The Potter's Field

1

He was awakened by a loud, insistent knocking at the door. A frantic knocking, with hands and feet but, curiously, no ringing of the doorbell. He looked over at the window. No dawn light filtered through the closed shutter; outside was still total darkness. Or, rather, every so often a treacherous flash lit up the window, freezing the room, followed by a thunderclap that shook the windowpanes. The storm that had started the day before was raging with greater fury than ever. Strangely, however, the surging sea was silent, though it must have eaten up the beach all the way to the veranda. He groped around on the bedside table, hand searching for the base of the small lamp. He pressed the button, clicking it twice, but the light didn’t come on. Had the bulb burned out, or was there no electricity? He got up out of bed, a cold shiver running down his spine. Through the shutter slats came not only flashes of lightning, but blades of cold wind. The main light switch was also not working. Maybe the storm had knocked out the power.

The knocking continued. Amidst the pandemonium, he thought he heard a voice cry out, as if in distress.

“I’m coming! I’m coming!” he shouted.

Since he had been sleeping naked, he looked around for something to cover himself, but found nothing. He was sure he had left his trousers on the chair at the foot of the bed. Perhaps they had slid to the floor. But he had no time to waste. He ran to the front door.

“Who is it?” he asked before opening.

“Bonetti-Alderighi. Open up, hurry!”

He balked, utterly confused. The commissioner? What the hell was going on? Was this some kind of stupid joke?

“Just a minute.”

He ran to get the flashlight he kept in the kitchen-table drawer, switched it on, and opened the door. He could only gawk, speechless, at the rain-drenched commissioner standing before him. Bonetti was wearing a black, rumpled hat and a raincoat with a shredded left sleeve.

“Let me in,” he said.

Montalbano stepped aside and his boss came in. The inspector followed him mechanically, as if sleepwalking, forgetting to close the door, which started banging in the wind. Reaching the first chair at hand, the commissioner did not so much sit down as collapse in it. Before Montalbano’s astonished eyes, he buried his face in his hands and started crying.

The questions in the inspector’s mind began to accelerate like a jet plane before takeoff, arising and vanishing too fast for him to catch hold of even one that was clear and precise. He couldn’t even open his mouth.

“Could you hide me here at your house?” the commissioner asked him anxiously.

Hide him? Why on earth would the commissioner need to hide? Was he a fugitive from justice? What had he done? Who was looking for him?

“I don’t . . . understand . . .”

Bonetti-Alderighi looked at him in disbelief.

“What, Montalbano, do you mean you haven’t heard?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“The Mafia took power tonight!”

“What are you saying?!”

“Well, how else did you expect our wretched country to end up? A little change in the law here, a little change there, and here we are. Could I please have a glass of water?”

“Yes . . . of course.”

He quickly realized the commissioner wasn’t quite right in the head. Perhaps he’d had a car accident and was now raving from the shock. The best thing was to call Montelusa Central Police. Or maybe it was better to call a doctor at once. Meanwhile, however, he mustn’t let the poor man suspect anything. So, for the moment, at least, he had to humor Bonetti-Alderighi.

The inspector went into the kitchen and instinctively flipped the light switch. And the light came on. He filled a glass, turned to go back, and froze in the doorway, paralyzed. He was a statue, the kind they make nowadays, which could have been called Naked Man with Glass in Hand.

The room was lit up, but the commissioner was no longer there. Sitting in his place was a short, stocky man with a coppola on his head, whom Montalbano recognized at once. Totò Riina! He’d been freed from prison! So Bonetti-Alderighi hadn’t gone mad after all! What he’d said was the unvarnished truth!

“Evenin’,” said Riina. “Sorry to burst in on you like dis, an’ at dis hour, but I don’t got much time, and ousside dere’s a helicopter waitin’ a take me to Rome to form the new guv’ment. I already got a few names: Bernardo Provenzano for vice president, one of the Caruana brothers for foreign minister, Leoluca Bagarella at Defense . . . So I come here wit’ one quession for you, Inspector Montalbano, an’ you gotta tell me yes or no straightaway. You wanna be my minister of the interior?”

But before Montalbano could answer, Catarella appeared in the room. He must have come in through the open front door. He was holding a revolver in his hand and aiming it at the inspector. Big tears rolled down his cheeks.

“Chief, if you say yes to this ’ere criminal, I’m gonna kill you poissonally in poisson!”

Talking, however, distracted Catarella, and Riina, quick as a snake, whipped out his own gun and fired. The light in the room went out, and . . .

Montalbano woke up. The only real thing in the dream he’d just had was the storm rattling the shutters, which he had left open. He got up and closed them, then got back into bed after looking at the clock. Four in the morning. He wanted to seize hold of sleep again, but found himself arguing with the other Montalbano behind his stubbornly closed eyes.

What was the meaning of that dream?

Why do you want to find a meaning in it, Montalbà? Don’t you very often have dreams that don’t mean a goddamn thing?

That’s what you think, because you’re an ignorant beast. They may mean nothing to you, but go tell that to Dr. Freud, and you’ll see what he can pull out of them!

But why should I tell my dreams to Freud?

Because if you’re unable to explain your dream, or have it explained to you, you’ll never get back to sleep.

Oh, all right. Ask me a question.

Of all the things in the dream, what made the strongest impression on you?

The change.

Which one?

When I come out of the kitchen and find Totò Riina in Bonetti-Alderighi’s place.

Explain.

Well, in the place of the representative of the law, there’s the numero uno of the Mafia, the boss of people who are outside the law.

So, what you’re telling me is that in your own living room, in your own home, there with all your things, you found yourself playing host to the law and to people outside the law.

So what?

Could it be that in your mind the boundary between the law and those outside the law has been getting a little more blurry each day?

Cut the shit!

All right, let’s look at it another way. What did they ask of you?

Bonetti-Alderighi asked me to help him, to hide him at my house.

And did that surprise you?

Of course!

And what did Riina ask you?

He asked me to be his minister of the interior.

And did that surprise you?

Well, yeah.

Did it surprise you as much as the commissioner’s question? Or did it surprise you more? Or less? Answer sincerely.

Well, no, it surprised me less.

Why less? Do you consider it normal that a Mafia boss should ask you to work for him?

No, that’s not how I would put it. Riina, at that moment, wasn’t a Mafia boss any longer, he was about to become prime minister! And it was as prime minister that he asked me to work for him.

Hold it right there. There are two ways to look at this. Either you think that the fact of someone’s becoming prime minister cancels out all his prior crimes, murders and massacres included, or else you belong to that category of cops who always serve, no matter what, whoever happens to be in power, an honest man or a criminal, whether a Fascist or a Communist. To which of these two categories do you belong?

Wait a minute! That’s too easy!

Why do you say that?

Because then Catarella appeared!

And what does that mean?

It means that I, in fact, said no to Riina’s offer.

But you didn’t even open your mouth!

I said it through Catarella. He pops up, points his gun at me, and tells me he’ll kill me if I accept. It’s as if Catarella was my conscience.

Now there’s something new from you! Catarella, your conscience?

Why not? Do you remember the time that journalist asked me if I believed in my guardian angel? When I answered yes, he asked me if I’d ever seen him. And I said, “Yes, I see him every day.” “Does he have a name?” the journalist asked. And without missing a beat, I said, “His name is Catarella.” I was joking, of course. But later on, after thinking it over, I realized that only a small part of it was in jest, and the rest was the truth.

Conclusion?

The question should be read in the opposite way. The scene with Catarella means that rather than accept Riina’s offer, I was ready to shoot myself.

Are you sure, Montalbà, that Freud would have interpreted it this way?

You know what I say to you? That I don’t give a flying fuck about Freud. Now let me get some sleep, I can hardly keep my eyes open anymore.

When he woke up it was already past nine. He didn’t see any lightning or hear any thunder, but the weather certainly was nasty outside. Why bother to get up? His two old wounds ached. And a few little pains, unpleasant companions of his age, had awakened with him. He was better off sleeping for another couple of hours. He got up, went into the dining room, unplugged the phone, went back to bed, pulled up the covers, and closed his eyes.

Barely half an hour later he opened them again, awakened by the phone’s insistent ringing. But how the hell could the phone be ringing if he’d unplugged it? And if it wasn’t the phone making that sound, what was it? The doorbell, idiot! He felt a kind of motor oil, dense and viscous, circulating in his brain. Seeing his trousers on the floor, he put them on and went to the door, cursing the saints.

It was Catarella, out of breath.

“Ahh, Chief, Chief!...”

“Listen, don’t tell me anything, don’t talk at all. I’ll tell you when you can open your mouth. I’m going to get back into bed, and you’re going to go into the kitchen, brew me a pot of good strong coffee, pour it all into a big mug, put in three teaspoons of sugar, and bring it to me. Then you can tell me whatever it is you have to say.”

When Catarella returned with the steaming mug, he had to shake the inspector to wake him up. During those ten minutes he had fallen back into a deep sleep.

What is this, anyway? he thought as he was sipping his coffee, which tasted like reheated chicory broth. Isn’t it well-known that the older you get, the less sleep you need? So why was it that in his case, the more the years went by, the more he slept?

“ ’Ow’s the coffee taste, Chief?”

“Perfect, Cat.”

And he raced into the bathroom to rinse his mouth, for fear he might start vomiting.

“Cat, is this a pressing matter?”

“Relative, Chief.”

“All right, then, give me a few minutes to shower and get dressed.”

When all clean and dressed, he went into the kitchen and made himself a proper pot of coffee.

Going back into the dining room, he found Catarella in front of the French doors that gave onto the veranda. He had opened the shutters.

It was pouring. The sea had, in fact, come all the way up to the veranda, shaking it from time to time with the undertow of a particularly strong wave.

“C’n I talk now, Chief ?” Catarella asked.

“Yes.”

“They found a dead body.”

Ah, what a discovery! What a find! Apparently the corpse of someone who’d died a “white death”—the shorthand used by journalists when someone suddenly disappears without so much as saying goodbye—had resurfaced somewhere. But why give death any color at all? White death! As if death could also be green, yellow, and so on . . . Actually, if one had to give death a color, there could only be one: black, black as pitch.

“Is it fresh?”

“They din’t say, Chief.”

“Where’d they find it?”

“Out inna country, Chief. Pizzutello districk.”

Imagine that. A desolate, godforsaken place, all sheer drops and jagged spurs, where a corpse could feel at home and never be discovered.

“Have any of our people been out to see it?”

“Yessir, Chief, Fazio and Isspector Augello’s at the premisses.”

“So why’d you come and bust my balls?”

“Chief, y’gotta unnastand, ’s was Isspector Augello ’at call me and tell me to tell yiz yer poissonal presence ’s ’ndisposable. An’ so, seein’ as how ’s was no answer when I tried a call yiz onna phone, I took the Jeep and come out here poissonally in poisson.”

“Why’d you take the Jeep?”

“Cuz the reggler car coun’t never make it to that place, Chief.”

“All right then, let’s go.”

“Chief, ’e also tol’ me to tell yiz iss bitter if y’ put on some boots an’ a raincoat, an sump’n a cover y’head.”

The pinwheel of curses that burst from Montalbano’s mouth left Catarella trembling.

The deluge showed no sign of letting up. They rolled along almost blindly, as the windshield wipers were unable to sweep the water away. On top of this, the last half mile before reaching the spot where the corpse had been found felt like a cross between a roller coaster and an 8.0 earthquake at its peak. The inspector’s bad mood deteriorated into a silence so heavy that it made Catarella nervous, and he began to drive in such a way as not to miss a single pothole now become a lake.

“Did you remember to bring life preservers?”

Catarella didn’t answer, wishing only that he were the corpse they were going to see. At one point Montalbano’s stomach turned upside down, bringing the nauseating taste of Catarella’s coffee back up into his throat and mouth.

Finally, by the grace of God, they pulled up alongside the other Jeep that Augello and Fazio had taken. The only problem was that there was no sign anywhere of Augello or Fazio, or of any corpse whatsoever.

“Are we playing hide-and-seek or something?” Montalbano inquired.

“Chief, alls they tol’ me was to stop as soon as I seen their Jeep.”

“Give a toot.”

“A toot o’ wha’, Chief ?”

“What the hell do you think, Cat? A toot of your trumpet ? A toot of your tenor sax? Honk the goddamn horn!”

“The horn don’ work, Chief.”

“Well, I guess that means we’ll have to wait here till dark.”

He fired up a cigarette. By the time he’d finished it, Catarella had made up his mind.

“Chief, I’m gonna go look for ’em m’self. Seeing as how their Jeep’s right here, maybe it means they’re maybe right here, inna ’sinnity.”

“Take my raincoat.”

“Nah, Chief, I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Cuz a raincoat’s civillan ’n’ I’m in uniform.”

“But who’s gonna see you here?”

“Chief, a uniform’s always a uniform.”

He opened the door, got out, gasped “Ah,” and vanished. He disappeared so quickly, in fact, that Montalbano feared he might have fallen into a ditch full of water and was now drowning. He quickly got out of the car himself, and in the twinkling of an eye found himself sliding ass to the ground down a muddy slope some thirty feet long at the bottom of which sat Catarella, looking like a sculpture made out of fresh clay.

“I mussa parked the Jeep right aside the edge wittout realizin’ it, Chief.”

“I figured that, Cat. So, how are we going to climb out of here now?”

“Look, Chief, see ’at little path over there, over onna left? I’m gonna go ’ave a look-see, ’n’ you c’n follow me, but be real careful, cuz iss all slip’ry ’n’ all.”

About fifty yards on, the path turned to the right. The heavy rain made it impossible to see even a short distance ahead. Suddenly Montalbano heard someone calling from above.

“Chief ! We’re over here!”

He looked up. Fazio was standing atop a sort of elevation, reachable via three huge steps cut directly into the rock face. He was sheltered under an enormous red-and-yellow umbrella of the kind shepherds use. Where on earth had he found it? To climb the three steps, Montalbano had to have Catarella push him from behind and Fazio pull him up by the hand.

I’m no longer cut out for this life, he thought bitterly.

The elevation turned out to be a tiny, level clearing in front of the entrance to a cave that one could enter. Once inside, the inspector was wonderstruck.

It was warm in the cave. A fire was burning inside a circle of rocks. A carter’s oil lamp hung from the vault and gave off sufficient light. Mimì and a man of about sixty with a pipe in his mouth were each sitting on a stool made of tree branches and playing cards on a little table between them, also made of branches. Every so often, taking turns, they took a sip from a flask of wine on the ground. A pastoral scene. Especially as there was no hint of the corpse anywhere. The sixtyish man greeted the inspector; Mimì did not. In fact, for the past month or so, Augello had been at odds with all of creation.

“The dead body was discovered by that man playing cards with Inspector Augello,” said Fazio, gesturing towards the man. “His name’s Pasquale Ajena, and this is his land. He comes here every day. And he’s equipped the cave so that he can eat here, rest here, or just sit here and look out at the landscape.”

“May I humbly ask where the hell the body is?”

“Apparently, it’s about fifty yards further down.”

“Apparently? Are you saying you haven’t seen it yet?”

“Yes. According to Mr. Ajena, the spot is practically unreachable, unless it stops raining.”

“But this isn’t going to stop before evening, if we’re lucky!”

“There’ll be a break in the clouds in about an hour,” Ajena cut in. “Guaranteed, with a twist of lemon on it. And then it’ll start raining again.”

“So what are we supposed to do here till then?”

“Have you eaten this morning?” Ajena asked him.

“No.”

“Would you like a little fresh tumazzo with a slice of wheat bread made yesterday?”

Montalbano’s heart opened and let in a gentle breeze of contentment.

“I don’t mind if I do.”

Ajena got up, opened a spacious haversack that was hanging from a nail, pulled out a loaf of bread, a whole tumazzo cheese, and another flask of wine. Pushing aside the playing cards, he set them all down on the little table. Then he extracted a knife from his pocket, a kind of jackknife, which he opened and laid down beside the bread.

“Help yourselves,” he said.

“Could you tell me at least how you found the body?” asked Montalbano, mouth full of bread and cheese.

“No, come on!” Mimì Augello burst out. “First, he has to finish the game. I haven’t been able to win a single one so far!”

Mimì lost that one too, and so he wanted another rematch, and another rematch after that. Montalbano, Fazio, and Catarella, who was drying himself by the fire, packed in the tumazzo, which was so tender it melted in one’s mouth, and knocked back the entire flask of wine.

Thus an hour passed.

And, as Ajena had predicted, there was a break in the clouds.