The Potter's Field

After parking the car at the airport, Montalbano broke into a sprint, as there were only twenty minutes left before takeoff. Glancing at a monitor to see what gate the flight was leaving from, he saw only a blank. He looked more closely: the flight would be leaving with a delay of an hour and a half. And this, too, was perfectly normal, just like the traffic.

16

After they’d had breakfast together, Livia went to the office. Left alone, Montalbano unplugged the telephone, dawdled about the apartment for an hour or so, then took a shower, got dressed, and spent another hour smoking and gazing at the landscape through Livia’s big picture window. Then he left Boccadasse and went into Genoa. He went to the aquarium and, after a half-hour wait in line, managed to get in. He spent the rest of the morning among the fish, charmed and bemused. At lunchtime he went to a trattoria that Livia had recommended. In every place he’d ever been in his life, he had always adapted to the local cuisine. He was sure that, if he ever ended up in the godforsaken mountains of Afghanistan, a waiter would say to him something like:

“We have an excellent dish of worms with a side helping of fried cockroaches,” and he would confidently accept.

This time the waiter asked him:

“Pesto?”

“Of course,” he replied.

But when the waiter listed the main dishes for him, which were all fish, Montalbano felt it wasn’t right to eat them after seeing all those beautiful, living fish at the aquarium.

“Could I have a vitello alla milanese?”

“Sure, if you go to Milan,” the waiter replied.

He ended up eating an excellent fried sole, begging forgiveness. Back in Boccadasse, he lay down in bed. He woke up around four o’clock, got out of bed, and went back to the picture window to read the newspaper he had bought. Dress rehearsal for life in retirement, he thought to himself, half amused, half dejected.

Livia came home at six.

“You know what? When I told my friend Laura you were here, she invited us to spend the weekend at her villa in Portofino. Feel like going?”

“But I have to be back in Vigàta by Sunday evening.”

“Let’s do this. We can leave tomorrow morning, spend all of Saturday there and then, Sunday morning, after breakfast, I’ll drive you to the airport.”

“Okay.”

“Why did you unplug the telephone?”

“Because I didn’t want to be bothered by any calls from Vigàta.”

Livia looked at him in shock.

“You used to fret when you had no news from Fazio or Mimì. You’ve changed, you know.”

“Yes, I know,” he admitted.

They went out to eat at the trattoria the inspector had chosen as the Boccadassian alternative to Enzo’s in Vigàta. Before the food arrived, Livia brought up the subject of Mimì. She was worried.

“When was the last time Beba called you?”

“Three days ago.”

“You’ll see, the next time she calls she’ll tell you things are going better with Mimì.”

“Have the stakeouts ended?”

“Not yet, unfortunately. But since I know the commissioner is going to commend him for his work, his mood will definitely change, you’ll see.”

Is it possible that one is never done telling lies in life?

He got back to Vigàta at nine in the evening, went to eat at Enzo’s, and was home in Marinella by ten-thirty. He undressed, sat down in the armchair, and turned on the television. The Free Channel was running their umpteenth program on the arrival of illegal immigrants on Italian shores. TeleVigàta, for its part, featured the thousandth roundtable discussion on the construction of the bridge over the Straits of Messina. As there was still half an hour to go before the nighttime news broadcasts, he went out of the house for a walk along the beach.

On his way back, he thought he heard the telephone ring. He didn’t run to pick up. It couldn’t have been Livia, since he had phoned her from the restaurant. Surely it was Fazio. Once inside, he turned the television back on and tuned in to TeleVigàta. He was more than certain that during his absence Mimì had taken some initiative of his own and Fazio hadn’t been able to inform him in time because there was no way to reach him in Boccadasse. And, indeed, the news he was expecting was the first item on the program.

“Major new developments are expected in the case of the man whose dismembered body was found at the so-called critaru,” the anchorman began.