“Please make yourself comfortable. I’ll call Dr. Brancato for you.”
He sat down in an armchair and picked up one of the magazines that lay on a small table. He put it back down at once. His hands were so sweaty they had wet the cover.
The doctor, a very serious-looking man of about fifty in a white smock, came in and held out his hand to him.
“Mr. Montalbano? I am very, very sorry to have to tell you that your father died peacefully two hours ago.”
“Thank you,” said Montalbano.
The doctor looked at him, slightly bewildered. But it wasn’t him the inspector was thanking.
2 8 9
AU T H O R ’ S N OT E
One critic, when reviewing my book The Terra-Cotta Dog, wrote that Vigata, the nonexistent town in which all my novels are set, is “the most invented city of the most typical Sicily.” I cite these words in support of the requisite declaration that all names, places, and situations in this book have been invented out of whole cloth. Even the license plate.
If fantasy has somehow coincided with reality, the blame, in my opinion, lies with reality.
The novel is dedicated to Flem. He liked stories like this.
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N OT ES
1 sardines a beccafico: Sarde a beccafico are a famous Sicilian spe-cialty named after a small bird, the beccafico ( Sylvia borin, garden war-bler in English), which is particularly fond of figs; indeed the name beccafico means “fig-pecker.” The headless, cleaned sardines are stuffed with sauteed breadcrumbs, pinenuts, sultana raisins, and anchovies, then rolled up in such a way that, when removed from the oven, they resemble the bird.
6 “the prefect”: The prefetto is the local representative of the central Italian government; one is assigned to each province. They are part of the national, not local bureaucracy.
29 alalonga all’agrodolce: Alalonga (literally “longwing”) is a particularly delicious species of small tuna. All’agrodolce means
“sweet and sour,” and in this case involves sauteing a small steak of the fish in a sauce of vinegar, oil, sugar, and parsley.
29 The Northern League . . . towards secession: The Lega Nord is a right-wing political party based in the northern regions of Italy (Lombardy,Veneto, Piedmont) and known for its prejudices against foreign immigrants and southern Italians. Until recently they had been threatening to constitute a separate national entity under the historically dubious name of Padania (after the Po River, which runs from the Piedmont through Lombardy and the Veneto), and to secede from the Italian republic.
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N O T E S
38 They spread their hands apart, looking sorrowful: Spreading the hands apart, palms open, is a gesture typical of southern Italians and seen often among Italian Americans, most notably Al Pacino in many of his movie roles. It usually expresses helplessness and resignation to fate.
39 A smell of stale perfume, burnt straw in color: As seen in the first two novels, Montalbano synesthetically associates colors with smells.
51 E te lo vojo di che so stato io: b>“And I want to say that it was me.” The lines are a refrain from a popular Italian song of the early 1970s by the Fratelli DeAngelis. In it a man confesses to a friend that it was he who committed an unsolved crime of passion some thirty years before, and that he has kept the truth inside him all these years.p>
51 “goat-tied”: The Sicilian word is incaprettato (containing the word for goat, capra), and it refers to a particularly cruel method of execution used by the Mafia, where the victim, facedown, has a rope looped around his neck and then tied to his feet, which are raised behind his back, as in hog-tying. Fatigue eventually forces him to lower his feet, strangling himself in the process.
69 “Italy is a Republic founded on construction work”: A send-up of the first sentence of the Italian constitution: “Italy is a Republic founded on work.”
73 a gesture that meant “gone away”: Normally this consists of tapping the edge of the right hand against the open left palm, a sign used equally in Italy, France, Spain, and North Africa to mean “let’s go” or “gone.” 79 Montalbano brought his fingertips together, pointing upwards,
artichokelike: This is a familiar gesture of questioning used by all Italians.
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N O T E S
79 “Frere . . . Salvo”: The French conversation translates as follows:
“Brother?”
