The Terra-Cotta Dog (24 page)

 
 
 
“So you never did find out who this ‘Him' was,” said the inspector.

“No. She never wanted to tell me.”

“Did you receive any other letters after this one?”

“Are you kidding? It was already a miracle I got this one. At the time you couldn't cross the Strait of Messina; they were bombing it nonstop. Then, on July 9, the Americans landed and all communications were cut.”

“Excuse me, signora, but do you remember your friend's address at Serradifalco?”

“Of course. It was care of the Sorrentino family, Via Crispi 18.”

 
 
He was about to put the key in the lock, but stopped in alarm. Voices and noises were coming from inside the house. He thought of going back to the car and getting his pistol, but did nothing. He opened the door cautiously, without making the slightest noise.

Then all at once he remembered that he'd completely forgotten about Livia, who had been waiting for him for God knows how long.

It took him half the night to make peace.

At seven in the morning he tiptoed out of bed and dialed a phone number.

“Fazio?” he said very softly. “I need you to do me a favor. You have to call in sick.”

“No problem.”

“By this evening, I want to know everything—from the cradle to the grave—about a certain Stefano Moscato, who died here in Vigàta about five years ago. Ask around town, check the records office and anywhere else you can think of. It's very important.”

“Don't worry, I'll take care of it.”

He hung up the phone, grabbed a pen and a sheet of paper, and wrote:

 
He stole out of the house like a thief. Had Livia opened her eyes, there would have been hell to pay.

 
 
It took him an hour and a half to get to Serradifalco. It was a clear day, and he even started whistling. He felt happy. It made him think of Caifas, his father's dog, who used to mope about the house, lethargic and melancholy, until he saw his master start getting his cartridges ready, and immediately he would turn frisky and spry, before transforming into a mass of sheer energy when he was finally out in the fields for the hunt.

Montalbano found Via Crispi right away; number 18 was a small nineteenth-century building, two stories. There was one doorbell, with the name SORRENTINO inscribed beside it. A pleasant girl of about twenty asked him what he wanted.

“I'd like to speak with Andrea Sorrentino.”

“That's my father. He's not at home. You can find him at the Town Hall.”

“Does he work there?”

“Sort of. He's the mayor.”

 
 
“Of course I remember Lisetta,” said Andrea Sorrentino. He wore his sixty-odd years quite well, only a few white hairs. A handsome man. “But why do you ask?”

“I'm conducting a rather confidential investigation. I'm sorry I can't tell you more. But you must believe me: it's very important that I get some information about her.”

“All right, Inspector. I have very beautiful memories of Lisetta, you know. We used to take long walks in the country. With her at my side, I felt so proud, like a grown-up man. She used to treat me as if we were the same age. But after her family left Serradifalco and she returned to Vigàta, I never heard from her again.”

“Why's that?”

The mayor hesitated a moment.

“Well, I'll tell you because it's all in the past now. I think my father and Lisetta's father had a terrible row. Around the end of August in '43, my father came home in an awful state. He'd been to Vigàta, to see Uncle Stefano—
u zu Stefano
, as I called him—I don't remember what for. He was pale and had a fever. I remember that my mother got very scared, and so I, too, got scared. I don't know what transpired between the two of them, but the next day, at the dinner table, my father said that in our house, the Moscatos' name must never be mentioned again. I obeyed, even though I really wished I could ask him about Lisetta. You know how it is, with these horrible feuds between relatives . . .”

“Do you remember the American soldier Lisetta met here?”

“Here? An American soldier?”

“Yes. Or so I've been led to believe. She met an American soldier in Serradifalco, they fell in love, she followed him, and a little while later they got married in the United States.”

“I heard some vague talk of this marriage business, when an aunt of mine, my father's sister, was sent a photo of Lisetta in bridal dress with an American soldier.”

“So why were you surprised when I mentioned it?”

“I was surprised that you said Lisetta met the American here. You see, Lisetta disappeared from our house at least ten days before the Americans occupied Serradifalco.”

“What?”

“Oh, yes. One afternoon, it must have been around three or four o'clock, I saw Lisetta getting ready to leave. I asked her where we were going on our walk that day, and she told me I shouldn't feel hurt, but she wanted to take her walk by herself. Of course I felt deeply hurt. That evening, at suppertime, Lisetta still hadn't returned. Uncle Stefano, my father, and some local peasants went out looking for her but never found her. Those were terrible hours for us. There were Italian and German soldiers about, and the grown-ups were worried she'd come to harm . . . The following afternoon, Uncle Stefano said good-bye, telling us he wouldn't be back until he found his daughter. Lisetta's mother stayed behind with us; poor thing, she was devastated. Then the Americans landed, and we were cut off by the front. The very day the front moved on, Stefano Moscato came back to get his wife and said he'd found Lisetta in Vigàta and that her escape had been a childish prank. Now, if you've been following me, you will have understood why Lisetta could not have met her future husband here in Serradifalco, but must have met him in her own town, in Vigàta.”

20

 
Livia's note oozed with rage, and Montalbano took it in. But since a wolflike hunger had seized hold of him on his way back from Serradifalco, he opened the fridge: nothing. He opened the oven: nothing. Livia, who didn't want the housekeeper about for the time of her stay in Vigàta, had taken her sadism to the point of cleaning everything utterly. Not the tiniest piece of bread was to be found. He got back in his car and drove to the Trattoria San Calogero, where they were already rolling down their shutters.

“We're always open for you, Inspector.”

To quell his hunger and to spite Livia, he ate so much he nearly had to call the doctor.

“There's one statement here that's got me thinking,” said Montalbano.

“You mean where she says she might do something crazy?” They were sitting in the living room having coffee, the inspector, the headmaster, and Signora Angelina.

Montalbano was holding young Lisetta's letter, which he'd just finished rereading aloud.

“No, signora, we know she eventually did that. Mr. Sorrentino told me so, and he would have no reason to lie to me. A few days before the landing, therefore, Lisetta got it in her head to flee Serradifalco and come here, to Vigàta, to see the one she loved.”

“But how would she have done that?”

“She probably asked some military vehicle for a lift. In those days the German and Italian troops must have been constantly on the move. A pretty girl like her, she wouldn't have had to try very hard,” interjected Headmaster Burgio, who'd decided to cooperate, having resigned himself to the fact that once in a while, his wife's fantasies might have some connection to reality.

“But what about the bombing? And the machine-gun fire? My God, what courage,” said the signora.

“So, which statement do you mean?” the headmaster asked impatiently.

“The one where Lisetta writes that her lover has told her that, after all this time in Vigàta, they've now received the order to leave.”

“I don't understand.”

“You see, signora, that statement tells us he'd been in Vigàta for a long time, which implies that he was not from the town. Second, it also informs Lisetta that he was about to be compelled, forced, to leave town. Third, she says ‘they,' and therefore he's not the only one who has to leave Vigàta; it's a whole group of people. All this leads me to think he's a soldier. I could be wrong, but it seems like the most logical conclusion.”

“Yes, logical,” echoed the headmaster.

“Tell me, signora, when did Lisetta first tell you she was in love? Do you remember?”

“Yes, because in the last few days I've done nothing but try to recall every last detail of my meetings with Lisetta. It was definitely around May or June of '42. I refreshed my memory with an old diary I dug up.”

“She turned the whole house upside down,” grumbled her husband.

“We need to find out what troops were stationed here between early '42, or even earlier, and July of '43.”

“You think that's easy, Inspector?” Burgio commented. “I, for example, can remember a whole slew of different troops. There were the antiaircraft batteries, the naval batteries, there was a train armed with cannon that remained hidden inside a tunnel, there were soldiers in barracks, soldiers in bunkers . . . Sailors, no; they would come and go. It'd be practically impossible to find out.”

They became discouraged. Then the headmaster stood up.

“I'm going to phone Burruano. He stayed in Vigàta the whole time, before, during, and after the war. Whereas I was evacuated at a certain point.”

His wife resumed speaking.

“It was probably an infatuation—at that age it's hard to distinguish, you know—but it certainly was something serious, serious enough to make her run away from home, to make her go against her father, who was like her jailer, or so she used to tell me, at least.”

A question came to Montalbano's lips. He didn't want to ask it, but the hunter's instinct got the better of him.

“Excuse me for interrupting, but could you be more precise—I mean, could you tell me exactly what Lisetta meant by that word, ‘jailer'? Was it a Sicilian father's jealousy of the female child? Was it obsessive?”

Signora Angelina looked at him a moment, then lowered her eyes.

“Well, as I said, Lisetta was much more mature than me; I was still a little girl. Since my father forbade me to go to the Moscatos' house, we used to meet up at school or in church, where we would spend a few quiet hours together. And we would talk. Lately, I've been going over and over in my mind what she said or hinted at back then. I think there were a lot of things I didn't understand at the time . . .”

“Such as?”

“For example, up until a certain point, Lisetta referred to her father as ‘my father'; after that, however, she always called him ‘that man.' But this might not mean anything. Another time she said to me: ‘One day that man's going to hurt me, he's going to hurt me very badly.' And at the time I imagined a beating, a whipping. Now I'm starting to have a terrible feeling about the true meaning of that statement.”

She stopped, took a sip of coffee, and continued.

“She was brave, very brave. In the shelter, when the bombs were falling and we were trembling and crying from fear, it was she who gave us courage and consoled us. But to do what she did, she needed twice that much courage, to defy her father and run out under a hail of bullets, to come all the way here and make love to someone who wasn't even her official lover. Back then we were different from today's seventeen-year-olds.”

Signora Angelina's monologue was interrupted by the return of her husband, who seemed restless.

“I couldn't find Burruano, he wasn't home. Come, Inspector, let's go.”

“To look for Burruano?”

“No, no, I've just had an idea. If we're lucky, and I've guessed right, I'll donate forty thousand lire to San Calogero on his next feast day.”

San Calogero was a black saint revered by the townsfolk.

“If you've guessed right, I'll throw in another fifty myself,” said Montalbano, caught up in the old man's enthusiasm.

“Think you could tell me where you're going?”

“I'll tell you later,” the headmaster said to his wife.

“And leave me here in the lurch?” the woman insisted.

Burgio, frantic, was already out the door. Montalbano bowed down to her.

“I'll keep you informed of everything.”

 
 
“How the hell did I forget
La Pacinotti
?” the headmaster muttered to himself as soon as they were in the street.

“Who's she?” Montalbano asked. He imagined her fiftyish and stubby. Burgio didn't answer. Montalbano asked another question.

“Should we take the car? Are we going far?”

“Far? It's right around the corner.”

“Would you explain to me who this Pacinotti woman is?”

“Woman? She was a ship, a mother ship that would repair any damage the warships sustained. She anchored in the port towards the end of 1940 and never moved. Her crew was made up of sailors who were also mechanics, carpenters, electricians, plumbers . . . They were all kids. And because the ship was there for so long, many of them became like family and ended up seeming like townfolk. They made friends, and they also took girlfriends. Two of them married local girls. One of them has since died, name was Tripcovich; the other's name is Marin and he owns the repair garage in Piazza Garibaldi. You know him?”