Earthly Remains

by Donna Leon

  ‘But he didn’t bark,’ Brunetti, who had taken the seat facing Bianchi, said.

  ‘That means he trusts you.’

  The fingers of Bianchi’s full hand dug in under Bardo’s neck, and Brunetti thought he heard the dog sigh in contentment. As he watched, Bardo’s eyes went out of focus with joy.

  ‘Signor Bianchi,’ he began, ‘we’d like to ask you some more questions about your old friend, Davide Casati.’ Bianchi remained silent, so Brunetti added, ‘I knew him, but only briefly. We rowed together in the laguna and spent days talking to one another. Not about anything in particular, just talk.’

  Bianchi nodded, his hand still busy under Bardo’s neck. ‘It’s good to talk like that, to another man,’ he agreed.

  ‘Did you and he row together?’ Brunetti asked, responding to something in Bianchi’s voice.

  ‘No, I never had a feeling for the water, the way Davide did. Anyway, we were much younger then. Different people.’

  ‘When you worked together?’

  ‘Even before. We knew one another for a long time.’

  ‘Were you close friends?’ Brunetti asked, acutely aware of Bianchi’s use of the simple past tense.

  ‘Brothers are no closer.’

  ‘But you argued with him?’ Brunetti asked.

  Bianchi lowered his head, a habit, perhaps, from sighted times. ‘We disagreed.’

  ‘About?’

  ‘He asked me for my advice, and when I gave it to him, he refused to listen to me.’

  ‘What did he ask you?’

  Bianchi’s non-gaze remained lowered; he gave no indication of having heard what Brunetti said. He continued to scratch Bardo’s neck; then his hand stopped and lay quiet on the dog’s head. ‘I don’t know what colour Bardo is,’ he surprised them both by saying. ‘And even if someone told me he was brown and white, it wouldn’t mean anything to me because I’ve forgotten what colours look like. I can’t see them in my mind any more.’

  Brunetti noticed that Bianchi drew in his lips after he said that, showing dismay and perhaps resignation. Then he said, ‘He told me he was going to cause trouble.’

  ‘About what?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘I don’t think it matters now. I’ve seen too much trouble in my life. I don’t want to see any more.’

  The word pounded at Brunetti: was he the only one to hear it? ‘Was it going to be his trouble, or yours?’

  Bianchi said nothing.

  ‘Which?’ Brunetti insisted.

  ‘If it was his trouble, it was my trouble, as well.’

  ‘Is that why you disagreed? Because you didn’t want trouble for yourself?’

  Bianchi’s face lifted towards him so quickly that Brunetti couldn’t stop himself from pulling back from the man’s anger. Bardo responded to the motion by jumping down from Bianchi’s lap and going over to Griffoni. He put one paw on her knee, and she bent down to pick him up. He sat upright, alert, eyes turned towards his master.

  Speaking slowly and pronouncing his words very clearly, Bianchi said, ‘I didn’t want him to have trouble. I told you: I’ve had a lot of trouble; I didn’t want him to have it, too.’

  ‘You’ve already had the same kind of trouble, you two,’ Brunetti insisted. ‘Remember, I told you I went swimming with him, so I saw the results of the trouble he’d had.’ Brunetti felt suffocated by the word and by the constant emphasis on seeing, seeing, seeing.

  ‘I tried to make him understand that he’d never live in peace if he didn’t listen to me,’ Bianchi said, voice lowered and slowed under the weight of sadness.

  ‘And now he’s dead,’ Brunetti declared.

  Bianchi said nothing and patted at the spot on his lap where Bardo had been, as though in want of the comfort of the dog’s presence. Finally he said, ‘Yes. Now he’s dead.’

  ‘Because he didn’t listen to you?’ Brunetti asked.

  Bianchi’s shrug pushed up the shoulders of his woollen jacket, a different one today, but no less heavy. He sighed deeply. Bardo responded by jumping down from Griffoni’s lap and returning to Bianchi’s, this time curling up and batting his tail against his master’s chest. The blind man put his good hand on the dog’s back, and his tail grew quiet.

  Bianchi moved his head from side to side a few times and finally said, ‘No, not because of that but because he couldn’t listen to anyone.’ After a moment’s thought, he added, ‘Or wouldn’t.’ He gave a half-smile and asked, ‘It’s strange, isn’t it, the way we always say “can’t” when what we really mean is “won’t” but aren’t honest enough to say it?’

  Griffoni raised a hand and gave a small wave that caught Brunetti’s attention. Bardo watched the gesture, but Bianchi could not. She gave a grimace of disbelief, then raised her right forefinger and waved it back and forth to signal uncertainty. Brunetti, too, had heard the change in tone when Bianchi passed from sombre reflection to rhetorical deflection.

  ‘What did you tell him that he wouldn’t listen to?’ Brunetti asked.

  Bianchi shook his head, as though to express his disbelief that this man could continue to think any of this important. For a moment, Brunetti feared Bianchi would make some enigmatic remark to the dog by way of answer: if he did that, Brunetti might be driven to tease another cripple. His thoughts slid away and he considered why teasing cripples was so much worse than hurting them. They were cripples because their bodies had been damaged in some way, not their dignity. Teasing attacked any pride that had managed to survive. How was it that his mother had understood this?

  ‘ … for his wife’s death,’ Brunetti heard Bianchi say when he returned his attention to the other man.

  Brunetti did the best he could to disguise having wandered off. ‘I’m afraid I don’t understand,’ he said.

  The tilt of Bianchi’s head showed his puzzlement. ‘I think what I said was clear enough, Commissario. He blamed himself for his wife’s death, however absurd that might be.’

  ‘Why did he blame himself?’ Griffoni interrupted to ask.

  Bianchi shrugged. ‘He told me that he hadn’t protected her. He said he should have known about the danger.’

  No one spoke for some time until Griffoni broke the silence to ask, ‘How did your conversation end?’

  Bianchi cleared his throat and then, still facing Brunetti, he answered Griffoni’s question. ‘We argued. It was the first time in all those years. I tried to stop him, but he wouldn’t listen to me.’

  ‘Because you disagreed with him?’ she asked.

  Bianchi took a deep breath, expelled it and said, ‘No, not that. Because I couldn’t explain.’

  ‘Why was that?’ she asked softly.

  ‘Because I lied to him about this place from the time I came here.’ After he said that, Bianchi lowered his head and put his good hand over his eyes, as though he wanted to hide from these sighted people.

  ‘Why?’ she asked.

  ‘I didn’t want him to come to visit. If he did, he’d see what it was like and know what I did,’ Bianchi said.

  Brunetti noticed that the other man’s face was covered with sweat and that his dark glasses had started to slip down his nose. Because Bianchi’s good hand was still on the dog’s head, he used the thumb of the other to shove them back into place, a gesture Brunetti observed with something akin to disgust.

  ‘And if he had found out?’ Brunetti asked, fully aware of what the other man was talking about. ‘Why would that change things?’

  Bianchi snapped out an answer without thinking. ‘Because he’d understand who was paying for it all. That they offered, and I took it. Like Pozzi.’ He said the other man’s name with despair, the way a Christian would speak of Judas.

  ‘And he didn’t,’ Brunetti said out loud.

  Bianchi shook his head. Griffoni and Bardo remained motionless and silent, the dog because he was asleep and the woman because she did not want to make any sound that would draw Bianchi’s attention away from Brunetti.

  ‘Why wouldn’t he let them pay hi
m?’ Brunetti demanded.

  With a dry laugh that held no humour, Bianchi said, ‘Because he was a better man than either of us.’ He shifted his body to one side, removed his hand from the dog, and reached into the pocket of his trousers. He pulled out a white handkerchief and shook it open. He moved it to the other hand, which took it between thumb and last finger. Then he reached up with his undamaged hand and placed his thumb and first two fingers on the rim of his glasses.

  Griffoni and Brunetti lowered their gaze; they kept their eyes on the ground for some time, until Bianchi said, ‘We all had suspicions – everyone who worked there did – about what they were doing, where the trucks were going and what was in them.’ They looked at him again and saw that his face was dry, the dark glasses back in place, no sign of the handkerchief.

  ‘But that was years ago, and who knew then or cared about those things?’ Bianchi said, now back to his old friend, the rhetorical question. ‘So long as it disappeared, what business of ours was it where it went? Besides, we were workers, tough men with wives and families to take care of, so we had no time for …’ He stopped and began to run his hand down Bardo’s sleeping body, careful to pick it up before reaching the tail and to return it accurately to the back of the dog’s head.

  Brunetti found it strangely peaceful to watch Bianchi do this and so said nothing for some time. Finally, when Bardo stirred in his sleep and flopped over to his other side, Bianchi removed his hand and said, ‘No time to think of anything or anyone beyond our own small circles, and no time to think of the future and what we were doing to it.’

  ‘What happened?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘The accident, of course,’ Bianchi said, sounding disappointed at Brunetti’s obtuseness.

  ‘No, I mean what happened to Casati? To change him so.’

  ‘Ah,’ Bianchi said, ‘of course.’ And then he didn’t speak for a long time.

  ‘I think it must have been the pain and the slowness of time passing,’ he finally answered. ‘When you’re in pain, you need to think of something so that at least part of you can be free of the pain, so that your mind can go somewhere where there’s no pain.’ As if to stop them from questioning this, he continued, ‘I’m talking about pain that goes on for weeks and that you think is never, not in your whole life, ever going to end.’

  Again, Bianchi sighed. ‘That’s what changed him. He was in the hospital for months because his wounds didn’t heal the way they should – that’s what happens with big burns like the ones he had – and he kept getting new infections.’ He paused, as if to give them time to speak, but neither did.

  ‘That’s when he changed, during those months. Franca moved into his room and refused to leave when the nurses told her to. She sent Federica to stay with her brother, and she went to the hospital with a suitcase and stayed until he was well enough to go home.’ Bianchi stopped suddenly and sat silent, as if playing back the memory of what he had heard. Then, more insistent than he had been, he said, ‘That’s why it was so terrible for him when …’

  ‘When did he tell you all this?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘Oh, he never did. That is, not directly, in one telling. It sort of slipped into what he said when we talked over the years.’

  ‘That’s a long time,’ Brunetti said. ‘Did you ever meet him again?’

  ‘No. Talking was enough,’ Bianchi said, sounding as though he didn’t really believe it. ‘Davide’d gone to live on Sant’Erasmo. He had his pension. At first he didn’t want to take it, but his wife told him he deserved it.’

  ‘He believed her?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘He earned it,’ Bianchi shot back.

  After letting some time pass, Brunetti asked, ‘Is that all he got from them?’ He glanced around the gazebo and out into the rose garden but said nothing.

  When the expression on Bianchi’s face showed Brunetti that he was not going to get an answer to that question, he asked, ‘What about Pozzi?’

  Bianchi’s mouth tightened at the mere mention of Pozzi. Brunetti watched his face as the blind man considered the question and was struck by how much the eyes revealed: hide them and there were no easy clues. ‘He earned it, too,’ Bianchi finally said.

  ‘To stay here?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you? How did you earn it?’ Brunetti responded without hesitation.

  Bianchi’s body stiffened at the abruptness and aggression of Brunetti’s question. Again, Brunetti studied the eyeless, unresponsive face. The answer was long delayed, and when it came, Bianchi rationed out his reasons in a soft, level voice. ‘With pain,’ he said acidly. ‘And then with laziness. Fear. Shame.’ Brunetti thought he had finished and was about to speak, when Bianchi added, ‘Greed.’

  Brunetti and Griffoni exchanged a glance, but neither chose to speak.

  Bianchi made a noise, half grunt, half laugh. ‘We’re a bit like animals, Pozzi and I. We were born in the forest and lived there for a long time, but then we were captured and turned into house pets, and now we’re too well trained and housebroken to be able to go back to the forest. So we stay here, where we’re fed and cared for and safe.’ He nodded a few times, as though he’d been listening to a comparison he’d never thought about before and found it accurate.

  He put his good hand on the dog’s head. ‘Even Bardo’s braver than we are: he still barks and growls and bites.’ He smiled at them and added, ‘They told me that, last week, he caught a baby rabbit and tore it to pieces.’ He smiled again, at the thought, proud of his dog. ‘While Pozzi and I sit here and wait for lunch to be served.’

  ‘While Casati went back to the forest?’ Brunetti asked.

  Again, Bianchi made the grunting noise. ‘Yes, I suppose you could say that.’

  ‘At what price?’ Brunetti asked.

  Bianchi’s head moved a bit to the left so that his face was pointing in the general direction of Brunetti. ‘Do I have to answer that, Signor … I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name. And your rank.’

  ‘Brunetti. Commissario. And no, you don’t have to answer any of our questions.’ He knew there was no wisdom in saying anything more, but said it anyway. ‘At least legally, you don’t have to say anything.’

  ‘Ah, the policeman as philosopher?’

  Instead of answering, Brunetti thought about these two men: Pozzi reading about painting and the history of art, and Bianchi rich in metaphors and conscious of the seriousness of their conversation.

  ‘It’s hard to believe that either of you worked in a factory,’ Brunetti said.

  ‘You mean Pozzi and his paintings?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And me with my speculation?’

  ‘Also.’

  ‘We’ve had more than two decades to … develop new interests,’ he concluded ironically.

  ‘Not everyone would have spent the time that way.’

  ‘Not everyone is crippled.’

  Brunetti thought it better to let some time pass before he said, ‘What did Casati have to do?’

  ‘We had to be certain that he wouldn’t say anything.’

  ‘“We”?’ Brunetti inquired harshly, tired of Bianchi’s posturing.

  Bianchi lowered his head so that his voice was directed at Bardo. ‘Now’s when I have to tell the truth, Bardo. And luckily you won’t understand it, because you wouldn’t love me any more if you knew.’ He placed his palms over the dog’s ears and went on. ‘I told them. Years ago, when I first came here and he’d gone to live on Sant’Erasmo, I asked him what he was going to do, and he told me he had no desire to cause trouble. He said that what had happened to us was punishment for what we’d done, and that was the end of it for him.’ He paused, then added, voice moving from irony to pain, ‘He’d never lie to me.’

  ‘Did you tell them what he’d said?’ Brunetti asked, not certain but willing to risk the question.

  ‘I told them what he’d told me, that he’d never talk about what we did.’

  ‘How?’

&nb
sp; ‘What do you mean, how?’

  ‘How did you contact them?’

  ‘I’d call Signor Maschietto every few months, or he’d call me, and when he retired, I started to speak to his son.’

  ‘To pass on everything Casati told you?’

  The sharpness of the question surprised, but appeared not to offend, Bianchi. He paused for a while in silent thought and finally said, ‘If it regarded the company, yes.’

  ‘What was the last thing you told them?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘That he’d found …’ Bianchi began, and then cleared his throat a few times before starting again. ‘That he’d found what was killing his bees. He had lab reports, and he understood what it was doing to the soil and the water.’ Bianchi stopped and turned his face aside, a gesture that no longer had a purpose. ‘He said that was the end of it for him. That he couldn’t stand it any more.’

  ‘What did that mean?’

  ‘That’s what I asked him,’ Bianchi answered defensively. ‘First he said he wanted to call you.’

  ‘Me?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘The police,’ Bianchi explained. ‘But then he said he wasn’t sure any longer.’

  ‘What did you do, Signor Bianchi?’

  Bianchi took his hands from the sleeping dog and gripped the arms of his chair. ‘I called Maschietto and told him.’

  30

  Well, Bianchi hadn’t wasted any time, had he? Brunetti asked himself. No sooner had a confidence been entrusted to him than Bianchi was on the phone to exchange it for … for what? Some grilled chicken breast for Bardo?

  Fighting down his disgust, Brunetti asked, ‘You called the son and told him what you just told me?’

  Bianchi sat silent and then suddenly made a short moaning sound. ‘I didn’t tell him that Davide had talked about calling the police. Believe me,’ he cried. With no warning, he pulled off his glasses and pressed the elbow of his sleeve against his eyes, held it there a moment and then pulled it away. Equally without warning, Brunetti and Griffoni saw what the exploding waste had done to his face and eyes all those years ago, and the sight turned away Brunetti’s wrath.