The commissioner begins to speak, but Montalbano hears only scraps of what he’s saying, as if a strong wind were carrying away his words.
“. . . and therefore I’ve recommended you be given a solemn citation . . .”
“. . . solemn citation . . .” echoes Lattes.
“La-de-da-de-da-de-ation,” says a voice in Montalbano’s head.
Wind.
“. . . while awaiting your return, Inspector Augello . . .”
“Oh good fellow, good fellow,” says the same voice in his head.
Wind.
Eyelids drooping, inexorably closing.
o o o
Now his eyelids are drooping. Maybe he can finally fall asleep.
Just like this, pressed up against Livia’s warm body. But there’s that goddamn shutter that keeps wailing with every gust of wind.
What to do? Open the window and try to close the shutter more tightly? Not a chance. It would surely wake Livia up.
But maybe there is a solution. No harm in trying. Instead of fighting the shutter’s wail, try to echo it, incorporate it in the rhythm of his own breathing.
“Iiiih!” goes the shutter.
“Iiiih!” goes the inspector, softly, lips barely open.
“Eeeeh!” goes the shutter.
“Eeeeh!” echoes the inspector.
That time, however, he didn’t keep his voice down. In a flash, Livia opens her eyes and sits up in bed.
“Salvo! Are you unwell?”
“Why?”
“You were moaning!”
“I must have been doing it in my sleep. Sorry. Go back to sleep.”
Goddamned window!
02
A gelid blast is blowing in through the wide-open window. It’s always that way in hospitals.They cure your appendicitis and then make you die of pneumonia. He’s sitting in an armchair. Only two days left, and he can finally go back to Marinella. But since six o’clock that morning, squads of women have been cleaning everything: corridors, rooms, closets, windows, doorknobs, beds, chairs. It’s as if a great cloud of clean-up mania had descended on the place. Sheets, pillowcases, blankets are changed, the bathroom sparkles so brightly it’s blinding; you need sunglasses to go in there.
“What’s going on?” he asks a nurse who’s come to help him get back in bed.
“Some big cheese is coming.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Listen, couldn’t I just stay in the armchair?”
“No, you can’t.”
A little while later, Strazzera shows up, disappointed not to find Livia in the room.
“I think she might drop in later,” Montalbano sets his mind at rest.
But he’s just being mean. He said “might” just to keep the doctor on tenterhooks. Livia assured him she’d be there to see him, only a little late.
“So who’s coming?”
“Petrotto.The undersecretary.”
“What for?”
“To congratulate you.”
Fuck.That’s all he needs.The honorable Gianfranco Petrotto, former chamber deputy, now undersecretary of the interior, though once convicted for corruption, another time for graft, and a third time let off the hook by the statute of
