “You’re starting to get on my nerves, you know that, don’t you?” she said. “Valérie must have misremembered something I said, that’s all. Basta!”

  “You’ve been boasting about me, Poldi. That’s it! You can’t bear me being such a loser in my jeans-and-navy-blue-polo-shirt look, so you tell the same sort of lies about me as you do about the celeb friends you invent.”

  “Balls! I don’t tell people anything about you, and certainly not lies. The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, that’s my motto. What I said before, I was simply improvising for the benefit of my audience, i.e., you. Of course it didn’t happen, but make a note of this for your novel: it’s never wrong to flatter the reader a bit now and then.”

  “So why has your face gone all red?”

  “Because I’m getting angry—really angry, I tell you. All right, do you plan to go on bugging me, or do you want to hear how, investigation-wise,
I hauled myself out of a morass by my wig?”

  My Auntie Poldi isn’t the type to harbour many illusions about herself and the world in general; she tends to mould the world the way she wants it. But if the substance of the world proves rock-hard and resistant instead of yielding and malleable, my Auntie Poldi will take that in her stride. And attempt to blow up the obstruction.

  “Any suggestions?” she asked Valérie. “The thing is, I don’t know what to do next. I’m stuck.”

  “Remember your strong points.”

  “And they would be?”

  “Think around corners. You’re a person who doesn’t make it easy for herself or other people. You may even be slightly dotty, but that means you see quite different things from some commissario who doggedly proceeds by the book and experience. Take a route no one else sees. Obey your intuition. Don’t search, find.”

  That sounded nice and flattering, but it was easier said than done. Poldi had to admit she didn’t have a clue how to proceed. And, as ever when she didn’t have a clue—when something obstructed the flux of her intuition and had to be blown away, when nothing made sense any more and there was no signpost anywhere in sight—Poldi drew on her subconscious.

  And made a list.

  With a flourish, she opened the notebook Uncle Martino had given her, picked up her pencil and shut her eyes. This time, without thinking for long, she wrote down a series of questions that either occurred to her spontaneously or had been going through her head for quite some time:

  WHY DID RUSSO TELL ME ALL THAT?

  WHAT DOES AN AURA LOOK LIKE?

  WHAT DOES AN ALGA THINK?

  HAS EVERYBODY BEEN LYING TO ME THE WHOLE TIME?

  SHOULD I TELL VITO I’M SORRY?

  CAN MEN HAVE MULTIPLE ORGASMS?

  DO I NEED A CLIPBOARD?

  WHY WAS MADAME SAHARA’S HOUSE TRASHED LIKE THAT?

  WHY DO PEOPLE LIKE DORIS ALWAYS MAKE ME FEEL SO SMALL?

  WAS PAPA EVER PROUD OF ME?

  HAVE I EVER BEEN PROUD OF MYSELF?

  SHOULD I KEEP MY TRAP SHUT MORE OFTEN?

  SHOULD I REVERT TO DRINKING MORE?

  WHAT DID DAVID BOWIE WRITE ON MY HAND THAT TIME?

  WHAT’S JOHN DOING AT THIS MOMENT?

  DID I TURN THE STOVE OFF?

  My Auntie Poldi treated her lists as Paul Klee treated his pictures. She had read once that the painter continued to work on a picture until it “looked at” him. Well, the list was now “looking at” her.

  “Voilà.”

  “Will you read it to me?” asked Valérie, who had seen that the list was written in German. She listened intently as Poldi read it out. “Not bad. If you ever find out about the multiple orgasms, I’d be interested. But why the clipboard?”

  “No idea. It merely occurred to me when I thought of death.”

  “No, it’s not all pointless, Poldi. On the contrary! And by the way, I’m very proud of you, just so you know. I’m sure your papa was too, and we’re certainly not the only ones. You could keep your trap shut occasionally, of course, but it’s no big deal if you don’t. You must explain that bit about the Dorises to me sometime. Hey, did David Bowie really write something on your hand?”

  “A prophecy, he said it was. With his fingernail, back in the day in Berlin. He was absolutely shitfaced, but always so polite and kind. A dear fellow. We wrote to each other for years.”

  “Mon dieu. And who’s John?”

  “No one. I don’t know why I wrote that.”

  Poldi stared peevishly at her subconscious laid out in black and white, and Valérie asked no more questions. Silence reigned until, all at once, the penny dropped. “Well, tickle my ass with a feather!” Poldi said.

  “What is it?”

  Poldi tapped the question halfway down the list. “Why was Madame Sahara’s house trashed like that?”

  “Well, because the murderer was looking for something that would either have nailed him at once or that he was hell-bent on getting hold of.”

  “Exactly. He must have been quite certain it was somewhere in the house. But why did he trash the place so completely?”

  “I don’t understand . . .”

  In high excitement, Poldi produced her phone from her pocket and showed Valérie the photos she’d taken when searching for the sad signora. “Look, everything was upside down—it was total chaos. Maybe there was more than one of them. Every drawer was pulled out, every wardrobe emptied of clothes, even the cushions were slit open. How long would that have taken? Hours, you bet, and there was always a risk of being spotted by someone who would call the police, but not a room in the house was left untouched.”

  “Why does that puzzle you so?”

  Poldi stared at her friend, cheeks flushed with the thrill of the chase. “Because it can only mean one thing, my dear: the murderer didn’t find what he was looking for, or at some stage he’d have been able to stop his orgy of destruction and disappear. But Signora Cocuzza caught him unawares, so he had to do so prematurely. And what does that mean?”

  “Mon dieu!”

  “Exactly. Whatever he was looking for, he didn’t find it. Nor did the police, so it’s probably still somewhere in the house. And you know what, Valérie?”

  “No, don’t tell me, Poldi!”

  “Oh yes. I reckon it’s waiting for me.”

  At Padre Paolo’s express request, the team discussion took place in the sacristy of Santa Maria del Rosario.

  “Because it’s the only bug-proof place in the entire world,” he said grimly, fag in the corner of his mouth, as he slammed a grotty aluminium caffettiera down on a camping hotplate and made an espresso. “The Mother of God and these thick walls will protect us from any eavesdroppers. Even the NSA and the CIA would find it a hard nut to crack.”

  Signora Cocuzza had brought some homemade almond biscuits from her establishment, and over caffè and biscotti the padre insisted on kicking off by reporting the results of his investigation of District Attorney Carbonaro, Poldi’s neighbour. Which he promptly did with much gesticulation and in every detail, from the traffic jam on the main road to Catania to the colour of Dottore Carbonaro’s tie (green paisley, very dapper).

  Poldi’s initial reaction to the padre’s hogging of the agenda was a bit sniffy, given her own eagerness to inform the team of her flash of inspiration, but she retained her composure and made allowances for the tendency of Italian males to deliver grandiloquent speeches. Her late husband Peppe had been no exception in that respect, but Poldi had always loved his long and detailed effusions on irrelevancies of all kinds, because my Uncle Peppe, like every Italian male, had naturally succeeded in stripping the mundane of all its mundanity and transforming it into something radiantly wonderful. What’s more, this genetically programmed urge to spout polished rhetoric leads its practitioners to enunciate perfectly. Anyone wanting to hear proper Italian would do well to listen to Italian parliamentary speeches. The content is total crap, of course, but the delivery is crystal clear.

  Poldi enjoyed listening to the padre too, but his remarks boiled down to only one sexy piece of information. Not very subtly, he had asked the district attorney whether Etnarosso meant anything to him, or whether his murdered colleague Elisa Puglisi had ever mentioned it. And lo, she had actually done so in the canteen one day (the plat du jour was pasta alla norma). At this point, as expected, Padre Paolo inserted a dramatic pause and drank a glass of water as if this information had shaken him to the depths of his faith.

  Poldi, who was getting tired of this, thought it time to make clear which of them was the master detective. “Etnarosso,” she said, getting in first, “is the code name of a water development project being undertaken in Sicily by a Swiss firm named Oceanica.” She relished seeing the padre’s jaw drop as if the Mother of God herself had farted in his presence.

  The sad signora gazed at my aunt in admiration.

  “Where the devil . . . ?” the padre gasped, stubbing out his cigarette.

  Poldi nonchalantl
y brushed the question aside. “I haven’t been idle myself. But please go on, Padre.”

  The priest’s face preserved its flush of disappointment until he had recovered himself sufficiently to light another cigarette.

  “It’s true, Donna Poldina,” he growled. “But according to that adulterer Carbonaro, Elisa Puglisi was in the process of investigating Oceanica because there was a well-founded suspicion that the firm was cooperating with the Mafia.”

  There it was again, the M-word, indispensable to any features-section article, any travelogue, any conversation between friends about Sicily, and which indissolubly adheres to the island like an old hazardous-goods label that nobody takes seriously any more.

  “Context, please, Padre,” Poldi said in a businesslike tone, helping herself to another almond biscuit.

  Back in more self-satisfied waters, Padre Paolo briskly deposited a stack of photocopies of articles from La Sicilia on the table. Poldi, every inch the pro, began by glancing at the dates on each.

  “They’re all from last spring!”

  “Quite so,” said the padre. “I had them copied in the newspaper’s archive. One call from me, you know, and they jump to it. But read them yourself, Donna Poldina.”

  Poldi skimmed the articles and was amazed to find that they all dealt with an incredible discovery: a big stretch of water near Caltagirone, a whole lake no longer marked on any modern map and seemingly forgotten by everyone. It had allegedly dried up thirty years earlier and then disappeared, but it actually still existed, well filled and largely fenced in.

  “I don’t understand,” said Poldi. “How in the world can a whole lake simply disappear like this?”

  “Yes, it’s strange, isn’t it? Everyone, even us Sicilians, think we live in an arid region, but it’s bullshit. Distribution of the water is the problem. Many lakes and drinking water reservoirs are privately owned, and the Mafia realised decades ago what a good business water could be. So they and their corrupt henchmen in the communities and district administrations allowed a few publicly owned bodies of water to “dry up” and then disappear. It amounted to enforced privatisation of a vital public resource, with the aim of selling previously free water back to the communities for a lot of money.”