by Donna Leon
Raffaele slumped at the table, propped on his elbows. Brunetti asked him how he was, this still being a topic safe to mention.
‘OK.’
‘Pass the bread, Raffi.’ This from Chiara.
‘Don’t eat that clove of garlic, Chiara. You’ll stink for days.’ This from Paola.
‘Chicken’s good.’ This from Brunetti. ‘Should I open the second bottle of wine?’
‘Yes,’ piped up Chiara, holding out her glass. ‘I haven’t had any yet.’
Brunetti took the second bottle from the refrigerator and opened it. He moved around the table, pouring wine into each of their glasses. Standing behind his son, he rested his hand on the boy’s shoulder as he leaned over to pour the wine. Raffaele shrugged off his hand, then changed the gesture into an attempt to reach for the artichokes, which he never ate.
‘What’s for dessert?’ asked Chiara.
‘Fruit.’
‘No cake?’
‘Piggy,’ said Raffaele, but in definition, not in criticism.
‘Anyone want to play Monopoly after dinner?’ Paola asked. Before the children could agree, she established conditions. ‘Only if your homework’s done.’
‘Mine is,’ Chiara said.
‘So’s mine,’ Raffaele lied.
‘I’m banker,’ insisted Chiara.
‘Bourgeois piggy,’ Raffaele amended.
‘You two do the dishes,’ Paola ordered, ‘and then we’ll play.’ At the first squeak of protest, she wheeled on them. ‘No one’s playing Monopoly on this table until the dishes are off it, washed, and in the cabinet.’ As Raffaele opened his mouth to protest, she turned to him. ‘And if that’s a bourgeois way to look at it, that’s too damn bad. Eating chicken’s pretty bourgeois too, but I didn’t hear any complaints about the chicken. So do the dishes and we’ll play.’
It never failed to amaze Brunetti that she could use that tone with Raffaele and get away with it. Anytime he came close to reprimanding his son, the scene ended with slammed doors and sulks that lasted for days. Knowing he’d been outgunned, Raffaele showed his anger by snatching plates from the table and slapping them down on the counter next to the sink. Brunetti showed his by taking the bottle and his glass into the living room to wait out the inevitable thump and clatter of obedience.
‘At least he’s not building bombs in his bedroom,’ Paola offered as consolation when she came in to join him. From the kitchen, they heard the muted sound that said Raffaele was washing the dishes and the sharp clanks that declared that Chiara was drying them and putting them away. Occasionally there was a sharp burst of laughter.
‘Do you think he’ll be all right?’ he asked.
‘As long as she can still make him laugh, I suppose we don’t have to worry. He’d never do anything bad to Chiara, and I doubt he’d blow anyone up.’ Brunetti wasn’t sure just how this was supposed to serve as sufficient consolation for his concern about his son, but he was willing to accept it as such.
Chiara stuck her head into the room and cried, ‘Raffi’s got the board. Come on, let’s go.’
When he and Paola got there, the Monopoly board was set up in the middle of the kitchen table and Chiara, as she had insisted, was banker, already passing out the small piles of money. By general consent, Paola was forbidden to be banker, as she had been caught too many times, over the course of the years, with her hand in the till. Raffaele, no doubt nervous that accepting the position would leave him open to the accusation of avarice, refused. And Brunetti had enough trouble concentrating on the game without adding the responsibilities of banker, so they always left it to Chiara, who delighted in the counting and collecting, paying and changing.
They rolled to see who went first. Raffaele lost and had to go last, which was enough to make the other three nervous from the beginning. The boy’s need to win at the game frightened Brunetti, and he often played badly to give his son every advantage.
After half an hour, Chiara had all the green: Via Roma, Corso Impero, and Largo Augusto. Raffaele had two reds and needed only Via Marco Polo, which Brunetti owned, to make his set complete. After four more rounds, Brunetti allowed himself to be cajoled into selling the missing red property to Raffaele for Acquedotto and fifty thousand lire. Family rules forbade comment, but that didn’t prevent Chiara from giving her brother a fierce kick under the table.
Raffaele, predictably, protested the injustice. ‘Stop that, Chiara. If he wants to make a bad deal, let him.’ This from the boy who wanted to bring down the entire capitalist system.
Brunetti handed over the deeds and watched as Raffaele immediately built hotels on all three properties. While Raffaele was busy with that, making sure Chiara gave him the proper change, Brunetti noticed Paola calmly sliding a small pile of ten-thousand-lire notes from the banker’s pile to her own. She glanced up, noticed that her husband had seen her stealing from her own children, and gave him a dazzling smile. A policeman, married to a thief, with a computer monster and an anarchist for children.
The next time around, he landed on one of Raffaele’s new hotels and had to hand over everything he owned. Paola suddenly discovered enough cash to build herself six hotels, but at least she had the grace to avoid his eyes as she handed the money to the banker.
He sat back in his chair and watched the game progress toward the ending that his loss to Raffaele had made inescapable. Paola’s elbow began to inch toward the stack of ten-thousand-lire notes, but she was stopped by an icy glare from Chiara. Chiara, in her turn, failed to persuade Raffaele to sell her Parco della Vittoria, landed on the red hotels twice in a row, and went bankrupt. Paola held out for two more turns, until she landed on the hotel on Viale Costantino and couldn’t pay.
The game ended. Raffaele was immediately transformed from a successful captain of empire to the disaffected foe of the ruling class; Chiara went to raid the refrigerator; and Paola yawned and said it was time to go to bed. Brunetti followed her down the hall, reflecting that the commissario of police of the Most Serene Republic had spent yet another evening in the unrelenting pursuit of the person responsible for the death of the most famous musician of the age.
* * * *
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Michele’s call came at one, pulling Brunetti out of a fuddled, restless sleep. He answered on the fourth ring and gave his name.
‘Guido, it’s Michele.’
‘Michele,’ he repeated stupidly, trying to remember if he knew anyone named Michele. He forced his eyes open and remembered. ‘Michele. Michele—good. I’m glad you called.’
He switched the bedside lamp on and sat up against the headboard. Paola slept beside him, rocklike.
‘I spoke to my father, and he remembered everything.’
‘And?’
‘It was just like you said: if there’s anything to know, he’ll know.’
‘Stop gloating and tell me.’
‘There were rumors about Wellauer and the sister who sang in opera, Clemenza. Papà couldn’t remember where, but he knew it started in Germany, where she was singing with him. There was some sort of scene between the wife and La Santina, at a party, after a performance. They insulted each other, and Wellauer left.’ Michele paused for effect. ‘With La Santina. After the performances— my father thinks it was in ‘37 or ‘38—Santina came down here, to Rome, and Wellauer went home to face the music’ Bad as it was, Michele laughed at his own joke. Brunetti didn’t.
‘It seems he managed to patch things up with his wife. Papà suggested there was a lot of patching to do, then and later.’
‘Is that the way it was?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Yes; Papà said he was one of the worst. Or best, depending on how you look at it. They got divorced after the war.’
‘Because of that sort of thing?’
‘Papà wasn’t sure. Seems a safe bet. Or it might have been because he backed the wrong side.’
‘Then what happened, when Santina came back to Italy?’
‘He came down to conduct a No
rma, the one she refused to sing. Do you know about that?’
‘Yes.’ It had been in the file Miottis from the Rome and Venice newspapers of decades ago.
‘They found another soprano, and Wellauer had a triumph.’
‘What happened? Did she continue to see him?’
‘This is where things get very cloudy, Papà says. Some people said they stayed together for a while after that. Others say that he broke it off as soon as she wasn’t singing anymore.’
‘What about the sisters?’
‘Apparently, when Clemenza stopped singing, Wellauer picked up the slack with another one.’ Michele had never been known for his delicacy of expression, especially when talking about women.
‘And then what?’
‘That went on for a while. And then there was what used to be called an “Illegal operation.” Very easy to get, even then, my father tells me, if you knew the right people. And Wellauer did. No one knew much about it at the time, but she died. It might not even have been his child, but people seemed to think so at the time.’
‘And then what?’
‘Well, she died, like I said. Nothing was ever printed, of course. You couldn’t write about that sort of thing back then. And the cause of death was given in the papers as “after a sudden illness.” Well, I suppose it was, in a sense.’
‘And what about the other sister?’
‘Papà thinks she went to live in Argentina, either right at the end of the war or soon after. He thinks she might have died there, but not until years later. Do you want to see if Papà can find out?’
‘No, Michele. She’s not important. What about Clemenza?’
‘She tried to make a comeback after the war, but the voice wasn’t the same. So she stopped singing. Papà said he thinks she lives here. Is that true?’
‘Yes. I’ve spoken to her. Did your father remember anything else?’
‘Only that he met Wellauer once, about fifteen years ago. Didn’t like him, but he couldn’t give any specific reason for it. Just didn’t like him.’
Brunetti heard the change in Michele’s voice that marked his passage from friend to journalist. ‘Does any of this help, Guido?’
‘I don’t know, Michele. I just wanted to get some idea of the sort of man he was, and I wanted to find out about Santina.’
‘Well, now you know.’ Michele’s voice was curt. He had sensed the policeman in the last answer.
‘Michele, listen, it might be something, but I don’t know yet.’
‘Fine, fine. If it is, then it is.’ He wouldn’t bring himself to ask for the favor.
‘If it does turn out to be anything, I’ll call you, Michele.’
‘Sure, sure; you do that, Guido. It’s late, and I’m sure you want to get back to sleep. Call me if you need anything else, all right?’
‘I promise. And thanks, Michele. Please thank your father for me.’
‘He’s the one who thanks you. This has made him feel important again. Good night, Guido.’
Before Brunetti could say anything, the line went dead. He switched off the light and slid down under the covers, aware now only of how cold it was in the room. In the dark, the only thing he could see was the photo in Clemenza Santina’s room, the carefully arranged V in which the three sisters posed. One of them had died because of Wellauer, and another had perhaps lost her career as a result of knowing him. Only the little one had escaped him, and she had had to go to Argentina to do it.
* * * *
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Early the next morning, Brunetti padded into the kitchen well before Paola was awake and, not fully conscious of his actions, started the coffee. He wandered back to the bathroom, splashed water on his face, and toweled it dry, avoiding the eyes of the man in the mirror. Before coffee, he didn’t trust anyone.
He got back to the kitchen just as the coffeepot erupted. He didn’t even bother to curse, just grabbed the pot from the flame and slapped off the gas. Pouring coffee into a cup, he spooned in three sugars and took the cup and himself out onto the terrace, which faced west. He hoped the morning chill would succeed in waking him if the coffee failed.
Scraggy-bearded, rumpled, he stood on the terrace and stared off at the point on the horizon where the Dolomites began. It must have rained heavily in the night, for the mountains had manifested themselves, sneaking close in the night and now magically visible in the crisp air. They would pack up and disappear before nightfall, he was sure, forced out of sight by waves of smoke that rose up ever fresh and new from the factories on the mainland or by the waves of humidity that crept in from the laguna.
From the left, the bells of San Polo rang out for the six-thirty mass. Below him, in the house on the opposite side of the calk, the curtains snapped back and a naked man appeared at the window, utterly oblivious of Brunetti, who watched him from above. Suddenly the man sprouted another pair of hands, with red fingernails, which came reaching around him from behind. The man smiled, backed away from the window, and the curtains closed behind him.
The morning chill began to bite at Brunetti, driving him back into the kitchen, glad of its warmth and the presence of Paola, who now sat at the table and looked far more pleasant than anyone had a right to look before nine in the morning.
She gave him a cheery good morning; he returned a grunt. He set his empty coffee cup in the sink and picked up a second, this one topped with hot milk, which Paola had placed on the counter for him. The first had begun to prod him toward humanity; this one might finish the job.
‘Was that Michele who called last night?’
‘Um.’ He rubbed at his face; he drank more coffee. She pulled a magazine from the end of the table and paged through it, sipping at her own mug. Not yet seven, and she’s looking at Giorgio Armani jackets. She turned a page. He scratched his shoulder. Time passed.
‘Was that Michele who called last night?’
‘Yes.’ She was pleased to have gotten a real word from him and asked nothing more. ‘He told me about Wellauer and Santina.’
‘How long ago was all that?’
‘About forty years, after the war. No, just before it, so it was more like fifty years.’
‘What happened?’
‘He got the sister pregnant, and she died after an abortion.’
‘Did the old woman tell you any of this?’
‘Not a word.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I’ll have to talk to her again.’
‘This morning?’
‘No; I’ve got to go to the Questura. This afternoon. Tomorrow.’ He realized how reluctant he was to return to that cold and misery.
‘If you do go, wear your brown shoes.’ They would help to protect him against the cold; nothing would protect him, or anyone, against the misery.
‘Yes, thanks,’ he said. ‘Do you want to take a shower first?’ he asked, remembering that she had an early class that morning.
‘No, go ahead. I’ll finish this and make some more coffee.’
As he walked by her, he bent to kiss her head, wondering how she managed to remain civil, even friendly, with the grumbling thing he was in the morning. He smelled the flowery scent of her shampoo and noticed that the hair just above her temple was faintly flecked with gray. He had never noticed it before, and he bent to kiss her there again, trembling at the fragility of this woman.
When he got to his office, he collected all the papers and reports that had accumulated concerning the conductor’s death and began to read through them all again, some for the third or fourth time. The translations of the German reports were maddening. In their exhaustive attention to detail—as in the list of items taken from Wellauer’s home during each of the two robberies—they were monuments to Germanic efficiency. In their almost total lack of information about the conductor’s activities, personal or professional, during the war years, they gave evidence to an equally Germanic ability to remove a truth by simply ignoring it. Given the current president of Austria, Br
unetti had to admit it was a tactic that met with remarkable success.
Wellauer had discovered his second wife’s body. She had called a friend shortly before going down into the cellar to hang herself and had invited the woman to join her for a cup of coffee, a blending of the macabre and the mundane that upset Brunetti each time he read the report. Delayed, the woman had arrived only after Wellauer had found his wife’s body and phoned the police. That meant he could just as easily have found anything she might have left—a note, a letter—and destroyed it.