Excursion to Tindari

“Because you and I stand on opposite sides of the barricade, Mr. Sinagra. And for now, at least—though perhaps not for long—no armistice has been declared.”

The old man cleared his throat.Then he cleared it again, and only then did the inspector realize that Don Balduccio was laughing.

“Not for long?”

“There are already signs.”

“Let’s hope so. But let’s get down to serious matters.You, Inspector, must be curious to know why I wanted to see you.”

“No.”

“Is that all you know how to say: no?”

“To be honest, Mr. Sinagra, I already know everything about you that might interest me as a cop. I’ve read all the dossiers on your case, even the ones that go back to before I was born. As a man, you don’t interest me at all.”

“So then why did you come?”

“Because I don’t rate myself so highly that I can say no to someone who asks to speak to me.”

“Right answer,” said the old man.

“Mr. Sinagra, if you have something to say to me, fine. Otherwise ...”

Don Balduccio seemed to hesitate. He bent his turtlelike neck even further towards Montalbano and stared at him fixedly, straining his glaucoma-glazed eyes.

“When I was a kid, my vision was so good it was scary. Now I see more and more fog, Inspector. Fog that’s getting thicker and thicker. And I’m not just talking about the disease in my eyes.”

He sighed and leaned against the back of the sofa as if to sink down into it.

“A man should live only as long as is right. Ninety years, that’s a lot. Too long. And it gets even harder if you’re forced to pick things back up that you thought you was rid of. And this business with Japichinu’s worn me out, Inspector. I’m so worried I can’t sleep. He’s even gotTB. So I said to him: turn yourself in to the carabinieri, at least they’ll cure you. But Japichinu’s a kid, stubborn like all kids. Anyways, I had to think about taking control of the family again. And it’s hard, real hard. ‘Cause in the meanwhile, time’s gone by and people have changed. You don’t understand how they think anymore, you don’t understand what’s going through their heads. Used to be—just to give you an example—used to be, you had a problem, you could reason about it. Even for a long time, maybe days and days, maybe even till things got hot and tempers flared, but you could still reason. Nowadays people don’t wanna reason anymore, they don’t wanna waste time.”

“So what do they do?”

“They shoot, Inspector, they shoot. And we’re all really good at shooting, even the dumbest of the bunch. Right now, for instance, if you pull your gun out of your pocket—”

“I haven’t got one, I don’t carry a gun.”

“Really?” Don Balduccio’s astonishment was sincere. “But that’s very careless, Inspector! With all the criminals running around these days—”

“I know. But I don’t like weapons.”

“I didn’t like ‘em either. But as I was saying, if you point a gun at me and say, ’Balduccio, get down on your knees,‘ I got no choice. Since I’m unarmed, I gotta get down on my knees. That’s logical, no? But it doesn’t mean you’re a man of honor, it only means—pardon my language—that you’re a piece of shit with a gun in your hand.”

“And how does a man of honor act?”

“Not how does he act, Inspector, but how did he use to act.You come to my place unarmed and you talk to me, you explain the problem to me, you give me the pros and cons, and if at first I don’t agree with you, next day you come back and we reason, we talk it out until I’m convinced that the only solution is for me to get down on my knees like you asked, for my own good and everyone else’s.”

Suddenly, a passage from Manzoni’s Colonna Infame flashed through the inspector’s brain, the one where some poor wretch is driven to the point where he can only utter: “Tell me what you want me to say,” or something along those lines. But Montalbano didn’t feel like getting into a discussion of Manzoni with Don Balduccio.

“But I’m under the impression that even in the happy times you mention, the custom was to kill people who wouldn’t get down on their knees.”

“Of course!” the old man said with gusto. “Of course! But killing a man for refusing to obey, you know what that used to mean?”

“No.”

“It meant you lost the battle, because that man’s courage left you no other choice. You get my point?”

“Yeah, I get it. But, you see, Mr. Sinagra, I didn’t come here to listen to you tell me the history of the Mafia from your point of view.”

“But you already know the history from the point of view of the law!”

“Of course. But you’re a loser, Mr. Sinagra, or almost. And history is never written by the losers. For the moment, it’s the people who won’t reason and just shoot who’re more likely to write it. The winners of the moment. And now, if you don’t mind ...”

He made as if to rise, but the old man stopped him with a gesture.

“Excuse me. Us old folks, along with all our other ailments, we run at the mouth. In two words, Inspector: it’s