“Forty-four and ten months. In two months you’ll be forty-five. I’ve already turned thirty-three. Do you know what that means?”
“No. What what means?”
“We’ve been together for six years. Every now and then we talk about getting married, and then we drop the subject.
We both do, by mutual, tacit consent. And we don’t resume the discussion. We get along so well just the way things are, and our laziness, our egotism, gets the better of us, always.” “Laziness? Egotism? What are you talking about? There are objective difficulties which—”
“—which you can stick up your ass,” Livia brutally concluded.
Montalbano, disconcerted, fell silent. Only once or twice in six years had Livia ever used obscenities, and it was always in troubling, extremely tense circumstances.
“I’m sorry,” Livia said softly. “But sometimes I just can’t stand your camouflage and hypocrisy. Your cynicism is more authentic.”
Montalbano, still silent, took it all in.
“Don’t try to distract me from what I want to say to you.
You’re very good at it; it’s your job. What I want to know is: when do you think we can get married? Give me a straight answer.”
“If it was only up to me . . .”
Livia leapt to her feet.
“That’s enough! I’m going to bed. I took two sleeping pills and my plane leaves Palermo at noon tomorrow. But first I want to finish what I have to say. If we ever get married, it’ll be when you’re fifty and I’m thirty-eight. In other words, too late to have children. And we still haven’t realized that somebody, God or whoever is acting in His place, has already sent us a child, at just the right moment.” She turned her back and went inside. Montalbano stayed outside on the veranda, gazing at the sea, but unable to bring it into focus.
o o o
An hour before midnight, he made sure Livia was sleeping profoundly, then he unplugged the phone, gathered together all the loose change he could find, turned off the lights, and went out. He drove to the telephone booth in the parking lot of the Marinella Bar.
“Nicolo? Montalbano here. A couple of things. Tomorrow morning, around midday, send somebody along with a cameraman to the neighborhood of police headquarters.
There are some new developments.”
“Thanks. What else?”
“I was wondering, do you have a very small videocamera, one that doesn’t make any noise? The smaller the better.”
“You want to leave posterity a document of your prowess in bed?”
“Do you know how to use this camera?”
“Of course.”
“Then bring it to me.”
“When?”
“As soon as you’ve finished your midnight news report.
But don’t ring the doorbell when you get here, Livia’s asleep.”
o o o
“Hello, is this the prefect of Trapani? Please excuse me for calling so late. This is Corrado Menichelli of the
“Is it true that pressure was put on you to accommodate a certain Tunisian journalist during his recent visit to Mazara? I advise that you think a moment before answering, in your own interest.” “I don’t need to think for even a second!” the prefect exploded. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t you remember? That’s very odd, you know, since this all happened barely three weeks ago.”
“None of this ever happened! No pressure was ever put on me! I don’t know anything about any Tunisian journalists!”
“Mr. Prefect, we have proof that—”
“You can’t have proof of something that never happened!
Let me speak immediately to the editor-in-chief !” Montalbano hung up. The prefect of Trapani was sincere; the head of his cabinet, on the other hand, was not.
o o o
“Valente? Montalbano here. I just spoke with the prefect of Trapani; I was pretending to be a reporter for the
“Not to worry. I’m calling from a phone booth. Now here’s what we should do next, providing that you agree.”
