by Donna Leon
‘Are you talking about one of my patients, if I might call them that?’ the pathologist began. ‘Or one of the patients in the wards?’ If possible, Rizzardi’s voice had grown even more friendly, as if he were enjoying the exchange.
‘Someone who was taken to the hospital,’ Brunetti answered. ‘And who left.’
‘Why don’t you simply ask the Vice-Questore’s secretary to break into the system?’ Rizzardi asked affably. ‘Unless by now you’re able to do it yourself.’
‘Ettore,’ Brunetti said, ‘I think you’re not supposed to know about that. Or at least talk about it.’
‘Ah,’ Rizzardi answered. ‘Sorry. Secret best kept, I realize.’ The pathologist said nothing for so long that Brunetti thought he might have replaced the phone, but then Rizzardi said, ‘I have to disappoint you, Guido. The one person I knew in the Records Office – that is, knew well enough to ask this sort of favour – retired last year. There’s no one there now who’d be willing to circumvent the rules.’
‘Thanks anyway, Ettore,’ Brunetti said, then added, ‘Soon it’ll be like working in Sweden.’
‘I know,’ replied Rizzardi. ‘Shocking.’
10
Brunetti thought of looking online for the phone number but, instead, reverted to his Luddite ways and pulled the phone book from his bottom drawer. The only Cavanis, Pietro, was listed as living in Santa Croce.
The phone was answered by a machine that gave a message in gruff-voiced Veneziano, telling the caller to leave his name and number and what he wanted, and perhaps he’d return the call.
Brunetti gave his name and the number of his telefonino and said he’d like to speak to Signor Cavanis about an incident near Campo San Boldo some years before.
Restlessness attacked him. He remembered one of the phrases Paola had picked up from an American friend and had used to admonish the kids, ever since they were little more than babies: ‘You’ve got ants in your pants’, an expression that had delighted them for years. Brunetti stood and went to the window, telling himself it was to check the weather. What he saw surprised him: the morning’s clement sky had been replaced by a mass of dark grey clouds that tumbled and rolled over one another and promised nothing pleasant. He looked at his watch and told himself that, if he left now and walked quickly, he could get home before the rain threatened by those clouds could begin.
It started just as he reached the top of the Rialto bridge, so he cut left at the bottom of the steps and into the underpass. Through the arches on his right, he saw the rain intensify.
Within minutes, he could barely see the shops on the other side. It shouldn’t rain like this, not even at this time of the year. This was monsoon; this was the end of the world. He continued on to the turning, where he had a longer view across the small campo. He could barely make out the storekeepers on the other side, hurrying to carry inside the racks of scarves and trays of wallets standing in front of their shops.
He opened his umbrella and, persuading himself that the rain was less heavy, stepped into the by now almost empty calle and started walking quickly towards home. Before he got to the bridge, his shoes were soaked through, and the arms of his jacket proved incapable of keeping him dry beyond the radius of the umbrella.
He told himself he could have waited, that he was wet because he was impatient. But he kept walking. The narrowness of the next calle protected him from the rain. He came out into San Aponal, then left at the corner, other hand in his pocket to get his keys, up to the door, zap the key into the lock, push the door and into the enormous entrance hall.
Soaked. His shoes leaked water at every step and were probably ruined, water flowed from his hair and down the collars of his shirt and jacket. Don’t stop. Up. He climbed, one hand holding the dripping umbrella, the other his keys. Up. At the final landing, he looked back down the steps and saw that he was still leaving wet footprints. He stopped in front of the apartment, set the umbrella upright in a corner, and opened the door.
He stuck his arms out sideways, and as he did, he could hear the cloth of his shirt pull away from his body. Paola called from the kitchen, and then she was standing in the doorway to his right.
‘Oh, good,’ she exclaimed when she saw him.
Brunetti sought sarcasm in her tone but heard none.
‘Come into the kitchen,’ she said.
He paused only long enough to push off his shoes and then squished after her.
He was relieved by the warmth of the kitchen; until then, he hadn’t been aware of how cold it had become. He glanced around, grabbed a kitchen towel and wiped the water off his face and hair.
‘Look,’ she said, pointing at the window that gave a view of the mountains to the north.
The mountains were hidden behind the falling rain; no, behind a cascade of water that fell at a distance of ten centimetres from the window.
‘What’s that?’ he asked, waving the towel in the direction of the window.
‘I think the drainpipe must be blocked.’ Paola stood beside him and took his arm, not seeming to mind how wet it was, nor that he was dripping on the tiles. She pulled him back a step and pointed to the wall above the window through which they could see the curtain of water still pouring down. Just at the top, the white paint was beginning to turn a light grey as the damp began to permeate the brick.
‘The water in the drainpipe’s backed up and going down the wall outside,’ she said.
It looked that way to Brunetti, too. He stood and studied it. He took off his jacket and hung it over the back of one of the kitchen chairs. Eyes still on the water beyond the window, he told Paola, ‘Go and get me an umbrella with a hooked handle.’
She disappeared. Brunetti swept everything on the counter to one side. He pulled over a chair and used it to step up on the counter. He was now too high for the window, so knelt in front of it.
Paola came back with the umbrella. Brunetti opened the window and moved aside as a vagrant burst of wind swept the rain into the room and over him. Ignoring it, Brunetti reached for the umbrella. He stuck the hooked end out ofthe window and anchored himself to the frame with his other hand. He leaned out, sticking his arm through the sheet of water, and fished around in the gutter above his head. He moved the umbrella handle back and forth. When he met resistance, he shoved harder, careful to tighten his grip on the window frame, conscious that he was four storeys above a stone pavement.
Back and forth, back and forth, pushing ever more strongly in the direction of the drainpipe at the corner of the building. He leaned out even farther and felt something give way above him. Suddenly Paola was behind him on the counter, her arms wrapped around his chest.
In an instant, all resistance ceased and the umbrella slid freely through the gutter towards the corner of the building. Just as quickly, the curtain of water turned itself off as the trapped water poured towards the drainpipe. He lifted the umbrella and pulled it back through the window, then leaned aside and pushed the window closed.
Paola scrambled off the counter and stood facing him. She put both hands to her head. ‘We’re both crazy. What would have happened if you’d lost your balance?’
‘The window’s too small, I think,’ he said, turning back to assess its size. ‘Especially with you as an anchor, I could never have fitted through it.’
When he turned back to her, he saw that he had not managed to calm her residual fear. ‘Look,’ he said, patting his stomach, made more evident by the wet shirt that clung to it. ‘Your cooking probably saved my life.’
11
As he walked back to the Questura, restored by a long, very hot, shower, and lunch, Brunetti found himself thinking about Patta and about how easy it had been to outwit him: all he’d done was hold out the possibility of his wife’s social advancement, and his superior had fallen like a ripe pear. What was it the woman wanted: to be president of the Lions Club? A Dame of Honou
r and Devotion of the Order of the Knights of Malta? She had been in Venice for years, and to the best of Brunetti’s knowledge had not managed to enter into any of the religious or social orders that bestowed prestige upon those allowed to join them. Yet he, by the magic of his family connections, was about to make her dreams come true. He felt no triumph in the deed.
It was well after four when he reached the Questura. On the second landing he met Signorina Elettra coming down. When she stopped above him, he asked, ‘Has he told you?’
‘No. Nothing,’ she said, her curiosity evident.
‘He’s going to request an order to open an investigation,’ Brunetti told her.
She leaned back against the railing. Brunetti, only just recovering from his own experience leaning out the window of his apartment building, involuntarily put a hand on her arm.
‘What is it?’ she asked, unable to hide her surprise. She didn’t exactly pull her arm away but she did free herself from his grasp.
‘Sorry. It makes me nervous when anyone leans against a railing like that.’ He braced both hands on the railing and extended his head over the void. He estimated the metres: eleven? twelve? Surely enough.
Signorina Elettra stepped away from the railing and moved up one step. She shifted to the other side and turned to lean against the wall. ‘Is that better?’ she asked.
‘Yes. Much. Thank you.’
‘Not a pleasant feeling to have if you work on the third floor,’ she said.
Brunetti shrugged. ‘I always walk close to the wall; then it doesn’t bother me so much.’
She nodded, acknowledging the good sense of this. ‘You were saying?’ she asked in an ordinary voice.
‘The Vice-Questore thinks we should take a closer look at what happened,’ he said.
‘And he’s going to have you do the looking?’
It made him uncomfortable to hear Signorina Elettra hold so close to the truth. ‘There are certain social advantages that are to be had from this.’
‘How lucky that Contessa Lando-Continui is so well known. Would you like me to be involved in this investigation?’ she asked, conveniently ignoring the fact that she already was.
‘Of course.’ Whatever would prompt such a question, he wondered. From her? ‘You know how to deal with the Vice-Questore should his enthusiasm begin to waver or should he begin to offer . . . ?’
‘Resistance?’ she suggested.
‘Once again, you follow my thoughts exactly, Signorina.’
‘The duty of every woman, Dottore,’ she answered.
He smiled, relieved that they had so easily slipped back into easy banter. He continued up the steps, suddenly aware that what he had said was true: he did stay close to the wall.
Nothing on his desk needed his attention, so he took his phone and called the number he had listed for Leonardo Gamma Fede.
‘How’d you know I was back home?’ Lolo said when he answered.
‘Remember, I’m a commissario di polizia,’ Brunetti said and added what he hoped sounded like a wicked laugh. ‘You’re never safe from us.’
‘Don’t say it, even as a joke,’ Lolo said, not as a joke.
‘Trouble?’
‘Nothing I’m not used to,’ Lolo answered ambiguously, then asked, ‘You free for a drink before dinner?’
‘That’s why I called.’
‘Good.’ Then, ‘You at work?’
‘Yes.’
Silently, they shared geographic calculation as both tried to think of a conveniently located bar somewhere between them where they could sit and have a drink and be left in peace.
‘There’s a place in Campo San Filippo e Giacomo,’ Brunetti said.
‘The one on the corner?’
‘Yes. I’ll see you there in half an hour.’
‘Good,’ Lolo agreed and hung up.
Left with time to kill, Brunetti read reports until the tedium drove him to the window to study the traffic in the canal below his window. A heavy-bodied transport boat went slowly past, forcing a caorlina to hug the side of the narrow canal until they passed one another; a taxi cruised by, passengers invisible in the cabin; two men in white rowed a sàndolo towards the entrance to the bacino.
There had been a time in his life when Brunetti’s hands were calloused over by the months he’d spent rowing in the laguna. It was the only thing his father had ever taught him, taking him out in his puparìn from the time his son was seven years old. Brunetti still remembered the joy of feeling his father’s body bent over his, his rough hands on top of his as he showed him just where to put them on the oar.
His father was an irascible and impulsive man, unable to keep a job, or a friend, for any length of time. He always had to be right, could not bear opposition. Worse, he had no patience with incompetence, would criticize a plumber for using the wrong tool, the butcher for a badly trimmed cutlet, the postman for a delayed letter, though he never minded if the bills arrived late. Walking on the street with him was both joy and horror for the young Brunetti, for he never knew when his father would begin to rage at the person who walked too slowly in front of him or too close to his side.
But once on the water, he could have been Patience on a monument, so easily did he slough off all concern with time or efficiency of movement. He spent hours with Brunetti, placing his son’s hands back in the right places, then, after a few minutes, stopping the boat and moving forward to where his son stood to slide them gently back. ‘Just there, Guido,’ he remembered him saying, patting his son on the shoulder or head when he managed to keep his hands in the right place long enough to row five metres.
He remembered, too, the time when – he must have been fourteen – his father had suggested, oh so casually, that he try rowing from the back of the boat that day. His heart could still thump at the memory; first at the fear of not being able to establish command of the boat and then with unfettered joy when his father called back to him, ‘Well done, Capitano.’
He returned from his reverie and looked at his watch; he had only ten minutes to get to his meeting with Lolo. He arrived late, but so did his friend: they entered the campo from opposite sides at the same time.
Seeing him after so long a time, more than a year, Brunetti was struck by how happy he was to see Lolo and how deep were his feelings for his old friend. ‘Lolo,’ he called, and the Marchese, who had been walking towards the bar on the corner, turned in his direction. He quickened his pace towards Brunetti, and they embraced warmly, holding one another like two bears and then letting go, only to hug one another again, even more strongly.
As they did each time they met, for it was always after lengthy intervals, first one and then the other said, ‘You look just the same,’ after which they pounded each other on the shoulder and embraced again.
‘Where have you been?’ Brunetti asked, taking a closer look at his friend. Only then did he see how pale Lolo looked, no trace of the deep tan he often brought back from his international adventures. He was thinner, too, his cheekbones prominent under his dark eyes.
‘Argentina,’ he answered, taking another whack at Brunetti’s shoulder, as if words could not sufficiently express his delight at seeing him again. Then he added, his smile fading a bit, ‘For my sins.’ And then, more brightly, ‘And trying to keep an eye on my investment.’
Curious as he was, Brunetti thought it would be better if they could continue over two glasses of wine, so he put his hand on Lolo’s shoulder and guided him towards the bar.
The place had been renovated since Brunetti had last stopped there for a drink. The wooden counter with the worn pink linoleum surface was gone, replaced by a slab of white marble that could have been looted from an Etruscan tomb. Customers no longer stood in front of it to drink a quick coffee or glass of wine but were encouraged to sit on high, seemingly precarious, steel stools with neon-orange plast
ic seats. The bottles lined up on the shelves in front of the very clean mirror carried graphically sophisticated labels that made no attempt to suggest their contents.
The six old wooden tables, scarred, scratched, and burned by generations of clients, had followed the counter into retirement. Brunetti and Lolo hesitated momentarily at the door, and then by unspoken agreement went to the back of the room and took their places at one of the three-legged tables that stood against the wall. Because they were both tall men, they found themselves sitting high above the mirrored surface of the table.
Brunetti saw a thin-faced man in his fifties, tall and muscular, his eyes surrounded by the tiny lines that come from too many years of too much sun, looking now out of place in his strangely pale face.
A waiter approached, and Brunetti asked for a glass of white wine. ‘Due,’ Lolo said, apparently as uninterested as Brunetti in the long list of possibilities the waiter had begun to suggest. So long as it was white and cold.
‘Argentina?’ Brunetti prodded when the waiter left them.
Lolo lowered his head and rubbed at his hair with both hands. His hair, Brunetti had noticed, was still thick and dark; indeed, it rustled audibly as Lolo rubbed his hands through it. That finished, he looked at Brunetti and said, ‘One of my brothers has a cattle ranch there. He asked me to go down and help him out of a mess.’
‘How long were you there?’
‘Three months.’
‘On the ranch?’
‘In the office of the ranch, mainly,’ Lolo said and looked up at the arrival of the waiter, who set the glasses on the table and went back behind the bar. ‘Doing what I could to save things.’
That, Brunetti surmised, as he picked up his glass and tapped it against his friend’s, explained his lack of colour. But what could have taken three months? ‘What about your family?’ he asked.
Confused, Lolo said, ‘My brother is family. They’re all there now.’ He took a long taste of the wine, set the glass down and said, ‘Argentina’s is better.’