by Donna Leon
‘Yes, he did: he asked me when I’d seen you last and how you were.’ Brunetti decided that this was how he’d remember the conversation with il Conte, for both of these things had happened.
‘Did he speak about a young man?’
With no hesitation, Brunetti answered, ‘Yes, he did.’
‘Did he ask if you’d seen us together?’
Brunetti let out a puff of air to suggest exasperation, something that occasionally happened when he dealt with the children. ‘I saw a young man at the dinner at Lodo’s, and I noticed that you spoke to him, but I didn’t pay it any special attention. I wasn’t introduced to him, and we never spoke.’
Gonzalo closed his eyes for long enough to allow Brunetti to refill both of their glasses. When he opened them, his face had grown calmer. ‘You and Paola were both there, I know, but we didn’t have time to talk. I’m sorry,’ he said.
Brunetti leaned towards him and patted the back of his hand. ‘We’re talking now, aren’t we, Gonzalo?’
Gonzalo pulled his lower lip inside his mouth. When he released it, Brunetti saw the marks his teeth had left. Gonzalo took the handkerchief from the pocket of his jacket and wiped it across his face before replacing it. He looked back at Brunetti and, with no introduction, said, ‘We’d had an argument. Before dinner.’
‘You and this young man?’ Brunetti asked, believing that Gonzalo lacked the energy to continue without being prodded into doing so. Gonzalo nodded.
‘What about?’ Brunetti asked, knowing it would lead him into a discussion he wanted to avoid.
‘Money,’ the older man said.
‘Ah,’ Brunetti sighed.
‘I was trying to persuade him to take a job as a researcher. I’ve been out of the art world for some time, and I haven’t stayed in touch with the people in it. I haven’t kept an eye on the market, well, not seriously, so I don’t know who’s up and who’s down.’ He paused to give Brunetti a chance to show that he was following. While Brunetti considered what to say, the older man’s eyes moved across the room, stopped at the government-issue print on the far wall, and quickly veered away.
Brunetti said, ‘I see,’ and Gonzalo picked up where he had left off.
‘I need someone who knows how to work a computer and can find the hammer prices in important auctions and tell me what sold in Hong Kong and at Art Basel and for how much. Unless I can get a sense of what’s happening, it would be a mistake even to think of getting involved again.’
Then why, Brunetti wondered, did he want to get involved again? Brunetti had little familiarity with the art business, but he suspected that no price list, however long or detailed, would provide sufficient information from which to launch Gonzalo’s re-entry into the art world. His understanding was that this world was much like any other cult: people talked to fellow believers in the language of belief, and dogma changed to follow the market. Both were about faith in winning entrance to Paradise, either final or fiscal.
‘You want to go back to working in that world?’ Brunetti asked, trying to pump enthusiasm into his voice.
Gonzalo gave one of his old full-power smiles. Even with the new teeth and the old face, it radiated the energy and charm that Brunetti had always seen in it. ‘It’s the only thing I ever knew much about,’ Gonzalo said and then, with the sense of timing that was so much a part of his humour, added, ‘except cattle farming, and I don’t see much of a future for that in Venice.’
Brunetti laughed, and the tension between them eased. ‘Did you go ahead with the plan?’ he asked, thinking this a better question to ask Gonzalo than whether he was going to disrupt his life with a rash decision only to give this young man a job.
Gonzalo shook his head. ‘He – Attilio – suggested I call around to my friends who still worked in the business and ask what they thought of the idea.’ His voice drifted away from this sentence and from whatever would have followed it.
‘Did you?’
Gonzalo nodded and said, shortly, ‘They told me not to do it.’
‘Ah,’ was all Brunetti managed to say. Like a dog jumping up to protect the home at the sound of the doorbell, his conversational feet slipped repeatedly on the polished marble floor of his mind, scratching back and forth, finding no purchase. ‘Perhaps better,’ he risked. ‘If your friends told you.’ How could he sound interested but not invasive?
As if he sympathized with Brunetti’s discomfort, Gonzalo said, ‘So I’ll remain a retired gentleman, and Attilio will not work for me.’
Brunetti could think of nothing to do but nod and smile, as if in approval.
Then, unsolicited, unasked, Gonzalo said the thing that dragged Brunetti, nails still leaving marks on the polish, to the opening of the door. ‘So I decided to find a better way to help him.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Brunetti yipped out.
‘To adopt him.’
‘Is that possible?’
Gonzalo considered this for some time before he answered. ‘With the right lawyers, yes.’
‘Ah,’ Brunetti managed to say again. Then, ‘Why are you telling me this, Gonzalo?’
The older man, surprised by the question, answered without thinking, ‘Because Orazio loves you and trusts you, so he might listen to you.’
‘If I said what?’ Brunetti asked, though he knew, he knew.
‘That it’s too late to stop me,’ Gonzalo began, his voice growing stronger with every phrase, though his face remained that of a tired old man. ‘He can stop asking my friends to try to dissuade me and stop trying to find evidence that I’ve lost my mind or that I’ve fallen into bad hands.’
Did this mean, Brunetti wondered, that Gonzalo had already adopted Attilio or that his decision would not be changed? He pressed his palms together and held them to his mouth. Releasing them, he asked, ‘Can’t you tell him yourself?’ then added, in an amiable, reasonable tone, ‘You’ve been friends for longer than I’ve been alive, after all.’
Gonzalo turned suddenly cold eyes on Brunetti. ‘Don’t try to discourage me, please, Guido.’
‘That’s not my intention, nor is it my business,’ Brunetti said instantly. ‘I simply don’t want to get involved in this.’
‘Well, you are involved in it,’ Gonzalo said coolly.
Brunetti had learned early in his life that the best way to defend a weak position was to attack. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ he asked, releasing all of the irritation this situation was causing him.
‘That you’re related to Orazio – by law and by love – and you have a chance to stop him from doing something foolish, something he’ll regret.’
Brunetti resisted the temptation to tell this old man that neither he nor his friend Orazio had enough life left to risk soiling and spoiling it with something like this. Paola was forever telling him that every interchange men had was about power and who had more of it, and here was more evidence.
Thoroughly out of patience, he said, ‘This is not my business, Gonzalo. I assume you’re doing this in order to ensure this man inherits everything from you, rather than providing him with only a part of it.’ Gonzalo held up a hand in protest, but Brunetti’s feet were on the carpet now, and he had more than enough traction to take himself wherever he wanted to go. ‘You could simply start giving him whatever you want. Now. Just take it from wherever you keep it and give it to him, and name him as the heir of whatever portion the law allows you to give him in your will. If anything happens that makes you change your mind about him, then you can change your will. Until then, you simply liquidate any assets you want and give it to him. In cash. No tax. No traces.’
Gonzalo leaned forward then and said in a tight voice, ‘And this from the man who said he didn’t want to get involved.’ Then, almost with disdain, ‘But who conveniently has it all worked out already.’ He raised his hands and made a brushing gesture with his fingers that removed Brunetti from his life.
‘If I tell you what your lawyer would tell you …’ Brunetti began, pulling himself ba
ck from anger. When he saw the flash of uneasiness in Gonzalo’s eyes, he added, ‘and probably has already told you, I’m not getting involved; I’m merely giving you the advice any lawyer would give you.’
It was obvious from the way Gonzalo stared that he had not expected to hear this from Brunetti. He was surprised at the source, Brunetti was convinced, not at the remarks.
Deciding to spare Gonzalo nothing, he went on. ‘Once you adopt him – or anyone – there’s no going back, Gonzalo. You can’t open the door and offer everything you own to a person, then change your mind and close it in his face.’
Brunetti’s anger dissipated as soon as he stopped speaking, and he felt guilty about the way he’d spoken to this old man, slapping him in the face with the law. He was ashamed of his own cowardice in not admitting to Gonzalo that he knew far more than he seemed to know or would admit to knowing. And what did it matter to him, anyway, where Gonzalo’s money went, whether he left it to this young man or let it go to his brother and sisters? Or lost it on the slot machines, as so many retired people did every month?
Brunetti looked at Gonzalo’s face then and saw him nod, then try to speak. A noise, but no words, emerged. He held up a hand, asking Brunetti to be patient, and cleared his throat a few times. Finally, he said, ‘That’s all right, Guido. I know your heart.’ Brunetti thought he said something else, but he couldn’t make it out.
‘Excuse me, Gonzalo. I didn’t hear.’
The older man looked at him directly. ‘It’s because you can’t understand, Guido,’ he said. Then, almost as though he were afraid of having offended him, he placed his veined hand on Brunetti’s and said, ‘It’s because you’re surrounded by love, Guido. You swim in it. You have Paola, and Chiara, and Raffi; you even have Orazio and Donatella, who love you, too. You have so much of it,’ he began and then broke into a smile, ‘that you probably don’t even notice it.’
Gonzalo stopped, and Brunetti sat, mute, resisting the impulse to take his hand away or, worse, make a joke. He waited.
‘I miss it, Guido. Being loved. I had it in the past, so I know what’s gone from my life.’ He gave Brunetti’s hand a pat and then released it. Brunetti pulled his hand back and put it in his lap with the other.
‘I’m thirsty for someone to love,’ Gonzalo said. And then he added, ‘And I’ve found him.’
‘Are you sure?’ Brunetti couldn’t stop himself from asking.
Gonzalo looked across at him again and said, ‘Don’t pity me, Guido. The pity of the people we love is worse than the pity of strangers.’
‘I don’t pity you, Gonzalo,’ Brunetti said, telling the truth. ‘I’m merely worried that this is fake.’ There. He’d said it, delivered his warning. But he felt no better.
Gonzalo raised his chin and put his hand over his heart, both gestures that spoke of exaggeration. ‘But what I feel isn’t fake, Guido.’
Brunetti sat, unable for a minute to speak. Finally he said, ‘I’m sorry, Gonzalo. This is none of my business, and I should keep my mouth shut. It’s your right to do whatever will make you happy.’
The lines on Gonzalo’s face seemed to have deepened in the last half-hour; his mouth seemed set in sad resignation. ‘That’s what’s wrong, that’s what I don’t know.’
‘What?’
‘What will make me happy.’
15
It flashed through Brunetti’s mind that it was a bit late in the game for Gonzalo to be saying this. Il Gazzettino had recently printed a story about the trouble many women carers from the East had with their male employers or patients. Many of these old gaffers, some of them in their nineties, made sexual advances to the women – almost all of whom were young – threatening to accuse them of theft or mistreatment if they did not make the concessions the old men demanded. Sexual access to these women would no doubt make them happy, but that hardly turned their happiness into a Holy Grail before which all must bow.
‘Do you know what will make him happy?’ Brunetti risked asking, regretting it as soon as he’d said it. He wanted to stay out of this, regardless of his friendship, or Orazio’s friendship, with Gonzalo.
‘He says it makes him happy to be with me and learn about art and the art market, who the people in it are, who the artists are.’
Gonzalo must have read Brunetti’s face when he heard this, for he quickly added, ‘But not only that: he wants to understand why some painters are better than others. In artistic terms, not in terms of sales.’
Or so he says, Brunetti caught himself thinking, then asked himself why he had taken a stand against this man to whom he had never spoken. Padovani himself had at least admitted he was not a neutral witness.
Gonzalo, his gaze fixed on the floor, began to speak again. ‘He’s so much like the way I was when I was his age. Clever, curious, eager to learn. I want him to be able to …’ Failing to bring the sentence to an end, he raised his head and looked at Brunetti. He smiled, but there was no happiness in it; quite the contrary. ‘To be able to love …’ he began before Brunetti saw pride slam the door of his mouth.
No, Brunetti realized, Gonzalo didn’t want the young man to learn or have an opportunity to study art. He wanted him to feel grateful to him and love him because of that. He had no idea whether to laugh or weep at this old man’s near-confession, for that’s what it had been. Gonzalo must somewhere be aware of his illusions. Brunetti excluded any other interpretation of events or motivation. The young man was merely another of the bright young things, men and women both, making compromises on their way down the long road towards success. Gonzalo had known many, Brunetti was sure, but now time’s wingèd chariot was hurrying near.
‘There’s something else,’ Gonzalo said in a tired voice.
‘What is that, Gonzalo?’ Brunetti asked in a tone he fought to make sound interested.
Gonzalo took his handkerchief and wiped his mouth again, then put it back in his pocket. ‘It’s hard to explain.’
Brunetti sat, a statue.
‘My things,’ Gonzalo said. ‘I don’t know what to do with them.’
‘Which things?’ Brunetti asked.
It took Gonzalo a long time to answer: Brunetti thought he might be preparing a list.
Finally the old man said, ‘All of them. Everything.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t understand,’ Brunetti said.
Time passed. Gonzalo looked out the window. Finally he turned, looked at Brunetti, and said, ‘Think of that Canaletto you have.’
‘The one in the kitchen?’ Brunetti asked, utterly lost.
Gonzalo nodded and uncrossed his legs. ‘You’ve told me for years that Chiara loves it.’
‘Yes, she does,’ Brunetti responded. He didn’t understand why Chiara loved the painting or why Gonzalo remembered that she did.
‘That’s just it,’ Gonzalo said, his voice suddenly grown eager with the desire to explain. ‘She loves it, so you and Paola know what to do with it: you can give it to her.’ He looked at Brunetti and, seeing he didn’t understand, said, ‘It’s something you love, and you know it will go to someone who loves it.’
When Brunetti didn’t speak, Gonzalo leaned forward in his chair to move closer. ‘Guido, I’ve spent a lifetime collecting beautiful things, and I love them. But now I don’t know where any of them will go. They’ll be divided up among my brother and sisters, or be sent to auction and sold to strangers who won’t feel anything for them.’
There was nothing Brunetti could say.
Gonzalo sat back in his chair and re-crossed his legs. ‘You thought I was going to call them my children, didn’t you?’ he asked lightly in the whimsical voice Brunetti remembered.
‘No, I didn’t think that,’ Brunetti answered, hiding his uncertainty.
‘I’m not that far gone yet, Guido,’ the old Gonzalo said. Then, calmly, ‘They’re beautiful, and I’d like them to go to someone who will appreciate the beauty in them.’
‘If he doesn’t?’ Brunetti asked.
Gonzalo gave a on
e-sided grin and said, ‘Then I’ve been a silly old queen and given it all away.’
‘Instead of?’ Brunetti inquired.
‘Instead of being someone who collected beautiful things and made a good choice about passing them on.’
‘Is that better?’ Brunetti asked, knowing he shouldn’t. He had, he realized, come to the end of his patience. He put his hand on Gonzalo’s arm and gave it a brief squeeze. ‘I think it might be better if you went home, Gonzalo. This conversation has upset us both.’ The older man nodded in agreement and he seemed to soften and sink into the chair.
‘Is someone at home, Gonzalo?’
The older man nodded again. ‘Maria Grazia. You know her.’
Brunetti recalled the woman, from Umbria, wintry in aspect, dedicated to her padrone. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Could you give me her number?’ He punched it into his phone as Gonzalo recited it. When a woman answered with no more than ‘Pronto,’ Brunetti asked if this were the home of Signor Rodríguez de Tejeda, and she said it was and asked who was calling.
Brunetti explained that he was Signor Brunetti, an old friend of Signor Gonzalo, and that he was sending him home in a boat and wanted to be sure that someone was there to meet it. The woman sounded relieved to hear this and asked to speak to il Signore. Brunetti passed the phone to Gonzalo.
Even if the old man still looked limp and shattered, his voice was firm and almost bold when he said he’d be home in twenty minutes and hoped she’d gone out to get the papers so he’d have something to read when he got there. The woman’s relief, though not her words, was audible even to Brunetti, and then the conversation was over. Gonzalo placed the phone in Brunetti’s extended palm but held on to it and lifted his other hand to support Brunetti’s from beneath. He pressed on it with both of his by way of thanks.
Brunetti called Rugoletto and asked if he’d mind coming to his office for a moment, then called Foa and asked if he could do him a favour and take a friend of his to his home in Cannaregio.