One of the pleasures of summer is lying beside the sea after a swim, reading a good book. Each year, newspapers and magazines publish lists of ‘Best Summer Books’, featuring writers, academics, journalists, politicians or actors who recommend their favourite book for the season. These get stuffed into suitcases and backpacks before heading off on holiday.
Last week I re-read some old favourite Sicilian stories. In one, a pharmacist receives an anonymous threat and then goes out hunting with his friend. When their dogs come howling back into town without their masters, the police realise that something is wrong and the two men are found dead.
If only the dogs could speak, say the neighbours, they might explain to us what happened. In all likelihood, however, “even if they had the gift of speech, the dogs would, in the given circumstances, have become so many mutes both with regard to the identity of the murderers and in testifying before the marshal of the carabinieri.”
In another story, a man is wrongly interrogated by the police about a crime he did not commit. Once released, he has a conversation with a priest and suddenly realises that he knows who is guilty of the crime: “He considered turning round and going back to headquarters. But a moment later he thought, ‘Why should I go looking for trouble again, even more trouble than before?’ And he resumed his homeward journey.”
The writer is Leonardo Sciascia, who was one of the first Sicilian writers to have openly written about the mafia in the 1960s. Beyond organised crime, Sciascia depicted a world in which the forces of the law fail to maintain order, and where the perpetrators of crime often go unpunished.
In an ironic, concise and dispassionate tone, Sciascia explored power, corruption and justice. He wrote detective stories in which crimes are not always resolved and the truth is not necessarily revealed.
The police are either incompetent, or willing to collude and accept interpretations of events which they know to be false, in a society run by unofficial networks of cronyism and patronage.
Too many details of government contracts, of clear public interest, are being kept under wraps for dubious reasons
Apart from fiction, Sciascia also engaged in political and social critique through articles and journalism in the press, such as on the Aldo Moro affair of the late 1970s.
He could be controversial and polemical as he waged his solitary war, through his writings, against corruption in the system and illicit webs of power.
The norms in Sicily are of course quite different to ours here in Malta. However, in prominent cases, would you say that we verge more on the side of the mute dogs or on restoring order and justice?
A certain cynicism is deeply ingrained. For example, when two parallel investigations were recently launched on the Gaffarena scandal concerning the Old Mint Street property, it was immediately hinted that the intention is for one investigation to confuse the other and leave the matter hanging. True or not, we’ll see how that pans out.
In another story, the Economy Minister’s personal rental agreement for a Portomaso flat was rubbished as soon as it was published, including by people who have no political mileage to gain. Delaying rental payments for 10 months is not usual practice and Chris Cardona can hardly be surprised if it is viewed as suspect. This sort of thing may damage the reputation of one politician, but it also taints everyone else with a whiff of cronyism.
Big scandals are not always satisfactorily resolved. The Café Premier deal seems to have fizzled out. Isn’t that report going to be discussed by the Public Accounts Committee or wherever is appropriate?
Having said that, the endless parliamentary committee hearings on the Enemalta report continue to meander along paths of questionable relevance, with no destination in sight.
Cynicism is also bred by endemic delays in the legal system, with cases practically losing their relevance by the time they are decided. My father was involved in a court case which took 24 years to be decided in his favour. Yes, 24 years! That’s a quarter of a century, for a not especially complicated case. Last year, the government published the Bonello report on the reform of the justice system, with recommendations on how the judiciary should be appointed. Yet, the government promptly made new appointments with absolutely no regard for any of this.
The feeling of being governed by the long fingers of hidden networks of power is also fuelled by a lack of transparency. Too many details of government contracts, of clear public interest, are being kept under wraps for dubious reasons.
And now back to the sea and my book. The story opens with a telephone call to the police, on the feast of St Joseph.
The police station in the small Sicilian town was “almost deserted, even more so than on other evenings at that hour, but they were still lit, the way the offices of the police were usually kept lit in the evening and during the night, by tacit agreement, to give the townspeople the impression that the police were ever alert to the safety of the public.”
Someone at the police station picks up the phone and I half expect the caller to hear “Aw, sieħbi” at the other end of the line.
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