The Shape of Water

12

He plunked down in front of the television right out of the shower, still naked and dripping. The images were from Luparello’s funeral that morning, and the cameraman had apparently realized that the only people capable of lending a sense of drama to the ceremony—

in every other way so like countless other tedious official events—were the trio of the widow, Stefano the son, and Giorgio the nephew. From time to time Signora Luparello, without realizing it, would jerk her head backwards, as if repeatedly saying no. This “no”

was interpreted by the commentator, in a low, sorrowful voice, as the obvious gesture of a creature irrationally rejecting the concrete fact of death; but as the cameraman was zooming in on her to catch the expression in her gaze, Montalbano found confirmation of what the widow had already confessed to him: there was only disdain and boredom in those eyes. Beside her sat her son, “numb with grief,” according to the announcer, and he called him “numb” only because the composure the young engineer showed seemed to border on indifference. Giorgio instead teetered like a tree in the wind, livid as he swayed, continually twisting a tear-soaked handkerchief in his hands.

The telephone rang, and Montalbano went to answer it without taking his eyes off the television screen.

“Inspector, this is Germanà. Everything’s been taken care of. Counselor Rizzo expressed his thanks and said he’d find a way to repay you.”

Some of Rizzo’s ways of repaying debts—he whispered to himself—his creditors would have gladly done without.

“Then I went to see Saro and gave him the check.

It took some effort to convince them—they thought it was some kind of practical joke—and then they started kissing my hands. I’ll spare you all the things they said the Lord should do for you. The car’s at headquarters. You want me to bring it to you?”

The inspector glanced at his watch; there was still a little more than an hour before his rendezvous with Ingrid.

“All right, but there’s no hurry. Let’s say nine-thirty. Then I’ll give you a ride back into town.”

~

He didn’t want to miss the moment when she pre

tended to faint. He felt like a spectator to whom the magician had revealed his secret: the pleasure would be in appreciating not the surprise but the skill. The one who missed it, however, was the cameraman, who was unable to capture that moment even though he had quickly panned from his close-up of the minister back to the group of family members, where Stefano and two volunteers were already carrying the signora out while Giorgio remained in place, still swaying.

~

Instead of dropping Germanà off in front of police headquarters and continuing on, Montalbano got out with him. Fazio was back from Montelusa, and he had spoken with the wounded man, who had finally calmed down. The man, the sergeant recounted, was a household-appliance salesman from Milan who every three months would catch a plane, land in Palermo, rent a car, and drive around. Having stopped at the filling station, he was looking at a piece of paper to check the address of the next store on his list of clients when he suddenly heard the shots and felt a sharp pain in his shoulder. Fazio believed his story.

“Chief, when this guy goes back to Milan, he’s going to join up with the people who want to separate Sicily from the rest of Italy.”

“What about the attendant?”

“The attendant’s another matter. Giallombardo’s talking to him now, and you know what he’s like: someone spends a couple of hours with him, talking like he’s known him for a hundred years, and afterward he realizes he’s told him secrets he wouldn’t even tell the priest at confession.”

~

The lights were off, the glass entrance door barred shut.

Montalbano had chosen the Marinella Bar on the one day it was closed. He parked the car and waited. A few minutes later a two-seater arrived, red and flat as a fillet of sole. The door opened, and Ingrid emerged. Even by the dim light of a streetlamp, the inspector saw that she was even better than he had imagined her: tight jeans wrapping very long legs, white shirt open at the collar with the sleeves rolled up, sandals, hair gathered in a bun. A real cover girl. Ingrid looked around, noticed the darkness inside the bar, walked lazily but surely over to the inspector’s car, then leaned forward to speak to him through the open window.

“See, I was right. So where do we go now? Your place?”

“No,” Montalbano said angrily. “Get in.”

The woman obeyed, and at once the car was filled with the scent that Montalbano already knew well.

“Where do we go now?” Ingrid repeated. She wasn’t joking anymore; utter female that she was, she had noticed the man’s agitation.

“Do you have much time?”

“As much as I want.”

“We’re going someplace where you’ll feel comfortable, since you’ve already been there. You’ll see.”

“What about my car?”

“We’ll come back for it later.”

They set off, and after a few minutes of silence Ingrid asked him a question she should have asked from the start.

“Why did you want to see me?”

The inspector was mulling over the idea that had come to him as he told her to get in the car: it was a real cop’s sort of idea, but he was, after all, a cop.

“I wanted to see you, Mrs. Cardamone, because I need to ask you some questions.”

“ ‘Mrs. Cardamone’? Listen, Inspector, I’m very familiar with everyone I meet, and if you’re too formal with me I’ll only feel uncomfortable. What’s your first name?”

“Salvo. Did Counselor Rizzo tell you we found the necklace?”

“What necklace?”

“What do you mean, what necklace? The one with the diamond-studded heart.”

“No, he didn’t tell me. Anyway, I have no dealings with him. He certainly must have told my husband.”

“Tell me something, I’m curious: are you in the habit of losing jewelry and then finding it again?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Come on, I tell you we found your necklace, which is worth about a hundred million lire, and you don’t bat an eyelash?”

Ingrid gave a subdued laugh, confined to her throat.

“The fact is, I don’t like jewelry. See?”

She showed him her hands.

“I don’t wear rings, not even a wedding band.”

“Where did you lose the necklace?”

Ingrid didn’t answer at once.

She’s reviewing her lesson, thought Montalbano.

Then the woman began speaking, mechanically.

Being a foreigner didn’t help her to lie.

“I was curious about this place called the Pastor—”

“Pasture,” Montalbano corrected.

“I’d heard so much about it. I talked my husband into taking me there. Once there I got out, walked a little, and was almost attacked. I got scared and was afraid my husband would get in a fight. We left. Back at home I realized I no longer had the necklace on.”

“How did you happen to put it on that evening, since you don’t like jewelry? It doesn’t really seem appropriate for going to the Pasture.”

Ingrid hesitated.

“I had it on because that afternoon I’d been with a friend who wanted to see it.”

“Listen,” said Montalbano, “I should preface all this by saying that even though I am, of course, talking to you as a police inspector, I’m doing so in an unofficial capacity.”

“What do you mean? I don’t understand.”

“What I mean is, anything you tell me will remain between you and me. How did your husband happen to choose Rizzo as his lawyer?”

“Was he not supposed to?”

“No, at least not logically. Rizzo was the right-hand man of Silvio Luparello, who was your father-inlaw’s biggest political adversary. By the way, did you know Luparello?”

“I knew who he was. Rizzo’s always been Giacomo’s lawyer. And I don’t know a bloody thing about politics.”

She stretched, arching her arms behind her head.

“I’m getting bored. Too bad. I thought an encounter with a cop would be more exciting. Could you tell me where we’re going? Is there still far to go?”

“We’re almost there.”

~

After they passed the San Filippo bend, the woman grew nervous, looking at the inspector two or three times out of the corner of her eye. She muttered:

“Look, there aren’t any bars or cafés around here.”

“I know,” said Montalbano, and, slowing the car down, he reached for the leather purse that he had placed behind the seat Ingrid was in. “I want you to see something.”

He put it on her lap. The woman looked at it and seemed truly surprised.

“How did you get this?”

“Is it yours?”

“Of course it’s mine. It has my initials on it.”

When she saw that the two letters of the alphabet were missing, she became even more confused.

“They must have fallen off,” she said in a low voice, but she was unconvinced. She was losing her way in a labyrinth of questions without answer, and clearly something was beginning to trouble her now.

“Your initials are still there, you just can’t see them because it’s dark. Somebody tore them off, but their imprints are there in the leather.”

“But who tore them off ? And why?”

Now a note of anxiety sounded in her voice. The inspector didn’t answer. He knew perfectly well why they had done it: to make it look as if Ingrid had wanted to make the purse anonymous. When they came to the little dirt road that led to Capo Massaria, Montalbano, who had accelerated as if intending to go straight, suddenly cut the wheel violently, turning onto the path. All at once, without a word, Ingrid threw open the car door, nimbly exited the moving vehicle, and started fleeing through the trees. Cursing, the inspector braked, jumped out, and gave chase.

After a few seconds he realized he would never catch her and stopped, undecided. At that exact moment he saw her fall. When he was beside her, Ingrid, who had been unable to get back up, interrupted her Swedish monologue, incomprehensible but clearly expressing fear and rage.

“Fuck off !” she said, and continued massaging her ankle.

“Get up, and no more bullshit.”

With effort, she obeyed and leaned against Montalbano, who remained motionless, not helping her.

~

The gate opened easily; it was the front door that put up resistance.

“Let me do it,” said Ingrid. She had followed him without making a move, as though resigned. But she had been preparing her plan of defense.

“You won’t find anything inside, you know,” she said in the doorway, her tone defiant.

She turned on the light, confident, but when she looked inside and saw the videocassettes and the perfectly furnished room, she reacted with visible surprise, a wrinkle creasing her brow.

“They told me . . .”

She checked herself at once and fell silent, shrugging her shoulders. She eyed Montalbano, awaiting his next move.

“Into the bedroom,” said the inspector.

Ingrid opened her mouth, about to make an easy quip, but lost heart. Turning her back, she limped into the other room, turned on the light, and this time showed no surprise; she expected it to be all in order.

She sat down at the foot of the bed. Montalbano opened the left-hand door of the armoire.

“Do you know whose clothes these are?”

“They must belong to Silvio, to Mr. Luparello.”

He opened the middle door.

“Are these wigs yours?”

“I’ve never worn a wig.”

When he opened the right-hand door, Ingrid closed her eyes.

“Look, that’s not going to solve anything. Are these yours?”

“Yes, but—”

“But they weren’t supposed to be there anymore,”

Montalbano finished her sentence.

Ingrid gave a start.

“How did you know? Who told you?”

“Nobody told me. I figured it out. I’m a cop, remember? Was the purse also in the armoire?”

Ingrid nodded yes.

“And the necklace you said you lost, where was that?”

“Inside the purse. I had to wear it once, then I came here and left it here.”

She paused a moment and looked the inspector long in the eye.

“What does this all mean?” she asked.

“Let’s go back in the other room.”

~

Ingrid took a glass from the sideboard, filled it halfway with straight whiskey, drank almost all of it in a single draft, then refilled it.

“You want any?”

Montalbano said no. He had sat down on the couch and was looking out at the sea. The light was dim enough to allow him to see beyond the glass. Ingrid came and sat down beside him.

“I’ve sat here looking at the sea in better times.”

She slid a little closer on the sofa, rested her head on the inspector’s shoulder. He didn’t move; he immediately understood that her gesture was not an attempt at seduction.

“Ingrid, remember what I told you in the car?

That our conversation was an unofficial one?”

“Yes.”

“Now answer me truthfully. Those clothes in the armoire, did you bring them here yourself or were they put there?”

“I brought them myself. I thought I might need them.”

“Were you Luparello’s mistress?”

“No.”

“No? You seem quite at home here.”

“I slept with Luparello only once, six months after arriving in Montelusa. But never again. He brought me here. But we did become friends, true friends, like I had never done before with a man, not even in my country. I could tell him anything, anything at all. If I got into trouble, he would manage to get me out of it, without asking any questions.”

“Are you trying to make me believe that the one time you were here you brought all those dresses, jeans, and panties, not to mention the purse and the necklace?”

Ingrid pulled away, irritated.

“I’m not trying to make you believe anything. I’m just telling you. After a while I asked Silvio if I could use this house now and then, and he said yes. He asked me only one thing: to be very discreet and never tell anyone who it belonged to.”

“And when you wanted to come, how did you know if the place was empty and available?”

“We had agreed on a code of telephone rings. I kept my word with Silvio. I used to bring only one man here, always the same one.”

She took a long sip, and sort of hunched her shoulders forward.

“A man who forced his way into my life for two years. Because I—afterward, I didn’t want to anymore.”

“After what?”

“After the first time. I was afraid, of the whole situation. But he was . . . sort of blinded, sort of obsessed with me. Only physically, though. He would want to see me every day. Then, when I brought him here, he would jump all over me, turn violent, tear my clothes off. That was why I had those changes of clothes in the armoire.”

“Did this man know whose house this was?”

“I never told him, and he never asked. He’s not jealous, you see, he just wants me. He never gets tired of being inside me. He’s ready to take me at any moment.”

“I see. And for his part did Luparello know who you were bringing here?”

“Same thing—he didn’t ask, and I didn’t tell.”

Ingrid stood up.

“Couldn’t we go somewhere else to talk? This place depresses me now. Are you married?”

“No,” said Montalbano, surprised.

“Let’s go to your place.” She smiled cheerlessly. “I told you it would end up this way, didn’t I?”