The Snack Thief

How was it a woman like that hadn’t succeeded in finding a husband or rich lover to take care of her so she wouldn’t have to prostitute herself ? There was a shot of a pregnant Karima some time before, gazing lovingly at a tall, blond man and literally hanging from him. Probably Francois’s father, the Frenchman passing through Tunisia. Other photos showed Karima as a little girl with a boy slightly older than her. They bore a strong resemblance, had the same eyes.

Brother and sister, no doubt. Actually there were a great many photos of her with her brother, taken over the years.

The last must have been the one in which Karima, with her infant son, a few months old, in her arms, stood next to her brother, who was wearing some sort of uniform and holding a submachine gun. He took this photograph and went downstairs.

The woman was crushing minced meat in a mortar, fold-ing in grains of cooked wheat. On a platter beside her, all ready to be roasted, were some skewers of meat, with each morsel wrapped in a vine leaf. Montalbano brought his fingertips together, pointing upwards, artichokelike— a cacocciola, in Sicilian—and shook his hand up and down. The old woman understood the question and, pointing to the mortar, said: “Kubba.”

Then she picked up one of the skewers.

“Kebab,” she said.

The inspector showed her the photo and pointed at the man. The woman answered something incomprehensible.

Montalbano felt pissed off at himself. Why had he been in such a hurry to send Buscaino away? Then he remembered that for years and years the Tunisians had been mixed up with the French. He gave it a try.

“Frere?”

The old woman’s eyes lit up.

“Oui. Son frere Ahmed.”

“Ou est-il?”

“Je ne sais pas,” said the woman, throwing up her hands.

After this exchange straight out of a French conversation manual, Montalbano went back upstairs and grabbed the photo of the pregnant Karima with the blond man.

“Son mari?”

The old woman made a gesture of scorn.

“Simplement le pere de Francois. Un mauvais homme.” She’d met too many of them—bad men, that is—had the beautiful Karima, and was apparently still meeting them.

“Je m’appelle Aisha,” the old woman said out of the blue.

“Mon nom est Salvo,” said Montalbano.

o o o

He got in the car, found the pastry shop he’d caught a glimpse of on the way, bought twelve cannoli, and drove back to the house. Aisha had set a table under a tiny pergola behind the cottage, at the front of the garden. The countryside was deserted. Before doing anything else, Montalbano un-wrapped the pastry tray, and the old woman immediately ate two cannoli as an appetizer. Montalbano wasn’t too thrilled with the kubba, but the kebabs had a tart, herbal flavor that made them a little more sprightly, or so, at least, he defined them according to his imperfect use of adjectives.

During the meal Aisha probably told him the story of her life, but she’d forgotten her French and was speaking only Arabic. Nevertheless, the inspector actively participated: when the old woman laughed, he laughed too; when she grew sad, he put on a face fit for a funeral.

When supper was over, Aisha cleared the table, while Montalbano, at peace with himself and the world, smoked a cigarette. When the old woman returned, she was wearing a mysterious, conspiratorial expression. In her hand was a narrow, flat black box that probably once held a necklace or something similar. Aisha opened it, and inside was a savings-account passbook for the Banca Popolare di Montelusa.

“Karima,” the old woman said, bringing her forefinger to her lips, meaning that this was a secret and should remain so.

Montalbano took the booklet from the box and opened it.

An even five hundred million lire.

o o o

The previous year—Signora Clementina Vasile Cozzo told him—she’d suffered a terrible spell of insomnia she could do nothing about. Luckily it lasted only a few months. She would spend most of the night watching television or listening to the radio. Reading, no. She couldn’t read for very long, because after a while her eyes would start to flutter.

Once—it must have been around four in the morning, perhaps earlier—she heard the shouts of two drunkards quarrel-ing right under her window. She opened the curtain, just out of curiosity, and noticed that the light was on in Mr.

Lapecora’s office. What could Mr. Lapecora be doing there at that hour of the night? But Mr. Lapecora was not there, in fact. Nobody was there; the front room of the office was empty. So Signora Vasile Cozzo concluded that somebody had left the light on. Suddenly, however, from the other room, which she knew existed but couldn’t see from her window, there emerged a young man who used to come to the office now and then, even when Lapecora wasn’t there.

Stark naked, the man ran to the telephone, picked up the receiver, and started talking. Apparently the telephone had been ringing, though the signora hadn’t heard it. Moments later, Karima emerged, also from the back room, and also naked. She stood there listening to the young man, who was growing animated as he spoke. When