“The poor man, not knowing how much he’d bled, kept oni> fighting when in fact he was dead.”
But the doctor says nothing and begins to sound his chest with the stethoscope. As if he hasn’t already done this at least twenty times. Finally he straightens back up, looks over at his colleague, and asks: “What do we do?”
“I would let Di Bartolo have a look at him,” says the other.
Di Bartolo! A legend. Montalbano had met him a while back. By now he must be over seventy. A skinny old man with a little white beard that made him look like a goat, he could no longer conform to human society or the rules of common courtesy. Once, after examining, in a manner of speaking, a man known to be a ruthless loan shark, he told the patient he couldn’t tell him anything because he was unable to locate his heart. Another time, in a cafe, he said to a man he’d never seen before, who was sipping a coffee, “Do you know you’re about to have a heart attack?” And lo and behold, he had a heart attack right then and there, maybe because a luminary such as Di Bartolo had just told him it was coming.
But why do these two want to call in Di Bartolo if there is nothing more to be done? Maybe they want to show the old master what a phenomenon this Montalbano is, the way he inexplicably goes on living with a heart that looks like Dresden after the Allied bombing.
While waiting, they decide to take him back to his room. As they’re opening the door to push the stretcher through, he hears Livia’s voice call out desperately: “Salvo! Salvo!”
He doesn’t feel like answering. Poor thing! She’d come down to Vigata to spend a few days with him and got this nice surprise instead.
o o o
“What a nice surprise!” Livia had said to him the day before, when, upon his return from a check-up at Montelusa Hospital, he’d appeared in the doorway with a large bouquet of roses in his hands. And she’d burst into tears.
“Come on, don’t start!” he’d said, barely holding back himself.
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“Well, you never have before!”
“And when have you ever given me a bouquet of roses before?”
He lays his hand on her hip, but gently, so as not to wake her.
o o o
He’d forgotten—or else hadn’t noticed during his earlier meetings with him—that Dr. Di Bartolo not only looked but also sounded like a goat.
“Good day, everybody,” he bleats upon entering, followed by ten or so doctors, all dressed without fail in white smocks and crowding into the room.
“Good day,” replies everybody—that is, Montalbano, since he’s the only body in the room when the doctor appears.
Di Bartolo approaches the bed and looks at him with interest.
“I’m glad to see that, despite my colleagues’ efforts, you can still understand and know what you want.”
He makes a gesture and Strazzera appears beside him and hands him the test results. Di Bartolo barely glances at the first sheet and then tosses it onto the bed, does the same with the second, ditto the third and the fourth. In a matter of seconds, Montalbano’s head and torso disappear under the paper. In the end he hears the doctor’s voice but can’t see him because the photos of the telecardiogram are over his eyes.
“Mind telling me why you called me here?” The bleat sounds rather irritated. Apparently the goat is getting ornery.
“Well, Doctor,” Strazzera’s voice hesitantly begins, “the fact is, one of the inspector’s men told us that a few days ago he’d had a serious episode of . . .”
Of what? Montalbano can no longer hear Strazzera. Maybe he’s telling the next installment in Di Bartolo’s ear. Installment? This isn’t some soap opera. Strazzera said “episode.” But isn’t a soap opera installment called an episode?
“Pull him up for me,” orders Dr. Di Bartolo.
They remove the sheets of paper covering him and gently lift him up. A circle of doctors in white surround the bed, religiously silent. Di Bartolo applies the stethoscope to Montalbano’s chest, moves it a few centimeters, then moves it a few more centimeters and stops. Seeing his face so close, the inspector notices that the doctor’s jaws are moving continuously, as if he were chewing gum. All at once, he understands.The doctor is ruminating. Dr. Di Bartolo actually is a goat. Who now hasn’t moved for a long time. He’s listening, immobile. What do his ears hear in there? Montalbano wonders. Buildings collapsing? Fis-sures suddenly opening up? Subterranean rumbles? Di Bartolo keeps listening interminably, not moving one millimeter from the spot he’s singled out. Doesn’t it hurt his back to stay bent over like that? The inspector begins to sweat from fear.The doctor straightens up.
“That’s enough.”
