Through a glass, darkly cgb-15

by Donna Leon

  'Then what is it?' Patta said with a glance at his watch he made neither swift nor covert.

  'We're in some uncertainty about how to list them, sir.'

  'I don't follow you, Brunetti.'

  "The directive says we're to catalogue them according to age, sir.'

  'I know that,' said Patta, who probably did not.

  'But each time they're arrested and photographed, they give us a different name and a different age, and then a different parent comes to collect them and brings a different piece of identification.' Patta started to speak, but Brunetti rolled right over him. 'So what we wondered, sir, was whether we should list them under the age they give, or under the name, or perhaps according to their photo.' He paused, watching Patta's confusion, then said, 'Perhaps we could institute some system of filing them by photo, sir.'

  He saw Patta draw himself up, but before the Vice-Questore could answer, Brunetti thought of one case his officers had complained about that morning, and said, "There's one we've arrested six times in the last ten days, and each time we have the same photo, sir, but we've got. . .' he looked down at the papers he had intended to give Signorina Elettra, which had nothing at all to do with the young man he was talking about, and said, 'six different names and four different ages.' He looked up and gave his most subservient smile. 'So we were hoping you could tell us where to file him.'

  If he had expected, or hoped, to goad Patta to anger, Brunetti failed. The closest he got was for the Vice-Questore to drop his chin into one hand, stare at Brunetti for almost a minute, and then say, "There are times when you try my patience, Commissario.' He got to his feet. 'I've got a meeting now,' he said.

  Graceful and sleek as an otter, Patta never failed to impress Brunetti with his appearance of power and competence, and so it was now. He ran a hand through his still-thick silvering hair and went to the armadio against the wall, from which he removed a light topcoat. He drew a white silk scarf from one of the sleeves and wrapped it around his neck, then put the coat on. He went to the door of his office and turned back to Brunetti, who still sat in front of his superior's desk. 'As I said, the rules are spelled out in the directive from the Ministry, Commissario.' And he was gone.

  Curiosity led Brunetti to lean forward and pick up Patta's book; he flipped through the pages. He saw the usual photos of boy meeting girl, girl meeting boy, then noted how carefully they took turns asking where the other came from and how many people were in their families, before the boy asked the girl if she would like to go and have a cup of tea with him. Brunetti dropped the book back on Patta's desk.

  Outside, Signorina Elettra sat at her desk. Sufficient time had passed for her to have returned to some semblance of serenity. 'Does this bus go to Hammersmith?' Brunetti asked in English, straight faced.

  Signorina Elettra's expression quit the world of Dante and turned to scripture: her face could have been that of the fleeing Eve on any one of a number of medieval frescos. Ignoring his English, she responded in Veneziano, a language she seldom used with him. "This bus will take you straight to remengo if you're not careful, Dottore.'

  Where was remengo, Brunetti wondered? Like most Venetians, he had been told to go there and had been telling people to go there for decades, yet he had never paused to consider whether it was reachable by foot or boat or, in this case, bus. And was it a place like a city, meant to be written with a capital letter, or a more theoretical location like desperation or the devil and thus reachable only by means of imprecation?

  '... can't bring myself to be the one to tell him it's hopeless.' Signorina Elettra's words brought him back to the present.

  'But you're still giving him English lessons?'

  'I used to be able to resist him,' she said. 'But then he became vulnerable when I knew he was going to be rejected and he thought there was still a chance, and now I can't keep myself from trying to help.' She shook her head at the madness of it.

  'Even though you know there's no hope he'll get the job?'

  She shrugged and repeated, 'Even though I know there's no hope he'll get the job. Everything was fine until I saw his weakness—how much he wants this job—it was enough to make him human. Or very close. I closed my eyes for a minute and he slipped beneath my radar.' She tried to shake the thought away but failed.

  Brunetti resisted the temptation to ask her how it was that she was so certain the Vice-Questore had no chance at the job, wished her a good evening and, deciding to walk home, turned left rather than right when he left the Questura. The same magic hand that had been poised over the city for a week remained in place, warding off rain and cold and beckoning forward ever milder temperatures. Urged by some secret motion, plants sprang up everywhere. In passing an iron railing, he noticed vines trailing over the top in an attempt to escape into the calle from the garden where they were being kept prisoner. A dog ran past him, followed by another, busy with doggy things. Perched on the wall of an embankment in the increasing chill of the evening were two young men in T-shirts and jeans, a sight which called Brunetti back to his senses, forcing him to button his jacket.

  Paola had said something about lamb that morning, and Brunetti started thinking about the many interesting things that could be done to lamb. With rosemary and black olives or with rosemary and hot chilli peppers. And what was that one that Erizzo liked so much: the stew with balsamico and green beans? Or simply white wine and rosemary—and why was it that lamb cried out for rosemary more than any other herb? Following the trail of lamb, Brunetti found himself on the top of the Rialto, gazing south toward Ca Farsetti and the scaffolding that still covered the facade of the university down at the bend, the buildings softened by the evening light. Look at those palazzi, he told some silent audience of non-Venetians. Look at them and tell me who could build them today. Who could come and stack those blocks of marble one on top of the other and have the finished products display such effortless grace?

  Look at them, he went on, look at the homes of the Manins, the Bembos, the Dandolos, or look farther down to what the Grimanis and the Contarinis and the Irons built in their names. Look on those things and tell me we did not once know greatness.

  A man hurrying across the bridge bumped lightly into Brunetti, excused himself, and ran down the other side. When Brunetti looked back up the canal, the palazzi looked much as they always did, massive and grand, but the magic had dimmed, and now they also looked slightly in need of repair. He walked down the stairs on his side of the bridge and cut along the riva. He didn't want to have to push his way through whatever crowds still lingered near the market or walk the gauntlet of cheap masks and plastic gondolas.

  Lamb it was, lamb with balsamic vinegar and green beans. No antipasto and only a salad to follow. This could mean one of a number of things, and as he ate, Brunetti used his professional skills to seek out the possible cause. Either his wife had been so caught up in the reading of some text—Henry James tended to make her most careless about dinner—or she was in a bad mood, but there was no sign of that. Her suitcase was not standing open on their bed, so he excluded the possibility that she was preparing to run off with the butcher, though the lamb would have been more than sufficient inducement for most women. He approached the next course with mounting anticipation and increasing hope: it might involve an explosive dessert, something they had not had for some time.

  The detective finished the beans, keeping an eye on the suspects around the table. Whatever it was, the wife and the daughter were in it together. Every so often they exchanged a secret glance, and the girl had trouble disguising her excitement. The boy appeared not to be involved in whatever was going on. He polished off the lamb and ate a slice of bread, looked over at the beans and made no attempt to hide his disappointment that his father had beaten him to them. The woman shot a glance at the boy's plate, and did he detect a smile on her face when she saw that it was empty? The detective glanced away so she would not catch him watching them so closely. To lead them astray, he poured himself a half-glass of
Tignanello and said, 'Wonderful meal,' as if that were the end of it.

  The girl looked worried, glanced at the woman, who smiled calmly. The girl got to her feet and stacked the plates. She carried them over to the sink and said, her back to the others, 'Anyone interested in dessert?'

  A man kept on short rations at his own table— certainly he was interested in dessert. But he left it to the boy to speak, contenting himself with another sip of wine.

  The woman got up and went over to the door leading to the back terrace, the one facing north, where she kept things that wouldn't fit in the refrigerator. But when she heard the girl setting the dishes in the sink, she called her over, and they had a whispered conversation. The detective watched the woman go to the cabinet where the dishes were kept and take down shallow bowls. Not fruit salad, for heaven's sake. And not one of those stupid puddings filled with bread.

  The detective picked up the bottle and checked to see what was left. Might as well finish it: it was too good to leave uncorked overnight.

  The woman came back with four tiny glasses, and things began to look up. What would be served with sweet wine? No sooner had he begun to hope than realism intervened: this might be another attempt to deceive him, and there might be nothing more than almond cookies, but then the girl turned from the door to the terrace and came towards the table with a dark brown oval resting on a plate in front of her. The detective had time to think of Judith, and Salome, when his suspicions were obliterated by three voices calling in unison, 'Chocolate mousse. Chocolate mousse,' and he glanced aside just in time to see the woman pull an enormous bowl of whipped cream from the refrigerator.

  It wasn't until considerably later that a sated Brunetti and a contented Paola sat together on the sofa, he feeling virtuous at having refused the sweet wine and then the grappa that was offered in its place.

  ‘I had a call from Assunta,' she said, confusing him.

  'Assunta who?' he asked, his feet crossed on the low table in front of them.

  'Assunta De Cal,' she said.

  'Whatever for?' he asked. Then he remembered that it was in her father's fornace that the glass panels had been made and wondered if Paola wanted to see more of the artist's work.

  'She's worried about her father.'

  Brunetti was tempted to inquire what his involvement in that might be but asked only, 'Worried about what?'

  'She said he's getting more and more violent towards her husband.'

  'Violent violent or talk violent?'

  'So far, only talk violent, but she's worried— Guido, I really think she is—that the old man will do something.'

  'Marco's at least thirty years younger than De Cal, isn't he?' When she nodded, Brunetti said, 'Then he can defend himself or he can just run away. Walk away, from what I remember of the old man.'

  'It's not that’ Paola said.

  'Then what is it?' he asked kindly.

  'She's afraid that her father will get in trouble by doing something to him. By hitting him or, oh, I don't know. She says she's never seen him so angry, not ever in her life, and she doesn't know why he is.'

  'What sort of things does he say?' Brunetti asked, knowing from experience that the violent often announce their intentions, sometimes in the hope that they will be prevented from carrying them out.

  "That Ribetti's a troublemaker and that he married her for her money and to get his hands on the fornace. But he says that only when he's drunk, Assunta said, about the fornace.'

  'Who in their right mind would want to take over a fornace in Murano these days?' Brunetti asked in an exasperated voice. 'Especially someone who has no experience of glassmaking?'

  'I don't know.'

  'Why did she call you, then?'

  'To ask if she could come and talk to you’ Paola said, sounding faintly nervous about passing on the request.

  'Of course, she can come’ Brunetti said and patted her thigh.

  'You'll be nice to her?' Paola asked.

  'Yes, Paola’ he said, leaning over to kiss her on the cheek. 'I'll be nice to her.'

  6

  Assunta De Cal came to the Questura a little after ten the following morning. An officer called from the entrance to say Brunetti had a visitor, then accompanied her to the Commissario's office. She stopped just inside the door, and Brunetti got to his feet and went over to shake her hand. 'How nice that we see one another again’ he said, using the plural to avoid addressing her either formally or informally. If she had looked older than her husband at the gallery opening, she looked even more so now. Her skin was sallow, and the lines running from her nose down either side of her mouth were more pronounced. Her hair was freshly washed and she wore makeup, but she had not managed to disguise her nervousness or the stress she seemed to be under.

  She had apparently decided that he was to share in the same grammatical dispensation as Paola and addressed him as tu when she thanked him and said it was kind of him to take time to listen to her.

  Brunetti led her to the chairs in front of his desk, held one for her, and took the other as soon as she was seated.

  'Paola said you wanted to talk to me about your father’ he began.

  She sat upright in the chair, like a schoolchild asked into the office of the preside to be reprimanded. She nodded a few times. 'It's terrible’ she finally said.

  'Why do you say that, Assunta?'

  'I told Paola’ she said, as though she were reluctant or embarrassed and perhaps hoped to learn that Paola had told Brunetti everything.

  'I'd like you to tell me about it, as well’ Brunetti encouraged her.

  She took a deep breath, brought her lips together, opened her mouth to sigh, and said, 'He says that Marco doesn't love me and that he married me for my money.' She did not look at him as she said this.

  Brunetti could understand her embarrassment at repeating her father's remarks about her desirability, but these were not the threats Paola had mentioned. 'Do you have any money, Signora?'

  'That's the crazy thing’ she said, turning to him and stretching out a hand. She drew it back just before it touched his arm, and she said, 'I don't have any. I own the house my mother left me, but Marco owns his mother's house in Venice, which is bigger.'

  'Who's in that house?' Brunetti asked.

  'We let it’ she said.

  'And the money which comes from that? Is it enough to make you rich?'

  She laughed at the idea. 'No, he lets it to his cousin and her husband. They're paying four hundred Euros a month. That's not going to make anyone rich,' she said.

  'Do you have any savings?' he asked, thinking of the many stories he had heard, over the years, of people who had hoarded away their salaries and become millionaires.

  'No, not at all. I used most of my savings when I inherited the house from my mother and had it restored. I thought I could let it and continue to live in my father's house, but then I met Marco and we decided we wanted our own house.'

  'Why did you decide to live on Murano instead of here in the city?' From what Vianello had told him of Ribetti's work, the engineer would have to spend a lot of time on the mainland, and that would probably be easier from Venice than from Murano.

  'I work in the factory, and sometimes, if there's a problem, I have to go in at night. Marco goes to the terra firma a few times a week for his work, but he can get to Piazzale Roma easily enough from there, so we decided to stay on Mu-

  rano. Besides,' she added, 'his cousin has been in the house a long time.'

  Brunetti realized that this was a coded way of explaining that the cousin either would not get out of the house without a court order forcing her to do so or that Ribetti was unwilling to ask her to leave. It was not important to Brunetti which of these was true, so he abandoned the subject and asked, searching for the proper way to refer to future inheritance, 'Do you have prospects?'

  'You mean the fornace? When my father dies?' she asked: so much for Brunetti's attempts at delicacy.

  'Yes.'

 
'I think I'll inherit it. My father has never said anything, and I've never asked. But what else would he do with it?'

  'Have you any idea what a fornace like your father's would be worth?'

  He watched her calculate, and then she said, 'I'd guess somewhere around a million Euros.'

  'Are you sure of that sum?' he asked.

  'Not exactly, no, but it's a good estimate, I think. You see, I've kept the accounts for years, and I listen to what the other owners say, so I know what the other fornaci are worth, or at least what their owners think they're worth’ She looked at him, then away for an instant and then back, and Brunetti sensed that he was finally getting close to what she had come to talk about. 'But that's another thing that bothers me.'

  'What?'

  'I think my father might be trying to sell it.'

  'Why do you say that?'

  She looked away for a long time, perhaps formulating an answer, then back at him before she said, 'It's nothing, really. Well, nothing I can describe or be sure of. It's the way he acts, and some of the things he says.'

  'What sort of things?'

  'Once, I told one of the men to do something, and he—my father, that is—asked me what it would be like if I couldn't order men around any more.' She paused to see how Brunetti reacted to this and then went on. 'And another time, when we were ordering sand, I told him we should double the order so we could save on the transport, and he said it would be best to order enough only for the next six months. But the way he said it was strange, as if he thought. . . oh, I don't know, as if we weren't going to be there in six months. Something like that.'

  'How long ago was this?'

  'About six weeks, maybe less.'

  Brunetti thought about asking her if she would like something to drink, but he knew better than to break the rhythm into which their conversation had fallen. 'I'd like to go back to the things your father has said about Marco. Has he ever talked about wanting to do anything to him?' Obviously, she must realize that Paola would have repeated to him what she had said but perhaps it helped her to pretend she had not revealed family secrets and let him coax the story out of her.