“What is it?”
“I’m a little concerned, Salvo. You’ve been acting weird for the last couple of days. What’s the matter with you? Don’t make me start worrying about you.”
“Mimi, I just need a little rest, that’s all.”
“Where will you go?”
“I don’t know yet. I’ll call you later.”
o o o
Actually, he knew exactly where he would go. He packed his bag in five minutes, then took a little longer to select which books to bring along. He left a note in block letters for Adelina, the housekeeper, informing her he’d be back within a week. When he arrived at the trattoria in Mazara, they greeted him like the prodigal son.
“The other day, I believe I understood that you rent rooms.”
“Yes, we’ve got five upstairs. But it’s the off-season now, so only one of ’em’s rented.”
They showed him a room, spacious and bright and looking straight onto the sea.
He lay down on the bed, brain emptied of thoughts, chest swelling with a kind of happy melancholy. He was loosing the moorings, ready to sail out to the country of sleep, when he heard a knock on the door.
“Come in, it’s unlocked.”
The cook appeared in the doorway. He was a big man of considerable heft, about forty, with dark eyes and skin.
“What are you doing? Aren’t you coming down? I heard you were here and so I made something for you that . . .” What the cook had made, Montalbano couldn’t hear, because a sweet, soft melody, a heavenly tune, had started playing in his ears.
o o o
For the last hour he’d been watching a rowboat slowly approaching the shore. On it was a man rowing in sharply rhythmic, vigorous strokes. The boat had also been sighted by the owner of the trattoria; Montalbano heard him cry out: “Luici! The cavaliere’s coming back!”
The inspector then saw Luicino, the restaurateur’s sixteen-year-old son, enter the water to push the boat up onto the sand so the passenger wouldn’t get his feet wet. The cavaliere, whose name Montalbano did not know, was smartly dressed, tie and all. On his head he wore a white Panama hat, with the requisite black band.
“Cavaliere, did you catch anything?” the restaurateur asked him.
“A pain in the ass, that’s what I caught.” He was a thin, nervy man, about seventy years old. Later, Montalbano heard him bustling about in the room next to his.
o o o
“I set a table over here,” said the cook as soon as Montalbano appeared for dinner, and he led him into a tiny room with space for only two tables. The inspector felt grateful for this, since the big dining room was booming with the voices and laughter of a large gathering.
“I’ve set it for two,” the cook continued. “Do you have any objection if Cavaliere Pintacuda eats with you?” He certainly did have an objection: he feared he would have to talk while eating.
A few minutes later, the gaunt septuagenarian introduced himself with a bow.
“Liborio Pintacuda, and I’m not a cavaliere,” he said, sitting down. “There’s something I must tell you, even at the risk of appearing rude,” the non-cavaliere continued. “I, when I’m talking, do not eat. Conversely, when I’m eating, I don’t talk.” “Welcome to the club,” said Montalbano, sighing with relief.
The pasta with crab was as graceful as a first-rate balle-rina, but the stuffed bass in saffron sauce left him breathless, almost frightened.
“Do you think this kind of miracle could ever happen again?” he asked Pintacuda, gesturing towards his now empty plate. They had both finished and therefore recovered the power of speech.
“It’ll happen again, don’t worry, just like the miracle of the blood of San Gennaro,” said Pintacuda. “I’ve been coming here for years, and never, I repeat, never, has Tanino’s cooking let me down.” “At a top-notch restaurant, a chef like Tanino would be worth his weight in gold,” the inspector commented.
“Yes he would. Last year, a Frenchman passed this way, the owner of a famous Parisian restaurant. He practically got down on his knees and begged Tanino to come to Paris with him. But there was no persuading him. Tanino says this is where he’s from, and this is where he’ll die.” “Someone must surely have taught him to cook like that.
He can’t have been born with that gift.”
“You know, up until ten years ago, Tanino was a small-time crook. Petty theft, drug dealing. Always in and out of jail. Then, one night, the Blessed Virgin appeared to him.” “Are you joking?”
“I try hard not to. As he tells it, the Virgin took his hands in hers, looked him in the eye, and declared that from the next day forward, he would become a great chef.”
“Come on!”
“You, for example, knew nothing of this story of the Virgin, and yet after eating the bass, you specifically used the word ‘miracle.’ But I can see you don’t believe in the super-natural, so I’ll change subject. What brings you to these parts, Inspector?” Montalbano gave a start. He hadn’t told anyone there what he did for a living.
“I saw your press conference on television, after you arrested that woman for killing her husband,” Pintacuda explained.
“Please don’t tell anybody who I am.”
