CB18 About Face (2009)

by Donna Leon

  ‘Sta bene, Signore?’ a young man asked, pausing beside him.

  Brunetti looked at him, tried to smile, and nodded. ‘Yes, thank you,’ he said. ‘I was just thinking of something.’

  The boy was wearing a bright red ski parka, his face surrounded by the fur that lined the hood. As Brunetti met his gaze, the boy’s face drifted slightly out of focus, and Brunetti wondered if this was what happened before people fainted. He turned to look out over the waters, seeking the other side of the Grand Canal, and saw the same cloudiness there. He placed his other hand on the parapet. He blinked, hoping to clear his sight, blinked again.

  ‘Snow,’ he said, turning back to the boy with a smile.

  The boy gave him another long look, then continued over the bridge and past the gates of the university.

  Just at the top of the bridge ahead of him, preserved by the cooler surface, the snow was sticking to the pavement. Keeping his hand on the railing, Brunetti crossed the bridge and walked carefully down the other side. The pavement here was wet, and there was not enough snow to make it slippery. He remembered all those stories he had read as a boy about Arctic explorers trudging off to their deaths in the endless wasteland of snow. He thought of the descriptions he had read of the way they walked, head down into the oncoming wind, their only thought to place one resolute foot ahead of the other and keep going. So too did Brunetti place his feet ahead of him, intent only on getting back to warmth and to a place where he could rest and stop, if only for a time, this ceaseless struggle toward some eternally retreating goal.

  The spirit of Captain Scott carried him up the stairs and into his apartment. He was so caught up in the image of his trek that he almost bent down to remove his sealskin boots, toss his fur-lined parka on the ground. Instead, he removed his shoes and hung his coat from one of the hooks beside the door.

  He measured his strength, found that he still had enough, and went into the kitchen to open a cabinet, take a glass, and uncork the grappa. He poured out a generous helping and took it into the living room, where darkness awaited him. He snapped on the light, which prevented him from seeing the snow banging against the windows to the terrace. He switched it off again.

  He lowered himself on to the sofa, lay back and pulled up his feet. He stretched out, pounded two pillows into submission, and took a sip of the grappa, then another. He watched the snow fall, thinking of how tired Guarino had seemed at the realization that everyone worked for Patta.

  In moments of great necessity, his late mother was known to call upon a few saints she kept in reserve. There was Saint Gennaro for the protection of orphans; Saint Mauro, who kept a watchful eye on cripples, in which task he was aided by Sant’Egidio; and there was Santa Rosalia, generally invoked for protection against pestilence, and thus invoked by his mother against measles, mumps, and influenza.

  Brunetti lay on the sofa, sipping at his grappa, waiting for Paola to come home, and thought about Saint Rita di Cascia, who protected against loneliness. ‘Santa Rita,’ he prayed, ‘aiutaci.’ But whom, he wondered, was he asking her to help? He set his empty glass on the table and closed his eyes.

  18

  He heard a voice, and for a moment he thought it was his mother’s, praying. He lay still, happy at the thought of listening to her voice, even though he knew that she was gone, and he would never hear her or see her again. He wanted the illusion, knew it would do him good.

  The voice continued for another moment, then he felt a kiss on his forehead, where his mother used to kiss him when she put him to bed. But the scent was different.

  ‘Grappa before dinner?’ she asked. ‘Does this mean you’re going to start beating us and end up in the gutter?’

  ‘Aren’t you supposed to be at some dinner?’ he replied.

  ‘At the last minute,’ she said, ‘I couldn’t stand the idea. I went as far as the restaurant with them and then said I felt sick – which is certainly true – and came home.’

  A warm flush of contentment at her mere physical presence flooded Brunetti. He felt the weight of her body on the edge of the sofa. He opened his eyes and said, ‘I think your father is lonely and afraid of being old.’

  In a calm voice, she said, ‘At his age, that’s normal.’

  ‘But he shouldn’t,’ Brunetti protested.

  She laughed out loud. ‘Emotions don’t respond to “should” and “shouldn’t”, Guido. There are enough impulsive murders in the world every year to prove that.’ She saw his response and said, ‘I’m sorry. I should have found a better comparison. Enough impulsive marriages, then?’

  ‘But do you agree?’ Brunetti asked. ‘You know him better than I do, so you should know what he’s thinking. Or feeling.’

  ‘Do you really think that?’ she asked, sliding down the sofa to sit at the end, beside his feet, which she patted and tucked behind her hip.

  ‘Of course. You’re his daughter.’

  ‘Do you think Chiara understands you better than anyone else?’ she countered.

  ‘That’s different. She’s still a teenager.’

  ‘So it’s age that makes the difference?’

  ‘Oh, stop pretending you’re Socrates,’ he shot back and asked, ‘Do you think it’s true?’

  ‘That he feels old and lonely?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Paola placed a hand on his shin, flicked away a piece of mud that clung to the cuff of his trousers, and allowed some time to pass before she said, ‘Yes, I think he does.’ She rubbed his leg. ‘But if it’s any consolation to you, I’ve believed he’s felt lonely most of my adult life.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he’s intelligent and cultured and spends most of his working life in the company of people who aren’t. No,’ she said with two gentle taps on his leg to stop him from protesting, ‘before you contradict me, let me admit that many of them are intelligent, but not in the way he is. He functions at the abstract level, and the people he works with are usually concerned with profit and loss.’

  ‘And he’s not?’ Brunetti asked, voice clear of any hint of scepticism.

  ‘Of course he wants to make money. I told you, it runs in the family. But he’s always found it too easy. What he really wants to do is think things out, see big patterns and understand them.’

  ‘The failed philosopher?’ Brunetti asked.

  She gave him a sharp look. ‘Don’t be mean-spirited, Guido. I’m not saying this well, I know. I think what troubles him, now that he can’t deny how old he’s become, is that he thinks his life has been a failure.’

  ‘But . . .’ Brunetti could think of no way to begin the list of his objections: A happy marriage, a wonderful child, two decent grandchildren, wealth, financial success, social position. He wiggled his toes to call her attention. ‘I really don’t understand.’

  ‘Respect. He wants people to respect him. I think it’s as simple as that.’

  ‘But everyone does.’

  ‘You don’t,’ she shot back with such force that Brunetti suddenly suspected she had been waiting years, perhaps decades, to say this.

  He pulled his feet out from under her and sat up. ‘I realized today that I love him,’ he offered.

  ‘That’s not the same thing,’ she said fiercely.

  Something in Brunetti snapped. He had stood that day over the body of a man younger than himself who had been shot in the head. And he suspected the man’s murder would be, or was in the process of being, covered up by men like her father: rich, powerful, politically connected. And he had to have respect, too?

  In a cool voice, Brunetti said, ‘He told me today, your father, that he is planning to invest in China. I did not ask what sort of investment it was going to be, but during our conversation he mentioned, completely as an aside, that he thinks the Chinese are sending toxic garbage to Tibet and have built that railway in order to do so.’

  He stopped and waited, and finally Paola asked, ‘And your point?’

  ‘That he is going to invest there; that none of t
hat seems to bother him in the least.’

  She turned and stared at him as if puzzled to find this strange man sitting next to her. ‘And who, pray tell, employs you, Commissario Brunetti?’

  ‘The Polizia di Stato.’

  ‘And who employs them?’

  ‘The Ministry of the Interior.’

  ‘And who employs them?’

  ‘Are we going to go up the food chain until we get to the head of government?’ Brunetti inquired.

  ‘We are already there, I suspect,’ she answered.

  Neither of them said anything for some time: silence percolated towards recrimination. Paola took a step closer to it by saying, ‘You work for this government, and you dare to criticize my father for investing in China?’

  Brunetti took a short breath and started to speak, but at that moment Chiara and Raffi burst into the apartment. There was a great deal of noise and enough stomping and banging to force Paola to her feet and out into the corridor, where the children were stamping snow from their shoes and shaking more of it from their coats.

  ‘The horror movie festival?’ Paola asked.

  ‘Terr – i – ble,’ Chiara said. ‘They begin with Godzilla, which is about a hundred years old and has the most awful special effects you ever saw in your life.’

  Raffi broke in to say, ‘Did we miss dinner?’

  ‘No,’ Paola said with patent relief, ‘I was just going to start making something. Twenty minutes?’ she asked.

  The children nodded, stamped about a bit more, remembered to put their shoes outside the door, and went to their rooms. Paola went down to the kitchen.

  It was purely by chance that Paola prepared insalata di polipi for antipasto that evening, but Brunetti could not help seeing the elusive, self-defensive habits of those timid sea creatures reflected in the caution with which his children treated their silent mother once they sat at the table and read the expression on her face. Like the tentative manner in which an octopus stretched out a tendril to touch and examine what it saw, the better to assess its possible menace, the children, significantly more verbal than the octopi, used language to sense peril. Thus Brunetti was compelled to listen to the patently false enthusiasm of their joint request to be allowed to do the dishes that evening and to the general docility of their response to Paola’s pro forma questions about school.

  After her outburst before dinner, Paola remained calm throughout the meal, limiting her conversation to asking who would like more of the lasagne that had indeed been waiting for Brunetti in the oven. Brunetti noticed that the children’s caution extended to their eating: both of them had to be asked twice before they would accept another helping, and Chiara refrained from setting her uneaten peas to the side of her plate, a habit that always annoyed her mother. Luckily, the baked apples with crème managed to elevate everyone’s mood, and by the time Brunetti drank his coffee, some semblance of tranquillity had been restored.

  Having no interest in grappa, Brunetti went into their bedroom to get his copy of Cicero’s legal cases, which his original conversation with Franca Marinello had encouraged him to begin rereading. He hunted for, and found, his copy of Ovid’s minor works, unopened for decades: if he finished with Cicero, he could begin her other recommendation.

  When he came back to the living room, Paola was just sitting down in the easy chair she preferred. He stopped at her side long enough to tilt her still-closed book so that he could see the title on the cover. ‘Still faithful to the Master, I see?’ he asked.

  ‘I shall never abandon Mr James,’ she vowed and opened the book. Brunetti’s breathing grew easier. Luckily, they were a family where no one held grudges, and so it seemed that there was to be no resumption of hostilities.

  He sat, then lay, on the sofa. After some time enmeshed in the defence of Sextus Roscius, he allowed the book to fall to his stomach and, turning his head at an awkward angle to see Paola, said, ‘You know, it’s strange that the Romans were so reluctant to put people in prison.’

  ‘Even if they were guilty?’

  ‘Especially if they were guilty.’

  She looked up from her own book, interested, ‘What did they do instead?’

  ‘They let them run away if they were convicted. There was a grace period before they were sentenced, and most of them took the opportunity to go into exile.’

  ‘Like Craxi?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Do other countries have as many convicted men in their governments as we do?’ Paola inquired.

  ‘The Indians are said to have a fair number,’ Brunetti answered and returned to his reading.

  After some time, when Paola heard him chuckle, then laugh out loud, she looked up and said, ‘I admit that the Master has made me smile upon occasion, but he has never made me laugh outright.’

  ‘Then listen to this,’ Brunetti said, turning his eyes back to the passage he had just been reading. ‘“The philosophers declare, very aptly, that even a mere facial expression can be a breach of filial duty.”’

  ‘Should we copy that out and put it on the refrigerator?’ she asked.

  ‘One moment,’ Brunetti said, flipping back towards the front of the book. ‘I’ve got a better one here, somewhere,’ he said, turning pages quickly.

  ‘For the refrigerator?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ Brunetti said, pausing in his search for the passage. ‘I think we should put this one above all public buildings in the country; carved into stone, perhaps.’

  Paola made a turning gesture with her hand, encouraging him to hurry up.

  A few moments passed as he riffled back and forth, and then he found it. He lay back and held the book out at arm’s length. He turned his head to her and said, ‘Cicero says this is the duty of the good consul, but I think we can extend that to all politicians.’ She nodded and Brunetti turned back to the book. In a declamatory voice he read out, ‘“He must protect the lives and interests of the people, appeal to his fellow citizens’ patriotic interests, and, in general, set the welfare of the community above his own.”’

  Paola remained silent, considering what he had just read to her. Then she closed her book and tossed it on the table in front of her. ‘And I thought my book was a work of fiction.’

  19

  They woke to snow. A certain slant of light told Brunetti what had happened even before his eyes were fully opened or he was really awake. He looked towards the windows and saw a thin ridge of snow balanced on the railing of the terrace and, beyond it, white-roofed houses and a sky so blue it hurt his eyes. Not even the merest whisper of a cloud could be seen, as if all of them had been ironed in the night and thrown out flat over the city. He lay and looked and tried to remember the last time it had snowed like this, snowed and stayed and not been washed away immediately by the rain.

  He had to know how deep it was. In his enthusiasm, he turned to tell Paola, but the sight of that thin ridge of white lying motionless beside him gave him pause, and he contented himself with getting out of bed and going over to the window. The bell tower of San Polo was covered, and, beyond it, that of the Frari. He went down the hall to Paola’s study, and from there he could see the bell tower of San Marco, its golden angel glistening in the reflected light. From some distant place, he heard the tolling of a bell, but the reverberation was transformed by the snow covering everything, and he had no idea which church it was or from what direction it was coming.

  He went back into the bedroom and over to the window again. Already there were tiny trails of a triple-toed bird’s prints in the snow on the terrace. One of them went right to the edge and disappeared, as if the bird had been unable to resist the temptation to hurl himself into the midst of all of that whiteness. Without thinking, he opened the tall door and bent down to touch it, to feel whether it was the solid wet kind that was good for making snowballs or the dryer kind that fluffed up if you kicked your feet ahead of you when you walked.

  ‘Are you out of your mind?’ a voice behind him asked, no less indignant fo
r being muffled by a pillow. A younger Brunetti would perhaps have brought a handful of snow back to the bed, but this one contented himself with pressing his hand into the snow and leaving the print there. It was the dry kind of snow, he noticed.

  He closed the door and came back to sit on the bed. ‘It snowed,’ he said.

  He raised the hand that had left the print in the show and moved it closer to her shoulder. Though her head was turned away from him and mostly covered by a pillow, he had no trouble hearing her say, ‘If you put that hand anywhere near me, I will divorce you and take the children.’

  ‘They’re old enough to decide themselves,’ he answered with what he thought was Olympian calm.

  ‘I cook,’ she said.

  ‘Indeed,’ he said in acknowledgement of defeat.

  She lapsed again into coma and Brunetti went to take a shower.

  When he left the apartment more than half an hour later, he had had his first coffee and remembered to wear his scarf. He had also put on a pair of rubber-soled boots. It was indeed the fluffy kind of snow, stretching ahead of him undisturbed all the way to the first cross-street. Brunetti stuffed his hands in the pockets of his overcoat and slid one foot forward, telling himself that it was to test how slippery the pavement was. Not at all, he was glad to discover: it was like walking through feathers. He kicked out, first one foot and then the other, and great plumes of snow rose in front of him.

  When he got to the crossing, he turned and looked proudly back at his work. Many people had passed towards the campo, and the snow had been kicked and brushed aside, leaving balding spots of pavement where the snow was already beginning to melt around the edges. The people walking by moved with stiff caution, like sailors just put to sea and not yet sure of their sea legs. But it was delight, not caution, that he read on most of their faces, as if school had just closed and they had all been let out to play. People smiled at one another, and strangers all had something to say about the snow.