by Donna Leon
‘Da Fiori?’ Messini suggested, and by naming the best restaurant in the city giving evidence of sufficient importance that he felt free to assume a table would always be found for him. More interesting, it told Brunetti that it would be wise to check into the passports and work permits of the foreign nurses who staffed his nursing homes.
‘No,’ said Brunetti in the voice of a civil servant not in the habit of being bought off by lunch.
‘I’m sorry, Commissario. I thought it would be a pleasant atmosphere in which to become acquainted.’
‘Perhaps we could become acquainted in my office at the Questura.’ Brunetti waited a split second and then gave a man-of-the-world laugh at his own joke and added, ‘If that’s convenient for you, Dottore.’
‘Of course. Would two-thirty be convenient for you?’
‘Perfectly.’
‘I look forward to seeing you then, Commissario,’ Messini said and hung up.
* * * *
By the time of Dottor Messini’s appointment three hours later, a list of the foreign nurses working in his nursing homes had been compiled. Though most, as Brunetti had recalled, were Philippine, two others were from Pakistan, and one from Sri Lanka. All of them were on Messini’s computerized payroll, a system so easy to enter that Signorina Elettra said that even Brunetti could have called Messini’s number and broken in from his home phone. Because the mysteries of her computer remained so impenetrable to him, Brunetti never knew when she was joking. Nor, as usual, did he bother to ask or even to speculate if her invasions were legitimate or not.
With their names, he went down to speak to Anita in the Ufficio Stranieri, and within the hour she brought the files up to his office. In all cases, the women had entered the country as tourists and had subsequently been granted extensions to their visas when they showed proof that they were studying at the University of Padova. Brunetti smiled when he saw the various departments in which they were enrolled, no doubt chosen to deflect just the sort of attention they were now receiving: history, law, political science, psychology, and agronomy. He laughed aloud at the inventiveness of the last choice, a course of study not offered by the university. Perhaps Dottor Messini would prove to be a whimsical man.
The doctor was on time for his appointment; Riverre opened the door to Brunetti’s office at two-thirty precisely and announced, ‘Dottor Messini to see you, sir.’
Brunetti glanced up from the files on the nurses, nodded briefly to Messini, and then, almost as if it were an afterthought, got to his feet and waved a hand to the chair in front of his desk. ‘Good afternoon, Dottore.’
‘Good afternoon, Commissario,’ Messini said, taking his place in the chair and glancing around Brunetti’s office to get an idea of his surroundings and, presumably, of the man he had come to see.
Messini could have been a Renaissance nobleman, one of the rich, corrupt ones. A large man, he had reached the point in his life when muscle was swiftly turning to bulk, and that very soon to fat. His mouth was his best feature, lips firmly chiselled and full, turning up naturally at the corners in a smile that suggested good humour. His nose was shorter than it should have been for a head as large as his, and his eyes just that fraction too close together to leave handsomeness behind while stealing away beauty.
His clothing whispered wealth; his shoes gleamed the same word. His teeth, capped so well as to appear faded with age, showed themselves in a friendly smile as he finished examining the room and turned his attention to Brunetti.
‘You said you had some questions about people who work for me, Commissario?’ Messini’s voice was casual and relaxed.
‘Yes, Dottore, I do. I have questions about some of your nursing staff.’
‘And what might those questions be?’
‘How is it that they are working in Italy?’
‘As I told you on the phone this morning, Commissario . . .’ Messini began, taking a pack of cigarettes from the inside pocket of his jacket. Without asking, he lit a cigarette, looked around for an ashtray, and, finding none, placed the spent match on the edge of Brunetti’s desk. ‘I do not concern myself with questions of staffing. That is the business of my administrators. It’s what I pay them to do.’
‘And I’m sure you pay them generously,’ Brunetti said with what he hoped was a suggestive smile.
‘Very,’ Messini said, noting both the remark and the tone and taking heart from both. ‘What seems to be the problem?’
‘It seems that a number of your employees are without the proper permits that would allow them to work legally in this country.’
Messini raised his eyebrows in what could pass as shock. ‘I find that difficult to believe. I’m sure that all of the proper permits have been granted and forms filled out.’ He looked across at Brunetti, who was just barely smiling as he looked down at the papers in front of him. ‘Of course, Commissario, if it is the case that some oversight has been made, that other forms are to be filled out, and that,’ he paused, searching for the politest words — and found them, straight off — ‘some application fees have still to be paid, I want to assure you that I will gladly do whatever is necessary to normalize my situation.’
Brunetti smiled, impressed by Messini’s grasp of euphemism. ‘That’s very generous of you, Dottore.’
‘That’s very kind of you to say, but I think it is only correct. I want to do whatever I can to remain in favour with the authorities.’
‘As I said, generous,’ Brunetti repeated, giving a smile he tried to make look venal.
Apparently he succeeded, for Messini said, ‘You have but to let me know about those application fees.’
‘Actually,’ Brunetti said, setting down the papers and looking across at Messini, whom he noted was having considerable difficulty with the ash on his cigarette, ‘it’s not about the nurses that I want to talk to you. It’s about a member of the Order of the Sacred Cross.’
It was Brunetti’s experience that dishonest people seldom managed to look innocent, but Messini looked both innocent and confused. ‘The Sacred Cross? You mean the nuns?’
‘There are also priests, I believe?’
It seemed that this came as news to him. ‘Yes, I think there are,’ Messini said after a pause. ‘But only the nuns work in the nursing homes.’ His cigarette was burnt down almost to the filter. Brunetti saw him look at the floor, discard the idea rather than the cigarette, and then very carefully balance it upright on the unburnt end next to the match on the desk.
‘About a year ago, one of the sisters was transferred.’
‘Yes?’ Messini asked with mild interest, obviously confused by Brunetti’s change of topic.
‘She was moved from the nursing home in Dolo to one here in the city, the San Leonardo.’
‘If you say so, Commissario. I know little about the staffing.’
‘Other than the foreign nurses?’
Messini smiled. He was back on comfortable ground with talk of the nurses.
‘I’d like to know if you know why she was transferred.’ Before Messini could say anything, Brunetti added, ‘You might consider your answer a sort of application fee, Dottor Messini.’
‘I’m not sure I understand.’
‘That makes no difference, Dottore. I’d like you to tell me what you know about the transfer of this sister. I doubt that she could be moved from one of your nursing homes to another without your having heard something about it.’
Messini considered this for a moment, and Brunetti watched the play of emotion on the other man’s face as he tried to understand what peril lay before him for whatever answer he might give. Finally he said, ‘I have no idea what information you’re looking for, Commissario, but whatever it is, I can’t give it to you. All questions about staffing are handled by the chief of nursing. Believe me, if I could help you here, I would, but it’s not something I am concerned with directly.’
Though it usually turned out that anyone who asked to be believed was lying, Brunetti thought that Messini wa
s telling him the truth. He nodded and said, ‘This same sister left the nursing home some weeks ago. Did you know that?’
‘No.’ Again, Brunetti believed him.
‘Why is it that the Order of the Sacred Cross aids in the running of your nursing homes, Dottore?’
‘That’s a long and complicated story,’ Messini said with a smile that someone else probably would have found entirely charming.
‘I’m in no hurry, Dottore. Are you?’ Brunetti’s smile was utterly without charm.
Messini reached for his cigarette packet but put it back in his pocket without taking another one. ‘When I took over directorship of the first nursing homes eight years ago, they were run entirely by the order, and I was hired only as medical director. But as time passed, it became more and more evident that, if they continued to run them as a charity, they would be forced to close.’ Messini gave Brunetti a long stare. ‘People are so ungenerous.’
‘Indeed,’ was all Brunetti permitted himself.
‘In any case, I considered the financial plight of the institution — I was already committed to aiding the old and ill — and it was obvious to me that it could remain viable only if it became a private facility.’ Seeing that Brunetti was following, he continued, ‘And so there was a reorganization — what the world of business would probably call a privatization — and I became administrator as well as medical director.’
‘And the Order of the Sacred Cross?’ Brunetti asked.
‘The chief mission of the order has always been the care of the old, and so it was decided that they would remain as an integral part of the staff of the nursing homes, but they would remain as paid employees.’
‘And their salaries?’
‘Paid to the order, of course.’
‘Of course,’ Brunetti echoed, but before Messini could object to his tone, he asked, ‘And who receives those salaries?’
‘I have no idea. The Mother Superior, probably.’
‘To whom are the cheques made out?’
‘To the order.’
Though Brunetti graced his answer with a polite smile, Messini was utterly disconcerted. None of this was any longer making sense to him. He lit another cigarette, placing the second match on the other side of the upright filter.
‘How many members of the order work for you, Dottore?’
‘That’s a question you’ll have to ask my bookkeeper. I would imagine about thirty.’
‘And what are they paid?’ Before Messini could summon up his bookkeeper again, Brunetti repeated the question, ‘And what are they paid?’
‘I think it’s about five hundred thousand lire a month.’
‘In other words, about a quarter of what a nurse would earn.’
‘Most of them aren’t nurses,’ Messini maintained. ‘They’re aides.’
‘And as they are members of a religious order, I imagine that you do not have to pay the government any taxes for their health or pension funds.’
‘Commissario,’ Messini said, anger welling up in his voice for the first time, ‘it seems that you know all this already, and so I don’t see the need to have me here to answer these questions. Further, if you are going to continue in this vein, I think it would be better if my lawyer were present.’
‘I have only one more question, Dottore. And I assure you that there is no need for your lawyer’s presence. I am not a member of the Guardia di Finanza, nor of the Guardia di Frontiere. Who you hire and how little you pay them is entirely your concern.’
‘Ask it.’
‘How many of your patients have left money to you or to the nursing home?’
Though Messini was surprised by the question, he answered it quickly. ‘Three, I believe. I try to discourage it. The few times I learned that people were planning to do so, I spoke to their families and asked them to see that the person be persuaded to do otherwise.’
‘That’s very generous of you, Dottore. One might even say high-minded.’
Messini had tired of games, and so he told the truth and told it sharply. ‘If one said that, one would be a fool.’ He dropped his cigarette on the floor and stamped it out with his toe. ‘Think what it would look like. At the first word of it, people would be lining up to take their relatives out and put them somewhere else.’
‘I see,’ Brunetti said. ‘Could you give me the name of one of the people you dissuaded? Of their relatives, that is.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Call them.’
‘When?’
‘As soon as you leave here, Dottore. Before you have time to get to a telephone.’
Messini didn’t even bother with the appearance of outrage. ‘Caterina Lombardi. Her family lives in Mestre somewhere. Her son’s name is Sebastiano.’
Brunetti wrote it down. Looking up, he said, ‘I think that will be all, Dottore. I thank you for giving me your time.’
Messini stood but didn’t extend his hand. Saying nothing, he went across the room and left the office. He did not slam the door.
Before Messini could have left the Questura or used his mobile phone, Brunetti had spoken to the wife of Sebastiano Lombardi, who confirmed Dottor Messini’s story about having suggested they persuade her husband’s mother not to change her will in favour of the nursing home. Before she hung up, Signora Lombardi spoke with great praise of Dottor Messini and the humane and loving concern he had for all of his patients. Brunetti’s agreement was as effusive as it was false. And on that note, their conversation ended.
* * * *
Chapter Seventeen
Brunetti decided to spend the rest of his afternoon in the Marciana Library, though he left the Questura without bothering to tell anyone where he was headed. Before taking his degree in law at the University of Padova, Brunetti had spent three years studying in the department of history at Ca Foscari, where he had been turned into a reasonably competent researcher, as much at home among the many volumes in the Marciana as in the meandering aisles of the Archivio di Stato.
As Brunetti walked up the Riva degli Schiavoni, Sansovino’s library came into sight in the distance, and as it always did, its architectural unruliness gladdened his heart. The great builders of the Serene Republic had had only manpower at their disposition: rafts, ropes, and pulleys, yet they had managed to create a miracle like that. He thought of some of the horrid buildings with which modern Venetians had defaced their city: the Bauer Grunwald Hotel, the Banca Cattolica, the train station, and he mourned, not for the first time, the cost of human greed.
He came down off the last bridge and then out into the Piazza, and all gloom fled, driven off by the power of a beauty that only man could create. The spring wind played with the enormous flags flying in front of the Basilica, and Brunetti smiled to see how much more imposing was the lion of San Marco, raging across his scarlet field, than were the three parallel bars of Italy.
He walked across the Piazza and under the Loggetta, then into the Library, a place which seldom saw a tourist, not the least of its many attractions. He passed between the two giant statues, showed his tessera at the reception window, and went into the reference hall. He searched the main catalogues for ‘Opus Dei’, and after a quarter of an hour had found references to four books and seven articles in various magazines.
When he handed his written requests to the librarian, she smiled and asked him to take a seat, saying it would take about twenty minutes to accumulate the materials. He made his way to a seat at one of the long tables, walking silently in this place where even the turning of a page was an intrusion. While he waited, he pulled down one of the Loeb Classical Library volumes completely at random and began to read the Latin text, curious to see how much of that language, if any, remained. He had chosen the letters of Pliny the Younger and paged through it slowly, looking for the letter describing the eruption of Vesuvio in which the writer’s uncle had lost his life.
Brunetti was half-way through that account, marvelling at how little interest the writer appeared to tak
e in what had come to be considered one of the great events of the ancient world and at how much of the language of that world he had managed to retain, when the librarian approached and set a pile of books and magazines down beside him.
He smiled his thanks, returned Pliny to his dusty seclusion, and turned his attention to the books. Two of them appeared to be tracts written by members of Opus Dei or, at least, by people favourably disposed both toward the organization and its mission. Brunetti glanced through them quickly, found that their enthusiastic rhetoric and incessant talk of ‘holy mission’ set his teeth on edge, and pushed them aside. The other two were more antagonistic in stance, and because of that, they were also more interesting.
Founded in Spain in 1928 by Don Josemaria Escriva, a priest with pretensions to noble blood, Opus Dei was dedicated to recapturing, or so it would seem, political dominion for the Catholic Church. One of its avowed purposes was the extension of Christian principles, and with them, Christian power, into the secular world. In order for this to be achieved, members of the order were dedicated to spreading the doctrines of both order and Church in their places of work, their homes, and the larger society in which they lived.