by Donna Leon
‘Yes, I did, at the time. I’m not sure my memory of it is all that clear, though.’
‘You should read it again, then. It’s an important book, probably one of the most important books of the modern world. That and the Origin of Species, I’d say.’ Brunetti nodded in agreement. ‘Would you like to borrow it when I’m finished with it?’ she asked. ‘You wouldn’t have any trouble with the English, would you?’
‘No, I don’t think so, but I’ve got quite a lot to read at the moment. Perhaps later in the year.’
‘Yes, it would be a lovely book to read on vacation, I think. All those beaches. All those lovely animals.’
‘Yes, yes,’ Brunetti agreed, utterly at a loss as to what to say.
The Contessa saved him. ‘Who is it you wanted me to gossip about, Guido?’
‘Well, not exactly gossip, just tell me if you’ve heard anything about them that might be interesting to the police.’
‘And what sort of thing is interesting to the police?’
He hesitated a moment but then had to confess, ‘Everything, I suppose.’
‘Yes, I thought that might be the case,’ she answered. ‘Well?’
‘Signorina Benedetta Lerini,’ he said.
‘The one who lives over in Dorsoduro?’ the Contessa asked.
‘Yes.’
The Contessa thought for a moment and then said, ‘All I know about her is that she is very generous to the Church, or is said to be. Much of the money she inherited from her father — dreadful, vicious man — has been given to the Church.’
‘Which one?’
The Contessa paused for a moment. ‘Isn’t that strange?’ she asked with mingled surprise and curiosity, ‘I don’t have any idea. All I’ve heard is that she’s very religious and gives a lot of money to the Church. But for all I know, it could be the Waldensians or the Anglicans or even those dreadful Americans who stop you on the street, you know, the ones who have lots of wives but don’t let them drink Coca Cola.’
Brunetti wasn’t sure how much this advanced his understanding of Signorina Lerini, and so he tried the other name. And Contessa Crivoni?’
‘Claudia?’ the Contessa asked, making no attempt to disguise her first reaction, which was surprise, nor her second, which was delight.
‘If that’s her name. She’s the widow of Conte Egidio.’
‘Oh, this is too, too delicious,’ the Contessa said with a fluty laugh. ‘How I wish I could tell the girls at bridge.’ Seeing Brunetti’s look of sheer panic, she instantly added, ‘No, don’t worry, Guido. I won’t say a thing about this. Not even to Orazio. Paola has told me how she can never tell me anything you tell her.’
‘She has?’
‘Yes.’
‘But does she ever tell you anything?’ Brunetti asked before he could stop himself.
The Contessa smiled in response and placed her ring-covered hand on his sleeve. ‘Now, Guido, you’re loyal to your oath to the police, aren’t you?’
He nodded.
‘Well, then, I’m loyal to my daughter.’ She smiled again. ‘Now tell me what you’d like to know about Claudia.’
‘I’d like to know about her husband, how she got on with him.’
‘No one got on with Egidio, I’m afraid,’ the Contessa said without hesitation, then added with reflective slowness, ‘But I suppose the same thing could probably be said of Claudia.’ She considered this, as though she hadn’t realized it until she’d said it. ‘What do you know about them, Guido?’
‘Nothing more than the usual gossip in the city.’
‘Which is?’
‘That he made his money in the sixties by putting up illegal buildings in Mestre.’
‘And what about Claudia?’
‘That she is interested in public morality,’ Brunetti said blandly.
The Contessa smiled at this, ‘Oh, yes, she certainly is.’
When she added nothing to this, Brunetti asked, ‘What do you know about her, or how do you know her?’
‘Because of the church, San Simone Piccolo. She’s on the committee that’s trying to raise enough money for the restoration.’
‘Are you a member, as well?’
‘Good heavens, no. She asked me to join, but I know the talk about restoration is just a ruse.’
‘To cover up what?’
‘It’s the only church in the city where they say the mass in Latin. Did you know that?’
‘No.’
‘I think they had something to do with that cardinal in France — Lefevre — the one who wanted to go back to Latin and incense. So I assume that any money they raised would be sent to France or used for incense, not to restore the church.’ She considered this for a moment and then added, ‘The church is so ugly, it ought not to be restored anyway. Just a bad imitation of the Pantheon.’
However interesting he might have found this architectural digression, Brunetti pulled the Contessa away from it. ‘But what do you know about her?’
The Contessa looked away from him, toward the row of quatrefoil windows that gave an unimpeded view to thepalazzi on the other side of the Grand Canal. ‘What use is going to be made of this, Guido? Can you tell me that?’
‘Can you tell me why you want to know?’ he asked by way of answer.
‘Because, unpleasant a creature as Claudia is, I don’t want her to suffer unjustly as a result of some gossip that proves to be false.’ Before Brunetti could say anything, she raised a hand and said, voice a bit louder. ‘No, I think it’s closer to the truth to say that I don’t want to be responsible for that suffering.’
‘I can assure you that she will suffer nothing unmerited.’
‘I find that a very ambiguous remark.’
‘Yes, I suppose it is. The truth is that I don’t have any idea if she could have done anything or, in fact, any idea of what sort of thing she might have done. I don’t even know if anything wrong has been done.’
‘But you’re coming to ask questions about her?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then you must have reason to be curious about her.’
‘Yes, I am. But I promise you that it is no more than that. And if what you tell me removes my curiosity, whatever it is, it will not go any further than me. I promise you that.’
‘And if it doesn’t?’
Brunetti pulled his lips together while he thought this through. ‘Then I’ll look into whatever you tell me and see what truth lies under the gossip.’
‘Very often there is none,’ she said.
He smiled to hear her say that. Certainly the Contessa needed no one to tell her that, just as often, truth provided a rock-like foundation to gossip.
After a long pause, she said, ‘There’s talk about a priest,’ but said nothing more.
‘What kind of talk?’
She waved a hand in the air by way of answer.
‘Which priest?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘What do you know?’ he asked softly.
‘There have been a few remarks dropped. Nothing overt, you understand, nothing that could be interpreted as anything other than the deepest and most sincere concern for her welfare.’ Brunetti was familiar with remarks like this: crucifixion was kinder. ‘You know how these things get said, Guido. If she fails to come to a meeting, someone will ask if anything is wrong, or someone else will say that they hope it’s not a sickness of some sort, then add, in that voice women have, that they know it would have to be illness, her spiritual health being so well looked after.’
‘Is that all?’ Brunetti asked.
She nodded. ‘It’s enough.’
‘Why do you think it’s a priest?’
Again, the Contessa waved her hand. ‘It’s the tone. The words don’t really mean anything; it’s all done with the tone, the inflection, the hint that lies lurking under the surface of the most innocent remark.’
‘How long has this been going on?’
‘Guido,’ she said, sitting up straighter, ‘I
don’t know that anything at all is going on.’
‘Then how long have these remarks been going on?’
‘I don’t know More than a year, I think. I was very slow to notice them. Or perhaps people were careful about making them in front of me. They know I don’t like that sort of thing.’
‘Has anything else been said?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘At the time of her husband’s death?’
‘No, nothing that I can remember.’
‘Nothing?’
‘Guido,’ she said, leaning toward him and putting her bejewelled hand on his sleeve, ‘please try to remember that I am not a suspect and do try not to talk to me like one.’
He felt his face grow red and he said immediately, ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry I forget.’
‘Yes, Paola’s told me.’
‘Told you what?’ Brunetti asked.
‘How important it is to you.’
‘How important what is?’
‘What you see as justice.’
‘What I see?’
‘Ah, I’m sorry, Guido. I’m afraid I’ve offended you now.’
He shook this away with a quick motion of his head, but before he could ask her what she meant by ‘his’ idea of justice, she got to her feet and said, ‘How dark it’s getting.’
She seemed to forget about him and went over to stand in front of one of the windows, her back to Brunetti, her hands clasped behind her. Brunetti studied her, the raw silk suit, high heels, and the back of her perfect chignon. The Contessa could have been a young woman standing there, so slender and straight was her outline.
After a long time, she turned, glancing down at her watch. ‘Orazio and I have a dinner invitation, Guido, so if you have no other questions, I’m afraid I have to change.’
Brunetti got to his feet and walked across the room. Behind the Contessa, boats moved up and down the canal, and light spilled from the windows of the buildings on the other side. He wanted to say something to her, but before he could speak, she said, ‘Please give Paola and the children our love.’ She patted his arm and moved past him. Before he could say anything, she was gone, leaving him to study the view from the palazzo which would someday be his.
* * * *
Chapter Seven
Brunetti let himself into the apartment a little before eight, hung up his coat, and went immediately down the hall to Paola’s study He found her, as he knew he would, sprawled in her tattered armchair, one leg curled under her, a pen in one hand, book open on her lap. She glanced up when he came in, made an exaggerated kissing motion in his direction, but looked down at her book again. Brunetti sat on the sofa opposite her, then turned and stretched himself out across its surface. He grabbed up two velvet pillows and pounded them into shape under his head. First he looked at the ceiling, and then he closed his eyes, knowing that she would finish whatever passage she was interested in and then devote herself to him.
A page turned. Minutes passed. He heard the book drop to the floor and said, ‘I never knew your mother read.’
‘Well, she asks Luciana to help her with the big words.’
‘No, I mean read books.’
‘As opposed to what? Palms?’
‘No, really, Paola, I never knew she read serious books.’
‘She still reading Saint Augustine?’
Brunetti had no idea if this was meant to be a joke or not and so he answered, ‘No. Darwin. The Voyage of the Beagle.’
‘Oh, really?’ Paola said with what seemed little interest.
‘Did you know she read things like that?’
‘You make it sound like she’s reading kiddie-porn, Guido.’
‘No, I just wondered if you knew she read books like that, that she was a serious reader?’
‘She is my mother, after all. Of course I knew it.’
‘But you never told me.’
‘Would that make you like her any more than you do?’
‘I like your mother, Paola,’ he said, voice perhaps a bit too insistent. ‘What I’m talking about is that I never knew who she was. Or,’ he corrected himself, ‘what she was.’
‘And will knowing what she reads make you know who she is?’
‘Can you think of a better way to tell?’
Paola considered this for a long time and then gave him the answer he expected. ‘No, I suppose I can’t.’ He heard her move around on her chair, but Brunetti kept his eyes closed. ‘What were you doing, talking to my mother? And how did you find out about the book? Surely you didn’t call her up to ask her for some reading suggestions.’
‘No, I went to see her.’
‘My mother? You went to see my mother?’
Brunetti grunted.
‘Whatever for?’
‘To ask her about some people she knows.’
‘Who?’
‘Benedetta Lerini.’
‘Ou la la,’ Paola sang out. ‘What’s she done, finally confessed she beat that old bastard’s head in with a hammer?’
‘I believe her father died of a heart attack.’
‘To universal rejoicing, I’m sure.’
‘Why universal?’ When Paola didn’t answer him for a long time, Brunetti opened his eyes and glanced across toward her. She sat with the other leg under her now, chin propped on one hand. ‘Well?’ he asked.
‘It’s funny, Guido. Now that you ask, I don’t know why it should be. I guess it’s just because I’ve always heard that he was a terrible man.’
‘Terrible in what way?’
Again, her answer was long delayed. ‘I don’t know. I can’t remember anything, not a single specific thing I might have heard about him, just this general impression that he was bad. That’s strange, isn’t it?’
Brunetti closed his eyes again. ‘I’d say so, especially in this city.’
‘You mean everybody knows everybody?’
‘Pretty much. Yes.’
‘I suppose so.’ Both stopped talking, and Brunetti knew she was running her mind back down the long passages of her memory, trying to hunt out the comment, the remark, some trace of the opinion of the late Signor Lerini which she seemed to have taken on, unexamined, as her own.
Paola’s voice called Brunetti back from near sleep. ‘It was Patrizia.’
‘Patrizia Belloti?’
‘Yes.’
‘What did she say?’
‘She worked for him, for about five years before he died. That’s how I know about him and his daughter. Patrizia said she’d never known a person so awful and that everyone in his office hated him.’
‘He was in real estate, wasn’t he?’
‘Yes, among other things.’
‘Did she say why?’
‘Why what?’
‘People hated him?’
‘Let me think for a minute,’ Paola said. Then, after a pause, she added, ‘I think it had to do with religion.’
Brunetti had been half expecting this. If the daughter was any indication, he would have been one of those sanctimonious bigots who forbade swearing in the office and gave rosaries as Christmas presents. ‘What did she say?’
‘Well, you know Patrizia, don’t you?’ A childhood friend of Paola s, she had never seemed very interesting to Brunetti, though he had to confess he had seen her no more than a dozen times in all these years.
‘Um hum.’
‘She’s very religious.’
Brunetti remembered: it was one of the reasons he didn’t like her.
‘I think she said that he made a scene one day because someone, a new secretary or something, put some sort of religious picture on the wall in her office. Or a cross. I really don’t remember now what she told me. It was years ago. But he made a scene, made her take it down. And he swore terribly, too, I think I remember her telling me. Really a foul mouth — “the Madonna this, the Madonna that”. Things that Patrizia wouldn’t even repeat. Things that would offend even you, Guido.’
Brunetti ignored this casual revelat
ion that Paola appeared to consider him some sort of arbiter of scurrility and directed his thoughts, instead, to this revelation about Signor Lerini. From this drifty world Brunetti was called back by the soft press of Paola’s body as she sat down on the sofa near his hip. He pulled himself closer to the back of the sofa to allow her more room without bothering to open his eyes, then felt her elbow, arm, breast lean across his chest.