The Snack Thief (7 page)

said. And she exited, in no way reassured.
Well, signora, thank you so much..., the inspector

began, standing up.
Why dont you stay and eat with me?
Montalbano felt his stomach blanch. Signora Clementina

was sweet and nice, but she probably lived on semolina and

boiled potatoes.
Actually, I have so much to
Pina, the housekeeper, is an excellent cook, believe me.

For today shes made pasta alla Norma, you know, with fried

eggplant and ricotta salata.
Jesus! said Montalbano, sitting back down.
And braised beef for the second course.

Jesus! repeated Montalbano.

Why are you so surprised?

Arent those dishes a little heavy for you?

Why? Ive got a stronger stomach than any of these
twenty-year-old girls who can happily go a whole day on
half an apple and some carrot juice. Or perhaps youre of the
same opinion as my son Giulio?

I dont have the pleasure of knowing what that is.

He says its undignified to eat such things at my age. He
considers me a bit shameless. He thinks I should live on porridges.
So what will it be? Are you staying?

Im staying, the inspector replied decisively.

Crossing the street, he climbed three steps and knocked at the
door to the office. Gallo came and opened up.

I relieved Galluzzo, he explained. Then: Did you
come from the office, Chief ?

No, why?

Fazio phoned here asking if wed seen you. Hes looking
for you. Says hes got something important to tell you.

The inspector ran to the phone.

Sorry to bother you, Inspector, but it seems we have a
serious new development. Do you remember, yesterday, you
told me to put out an all-points bulletin for this Karima?
Well, about half an hour ago, Mancuso of the Immigration
Bureau called me from Montelusa. He says hes managed to
find out, purely by chance, where the girl lives.

Lets have it.

She lives in Villaseta, at 70 Via Garibaldi.

Ill be right over, well go together.

At the main entrance to headquarters he was stopped by a

well-dressed man of about forty.

Are you Inspector Montalbano?

Yes, but Im in a rush.

Ive been waiting for you for two hours. Your colleagues
didnt know if you were coming back or not. Im
Antonino Lapra.

The son? The doctor?

Yes.

My condolences. Come inside. But I can only give you
five minutes.

Fazio appeared.

Cars ready.

Well leave in five minutes. I have to talk to this gentleman
first.

They went into his office. The inspector asked the doctor
to sit down, then sat down himself, behind the desk.

Im listening.

Well, Inspector, Ive been living in Valledolmo, where I
practice my profession, for about fifteen years. Im a pediatrician.
I got married in Valledolmo. I mention this merely to
let you know that I havent had a close relationship with my
parents for some time. Actually, weve never been very intimate.
We always spent the obligatory holidays together, of

course, and we used to phone each other twice a month.
That was why I was so surprised to receive a letter from my
father early last October. Here it is.

He reached into his jacket pocket, took out the letter,
and handed it to the inspector.

My dear Nino,

I know this letter will surprise you. I have tried to keep
you from knowing anything about some business Im involved
in which is threatening to turn very serious. But now I realize
I cant go on like this. I absolutely need your help. Please
come at once. And dont say anything to Mama about this
note. Kisses.

papa

And what did you do?

Well, see, I had to leave for NewYork two days later...
I was away for a month. When I got back, I phoned Papa and
asked him if he still needed my help, and he said no. Then we
saw each other in person, but he never brought up the subject
again.

Did you have any idea what this dangerous business was
that your father was referring to?

At the time I thought it had to do with the business
hed wanted to reopen in spite of the fact that I was strongly
against it. We even quarreled over it. On top of that, Mama
had mentioned he was involved with another woman and
was being forced to spend a lot of money

Stop right there. So you were convinced that the help

your father was asking you for was actually some sort of loan?
To be perfectly frank, yes.
And you refused to get involved, despite the desperate,

disturbing tone of the letter.
Well, you see
Do you make a good living, Doctor?
I cant complain.
Tell me something: why did you want me to see the

letter?
Because the murder put everything in a whole new
light. I thought it might be useful to the investigation.
Well, its not, Montalbano said calmly. Take it back

and treasure it always. Do you have any children, Doctor?
A son, Calogerino. Four years old.
I hope you never need him for anything.
Why? asked Dr. Antonino Lapra, bewildered.
Because, if hes his fathers son, youre screwed, sir.
How dare you!
If youre not out of my sight in ten seconds, Ill have

you arrested for the first thing I can think of.
The doctor fled so quickly he knocked over the chair
hed been sitting on.
Aurelio Lapra had desperately asked his son for help,
and the guy decided to put an ocean between them.

Until thirty years ago, Villaseta consisted of some twenty
houses, or rather cottages, arranged ten on each side of the

provincial road between Vig and Montelusa. In the boom
years, however, the frenzy of construction (which seemed to
be the constitutional foundation of our country: Italy is a
Republic founded on construction work) was accompanied
by a road-building fever, and Villaseta thus found itself at the
intersection of three high-speed routes, one superhighway,
one so-called link, two provincial roads, and two interprovincial
roads. Several of these roads, after a few kilometers of
picturesque landscape with guardrails appropriately painted
red where judges, policemen, carabinieri, financiers, and even
prison guards had been killed, often surprised the unwary
traveler by suddenly ending inexplicably (or all too explicably)
against a hillside so desolate as to feed the suspicion that
it had never been trod by human foot. Others instead came
to an abrupt halt at the seashore, on beaches of fine blond
sand with not a single house as far as the eye could see, not a
single boat on the horizon, promptly plunging the unwary
traveler into the Robinson Crusoe syndrome.

Having always followed its primary instinct to build
houses along any road that might appear,Villaseta thus rapidly
turned into a sprawling, labyrinthine town.

Well never find this Via Garibaldi! complained Fazio,
who was at the wheel.

Whats the most outlying area of Villaseta? inquired
the inspector.

The one along the road to Butera.

Lets go there.

How do you know Via Garibaldi is that way?

Trust me.

He knew he wasnt wrong. He had learned from personal
experience that in the years immediately preceding the
aforementioned economic miracle, the central area of every
town or city had streets named, as dutiful reminders, after the
founding fathers of the country (such as Mazzini, Garibaldi,
Cavour), the old politicians (Orlando, Sonnino, Crispi), and
the classic authors (Dante, Petrarch, Carducci; Leopardi less
often). After the boom, the street names changed. The fathers
of the country were banished to the outskirts, while the town
centers now featured Pasolini, Pirandello, De Filippo, Togliatti,
De Gasperi, and the ever-present Kennedy ( John, not
Bobby, although Montalbano, in a lost village in the Nebrodi
Mountains, once ended up in a Piazza F.lli Kennedy, that
is, a Kennedy Brothers Square).

In reality, the inspector had guessed right on the one hand
and wrong on the other. Right insofar as the centrifugal shift
of street names had indeed occurred along the road to
Butera; wrong insofar as the streets of that neighborhood, if
you could call it a neighborhood, were named not after the
fathers of the country, but, for reasons unknown, after Verdi,
Bellini, Rossini, and Donizetti. Discouraged, Fazio decided
to ask for directions from an old peasant astride a donkey
laden with dried branches. Except that the donkey decided
not to stop, and Fazio was forced to coast alongside him in
neutral.

Excuse me, can you tell me the way to Via Garibaldi?

The old man seemed not to have heard.

The way to Garibaldi! Fazio repeated more loudly.
The old man turned round and looked angrily at the
stranger.

Away to Garibaldi? You say, Away to Garibaldi with
the mess we got on this island? Away? Garibaldi should come
back, and fast, and break all these sons of bitches necks!

6

Via Garibaldi, which they finally found, bordered on a yellow,
uncultivated countryside interrupted here and there by
the small green patches of stunted kitchen gardens. Number
70 was a little house of unwhitewashed sandstone consisting
of two rooms, one atop the other. The bottom room had a
rather small door with a window beside it; the top room,
which featured a balcony, was reached by an external staircase.
Fazio knocked on the door. It was soon answered by an
old woman wearing a threadbare but clean jellaba. Seeing
the two men, she unleashed a stream of Arabic words, frequently
punctuated by short, shrill cries.

Well, so much for that idea! Montalbano commented
in irritation, immediately losing heart (the sky had clouded
over a little).

Wait, wait, Fazio told the old woman, thrusting his
hands palms forward in that international gesture that means
stop. The woman understood and fell silent at once.

Ka-ri-ma? Fazio asked and, afraid he might not have
pronounced the name correctly, he swayed his hips, stroking a
mane of long, imaginary hair. The old woman laughed.

Karima! she said, then pointed her index finger towards
the room upstairs.

With Fazio in front, Montalbano behind him, and the old
woman bringing up the rear and yelling incomprehensibly, they
climbed the outside staircase. Fazio knocked, but nobody answered.
The old woman started to scream even louder. Fazio
knocked again. The woman pushed the inspector firmly aside,
walked past him, moved Fazio away as well, planted herself with
her back to the door, imitated Fazios swaying of the hips and
stroking of the hair, made a gesture that meant gone away,
then lowered her right hand, palm down, raised it again, spread
her fingers, then repeated the gone away gesture.

She had a son? the inspector asked in amazement.

She left with her five-year-old boy, if Ive understood
correctly, Fazio confirmed.

I want to know more, said Montalbano. Call the Immigration
Bureau and have them send us someone who
speaks Arabic. On the double.

Fazio walked away, followed by the old woman, who
kept on talking to him. The inspector sat down on a stair,
fired up a cigarette, and entered an immobility contest with a
lizard.

Busca, the officer who knew Arabic because he was born
and raised in Tunisia up to the age of fifteen, was there in less
than forty-five minutes. Hearing the new arrival speak her
tongue, the old woman became anxious to cooperate.

She says shed like to tell her uncle the whole story,
Busca translated for them.

First the kid, now an uncle?

And who the fuck is that? asked Montalbano, befuddled.

Uh, the uncle, that would be you, Inspector, the policeman
explained. Its a title of respect. She says Karima
came back here around nine yesterday morning, but went out
again in a hurry. She says she seemed very upset, frightened.

Has she got a key to the upstairs room?

Yes, said the policeman, after asking her.

Get it from her and well have a look.

As they were climbing the stairs, the woman spoke without
interruption, with Busca rapidly translating. Karimas
son was five years old; she would leave him with the old
woman every day on her way to work; the little boys name
was Frans; he was the son of a Frenchman who had met
Karima when passing through Tunisia.

Karimas room was a model of cleanliness and had a
double bed, a cot for the boy behind a curtain, a small table
with a telephone and television, a bigger table with four
chairs, a dressing table with four small drawers, and an armoire.
Two of the drawers were full of photographs. In one
corner was a cubbyhole sealed off by a plastic sliding door,
behind which they found a toilet, bidet and sink. Here the
scent of the perfume the inspector had smelled in Lapras
study,Voluptwas very strong. Aside from the little balcony,
there was also a window on the back wall, overlooking a
well-tended garden.

Montalbano picked out a photograph of a pretty, dark

skinned woman of about thirty, with big, intense eyes, hold

ing a little boys hand.

Ask her if this is Karima and Frans.

Yes, thats them, said Busca.

Where did they eat? I dont see any stove or hot plate
here.

The old woman and the policeman murmured animatedly
to each other. Busca then said the little boy always
ate with the old woman, even when Karima was at home,
which she was, sometimes, in the evening.

Did she receive men?

As soon as she heard the question translated, the old
woman grew visibly indignant. Karima was practically a djin,
a holy woman halfway between the human race and the angels.
Never would she have done haram, illicit things. She
sweated out a living as a housemaid, cleaning the filth of
men. She was good and generous; for shopping expenses,
looking after the boy, and keeping the house in order, she
used to give the old woman far more than she ever spent, and
never once did she ask for change. As the uncleMontal-
bano, that iswas clearly a man of honorable sentiment and
behavior, how could he ever think such a thing about
Karima?