by Donna Leon
She smiled. ‘I give them money every year,’ she said. ‘But because I work where I do, I’ve never offered to have one stay with me, and I’m not involved in any way.’
Brunetti nodded and said, ‘That’s probably wise.’ Then he asked, ‘But you know the people who are?’
‘Yes,’ she said, sounding not at all eager to say so.
‘Could you …’ he began, not sure how to phrase his request. ‘Could you introduce me to them?’
‘And vouch for you?’ she asked with a smile.
‘Something like that.’
‘Now?’
‘When we get to the Questura,’ he said. Then he asked, ‘Do they know where you work?’
‘No,’ she said, waving the question away with her hand. ‘Just that I work for the city.’
‘Better that way,’ Brunetti said.
‘Yes.’
14
When they got to the Questura, Foa and his companion seemed happy to help Signorina Elettra with the flowers, so Brunetti went directly to his office. There were some reports and papers on his desk, most of them bureaucratic, and he spent some time looking through them.
The only thing that caught his interest was a request for information about a Romanian woman, one of whose names Brunetti recognized. They had arrested her at least a dozen times, each time under a different pseudonym, with a different place and date of birth. She had, it seemed, now turned up in Ferrara, where she had been arrested in the train station while trying to steal the purse of an off-duty policewoman. She refused to give any information other than her name, but in her pocket there was a receipt for a coffee from a bar in Castello, so the police in Ferrara had thought to contact them, sending the name she was using, photo, and fingerprints.
He called down to the archive, giving the alias she had used in Ferrara and the name he thought was on her file. When he heard the names, the archivist laughed and said, ‘And I thought we were rid of her.’
‘We are, but I’m afraid Ferrara is not,’ Brunetti said. ‘Could you send them a copy of the file?’
‘And so now she’ll get a letter from them, telling her to leave the country within forty-eight hours?’ Tomasini asked. Then, after a moment’s reflection, he said in a completely serious voice, ‘I think what we should do is declare ourselves an art cooperative and ask to be allowed to exhibit at the Biennale. All they have to do is give us the Italian pavilion.’
‘Who’s “us”?’
‘Everyone here, but me especially because I’ve got all the documents and the copies of the letters.’
‘What would you do with them?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Paper the walls of the entire pavilion. Not in any order; not chronological or alphabetical or according to crime. We’d just mix up a few thousand of them and paste them on the walls, all those letters telling the same people, time after time, that they have forty-eight hours to leave the country because of the crime they’ve committed. And we call it something like, “Italia Oggi.”’
All joking fled from the archivist’s voice as he asked, ‘It’s the right title, isn’t it? This is Italy today.’ When Brunetti did not answer, the younger man repeated, ‘Isn’t it?’
‘Fabio,’ Brunetti said in a level voice, ‘send the file to Ferrara, all right?’
‘Sì, Dottore,’ he answered and replaced his phone.
The ecologists never tired of saying that the city was going to be under water in a number of years: though the number of years changed, no one questioned the prediction. When, Brunetti wondered, would the entire country be under papers? The walls in the rooms at the back of the ground floor were already lined with metal racks filled with files that reached from the floor to ten centimetres short of the ceiling. The acqua alta of three years ago had destroyed the first two shelves, long before they had been put into the computerized system, and so that part of the record of criminal behaviour had effectively been destroyed. Maybe Tomasini was on to something: surely the walls of a Biennale exhibit could be no less evanescent than the files downstairs.
His phone rang. ‘I’ve spoken to them, Commissario,’ Signorina Elettra said. ‘Shall I come up and tell you?’
‘Yes. Please.’
She arrived preceded by flowers. ‘I’m afraid I went a bit overboard this morning, Dottore,’ she said as she came in. ‘So I’d like to leave some here, if you don’t mind.’ They were tall things that looked like daisies, white and yellow, and they brought some cheer into the room. She set the vase on his desk, stood back and studied them, and then moved the vase over to the windowsill. Satisfied, she came back and sat in one of the chairs in front of his desk.
‘I got the telefonino number of the woman who runs it,’ she said, placing a piece of paper on his desk. ‘Maddalena Orsoni. She’s very bright.’
‘Bright enough to what?’ Brunetti asked.
‘To wonder why the police are interested in Signora Altavilla. And her death.’
‘If I say it’s only routine?’
‘She won’t believe you,’ Signorina Elettra said quickly. ‘She’s been dealing with the authorities for years, and with the social services, and with the men these women are hiding from. So she can spot a liar at ten metres, and she isn’t likely to believe you.’
‘And if I’m not lying about her death?’
‘Commissario, even I suspect you’re lying.’
Brunetti thought about trying to bluster but abandoned the idea. He waited for her to continue.
‘Remember, Signore, the only habitual liar I have to deal with is Lieutenant Scarpa, so I’ve really not developed the skill. Maddalena has,’ she said. Once again, with her embedded comment on the Lieutenant, she had left Brunetti uncertain how to deal with her criticism of a superior.
‘If you think I shouldn’t talk to her, then how can I ask her about Signora Altavilla?’ he asked, preferring to avoid the subject of Lieutenant Scarpa.
She smiled at his question and said, ‘I’m afraid we’ve been talking at cross-purposes, Commissario. I’m not suggesting that you don’t speak to her. Just that you don’t lie to her. If you treat her honestly, then she’ll do the same.’
‘You know her that well?’ he asked.
‘No. But I know people who do.’
‘I see,’ he said, choosing not to enquire about that, either. He pulled the piece of paper towards him, held up a hand to stop her from getting to her feet, and dialled the number.
On the third ring, a women answered with a neutral, ‘Sì?’
‘Signora Orsoni,’ he said, ‘this is Commissario Guido Brunetti.’ He gave her a chance to ask, as many people would, why the police were calling, but she said nothing.
‘I’m calling about someone who worked for your organization, Alba Libera.’ Again, she said nothing. ‘Costanza Altavilla.’
This time Brunetti determined not to say anything else and waited until she asked, ‘In what way can I be useful to you, Commissario?’ Her voice was low, with no indication of age, nor was there a discernible accent. She was a woman who spoke precise Italian and that was all he could judge.
‘I’d like to talk to you about Signora Altavilla.’
‘For what purpose?’ she asked, sounding neutral, curious, but nothing more.
Burning his bridges, Brunetti said, ‘To see if there is reason to take a closer look at her death.’
Her response was delayed a few moments, but then she asked, voice still revealing nothing, ‘Does that mean that the press report was wrong and it wasn’t a heart attack, Commissario?’
‘No, there’s no question that the heart attack was the cause of her death,’ he said. Then, when that had registered, he added, ‘I’m curious about the possible circumstances of the heart attack.’
He glanced at Signorina Elettra, who did her best to give every appearance of taking no extraordinary interest in his side of the conversation.
‘And you’d like to speak to me?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘I�
�m not in the city at the moment,’ she said.
‘When will you be back?’
‘Perhaps tomorrow.’
‘And if I told you it was urgent that I speak to you?’ Brunetti asked.
‘I’d say what I’m doing is also urgent,’ she said, not offering an explanation.
Stalemate. ‘Then I’ll call you again,’ Brunetti said, quite pleasantly, as if he were inviting her to lunch.
‘Good,’ she said and hung up.
He replaced the phone, looked at Signorina Elettra, and said, ‘Too busy to see me.’
‘I’m told she is not one to undervalue herself, Maddalena,’ she said.
15
‘You’ve read the reports?’ Brunetti asked, his interest in and respect for her habit of reading all official documents with attention and scepticism overcoming any scruples he might have about her civilian status.
Signorina Elettra nodded.
‘And?’
‘The technicians were thorough,’ she said. Brunetti thought it best to forgo comment, which encouraged her to add, ‘The marks on her throat and back and the trauma to her back caught my attention.’
‘And mine,’ Brunetti said, deciding to follow the path of caution and say nothing about what Rizzardi had told him in private.
Her look was sharp, but her voice was calm when she said, ‘What a pity such things fail to rouse the doctor’s.’
‘That’s usually the case,’ Brunetti admitted.
‘Indeed.’ From her inflection, he had no idea if she were making a statement or asking a question about Rizzardi’s opinion. She continued: ‘You spoke to the nuns at the casa di cura in Bragora.’ This time there was no doubt about the question.
‘Yes.’
‘And?’ she asked, showing that two could play at Monosyllable.
‘And the nun with whom I spoke regarded her highly. The Mother Superior seemed forthcoming, but …’ he began and then drifted off, uncertain how to admit to his worst prejudice. She gave him no help, and so after a while he was constrained to continue. ‘But she’s from the South, so I sensed a certain …’
‘Reticence?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Vianello was with me.’
‘That usually helps,’ she said. ‘With women.’
‘Not this time. Perhaps because there were two of us. And we’re big.’
She looked across at him as though examining him for the first time. ‘I’ve never thought of either one of you as being particularly big,’ she said, then looked at him again. ‘But perhaps you are. How small was she?’
Brunetti, keeping his palm horizontal, brought it up to the centre of his chest.
Signorina Elettra nodded. He watched the animation leave her face and her eyes shift focus, two things he’d noticed in the past when her attention was captured by something. He knew enough to wait for her to come back to the conversation. When she did, she said, ‘I’ve often thought that nuns have a different reaction to men.’
‘Different in what way or from whose?’ he asked.
‘Different from women who …’ she paused, obviously unable to find the proper formulation ‘… from women who find them attractive.’
‘Do you mean in a romantic way?’
She smiled. ‘How delicately you put it, Commissario. Yes, “in a romantic way”.’
‘What’s different?’ Brunetti asked.
‘We’re less frightened of them,’ she said instantly but then added, ‘Or maybe it’s that we’re more likely to trust them because we’re more familiar with how their minds work.’
‘You think women do understand us?’
‘It’s a survival skill, Commissario.’ She smiled when she said it, but then her face grew serious and she said, ‘Maybe that really is the difference, because we live with men and deal with them every day and fall in love with them, and out of love with them. I think that must minimize our sense of the alien.’
‘Alien?’ Brunetti asked, unable to hide his surprise.
‘Different, at any rate,’ she said.
‘And nuns?’ he asked, drawing her back to what had started her down this path.
‘One whole area of interaction is closed down. Call it flirting if you want, Dottore. I mean that whole area where we play back and forth with the idea that the other person is attractive.’
‘You mean nuns don’t feel this?’ he asked, wondering at her use of the word ‘play’.
She gave a small shrug. ‘I have no idea if they do or they don’t. For their sake, I hope they do because if you manage to stifle that, then something’s gone wrong.’ Abruptly she got to her feet, both surprising him and, he realized, disappointing him that she did not want to continue with this subject.
‘You said the nun was reluctant to talk to you,’ she said, standing behind her chair. ‘If it wasn’t because of her feelings about men – and I think it would be hard for anyone to find Vianello threatening – then maybe it is because she’s a southerner or because there’s something she doesn’t want you to know. I’d never want to exclude that possibility.’ She smiled and was gone, leaving Brunetti to consider why she had not said she thought it would be hard for anyone to find him threatening.
He looked up and saw Lieutenant Scarpa at his door. Brunetti did his best to disguise his surprise and said, ‘Good morning, Lieutenant.’ He could never look at the Lieutenant without the word ‘reptile’ coming into his mind. It had nothing to do with the Lieutenant’s appearance, for indeed he was a handsome man: tall and slender, with a prominent nose and broad-spaced eyes over high cheekbones. Perhaps it had to do with a certain sinuosity in the way he moved, a failure to pick his feet up fully when he walked, which caused an undulant liquidity in his knees. Brunetti was reluctant to admit that he attributed it to his own belief that inside the man there was nothing but the icy chill found in reptiles and the far reaches of space.
‘Have a seat, Lieutenant,’ Brunetti said and folded his hands on his desk in a gesture of polite expectation.
The Lieutenant did as he was requested. ‘I’ve come to ask your advice, Commissario,’ he said, smoothing out the consonants in his Sicilian way.
‘Yes?’ Brunetti asked with rigorous neutrality.
‘It’s about two of the men in my squad.’
‘Yes?’
‘Alvise and Riverre,’ Scarpa said, and Brunetti’s sense of danger could have been no stronger had the man hissed.
Brunetti put a look of mild interest on his face, wondering what those two clowns had done now, and repeated, ‘Yes?’
‘They’re impossible, Commissario. Riverre can be trusted to answer the phone, but Alvise isn’t even capable of that.’ Scarpa bent forward and placed his palm on Brunetti’s desk, a gesture he had no doubt taught himself to make when he wanted to imitate sincerity and concern.
Brunetti could not have more strongly agreed with this assessment of the two men. Riverre, however, had a certain knack in getting adolescents to talk: no doubt by dint of fellow feeling. But Alvise was, in a word, hopeless. Or in two, hopelessly stupid. He recalled that Alvise had spent months working on a special project with Scarpa a few years ago: had the poor fool stumbled on something that might compromise the Lieutenant? If so, he had been too stupid to realize it, or surely the entire Questura would have known about it the same day.
‘I’m not sure I agree with you, Lieutenant,’ Brunetti lied. ‘Nor that I know why you’ve chosen to come to me about this.’ If the Lieutenant wanted something, Brunetti would oppose it. It was as simple as that.
‘I’d hoped that your concern for the safety of the city and the reputation of the force would encourage you to try to do something about them. That’s why I’ve come to ask your advice,’ he said, and then, the echo arriving with its usual tantalizing delay, ‘ … sir.’
‘I certainly appreciate your concern, Lieutenant,’ Brunetti said in his blandest voice. Then, getting to his feet, he added, trying to sound sorry about the fact, ‘But, unfortunately, I’m late for an
appointment and must leave now. But I’ll certainly consider your comments and…’ he began and then – to show that he was equally capable of making use of the echo – paused before adding, ‘and the spirit that animates them.’
Brunetti came around his desk and paused beside the Lieutenant, who had no choice but to get to his feet. Brunetti guided Scarpa out of his office, turned to close the door, something he seldom did, and then led the way downstairs. Brunetti nodded to the Lieutenant and crossed the lobby, not bothering to stop and talk to the guard. Outside, he decided to continue to Bragora and see if he could speak to any of the old people Signora Altavilla had befriended, convinced that listening to old people talk about their pasts, no matter how exaggerated their memories, would be vastly preferable to hearing the truth – especially from the likes of Lieutenant Scarpa – about Alvise and Riverre.
He thought he would take the longer route to Bragora and crossed the bridge into Campo San Lorenzo. Up close, Brunetti saw that the sign stating the date when the restoration of the church had begun had been bleached clean by the sun. He could no longer remember when they were supposed to begin – surely it was decades ago. People at the Questura said the work had actually started, but that was before Brunetti’s time, and so he had only rumour to rely upon. During the years he had stood at his window and studied the campo, he had seen the restoration of the casa di cura begin, continue, and even finish. Perhaps that was of greater importance than the restoration of a church.
He turned right and left a few times and found himself again passing the church of San Antonin. Then down the Salizada and out into the campo, where the trees still invited passers-by to sit for a while in their shade.
He crossed and rang the bell at the casa di cura. He announced himself and said he had come to speak to Madre Rosa. This time, a different nun, even older than Madre Rosa, waited for him at the door at the top of the stairs. Brunetti gave his name, entered, and turned to close the door himself. The nun smiled her thanks and led him to the room where he had already spoken to the Mother Superior.