Through A Glass Darkly

by Donna Leon

  'Could you give us an example?' Brunetti asked.

  This seemed to stump Navarro for a moment, as though a request to supply evidence to support a judgement were a novelty for him. He drank a glass of wine, filled his glass and drank another, then ate two more grissini. Finally he said, 'He'll always hire garzoni and let them go before they can become serventi so he won't have to pay them more. He'll keep them for a year or so, working off the books or working with two-month contracts, but then when it's time for them to move up, and get more money, he fires them. Invents some reason to get rid of them, and hires new ones.'

  'How long can he go on doing this?' Vianello asked.

  Navarro shrugged. 'So long as there are boys who need jobs, he can probably go on doing it for ever.'

  'What else?'

  'He argues and fights.'

  'With?' Vianello asked.

  'Suppliers, workers, the guys on the boats who bring the sand or the guys on the boats who take the glass away. If there's money involved— and there's money involved in all of this—then he'll argue with them.'

  'I've heard about a fight in a bar a couple of years ago . . .' Brunetti began and let his voice drop away.

  'Oh that’ Navarro said. 'It's probably the one time the old bastard didn't start it. Some guy said something he didn't like and De Cal said something back, and the guy hit him. I wasn't there, but my brother was. Believe me, he hates De Cal more than I do, so if he said the old bastard didn't start it, then he didn't.'

  'What about his daughter?' Brunetti asked.

  Before Navarro could answer, the waiter brought their pasta and set the plates in front of them. Conversation stopped as the three men dug into the spaghetti. The waiter returned with three empty plates for the shells.

  'Peperoncino,' Brunetti said, mouth full.

  'Good, eh?' Navarro said.

  Brunetti nodded, took a sip of wine, and returned to the spaghetti, which was better than good. He had to remember to tell Paola about the peperoncino, which was more than she used but still good.

  When their plates were empty and the other plates full of shells, the waiter came and took them all away, asking if they had eaten well. Brunetti and Vianello said enthusiastic things: Navarro, a regular customer, was not obliged to comment.

  Soon the waiter was back with a bowl of potatoes and the fish: Brunetti's was already filleted. Navarro asked for olive oil, and the waiter returned with a bottle of much better oil. All three poured it on their fish but not on the potatoes, which already sat in a pool of it at the bottom of the bowl. None of them spoke for some time.

  While Vianello spooned the last of the potatoes from the bowl, Brunetti returned to his questions and asked, 'His daughter, do you know much about her?'

  Navarro finished the wine and held up the empty carafe to get the waiter's attention. 'She's a good girl, but she married that engineer.'

  Brunetti nodded. 'Do you know him or know anything about him?'

  'He's an ecologist’ Navarro said, using the same sort of tone another person might use to identify a pederast or a kleptomaniac. It was meant to end discussion. Brunetti allowed it to pass and decided to play ignorant. 'Does he work here on Murano?' he asked.

  'Ah, thank God, no,' Navarro said, taking the litre of white wine from the waiter's hand and filling all of their glasses. 'He works on the mainland somewhere, goes around looking for places where we'll still be allowed to put our garbage.' He drank a half-glass of wine, perhaps thought of Ribetti's professional duties, and finished the glass.

  'We've got two perfectly good incinerators here, so why can't we just burn it all? Or if it's dangerous, just bury it somewhere in the countryside or ship it to Africa or China. Those people will let you pay for that. So why not do it? They've got all those open spaces, so just bury it there.'

  Brunetti allowed himself a quick glance at Vianello, who was finishing the last of his potatoes. He set his knife and fork down on his plate and, as Brunetti feared he would, opened his mouth to speak to Navarro. 'If we built nuclear plants, then we could do the same thing with the waste from them, and then we wouldn't have to import all that electricity from Switzerland and France, either.' Vianello gave a manly smile, first to Navarro and then to Brunetti.

  'Yes’ said Navarro. 'I hadn't thought about that, but it's a good idea.' Smiling, he turned back to Brunetti, 'What else did you want to know about De Cal?'

  I've heard there's talk he wants to sell the fornace,' Vianello interrupted, now that Navarro had looked on him with approval.

  'Yes. I've heard that, too’ Navarro said, not much interested. 'But there's always talk like that.' He shrugged off such talk, then added, 'Besides, if anyone buys it, it'll be Fasano. He's got the factory right alongside De Cal's, so if he bought it, he'd only have to join the two buildings together and he'd double his production.' Navarro thought about this possibility for a while and nodded.

  'Fasano runs the Glassmakers' Association, doesn't he?' Vianello asked as the waiter arrived with another bowl of potatoes. Vianello let the waiter spoon a few onto his plate, but Navarro and Brunetti said no.

  In answer to Vianello's question, Navarro smiled at the waiter and said, "That's what he does now, but who knows what he wants to become?' Hearing this, the waiter nodded and turned away.

  Brunetti feared the conversation was veering away from De Cal, so he interrupted to say, 'I've heard there's been talk that De Cal's been threatening his son-in-law.'

  'You mean that he says he's going to kill him?'

  'Yes’ Brunetti said.

  'He's said it in the bars, but he was usually drunk when he said it. Drinks too much, the old bastard’ Navarro said, filling his glass again. 'He's got diabetes and shouldn't drink, but. . .' Navarro paused and considered something for a moment, then said, "That's funny. You know, in the last couple of months he's started to look worse, like the disease is really getting to him.'

  Brunetti, who had seen the old man only once some weeks before, had no point of comparison: he had seen an old man weakened and perhaps fuddled by years of drink.

  'I'm not sure this is a legitimate question, Signor Navarro’ Brunetti began, taking a sip of wine he did not want. 'You think there's any real threat?'

  'You mean that he'd really kill him?'

  'Yes.'

  Navarro finished his wine and put the glass on the table. He made no move to help himself to more and called to the waiter for three coffees. After he had given the order, he returned to Brunetti's question and at last said, 'I think I'd rather not answer that, Commissario.'

  The waiter cleared away their plates. Both Brunetti and Vianello said that the meal had been excellent, and Navarro seemed more pleased than the waiter to hear them say it. When the coffee came, he put two packets of sugar into his cup, stirred it, looked at his watch, and said, 'I've got to get back to work, gentlemen.' He stood and shook hands with both of them, called over to the waiter that the bill was his and that he'd pay it the next day. Brunetti started to object, but Vianello stood and put out his hand again and thanked the older man. Brunetti did the same.

  Navarro smiled one last time and said, 'Take good care of my sister's boy for me, all right?' He went over to the door, opened it, and was gone.

  Brunetti and Vianello sat back down. Brunetti drank the last of his coffee, looked over at Vianello, and asked, 'Did Pucetti call you?'

  'Yes.'

  'What did he say?'

  "That you were coming out here and maybe I should join you.'

  Undecided as to whether he liked it or not, Brunetti finally said, 'I liked that about the nuclear waste.'

  'I'm sure it's a feeling in which you are joined by countless people in the government,' Vianello said.

  9

  'Oh my, oh my, oh my’ Vianello said, directing his attention to the entrance of the trattoria. Brunetti, curious, started to turn around, but Vianello put a hand on his arm and said, 'No, don't look.' When Brunetti was facing him again, Vianello said, unable to disguise
his surprise, 'What Navarro said about De Cal is true: he looks much worse than he did the last time.'

  'Where is he?'

  'He just came in and he's standing at the bar, having a drink.'

  'Alone or with someone?'

  'He's with someone’ Vianello answered. 'And that's what's interesting.'

  'Why?'

  'Because he's with Gianluca Fasano.'

  An involuntary 'ah' escaped Brunetti and then he said, 'Not only President of the Glass-makers of Murano, but, as I've heard a few times and as even Navarro seems to know, a man who might be very interested in becoming our next mayor.'

  'Right on both counts’ Vianello said, raising his glass in Brunetti's direction but not taking a sip. 'Complimenti.' He kept his eyes on Brunetti's face, but occasionally shifted his head to one side and cast his attention towards the two men standing at the bar. If the men looked in their direction, Brunetti realized, they would see two men at a table, one with his back to them. The only time De Cal had seen Vianello, he had been in uniform: without it, he could be anyone. Vianello nodded in the direction of the two men and said, 'Be interesting to know what they're saying, wouldn't it?'

  'De Cal's a glassmaker, and Fasano's their leader,' Brunetti said. 'I don't see much of a mystery there.'

  'There are more than a hundred fornaci’ Vianello said. 'De Cal's is one of the smallest.'

  'He's got a fornace to sell,' Brunetti argued.

  'He's got a daughter to inherit,' Vianello countered. The Inspector reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out five Euros. 'At least we can tip,' he said, putting the bill on the table.

  'Probably give the waiter in a place like this a seizure,' Brunetti said. He saw Vianello shift in his chair and asked, 'Are they still there?'

  'De Cal's paying.' After a minute, Vianello got quickly to his feet, saying, 'I want to see where they go.'

  Brunetti doubted that De Cal, who had been beside himself with anger the one time they met, would remember him, but he stayed at the table and let Vianello go outside by himself.

  After a few minutes, Vianello came back; Brunetti got to his feet and went over to join him at the door. 'Well?' he asked.

  "They walked down to the water and turned left, down to a dirt path and turned left again. Then they went back to some buildings on the other side of an empty field.'

  'Do you have your telefonino?' Brunetti asked.

  Vianello took his phone from the pocket of his jacket and held it up.

  'Why don't you call that classmate of yours who told you the love story about Assunta and ask him where De Cal's factory is?'

  Vianello flipped the phone open, found the number and called. Brunetti heard him ask the question, then explain that they were at Nanni's. He watched as Vianello nodded his way through his friend's explanation, thanked him and hung up. 'That's where De Cal's place is: down at the end of that path, the buildings on the right. Just beside Fasano's.'

  'You think that's important?' Brunetti asked.

  Vianello shrugged. 'I don't know, not really. I'm interested because of what I've read in the papers—that Fasano's suddenly discovered ecology, or suddenly discovered his commitment to it.'

  Brunetti had a vague memory of having read something along these lines, some months ago, and of having had a similarly cynical response, but he simply asked, "That's the way it happens to most people, though, isn't it?' Brunetti left it to Vianello to realize, or not, that it was precisely what had happened to him.

  'Yes’ Vianello admitted, though reluctantly. 'Maybe it's because of his interest in politics. Once someone says they're thinking about public office, I start to get suspicious of anything they do or say'

  Though he had taken a few steps, Brunetti was not yet this far along the road to total cynicism, and so he said, 'It's other people who are saying it about him, if I remember correctly'

  'It's one of the things politicians love the most: popular acclamation,' Vianello replied.

  'Come on, Lorenzo’ Brunetti said, unwilling to continue with this subject. Remembering the other thing he could usefully do while he was on Mu-rano, he explained about Assunta's visit and said he wanted to go and talk to one of the men who had heard her father threaten Ribetti. He told Vianello he would see him back at the Questura. They walked out to the riva, and Vianello went down to the Sacca Serenella stop to wait for the 41.

  Assunta had told him Bovo lived just on the other side of the bridge, in Calle drio i Orti, and he found the calle with little trouble. He walked as far as Calle Leonarducci without finding the house and turned to go back and check more closely. This time he found the number and Bovo's name among those on the doorbells. He rang and waited, then rang again. He heard a window open above him, stepped back, and looked up. A child, from this vantage point its age and sex unclear, stuck its head out of a third-floor window and called, 'Si?'

  'I'm looking for your father,' Brunetti called up.

  'He's down at the bar,' the child called back in a voice so high it could have belonged to either a boy or a girl.

  'Which one?'

  A tiny hand stuck out the window, pointing to Brunetti's left. 'Down there,' the voice called, and then the child disappeared.

  The window remained open, so Brunetti called his thanks up to it and turned to return to Calle Leonarducci. At the corner he came to a window covered to chest height with curtains that had begun life as a red-and-white check but had moved into a wrinkled, hepatic middle age. He opened the door and walked into a room more filled with smoke than any he could remember having entered in years. He went to the bar and ordered a coffee. He displayed no interest in the barman's tattoos, a pattern of intertwined serpents that encircled both wrists with their tails and ran up his arms until they disappeared under the sleeves of his T-shirt. When the coffee came, Brunetti said, I'm looking for Paolo Bovo. His kid told me he was here.'

  'Paolo’ the barman called towards a table at the back, where three men sat around a bottle of red wine, talking, 'the cop wants to talk to you.'

  Brunetti smiled and asked, 'How come everyone always knows?'

  The barman's smile was equal in warmth to Brunetti's, though not in the number of teeth exposed. 'Anyone who talks as good as you do has to be a cop.'

  'A lot of people talk as well as I do’ Brunetti said.

  'Not the ones who want to see Paolo’ he answered, wiping at the counter with an unusually clean cloth.

  Brunetti sensed movement to his left and turned to meet a man of his own height, who appeared to have lost not only all of his hair but at least twenty of the kilos Brunetti was carrying. From this distance, Brunetti could see that he had lost his eyebrows and eyelashes as well, which explained the pale greasiness of his skin.

  Brunetti extended his hand and said, 'Signor Bovo?' At the man's nod, Brunetti asked, 'May I offer you something to drink?'

  Bovo declined with a shake of his head. In a deep voice presumably left over from his former body, he said, 'I've got some wine back with my friends.' He shook Brunetti's hand and Brunetti read on his face the effort it cost him to make his grip firm. He spoke in Veneziano, with a Muranese accent of the sort that Brunetti and his friends used to imitate for comic effect.

  'What do you want?' Bovo asked. He rested one elbow on the bar, succeeding in making the gesture look casual rather than necessary. Before his illness, Brunetti realized, this situation would have been charged with aggression, perhaps even danger: now the best the man could manage was gruffness.

  'You know Giovanni De Cal’ Brunetti said and stopped.

  Bovo said nothing for some time. He looked at the barman, who was pretending to take no interest in their conversation; then he glanced back at the men he had left at the table. Brunetti watched him weighing the chances that, reduced to no power except words, he could still impress his friends with his toughness. 'The bastard wouldn't give me a job.'

  'When was that?'

  'When that bastard at the other fornace fired me’ he said but off
ered no further information.

  'Why did he fire you?' Brunetti asked.

  Brunetti watched his question register with Bovo, saw in his eyes the confusion it caused him, as if he had never given the matter any thought.

  Finally Bovo said, 'Because I couldn't lift things any more.'

  'What sort of things?'

  'Bags of sand, the chemicals, the barrels we have to move. How was I supposed to lift them if I couldn't even bend down to tie my shoes?'

  Brunetti said, ‘I don't know.' He waited some time before asking, 'And then what happened?'

  'Then I left. What else could I do?' Bovo moved a bit closer to the bar and put his other elbow on it, shifting his weight as he changed arms.

  This conversation seemed not to be going anywhere, so Brunetti decided to return to his original point. 'I'd like to know what you heard De Cal say about Ribetti and if you could tell me the circumstances.'

  Bovo called the barman over and asked for a glass of mineral water. When it came, he lifted it to salute Brunetti and drank some of it. He put the glass back on the bar and said, 'He was in here one night after work. He usually doesn't come in here: got his own bar he goes to, down towards Colonna, but they were closed or something, so he came in here.' He looked at Brunetti to see that he was following, and Brunetti nodded.

  'So he was sitting there, in the back, when I came in. He was being the big man with his friends, drinking and talking about how many orders he had, and how people always wanted his glass pieces, and how someone from the museum asked if they could have a piece for a show.' He looked at Brunetti and pursed his lips, as if to ask him if he had ever heard anything so ridiculous.

  'Did he see you?'

  'Of course he saw me,' Bovo said. "This was six months ago.' He said it with pride, as though boasting of some other person whose every entrance was sure to be noted by everyone in the place.

  'What happened?'

  'Some friends of mine were at another table, so I went back to have a drink with them. No, we weren't close: there was a table between us. I sat down and I guess he sort of forgot about me. And after a while he started to talk about his son-in-law: the usual shit he always says, that he's crazy and married Assunta for her money and doesn't know anything and just cares about animals. We've all heard it a thousand times, ever since Assunta married him.'