Unto Us a Son Is Given

by Donna Leon

  Paola came to the door and asked, ‘Coffee?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  He heard her steps fade back towards the kitchen. What would it be to be herded on to a beach by the strange and violent men who had exterminated your family, your city, your past, and held there until they could decide to which of their friends you would be given? Nothing left of what you’d had than the clothes you wore. No rights, no possessions, no power to say no to anything. They had killed everything; the only freedom left to you, really, was to kill yourself. The gods had taken your sacrifices for years and then had washed their hands of you and gone over to the other side. And you were there, on the beach. Perhaps the swollen corpses of the familiar dead still washed up and back in the surf at your feet; behind you were the crashed-down towers, the shattered gates, and only devastation to be seen, with a slow rain of greasy ash to fall on you and everyone else with grim, slithery equality. You were a person without country and, more horrific, without family.

  ‘Guido?’ he heard, and looked up to see his wife standing and holding a cup and saucer towards him.

  ‘Ah, thank you, my dear,’ he said and took them from her.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she asked, sitting on the low table that faced him, setting her cup and saucer to one side.

  ‘Yes. I was just thinking.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About how a writer can make even the most awful things …’ Brunetti didn’t want to say ‘beautiful’, but that was what he meant. ‘Can make them powerful,’ he chose, instead. It wasn’t the same, but it was also true.

  She surprised him by saying, ‘I’ve never understood why you studied law.’ She picked up her coffee and took a sip.

  ‘I’m not sure I do, either.’

  ‘Do you regret it?’

  He shook his head. ‘No. The law is beautiful. It’s like building a cathedral.’

  ‘You’ve lost me,’ Paola said with a smile.

  ‘You want to make something that will last and that will give shelter, so you have to make it hold together, with no weak places. You have to think of all the problems that could arise if one part is weak or badly planned. You have to try, at least, to make it perfect.’

  ‘That certainly sounds fine and noble,’ she said. She leaned forward and placed both of her palms on his knees. ‘But it doesn’t do those things, does it?’

  He shook his head and turned to tap the cover of the book that lay beside him. ‘Perhaps that’s why I’ve abandoned history for tragedy,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because the writers don’t have to worry about giving an accurate record of events.’

  ‘What do you think they want to do?’ Paola asked.

  ‘Forget about the facts and tell us the truth,’ Brunetti said with the certainty of a person who has come lately to a belief.

  This time Paola laughed. ‘I’ve been telling you that for years, my dear.’ She picked up her coffee but, finding it cold, set the cup and saucer back on the table.

  Later, when she’d moved over to sit next to him, they spoke of Chiara’s growing willingness to form her own judgements, even if they didn’t agree with them. ‘Even about Gonzalo?’ Brunetti asked.

  Paola shrugged. ‘She sees him only through love’s eyes, Guido.’

  ‘You think that makes a difference?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘I should hope so, Guido,’ she said, then with a slight shrug, ‘We’ve done what we can.’ If Brunetti expected more than that, he was disappointed: Paola picked up the cups and saucers and took them back to the kitchen.

  Later, when Paola had come back with a book to sit next to him and read, Brunetti asked her, ‘Can you think of anyone who might know more about his … feelings?’

  Paola gave him a long look, as if surprised to find that word on his lips. ‘The only one of his friends I ever knew well was Rudy. And he’s gone.’ After a minimal pause, she added, voice grown more sombre, ‘I wish he could find a way to be happy. He’s been in my life for as long as I can remember.’

  She picked up Brunetti’s hand and stroked the back of his fingers. ‘You really have beautiful hands. Did I ever tell you that?’

  ‘Six hundred and twelve times, I think, though I lost count during our honeymoon.’

  Tossing his hand away, she said, ‘You are such a fool, Guido.’

  Surprised by a realization, Brunetti asked, ‘But why don’t we know any of his friends any more?’

  ‘Should I consider this police harassment?’ she asked.

  ‘No, that’s when I tell you that if you don’t answer my questions, we’ll torture your husband.’

  ‘Oh, yes sir, please sir, please, please, please.’

  ‘It’s not right that we don’t know anything about his life or anyone who might tell us.’

  She threw herself against the back of the sofa and muttered, ‘I’m married to a lunatic.’

  ‘Do you …’

  Paola cut him off by saying, ‘Dami.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Padovani,’ she said. ‘He’s back here for a sabbatical. I saw him two weeks ago.’

  ‘And you didn’t tell me?’ Brunetti said.

  ‘Jealous?’ Paola asked and smiled. Her university classmate was one of the leading art critics in the country: talented, acerbic, funny, and flamboyantly gay.

  ‘If he’s still as clever as he was, then yes.’

  ‘If anyone knows the art world, it’s Dami, and Gonzalo was part of it for years,’ Paola said.

  ‘When can I see him?’

  Instead of answering, Paola got up and went down to her study. When she came back, she had her telefonino in her hand. She plunked herself down next to him, punched in a number and, when it began to ring, handed him the phone and moved towards the kitchen.

  The phone rang four times before it was answered by a deep voice, asking, ‘Paola?’

  ‘No, Dami, it’s Guido.’

  ‘Ah,’ Padovani said and sighed deeply, then cleared his throat, quite as if he were preparing to play a different character from the one that gave the sigh. ‘What a pleasure to hear your voice after all these years, Guido.’

  ‘Paola said you were back here on a sabbatical.’

  ‘You can call it that. In fact, I can call it that.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Then what is it?’

  ‘An American foundation has asked me to write a book.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘A painter who lived here for some time.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘No one you would have heard of, believe me, Guido. He had no talent but masses of money. He lived in Palazzo Giustinian for three years and painted about seventy portraits of his dog. He was a very sweet man, convinced of his talent, and good to his friends.’

  ‘And how is it that you’re writing the book? Did you know him?’

  ‘I did meet him once, about fifteen years ago, at a dinner.’

  ‘And was that enough to make you want to write the book?’

  Padovani burst into laughter. ‘Oh, no, no, no.’ And then he was gone for a while in laughter. When he stopped, he said, in an entirely serious voice, ‘I imagine you called to ask me about something else.’

  ‘You have no faith in my motives, Dami.’

  ‘Quite the opposite, Guido. I have every faith in them. Only they’re often motives I don’t understand.’

  ‘Right, well …’ Brunetti began. ‘There is someone I’d like to talk to you about, if you’d be willing, and assuming that you know him.’

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Gonzalo Rodríguez …’ Brunetti began, only to have Padovani join him in a duet for ‘de Tejeda’.

  ‘Ah, then you do know him,’ Brunetti said.

  ‘There was a time when it seemed that everyone in Christendom – or at least in Rome – knew Gonzalo.’

  ‘Is that a compliment?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘Yes.’

>   ‘Do you know him?’

  ‘Am I a Christian?’ Dami asked with a short laugh, then continued, ‘Yes, I know him, or knew him, at least during the time he lived in Rome. I haven’t seen him in a few years, but I do hear from him from time to time.’

  ‘Will you talk to me about him?’

  Padovani took a moment before he answered. ‘Only if you know in advance how highly I think of him,’ he surprised Brunetti by saying.

  ‘Tomorrow?’ Brunetti tried to think of a place to invite Padovani, a place suitable to discuss Gonzalo Rodríguez de Tejeda. ‘Florian’s at ten?’

  ‘Oddio, you must have heard how much I’m being paid to write this book. If I come, will you let me talk about my painter?’

  ‘I’m paying, so you don’t get to talk about him.’

  ‘I’m desperate to find someone who will listen. It’s the only way I might think of something to write.’

  ‘That bad?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘Worse,’ Padovani said and was gone.

  13

  Brunetti called the Questura at nine and told the officer at the switchboard to please inform the Vice-Questore – but only if he inquired – that he would be in later because he had to interview a witness. He waded through the tourists in Piazza San Marco and got to Florian’s at 9.45. He asked if he could be seated in one of the back rooms. The waiter nodded and led him past the bar, turned left and into a small room. He told Brunetti he could choose any of the tables he wanted: it was unlikely there would be any other guests for at least half an hour.

  Brunetti thanked him and said he’d order when his friend arrived. He thought of describing Padovani so that the waiter could direct him to this room, but it had been so long since he’d seen the journalist that he did not know what he looked like. ‘His name is Padovani,’ he said.

  ‘Of course, Signore. Il Dottore has often been our guest.’ From the man’s smile, Brunetti realized that Dami’s charm had not lessened. Nor, he imagined, the size of his tips.

  He sat and saw himself in the mirrored wall in front of him, then shifted to a seat that looked across the room, telling himself it was so that he could see who came through the door. He picked up the menu and had a look at the things on offer. He could have a coffee with whipped cream if he chose: the idea sickened him faintly. A different waiter came into the room, and Brunetti again said he’d order when his friend arrived.

  He had not thought to bring a newspaper, so he read all of the menu and then glanced around the room to see if anyone had left a newspaper there.

  ‘Guido?’ he heard a man’s voice ask.

  He turned and stood and saw Dami at the door, looking much as he had the last time they’d met. The journalist had the same stocky build and flattened nose, and although his hair was white, the rest of him seemed younger. His beard and paunch had disappeared and the white hair was brushed back from his forehead, creating an effect not of age but of vitality. Brunetti remembered a more – what was the word? – indolent? Yes, a more indolent appearance: this man could well have been the tennis doubles champion of a private club in Milano.

  Suddenly recalling how much he had liked Dami, Brunetti walked to the door and embraced him. The old Padovani would have turned this into a coy joke, but this one seemed to have outgrown his former manner and did nothing more than pat Brunetti’s shoulder a few times and trap his hand in both of his. ‘How nice to see you, Guido, after all this time.’ He stepped back and took a better look. He smiled and said, a bit of his old self peeking out, ‘If you’ll tell me I look the same, I’ll tell you you do, too.’

  With almost funereal sincerity, Brunetti intoned, ‘You look just the same.’

  Padovani poked him in the ribs and moved towards the table where Brunetti had been seated. ‘Why ever are we sitting back here where no one can see us?’

  ‘Because back here no one can hear us,’ Brunetti replied neutrally.

  ‘Ah, of course,’ Padovani said amiably. ‘Are we here to plot something?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Brunetti said.

  ‘Not against Gonzalo, I warn you,’ Padovani said seriously, with no echo of the frivolity that Brunetti had found so appealing in his conversation in the past.

  Brunetti shook his head. ‘If anything, I’d like it to be in aid of him.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Padovani said in sudden alarm. All smiles stopped together, and he asked, ‘What’s happened to him?’

  The original waiter appeared at the door and came over to their table. Both ordered coffee, and Padovani, putting on an amiable expression, asked for a brioche, as well.

  When the waiter was gone, the journalist asked, ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Brunetti said in a voice he tried to make reassuring. ‘Gonzalo wants to adopt a son.’

  Padovani closed his eyes for a moment and shook his head. The temperature of his voice dropped when he asked, ‘Could it by any chance be a younger man? A good-looking one?’

  ‘Do you know him?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘I know the type.’ There was contempt in his tone, perhaps something stronger, but Brunetti had no idea who the target might be: Gonzalo? The other man? Himself?

  Padovani asked, ‘Have you met him? He’s been around for some time, and I’ve been told he spends a lot of it with Gonzalo now.’

  ‘Do you know who he is?’ Brunetti asked. ‘We’re curious to learn something about him,’ he added, choosing to make no mention of his father-in-law’s original prompting.

  The waiter came in and, pretending to be invisible, set two coffees on the table, then a small plate with one brioche. He went back to the door but did not pass through it. Brunetti looked over and saw a young Japanese couple standing on the threshold, peering around either side of the waiter, who blocked their way. The waiter bowed, the two young people bowed, and all three disappeared.

  ‘The one I’m thinking of is called Attilio Circetti di Torrebardo,’ Dami said, pronouncing the name as though he were a television presenter introducing his guest. Then he added, ‘Marchese di Torrebardo.’

  ‘Wherever that is,’ Brunetti said, leaving it to Padovani to infer that he was already familiar with the name.

  Brunetti picked up an envelope of sugar and poured it into his coffee, stirred it around for far longer than necessary, and then asked, ‘What else have you heard about him?’

  Padovani leaned forward and added sugar to his own coffee, then took a small sip, set the cup back on the saucer, and picked up the brioche. After two bites, he set it back on the plate, then finished his coffee. Only then did he say, ‘He’s an art historian. Well, he studied art history in Rome. And he’s been nibbling at the edges of the art world since then, about ten, fifteen years.’

  ‘Nibbling how?’

  ‘Doing the research for books by other people. Writing the books, for all I know. Writing catalogues for art exhibitions, reviewing art shows on-line, writing a blog. Since he’s been living in Venice, he’s occasionally given talks at the Accademia or taken people around the museum.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound like steady work.’

  ‘It’s not,’ Padovani agreed. ‘But it’s a job where the chief requirement is charm, and he’s got plenty of that.’ He took another bite of his brioche and set it back on the plate.

  Brunetti hesitated but then dared to risk it. ‘Am I to believe you’re speaking from experience?’

  ‘Good heavens,’ Padovani said, smiling broadly, ‘living with Paola all these years has turned you into an insightful boy, hasn’t it just?’

  Brunetti laughed. ‘I hope her having kept me around will help you believe you can trust me,’ he said and waited for Padovani’s reaction. After a moment’s hesitation, the journalist smiled.

  ‘I was very impressed by him when I met him,’ he said coolly.

  ‘But no longer?’

  ‘No,’ Padovani said. ‘At first, I was charmed by him: he’s bright, very well mannered – that still counts a great deal with me – and seemed to be a generous person.
But after a time, I began to see that it was a generosity of words: he never spoke badly of other people; I’ll grant him that. It’s a pleasant relief in the world I live in. But he never actually did anything for anyone, and I seldom knew him to pay for his own dinner.’

  Padovani sighed. ‘It’s a very common type. Dresses well, knows the names of people in the art world, is always seen at dinners or parties, has a string of elderly contessas he can call and visit or take to the opera or dinner.’ He considered what he had just said, and amended the last to, ‘Be taken to the opera or to dinner, that is.’

  He reached for the glass of water that had come with the coffee and drained it, then pushed himself back from the table; the delicate chair squealed in protest; Padovani jumped in surprise. He landed back on the chair and took a quick look under it, where he must have seen nothing strange; then returned his attention to Brunetti.

  ‘It’s fake.’ He held up a hand as if to prevent Brunetti from moving. ‘There’s little real kindness in him. He’ll be charming and affable and pay you a lot of attention, but what he’s doing is looking for a way to profit from you. Every second of every minute he’s with you.’

  ‘What happened when you realized this?’

  ‘I called him one day and cancelled a dinner I’d invited him to. I don’t know why: I’d simply had enough of him. He called me a few days later, but I was busy, I said. And then when he called again, I was busy again. And that was that. No more calls.’

  ‘It sounds like you got off cheaply,’ Brunetti said. What he did not say was that his list of Torrebardo’s offences could as easily be the plaint of a spurned lover as the dispassionate assessment of a man’s serious flaws. Freeloading off the rich was a way of life in Venice, not a crime.

  ‘I did.’

  ‘And Gonzalo?’

  Padovani gave a shrug. ‘It sounds as if Attilio’s moved on to greener pastures.’ After a pause, he added, ‘It’s the normal trajectory for a man like him.’

  ‘From what to what?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘From a journalist with a modest amount of money to a man who has a great deal.’