It was Charles’s sister who informed the Department of Mediterranean Studies of the severe stroke her brother had suffered during the night.
The news came as a shock to his colleagues. An apparently fit man in his early sixties, Charles had, fifteen years earlier, been appointed as the Alfa Romeo Professor of Modern Italian Literature at the private University of Alnwick in the north east of England. This appointment was partly on the basis of his highly praised translation and study of works by the Sicilian author, Luigi Pirandello. But also because of the promise of a new translation, with a scholarly commentary, of the famous 1958 novel, The Leopard, by another Sicilian writer, the aristocratic Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa.
Two of Charles’s colleagues arranged for the whole Department to meet for lunch the following day to discuss the situation. By the time they met, at a nearby pizzeria, another e-mail had arrived from the sister. While her brother’s life was not in danger, the stroke had been a serious one that would almost certainly prevent any return to the university. The sister’s e-mail also explained that Charles was very agitated about the safe in his departmental office, although she couldn’t tell, from his incoherent mutterings, exactly why.
The agitation, some colleagues realised, was because the safe must contain the typescript of the Lampedusa translation which, they’d recently been told by Charles, only needed some typos corrected and a bibliography supplied before being ‘oven-ready’ for the publisher. Charles would naturally be worried about the fate of the typescript since, distrusting modern technology, he’d never used a word processor, writing instead on a 1960s typewriter. After lunch, it was agreed, two colleagues would look for the key to the safe, rescue the typescript, and discuss with the sister how to proceed with its publication.
As they ate their pizzas and drank glasses of Chianti, Charles’s colleagues shared their worries about the future of the Department. Would Alfa Romeo be willing, with Charles gone, to continue funding the Chair? They would have to meet urgently with the Vice-Chancellor and seek reassurances about the Department’s future. They then turned to reminiscing about Charles, focusing on how likeable and generous he was. They expressed their admiration for him, too, and not just on account of his scholarship. Admirable as well was the way he’d battled both with depression when his wife left him for a young Italian singer, and with the drinking problem that this betrayal had intensified.
It wasn’t appropriate, at the lunch, for the younger colleagues to voice their resentment at Charles’s reluctance to do any teaching and the university’s indulgence towards his having written no research papers for ten years. ‘He must be given the space and time to work on the Lampedusa book’, was the Dean of the Faculty’s mantra. ‘That’s what Alfa Romeo want for their money.’ Nor was it the occasion for more senior colleagues to display their envy of a man who was able to spend half his life in Sicily, supported by large research grants from the Campari Foundation and the Lampedusa Society of Syracuse, NY.
Having drunk their espressos, Charles’s colleagues returned to the Department. The two of them delegated to open the safe were let into Charles’s office by the Departmental Administrator. The key to the safe was soon found, in the top drawer of the desk.
The old-fashioned solid iron safe was inside a cupboard behind the desk. The key, despite its rustiness, turned easily in the lock and the safe door creaked open of its own accord. Full of anticipation, the two men peered inside, with the help of the torch of a mobile phone.
There was, however, no typescript to be seen. But the safe was not empty. It contained a plastic toy leopard, an Italian pop-up version for children of Lampedusa’s great novel, a cartoon of a leopard reading a book - and four empty bottles of Grappa di Sicilia.
