Unto Us a Son Is Given

by Donna Leon

  ‘Fighting over territory, I’d say,’ Brunetti answered, then added, ‘Birds do a lot of that.’ Paola said nothing, still looking over the railing and down. Brunetti added, ‘Humans do, too.’ If he’d hoped to provoke her into speaking, he failed.

  Paola turned and came back. ‘Would you like asparagus tonight? I saw some in the market and couldn’t resist. It’s from Sicily and it looked wonderful.’

  ‘What are you going to do with it?’ he asked.

  ‘Maybe just boil it and have it with boiled eggs.’

  ‘How much did you get?’

  ‘A kilo. It looked that good.’

  ‘Would you like me to go out and get some prosciutto?’

  She smiled and bent to touch his cheek fleetingly. ‘I already did that.’

  What better way to celebrate springtime? Brunetti thought. ‘There’s some champagne in the refrigerator, isn’t there?’ he asked, having seen it there the day before.

  ‘Yes. It’s the last of what my parents gave us for Christmas.’

  Brunetti tried to remember how many cases had been delivered by Mascari: at least four, he recalled. Good grief, were they drinking it up at that rate?

  ‘Before you start thinking about joining AA, Guido, let me remind you that more than a dozen bottles disappeared on New Year’s Eve. There were at least twenty people here.’

  ‘I’d forgotten,’ Brunetti confessed.

  Hearing this, Paola covered her face with her hands, turned and leaned over the railing, and, using a voice she reserved for imitating soap operas, called down into the empty calle, ‘I spent three days preparing food for that party. Three days. And he’s forgotten it.’

  Brunetti ignored her and directed his attention to the campanile of San Marco.

  From his right came the sound of choked sobbing. He glanced at her quickly and caught her peeking at him through her fingers. ‘Shall I open that last bottle, then?’ he asked.

  Her hands fell to her sides and she smiled. ‘Oh, what a good idea.’ She walked over to the still-seated Brunetti and leaned against his shoulder, then bent and kissed the top of his head. ‘It was a wonderful party, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Being here with you is better,’ Brunetti answered.

  Silence grew between them. Church bells began to ring: the sound filled him with the same sense of completion. He got to his feet and went to get the champagne.

  The next morning, Brunetti got to the Questura a half-hour early, even though there was no chance that his superior, Vice-Questore Patta, would be there before him. Indeed, it was very unlikely that the Vice-Questore would be there for some time. Brunetti went to his office and read his mail, then went downstairs in search of his superior’s secretary, Signorina Elettra Zorzi, whom he found pulling daffodils from their paper wrapping and placing in a tall crystal vase. A few large sheets of the wrapping paper already lay on her desk; she was busy with the last package.

  ‘Ah, Commissario,’ she said, smiling at him as she stuck the last daffodil into the vase. She turned to the sheets of white paper and folded them neatly in half, then in fours, and then bent to put them in the appropriate receptacle to the left of her desk.

  She straightened up and lifted the vase before Brunetti could move to carry it for her. She placed it on the windowsill, made two minor adjustments, and returned to her desk.

  ‘How might I be of service this morning?’ she asked, smiling again.

  Brunetti had given some thought to how he should phrase this, given that it was a personal matter and had nothing to do with police work. ‘There’s someone I’d like you to take a look at,’ he answered.

  The inside lining of the collar and cuffs of her blouse were egg-yolk yellow, Brunetti noticed. Had this obliged her to bring daffodils from the market? It could just as easily have been yellow tulips, he supposed, but they did not stand up straight and scream ‘SPRINGTIME’ the way the daffodils did.

  ‘And who is that, Signore?’

  ‘His name is Gonzalo Rodríguez de Tejeda.’ Then he added, ‘He was born in Spain.’

  ‘Not Poland?’ she asked as she flicked on her computer.

  Instead of deigning to answer immediately, Brunetti pursed his lips, glanced at the ceiling, and waited a moment. ‘He became an Italian citizen about twenty years ago and gave back his Spanish passport.’

  ‘He’ll be easier to find than Franco Rossi, at any rate,’ she said, bouncing her palms on either side of her keyboard as she waited for the computer to announce itself her servant.

  When she began to type in the name, he added, ‘There might be a title, as well, but I don’t know if that got overlooked when he changed his citizenship.’

  She glanced away from the screen and asked, ‘Anything else, Signore?’

  ‘He’s lived here for a long time, and he owns his house, so he should be listed at the Ufficio Anagrafe. He lives over on Fondamenta Nuove. If you find the address, I’d like to know if anyone else is listed as a resident there.’

  She was making a list: it pleased Brunetti to see that she still used paper and pen, however occasionally. ‘And see what bank accounts or investments you can find, either here or in Spain. Or anywhere else, for that matter.’ After a moment, he added, ‘And if he’s ever been involved in any trouble.’

  She looked up at the last word. ‘This might take some time. I don’t know if …’ she began, but then her voice trailed off.

  Brunetti waited, but when she did not finish, he went on, ‘While you’re looking, could you see if he has any other property in the city? Or anywhere else.’ He realized he was delaying telling her there was another person on his list.

  ‘Spain’s easy,’ she said, and his memory flashed to a burglar he’d arrested at the beginning of his career, who had told him, ‘Wooden doors are easy.’

  ‘I have friends there,’ she said. Probably the head of the Central Bank.

  ‘His family, too,’ Brunetti added. ‘He has a brother and two sisters. They run a factory that makes berets.’

  She added something to her list.

  ‘I’d be glad at whatever you find.’

  Realizing there was nothing more to be asked about Gonzalo, Brunetti said, ‘I’ve another name.’ She nodded but did not bother to look up. ‘Attilio Circetti, Marchese di Torrebardo.’

  This was sufficient to cause her to look at him. Brunetti nodded. ‘All I know is that he’s been living here for at least two years.’

  As he watched, a slow smile moved from her mouth to her eyes. ‘Ah,’ she said as she wrote the name. ‘Then there might be something.’

  He turned to leave but her voice called him back. ‘Commissario?’

  ‘Yes?’ he asked, turning to face her.

  ‘Is this … research, is it by any chance private?’

  Brunetti remained silent, giving himself time to think, and then stalled. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘If he was once a Spanish citizen, and this was an official investigation, I thought you would already have contacted the Spanish authorities and would know some of this.’

  She gave him a smile that mirrored the brightness of the daffodils and said, ‘Of course it doesn’t matter at all. But if it’s less than official, then I’ll go about my research in a different manner.’ She increased the temperature of her smile. ‘In a more discreet way.’

  ‘Indeed, Signorina,’ Brunetti agreed, ‘That would be better, I think. Discreet.’

  ‘But,’ she began, turning away from the screen; again she stopped before finishing the sentence.

  ‘“But”?’ he asked with a smile.

  ‘But I don’t know how much I’ll be able to do in the time remaining.’

  Confused, Brunetti asked, ‘Before what or to whom?’

  ‘To me,’ she said.

  Had lightning struck the building, Brunetti could have been no more stunned. Was she sick? Was she leaving? He stood and stared at her, incapable of speech. ‘What,’ he began, and coughed lightly while trying to formulate a way to end his pan
ic. ‘What’s going to happen?’ he asked, then coughed again and added, ‘If I might ask.’ He didn’t want to know. He did not want to know.

  ‘My vacation,’ she said, looking down at her knees to brush away something but perhaps to give Brunetti time to adjust his expression. ‘It’s in the staff schedule for next month, Signore.’

  ‘Of course,’ Brunetti said with his recovered voice. ‘Could you tell me again how long you’ll be gone?’ By the time he finished speaking, his voice was entirely under his control again.

  ‘My last day is Friday. And I’ll be gone for three weeks.’

  Brunetti pressed his lips together and put his hands in his pockets. ‘Ah, yes,’ he said, stunned that he had not known this. He knew there were things he should ask her, but he couldn’t think. ‘I hope you have a nice time,’ he said.

  She smiled again and turned back to her computer.

  As he walked up the stairs, Brunetti wondered how it was that no one had told him. He always knew when Vianello, Griffoni, and Pucetti would be away, so he seldom bothered to read the staffing schedule before the first day of the month; sometimes not even then. If the electricity was going to be turned off for three weeks, surely people would talk about it? He should certainly have heard. Only three days left. She would have other things to take care of before leaving, so the discreet inquiries would probably have to await her return. Well, Gonzalo wasn’t going anywhere. But it would be best to inform both Vianello and Griffoni of what he had asked her to do.

  Instead of going to his office, he continued on up the stairs, then down the back corridor of the building to the cubbyhole that had been given to Griffoni to use as an office. The door was open. She was at her desk, a construction a friend had made for her, its surface a single piece of wood the size of three banana boxes, to which was screwed an architect’s lamp. On it stood an iPad, a mug holding pencils and, at least today, her service pistol and holster.

  The corridor was so low and narrow that no one could approach her office without being heard. Without bothering to turn, she said, ‘Good morning, Guido.’

  ‘You put a computer chip in my ear?’ he asked.

  She turned on her chair to face him as well as to shift her knees to the side to allow him to enter, move past her, and take the other chair. She was wearing a light grey sweater, with a black jacket hanging on the back of her chair. Blondes sometimes didn’t look very good in grey, but she did, perhaps because of her eyes. ‘No,’ she answered, ‘I know your footsteps.’

  He looked down at his shoes, as though to see if they had some strange defect that would give away his identity. They looked like brown leather shoes.

  She smiled and shrugged. ‘People sound different. I’ve learned to recognize everyone.’

  ‘Even Lieutenant Scarpa?’ Brunetti asked, naming her bête noire.

  ‘The Lieutenant’s approach is announced by the smell of sulphur that precedes him,’ she explained, straight-faced. ‘So I don’t pay particular attention to the click of the cloven hooves.’ She smiled, obviously pleased to be able to speak badly of the Lieutenant.

  Brunetti nodded, wondering if there was any person whose footsteps he would recognize.

  ‘I’ve asked Signorina Elettra to look for information for someone I know,’ he began. Griffoni nodded, waiting.

  ‘She’ll get to it when she comes back,’ he added, proud of how calm he sounded.

  ‘Good,’ Griffoni said, then, ‘What will we do without her?’

  Pleased that Griffoni had said ‘we’, Brunetti answered, ‘Pray.’

  She waited a moment, and then asked, ‘Who’s the someone?’

  ‘My father-in-law.’

  Her expression changed, curiosity replacing amusement. ‘I’ve never met him,’ she volunteered. ‘But I’ve passed him on the street a number of times.’

  ‘How did you know who it was?’

  She gave the smile she tried not to give when a suspect revealed something she could use to her advantage. ‘As you’ve been telling me since I arrived here, Guido, this is Venice, and everyone recognizes everyone.’

  ‘Does he recognize you?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘He notices me. And we now smile and nod to one another. But we haven’t spoken.’

  ‘You could certainly introduce yourself,’ Brunetti said. ‘We’ve worked together for years, and I’m sure I’ve spoken of you to him.’

  ‘Ah, Guido,’ she said, ‘your youth is showing.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘He’s a man of a previous age. Or maybe era’s a better word. Don’t forget that. He grew up in a time when women did not speak to men to whom they’d never been introduced.’

  Brunetti gave an involuntary snort and stared at her in disbelief. ‘Claudia, for God’s sake, he’s not some sort of dinosaur.’

  She continued to smile. ‘I’ve seen the way he behaves when he meets people, especially women.’ Before Brunetti could speak, she went on. ‘He never wears a hat, but if he did, he’d probably tip it to any man he met. With women, he kisses their hands when he meets them on the street.’ She paused, giving Brunetti a chance to speak, but he remained silent, trying to remember what it was like to walk on the street beside il Conte.

  ‘It’s not the way he’d kiss their hand in a drawing room. His lips don’t even come close: it’s a notional kiss.’ Her smile broadened and she added, ‘Probably because any woman whose hand he’d kiss would be wearing gloves if she were out of her home.’

  Again, Brunetti was left without words.

  ‘Men like this do not speak to strange women, nor they to him, Guido.’ When Brunetti did not question this, she asked, ‘Who does he want you to find information on?’

  ‘His best friend.’

  ‘Oddio,’ she said, clapping her hand to her mouth. Then, slowly and with what seemed to Brunetti like regret, she said, ‘Then maybe he’s not.’

  ‘Not what?’

  ‘A gentleman,’ she said in English.

  5

  It took Brunetti considerable time to explain to Griffoni what il Conte had told him about his best friend and the situation in which he found himself: more than sixty years of friendship put at risk by an infatuation of which Conte Falier did not approve. Brunetti had paused at this point in his account at the realization that he had no idea at all whether his father-in-law approved or not of Gonzalo’s choice, even of whether he believed he had the right to do so. Il Conte had expressed an opinion only of the undescribed behaviour of the two men in Calle de la Mandola. It had been an expression of propriety, not morality.

  Brunetti continued to the end, failing to mention his original refusal to help.

  ‘And your opinion?’ Griffoni asked when he stopped. When he said nothing, she added, ‘About the adoption?’

  ‘Of course he shouldn’t do it,’ Brunetti said without giving it much thought.

  ‘Because he’s in his eighties and he’s lost his head over a man at least two generations younger? Why is that so bad?’ Given what she was describing, Griffoni’s tone sounded strangely mild.

  Brunetti stared at her. ‘You don’t see anything odd here? More than forty years’ difference in their ages?’

  ‘If he were his real son, no one would give it a thought, Guido,’ she said. ‘Lots of men have children when they’re fifty, sixty.’

  ‘Their wives have babies, Claudia. They don’t give birth to adult men.’ He held up his hands about twenty centimetres apart. ‘They have babies.’

  ‘No need to repeat, Guido. I understood the first time.’

  ‘I repeated so you’d understand,’ Brunetti said shortly.

  ‘I do, Guido. And I also understand that most people would assume his interest in a man so much younger would have to be sexual.’

  Moderation abandoned him, and Brunetti snapped, ‘Of course it’s sexual.’

  ‘Ouu, ouu, ouu,’ Griffoni groaned, then put her hands up to her shoulders, palms facing him, in a sign of surrender. She was silent for a whil
e, lowered her hands to her desk and smiled, then asked, ‘And so what if it is?’

  Brunetti crossed his arms. Immediately aware how defensive this must make him look, he unwrapped them and rested his hands on his thighs. He wished there were some way to stare off into the far distance. It came to him to wish he could take a longer view of the whole matter.

  Not for a moment had he bothered to think about what Gonzalo’s feelings towards this young man might be. Because Gonzalo was gay, was he capable only of lust and not of love? Would he think the same of a heterosexual man with a much younger woman? Of course he would, he realized, but he would be open to the possibility that they loved one another, would probably even wish it for them.

  Griffoni stirred in her seat and crossed her legs. He wished she’d sit still: he was thinking, trying to work all this out. He studied the backs of his hands and replayed the conversation, the intensity of their voices, the emphasis both he and Griffoni had placed on single words, the tone of inquiry each had used.

  ‘All right,’ he said, still not looking at her. ‘All that matters is whether this man loves him and will be good to him.’ In fact, Brunetti saw, whether the young man loved Gonzalo or not was irrelevant: what mattered was whether he would be good to him. Gonzalo was eighty-five. How many years did he have left? He remembered Gonzalo the old man, obviously trying to avoid conversation, walking quickly, and then so slowly, away from him, hand on his hip as if to quiet the pain.

  ‘Do you think Signorina Elettra’s computer will be able to tell you that?’ Griffoni asked in a voice as mild as a spring breeze.

  He raised his head quickly and looked at her, searching for sarcasm, finding none.

  It would not, Brunetti knew. But the computer might reveal the man’s past, at least to a certain degree, and that might give some indication of his present and thus of Gonzalo’s likely future.

  Brunetti got to his feet, squeezed past Griffoni, and slipped out the door. ‘I need to think about this,’ he said by way of farewell. She said nothing and did not turn to him before he started down the corridor. Halfway to the stairs, he stopped and looked back, then returned and propped himself against the side of the door. She was sitting the same way, back to him, arms folded across her chest, studying the surface of her desk.