They looked suspiciously at me. “I knew him in Canada,” I said. “Very well-known architect. I… We, thought if he had family here, we’d express our condolences,” I lied. This seemed to allay their suspicions, but I could feel the Mountie’s law-abiding eyes boring into my back.
“There are lots of Galeas around here, but I don’t remember anyone called Martin,” one woman said. She spoke to the older women and asked them something in Maltese. They all shook their heads. One woman added something, and the others all nodded.
“You should go and see il Qanfud, the… What’s the name in English? The… Hedgehog,” the woman said.
The Mountie and I looked at each other. “Where might we find this… Hedgehog?” he asked. The woman pointed us down the hill to an old man sitting in a chair outside one of the shops.
“Take him a beer. His favorite is Cisk lager. He’ll talk your ears off,” one of the women said. They all laughed.
“A bit crazy, but harmless enough,” another added.
“What would we call him, if not Hedgehog?” I asked.
“Grazio,” one woman replied. We thanked them and started down the hill toward the Hedgehog.
“Why would you call someone a hedgehog?” the Mountie asked no one in particular.
“Beats me. But beer sounds like a good idea,” I replied.
“You’re driving,” he said severely. “Although come to think of it, I’m not sure how you tell the drunk drivers from any others on the road. Takes a policeman’s breath away, the way they drive around here.”
We stopped and bought six cold Cisk lagers, and approached the man with a degree of caution. The Hedgehog was sitting in a battered lawn chair at the foot of a flight of stone stairs leading to an upper part of the village. He was wearing a very old plaid shirt, a tattered tan cardigan, and rather rumpled beige trousers, bare feet thrust into old sandals. He wore dark-rimmed glasses with very thick lenses, had grey hair and a rather grizzled appearance. “Hello,” I said in what I hoped was my nicest voice. “Is your name Grazio?”
“Who’s asking?” he said suspiciously.
“My name is Lara, and this is Rob. We’re looking for the family of someone we knew back in Canada, and the women at the bakery told us to look for someone by the name of Grazio who knew just about everybody,” I said in an ingratiating tone.
“I doubt they called me Grazio,” he said. “More likely they called me il Qanfud.”
“That’s true,” I said. “Would you like a beer?”
His eyes lit up. “Take a load off your feet, dearie,” he said, gesturing toward the steps behind him, “and tell me who you’re looking for.”
“How’d you get a name like Hedgehog?” the Mountie dared to ask as we plunked ourselves down on the steps near the old man.
“Skond ghamilek laqmek,”‘ he replied. “Your nickname reflects your behavior. Or something else about you,” he added. We both nodded sagely.
“We’re looking for friends or family of Martin Galea,” I said, pronouncing it, as Martin had, Ga-lay-ah, with the emphasis on the second syllable.
“What kind of name is that?” he grunted. “Here we say Galea.” He pronounced it Gal-ee-ah, with emphasis on the first syllable. “And Martin, that sounds British to me,” he said, flicking his hand in dismissal. “I’m a Mintoff man. Don’t like the British.”
Rob and I looked at each other and then him.
“Gal-ee-ah would have left here at least fifteen years ago,” I said. “He went to Canada and became a famous architect.”
“Did he now? Is he the dead Galea?” the Hedgehog asked. “The one who turned up in a box?”
“Yes,” we said in unison.
“Saves the expense of a coffin, I guess. So why do you want to know about him?”
I gave him my by now standard response about consoling the family.
“I don’t know a Martin,” replied the old man, apparently satisfied by my explanation. “There’s lots of Galeas, though. Pawla to‘ Hamfusa, Pawla the beetle. There’s Mario il-Kavall, the mackerel. And long ago there was a young man, Marcus to’ Gelluxa, the young bull. Il-mara bhall-lumija taghsarha u tarmiha.”‘
“What?” we both said.
“For him, a woman is like a lemon. You squeeze her and throw her away,” he cackled.
“That’s the one!” I said.
“Was he now? Marcus was quite the youngster. His mother died when he was just a baby, but he charmed all the women in the village, and they all mothered him. He was also quite the hustler. Do just about anything to get ahead in life. Knew everyone’s weaknesses, and was not above using that knowledge if it got him ahead. Played all the angles, always on the lookout for an opportunity,” the Hedgehog said, swigging his beer. “Can’t blame him for that, though. His father died when he was just a lad, and he kind of had to look after himself. He got in with the wrong crowd for a while.”
“I heard—his wife told me—his father owned a shop here.”
“Owned? I think not. Worked in one, though. Just like Marcus to exaggerate,” the Hedgehog said.
“No other relations?” I asked.
“Not really. Nobody who’d admit it now anyway. He and his pal Giovanni il Gurdien, Giovanni the rat—such a pair, although I’ve always believed Marcus figured out Giovanni before some of the rest of us. But he left the village too. So you tell me he’s famous. An architect. Nothing would surprise me about Marcus Galea. Giovanni did just fine for himself too. Although how he could do what he did! It makes me sick!”
The Mountie and I looked at each other again. The conversation got more confusing the more the Hedgehog drank. “What might that be?” Rob ventured to ask.
“Most recently, you mean? Switched to the Republic party as soon as it got elected. Ran in the next election. Got to be a Cabinet minister right away as a reward. Typical! External relations minister, no less. Turncoat! And that’s the best I can say about him. Him I don’t want to talk about.” The Hedgehog looked as if he might spit out his beer, but then he thought better of it, no doubt not wanting to waste so much as a drop.
“Always liked Marcus the young bull, though, I’ll admit. Certainly turned out better than some of the rest of them, like Giovanni and the other one, Franco ta’Xiwwiex, Franco the troublemaker, from Xemxija. He grew up to be a gangster.” The old man giggled. After another swig, he added, “Although there’s lots of folks around here don’t think too highly of Marcus either, not after what he did. At least, as far as I know, he never changed his politics!”
We all sat in silence, thinking this over for a while. Rob opened another beer and offered it to him, asking casually, “And what was it he did that people didn’t like him for?”
The Hedgehog swilled his beer. “Ran off and left the little Cassar girl in a bit of a mess, didn’t he? At least that’s what everybody thinks. Always wondered whether Joe tas Saqqafi, Joe the roofer, knew. He should have been called ta‘ Tontu, the stupid, if he didn’t,” he cackled.
I was starting to get the general drift of the conversation. “So Martin—Marcus—Galea left the Cassar girl—was it Marissa Cassar?—in the family way so to speak, did he?”
“Exactly!” he said. “Quite the scandal it would have been, if Joe tas Saqqafi hadn’t come forward and married her. They moved to the other end of the island right away, but we heard about the boy, born shortly after the wedding. She was the prettiest girl in the town, you know, quite the prettiest girl in the town. Might have helped her out myself, if I’d known,” he snorted. “Is there another beer, dearie?”