“Not even a sandwich?” the devil whined.
“No.”
Monteserrato was the name of a line of hills, of considerable height, separating Montelusa from Vigàta. They practically began at the sea and continued on for five or six kilometers inland. Atop the last ridge stood a large, old farming estate. It was an isolated spot. And so it had remained, despite the fact that at the time of the public-works construction craze, in their desperate search for a place that might justify the building of a highway, bridge, overpass, or tunnel, the authorities had linked it to the Vigàta-Montelusa provincial road with a ribbon of asphalt. Old Headmaster Burgio had once spoken to him of Monteserrato a few years back. He told him of how, in 1944, he’d made an excursion to Monteserrato with an American friend, a journalist to whom he’d taken an immediate liking. They walked for hours across the countryside, then began climbing, stopping occasionally to rest. When they came within view of the estate, and its high enclosure of walls, they were stopped by two dogs of a sort that neither the headmaster nor the American had ever seen before. With a greyhound’s body but a very short, curled, piglike tail, long ears as on a hunting dog, and a ferocious look in the eye. The dogs literally immobilized them, snarling whenever they made the slightest move. Finally somebody from the estate came by on horseback and accompanied them. The head of the family took them to see the remains of an ancient monastery, where Burgis and the American saw an extraordinary fresco, a Nativity, on a damp, deteriorating wall. One could still read the date: 1410. Also portrayed in the painting were three dogs, in every way identical to the ones that had cornered them on their arrival. Many years later, after the asphalt road was built, Burgio had decided to go back there. The vestiges of the monastery no longer existed; in their place now stood a vast garage. Even the wall with the fresco had been knocked down. Around the garage one could still find little pieces of colored plaster on the ground.
The inspector found the little chapel that Fazio had told him to look for; ten yards beyond began a dirt road that descended down the hillside.
“Be careful, it’s very steep,” Fazio had said.
Talk about steep! It was practically vertical. When he was halfway down, he stopped, got out, and looked out from the edge of the road. The panorama that unfolded before him could be seen as either hideous or beautiful, depending on the observer’s tastes. There were no trees, no other houses than the one whose roof was visible about a hundred yards down. The land was not cultivated. Left to itself, it had produced an extraordinary variety of wild plants. Indeed, the tiny house was utterly buried under the tall grass, except, of course, for the roof, which clearly had been redone a short while before, its tiles intact. With a sense of dismay, Montalbano saw electrical and telephone wires, originating at some distant, invisible point, leading into the former stable. They were incongruous in that landscape, which appeared to have looked this way since the beginning of time.
15
At a certain point along the dirt road, on the left-hand side, the repeated comings and goings of a car had opened a kind of trail through the tall grass. It led straight up to the door of the former stable, a door recently remade in solid wood and fitted with two locks. In addition, a chain of the sort used to protect motorbikes from theft was looped through two screw eyes and secured by a big padlock. Beside the door was a tiny window, too small for even a five-year-old child to pass through, blocked by iron bars. Beyond the bars, one could see that the pane was painted black, either to prevent one from seeing in or to keep the light from filtering out at night.
Montalbano had two possible courses of action: either return to Vigàta and ask for reinforcements or set about breaking and entering, even though he was convinced this would be a long and arduous task. Naturally, he opted for the latter. Removing his jacket, he picked up the little hacksaw he’d been lucky enough to buy in Trapani and got down to work on the chain. After fifteen minutes, his arm began to ache. After half an hour, the pain had spread halfway across his chest. After an hour, the chain broke, with the help of the crowbar, which he used for leverage, and the pliers. Drenched in sweat, he removed his shirt and spread it out on the grass, hoping it would dry a little. He sat down in the car and rested. He didn’t even feel like smoking a cigarette. When he felt sufficiently rested, he attacked the first of the two locks with the set of picklocks he now carried with him at all times. He tinkered for about half an hour before deciding it was useless. He got nowhere with the second lock either. Then he had an idea that at first seemed ingenious to him. He opened up the glove compartment of the car, grabbed his pistol, loaded it, aimed, and fired at the higher of the two locks. The bullet hit its target, ricocheted off the metal, and lightly grazed his side, the same one he’d injured a few years before. The only result he achieved was to have deformed the keyhole. Cursing, he put the pistol back in its place. Why was it that the policemen in American movies always succeed in opening doors with this method? The fright brought on another round of sweating. He took off his undershirt and spread it out next to his shirt. Armed with hammer and chisel, he started working on the wood of the door, all around the lock he had shot at. After an hour or so, he thought he’d done enough digging. A good shoulder-thrust should definitely open the door now. He took three steps back, got a running start, and crashed his shoulder into the door. But the door didn’t budge. The pain shooting through his entire shoulder and chest was so great that tears came to his eyes. Why hadn’t the goddamn thing opened? Easy: he’d forgotten that, before putting his shoulder into the door, he had to reduce the second lock to the same state as the first. Now his trousers, damp with sweat, were bothering him. He took them off, too, laying them next to the shirt and undershirt. After yet another hour, the second lock also began to feel shaky. His shoulder had swollen and started throbbing. He worked with the hammer and crowbar. The door resisted, inexplicably. Suddenly he was overwhelmed by an uncontrollable rage: like Donald Duck in certain cartoons, he began kicking and punching the door, screaming like a madman. Limping, he returned to the car. His left foot ached, he took off his shoes. And at that moment, he heard a noise: by itself, and exactly like in a cartoon, the door decided to give in, collapsing into the room. Montalbano ran back to the house. The former stable, plastered and whitewashed, was completely empty. Not a single piece of furniture, not even a piece of paper. Nothing whatsoever, as if it had never been used. Except, at the base of the walls, a number of electrical outlets and telephone jacks. The inspector stood there staring at that emptiness, unable to believe his eyes. Then, when it got dark, he made up his mind. He picked up the door, leaned it against the jamb, gathered up his undershirt, shirt, and trousers, tossing them into the backseat, put on only his jacket and, after turning the headlights on, headed home to Marinella, hoping that nobody would stop him along the way. Nuttata persa e figlia fìmmina.
He took a much longer route home, but it spared him the trouble of passing through Vigata. He had to drive slowly because of the shooting pains in his right shoulder, which was puffy as a loaf of bread fresh out of the oven. He pulled up in the parking area in front of his house, groaning as he gathered up his shirt, undershirt, trousers, and shoes, then turned off the headlights and got out of the car. The lamp outside the front door wasn’t on. He took two steps forward and froze. Right next to the door there was a shadow. Somebody was waiting for him.