Death at La Fenice

by Donna Leon

  ‘I beg your pardon.’

  ‘Wellauer. I think he knew.’

  ‘About the music? About what was going on?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why do you say that, Professor?’

  ‘It was after the scene in the second act where Germont pleads with Violetta.’ He looked at Brunetti to see if he knew the plot of the opera. Brunetti nodded, and the professor continued. ‘It’s a scene that always gets a great deal of applause, especially if the singers are as good as Dardi and Petrelli. They were, and so there was long applause. During the applause, I watched the Maestro. He set his baton down on the podium, and I had the oddest sensation that he was getting ready to leave, simply step down from the podium and walk away. Either I saw it or I invented it, but he seemed just about to be making that step when the applause stopped and the first violins raised their bows. He saw them, nodded to them, and picked up the baton. And the opera continued, but I still have the peculiar feeling that if he hadn’t seen their motion, he would simply have walked away from there.’

  ‘Did anyone else notice this?’

  ‘I don’t know. No one I’ve spoken to has wanted to say much about the performance, and what little they’ve said has been very guarded. I was sitting in one of the front tier of the boxes, off on the left, so I had a clear view of him. I suppose everyone else was watching the singers. Later, when I heard the announcement that he couldn’t continue, I thought he’d had an attack of some sort. But not that he had been killed.’

  ‘What have these other people said?’

  ‘As I told you, they have been, well, almost cautious, not wanting to say anything against him, now that he’s dead. But a few of the people here have said much the same thing, that the performance was disappointing. Nothing more than that.’

  ‘I read your article about his career, Professor. You spoke very highly of him.’

  ‘He was one of the great musicians of the century. A genius.’

  ‘You make no mention of that last performance in your article, Professor.’

  ‘You don’t condemn a man for one bad night, Commissario, especially not when the total career has been so great.’

  ‘Yes, I know; not for one bad night and not for one bad thing.’

  ‘Precisely,’ agreed the professor, and he turned his attention to two young women who came into the room, each carrying a thick musical score. ‘But if you will excuse me, Commissario, my students are beginning to arrive, and my class is about to begin.’

  ‘Of course, Professor,’ Brunetti said, getting to his feet and extending his hand. ‘Thank you very much for both your time, and your help.’

  The other man muttered something in return, but Brunetti could tell that his attention had clearly shifted to his students. He left the room and went down the broad steps, out into Campo San Stefano.

  It was a campo he walked through often, and he had come to know not only the people who worked there, in the bars and shops, but even the dogs that walked or played there. Lazing in the pale sunlight was a pink-and-white bulldog whose lack of muzzle always made Brunetti uneasy. Then there was that odd Chinese thing that had grown from what looked like a pile of furred tripe into a creature of surpassing ugliness. Last, lolling in front of the ceramics store, he saw the black mongrel that remained so motionless all day that many people had come to believe he was part of the merchandise.

  He decided to have a coffee at Caffè Paolin. Tables were still set up outside, but the only people at them today were foreigners, desperately trying to convince themselves that it was warm enough to have a cappuccino at a table in the open air. Sensible people went inside.

  He exchanged hellos with the barman, who had tact enough not to ask him if there was any news in the case. In a city where there were no secrets of any sort, people had developed a capacity to avoid asking direct questions or remarking on anything other than the casual. He knew that no matter how long the case dragged on, none of the people with whom he interacted at this level – barman, news-dealer, bank teller – would ever say a word about it to him.

  After downing an espresso, he felt restless, not at all hungry for the lunch that everyone around him seemed to be hurrying towards. He called his office, to be told that Signore Padovani had called and left a name and address for him. No message, just the name: Clemenza Santina; and the address: Corte Mosca, Giudecca.

  14

  The island of the Giudecca was a part of Venice Brunetti seldom visited. Visible from Piazza San Marco, visible, in fact, from the entire back flank of the island, in places no more than a hundred metres away, it nevertheless lived in strange isolation from the rest of the city. The grisly stories that appeared in the paper with embarrassing frequency, of children being bitten by rats or people found dead of overdoses, always seemed to take place on the Giudecca. Even the presence of a dethroned monarch and a fading movie star of the fifties couldn’t redeem it in the popular consciousness as a sinister, backward place where nasty things happened.

  Brunetti, along with a large part of the city, usually went there in July, during the Feast of the Redeemer, which celebrated the cessation of the plague of 1576. For two days, a pontoon bridge joined the Giudecca with the main island, allowing the faithful to walk across the water to the Church of the Redeemer, there to give thanks for yet another instance of the divine intervention that seemed so frequently to have saved or spared the city.

  As the number 8 boat slapped its way across the choppy waters, he stood on the deck and looked off in the distance at the industrial inferno of Marghera, where smokestacks tossed up fluffy clouds of smoke that would gradually sneak across the laguna to dine on Venice’s white Istrian marble. He wondered what divine intercession could save the city from the oil slick, this modern plague that covered the waters of the laguna and had already destroyed millions of the crabs that had crawled through the nightmares of his childhood. What Redeemer could come and save the city from the pall of greenish smoke that was slowly turning marble to meringue? A man of limited faith, he could imagine no salvation, either divine or human.

  He got off at the Zitelle stop, turned to the left, and walked along the water, searching for the entrance to Corte Mosca. Back across the water lay the city, glittering in the weak winter sunlight. He passed the church, closed now for God’s afternoon siesta, and saw, just beyond it, the entrance to the courtyard. Narrow and low, the heavily shadowed passageway stank of cat.

  At the end of the stone tunnel, he found himself at the edge of a rank garden that grew rampant at the centre of the inner courtyard. To one side, something that might have been a cat was gnawing at a feathered thing. At the sound of his footsteps, the cat backed under a rosebush, pulling with it the thing it had been eating. On the opposite side of the courtyard stood a warped wooden door. He went across, occasionally freeing himself from a clinging thorn, to knock, then pound, on it.

  After minutes, the door was pulled back a handsbreadth, and two eyes looked out at him. He explained that he was looking for Signora Santina. The eyes studied him, squinting in confusion, then retreated a bit into the complete darkness of the house. In deference to the infirmities of age, he repeated his question, this time almost shouting. At that, a small hole opened up under the two eyes, and a man’s voice told him that the signora lived over there, at the opposite side of the courtyard.

  Brunetti turned and looked back across the garden. Near the tunnel entrance, but almost hidden by a pile of decomposing grass and branches, was another low door. As he turned around to express his thanks, the door slammed shut in his face. Careful, he crossed the garden and knocked on the other door.

  He had to wait even longer this time. When the door opened, he saw a pair of eyes at the same height as the others, and he wondered if this creature had somehow managed to run from one side of the building to the other. But closer examination showed him that these eyes were lighter and the surrounding face was clearly that of a woman, though it was as scored by wrinkles and pinched by cold as th
e first one had been.

  ‘Yes?’ she asked, looking up at him. She was a little pile of a woman, wrapped tight in layers of sweaters and scarves. From the bottom of the lowest skirt hung what appeared to be the hem of a flannel nightgown. She wore a pair of thick woolen slippers like those his grandmother had worn. Over everything, a man’s overcoat, unbuttoned, hung open.

  ‘Signora Santina?’

  ‘What do you want?’ The voice was high and sharp with age, making it difficult for him to believe that it belonged to one of the great singers of the prewar era. In that voice, too, he heard all the suspicion of authority that was instinctive to Italians, especially the old. That suspicion had taught him to delay as long as possible telling anyone who he was.

  ‘Signora,’ he said, leaning forward and speaking in a clear, loud voice, ‘I’d like to speak to you about Maestro Helmut Wellauer.’

  Her face registered nothing that indicated she had heard about his death. ‘You don’t have to shout. I’m not deaf. What are you, a journalist? Like that other one?’

  ‘No, Signora. I’m not. But I would like to speak to you about the Maestro.’ He spoke carefully now, intent upon his effect. ‘I know that you sang with him. In the days of your glory.’ At this word, her eyes shot up to his, and some trace of softness slipped into them.

  She studied him, looking for the musician behind the conservative blue tie. ‘Yes, I sang with him. But that was long ago.’

  ‘Yes, Signora, I know that. But I would be honoured if you would talk about your career.’

  ‘So long as it’s my career with him, you mean?’ He saw the very instant when she realized who, or what, he was.

  ‘You’re police, aren’t you?’ she asked, as though the news had come to her as a smell, not an idea. She pulled the overcoat closed in front of her, crossing her arms over her chest.

  ‘Yes, Signora, I am, but I’ve always been an admirer of yours.’

  ‘Then why haven’t I seen you here before? Liar.’ She said it in description, not in anger. ‘But I’ll talk to you. If I don’t, you’ll come back with papers.’ She turned abruptly and stepped back into darkness. ‘Come in, come in. I can’t afford to heat the whole courtyard.’

  He went in behind her and was immediately assailed by cold and damp. He didn’t know if it was the effect of being so suddenly cut off from the sun, but the apartment seemed far colder than the open courtyard had been. She brushed past him and pushed the door closed, cutting off entirely the light and the memory of warmth. With her foot, she pushed a thick roll of flannel into place against the narrow opening under the door. Then she locked the door, slipping its bolts home. With a policeman inside, she double-locked the door.

  ‘This way,’ she muttered, and set off down a long corridor. Brunetti was forced to wait until his eyes adjusted to the dimness before he followed her along the dank passageway and into a small, dark kitchen, in the middle of which was an antique kerosene heater. The lowest of flames flickered at its base; a heavy armchair, as layered with blankets as the old woman was with sweaters, was pulled up close to it.

  ‘I suppose you want coffee,’ she said as she closed the door to the kitchen, again kicking rolled rags against the crack beneath the door.

  ‘That would be very kind of you, Signora,’ he said.

  She pointed to a straight-backed chair that faced hers, and Brunetti moved to sit in it, though not before noticing that the woven wicker seat was worn, or chewed, through in a number of places. He sat down carefully and looked around the room. He saw the signs of desperate poverty: the cement sink with only one faucet, the lack of refrigerator or stove, the mouldy patches on the walls. He smelled, more than he saw, the poverty, smelled it in the fetid air, the stink of sewer common on the ground floors of Venice, of the salami and cheese left open and unrefrigerated on the counter, and smelled it from the raw, unwashed odour that seeped across to him from the blankets and shawls heaped on the old woman’s chair.

  With motions grown circumscribed by age and lack of space, she poured coffee from an espresso pot into a low saucepan and walked haltingly towards the kerosene stove, on top of which she placed the pan. Slowly she made her way back to the cement counter beside the sink and returned to place two chipped cups on the table beside her chair. Then back again, this time to return with a small crystal sugar bowl that held a mound of grubby, solidified sugar in its centre. Sticking her finger into the saucepan and judging the temperature correct, she poured its contents into the two cups, one of which she shoved roughly towards him. She licked her finger clean.

  She stooped to pull back the covers on her chair and then, like a person about to slip into bed, lowered herself into the chair. Automatically, as if after long training, the covers slipped down from the back and arms of the chair to cover her.

  She reached beside her to take her cup from the table, and he noticed that her hands were knobbed and deformed with arthritis, so much so that the left had become a sort of hook from which protruded a thumb. He realized that the same disease caused her slowness. And then, as the cold and damp continued to lay siege to his body, he considered what it must be like for her to live in this apartment.

  Neither of them had said a thing during the preparation of the coffee. Now they sat in an almost congenial silence until she leaned forward and said, ‘Have some sugar.’

  She made no move to unwrap herself, so Brunetti picked up the single spoon and chipped away a piece of sugar. ‘Allow me, Signora,’ he said, and dropped it into her cup, using the spoon to move it around. He chopped off another piece of sugar and put it into his own cup, where it lay, solid and undissolvable. The liquid he sipped was thick, lukewarm, and lethal. A lump of sugar banged against his teeth, having done nothing to fight the acrid taste of the coffee. He took another sip, then set it down on the table. Signora Santina left her own untouched.

  He sat back in his chair and, making no attempt to disguise his curiosity, looked around the room. If he had expected to find any evidence of a career as meteoric as it was brief, he was mistaken. No poster of past opening nights hung upon these walls, no photos of the singer in costume. The only object that might have been a sign from her past was a large portrait photo in a silver frame that stood on top of a chipped wooden bureau. Arranged in a formal, artificial V, three young women, girls really, sat and smiled at the camera.

  Still ignoring the cup at her side, she asked abruptly, ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘Is it true that you sang with him, Signora?’

  ‘Yes. The season of 1937. But not here.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Munich.’

  ‘And what opera, Signora?’

  ‘Don Giovanni. The Germans were always mad for their own. And the Austrians. So we gave them Mozart.’ She added, with a small snort of contempt, ‘And Wagner. Of course he gave them Wagner. He loved Wagner.’

  ‘Who? Wellauer?’

  ‘No. L’imbianchino,’ she said, using the word for housepainter and, with it, conveying the sentiments that had cost countless people their lives.

  ‘And the Maestro, did he like Wagner as well?’

  ‘He liked anything the other one liked,’ she said with contempt she made no effort to disguise. ‘But he liked him on his own, liked Wagner. They all do. It’s the brooding and pain. It appeals to them. I think they like suffering. Their own or others’.’

  Ignoring this, he asked, ‘Did you know the Maestro well, Signora?’

  She looked away from Brunetti, over towards the photo, then down at her hands, which she held carefully separated, as if even the most casual contact could cause them pain. ‘Yes, I knew him well,’ she finally said.

  After what seemed a long time, he asked, ‘What can you tell me about him, Signora?’

  ‘He was vain,’ she finally said. ‘But with reason. He was the greatest conductor I ever worked with. I didn’t sing with them all; my career was too short. But of those I sang with, he was the best. I don’t know how he did it, but he could t
ake any music, no matter how familiar it was, and he could make it seem new, as if it had never been played, or heard, before. Musicians didn’t like him, usually, but they respected him. He could make them play like angels.’

  ‘You said your career was too short. What caused it to end?’

  She looked at him then, but she didn’t ask how anyone who said he was a fan of hers could fail to know the story. After all, he was a policeman, and they always lied. About everything. ‘I refused to sing for Il Duce. It was in Rome, at the opening night of the 1938 season. Norma. The general manager came backstage just before the curtain and told me that we had the honour of having Mussolini in the audience that night. And . . .’ Her voice trailed off, seeking a way to explain this. ‘And I was young and brave, and I said I wouldn’t sing. I was young and I was famous, and I thought that I could do something like that, that my fame would protect me. I thought that Italians loved art and music enough to allow me to do that and be safe.’ She shook her head at the thought.

  ‘What happened, Signora?’

  ‘I didn’t sing. I didn’t sing that night, and I didn’t sing in public again. He couldn’t kill me for that, for not singing, but he could arrest me. I stayed in my home in Rome until the end of the war, and when it was over, when it was over, I didn’t sing anymore.’ She shifted around in her chair. ‘I don’t want to talk about that.’

  ‘About the Maestro, then. Is there anything else you can remember about him?’ Though neither of them had mentioned his death, both of them spoke of him as among the dead.

  ‘No, nothing.’

  ‘Is it true, Signora, that you had personal difficulties with him?’

  ‘I knew him fifty years ago.’ She sighed. ‘How can that be important?’

  ‘Signora, I want only to get an idea of the man. All I know about him is his music, which is beautiful, and his body, which I saw and which was not. The more I know about him, the more I might be able to understand how he died.’