Transient Desires

by Donna Leon

  In the years that she had worked with him, Brunetti had heard none of this, just as he had never heard that voice. Was this what people meant when they spoke badly of ‘I terroni’? Did people from the South appear cultured and intelligent only when they adapted to Northern standards? But put them back in the soup of Napolitano, and they reverted to type? Or had the presence of a Neapolitan man so affected her hormones as to turn her into little more than a simple-minded flirt?

  He decided he’d heard her prattle on enough, turned away from the paintings, and asked, ‘Would it be possible for me to interrupt you, signori, and return our attention to Venice?’

  Alaimo turned, his face failing to disguise a flash of relief, and said, ‘Of course, Commissario.’

  And Griffoni chimed in with, ‘It’s so easy to forget when you start talking about home.’ She graced Alaimo with a many-toothed smiled and then asked, in a voice that sounded at least a decade younger than the one she had been using, ‘Could I trouble you for a glass of water, Capitano?’

  Alaimo jumped to his feet, saying, ‘How rude of me not to have offered you something to drink.’ Turning to Brunetti, he asked, ‘What may I offer you, Commissario?’

  ‘A coffee, perhaps,’ Brunetti answered, eager for anything that would release him from the stupor induced by the last minutes of conversation.

  Alaimo hurried to the door. As he opened it and stuck his head outside to speak to his staff, Griffoni reached out her foot and kicked Brunetti’s knee. Stunned, he leaned forward without thinking and rubbed at the spot she’d kicked.

  ‘Leave this to me, Guido,’ she said in a low, insistent voice.

  Brunetti was about to protest when he saw the coldness in her eyes. ‘Do it,’ she said, leaned back, and smiled at the returning Alaimo.

  The Captain sat, said their drinks would be there in a moment, and, ignoring Brunetti, asked Griffoni what it was that had brought them to speak to him.

  Griffoni returned to her Neapolitan voice and said, again giving a small laugh that succeeded – even that, poor little thing – in sounding vulgar to Brunetti’s newly alerted ears, ‘I’m sure you’ve seen the photos we’ve sent of those two boys who took the American tourists to Pronto Soccorso the other night.’ Her pronunciation reminded him of the girls from Forcella he’d known during the time he had been stationed in Naples, years ago.

  Alaimo nodded. ‘From the Giudecca, aren’t they?’

  The door opened just then and another white-jacketed cadet came in, carrying a tray on which stood three glasses of water and three coffees. As the cadet set them silently in front of Alaimo and his guests, the Captain said, ‘I thought you might like a coffee, as well, Dottoressa.’

  ‘Ah, how kind,’ Griffoni said, not commenting on how bad the coffee was ‘up here’. Apparently the Rhapsody of Napoli was over, though she kept the Neapolitan accent in place. My God, Brunetti thought, is this the same woman I’ve trusted with my life?

  When all of them had drunk the coffees and sipped at the water, Griffoni continued. ‘Yes, from the Giudecca; at least one of them: Marcello Vio. The other, Filiberto Duso, lives in Dorsoduro.’

  Griffoni paused and took another sip of water. Into her silence, Alaimo asked, ‘What is it you’d like to know about them, Dottoressa?’

  Griffoni replaced her glass on the table and said, ‘Neither of them has ever been reported or arrested. Well, Vio for speeding in his boat, but he’s young and he’s Venetian, so I think we can dismiss that.’

  Alaimo smiled again and raised his hands, as if to suggest that boys would be boys.

  ‘In our files at the Questura, we have nothing on them,’ she said, then added, as though it made some sort of difference, ‘And they did take the young women to the hospital.’ Then, casually, she added, ‘So, before we leap to conclusions about them, I’d like to know . . .’ here, she turned to Alaimo and gave a warm smile, ‘if you’ve ever had any trouble with either one of them,’ and then she added, ‘or with the uncle.’

  Alaimo sat back, folded his hands, and after a moment said, ‘I certainly know the name Vio.’ He paused in thought for a moment and then said, ‘But the other one – Duso – I’ve never heard the name.’

  Griffoni smiled and nodded; Brunetti did the same.

  ‘What I can do,’ Alaimo said amiably, ‘is see what I can find out here, if any of the men have had dealings . . .’ here Alaimo paused and added, ‘. . . or trouble.’

  He looked from one to the other and said, ‘Can this wait a few days? That will give me a chance to see what the people here in the office know, if anything. Would that be all right?’

  Brunetti nodded; Griffoni smiled.

  The three of them got to their feet simultaneously. Alaimo accompanied them to the door of his office and shook hands, formally with Brunetti, in a more friendly manner with Griffoni, and bade them farewell.

  ‘Orsato,’ the Captain called, and the man sitting in front of the Laguna Nord got quickly to his feet. ‘Sì, Capitano,’ he said, although he did not salute.

  ‘Would you take the Commissari downstairs?’

  ‘Of course, Capitano,’ the man answered with a bow.

  The cadet accompanied them downstairs to the door to the riva, then opened it for them. Outside, the panorama of the Giudecca had been waiting.

  Brunetti turned to the left and started towards the embarcadero, where they could get the Number Two.

  After only a few steps, he slowed to a stop and turned towards Griffoni to ask, ‘What was all that about?’

  ‘He’s a liar and not to be trusted,’ she snapped, again speaking like an Italian and not a Neapolitan.

  ‘What?’ Brunetti asked, having judged Griffoni’s behaviour, as, at the least, strange.

  ‘For the last twelve years, the Abbess of the Chiostro di San Gregorio Armeno has been a Filippina, Suora Crocifissa Ocampo, and thus is unlikely to be his aunt, as he claims.’

  It took Brunetti a moment to react. ‘I’m not sure that’s enough to mean he’s not to be trusted,’ he said. ‘He could simply have been boasting.’

  ‘Then why did he calm down when I revealed my full stupid, vulgar self to him?’ Before Brunetti could comment, she added, ‘And calm down even more when I made it clear we had no real interest in Vio?’

  Brunetti continued walking, replaying the scene in his memory. Indeed, Alaimo had seemed far more comfortable with the Griffoni who had slipped free from her professional restraint and had revealed the triviality of her own concerns. Anyone exposed to the woman who acted and spoke as she had would hardly consider her a person serious in the pursuit of justice. Or a threat.

  The pleasantries about Naples, the folklore of the volcano, the diversion of their conversation into banalities: all had seemed to please the Captain. But it made no sense.

  13

  On the way back to the Zattere stop, Brunetti, walking beside a now-silent Griffoni, thought about Capitano Alaimo. Brunetti conceded to him the charm common to most Neapolitans, whose society and culture, having suffered invasion from countless sources for more than two millennia, had learned the art of the friendly manner and welcoming smile. They’d smiled at the Greeks, the Romans, even the Ostrogoths, which is to make no mention of the Byzantines and the Normans, the Angevins and the Spaniards, all the way up to the Germans and the Allies. They’d tried to fight them off, bargained, bribed, surrendered, and finally admitted the victors through their gates. Centuries of this created the strategy of survival: amiability, flattery, joviality, deceit. Where are to be found the Greeks, the Ostrogoths? The towering walls of Byzantium? But the Neapolitans? Are they not still at home, and are they not still charming?

  Brunetti pulled his mind away from these reflections. It was too easy to read history as you pleased, see what you chose to see in the actions of people and cultures long gone.

  ‘Excuse me?’ he said when Griffoni stop
ped walking and put her hand on his arm.

  ‘I don’t know where your thoughts are, Guido, but they’re not here.’

  ‘No,’ he admitted. ‘I was thinking about Naples.’

  She failed to conceal her surprise. ‘What, specifically?’

  ‘How you’ve survived invasion, occupation, war, destruction: things like that,’ he answered, managing to make it sound normal.

  She grinned. ‘You’ve forgotten sitting beside an active volcano that can go off any time it wants. And that when that happens, there will be more than three million people trying to escape.’

  ‘Including your family?’

  She shrugged. ‘They live a ten-minute walk from the Bay, so they could try to swim, I suppose.’

  ‘You sound very calm about it,’ Brunetti said, surprised.

  ‘Either you worry or you don’t,’ she said, sounding resigned. ‘I used to, but I can’t any more.’

  ‘Just like that?’ Brunetti asked. ‘You can just switch it off?

  She turned away from him and walked towards the ticket machines. She tapped her boat pass on the sensor, and the twin metal bars swung back and let her enter. Just as they were beginning to close, a well-dressed man hurried in right behind Griffoni without bothering with a boat pass.

  ‘Not my business,’ thought Brunetti, tapped his card on the sensor, and moved to stand next to Griffoni. ‘Tell me more about why you think he’s lying and why, of all things, about an abbess.’

  ‘I think he wanted me to believe he came from a good family, so important that one of them can become an abbess.’

  ‘An abbess is that important?’ asked Brunetti, making no attempt to hide his astonishment.

  ‘Religion’s different for us.’

  ‘Does that mean you’re . . .’ he began, then flailed round to find the right phrase, ‘. . . a believer?’

  She let out a snort of laughter. ‘Of course not. But it’s import­ant to look as though you are, and that you respect it.’

  When Brunetti made no response, she continued. ‘It’s one of the codes of behaviour. We have to be polite to women, and we have to be solemn about religion.’ Before he could question this, she said, ‘If you don’t trust me, come to the Duomo some day when the Bishop’s showing the blood of San Gennaro,’ she suggested, then added, ‘The liquefaction of the blood, that is.’

  ‘And Alaimo believes that?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she answered without a second’s hesitation. ‘But he thinks someone with my background would believe it. And would be impressed by him if he had an aunt who’s an abbess.’ She raised her hands and shook them in the air, fingers spread, as a sign of confusion. ‘What people believe makes no sense.’

  Brunetti started to say something but she held up a hand and said, ‘Trust me, Guido.’ Then, as if this would explain things, she added, ‘We have deceit in our marrow.’

  The vaporetto arrived. When they were aboard, she said, speaking directly to Brunetti but speaking softly, ‘It’s simple. He doesn’t want to tell us what he knows about what’s going on.’

  As Brunetti watched the Palanca stop approach, he considered what Griffoni said. The vaporetto pulled up, moored, waited for the passengers to leave and more to come on board, cast off and backed away a bit, and then continued on its sober way towards the Redentore. ‘But why?’ Brunetti asked. Both of them understood from his tone that it was not a question; no more than a request for speculation.

  Griffoni said nothing, perhaps because she had become familiar with this habit of Brunetti’s in responding to confusing information: open the drawer and start pulling things out to see what’s there.

  Into her silence, he suggested, ‘Whatever might cause the officer in charge of the Capitaneria di Porto to lure us away from a possible suspect is important.’

  ‘It’s not our job to patrol the waters, Guido. You’re not Andrea Doria.’

  Ignoring her, Brunetti insisted, ‘If he doesn’t want us to know about Vio, there’s a reason.’ When Griffoni did not respond, he asked, ‘Right?’

  ‘Maybe Alaimo knows they’re up to something and wants to be the one to arrest him,’ Griffoni suggested.

  ‘He’s not a policeman, Claudia. That’s us. We do the arresting. Alaimo can catch them out on the water, but we’re the ones who do the arresting.’

  Brunetti put his hands in his pockets and rolled back and forth on his feet a few times. The boat banged into the embarcadero at San Zaccaria but he didn’t register the shock and continued rocking back and forth. The sound of the railing being pulled back broke into his reverie, and he stepped to the opening, standing to one side for a moment to let Griffoni pass in front of him.

  They turned right and started in the direction of the Questura. He was about to speak but saw that there was something else she wanted to say so remained silent. He saw her attempt to speak, then stop herself. They continued walking and still she didn’t speak.

  ‘Just say it, Claudia,’ Brunetti told her.

  Giving no sign that she’d heard him, Griffoni kept walking. Just as they came down the Ponte della Pietà, she swerved towards the water, stopped at the edge of the riva, and looked across at San Giorgio. ‘May I say a few words about Veneziano?’ she surprised him by asking. She wasn’t looking at him but at the church.

  ‘If you’d like to, I’d be interested,’ he said.

  ‘I’ve become accustomed to it. When you and Vianello and the others speak it, I listen to what you say and understand a lot of it. Not all, but most.’

  ‘I’m happy to learn that,’ Brunetti said, utterly confused as to why they were having this conversation – if it was a conversation – now.

  ‘I don’t . . .’ she began, turning to face him. ‘I don’t hear it and immediately assume that you all have to be stevedores or bargemen, barely literate and that reluctantly so.’

  ‘I’m happy to learn that, too,’ Brunetti said, even more confused and deciding to accept her whimsy.

  ‘But,’ Griffoni went on as though he had not spoken, ‘the instant I start to speak with a Neapolitan accent – and I wasn’t speaking Napolitano with Alaimo, or . . .’ she paused here and took a breath – ‘you might have fainted at the sound.’ A depth charge exploded in Brunetti’s conscience, and he felt his face redden.

  ‘At the mere sound of my accent, you began to assume that everything I’ve done in the last years is open to question, and at heart I might remain the ignorant terrona that many of our colleagues still suspect me of being.’

  It was by force of will that Brunetti kept her gaze and allowed her to see the flush of shame he could not control and could not stop. For a horrible moment, Brunetti feared that he would begin to cry.

  He opened his mouth to speak but could find no words. He was her closest colleague here, he knew things about her that no one else here did, and yet she still saw this in him. The shame of it was that she was right. Was this what Blacks and Jews and gays lived with – the possibility that the crack would open in the ice beneath their feet at any step, sucking down all hope of friendship, all hope of love, all hope of common humanity?

  He put his palms to his eyes and rubbed at them until he could look at her again.

  ‘I apologize, Claudia,’ he said, his voice hoarse and uncontrollable. ‘From the deepest place in me. Please forgive me.’

  ‘We’re friends, Guido. And there’s more than enough good in you to make up for this.’ She reached over and touched the side of his face. ‘It’s gone, Guido. Gone.’ She turned away and started walking again. When he drew up beside her, she said, ‘So shall we work on the premise that Alaimo bears further examination?’

  He wanted to say that she was the expert on Naples but thought it might be wise to remain distant from the city until the risk of volcanic activity was eliminated, then had an attack of guilt at still being able to t
hink so lightly of Naples. He wondered when they would be able to talk naturally to one another again. It might help if someone took a shot at one of them, who was then saved only by the valiant heroism of the other. Immediately, he regretted no longer being able to make jokes like this with her. She had said that it was gone, but Brunetti thought it might take a bit more time before that could be true.

  ‘Yes,’ he finally answered. He glanced at his watch, and saw that it was almost 12:30. In need of time to get away from the justice of Griffoni’s observations and admitting his cowardice to himself, he said, ‘Let’s have a closer look after lunch.’

  She smiled and nodded, then after a long pause, said, ‘Good idea. I’ll see you this afternoon.’

  The children were there for lunch, so Brunetti did not mention the – he didn’t even know what to call it: scene, interchange, confrontation, conversation – with Griffoni. Paola had prepared a risotto with cauliflower and quick-fried veal cutlets, two of his favourites, but he barely finished the risotto and refused her offer of a second cutlet. Nor did he drink a glass of wine, as was his habit at lunch.

  Conversation thus fell to the children, who vied with one another in their enthusiasm for the various foreign television series they watched on their computers. Brunetti feared these programmes were hacked – he preferred the verb ‘pirated’ – and wondered if Raffi was capable of doing that. He avoided the question because he didn’t know how he should respond if his son admitted to a crime. Or his daughter.

  He was certain that neither of them was capable of theft: Chiara had once found a briefcase on the vaporetto and, uncertain that it would be properly reported by the crew, had chosen to give it to her father at lunch, leaving him to open it, find the name of the owner, and call him to report its being found.