The operation, however, was a success, except that it made matters worse, in that the lamp shed a feeble light over half of the desktop and plunged the side on which the old man sat into total darkness. In amazement Montalbano saw the old man reach out with one hand and seize a small bottle with an odd sort of cork. There were three other such bottles on the desk, two empty and the other full of a white liquid. They weren't regular bottles, actually, but baby bottles, each furnished with a nipple. The inspector felt himself growing stupidly irritated as the old man started sucking.
'You'll have to forgive me. I havent any teeth.'
'But why don't you drink the milk from a mug or a cup or, I don't know, a glass?'
'Because it gives me more pleasure this way. It's as if I were smoking a pipe.'
Montalbano decided to leave as quickly as possible. Standing up, he took from his jacket pocket two of the photos taken by Jacomuzzi and handed them to the priest.
'Might this have been some sort of burial rite?'
The old man looked at the photos, growing animated and groaning.
'What was inside the bowl?'
'Coins from the 1940s.'
'And in the jug?'
'Nothing ...There was no trace of anything ...It must have contained only water.'
The old man sat there sucking a good while, engrossed in thought. Montalbano sat back down.
'It makes no sense,' said the priest, setting the photos down on the desk.
16
Montalbano was at the end of his rope. Bombarded with questions by the priest, he felt his thoughts growing confused and, what was worse, every time he was unable to answer, Alcide Maraventano made a kind of whining sound and in protest began sucking louder than usual. He was already working on his second baby bottle.
In what directions were the heads of the dead pointed?
Was the jug made of absolutely normal clay or some other material?
How many coins were there inside the bowl?
Exactly how far from the two bodies were the jug, bowl, and terra-cotta dog?
At last the third degree ended.
It makes no sense.
The interrogations conclusion confirmed precisely what the priest had immediately surmised at the start. The inspector, with a certain, not very well-concealed relief, thought he could now get up, take his leave, and go.
'Wait. What's the hurry?'
Montalbano sat back down, resigned.
'It's not a funerary rite, but maybe it's something else.'
All at once, the inspector roused himself from his lethargy and regained full possession of his mental faculties. This Maraventano was a thinking mind.
'Tell me, I'd much appreciate your opinion.'
'Have you read Umberto Eco?'
Montalbano began to sweat.
Jesus, now hes giving me a literature exam, he thought, but he managed to say: 'I've read his first novel and the two small diaries, which seemed to me'
'Well, I haven't. I don't know the novels. I was referring to the
'I'm embarrassed to say, I haven't read it.'
'And I suppose you haven't read Kristevas Semeiotik either?'
'No, and I have no desire to,' said Montalbano, starting to feel angry. He was beginning to suspect that the old man was pulling his leg.
'All right, then,' said Alcide Maraventano, sighing, 'I'll give you a down-to-earth example.'
'Something on my level,' Montalbano muttered to himself.
'If you, then, are a police inspector, and you find a man who's been shot and killed, and in whose mouth the killers have placed a stone, what conclusion might you draw?'
'That's old stuff, you know,' said Montalbano, 'bent on regaining the upper hand. Nowadays they murder without giving any explanations.'
'I see. So for you that stone in the mouth is a kind of explanation.'
'Of course.'
