63 De Rege brothers: Guido (“Bebè”) De Rege (1891-1945) and Giorgio (“Ciccio”) De Rege (1894-1948) were a celebrated slapstick comedy team of the thirties and forties who performed their routines in variety theatres and in the variety shows that often preceded the screening of films. Perhaps their most famous routine was their oft-repeated opening act, when Bebè, alone on the stage, would look to the wings and say “Vieni avanti, cretino!” (“Come out here, idiot!”), whereupon his brother would enter, stammering and babbling nervously until he inevitably blurted out some bit of comically ingenious nonsense.
65 u zù Stefanu: Uncle Stefano, in Sicilian.
66 Capo Passero: Cape at the southeastern tip of Sicily, near the island of the same name (Isola di Capo Passero).
66 Pachino: A town near the southeastern tip of Sicily, near Capo Passero.
70 Eliot . . . “Death by Water”: From Part IV of The Waste Land.
87 The dust or the altar, that was the question: A reference to the poem “Il cinque maggio” (“May the Fifth”) by Alessandro Manzoni (1785-1873), dedicated to Napoleon and written upon hearing the news of his death on May 5, 1821. The key passage:
tutto ei provò: la gloria
maggior dopo il periglio,
la fuga e la vittoria,
la reggia e il tristo esiglio;
due volte nella polvere,
due volte sull’altar.
[he went through it alclass="underline" greater
glory after danger, flight
and victory, the palace royal
and unhappy exile;
twice in the dust,
twice on the altar.]
99 Road Police: The Road Police (Polizia Stradale) are a separate branch of the Italian police forces, something like the State Troopers and Highway Patrol in the United States.
112 ‘Tutto va ben, mia nobile marchesa’: “All goes well, my noble marchesa.” A sarcastic song from the Fascist period, performed by a well-known musical revue, which alluded ironically to the fact that everything was going quite badly.
119 It was time to eat. Since most people were at home . . . : In Italy, especially in the South, many people leave work to go home for their lunch break (often three hours long).
122 Signora Cappuccino in person: Although this woman is the wife of Gaetano Marzilla, in Sicily she may be called by either her maiden name (Cappuccino) or her married name (Marzilla). This is a remnant of the Spanish custom of a wife’s preserving her maiden name as part of her full name after marriage. Sicily, like much of Southern Italy, was under Spanish rule for centuries.
144 a politician killed by the Red Brigades: A reference to Aldo Moro, kidnapped and murdered by the Red Brigades, an armed revolutionary group, in 1978.
146 to mangle Eliot again: The opening line of “East Coker,” the second of the Four Quartets, is “In my beginning is my end.”
147 rotating the forefinger of his left hand, gesturing “later, later”: This is a common Italian hand gesture. The hand is held horizontally, with the forward rotation of the forefinger implying the passage of time.
151 Matre santa: Holy Mother (Sicilian dialect).
197 Heri dicebamus: (Lat.) “Yesterday we were saying.”
200 Durazzo: Port city in western Albania.
202 americanate: This is the plural of americanata, a slang term roughly meaning a grandiose, somewhat unlikely endeavor of the sort that Americans are typically thought to engage in. In reference to film, it might translate as “American pulp.”
205 the province’s remaining insane asylum: In the 1980s, the majority of Italy’s state-run mental hospitals were closed due to lack of funding.
217 Now shalt thou prove thy mettle: “Qui si parrà la tua nobilitate ”: Dante, Inferno II, line 9, in which the poet exhorts his own memory to rise to the task remembering the marvels he has seen.
222 ragioniere Gargano’s: See A. Camilleri, The Smell of the Night.
222 lansquenets: 17th- and 18th-century German mercenary soldiers known for their unruly behavior.
231 the air he was breathing had a rotten yellow color: As seen in several other books in the series, starting with The Terra Cotta Dog, Inspector Montalbano has the synaesthetic ability to envision odors as colors.
Notes by Stephen Sartarelli