The Snack Thief

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!”

7 1

h2> 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 Fazio’s 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 I’ve 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.

o o o

Buscaino, 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 she’d like to tell her uncle the whole story,” Buscaino 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. “It’s 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 we’ll have a look.”

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

Karima’s 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 Lapecora’s study,Volupte, was 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, holding a little boy’s hand.

“Ask her if this is Karima and Francois.”

“Yes, that’s them,” said Buscaino.

“Where did they eat? I don’t see any stove or hot plate here.”

The old woman and the policeman murmured animat-edly to each other. Buscaino 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