Translation copyright © Stephen Sartarelli, 2007
All rights reserved
Originally published in Italian as La pazienza del ragno by Sellerio Editore, Palermo.
Copright © 2004 Sellerio Editore.
Publisher’s Note
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Camilleri, Andrea.
[Pazienza del ragno. English]
The patience of the spider Andrea Camilleri ; translated by Stephen Sartarelli.p>
p. cm.
“A Penguin mystery.”
ISBN: 1-4295-2992-X
I. Sartarelli, Stephen, 1954– II. Title.
PQ4863.A3894P3913 2007
853'.914—dc22 2006051527
Set in Bembo Designed by Jaye Zimet
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THE PATIENCE OF THE SPIDER
01
He jolted awake, sweaty and short of breath. For a few seconds he didn’t know where he was. Then the soft, regular breathing of Livia, who lay asleep beside him, brought him back to a familiar, reassuring reality. He was in his bedroom in Marinella.
What had yanked him from his sleep was a sharp pang, cold as a knife blade, in his wounded shoulder. He didn’t need to look at the clock on the nightstand to know that it was three-thirty in the morning—actually, three-twenty-seven and forty seconds.
The same thing had been happening to him for the last twenty days, ever since the night Jamil Zarzis, a trafficker in small third world children, had shot and wounded him, and he had reacted by killing the man. Twenty days, but it was as though the mechanism of time had got stuck at that moment. Some gear in the part of his brain that measures the passing hours and days had gone “clack,” and ever since, if he was asleep, he would wake up, and if he was awake, everything around him would stop in a sort of imperceptible freeze-frame. He knew very well that during that split-second duel, it had never crossed his mind to check what time it was, and yet—and this he remembered very clearly—the moment the bullet fired by Jamil Zarzis penetrated his flesh, a voice inside him—an impersonal, female voice, slightly metallic, like the voices you hear over PA systems in train stations and supermarkets—had said, “It is three-twenty-seven and forty seconds.”
o o o
“Were you with the inspector?”
“Yes, Doctor.”
“Your name?”
“Fazio, Doctor.”
“How long has he been wounded?”
“Well, Doctor, the exchange of fire took place around three-thirty. So, a little more than half an hour ago. Oh, Doctor . . .”
“Yes?”
“Is it serious?”
The inspector was lying down, utterly still, eyes shut, which led everyone to think he was unconscious and they could speak openly.
Whereas in fact he heard and understood everything. He felt simultaneously dazed and lucid, but had no desire to open his mouth and answer the doctor’s questions himself. Apparently the shots they’d given him to kill the pain had affected his whole body.
“Don’t be silly! All we have to do is extract the bullet lodged in his shoulder.”
“O Madonna Santa!”
“There’s no need to get so upset! It’s a piece of cake. Besides, I really don’t think it did much damage.With a bit of physical therapy, he should recover one hundred percent use of his arm. But why, may I ask, are you still so concerned?” “Well, you see, Doctor, a few days ago the inspector went out by himself on an investigation . . .”
o o o
Now, as then, he keeps his eyes closed. But he can no longer hear the words, which are drowned out by the loud, pounding surf. It must be windy outside, the whole shutter is vibrating from the force of the gusts, emitting a kind of wail. It’s a good thing he’s still convalescing; he can stay under the covers for as long as he wants. Consoled by this thought, he decides to open his eyes just a crack.
o o o
Why could he no longer hear Fazio talking? He opened his eyes just a crack.The two men had stepped a short distance away from the bed and were over by the window. Fazio was talking and the doctor, dressed in a white smock, was listening, a grave expression on his face. Suddenly Montalbano realized he had no need to hear Fazio’s words to know what he was saying to the doctor. Fazio, his friend, his trusty right-hand man, was betraying him. Like Judas. He was obviously telling the doctor about the time he’d found the inspector lying on the beach, drained of strength after the terrible chest pain he’d had in the water . . . Imagine the doctors’ reaction upon hearing this wonderful news! Before ever removing that goddamned bullet, they would give him the works: examine him inside and out, poke him full of holes, lift up his skin piece by piece to see what there was underneath . . .
o o o
His bedroom is the same as it’s always been. No, that’s not true. It’s different, but still the same. Different because there are Livia’s things on the dresser: purse, hairpins, two little per-fume bottles. And, on the chair across the room, a blouse and skirt. And though he can’t see them, he knows there’s a pair of pink slippers somewhere near the bed. He feels a surge of emotion. He melts, goes all soft inside, turns to liquid. For twenty days this has been his new refrain, and he doesn’t know how to put a stop to it. The slightest thing will set it off and bring him, treacherously, to the point of tears. He’s embarrassed, ashamed of his new emotional fragility, and has to create elaborate defenses to prevent others from noticing. But not with Livia. With her he couldn’t pull it off. So she decided to help him, to lend him a hand by dealing firmly with him, not allowing him any opportunities to let himself go.
But it’s no use. Because this loving approach on Livia’s part also triggers a mixed emotion of happiness and sadness. He’s happy that Livia used up all her vacation time to come and look after him, and he knows that the house is happy to have her there. Ever since she arrived, when he looks at his bedroom in sunlight it seems to have its color back, as though the walls had been repainted a luminous white.
Since nobody can see him, he wipes away a tear with a corner of the bedsheet.
o o o
White all around, and amidst the white, only the brown of his naked skin (Was it once pink? How many centuries ago?). A white room, in which he’s being given an electrocardiogram. The doctor studies the long strip of paper, shakes his head in doubt. Terrified, Montalbano imagines that the graph the doctor is examining looks exactly like the seismograph of the Messina earthquake of 1908, which he once saw reproduced in a history magazine: a crazy, hopeless jumble of lines traced as if by a hand driven mad by fear.