by Donna Leon
‘How could that happen?’ Brunetti noticed that her right hand held the fingers of the left in a vicelike grip, bunching the skin together like the wattle of a chicken.
‘If these people had come to visit other patients, or found themselves there for any reason, they could have had contact with your father.’ When she said nothing, Brunetti asked, ‘Isn’t that possible?’
‘And he could have given them money?’ she asked.
‘It’s possible, but only theoretically. If there were no strange bequests in his will, and if he gave no unusual instructions about his finances, I don’t think there’s anything to worry about.’
‘You can rest assured, then, Commissario. I was in charge of my father’s finances during his last illness, and he never spoke of anything like that.’
‘And his will? Did he make any changes to it during the time he was there?’
‘None.’
‘And you were his heir?’
‘Yes. I am his only child.’
Brunetti had come to the end of both his patience and his questions. ‘Thank you for your time and for your cooperation, Signorina. What you’ve told us puts an end to any suspicions we might have had.’ After he said this, Brunetti got to his feet, followed instantly by Vianello. ‘I feel very much better, Signorina,’ Brunetti continued, smiling with every appearance of sincerity. ‘What you’ve told me reassures me because it means that your father was not taken advantage of by these despicable people.’ He smiled again and turned toward the door. He sensed Vianello’s presence close behind him.
Signorina Lerini got up from her chair and came with them to the door. ‘It’s not that any of this matters,’ she said, waving a hand to encompass the room and everything in it, perhaps hoping to dismiss it all with that gesture.
‘Not when our eternal salvation is at stake, Signorina,’ Vianello said. Brunetti was glad his back was to both of them because he was not sure he had been fast enough to hide both his shock and disgust at Vianello’s remark.
* * * *
Chapter Six
When they were outside, Brunetti turned to Vianello and asked, ‘And might I be so bold as to ask where that sudden burst of piety came from, Sergeant?’ He shot an impatient glance at Vianello, but the sergeant answered him with a grin. Brunetti insisted, ‘Well?’
‘I don’t have the patience I used to have, sir. And she’s so far gone I figured she wouldn’t realize what I was doing.’
‘I suspect you succeeded in that,’ Brunetti said. ‘It was a wonderful performance. “Our eternal salvation is at stake,’“ Brunetti repeated, making no attempt to hide his disgust. ‘I hope she believed you, because you sounded as false as a snake to me.’
‘Oh, she believed me, sir,’ Vianello said, heading out of the courtyard and back toward the Accademia Bridge.
‘Why are you so sure?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Hypocrites never think that other people can be just as false as they are.’
‘Are you sure that’s what she is?’
‘Did you see her face when you suggested that her father, her sainted father, might have given some of the loot away?’
Brunetti nodded.
‘Well?’ Vianello asked.
‘Well what?’
‘I think it’s enough to show what all that crap about religion is really all about.’
‘And what do you think that is, Sergeant?’
‘That it makes her special, makes her stand out from the crowd. She’s not beautiful, not even pretty, and there’s no indication that she’s smart. So the only thing that can make her stand out from other people, the way we all want to do, I suppose, is to be religious. That way everyone who meets her says, “Oh, what an interesting, intense person.” And she doesn’t have to do anything or learn anything or even work at anything. Or even be interesting. All she does is say things, pious things, and everyone jumps up and down saying how good she is.’
Brunetti wasn’t persuaded, but he kept his opinion to himself. There had certainly been something excessive and out of tune about Signorina Lerini’s piety, but Brunetti didn’t think it was hypocrisy. To Brunetti, who had seen his fair share of it in his work, her talk of religion and God’s will had the ring of simple fanaticism. He had found her lacking the intelligence and self-involvement that were usually present in the real hypocrite.
‘It sounds like you’re pretty familiar with that sort of religion, Vianello,’ Brunetti said, turning into a bar. After their prolonged exposure to sanctity, he needed a drink. So, apparently, did Vianello, who ordered them two glasses of white wine.
‘My sister,’ Vianello said in explanation. ‘Except that she grew out of it.’
‘What happened?’
‘It started about two years before she got married.’ Vianello sipped at the wine, set his glass down on the bar, and nibbled at a cracker he picked up from a bowl. ‘Luckily, it ended when she got married.’ Another sip. A smile. ‘No room for Jesus in bed, I guess.’ A larger sip. ‘It was awful. We had to listen to her for months, going on and on about prayer and good works and how much she loved the Madonna. It got to a point that even my mother — who really is a saint — couldn’t stand to listen to her.’
‘What happened?’
‘As I said, she got married, and then the children started coming, and then there was no time to be holy or pious. Then I guess she forgot about it.’
‘You think that could happen with Signorina Lerini?’ Brunetti asked, sipping at his wine.
Vianello shrugged. ‘At her age — what is she, fifty?’ he asked and then continued after Brunetti nodded, ‘The only reason I could see anyone marrying her would be for the money. And there’s not much chance of her giving any of that up, is there?’
‘You really didn’t like her, did you, Vianello?’
‘I don’t like hypocrites. And I don’t like religious people. So you can imagine what I think about the combination.’
‘But your mother is a saint, you said. Isn’t she religious?’
Vianello nodded and pushed his glass across the bar. The bartender filled it, glanced at Brunetti, who held his own out to be refilled.
‘Yes. But hers is real faith, belief in human kindness.’
‘Isn’t that what Christianity is supposed to be all about?’
The only answer Vianello gave to this was an angry snort. ‘You know, Commissario, I meant that when I said my mother is a saint. She raised two kids along with the three of us. Their father worked with mine, and when his wife died, he started to drink and didn’t take care of the kids. So my mother just took them home and raised them along with us. No big fuss, no speeches about generosity. And one day she caught my brother making fun of one of them, saying his father drank. At first, I thought she was going to kill Luca, but all she did was call him into the kitchen and tell him she was ashamed of him. That’s all, just that she was ashamed of him. And Luca cried for a week. She was pleasant to him, but she made it clear how she felt.’ Vianello sipped at his drink again, his memory back in their youth.
‘What happened?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Hum?’
‘What happened? To your brother?’
‘Oh, about two weeks later, we were all walking home from school together, and some of the bigger boys in the neighbourhood started saying things to the boy, the same one Luca had been teasing.’
‘And?’
‘And Luca went crazy, I guess. He beat two of them bloody, chased one of them halfway to Castello. And all the time, he was yelling at them that they couldn’t say those things about his brother.’ Vianello’s eyes brightened with the story. ‘Well, when he got home, he was awfully bloody. I think he broke one of his fingers in the fight; anyway, my father had to take him to the hospital.’
‘And?’
‘Well, while they were there, at the hospital, Luca told my father what had happened, and when they came home, my father told my mother.’ Vianello finished his wine and pulled some bills from his pocket.
>
‘What did your mother do?’
‘Oh, nothing special, really Except that night she made risotto di pesce, Luca’s favourite. We hadn’t had it for two weeks, like she was on strike or something. Or putting us all on a hunger strike because of what Luca said,’ he added with a loud laugh. ‘But after that, Luca started smiling again. My mother never said anything about it. Luca was the baby, and I’ve always thought he was her favourite.’ He picked up the change and slipped it into his pocket. ‘She’s like that. No big sermons. But good, good to her soul.’
He walked to the door and held it open for Brunetti. ‘Are there any more names on the list, Commissario? Because you’re not going to get me to believe that one of those people is capable of anything worse than false piety.’ Vianello turned to look at the clock on the wall above the bar.
Just as tired of piety as his sergeant was, Brunetti said, ‘No, I don’t think so. The fourth will divided everything equally among six children.’
‘And the fifth?’
‘The heir lives in Torino.’
‘That doesn’t leave many suspects, does it, sir?’
‘No, I’m afraid not. And I’m beginning to think there’s not much to be suspicious of.’
‘Should we bother going back to the Questura?’ Vianello asked, this time pushing back his sleeve to look at his watch.
It was quarter after six. ‘No, no sense in bothering to do that,’ Brunetti answered. ‘You might as well get home at a decent hour, Sergeant.’
Vianello smiled in answer, started to say something, stopped himself, but then gave in to the impulse and said, ‘Give me more time at the gym.’
‘Don’t even say such things to me,’ Brunetti insisted, pulling his face together in an expression of exaggerated horror.
Vianello laughed aloud as he started up the first steps of the Accademia Bridge, leaving Brunetti to make his way home by way of Campo San Barnaba.
It was in this campo, standing in front of the newly restored church and seeing its freshly scrubbed facade for the first time, that the idea came to Brunetti. He cut into thecalle beside the church and stopped at the last door before the Grand Canal.
The door clicked open on his second ring, and he entered the immense courtyard of his parents-in-law’spalazzo. Luciana, the maid who had been with the family since before Brunetti met Paola, opened the door at the top of the stairs that led up to the palazzo and smiled a friendly greeting. ‘Buona sera, Dottore,’ she said, stepping back to allow him into the hall.
‘Buona sera, Luciana. It’s good to see you again,’ Brunetti said, giving her his coat, conscious of how many times he’d handed it back and forth that afternoon. ‘I’d like to speak to my mother-in-law. If she’s home, that is.’
If Luciana was surprised by this request, she gave no sign of it at all. ‘The Contessa is reading. But I’m sure she’d be glad to see you, Dottore.’ As she led Brunetti back into the living portion of the palazzo, Luciana asked, voice warm with real affection, ‘How are the children?’
‘Raffi’s in love,’ Brunetti said, warmed by Luciana’s answering smile. ‘And so is Chiara,’ he added, this time amused to see her shock. ‘But luckily, Raffi’s in love with a girl, and Chiara’s in love with the new polar bear in the Berlin Zoo.’
Luciana stopped and placed one hand on his sleeve. ‘Oh, Dottore, you shouldn’t play tricks like that on an old woman,’ she said, taking her other hand, the one for melodrama, from her heart.
‘Who’s the girl?’ she asked. ‘Is she a good girl?’
‘Sara Paganuzzi. She lives on the floor under us. Raffi’s known her since they were kids. Her father has a glass factory out on Murano.’
‘That Paganuzzi?’ Luciana asked with real curiosity.
‘Yes. Do you know them?’
‘No, not personally, but I know his work. Beautiful, beautiful. My nephew works out on Murano, and he’s always saying that Paganuzzi is the best of the glass-makers.’ Luciana stopped in front of the Contessa’s study and knocked on the door.
‘Avanti ,’ the Contessa’s voice called from inside. Luciana opened the door and allowed Brunetti to go in unannounced. After all, there was very little danger that he would find the Contessa doing something she shouldn’t be doing or secretly reading a body-building magazine.
Donatella Falier looked across the top of her reading glasses, set her book face down beside her on the sofa, the glasses on top of it, and got immediately to her feet. She came quickly toward Brunetti and lifted up her face to receive his two light kisses. Though he knew she was in her mid-sixties, the Contessa looked at least a decade younger; there was not a white hair to be seen, wrinkles were reduced to insignificance by carefully applied make-up, and her small body was trim and straight.
‘Guido, is anything wrong?’ she asked with real concern, and Brunetti felt a moments regret that he was such a stranger to this woman’s life that his very presence would speak only of danger or loss.
‘No, nothing at all. Everyone’s fine.’
He saw her relax visibly as he answered. ‘Good, good. Would you like something to drink, Guido?’ She looked toward the window as if to tell the time by the quantity of light that remained and thus know what sort of drink to offer, and he saw that she was surprised to find the windows of the room dark. ‘What time is it?’ she asked.
‘Six-thirty.’
‘Is it really?’ she asked rhetorically, going back toward the sofa where she had been sitting. ‘Come and sit here and tell me how the children are,’ she said. She resumed her place, closed the book, and set it on the table beside her. She folded the glasses and set them beside the book. ‘No, sit here, Guido,’ she insisted when she saw him move toward a chair on the opposite side of the low table in front of the sofa.
He did as she told him and sat beside her on the sofa. In his many years of marriage to Paola, Brunetti had spent very little time alone with her mother, and so the impression he had of her was confused. At times, she seemed the most empty-headed of social butterflies, unable to do something so simple as get herself a drink, yet at other times she had amazed Brunetti with summations of people’s motivations or characters that stunned him with their icy penetration and accuracy He was kept off balance because he could never tell if her remarks were intentional or accidental. It was this woman who had, a year ago, referred to Fini, the Neo-fascist parliamentarian, as ‘Mussofini’, giving no indication of whether the mistaken name was the result of confusion or contempt.
He told her how the children were, assuring the Contessa that both of them were doing well in school, were sleeping with their windows closed against the night air, and eating two vegetables with every meal. That, apparently, was enough to assure the Contessa that all was well with her grandchildren, and so she turned her attention to their parents. ‘And you and Paola? You certainly are looking robust, Guido,’ she said, and Brunetti found himself sitting up a bit straighter.
‘Now tell me, what would you like to drink?’ she asked.
‘Nothing, really. I’ve come to ask you about some people you might know.’
‘Really?’ she said, turning her jade-green eyes toward him and opening them wide. ‘Whatever for?’
‘Well, the name of one of them has come up in another investigation we’re conducting . . .’ he began and let the sentence trail out.
‘And you’ve come to see if I know anything about them?’
‘Well, yes.’
‘What could I possibly know that could be of help to the police?’
‘Well, personal things,’ Brunetti said.
‘You mean gossip?’ she asked.
‘Um, yes.’
She looked aside for a moment and straightened a minuscule wrinkle in the fabric on the arm of the sofa. ‘I didn’t know the police interested themselves with gossip.’
‘It’s probably our richest source of information.’
‘Really?’ she asked, and when he nodded, added, ‘How very interesting.’
&nb
sp; Brunetti said nothing, and to avoid meeting the Contessa’s glance, he looked across her to the spine of the book on the table, expecting to find a romance or a mystery. ‘The Voyage of the Beagle,’ he asked aloud, unable to contain his astonishment and pronouncing the title in English.
The Contessa glanced at the book and then back to Brunetti. ‘Why, yes, Guido. Have you read it?’
‘When I was in university, years ago, but in translation,’ he managed to say, voice under control and all astonishment removed from it.
‘Yes, I’ve always enjoyed reading Darwin,’ the Contessa explained. ‘Did you like the book?’ she continued, all discussion of gossip and police business suspended.