Free IM11 The Wings of the Sphinx (2009) by Andrea Camilleri Page A

and—”
    “Her little cousin Massimiliano? No, you don’t say!”
    “That’s what I feared, too. No, it was with some guy named Gianni, a friend of Massimiliano’s who was with them on the boat. That was all she would tell me. Listen, Ingrid, in your opinion, what does that mean, that there was ‘something’?”
    “Do you really want to know?”
    “Yes.”
    “When a woman says there’s been something with a man, it means there’s been everything.”
    “Ah.”
    He downed his glass, refilled it. Ingrid did likewise.
    “Salvo, don’t tell me that you’re so naïve you didn’t arrive at the same conclusion.”
    “No, I came to that conclusion at once. I just wanted you to confirm it for me. And so I threw down my ace.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “I told her I didn’t exactly spend the summer twiddling my thumbs, either.”
    Ingrid gave a start.
    “Is that true?”
    “It’s true.”
    “You?!”
    “Me, unfortunately.”
    “So what did you do when you weren’t twiddling your thumbs?”
    “I met a girl much younger than me. Twenty-two years old. I really don’t know how it could have happened.”
    “Did you do her?”
    Montalbano felt a little put off by her manner of speech.
    “It was a pretty serious thing for me. And I really suffered because of it.”
    “Okay, but between all the tears and regrets, you made love to her. Is that right?”
    “Yes.”
    Ingrid embraced him, stood up slightly, then kissed him on the lips.
    “Welcome to the sinners’ club, asshole.”
    “Why do you call me an asshole?”
    “For telling Livia about your senile escapade.”
    “It wasn’t an escapade; it was a lot more than—”
    “So much the worse.”
    “But Livia in the end was honest with me! She admitted having had an affair! I couldn’t hide the fact that I, too—”
    “Oh, give me a break! And above all, don’t be such a hypocrite, you’re not even good at it! The reason you told Livia you’d fucked the girl was not out of any sense of honesty, but out of spite. And you know what I say to you? That maybe what really drove you to sleep with that girl was Livia’s silence, which made you jealous. So I confirm: You’re an asshole.”
    “Look, Ingrid, my affair with Adriana—that was her name—was a rather complex matter. Among other things, everything that happened, happened because she wanted it to, for a specific purpose of her own.”
    “Did you go to Mass last Sunday?”
    “What’s that got to do with anything?”
    “Because you’re talking just like a Catholic! For true Catholics, it’s always the woman who leads the man into temptation!”
    “What, are we going to have a war of religion here? Let’s drop it,” said Montalbano, angry.
    They sat a minute in silence, then Ingrid said in a low voice:
    “I’m sorry.”
    “For what?”
    “For what I said about the girl. It was stupid and vulgar.”
    “No, it wasn’t, come on.”
    “Yes, it was. I saw that it hurt you to talk about it and so . . .”
    “And so?”
    “I had a jealous fit.”
    Montalbano felt at sea.
    “Jealous? You’re jealous of Livia?”
    Ingrid laughed.
    “No. Of Adriana.”
    “Adriana?!”
    “Poor Salvo, you’ll never understand women. So where do things stand now with Livia?”
    “We don’t know if it’s worth the trouble to put the pieces back together or not.”
    “Look at me,” said Ingrid.
    Montalbano turned to look at her. She was very serious.
    “It-is-worth-the-trouble. Let me tell you myself. Don’t throw away all those years you’ve spent together. You think you don’t have children but in fact you do. You have one: the past you’ve shared. I don’t even have that.”
    Dazed, Montalbano saw two big tears fall from her eyes. He didn’t know what to say. He wanted to embrace her, but he thought it would aggravate her moment of weakness. Ingrid stood up and went into the house.
    When she returned, she had washed her face.
    “Let’s finish that bottle.”
    They did.

    “Are you