by Joseph Kanon
“But how did he hear? Buccati?”
“Hear what? About her? Well, who didn’t, after that awful scene?”
“But Gianni didn’t say anything?”
“Gianni? Adam, what are you talking about?”
“I thought Gianni might have had something to do with it.”
“What, at the Accademia? Gianni never looked at a painting in his life. I doubt he’d ever been inside, much less-what? Do you think he was prattling away to old Buccati? What for?”
“To get her fired.”
“Well, I wouldn’t have blamed him-so unpleasant, that business at the party-but no. No. Nobody’s even suggested it. This was Buccati’s own particular nonsense, and what a mess. I’m sorry about the girl, of course, but think of me. And the staff. Nervous as hens now that they see what he’s really like.”
“So you don’t think it was Gianni,” I said, partly to myself.
“No, I don’t,” he said steadily. “And I would have heard.”
I finished the rest of the coffee, thinking. “He showed me some frescoes once,” I said.
“And? Adam, I’m having a little trouble following.”
“You said he never looked at pictures. But he knew these.”
“Where?”
“At the hospital.”
“Well, the hospital. And Ca’ Maglione. I’m sure he knew every wall. And I’d still bet he’d never been inside the Accademia. Adam, he was a doctor. They’re all a bit Home Counties, really, aren’t they? He was a very conventional man. He wasn’t really interested in-” He waved his hand to take in the city. “You know, this.”
“But he loved Venice.”
“As property. Not as-this extraordinary thing. No eye, none. He was just a conventional man.” He paused, putting down his cup. “Except for Grace, I suppose. I’ve been thinking about it since-well, since-and you know, she’s the one thing that doesn’t make sense in his life. He does his work. He cares about his family-oh, that dreary wife, the marriage must have been a penance. Everything what it should be. Except for her. Maybe she was this for him,” he said, waving his hand again at the campo. “This whole other side that must have been there. I never saw it, but it must have been, don’t you think? Mad for her, even years later. I think she was the only idea he ever had about-whatever it was that was missing.”
I looked out at the square, the faded red and melon plasterwork warm in the sun. This extraordinary thing.
“You’re a romantic, Bertie.”
He smiled. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I just like a good mystery story. It’s the ultimate mystery, isn’t it? People. Not who done it. Who they are. Of course, you’re one of the ‘done it’ people, you and your friends at the Questura. Somebody done him in. Well, yes, but who was he? That’s what I want to know. Here’s a man I’ve known for-well, if I did. Anyway, who wants to know his doctor? And it turns out I didn’t. Sometimes I think we’re all little mysteries, whirling around.” He moved his finger in a circle. “And none of us has the faintest clue about the other. Think of it. Gianni in love. I didn’t know he was capable of it. But I suppose he was. Then murdered. What could he have done to make somebody want to do that?”
“That’s what they’re trying to find out.”
“Are they? Well, good luck. Cavallini couldn’t catch a fly.” He shook his head. “And you. Such nonsense. You’d be better off getting Grace out of here. Mooning about with Mimi and Celia and probably getting sloshed, if I know my Celia. Talk about the bad penny turning up. Oh, I know,” he said, seeing my look, “her heart’s broken, but it so happens I don’t believe in broken hearts.” He peered over his glasses. “I’m not that romantic. What she needs is a change. But here you are, playing Father Brown. What a world.”
“How do you know Cavallini?”
“I had to report during the war-all the neutrals. I’ve told you this. All present and accounted for, you know. Make-work. Actually, he was nice about it-he’d come to me. Of course, that was right up his street. He’s a policeman who likes a canal view.”
“Maybe he’s better than you think. He’s talked to everybody. I’ve seen the reports.”
“Oh, I’ve heard. The poor servants, over and over. I suppose one conked Gianni on the head in a fit of pique. He can’t be serious.”
“He’s just being thorough. The house, the hospital. He’s doing the patients now. He’ll probably get around to you any day,” I said, teasing.
“As a suspect?”
I smiled. “As someone who knew him.”
“But why should it be anyone who knew him? A thief wouldn’t-”
“Because it wasn’t robbery. He still had his money on him. His watch.”
“Really,” Bertie said, then looked over at me. “What else?”
“All we know is what it wasn’t. And if it wasn’t robbery, then it was about him somehow. Who he was.” I fiddled with my coffee cup. “Your little mystery. We need to know more about him.”
“Such as?”
“Anything. Paolo, for instance. Tell me about Paolo.”
“Oh, we’re back to Paolo. But he didn’t count for anything. Awful thing to say, isn’t it? But he didn’t. Simply didn’t matter.”
“But Gianni was upset when he died. Everyone says so,” I said, trying it out.
“Do they?” Bertie looked away, thinking. “I suppose he was. Family, after all. That was important to him, probably more than Paolo was, really. But now that you mention it, he did take it hard. Went all quiet and monkish for a while. But they do that here.”
“So they were close?”
“Only in the sense of Paolo’s being there all the time-we’re talking about the early days now. He was always around. You know, at the beach, parties, whatever.”
“Like a puppy, you said.”
“Yes. Whatever Gianni wanted, he’d fetch it. It was like that.”
“But he was the older brother.”
“Well, what’s there to that? I’m an only child and I’ve always been sociable. Anyway, he didn’t seem to mind. He looked up to Gianni.” He reached over to the cigarettes on the cafe table and took one out. “Is that what you want to know? I can’t think why.”
“So Gianni was distressed when Paolo died?”
“Well, yes,” Bertie said, striking the match and cupping it at the end of the cigarette. “Why wouldn’t he be? Awful way to go, a crash like that. So young. And so typical, I must say, so careless, although of course one didn’t say it.”
“You know there are rumors that it wasn’t an accident.”
Bertie looked at me through the smoke, not saying anything.
“That he was killed by partisans.”
“And?”
“And if he was, there might be a political angle to this murder too. Gianni’s murder.”
“Oh, both now. Very Il Gazzettino of you. Is that the line you’re taking down at the Questura?”
“Did he ever say anything to you about Paolo’s death?”
“No, he didn’t,” Bertie said, tapping the end of his cigarette, his voice prickly. “And if he had, I wouldn’t have listened. I don’t listen to rumors either. Political angle. I don’t listen and I don’t know. All I want is to be left alone. I have no politics. None. I’m the most neutral man in Venice. And it’s very wrong of you to go on about it. Badgering people. Even Cavallini didn’t do that. And that was during the war.”
“I wasn’t asking about your politics, I was asking about Gianni’s,” I said quietly.
He leaned his head back, reprimanded, or surprised at his own reaction.
“Well, how would I know?” he said.
“Because you do,” I said, looking at him.
He made a face, peevish. “Well, as a matter of fact, I don’t. Oh, Adam, what politics? Gianni didn’t have any politics. He just blew with the wind. We all did. The only party he ever cared about was the Maglione family. That was his politics.”
“His brother worked for the Germans.”
&
nbsp; “Do you know that?”
I nodded. “And so did Gianni.”
He looked away, then put out his cigarette and picked up his hat from the table. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said finally. “But it’s got nothing to do with me.” He lifted a finger. “And it’s got nothing to do with you, either. Watch you don’t make a mess of things. All this huffing and puffing. Shall I tell you something? You will never understand this society. This isn’t even Italy. It’s Venice. Nothing has been real here since Napoleon. Nothing.”
“But it happened anyway. He worked for the Germans. He was killed. It happened.”
“Not where I live.” He stood, putting on his hat and looking out onto the square. “You see this? It’s like a jewel box. Beautiful. And nothing gets in.”
“And you’re the jewel, I suppose.”
He smiled. “You could do worse. Anyway, it’s what I like. Just the way it is. As far as I’m concerned, Paolo was a slow-witted boy who drove too fast. Gianni was a perfectly respectable man who gave the most boring Sunday lunches you can imagine. Once would do it. And that’s all. If they weren’t, I don’t want to hear it. Politics. Murk. You want to make everything murky. Well, I don’t. Not here.”
Gianni’s papers took no time at all. His businesses were all in the hands of managers, and Giulia, his heir, had already been to their offices, looking through the accounts.
“I thought it could be someone afraid of being caught. Everybody took a little during the war, to survive. But not enough to kill.”
How much was that? I wondered, but let it drop, not really interested in the businesses anyway. But the personal papers were disappointing too-a neat drawerful of bank statements and house accounts; another of official documents, birth, death, and accreditation, crowded with elaborate seals; some hospital paperwork; a few letters, none revealing; a small pile of receipts; a program from La Fenice; clipped articles from professional journals put aside for a rainy day. A blameless life, anybody’s.
We sat at the big mahogany desk in the library, a dark room that backed onto a side calle, away from the canal. Giulia had turned on the desk lamp, making the polished wood gleam. The house was as perfectly waxed and still as it had been after the funeral, maybe the way it would always be now, a convent quiet.
“But did he keep everything here?” I said, rummaging through the deep bottom drawer.
“Yes, I think so. And the albums over there on the shelf. Where I found the pictures for your mother. Maybe you should see the rest. What are you looking for?”
“I don’t know. Him. People he knew.”
“There’s an address book,” she said, bringing it over.
For a few minutes we looked at it together, flipping pages. “That’s a patient, that one,” she said, and so, I assumed, were the others. And friends and dinner partners and tradesmen, all Italian. But what had I expected? Extension numbers at the Villa Raspelli? Checkmarks and combination letters, a coded secret life? I closed the book.
“Any diaries, anything like that?”
She shook her head. “No, only the Maglione books, from the old days.” She pointed to a shelf behind her, scrapbooks and odd-shaped journals, some bound in leather, others in gathered-together, yellowing folios. A few boxes, meant to look like books, for stacks of letters bound with ribbon. “They kept everything. For their history.”
“It must have stopped with him.” I closed the drawer.
“Well, my uncle did the notes. I remember him writing. My father was too busy for that.”
“But letters? There must be some letters. Your mother?”
“No. They never wrote. Or they’re gone.” She looked over at me. “Before-I never thought about it. They didn’t love each other. Maybe that’s why.”
We looked at the photo albums-stiffly posed grandparents, then the Maglione childhood, Gianni and Paolo in sailor suits, the usual. Then the book from which she must have got my mother’s pictures-sunny days on the Lido in wet wool bathing suits, groups lolling in front of changing cabanas.
“Which is your mother?”
“They didn’t meet till later. Look, Luca, before he became a priest.” A plump boy with a grin, years from piety. “I don’t know this one.” Standing next to Gianni.
“That’s my father,” I said.
“Oh.” She looked up at me. “Yes, I see it now. It’s strange, our parents together. Like the same family, but not the same.”
My father was squinting into the sun, but both of them were smiling. A day at the beach, a casual snapshot, no hint at all of anything to come, their lives twisted together.
“But where’s Paolo?”
“He was always taking the picture, I think,” she said, smiling. “No, here, the tennis one. My father didn’t like tennis, so maybe it was his turn with the camera.”
I took the picture out of the album and brought it nearer, looking at it closely. No hint here either-no Order of Rome, no politics, none of Bertie’s murk. He was standing against the net in tennis flannels and a white sweater with a chevron neck, his arm draped over the shoulder of another player, both of them holding their rackets at their hips.
“It’s sad to look at them,” Giulia said, moving away. “Everyone so happy. Does that make sense?”
I nodded. “What was he like?”
“Paolo? Uno vitaiolo. You know, always for the pleasure. Tennis. Those cars. Of course, when I was a child I thought this was wonderful. Another child, you know?”
“And then?”
“And then I wasn’t a child anymore.” She turned, facing me. “He was a Fascist. You’re surprised I say that? I know. Today, no Fascists. We were all in the resistance. I think we even believe it.”
“How do you mean, Fascist?”
“Fascist. He liked Mussolini. He liked the parades, dressing up, all of that. He was on committees-you know, they liked him because of his name. Of course no one listened to him, but it made him feel important to go to meetings. And after, the tennis. So not so serious-how could Paolo be serious? And then it’s the war, and everything’s serious. He’s too foolish to see what is happening to us, that it’s a catastrophe. He thinks the king will save us, make peace with the English king. Because he’s a king too. Imagine the foolishness of it. Well.”
“And after that?”
“After that, the Germans. And Paolo? He supports the Salo government, against the CLN, the partisans. It interests you, Italian politics?”
“It confuses me.”
“Yes,” she said. “But at the end it’s not difficult. If you’re with Salo, you’re with the Germans. So Paolo was too. Sometimes I think it was good that he died, before it was a disgrace to the family. Even for my father it was too much. Paolo was his brother, so that’s something sacred to him, but it wasn’t the same between them. The Germans, that’s something my father would never forgive.”
I looked over at her, expecting irony, but she seemed utterly sincere, guileless.
“They had a fight?”
“A distance. Maybe a fight, I don’t know. I was at school. And of course I wouldn’t speak to Paolo then. You know, the students, the way we felt-I was too angry with him. Maybe ashamed, too. My own family. So I didn’t speak.” She came back to the desk and looked down at the picture. “And then after he died, I remembered him like this. When he was so nice. My father too, I think. So quiet, days like that. You know, whatever he did, still a brother.”
“What about your father, his politics?”
She smiled. “Was he this, was he that? Nothing-he wanted to survive them. That’s what he used to tell me. Stay out of it. Keep your head down. So of course we would quarrel. You know, at that age. He was afraid, I think, that I would get involved in the resistance. So many of the students-”
“Did you?”
“No. I wanted to, of course, everybody did, but in the end-I don’t know, a coward maybe. Too much a lady, my friend used to say, my mother’s daughter. So maybe she was right.”
“But
not your father’s?”
“Oh, a little bit. I think secretly he admired the resistance too. But he was afraid of it. For him it was simple-the family, Venice. The Church-well, maybe that was for my mother. He believed in those things. And what was the resistance? Maybe a threat. Something else to survive. So he kept his head down. No sides.” She turned at a soft rap on the door, an even quieter opening. “Ah, Maria,” she said, “thank you.” Not surprised.
The maid, in a starched linen collar and apron, carried a coffee tray to the table in front of the reading chairs. The cups and pot lay on a white doily, also starched, as if it had been meant to match her uniform. Shy smiles and murmurs in Italian, part of the ceremony of getting the tray on the table.
“I’ll pour, shall I?” Giulia said, at once dismissing Maria and taking up the pot in her hand, poised, her mother’s daughter.
I sat on the other side of the low table. It was the funeral all over again, nothing extra, everything as it should be, sure of its own taste. Even her dress, I noticed, was suitable, black without any purple frills, a discreet mourning-mourning because I had held his head under. Now we were drinking coffee, polite.
“But it must have been hard in the war, not taking sides,” I said.
She took a sip, then held the cup in her hand, thinking. “Of course in the end you do. It’s your country. I didn’t have the courage, maybe, but I had money. So I helped with that. We were alike that way. Keep your head down, but do it anyway. No sides, but he helped the partisans.”
“He told you that?” Maybe as plausibly as he’d told it on the fondamenta, but why?
She shook her head, then smiled. “Well, I didn’t tell him about the money either. But I know. He made it a question of medical ethics-what’s the right thing to do? You know, they do this in the law school too. So it’s good training for me. But this is his way of telling me. A man is brought in with a gunshot wound, a man you know. The law says you must report all such wounds. But you know that the only way he could have been shot is in the fighting, a partisan. If you report it, the government will kill him. If you don’t, maybe it goes badly for you, for helping a traitor. The man begs you-‘Help me, don’t give me up.’ What do you do?”