“Chief, ’at’d be the Harbor Office onna phone, but I don’ tink the man’s a officer ’cause ’e says ’e’s Lieutinnint wha’ss ’is name… damn, I forgot!”
“Cat, a lieutenant
“Oh, rilly? So wha’ss it mean?”
“What’s what mean? Never mind, I’ll explain later. Put him on.”
“Good afternoon, Inspector. This is Lieutenant Garrufo from the Harbor Office.”
“Good afternoon. What can I do for you?”
“We’ve just now got some news from the
“Thanks for letting me know.”
“They said something else, too.”
“And what was that?”
“Well, there was a lot of static on the line and I’m not sure we heard correctly, but there seems to be a dead man on board.”
“One of the crew?”
“No, no. They’d just picked him up when they hailed us. He was in a dinghy that by some miracle hadn’t capsized.”
“Maybe from a shipwreck.”
“Apparently not, as far as we could gather… But we’d better all wait till they come into port, don’t you think?”
He certainly did think they should wait.
He was almost certain, however, and would have bet his life on it, that the dead body belonged to some luckless, hungry, thirsty wretch who’d been waiting for weeks of hopeless agony to see the smoke of a steamship or even the simple profile of a fishing boat.
Better not think about such things, as the stories the fishermen told were horrific. The nets they cast into the water often came back up with corpses and body parts which they would throw back into the sea. The remains of hundreds and hundreds of men, women, and children who, after a ghastly journey through godforsaken deserts and wastelands that had decimated their numbers, had hoped to come ashore in a country where they might be able to earn a crust of bread.
And for that journey they had given up everything, sold their bodies and souls, to pay in advance the slave traders who trafficked in human bodies and often did not hesitate to let them die, throwing them into the sea at the slightest sign of danger.
And then, for those survivors who made it to dry land, what a fine welcome they received in our country!
“Reception camps” they were called, though most often they were veritable concentration camps.
And there were even people-known, curiously, as “honorables” [2] -who still weren’t satisfied and wanted to see them dead. They said our sailors should shell their boats, since their human cargo were all disease-carrying criminals who had no desire to work.
Pretty much the same thing that had happened to our own folk, way back when they left for America.
Except that now everyone had forgotten this.
When he thought about it, Montalbano was more than certain that, with the Cozzi-Pini law [3] and similar bullshit, the Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph themselves would have never even made it to their cave.
He went to tell the girl about the Harbor Office’s communication with the boat.
“Listen, the
“Oh, well. I guess I’ll have to sit tight. Can I stay here?”
She had accompanied her request with a hopeful hand gesture, like someone begging for alms.
“Of course you can,” said the inspector. He couldn’t very well kick a wet dog out of a temporary shelter.
Her smile of thanks made him feel so sorry for her that he asked without thinking:
“Actually, would you like to join me for lunch?”
Vanna immediately accepted. Gallo drove them to the restaurant, since it was still raining, though not quite as hard as before.
It was a pleasure to watch her eat. She set to her food as if she had been fasting for days. The inspector did not mention the corpse the
When they came out of the trattoria it had stopped raining. Glancing up at the sky, the inspector became convinced it wasn’t just a momentary letup, but that the weather was changing in earnest. There was no need to phone Gallo to come and pick them up. They returned to the station on foot, even though the road was more mud and water than asphalt.
The moment they got there, they found Gallo waiting for them.
“They’ve built a temporary bridge. You have to get your cars out of there at once.”
It took them about an hour, but at last Vanna and Montalbano were able to drive back to Vigata, each in his and her own car.
“Ahh Chief! The Harbor’s Office juss called sayin’ as how the
Montalbano glanced at his watch. It was four-thirty.
“Do you know how to get to the port?” he asked Vanna.
“Yes, don’t worry. I really want to thank you for your exquisite kindness, Inspector.”
She took the novel out of her purse and handed it to him.
“Did you finish it?”
“I’ve got about ten pages to go.”
“Then keep it.”
“Thanks.”
She held her hand out to him, and he shook it. She stood there a moment, looking at him, then leapt forward, threw her arms around his neck, and kissed him.
It had stopped raining outside, but not in Montalbano’s office. Water was still dripping from the ceiling. Apparently the space under the roof had become a leaking cistern. The inspector set himself up again in Augello’s office. A short while later, there was a knock at the door. It was Fazio.
“The masons will be here tomorrow to fix the roof. The cleaning women will also be coming. I had a look at the papers that were on your desk. Might as well throw them away.”
“So throw them away.”
“And then what’ll we do, Chief?”
“About what?”
“All those documents needed replies, but now we don’t know anymore what the questions were.”
“What the hell do you care?”
“I don’t. But what are you going to say to the commissioner when he starts asking you why you have so many outstanding memos unanswered?”
He was right.
“Listen, are any of those documents still intact?”
“Yessir.”
“How many?”
