by Donna Leon
‘Is that certain?’
‘That my fortune is modest, yes,’ Padovani said and laughed with pure delight when he saw Brunetti’s embarrassment. He reached across the table and patted Brunetti’s arm. ‘It doesn’t matter, Guido.’ He laughed again and said, ‘But about Gonzalo, there’s little doubt about his fortune. He’s certainly considered a very rich person, and he lives like one.’ As though surprised by what he had just said, he paused to listen for the echo, then added, ‘I’ve never lived in a city where so many people are trying to seem richer than they are, or with so many people trying to seem poorer.’ He laughed again, the laughter given to the revelation of surprising truths. ‘You Venetians have strange ideas about money.’
Brunetti thought for a moment and decided that the venality or not of Venetians was on the list of things he no longer had the patience to talk about, so he changed the subject and asked, ‘Were you familiar with his collection?’
Padovani shrugged. ‘Yes. He has excellent taste, bought a lot of good paintings years ago.’ He tilted his head and looked into the distance for a moment, then glanced at Brunetti and said, ‘He’s got a small Bronzino – unattributed, unfortunately – of a young courtier. It’s so beautiful, I still dream about it. And a complete first edition of I Carceri. In perfect condition. I’ve never seen anything like them.’
Padovani gave a small shake and said, ‘Most of the other things are of the same quality, so to answer your question, yes, he did very well by the gallery. Galleries.’
Brunetti picked up his coffee and took a sip, but it was cold. He set it down and asked, ‘Has he ever done this before, fallen in love and tried to wrap the person up in his money or the promise of his money?’
Padovani’s mouth turned up in a humourless grin. ‘Is it that obvious?’
Brunetti stopped himself from smiling. ‘I’ve spent much of my life living with a woman who’s in love with Henry James and who reads his novels repeatedly: you think I haven’t learned anything about the ways people make use of one another?’
Obviously uncomfortable with the drift the conversation had taken, Padovani lightened his tone and said, ‘I’ve never read him, but I know enough about him to be able to pretend I have.’
As if still talking about literature, Brunetti said, ‘James is interested in predation, but with soft voices and afternoon tea.’
Padovani’s face hardened, perhaps at the word ‘predation’. ‘Makes it worse, somehow, when it’s done with a cold heart.’ Then, after a long pause, he added, ‘It shouldn’t happen to someone like Gonzalo.’
He picked up his empty cup and tried to nurse a few more drops from it. Failing, he replaced it in the saucer. He looked across at Brunetti, who held his glance until the waiter appeared to ask if they’d like something else.
Both ordered another coffee.
Again Padovani let some time pass before he said, ‘He was one of the first people I met when I began my career. We met … well, it doesn’t matter where or how we met, but we met, and we liked one another. Perhaps because we both liked to laugh or because neither of us took the world we were living in then – the world of art dealing – at all seriously. Gonzalo even less than I.’
Brunetti pushed himself back from the table to cross his legs, and his chair let out a squeal even more hysterical than the one Padovani’s chair had made earlier. Both men ignored the sound.
The waiter appeared with two more coffees and two more small glasses of water on a silver salver and placed them on the table, discreetly removing all sign of the others.
When he was gone, Padovani continued. ‘Gonzalo taught me about modern art, and contemporary art, taught me how to distinguish between the good and the bad and between what would and would not sell. He told me which agents to flatter, which artists to promote, when to praise a young genius, and when to stay clear of writing about someone whose career was soon going to end.’
He broke off and took a sip of coffee, and Brunetti took the opportunity to remark, ‘You make it sound like a confidence game.’
‘It is. It’s as fake as soccer: they’re both decided in rooms, not on the field. Agents decide who goes up and who goes down, who wins and who loses. Occasionally there’s a genius who simply ignores it all and paints or sculpts or takes photographs, and nothing they do can touch him. Or her. But in most cases, it’s the agent who does the real creative work and who transforms a mediocre painting into a masterpiece.’
‘And a mediocre painter into a genius?’ Brunetti asked.
Padovani leaned forward and said, ‘And I became a good writer about bad art.’
He laughed at his own remark and finished his coffee. When it seemed that Padovani was finished speaking, Brunetti asked, ‘And?’
‘Gonzalo taught me how to survive in this world, and soon I was famous. Well, as famous as a journalist ever becomes.’ He paused, making it obvious he still had something to say. He shifted his cup and saucer slightly to the left, glanced at Brunetti, and continued. ‘He’s the most generous person I’ve ever known, Guido. Generous with his wealth, but lots of people are. He’s generous with what he knows, and most people aren’t.’ Again, Padovani stopped speaking, but this time Brunetti wasn’t sure if he’d finished. He waited, and at last Padovani said, ‘This means that much of what I say is probably the result of my shame that I treated him so badly and that he had the generosity to continue to treat me well.’
‘What happened?’ Brunetti asked, for the cadence of Padovani’s story had taken on a decidedly last-chapter rhythm.
‘I found someone else, or someone else found me, and that part of it was over.’
‘And then?’
‘We remained friends, thank God. Or thank Gonzalo. He was still generous with information and help, kept making contacts for me, and he had suddenly become avuncular – if that’s the word – towards me. We were friends, and he was older and protective.’ He stopped as if he’d just thought of something clever to say. ‘But time passes, and now he’s even older, but I’m the one who’s become protective.’
‘I see,’ Brunetti said, and they lapsed into silence.
Brunetti felt himself at a loss how to phrase what he wanted to ask Padovani. ‘Do you fear the worst?’ seemed archaic and exaggerated, but that was precisely what he wanted to know. Instead, he settled for the much more prosaic, ‘Do you worry about him?’
Padovani’s eyes grew serious. ‘Yes, and now that you’ve told me what you have, I’ll worry even more.’
Brunetti could think of nothing to say. He sat silent for some time and then asked, ‘Where does he come from, Torrebardo?’
‘Piemonte, but I don’t know where.’
‘Have you been in their company?’
‘You mean his and Gonzalo’s?’
Brunetti nodded, and when Padovani failed to answer, asked, ‘Well?’
Padovani started to respond but was interrupted by the return of the waiter, who led six Chinese tourists into the small room but was careful to seat them at the table farthest from Brunetti and Padovani. He handed out six menus and said he’d be back soon to take their orders. The tourists opened them and set to talking quietly among themselves.
Padovani picked up his menu and tapped Brunetti on the back of the hand with it. Smiling, he said, ‘No, I’ve never seen them together.’ His smile appeared for a moment, then vanished. ‘I don’t know why I’m being so unpleasant about this.’ An awkward replica of his smile flashed for a second, and then he said, ‘Remember, I’m hardly a neutral witness.’ He tossed the menu back on the table and said, ‘Besides, if Attilio is good to him and takes care of him, what’s wrong with that?’
‘That’s not how you sounded a moment ago,’ Brunetti said.
‘I told you I wasn’t a reliable witness.’ The journalist moved uncomfortably in his chair, shot back his sleeve to take a look at his watch, and then looked across at Brunetti. He pressed his lips together and shook his head. ‘I can’t say he’s a bad person. He’s selfish
and greedy, but so are many of the people in that world. He’s interested in living a comfortable life but, for that fact’ – he paused and gave a small puff of air – ‘so am I.’
‘You’ve switched over to the defence,’ Brunetti observed, ‘just in case you hadn’t noticed.’ He smiled as he said it, but Padovani failed to return the smile.
‘It’s called mixed feelings, Guido.’
To save time, Brunetti asked, ‘Would you trust Torrebardo?’
‘With what?’
‘A secret?’
‘If I told him it was not to be repeated, yes.’
‘Money?’
‘No,’ Padovani answered without hesitation. ‘He wants it too much, wants the things it will give him or let him have.’ He thought about this for a moment, shrugged, and added, ‘He’s still young. Well, seen from my age, he’s young. He still thinks that way.’
‘Most people do, whether they’re young or not,’ Brunetti said, adding, ‘And it usually doesn’t change when they get older.’
‘I know that,’ Padovani said and tried to smile. ‘But one does so like to believe that, just once, things will be different.’
‘And someone will love us for who we are, not for what we own?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Something like that,’ Padovani said, peeking down at the sugar dissolved in his cup.
‘You never knew my mother,’ Brunetti began, causing Padovani to stare across at him in confusion.
‘After my father died, I asked if she believed.’ When he saw that Padovani’s confusion remained, Brunetti added, ‘She’d always gone to Mass and always dragged me and my brother along with her. But she’d treated God like a distant relative, and I’d never known what she really believed. So I asked her if she believed our father was with God.’
He stopped but Padovani said nothing: Brunetti waited until the other man finally asked, ‘What did she say?’
‘“It would be nice.”‘
14
They spent another quarter-hour talking of many things but not returning to Torrebardo, nor to Gonzalo. The room gradually filled, and Brunetti decided they had occupied the table long enough. He caught the waiter’s attention and feigned writing in the air. The waiter was soon back and handed the bill to Brunetti, ignoring Padovani’s upraised hand.
Brunetti saw that they had been given the lower rate that was given to locals: he paid the waiter and added a tip that would do Padovani proud the next time he came. They emerged into the Piazza to feel that springtime had scampered back down south, leaving them with damp air and a breeze that must have passed through Siberia on the way to Venice.
‘We just have to get through the next few weeks,’ Brunetti said, ‘and the weather will come to its senses.’
Padovani stopped and said, in a surprisingly serious voice, ‘I think the weather’s lost its senses.’ He sounded remarkably like Chiara. The journalist shook Brunetti’s hand and walked off in the direction of the Accademia.
When Brunetti reached the Questura, the guard at the door stopped him, saying, ‘Commissario, there’s a man upstairs in your office, waiting for you.’
The officer was young and new to the force, so Brunetti used a moderate tone to ask, ‘Who is he?’ wondering what magistrate or official might have come to talk to him.
The man looked down to inspect his boots and mumbled something.
‘Excuse me, Coltro, I didn’t hear that.’
Still attentive to his boots, the officer said, ‘He wouldn’t say, sir.’
‘And you let him into my office?’
‘Well, sir, he’s a man of a certain age, and he’s dressed very well.’
‘That’s all it takes to get into my office?’ Brunetti asked, trying to remember what files had been on his desk, the desk he never bothered to lock.
‘He walked right past me, Commissario, and started up the stairs, and I had to get the key from my desk and lock the front door before I went after him, and by the time I got to him, he was going up to the second floor, but he was leaning over the railing and looked awful. He was gasping from the climb. His face was white and covered with sweat.’
Telling himself to speak normally, Brunetti asked, ‘What did you do?’
‘Rugoletto was coming down the stairs, and we sort of helped him – really, sir, it was more like we carried him – up to your office. I’m afraid we couldn’t think of anything else to do.’
‘Is he still there?’
‘I think so, sir. It was only a few minutes ago. Rugoletto went to his office to get him a glass of water, and I had to come back to open the entrance door. That’s when you came in.’
‘I see,’ Brunetti said and turned away. He walked to the steps and started up. At the first landing, he turned to Coltro and waved him back into his room. He continued up the stairs, walking quickly but taking the steps one at a time.
When he was halfway up, he heard loud footsteps pounding up the stairs behind him and turned to see Rugoletto leaping up two at a time. He was carrying a bottle of mineral water and a glass. When he reached Brunetti, the young officer stopped and held the glass up in a semi-salute. ‘Coltro told you, sir?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ Brunetti answered.
‘Do you want me to come along, sir?’
‘No, I’ll go and talk to him.’ Brunetti took the bottle and glass from the other man, thanked him, and continued up the stairs. At the door to his office he stuck his head inside to see who it was.
Gonzalo Rodríguez de Tejeda sat in one of the two chairs in front of Brunetti’s desk, elbow propped on one of the arms, head supported by his hand, the other hand hanging limp in his lap. A crumpled white handkerchief lay on the floor at his feet.
‘Ah, Gonzalo,’ Brunetti said in his most casual voice. ‘How nice of you to come and visit. It’s been too long since we’ve had a chance to talk.’ He set the bottle and glass on the desk and moved papers around for a moment, then turned to the seated Gonzalo and patted him a few times on the shoulder. ‘Let me get another glass,’ he said in his best housekeeping voice and went over to his bookcase, where he moved things around slowly until he found a glass and came back with it.
When Brunetti returned, Gonzalo was sitting upright, hands on the arms of his chair; there was no sign of the handkerchief.
‘May I give you a glass of water?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Yes, please, Guido,’ the older man said.
Brunetti filled a glass and handed it to him, then poured another one and set it on the desk in front of the second chair. He bent over Gonzalo, resting his hand on his shoulder for a moment, then shifted the second chair to face the older man’s, and sat. ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you arrived, Gonzalo. I was having a coffee with an old friend I haven’t seen in years.’ He closed his eyes at the memory. ‘He was at university with me and Paola.’
Sitting so much closer to Gonzalo now, and without any obstruction, he noticed how much his friend had aged in the time since their meeting in Campo Santi Apostoli. The smudges under his eyes had turned into ripples of dry skin. His lips had tightened and looked as though they would cave in, had his teeth not been there to offer resistance. His eyes had faded and grown faintly cloudy. But he sat up straight, no matter the effort it took him, had even managed to cross his legs in a decidedly casual manner.
‘How long has it been since you saw one another?’ Gonzalo asked, managing to make it sound as though he were really interested in casual conversation and catching up on what had happened to each of them since their last meeting. There was a new, exaggerated sibilance in his speech, a sound Brunetti associated with dentures, as he did the white perfection of Gonzalo’s smile.
‘I can’t remember exactly, but more than fifteen years. Paola keeps in touch with him.’
Setting his glass on the desk, Gonzalo said, ‘It can be a good thing, to stay in touch with old friends.’
Deciding not to take this as a reproach, Brunetti told himself to display no curiosity about why Gonzalo wa
s there, to behave as though it were the most normal thing in the world for him to drop in to talk about the value of maintaining old friendships.
Seeing that Gonzalo’s glass was empty, Brunetti drank the rest of the water in his own and refilled them both. When in doubt, talk about the weather, he knew. ‘It’s wonderful to have the feeling the warm weather is coming back,’ he said. When Gonzalo made no response, Brunetti added, ‘And that it stays light an hour later.’ Having exhausted his interest in things meteorological, he stopped talking and drank some more water, determined to let Gonzalo speak when he wanted to.
The older man leaned forward and placed his empty glass on the desk with a loud clack, having misjudged the distance. Brunetti started at the sound, but Gonzalo seemed not to have noticed it. He put his hands on the arms of his chair, extended the forefinger of his right hand and began to rub it back and forth across the wood. After a moment, his middle finger joined it, and together they rubbed away at the surface. Brunetti tightened his grip on the arms of his own chair and told himself not to speak.
Time passed. The room was so quiet that Brunetti thought he could hear the faint rubbing sound of Gonzalo’s fingers, though he knew that was impossible. Brunetti began to count to four and then to four again, something he had done at the beginning of his career to make the hours of surveillance pass, waiting for someone to leave a building or return to it at night. Doing so had never speeded things up, he recalled, but it had relieved some of the anxiety he felt at the need to endure nothingness.
Gonzalo gave in and broke the silence first. ‘I’ve come to ask you to do me a favour, Guido,’ he said in a firm voice. ‘It’s about Orazio.’
‘Yes?’ Brunetti asked neutrally.
‘It seems he’s going around the city asking questions about me.’ Brunetti heard the undercurrent of anger in the older man’s voice and saw it in the hands now anchored on the arms of his chair.
‘What is he asking questions about?’ Brunetti asked.
Gonzalo looked at him, making no attempt to hide his surprise. ‘If you weren’t Paola’s husband, I’d get up and leave,’ he said roughly. Then, accusingly, “He talked to you, too, didn’t he?” The anger took a few steps closer to Brunetti.