by Donna Leon
‘I’m in the city,’ she began and then laughed and added, ‘See what happens to people who live or work on the Giudecca? Venice becomes “the city.”’
‘Where are you?’
‘In the bio supermarket in Calle della Regina.’
‘Can we talk?’
‘No, not on the phone, not here. It’s long, and it’s sort of complicated.’
‘Do you know Caffè del Doge?’ he asked.
‘The one on this side of the bridge?’
‘Yes,’ Brunetti said and got slowly to his feet. ‘I’ll be there in ten minutes.’ He waited for her reply.
It was some time in coming. ‘All right.’
‘Good,’ he said and broke the connection.
She was there when he arrived, sitting in the booth at the far right corner of the caffè, usually reserved for regular patrons, who came to find that day’s Gazzettino. Although she sat facing the door, Brunetti almost didn’t recognize her, for she was not in uniform and had pulled back her hair. And was prettier for both reasons.
She half stood and raised her hand a bit as he came in, as if to prove to the two young women behind the bar that she really had been waiting for someone. Brunetti glanced around and saw that most tables were occupied, and at least four people stood at the bar. He walked quickly over to her and put out his hand.
After they shook hands, Nieddu surprised him by moving in front of him to take the chair opposite where she had been, putting her back to the entrance.
Her face was flushed, perhaps from the heat of the crowded room. She sat and smiled at him, repeating, ‘I’m glad you called.’ She shifted on the padded chair, moved back in it, then forward. ‘I think I needed to talk to someone, but I couldn’t think of anyone.’
‘Your commander?’ Brunetti suggested.
She shook her head without answering. ‘I’m still not sure she was telling me the truth. Maybe all I need to do is listen to myself telling someone else and see if it sounds believable.’ Her grimace showed how absurd this sounded, even to herself.
The waitress came and asked what they’d like. Nieddu asked for a Spritz with Aperol, and Brunetti decided to stay with red wine.
‘Did you arrest her?’ Brunetti asked when the waitress was gone. When she offered a shrug as an answer, Brunetti asked, ‘What happened?’
She sighed and shifted around again, then grew quiet. ‘It’s one of those territorial things. The municipal police refuse to patrol Parco San Giuliano, so we had to answer the complaint: a woman was taking her children for a walk and saw what was going on, so she called us. Her pimp – not the woman with the kids – I mean this prostitute’s pimp, thought he could put them in the park to work – there were four of them, and when they were all brought in, I got to question her because I know her.’
It took Brunetti a moment to sort all of this out, but soon he understood the plot.
‘How do you know her?’ he asked.
She lowered her head to hide her expression. ‘We go to the same church.’
‘I beg your pardon.’
‘She started coming to Mass about two months ago; in Mestre, where I live. Her behaviour was strange, and no one would sit next to her, so I did.’ She looked across at him and said, voice swooping into a higher range, ‘For the love of God, it’s a church and we’re all Catholics going to Mass together, and they won’t sit beside her. Or give her their hand when it’s time to do that.’ Then she added, not bothering to hide her disgust, ‘Peace be with you.’
The waitress brought them their drinks. Ignoring hers, Nieddu said, ‘So we started to talk, well, to the degree that we could understand one another; we were sort of friends after a few weeks, just by sitting together. And giving the sign of peace.’ Then she said, ‘Her name is Blessing.’ She picked up her Spritz and took a sip, then another. She set it down. ‘After a month or so, she told me what she did for a living. I suppose she thought I’d be shocked or not want to sit with her any more.’
Nieddu looked at him, smiled, and went on. ‘So I told her what I did for a living and, believe me, I had the same fear.’
‘And?’ Brunetti asked.
‘She laughed. She laughed so hard I had to hit her on the back to try to help her stop coughing.’ Another sip, head lowered to hide her smile. The waitress brought a dish of potato chips. Nieddu took one and nibbled at it as though she were a rabbit with a piece of carrot. ‘After we had that conversation, about our jobs, we both agreed – but it was a silent agreement – not to discuss them. Fine with me. The only time they let her be alone is on Sunday morning, when she can go to church. That’s where we talk.’
‘Does she speak more Italian now?’ Brunetti asked.
Nieddu nodded. ‘Well, sort of: it’s got better in the months we’ve known one another. She understands what I say.’ As if adding the bitter punch line of an old joke, Nieddu added, ‘As well as she can understand anything.’
Reacting to her tone as much as her words, Brunetti asked, ‘What do you mean?’
Nieddu used her drink as a prop: she picked it up slowly, took a very small sip, and placed it carefully back on the table. Brunetti waited. Finally she asked, ‘You’ve heard the saying, “Driven out of her mind,” haven’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s what’s happened to her. I think. That is, too much happened to her, and she’s . . . well, some people would say she’s mad.’
‘Would you?’ Brunetti asked.
Her answer took a long time in coming. ‘If I didn’t know her, probably. Sometimes she talks to herself or talks to people who aren’t there. Sometimes she says strange things.’
‘And when she talks to you?’ Brunetti thought to ask.
‘Usually, no. She’s not mad, not in the least.’ Nieddu paused for a moment and then added, almost reluctantly, ‘Confused, maybe, and sometimes difficult to follow, but that’s usually because of language. Once I figure out what she’s using a word to mean, I understand. And I’d never say she’s mad, at least not then.’
Brunetti saw that Nieddu needed to be encouraged to speak and asked, ‘What has she told you?’
Nieddu sighed and continued. ‘Usual story: her mother was a teacher in Benin City. Making about fifty dollars a month. When she was killed,’ she continued, not pausing to explain this, ‘there were four children and no money. So Blessing’s aunt spoke to an agent, and Blessing signed the contract, did the juju ceremony and vowed to pay off the debt for her transport to Europe after she got there.’ She reached idly for another chip but pulled her hand back and continued. ‘They know who her family is and where they live, so if she ever tries to escape, they’ll go and burn their house down, probably kill them, too.’
Nieddu shrugged and took a chip and ate it. ‘She says she’s eighteen.’ The way she said it, Brunetti suspected Nieddu didn’t believe it.
‘After she signed the contract, they told her how much to pay the agent and the usual story about the job she’d have as an au pair in Milan: live with the family, take care of their two children, one day off a week.’ Her voice grew angrier with each false promise. ‘And now, a year later, she’s one of the girls who work the beach at Bibione during the summer.’
‘Um hum,’ Brunetti muttered.
There was a long wait before she started speaking again. ‘You’ve heard it before, Guido,’
‘We’ve all heard it, Laura.’
Nieddu nodded and ate another potato chip. ‘She told me she traveled by minibus, packed in with ten or twelve other girls. For days. They never knew where they were, and they were treated badly. So by the third day they all knew what the truth was.’ Nieddu paused and lifted her drink. Instead of drinking, she rolled it back and forth between her palms and finally set it down on the table, untasted.
‘They got to a beach – she has no idea where it was – men took them out and put
them on a big boat. They were pushed down a metal staircase and locked in a room with about twenty other girls. She said there were big boxes in the room, so they were probably with the cargo.
‘She doesn’t know how long they were there, but she could hear the motors, and the boat rocked, so they knew they were moving. The lights were on all the time, but no one had a watch: no one had anything except the clothes they wore. Some of them were sick; she was, too. Then the boat stopped, and the men came down and pushed them up the steps and outside on to the deck, then down a ladder to a smaller boat.’ Nieddu stopped and took a deep breath, as though she, too, were being forced on to that boat. ‘She told me all of the girls were handcuffed in pairs when they got into the other boat.’
Brunetti had not heard this before.
Nieddu looked across at him, pulled her lips together nervously, and said, ‘She told me it was a golden boat.’
‘What?’
‘She said the boat was made out of gold,’ Nieddu repeated. Seeing Brunetti’s response, Nieddu added, ‘I told you. Sometimes she says strange things.’
‘Did you ask her about that?’ Brunetti asked.
‘No,’ Nieddu replied. ‘She believed it, so I didn’t insist. I needed to hear the rest of her story.’ Nieddu folded her hands on the table and stared at them for almost a minute, then returned her gaze to Brunetti. ‘Sorry, Guido,’ she said. ‘I got carried away. There are only so many of these stories I can stand to hear.’
Again, he made his noise. He, too, had heard too many of them.
‘Blessing said that after this boat – the golden one – had sailed for some time – she didn’t know how long – she could see lights in the direction they were heading and thought it must be the land, when a big boat started to approach from farther out at sea. It stopped and turned a searchlight on them: they must have spotted them because there was a full moon that night, and no clouds. Blessing said the men in their boat – there were four of them, two were white and two were Nigerians who spoke Edo – ordered them all to lie on the bottom. There was water and it stank. And the men put tarpaulins over them and told them not to move. She heard the other boat getting closer and closer.’ Nieddu drew a very deep breath; her voice tightened.
‘She heard the engines of the other boat grow louder, and then two of the men pulled back the tarpaulins and started throwing the women over the side.’
Something inside Brunetti froze and he had to tell himself to breathe.
‘Blessing knew how to swim, but the other girl didn’t. She said there were girls all around her, in the water, screaming. Then one of the white men was in the water, too, pulling at the girls like he wanted to get them back close to the boat. Blessing grabbed a rope that was hanging over the side of the boat and wrapped her arm around it. Another girl was at the end of her other arm, but she couldn’t let go of the rope to try to help her. No one was screaming any more: the other pairs of girls were gone, and the one she was handcuffed to was quiet: Blessing said she floated. She held on to the rope. The men in the boat grabbed the man and hauled him up; they shouted at him.
‘In the meantime, the big boat passed them and kept going. She doesn’t know why. It went away, and then she heard the Nigerian men in the boat laughing and saying these weren’t real mermaids because they couldn’t swim.’
Nieddu stopped here and brought her drink to her lips but set it down without drinking. She pushed the glass away from her.
Brunetti picked up his napkin, folded it into a small square, and abandoned it on the table.
‘After a while,’ Nieddu went on, ‘the men started the motor again. That’s when they noticed the dead girl floating in the water. And then they saw Blessing, hanging on to the rope. So they dragged her into the boat and unlocked the handcuff and threw the other girl back in the water. And they made jokes about one mermaid being better than none. She just lay on the bottom of the boat, and I suppose it didn’t matter to them that she could understand them.’ There was another long pause, but Brunetti, numbed by what he had heard, was looking at the soccer shirt hanging on the wall and trying to imagine why it would be there and what was the significance of Number 10?
‘Then they took her ashore. She was the only one, and they pushed her into a van.’
Does that mean, Brunetti asked himself, that she was lucky? She’s a madwoman turning tricks on a beach or at the side of the road: is that better than being dead? ‘I’m sorry you had to hear this,’ Brunetti said.
‘And Blessing?’ she shot back.
‘My God, she exceeds all pity,’ Brunetti said. For long moments, speech was impossible.
‘By the time we finished talking,’ Nieddu continued, voice emotionless, ‘everyone had gone home. My colleagues had questioned the other girls, but not really, and let them go. So I told Blessing she could leave, too.’ Nieddu started to say something else, paused, and pretended to cough.
‘What is it?’ Brunetti asked.
‘I gave her one of those cheap Nokia telefonini you can get for twenty Euros. My number’s programmed into it, so she can call me if she needs help.’ She tried a tentative smile and added, ‘I put twenty Euros of pre-pay in it.’ She shook her head, as if at her own foolishness, then added: ‘The number is registered to a cheese store in Cremona. So she can say she found it if she has to. Or toss it away.’
‘Very clever.’
Nieddu said, ‘She doesn’t need more risk in her life.’
‘A rock would cry,’ Brunetti said before he thought. He reached over and touched her arm lightly.
She nodded. ‘Once they were people, and now they’re merchandise.’
‘Except they kill them now,’ Brunetti said.
Nieddu stared across the small table at him, apparently at a loss for what to say. He watched as she started to say something but then pause and edit it. Finally she said, ‘Dante has lots of circles, but it’s still all Hell.’
Brunetti made no comment. He looked at his watch and saw that it was close to eight. He took some coins from his pocket and put them on the table.
He got to his feet. Without understanding why it was important to know, but knowing that it was important, he asked, ‘Is there someone you’ll go home to?’
She looked up at him, incapable of hiding her surprise, and then she smiled, incapable of hiding that, too.
‘Yes,’ she said getting to her feet. ‘How kind of you to ask.’
‘I’m sorry for . . .’ he began but let his voice trail off. He waved a hand over the table, as if the glasses were representative of the women they had talked about. One glass had somehow shifted dangerously close to the edge of the table and was in danger of falling off.
He reached down and slid it towards a safe place near the centre of the table.
‘If only it were that easy,’ Nieddu said, patted his upper arm a few times, and left without saying goodbye. It was only when he was walking home that he remembered he had forgotten to ask her opinion of Capitano Alaimo.
20
Dinner, which Paola and Chiara were just putting on the table when he got home, failed to lift Brunetti’s spirits. There was pumpkin soup, which he loved, and then grilled branzino, but even this historically magic combination did not work its spell, and he sat, listening to what was being said but not engaging in the conversation.
Chiara was complaining about a new rule the school was trying to impose upon the students: from the beginning of the following week, they were to leave their telefonini in a set of lockers – each student was to be allotted one and given the key – during class time. They were free to use the phones during the lunch break, but telefonini were prohibited from classrooms, nor were they to be used during the rest of the school day.
Chiara was, expectedly, indignant and spoke of her ‘right’ to remain in touch with the world during the day and insisted that she was old enough to know how to moderat
e her use of time. ‘We’re being treated as if we were slaves,’ she said in the tone of righteous indignation common to those whose luxuries are questioned or compromised.
Brunetti set his fork on his plate, careful to do it quietly. ‘I beg your pardon?’ was all he said.
She looked across at her father, her rhetoric impeded by his calm voice. ‘For what?’ she asked, puzzled.
‘You said you were being treated like slaves,’ Brunetti said.
‘That’s right,’ she told him. Then, ignoring the warning his dispassionate tone had given, she added, ‘It’s true: they’re treating us like slaves.’
‘Slaves?’ Brunetti repeated.
‘Slaves,’ Chiara confirmed with the same certainty that sprang from Foxe’s Book of Martyrs.
‘In what way?’ Brunetti asked, reaching for his glass.
‘It’s what I was just saying, Papà. They’re telling us we can’t use our phones while we’re at school.’
This was already an exaggeration of what she had first said, Brunetti reflected, but he did not point this out to his daughter.
He took a sip of wine, set the glass down on the table, and shifted it from side to side. Both Paola and Raffi had grown silent and joined Chiara in looking at him. He glanced up at his daughter. ‘I’m not sure I understand the comparison,’ he said in a soft voice.
‘But I told you, Papà,’ Chiara said. ‘They won’t let us use our phones during school.’
Brunetti smiled and said, ‘I understand that, Angel. It’s the comparison I don’t understand.’
‘What’s not to understand?’ she asked. ‘We’re being stopped from doing what we want to do.’
He held the stem and twirled the wine around to the right, then to the left. He took a very small sip and nodded, although it was not clear if he was nodding in approval of the wine or of what Chiara had said. Finally he asked, ‘And that’s a definition of slavery?’
He kept his eyes from acknowledging the presence of Raffi and Paola, silent as owls. Nor did he look directly at Chiara; she, nevertheless, responded to something hidden in his voice by setting her fork on her plate and giving him her complete attention.