Suffer the Little Children cgb-16

by Donna Leon

  He went into the living room and found her, as he expected to, supine on the sofa, a book dropped open on her chest. He walked over to her and bent to squeeze one of her feet.

  'Twenty years ago, you would have bent down and kissed me,' she said.

  'Twenty years ago, my back would not have hurt when I did,' he answered, then bent down and kissed her. When he stood, he pressed a melodramatic hand to his lower back and staggered, a broken man, towards the kitchen. 'Only wine can save me’ he gasped.

  In the kitchen, the mingled aromas of baking pastry and something both sweet and sharp greeted him. With no effort and no protest, he bent to look through the glass door of the oven and saw the deep glass baking tray Paola always used for crespelle: this time with zucchini and what looked like peperoni gialli: that explained both aromas.

  He opened the refrigerator and had a look. No, with the cooler weather Brunetti suddenly wanted a red. From the cabinet he took a bottle of something called Masetto Nero and studied the label, uncertain where it had come from.

  He walked back to the door of the living room. 'What's Masetto Nero and where did it come from?'

  'If it's from a vineyard called Endrizzi, it's something my father sent over’ she said, her eyes not leaving the page.

  This explanation left Brunetti more than a little confused, for he could not determine the dimensions of 'sent over' when Count Orazio Falier was the person doing the sending. Sent his boat over with a dozen cases? Sent one of his employees over with a single bottle for them to taste? Had bought the vineyard and sent over a few bottles to ask what they thought of it?

  He went back to the kitchen counter and opened the wine. He sniffed at the cork after he pulled it out, though he never quite knew what he was meant to smell there. It smelled like a cork from a wine bottle: most of them did. He poured two glasses and carried them back to the living room.

  He set her glass down beside her, then sat in the space she created by pulling her feet back. He sipped. And hoped the Count had bought the vineyard. 'What are you reading?' he asked, seeing that she had returned to the book, though the glass was in her other hand and she seemed pleased with what she tasted.

  ‘Luke.'

  In all these years, she had never dared to refer even to her beloved Henry James with anything but his full name, nor had Jane Austen been exposed to the affront of unsolicited familiarity. 'Luke who?'

  ‘Luke the Evangelist.'

  'As in the New Testament?' he asked, though he could think of nothing else that Luke might have written.

  'Even so.'

  'What about?'

  'All that stuff about doing to others what you would have them do unto you.'

  'Does that mean you'll get up to get the next bottle?' he asked.

  She allowed the book to fall to her chest, he thought a little bit melodramatically. She sipped at her wine and raised her eyebrows in appreciation. ‘It’s fabulous, but I think one bottle might tide us through until dinner, Guido’ She sipped again.

  ‘Yes, it's very good, isn't it?' he asked.

  She nodded and took another sip.

  After some time, he asked, curious to learn why someone like Paola was reading Luke. 'And what particular reflections did that text encourage in you?'

  'I love it when you try to sweet-talk me with sarcasm,' she said and replaced her glass on the table. She closed the book and placed it beside her glass. 'I was talking to Marina Canziani today. I ran into her at the Marciana.'

  'And?'

  'And she started talking about her aunt, the one who raised her.' 'And?'

  'And the woman's suddenly - I think she's about ninety - got old, old and feeble. It happened to her the way it happens to very old people: one day they're fine, and then two weeks later they've collapsed into the ruin of old age.'

  Marina's aunt - he thought her name was Italia: at any rate, something mastodontic like that - had been at the back of Marina's life for as long as Brunetti and Paola had known her, and that had been for decades. The aunt had taken her in when her parents were killed in a road accident, had raised her with rigorous, inflexible rectitude, seen that she went to university and did well, but had never given her even the most minimal demonstration of affection or approval in all the years Marina was in her charge. She had been an astute administrator of Marina's inheritance and had turned her into a very wealthy woman, and she had been a stern opponent of the marriage that had turned Marina into a very happy woman.

  No further information was formcoming. Brunetti thought about Marina's aunt, sipped at his wine, and finally said, I'm not sure I see the connection to Saint Luke.'

  . Paola smiled, showing, he thought, an excess of teeth. 'She begged Marina to take her into her home and let her live there, with them. She offered to pay rent and said she'd pay for someone to come in to be with her every day and to stay there at night to take care of her.'

  'And Marina?' Brunetti asked.

  Told her she was willing either to arrange for una badante to come and live with her in her own home and take care of her or for her to go to a private nursing home on the Lido.'

  Brunetti still failed to grasp the connection to scripture. 'And?' he repeated.

  'And it occurred to me that perhaps what Christ was doing was actually giving some very sensible investment advice. That is, maybe we shouldn't read it as some sort of moral imperative always to do good to people, but more as an observation about what happens when we don't. If people are going to pay us back, as it were, in kind, then charity is a wise investment.'

  'And Marina's aunt made a bad investment?'

  'Exactly’

  He finished his wine and leaned forward to set the glass on the table. 'Interesting interpretation’ he said. 'This the sort of thing you scholarly people talk about when you're at work?'

  She took her glass, finished the wine, and said, 'When we're not demonstrating our superiority to our students.'

  'One would assume that hardly needs demonstration,' Brunetti said, then, 'What's after the crespelle?’

  Coniglio in umido,' she said, then posed her own question. 'Why is it that you always assume I have nothing better to do with my time but to cook dinner? I'm a university professor, you know. I have a job. I have a professional life.'

  He picked up her sentence at the bounce and continued it'... and I ought not to be relegated to the position of kitchen slave by a husband who, in typical male fashion, assumes that it's my job to cook, while it's his to carry the slaughtered beast home on his back,' he said, then went into the kitchen and came back with the bottle.

  He poured some into her glass then filled his own and sat down again beside her feet. He saluted her with his glass and took another sip. 'Really wonderful. How much did he "send over"?'

  "Three cases, and you're ignoring my question.'

  'No, I'm not ignoring it: I'm trying to figure out how seriously I'm meant to take it. Given the fact that you. teach about four hours a week and spend far less time than that talking to students, my conscience is clear on the imbalance of time we spend in the kitchen’ She started to speak, but he ignored her and kept talking. 'And if you're going to say you have to spend so much time reading, I'd say that you'd probably go mad if you couldn't spend all your free time reading’ After a long swallow of wine, he took one of her feet and shook it gently.

  She smiled and said, 'So much for my attempt at legitimate protest’

  He closed his eyes and rested his head against the back of the sofa.

  'Well, protest,' she admitted, after some time had passed.

  After even more had passed, he said, eyes still closed, 'I went out to that clinic in Verona today.'

  'The fertility clinic?'

  'Yes’

  After she had said nothing for a long time, he opened his eyes and glanced in her direction. 'What is it?' he asked, sensing that she had something she wanted to say.

  'It seems I can't read a magazine or a newspaper without coming on an article about overpopulati
on,' Paola said. 'Six billion, seven, eight, dire warnings about the population bomb and the lack of sufficient natural resources to support us all. And at the same time, people are going to fertility clinics ...'

  'In order to add to the population?' he asked.

  'No’ she answered instantly. 'Hardly. In order to satisfy a real human urge.'

  'Not a human need?' he asked.

  'Guido’ she began in a voice she forced to sound .tired, 'we've been here before, trying to define "need". You know what I think it means: if you don't get it - like food or water - you die.'

  'And I keep thinking it's more: that it's those things that make us different from the other animals.'

  He saw her nod, but then she said, 'I think I don't want to pursue this now. Besides, I know that, even if you badger me with logic and good sense, and even if you argue from the personal about our own children, you still won't get me to agree that it's a need, having children. So let me save us both time and energy by not talking about it, all right?'

  He leaned forward to pick up the bottle, then decided against it and set it back on the table. ‘I went to Verona with Signorina Elettra,' he said, surprising himself with the revelation. 'We were a couple desperate to have a child. I wanted to see if the clinic is involved with these adoptions.'

  'Did they believe you? At the clinic?' she asked, though to Brunetti the more important matter was whether the clinic was in fact involved in the false adoptions.

  'I think so,' he said, considering it better not to attempt to explain why this might be so.

  Paola shifted her feet on to the floor and sat up. She placed her glass on the table, then turned to Brunetti and picked a long dark hair from the front of his shirt. She let it drop to the carpet and got to her feet. Saying nothing, she went into the kitchen to prepare the rest of dinner.

  16

  As the days passed, the Pedrolli case, and to a lesser degree the cases of illegal adoption in other cities, disappeared from the news. Brunetti continued to interest himself in a semi-official way. Vianello managed to find the transcript of the conversation Brunetti had had with the woman who lived near Rialto. When the Inspector went to speak to her, she could remember nothing further, save that the woman who made the phone call had worn glasses. The apartment opposite, where the pregnant woman had spent those days, turned out to be owned by a man in Torino and was rented out by the week or month. When questioned, the managing agent found only an indication that a Signor Giulio D'Alessio, who had not given an address and had preferred to pay with cash, had rented the apartment during the period when the young woman had been there. No, the agent had no clear memory of Signor Rossi. The trail, if indeed it had been a trail, ended there.

  Marvilli did not return either of the calls Brunetti made to his office, and the other contacts he had at the Carabinieri failed to divulge any information other than what had been given to the press: the children were in the care of social services and the investigation was proceeding. He did learn, however, that a fax had been sent by the Carabinieri to the Questura the day before the raid, informing the Venice police of the planned raid and giving Pedrolli's name and address. The absence of reply from the police had been taken by the Carabinieri to signify assent. In response to Brunetti's request, the Carabinieri sent a copy of the fax, along with the receipt for its successful transmission to the appropriate number at the Questura.

  Brunetti's reports to the Vice-Questore had included this information, as well as a note of the failure of all attempts to locate the missing fax. In response, Patta suggested that Brunetti return to his other cases and let the Carabinieri get on with Dottor Pedrolli.

  Brunetti could not understand the media's apparentlack of interest in the story: he assumed that the veil of official or bureaucratic privacy would have descended to cover the children, their names and their whereabouts, but the parents and the lengths to which they had gone in order to obtain children would surely still be of interest to readers and viewers alike. In a country where the presence of a child in a criminal case, whether as the victim of murder or the survivor of an attempt - or, even better, as the perpetrator - was sure to keep media coverage of a case percolating for days, perhaps weeks, it was strange that these people had so swiftly disappeared from public view.

  Years after her arrest for the murder of her child, an interview with 'la madre di Cogne' - even simply an article about her - was a surefire way to raise viewer or reader numbers. Even a Ukrainian who tossed her newborn into a skip was bound to get headlines for three days. But the local press dropped Pedrolli after two days, though La Repubblica kept the story going for another three before it was superseded by the death of a young Carabiniere, shot by a convicted murderer out of prison on a weekend pass. It was the speed with which the Pedrolli story vanished from II Gazzettino and La Nuova, however, that aroused Brunetti's curiosity, so on the second morning when there was no mention of the case in the papers, he called his friend Pelusso at his office. The journalist explained that the word at II Gazzettino was that the story had not appealed to someone, and so it had been dropped.

  Brunetti, a dedicated reader of that newspaper, knew who the chief advertisers were, and Signorina Elettra had discovered that Signora Marcolini belonged to the plumbing supply branch of the family. Thus Brunetti observed To say toilet is to say Marcolini’

  'Indeed’ agreed Pelusso, but then quickly added, as though driven to it by whatever remnant of respect for accuracy had managed to survive his decades of journalistic employment, 'He's the likely suspect, because of his daughter, but no one here mentioned his name directly’

  'You think it's necessary to mention it?' Brunetti asked. 'After all, as you said, she's his daughter, and this sort of publicity can't work to anyone's good.'

  'Don't be so certain about that, Guido’ the journalist answered. 'The Carabinieri broke in: the husband might still be in the hospital for all anyone knows. And they took the baby. That's got to be enough to earn the two of them a great deal of sympathy, regardless of how they got the baby in the first place’

  This presented an interesting possibility to Brunetti, and he said, "The Carabinieri, then.'

  'Why would they squelch a story like this?'

  'Well, first, to dispose of something that presents them in a bad light, but also maybe to lead the people they think are behind all of this to believe it's safe to begin coming out of the woodwork’ Brunetti suggested. When Pelusso said nothing, Brunetti continued, forming his ideas as he continued to speak. 'If this is some sort of ring, it means whoever's organizing it knows a number of people who want babies and are willing to pay for them, and that means there have got to be other women who have agreed to give them up after they're born.' 'Obviously.'

  'But you can't postpone that, can you?' Brunetti asked. 'If a woman's going to have .a baby, then she's going to have it when the baby is ready to come, not when some middle man tells her it's time.'

  'And if there's as much money in this as I've heard there is,' Pelusso continued slowly, adding his own reasoning to Brunetti's, 'then they'll get back in touch with their buyers.'

  Immediately alert, Brunetti asked, ‘I)o you hear much about this sort of thing?'

  'I think a lot of it's urban myth,' Pelusso answered. 'You know, like the Chinese who never die because there's never a funeral. But a lot of people do talk about this business of buying and selling babies.'

  'You ever hear anyone mention a price?' Brunetti asked, hoping that Pelusso would not ask him why the police didn't already have this information.

  There followed a longish pause, as though Pelusso were entertaining that same thought, but when he spoke, it was merely to answer Brunetti's question. 'No, not with any certainty. I've heard rumours, but as I told you, Guido, people talk about it the way they talk about everything: "I heard this from someone who knows." "My friend knows all about this." "My neighbour has a cousin who has a friend who ..." There's no way to know whether we're being told the truth or not'


  Brunetti stopped himself from observing that this uncertainty was a common phenomenon and hardly limited to Pelusso's experience as a member of the press. Brunetti had no way of knowing if Italians were more gullible than other people, or whether they were simply less informed. He had heard rumours of countries where there existed an independent press that provided accurate information and where the television was not all controlled by one man; indeed, his own wife had expressed belief in the existence of these marvels.

  Pelusso's voice summoned him back from these meanderings. 'Is there anything else?' the journalist asked.

  'Yes. If you do hear anything definite about who wanted the stories dropped, I'd appreciate it if you'd give me a call,' Brunetti said.

  'I'll let you know,' Pelusso said and was gone.

  Brunetti replaced the phone, his imagination drawn, by some route he could not identify, to poems Paola had read to him, years ago. They had been written by an Elizabethan poet about the deaths of his two children, a boy and a girl. Brunetti remembered her indignation that the poet was far more disturbed by the death of his son than that of his daughter, but Brunetti recalled only the shattered man's wish that he 'could lose all father now'. How profound would suffering have to be for a man to wish he had never been a father? Two of their friends had seen their children die, and neither had ever come back from that pain. By force of will, he pressed his attention towards the people who might be able to provide him with information about this business in babies, and he recalled his unsuccessful visit to the Ufficio Anagrafe.

  Brunetti decided to phone them and within minutes had the information. If a man and the woman of a newborn child came into their office and signed a declaration that the man was the father of the child, that, in essence, was the end of it. Of course, they were required to present their identity cards and proof of the birth; if they chose, they could even do it at the hospital, where there was a branch of the office.