Read Online The Stranger at the Palazzo D'Oro by Paul Theroux - Free Book Online

idling. I suspected a weak battery, perhaps a bad connection on the terminal. The engine was good enough. The car was an Alfa-Romeo TI.
    â€œWhat is your name?”
    â€œFulvio, sir.”
    â€œOpen the hood, Fulvio.”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    The Gräfin said, “What do you know about these things?”
    â€œIt's a good car, the Alfa TI. You know what TI stands for?”
    â€œOf course not.”
    â€œ
Tritolo incluso.
Bomb included.
Tritolo
is TNT.”
    That was the joke in Palermo that year, where the Mafiosi were blowing each other up in touring cars like this. The Gräfin did not find this the least bit funny. In fact, she was annoyed by it.
    â€œWhat can you possibly do?” she said, a sort of belittling challenge.
    I said, “It's almost dark. We're not going anywhere. The only other living things here are goats.” I could hear their clinking bells. “What do you think I should do?”
    This little speech, so theatrical in its rhetoric and unnecessary detail, served to make her more afraid, which was my intention. But fear also made her nervously bossy, and she began to bully Fulvio in German-accented Italian.
    â€œC’era d’aspettarsela,”
he said, meaning, We should have expected this.
    I said to the Gräfin, “He doesn't seem to care very much.”
    â€œWe must go now to the d'Oro,” she said. “I have had so much to drink.
Ich muss mal.
I must pass water.”
    The idea of relieving herself anywhere except in her suite at the palazzo being out of the question made me smile.
    â€œI have pain here.
Ich muss pinkeln
,” she said, touching herself unambiguously, and I stopped smiling. “Maybe we need
benzina.
”
    â€œWe've got
benzina
.” I looked under the hood in the last of the daylight. Although the Alfa was fairly new, the engine was greasy and looked uncared-for. The battery appeared serviceable yet the terminals were gummed up with that bluey-green mold, as lovely and delicate as coral froth, that accumulates on copper wires. I could see that the clamps were loose and sticky with the same froth. This bad connection could have accounted for the faltering start. I easily twisted one terminal and lifted it off, and I guessed that it was overlaid with scum, a sort of metallic spittle.
    Flicking the wire onto the terminal produced a strong audible spark. It might be just this simple, I thought. I had dealt with enough cheap old cars to reach this conclusion. A more expensive car would have baffled me, but this was Sicily, and although this was an Alfa-Romeo it held the same battery as a Fiat or an old Ford.
    The Gräfin got out, and from her stamping and hand-wringing I could tell that she was bursting for a pee—or a
pinkel,
as she kept calling it in a little girl’s voice. She berated the driver. I took pleasure in showing her the large greasy engine, of which she knew nothing.
    I made an elaborate business of pretending to fuss and fix the engine, tweaking wires, testing wing nuts, tapping the caps on the spark plugs, all the while hoping it was just the battery. Fulvio stood just behind me, sighing, muttering
“Mannaggiai morti tui!”
—Damn your dead ancestors!
    With a broken knife blade I found in a toolbox in the trunk—Fulvio seemed surprised there was a toolbox at all—I scraped the terminals clean, shaving the lead to rid it of scum. I did the same to the clamps.
    Fulvio looked hopeful, though it was now fully dark, the goat bells clanking in the deep gully beside the road, the hooves scrabbling on the stony hillside.
    The Gräfin said, “What shall we do? It’s all his fault.” She turned to Fulvio and said, “
Cretino!
Can’t you learn how to fix the car?”
    â€œI am a driver, not a mechanic,” Fulvio said, and made a gesture with his hand and his fingers that can only have meant: This is irrelevant.
    â€œYou could try—you could learn,”