by Donna Leon
“Did Signora Trevisan call you for her own illnesses?”
“No, never. She’d come to the office.”
“For what?”
“That doesn’t seem relevant to me, Commissario,” she said, surprising him by the use of his title. He left it.
“What were the girl’s answers to the other questions?”
“She said that her partner did not use prophylactics. He said it would interfere with their pleasure.” She gave a crooked grimace, as if displeased to hear herself repeating such a self-serving cliché.
“’Partner,’ singular?”
“Yes, she said there was only one.”
“Did she tell you who he was?”
“I didn’t ask. It’s none of my business.”
“Did you believe her? That there was only one?”
“I saw no reason not to. As I told you, I’ve known her since she was a child. It seemed, from what I know of her, that she was telling me the truth.”
“And the magazine her mother threw at you?” Brunetti asked.
She glanced across at him, clearly surprised. “Ah, my sister. When she tells a story, she tells it all, doesn’t she?” But there seemed to be no real anger in her voice, only the grudging admiration that a lifetime with Elettra, Brunetti was sure, would command.
“That came later,” she began. “When we came out of the examining room, Signora Trevisan demanded to know what was wrong with Francesca. I said it was a minor infection and would clear up soon. She seemed content with that, and they left the office.”
“How’d she find out?” Brunetti asked.
“The medicine, Zovirax. It’s specific for herpes. There’s no other reason she’d be taking it. Signora Trevisan has a friend who’s a pharmacist, and she asked him—I’m sure she did it very, very casually—what the medicine was for. He told her. It isn’t used for anything else, or very rarely. The next day, she was back in my office, without Francesca, and she made some offensive remarks.” She stopped.
“What sort of remarks?”
“She accused me of having arranged an abortion for Francesca. I told her to get out of the ambulatorio, and that was when she picked up the magazine and threw it at me. Two of my patients, elderly men, took her by the arms and put her out of the office. I haven’t seen her since then.”
“And the girl?”
“As I told you, I’ve seen her once or twice on the street, but she’s no longer my patient. I had a request from another doctor to verify my diagnosis, which I did. I’d already sent both of their records back to Signora Trevisan.”
“Have you any idea where or how she might have gotten the idea that you arranged an abortion?”
“No, none. I couldn’t do it without her parents’ consent, anyway.”
Brunetti’s own daughter, Chiara, was the same age as Francesca had been, fourteen. He wondered how he or his wife would respond to the news that she had a venereal infection. He shied away from the thought with something that he realized was horror.
“Why are you reluctant to discuss Signora Trevisan’s medical history?”
“I told you, because I don’t think it’s relevant.”
“And I’ve told you that anything might be relevant,” he said, trying to soften his tone, perhaps succeeding.
“If I told you she had a bad back?”
“If that were the case, then you wouldn’t have hesitated to tell me in the first place.”
She said nothing for a moment and then shook her head. “No. She was my patient, so I can’t discuss anything I know.”
“Can’t or won’t?” Brunetti asked, all attempt at humor gone from his voice.
Her look was direct and even. “Can’t,” she repeated and then broke her glance away to look down at her watch. It was Snoopy, he noticed. “I’ve got one more house call to make before lunch.”
Brunetti knew that this was a decision that could not be opposed. “Thank you for your time and for what you’ve told me,” he said, meaning it. On a more personal note, he added, “I’m surprised I didn’t realize you and Elettra were sisters before this.”
“Well, she’s five years younger than I am.”
“I wasn’t thinking about appearance,” he said. In response to the inquisitive tilt of her chin, he added, “Your character. It’s very similar.”
Her smile was swift and broad. “Many people have told us that.”
“Yes, I imagine they would,” Brunetti said.
For a moment, she said nothing, but then she laughed with real delight. Still laughing, she pushed back her chair and reached for her coat. He helped her with it, glanced at the sum on the bill, and dropped some money onto the table. She picked up her brown bag, and together they went out into the piazza, there to discover that it had grown even warmer.
“Most of my patients are sure this means that it will be a terrible winter,” she said, waving her arm to encompass both the piazza and the light that filled it. They walked down the three low steps and started across the piazza.
“If it were unnaturally cold, what would they say then?” Brunetti asked.
“Oh, they’d say the same thing, that it’s a sure sign of a bad winter,” she answered casually, not at all troubled by the contradiction. Venetians both, they understood.
“We are a pessimistic people, aren’t we?” Brunetti asked.
“We once had an empire. Now all we have,” she said, repeating the same gesture, again encompassing the Basilica, the campanile and, below it, Sansovinos Loggetta, “all we have is this Disneyland. I think that’s sufficient cause for pessimism.”
Brunetti nodded but said nothing. She hadn’t persuaded him. The moments came rarely, but for him the city’s glory still lived.
They parted at the foot of the campanile, she to see a patient who lived in Campo della Guerra and he to walk toward the Rialto and, from there, home for lunch.
8
The shops were still open when he reached his neighborhood, so he went into the corner grocery store and bought four glass bottles of mineral water. In a weak moment of ecological appeasement, Brunetti had agreed to take part in his family’s boycott of plastic bottles, and so he had, like the rest of them—he had to give them that—developed the habit of stopping at the store each time he passed to pick up a few bottles. He sometimes wondered if the rest of them bathed in the stuff while he wasn’t there, with such rapidity did it disappear.
At the top of the fifth flight, he set the bag of bottles down on the final step and fished out his keys. From inside, he heard the radio news, no doubt bringing an eager public up-to-date on the Trevisan murder. He pushed open the door, set the bottles down inside, and closed the door behind him. From the kitchen, he heard a voice intone, “… denies all knowledge of the charges made against him and points to twenty years of faithful service to the ex-Christian Democratic party as proof of his commitment to justice. From his cell in the Regina Coeli prison, however, Renato Mustacci, confessed Mafia killer, still maintains that he was following the senator’s orders when he and two other men shot and killed Judge Filippo Preside and his wife, Elvira, in Palermo in May of last year.”
The solemn voice of the announcer was replaced by a song about soap powder, over which he could hear Paola talking aloud to herself, often her preferred audience. “Filthy, lying pig. Filthy, lying, DC pig and all like him. ‘Commitment to justice. Commitment to justice.’” There followed one of the more scurrilous epithets to which his wife was given, strangely enough, only when she spoke to herself.
She heard him coming down the hall and turned to him. “Did you hear that, Guido? Did you hear that? All three of the killers have said that he sent them to kill the judge, and he talks about his commitment to justice. They ought to take him out and hang him. But he’s a member of Parliament, so they can’t touch him. Lock the whole lot of them up. Just put Parliament, every one of them, in prison and save us all a lot of time and trouble.”
Brunetti walked across the kitchen and stooped do
wn to put the bottles in the low cabinet beside the refrigerator. There was only one other bottle there, though he had carried five up the day before. “What’s for lunch?” he asked.
She took a small step backward and shot an accusing finger at his heart. “The Republic’s collapsing, and all he can think about is food,” she said, this time addressing the invisible listener who had, for more than twenty years, been a silent participant in their marriage. “Guido, these villains will destroy us all. Perhaps they already have. And you want to know what’s for lunch.”
Brunetti stopped himself from remarking that someone wearing cashmere from Burlington Arcade did not make the best revolutionary and said instead, “Feed me, Paola, and then I’ll go back to my own commitment to justice.”
That was enough to remind her of Trevisan and, as Brunetti knew she would, Paola eagerly abandoned her political fulminations for a bit of gossip. She turned off the radio and asked, “Has he given it to you?”
Brunetti nodded as he pushed himself up from his knees. “He observed that I had nothing much to do at the moment. The mayor has already called, so I leave it to you to imagine the state he’s in.” There was no need to provide an explication of “it” or “he.”
As Brunetti knew would happen, Paola was diverted from considerations of political justice and rectitude. “The story I read said nothing more than that he had been shot. On the train from Turin.”
“He had a ticket from Padua. We’re trying to find out what he was doing there.”
“A woman?”
“Could be. Too early yet to say anything. What’s for lunch?”
“Pasta fagioli and then cotoletta.”
“Salad?”
“Guido,” she asked with pursed lips and upraised eyes, “when haven’t we had salad with cutlets?”
Instead of answering her question, he asked, “Is there any more of that good Dolcetto?”
“I don’t know. We had a bottle of it last week, didn’t we?”
He muttered something and knelt back down in front of the cabinet. Behind the bottles of mineral water were three bottles of wine, all white. Getting to his feet again, he asked, “Where’s Chiara?”
“In her room. Why?”
“I want her to do me a favor.”
Paola glanced at her watch. “It’s a quarter to one, Guido. The stores will be closed.”
“Not if she goes up to Do Mori. They’re open until one.”
“And you’re going to ask her to go up there, just to get you a bottle of Dolcetto?”
“Three,” he said, leaving the kitchen and going down the hall toward Chiara’s room. He knocked at the door and, from behind him, heard the radio turned on again.
“Avanti, Papà,” she called out.
He opened the door and walked in. The bed, across which Chiara was sprawled, had a white ruffled canopy running above it. Her shoes lay on the floor, next to her book bag and jacket. The shutters were open, and light swept into the room, illuminating the bears and other stuffed animals that shared the bed with her. She brushed a handful of dark blonde hair back from her face, looked up at him, and gave him a smile that competed with the light.
“Ciao, dolcezza,” he said as he came in.
“You’re home early, Papa.”
“No, right on time. You been reading?”
She nodded, glancing back at her book.
“Chiara, would you do me a favor?”
She lowered the book and peered at him over the top of the pages.
“Would you, Chiara?”
“Where?” she asked.
“Just down to Do Mori.”
“What are we out of?” she asked.
“Dolcetto.”
“Oh, Papà, why can’t you drink something else with lunch?”
“Because I want Dolcetto, sweetie.”
“I’ll go if you’ll come with me.”
“But then I might as well go by myself.”
“If you want to do that, then just go, Papà.”
“I don’t want to go, Chiara. That’s why I’m asking you to go for me.”
“But why should I go?”
“Because I work hard to support you all.”
“Mamma works too.”
“Yes, but my money pays for the house and everything we buy for it.”
She set her book facedown on the bed. “Mamma says that’s capitalistic blackmail and that I don’t have to listen to you when you do it.”
“Chiara,” he said, speaking very softly, “your mother is a troublemaker, a malcontent, and an agitator.”
“Then how come you always tell me I have to do what she says?”
He took a very deep breath. Seeing that, Chiara slid to the edge of the bed and fished for her shoes with her toes. “How many bottles do you want?” she asked truculently.
“Three.”
She bent down and tied her shoes. Brunetti reached out a hand and caressed her head, but she pulled herself to one side to avoid him. When her shoes were tied, she stood and snatched her jacket up from the floor. She walked past him, saying nothing, and started down the hall. “Ask your mother for the money,” he called to her and went down the hall to the bathroom. While he was washing his hands, he heard the front door slam.
Back in the kitchen, Paola was busy setting the table, but only for three. “Where’s Raffi?” Brunetti asked.
“He’s got an oral exam this afternoon, so he’s spending the day in the library.”
“What’s he going to eat?”
“He’ll get some sandwiches somewhere.”
“If he’s got an exam, he should have a good meal first.”
She looked across the room at him and shook her head.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“No, tell me. What are you shaking your head for?”
“I wonder, at times, how it was I married such an ordinary man.”
“Ordinary?” Of all the insults Paola had hurled at him over the years, this one somehow seemed the worst. “Ordinary?” he repeated.
She hesitated for a moment, then launched herself into an explanation. “First you try to blackmail your daughter into going out to buy wine she doesn’t drink, and then you worry that your son doesn’t eat. Not that he doesn’t study, but that he doesn’t eat.”
“What should I worry about if not that?”
“That he doesn’t study,” Paola shot back.
“He hasn’t done anything but study for the last year, that and moon about the house, thinking about Sara.”
“What’s Sara got to do with it?”
What did any of this, Brunetti wondered, have to do with it.
“What did Chiara say?” he asked.
“That she offered to go if you’d go with her, but you refused.”
“If I had wanted to go, I would have gone myself.”
“You’re always saying that you don’t have enough time to spend with the children, and when you get the chance, you don’t want to.”
“Going to a bar to buy a bottle of wine isn’t exactly how I want to spend time with my children.”
“What is, sitting around the table and explaining to them the way money gives people power?”
“Paola,” he said, enunciating all three of the syllables slowly, “I have no idea what any of this is about, but I’m fairly sure it doesn’t have anything to do with sending Chiara to the store.”
She shrugged and turned back to the large pot that was boiling on the stove.
“What is it, Paola?” he asked, staying where he was but reaching out to her with his voice.
She shrugged again.
“Tell me, Paola. Please.”
She kept her back to him and spoke in a soft voice. “I’m beginning to feel old, Guido. Raffi’s got a girlfriend, and Chiara’s almost a woman. I’ll be fifty soon.” He marveled at her math but said nothing. “I know it’s stupid, but I find it depressing, as if my life were all used up, the best part gone.” Good lord, an
d she called him ordinary?
He waited, but it seemed she had finished.
She took the lid off the pot and was, for a moment, enveloped in the cloud of steam that spilled up from it. She took a long wooden spoon and stirred at whatever was in the pot, managing to look anything but witchlike as she did it. Brunetti tried, with very little success, to strip his mind clear of the love and familiarity of more than twenty years and look at her objectively. He saw a tall, slender woman in her early forties with tawny blonde hair that spilled down to her shoulders. She turned and shot him a glance, and he saw the long nose and dark eyes, the broad mouth which had, for decades, delighted him.
“Does that mean I get to trade you in?” he risked.
She fought the smile for an instant but then gave in to it.
“Am I being a fool?” she asked.
He was about to tell her that, if she was, it was no more than he was accustomed to when the door burst open and Chiara launched herself back into the apartment.
“Papà” she shouted from down the hall, “you didn’t tell me.”
“Tell you what, Chiara?”
“About Francesca’s father. That somebody killed him.”
“You know her?” Brunetti asked.
She came down the hall, cloth bag hanging from one hand. Obviously, curiosity about the murder had driven her anger with Brunetti from her mind. “Sure. We went to grammar school together. Are you going to look for whoever did it?”
“I’m going to help,” he said, unwilling to open himself to what he knew would turn into unrelenting questioning. “Did you know her very well?”
“Oh, no,” she said, surprising him by not claiming to have been her best friend and, as such, somehow privy to whatever he might learn. “She hung around with that Pedrocci girl, you know, the one who had all those cats at home. She smelled, so no one would be her friend. Except Francesca.”
“Did Francesca have other friends?” Paola asked, interested herself now and hence willingly complicit in her husband’s attempt to pry information from their own child. “I don’t think I ever met her.”
“Oh, no, she never came back here with me. Anyone who wanted to play with her had to go back to her house. Her mamma insisted on that.”