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‘Did you speak to him?’
She hesitated a long time before she answered. ‘Yes, but not more than to say hello and ask him what he wanted to tell me. But then we heard—’ She paused here and stabbed out her cigarette. She took a long time doing this, moving the dead stump around and around in the ashtray. Finally, she dropped it and continued, though something had changed in her voice. ‘We heard the second bell. There was no time to speak. I said I’d see him after the performance, and I went back to my seat. I got there just as the lights were going down. I waited for the curtain to go up, for the performance to continue, but you know . . . you know what happened.’
‘Was that the first time you thought that anything was wrong?’
She reached for the package and pulled another cigarette from it. Brunetti took the lighter from the table and lit it for her. ‘Thank you,’ she said, blowing the smoke away from him.
‘And was that the first time you realized that something was wrong?’ he repeated.
‘Yes.’
‘In the last few weeks, had your husband’s behavior been different in any way?’ When she didn’t answer, he prompted: ‘Nervous, irritable in any way?’
‘I understood the question,’ she said shortly, then looked at him nervously and said, ‘I’m sorry.’
He decided it was better to remain silent than to acknowledge her apology.
She paused for a moment and then answered. ‘No, he seemed much the same as ever. He always loved Traviata, and he loved this city.’
‘And the rehearsals went well? Peacefully?’
‘I’m not sure I understand that question.’
‘Did your husband have any difficulty with the other people engaged in the production?’
‘No, not that I know of,’ she answered after a short pause.
Brunetti decided it was time to bring his questions to a more personal level. He flipped a few pages in his notebook, glanced down at it, and asked, ‘Who is it that lives here, Signora?’
If she was surprised by the sudden change of subject, she gave no sign of it. ‘My husband and I and a maid who sleeps in.’
‘How long has she worked for you, this maid?’
‘She has worked for Helmut for about twenty years, I think. I met her only when we came to Venice for the first time.’
‘And when was that?’
‘Two years ago.’
‘Yes?’ he prodded.
‘She lives here in the apartment year round, while we’re away.’ Immediately she corrected herself: ‘While we were away.’
‘Her name?’
‘Hilda Breddes.’
‘She’s not Italian?’
‘No; Belgian.’
He made a note of this. ‘How long were you and the Maestro married?’
‘Two years. We met in Berlin, where I was working.’
‘Under what circumstances?’
‘He was conducting Tristan. I went backstage with friends of mine who were also friends of his. We all went to dinner after the performance.’
‘How long did you know each other before you were married?’
‘About six months.’ She busied herself with sharpening her cigarette.
‘You said that you were working in Berlin, yet you are Hungarian.’ When she didn’t comment, he asked, ‘Isn’t this true?’
‘Yes; by birth I am. But I am now a German citizen. My first husband, as I’m sure you’ve been informed, was German, and I took his nationality when we moved to Germany after our marriage.’
She stubbed out her cigarette and looked at Brunetti, as if declaring that she would now devote all her attention to his questions. He wondered that it was these factual issues on which she had decided to focus, for all of them were matters of public record. All her answers about her marriages had been true; he knew because Paola, hopelessly addicted to the gutter press, had filled him in on the details that morning.
‘Isn’t that unusual?’ he asked.
‘Isn’t what unusual?’
‘Your being permitted to move to Germany and take German citizenship.’
She smiled at that, but not, he thought, in amusement. ‘Not so unusual as you here in the West seem to think.’ Was it scorn? ‘I was a married woman, married to a German. His work in Hungary was finished, and he went back to his own country. I applied for permission to go with my husband, and it was granted. Even under the old government, we were not savages. The family is very important to Hungarians.’ From the way she said it, Brunetti suspected she believed it to be of only minimal importance to Italians.
‘Is he the father of your child?’
The question clearly startled her. ‘Who?’
‘Your first husband.’
‘Yes, he is.’ She reached for another cigarette.
‘Does he still live in Germany?’ Brunetti asked as he lit her cigarette, though he knew that the man taught at the University of Heidelberg.
‘Yes, he does.’
‘Is it true that, before marrying the Maestro, you were a doctor?’
‘Commissario,’ she began, voice tight with an anger she did little to contain or disguise, ‘I am still a doctor, and I shall always be a doctor. At the moment, I don’t have a practice, but believe me, I am still a doctor.’
‘I apologize, Doctor,’ he said, meaning it and regretting his stupidity. He quickly changed the subject. ‘Your daughter, does she live here with you?’
He saw the impulsive motion toward the cigarette package, watched as she glided her hand toward the burning cigarette and picked that up instead. ‘No, she lives with her grandparents in Munich. It would be too difficult for her to go to a foreign-language school while we were here, so we decided it would be best for her to go to study in Munich.’
‘With your former husband’s parents?’
‘Yes.’
‘How old is she, your daughter?’
‘Thirteen.’
His own daughter, Chiara, was the same age, and he realized how unkind it would be to force her to attend school in a foreign country. ‘Will you resume your medical practice now?’
She thought awhile before she answered this. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps. I would like to heal people. But it’s too early to think about that.’ Brunetti bowed his head in silent agreement.
‘If you will permit me, Signora, and perhaps forgive me in advance for the question, could you tell me if you have any idea of the sort of financial arrangements your husband made?’
‘You mean what happens to the money?’ Remarkably direct.
‘Yes.’
She answered quickly. ‘I know only what Helmut told me. We didn’t have a formal agreement, nothing written, the way people do today when they marry.’ Her tone dismissed such thinking. ‘It is my understanding that five people will inherit his estate.’
‘And they are?’
‘His children by his previous marriages. He had one by the first and three by the second. And myself.’
‘And your daughter?’
‘No,’ she said immediately. ‘Only his natural children.’
It seemed normal enough to Brunetti that a man would want to leave his money to children of his own blood. ‘Have you any idea of the amount involved?’ Widows usually did and just as usually said they did not.
‘I think it is a great deal of money. But his agent or his lawyer would be able to tell you more about that than I can.’ Strangely enough, it sounded to him as if she really didn’t know. Stranger still, it sounded as if she didn’t care.
The signs of fatigue he had seen in her when he entered had grown more pronounced during their conversation. The line of her shoulders was less straight; twin lines ran down from her nose to the corners of her mouth. ‘I have only a few more questions,’ he said.
‘Would you like something to drink?’ It was clear that she was being no more than formally polite.
‘Thank you, but no. I’ll ask these questions and then leave you.’ She nodded tiredly, almost as if she kne
w that these were the questions he had come to ask.
‘Signora, I would like to know something about your relationship with your husband.’ He watched her grow visibly more distant and self-protective. He prodded. ‘The difference in age between you was considerable.’
‘Yes, it was.’
He remained silent, waiting. She finally said, stating, not admitting, and he liked her for that, ‘Helmut was thirty-seven years older than I.’ That would make her a few years older than he had judged her to be, just Paola’s age. Wellauer was just eight years younger than Brunetti’s grandfather. As strange as he found that thought, Brunetti tried to give no sign of it. What was it like for this woman, with a husband almost two generations older than she? He saw that she was shifting uncomfortably under the intensity of his gaze, and he glanced away for a moment, as if thinking about how to phrase his next question.
‘Did the difference to your ages create any difficulties in your marriage?’ How transparent was the cloud of euphemism that always surrounded such a union. Though polite, the question was still a voyeur’s leer, and he was embarrassed by it.
Her silence stretched out for so long that he didn’t know if it spoke of her disgust with his curiosity or her annoyance at the artificiality with which he expressed it. Suddenly sounding very tired, she said, ‘Because of the difference in our ages, in our generations, we saw the world differently, but I married him because I was in love with him.’ Brunetti’s instinct told him that he had just heard the truth, but the same instinct also told him that he had heard only the singular. His humanity prevented him from asking about the omission.
As a sign that he was finished, he closed the notebook and slipped it back into his pocket. ‘Thank you, Signora. It was very kind of you to see me at this time.’ He trailed off, unwilling to lapse again into euphemism or platitude. ‘Have you made arrangements for the funeral?’
‘Tomorrow. At ten. At San Moisè. Helmut loved the city and always hoped that he would have the privilege of being buried here.’
The little that Brunetti had heard and read about the conductor made him doubt that the dead man would have viewed privilege as anything other than what he could bestow, but perhaps Venice had sufficient grandeur to be an exception. ‘I hope you have no objection if I attend.’
‘No, of course not.’
‘I have one more question, also a painful one. Do you know of anyone who might have wanted to harm your husband? Is there anyone with whom he recently argued, anyone he might have had reason to fear?’
Her smile was small, but it was a smile. ‘Does that mean,’ she asked, ‘can I think of anyone who might have wanted to kill him?’
Brunetti nodded.
‘His career was very long, and I’m sure he offended many people during it. Some people disliked him, surely. But I can’t think of anyone who would do this.’ Absently, she ran her finger along the arm of her chair. ‘And no one who loved music could do this.’
He rose to his feet and extended his hand. ‘Thank you, Signora, for your time and your patience.’ She stood and took his hand. ‘Please don’t bother,’ he said, meaning that he would see himself out of the apartment. She dismissed his suggestion with a shake of her head and led him down the hall. At the door, they shook hands again, neither speaking. He left the apartment troubled by the interview, not quite sure if the reason was only the platitudes and excessive courtesies on his part or something he had been too dull to catch.
* * * *
CHAPTER TEN
While he was inside, it had grown dark, the suddenly descending early-winter obscurity that added to the desolation that brooded over the city until the release of spring. He decided not to go back to his office, not willing to risk his anger if there was still no report from the lab and not interested in reading the German report again. As he walked, he reflected on how very little he had learned about the dead man. No, he had a great deal of information, but it was all strangely out of focus, too formal and impersonal. A genius, a homophobe, adored by the world of music, a man whom a woman half his age would love, but still a man whose substance was elusive. Brunetti knew some of the facts, but he had no idea of the reality.
He walked on and considered the means by which he had acquired his information. He had the resources of Interpol at his command, he had the full cooperation of the German police, and he had sufficient rank to call upon the entire police system of Italy. Obviously, then, the most reliable way to get accurate information about the man was to address himself to the unfailing source of all information—gossip.
It would be an exaggeration to say that Brunetti disliked Paola’s parents, the Count and Countess Falier, but it would be an equal exaggeration to say that he liked them. They puzzled him in much the same way that a pair of whooping cranes would puzzle someone accustomed to tossing peanuts to the pigeons in the park. They belonged to a rare and elegant species, and Brunetti, after knowing them for almost two decades, had to admit that he had mixed feelings about the inevitability of their extinction.
Count Falier, who numbered two doges on his mother’s side, could, and did, trace his family back to the tenth century. There were crusaders perched on the limbs of his family tree, a cardinal or two, a composer of secondary importance, and the former Italian ambassador to the court of King Zog of Albania. Paola’s mother was Florentine by birth, though her family had transferred itself to the northern city shortly after that event. They claimed descent from the Medici, and in a kind of genealogical chess that had a strange fascination for people of their circle, she matched her husband’s doges with a pope and a textile millionaire, the cardinal with a cousin of Petrarch, the composer with a famous castrato (from whom, sadly, no issue), and the ambassador with Garibaldi’s banker.
They lived in a palazzo that had belonged to the Falieri for at least three centuries, a vast rambling vault on the Grand Canal that was virtually impossible to heat in the winter and that was kept from imminent collapse only by the constant ministrations of an ever-present horde of masons, builders, plumbers, and electricians, all of whom joined Count Falier willingly in the perpetual Venetian battle against the inexorable forces of time, tide, and industrial pollution.
Brunetti had never counted the rooms in the palazzo and had always been embarrassed to ask how many there were. Its four floors were surrounded on three sides by canals, its back propped up by a deconsecrated church. He entered it only on formal occasions: the vigil of Christmas, when they went to eat fish and exchange gifts; the name day of Count Orazio, when, for some reason, they ate pheasant and again gave gifts; and the Feast of the Redeemer, when they went to eat pasta fagioli and watch the fireworks soaring above Piazza San Marco. His children loved to visit their grandparents on these occasions, and he knew they went, either by themselves or with Paola, to visit during the year. He chose to believe that it was because of the palazzo and the possibilities of exploration it offered, but he had the niggling suspicion that they loved their grandparents and enjoyed their company, twin phenomena that baffled Brunetti utterly.
The count was ‘in finance.’ Throughout the seventeen years Brunetti had been married to Paola, this was the only description he had ever heard of her father’s profession. He was not described as being ‘a financier,’ no doubt because that might have suggested something manual, like counting money or going to the office. No, the count was ‘in finance,’ in much the same way that the de Beers were ‘in mines,’ or von Thyssen ‘in steel.’
The countess, for her part, was ‘in society,’ which meant that she attended the opening nights of Italy’s four major opera houses, arranged benefit concerts for the Italian Red Cross, and gave a masked ball for four hundred people each year during Carnevale.
Brunetti, for his part, earned slightly more than three million lire a month as a commissario of police, a sum he calculated to be only a bit more than what his father-in-law paid each month for the right to dock his boat in front of the palazzo. A decade ago, the count had attempted to p
ersuade Brunetti to leave the police and join him in a career in banking. He continually pointed out that Brunetti ought not to spend his life .in the company of tax evaders, wife beaters, pimps, thieves, and perverts. The offers had come to a sudden halt one Christmas when, goaded beyond patience, Brunetti had pointed out that although he and the count seemed to work among the same people, he at least had the consolation of being able to arrest them, whereas the count was constrained to invite them to dinner.
So it was with some trepidation that night that Brunetti asked Paola if it would be possible for them to attend the party her parents were giving the following evening to celebrate the opening of a new exhibition of French impressionist paintings at the Doge’s Palace.