Free The Day of the Owl by Leonardo Sciascia Page B

the sergeantmajor of S., who saluted and said: 'He's made up his mind.' Behind him, holding up his trousers, dishevelled and unshaven, stood Pizzuco. At a sign from the captain, the sergeantmajor quickly closed the door and withdrew. Marchica was overwhelmed with dismay. There was no doubt about it, Pizzuco, after the flogging he had undergone, was going to spill the beans (actually Pizzuco had been dragged out of bed that minute, with nerves shattered by bad dreams, not by torture). Then under the naked light in the office opposite, Marchica saw Pizzuco, the lieutenant, and the sergeantmajor enter, the lieutenant sit down and at once put a short question to Pizzuco. Pizzuco began talking away and the sergeantmajor writing furiously. Actually the lieutenant had merely asked him about his means of livelihood; and Pizzuco was pouring out the edifying story of his honest and blameless existence based on indefatigable toil, all of which was being taken down by SergeantMajor Ferlisi's nimble pen. But Marchica, in his inner ear, heard Pizzuco's voice revealing a story which, at the very best, meant a twenty-seven-year sentence for him, twenty-seven long years in the Ucciardone from which not even God could save him.
    'What reason could there be to lie about it?' went on the captain. 'I don't mean you, I mean Nicolosi. What reason could he have had, to say something that's, after all, so petty, so unimportant?'
    'He can't say it,' said Marchica firmly.
    'And why not?'
    'Because ... because he can't.'
    'Perhaps it's because you think, rightly and with good reason, that Nicolosi's already dead ...'
    'Dead or alive, it's all the same to me.'
    'Well, no, you're right, you know. Nicolosi is dead.'
    Visible relief showed on Marchica's face, a sign that, without the captain's confirmation, he would still have had some doubts whether Nicolosi was really dead or not. Therefore he was not the man who had killed Nicolosi.
    (In the other office Pizzuco was muttering: 'You bastard, you yellow rat, you son of a sow. Four strokes of the cat and you spew up everything. You'll pay for it, though; either at my hands or someone else's, you'll pay!')
    'Yes,' said the captain, 'Nicolosi is dead, but sometimes the dead talk, you know ... '
    'Only at a spiritualist's table,' said Diego scornfully.
    'No. They can talk by the simple method of writing something before they die. And Nicolosi, after meeting you, had the excellent idea of writing your name and nickname on a piece of paper: Diego Marchica known as Zicchinetta. He then added the time and place and the very plausible opinion that the presence of Zicchinetta at S. at that hour was connected with the killing of Colasberna ... Quite a letter, in fact... which, seeing that Nicolosi is dead, will carry more weight with the judges than any evidence he could have given alive ... What a blunder you made! Nicolosi left the note with his wife with instructions only to hand it over to us if anything happened to him. If you'd let him live, I'm certain he would never have dared give evidence, let alone come forward and report what he had seen. It was a fatal mistake, killing him ... '
    In the opposite office Pizzuco had finished his harangue; the sergeantmajor put his sheaf of papers in order, and came over to make him sign the sheets, one at a time. Then the sergeantmajor left the room and appeared a moment later in the captain's office with some sheets of paper under his arm. Marchica was sweating blood.
    'I don't know what you think of Rosario Pizzuco?' said the captain.
    'A sponge-full of slander,' said Diego.
    'I'd never have believed it, but I agree with you. I understand that, for you Sicilians, "slander" is the word used for revealing actions that should never be revealed, though they deserve the proper punishment of the law ... I agree with you. Pizzuco has committed that kind of "slander". Do you want to hear it? ... Read it out,' he said to the sergeant, handing him the sheets which had been brought