The Snack Thief

could make a little pasta with garlic and oil; as a second course, he could throw something together using sardines in brine, olives, caciocavallo cheese, and canned tuna. The worst, in any case, would come the following day, when Adelina, showing up to clean house and cook, found Livia there with a little boy. The two women didn’t take to each other. Once, because of certain comments Livia had made, Adelina had abruptly dropped everything, half finished, to return only after she was certain her rival was gone and already hundreds of miles away.

It was time for the evening news. He turned on the television and tuned into TeleVigata. On the screen appeared the chicken-ass mug of Pippo Ragonese, their editorialist. Montalbano was about to change the channel when Ragonese’s first words paralyzed him.

“What is going on at Vigata police headquarters?” the newsman asked himself and the entire universe in a tone that would have made Torquemada, in his best moments, seem like he was telling jokes.

He went on to say that in his opinion,Vigata these days could be compared to the Chicago of the Prohibition era, with all its shoot-outs, robberies, and arson. The life and lib-erty of the common, honest citizen were in constant danger.

And did the viewers know what that overrated Police Inspector Montalbano, in the midst of this tragic situation, was working on? The question mark was so emphatically under-scored that the inspector thought he could actually see it su-perimposed on the man’s chicken-ass face. Having caught his breath, the better to express due wonder and indignation, Ragonese then stressed every syllable: “On-chas-ing-af-ter-a-snack-thief !”

But he wasn’t working on this alone, our inspector. He’d dragged all his men along with him, leaving police headquarters unprotected, with only a sorry switchboard operator on duty. How did he, Ragonese, come to learn of this seemingly comical but surely tragic situation? Needing to speak with Assistant Inspector Augello to get some information, he had telephoned the central police station, only to receive the extraordinary answer given him by the switchboard operator.

At first, he’d thought it must be a joke, a tasteless one, to be sure, and so he’d insisted.Yet in the end he understood that it was not a prank, but the incredible truth. Did the viewers of Vigata realize what sort of hands they were in?

“What have I ever done to deserve Catarella?” the inspector asked himself bitterly as he changed channel.

On the Free Channel’s news program, they were broad-casting images of the funeral, in Mazara, of the Tunisian fisherman machine-gunned to death aboard the trawler Santopadre. At the end of the report, the speaker commented on the Tunisian’s misfortune to have died so tragically his first time out on the fishing boat. Indeed, he had only just arrived in town, and hardly anyone knew him. He had no family, or at least hadn’t had the time to bring them to Mazara.

He was born thirty-two years ago in Sfax, and his name was Ben Dhahab. They showed a photo of him, and at that moment Livia and the little boy walked in, back from their stroll.

Seeing the face on the television screen, Francois smiled and pointed a small finger.

“Mon oncle,” he said.

Livia was about to tell Salvo to turn off the television because it bothered her when she was eating; for his part, Montalbano was about to reproach her for not having prepared anything for supper. Instead they just stood there dumbstruck, forefingers pointing at each other, while a third forefinger, the little boy’s, still pointed at the screen. It was as if an angel had passed, the one who says “Amen,” and everyone remains just as they were. The inspector pulled himself up and sought confirmation, doubting his scant understanding of French.

“What’d he say?”

“He said: ‘my uncle,’ ” replied a very pale Livia.

When the image vanished from the screen, Francois took his place at the table, anxious to start eating and in no way disturbed by having seen his uncle on TV.

“Ask him if the man he just saw is his uncle uncle.”

“What kind of idiotic question is that?”

“It’s not idiotic. They called me ‘uncle,’ too, even though I’m nobody’s uncle.”

Francois answered that the man he’d just seen was his uncle uncle, his mother’s brother.

“He has to come with me, right away.”

“Where do you want to take him?”

“To headquarters. I want to show him a photograph.”

“Forget it. Nobody’s going to steal your photograph.

Francois has to eat first. Afterwards, I’m going to come with you; you’re liable to lose the kid along the way.” The pasta came out overcooked, practically inedible.

o o o

At headquarters there was only Catarella, who, upon seeing the makeshift little family and the look on his superior’s face, took fright.

“All peaceable and quietlike here, Chief.”

“But not in Chechnya.”

The inspector opened a drawer and took out the photos he’d lifted from Karima’s house. He selected one and showed it to Francois. The boy, without a word, brought it to his lips and kissed his mother’s image.

Livia barely suppressed a sob. There was no need to ask any questions; the resemblance between the man shown on television and the uniformed man with Karima in the photo was obvious. But the inspector asked anyway.

“Is this ton oncle?”

“Oui.”