Excursion to Tindari

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He realized he was awake, as his mind was functioning logically and not following the absurd labyrinths of dream. He could hear the rhythmic swashing of the sea; a predawn breeze was blowing through the open window. Yet he stubbornly kept his eyes closed, knowing that the ill humor boiling inside him would come spewing out the moment he opened his eyes, leading him to say or do something stupid he would later regret.

The sound of whistling on the beach reached his ears. At that hour, surely someone walking to work in Vigàta. The tune was familiar, but he couldn’t recall the title or lyrics. What did it matter? He never had been able to whistle himself. Not even by sticking a finger up his ass.

He stuck a finger in his asshole

and gave a shrill whistle,

the prearranged signal

of the cops on patrol.

Some dumbshit ditty a Milanese friend at the police academy used to sing to him sometimes, which had stuck in his memory ever since. His inability to whistle had made him the favorite victim of his childhood schoolmates, all masters of the art of whistling like shepherds, sailors, mountaineers, even adding fanciful variations. Schoolmates! That’s what had ruined his night of sleep! He’d been remembering them after reading in the newspaper, shortly before going to bed, that Carlo Militello, not yet fifty years old, had been named president of the second-most-important bank in Sicily. The paper expressed its heartfelt best wishes to the new president and printed a photograph of him: eyeglasses, almost certainly gold-rimmed, designer suit, impeccable shirt, exquisite tie. A successful man, a man of order, defender of Values (that is, stock-market values as well as Family, Country, and Freedom). Montalbano remembered him well.

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