Fatal Remedies

by Donna Leon

  More unsettling, Signor Iacovantuono was from Salerno and hence one of those criminally disposed southerners whose presence here in the north was said to be destroying the social fabric of the nation. ‘But, Commissario,’ he had insisted in his heavily accented voice, ‘if we don’t do something about these people, what life will our children have?’

  Brunetti was unable to free himself from the echo of these words and began to fear that his days were now to be haunted by the baying of the moral hounds that had been unleashed in his conscience by Paola’s actions of the night before. It had all seemed so simple to the dark-haired pizzaiolo from Salerno: wrong had been done; it was his duty to see that it was punished. Even when warned of the potential danger, he had remained adamant in his need to do what he thought to be right.

  As the sleeping fields on the outskirts of Venice swept past the window of the train, Brunetti wondered how it could seem so simple to Signor Iacovantuono and yet so complicated to him. Perhaps the fact that it was illegal to rob banks made it easier. After all, society was in general agreement about that. And no law said it was wrong to sell a ticket to Thailand or the Philippines; nor that it was illegal to buy one. Nor, for that matter, did the law concern itself with what a person chose to do when he got there, at least not laws that had ever been applied in Italy. Rather like those against blasphemy, they existed in a kind of juridical limbo for the existence of which no real proof had ever been seen.

  For the last few months, even longer than that, articles had been appearing in national newspapers and magazines in which various experts analyzed the international traffic in sex-tourism statistically, psychologically, sociologically - in any of those ways the press loved to chew up a hot topic. Brunetti could remember some of them, even recalled a photo of prepubescent girls, said to be working in a brothel in Cambodia, their budding breasts an offence to his eyes, their small faces blotted out by some sort of visual computer static.

  He had read the Interpol reports on the subject, seen how the estimates of the numbers involved, both as clients and as - he could find no other word - victims varied by as much as half a million. He had read the numbers and part of him had always chosen to believe the lowest numbers given: his humanity would be soiled were he to accept the highest.

  It was the most recent article - he thought it had appeared in Panorama - which had provoked Paola to incendiary rage. He had heard the first salvo two weeks before in Paola’s voice, which had shouted from the back of the apartment ‘Bastardi’, a sound which had shattered the peace of a Sunday afternoon and, Brunetti now feared, far more than that.

  He had not had to go back to her study, for she had stormed into the living-room, the magazine a clenched cylinder in her right hand. There had been no preamble. ‘Listen to this, Guido.’

  Paola had unrolled the magazine, flattened the page against her knee and straightened up to read, ‘“A paedophile, as the word says, is one who doubtlessly loves children.”‘ She stopped there and looked across the room at him.

  ‘And rapists, presumably, love women?’ Brunetti had asked.

  ‘Do you believe this?’ Paola had demanded, ignoring his remark. ‘One of the most popular magazines in the country - and only God knows how that can be - and they can print this shit?’ She glanced down at the page and added, ‘And he teaches sociology. God, have these people no conscience? When is someone in this disgusting country going to say that we’re responsible for our behaviour instead of blaming it on society or, for God’s sake, the victim?’

  Because Brunetti could never answer questions like this, he had made no attempt to do so. Instead, he asked her what else the article said.

  She’d told him then, her rage not at all diminished by her having to become lucid to do so. Like any good tour, the article touched all the by now famous sites: Phnom Penh, Bangkok, Manila, then brought things closer to home by regurgitating the most recent cases in Belgium and Italy. But it was the tone which had enraged her and, he had to admit, disgusted Brunetti: starting from the astonishing premise that paedophiles loved children, the magazine’s resident sociologist had gone on to explain how a permissive society induced men to do these things. Part of the reason, this sage opined, was the tremendous seductiveness of children. Rage had stopped Paola from reading further.

  ‘Sex-tourism,’ Paola had muttered between teeth clenched so hard that Brunetti could see the tendons in her neck pulled out from the skin. ‘God, to think that they can do it, that they can buy a ticket, sign up for a tour, and go and rape ten-year-olds.’ She had thrown the magazine to the back of the sofa and returned to her study, but it was that night after dinner that she had first proposed the idea of stopping the industry.

  Brunetti had at first thought she was joking and now, in retrospect, he feared that his refusal to take her seriously might have upped the ante and driven her that fatal step from outrage to action. He remembered asking her, his voice in memory arch and condescending, if she planned to stop the traffic all by herself.

  ‘And the fact that it’s illegal?’

  ‘What’s illegal?’

  ‘To throw rocks through windows, Paola.’

  ‘And it’s not illegal to rape ten-year-olds?’

  Brunetti had stopped the conversation then, and in retrospect he had to admit it had been because he had no answer to give her. No, it seemed, in some places in the world it was not illegal to rape ten-year-olds. But it was illegal, here in Venice, in Italy, to throw rocks through windows, and that was his job: to see that people did not do it or, if they did, that they were arrested.

  The train pulled into the station and came to a slow stop. Many of the passengers getting down on to the platform carried paper-wrapped cones of flowers, reminding Brunetti that today was the first of November, the day of the dead, when most citizens would go out to the cemetery to lay flowers on the tombs of their departed. It was a sign of his misery that he welcomed the thought of dead relatives as a comfortable distraction. He wouldn’t go; he seldom did.

  Brunetti decided to walk home rather than go back to the Questura. Eyes that see not, ears that hear not; he walked through the city blind and deaf to its charms, playing and replaying the conversations and confrontations that had resulted from Paola’s original explosion.

  One of her many peculiarities was that she was a peripatetic tooth-brusher, would often walk around the apartment or into their bedroom while she cleaned her teeth. So it had seemed entirely natural to him that she had been standing at the door of their bedroom three nights ago, toothbrush in hand, when she had said, entirely without prelude, ‘I’m going to do it.’

  Brunetti had known what she meant, but had not believed her, so he had done no more than glance up at her and nod. And that had been the end of it, at least until the call had come from Ruberti to disturb his sleep and now his peace.

  * * * *

  He stopped in the pasticceria below their house and bought a little bag of fave, the small round almond cakes that were found only at this time of year. Chiara loved them. Following fast upon that thought, he found himself considering how this could be said to be true of virtually every edible substance in existence, and with that memory came the first release from tension that Brunetti had experienced since the night before.

  Inside the apartment all was calm, but in the current climate that didn’t mean much. Paola’s coat hung on a hook beside the door, Chiara’s beside it, her red wool scarf on the floor below. He picked it up and draped it over her coat, removing his own and hanging it to the right of Chiara’s. Just like the three bears, he thought: Mamma, Papà and baby.

  He pulled open the paper bag and dropped a few fave into his open palm. He tossed one into his mouth, then another, and finally two more. With a sudden flash of memory he remembered, decades ago, buying some for Paola when they were university students and still caught up in the first glow of love.

  ‘Aren’t you tired of people talking about Proust every time they eat a cake or biscuit?’ he’d asked as i
f he were graced with some open window to her mind.

  A voice from behind startled him and brought him back from reverie. ‘Can I have some, Papà?’

  ‘I got them for you, angel,’ he answered, reaching down and handing the bag to Chiara.

  ‘Do you mind if I eat just the chocolate ones?’

  He shook his head. ‘Is your mother in her study?’

  ‘Are you going to have an argument?’ she enquired, hand poised above the neck of the open bag.

  ‘Why do you say that?’ he asked.

  ‘You always call Mamma “your mother” when you’re going to have an argument with her.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose I do,’ he agreed. ‘Is she there?’

  ‘Uh huh,’ she answered. ‘Is it going to be a big one?’

  He shrugged. He had no idea.

  ‘I’d better eat all of these, then. In case it’s going to be.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because dinner will be late. It always is.’

  He reached into the bag and took a few fave, careful to leave her the chocolate ones. ‘I’ll try not to make it be an argument, then.’

  ‘Good.’ She turned and went down the corridor to her room, taking the bag with her. Brunetti followed a few moments later, stopping in front of the door to Paola’s study. He knocked.

  ‘Avanti,’ she called.

  When he went in he found her, as he usually did when he got home from work, sitting at her desk, a pile of papers in front of her, glasses low on her nose as she read through them. She looked up at him, smiled a real smile, removed her glasses and asked, ‘What happened in Treviso?’

  ‘Just what I thought wouldn’t. Or couldn’t,’ Brunetti said and moved across the room to his usual place on a stout, middle-aged sofa that stood against the wall to her right.

  ‘He’ll testify?’ Paola asked.

  ‘He’s eager to testify. He identified the photo instantly and he’s coming down here tomorrow to have a look at him, but I’d say he’s certain.’ In response to her evident surprise Brunetti added, ‘And he’s from Salerno.’

  ‘And he’s really willing?’ She made no attempt to disguise her wonderment. When Brunetti nodded, she said, ‘Tell me about him.’

  ‘He’s a little man, about forty, supporting a wife and two children by working in a pizzeria in Treviso. He’s been up here for twenty years, but still goes down there every year for vacation. When they can.’

  ‘Does his wife work?’ Paola asked.

  ‘She’s a cleaning lady in an elementary school.’

  ‘What was he doing in a bank in Venice?’

  ‘He was paying the mortgage on his apartment in Treviso. The bank that gave the original mortgage was taken over by a bank here, so he comes down once a year to pay the mortgage himself. If he tries to do it through his bank in Treviso they charge him two hundred thousand lire, which is why he travelled to Venice on his day off to pay it.’

  ‘And found himself in the middle of a robbery?’

  Brunetti nodded.

  Paola shook her head. ‘It’s remarkable that he’d be willing to testify. You said the man who was arrested is mixed up with the Mafia?’

  ‘His brother is.’ Brunetti kept to himself his belief that this meant they both were.

  ‘And does the man in Treviso know this?’

  ‘Yes. I told him.’

  ‘And he’s still willing?’ When Brunetti nodded again, Paola said, ‘Then perhaps there is hope for all of us.’

  Brunetti shrugged, conscious that there was some dishonesty, perhaps a great deal of dishonesty, in his not telling Paola what Iacovantuono had said about having to behave bravely for our children’s sake. He shifted himself lower on the sofa, stuck his feet out in front of him and crossed his ankles.

  ‘Are you finished with it?’ he asked, knowing she would understand.

  ‘I don’t think so, Guido,’ she said, both hesitation and regret audible as she spoke.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because the newspapers, when they write about what happened, will call it a random act of vandalism, like someone who knocks over a garbage can or slashes the seat on a train.’

  Brunetti, though tempted, said nothing, waiting for her to continue.

  ‘It wasn’t random, Guido, and it wasn’t vandalism.’ She put her face down into her open palms and slid her hands up until they were covering the top of her head. From below, her voice came to him. ‘The public have got to understand why it was done, that these people are doing something that is both disgusting and immoral, and that they’ve got to be made not to do it.’

  ‘Have you thought about the consequences?’ Brunetti asked in a level voice.

  She looked up at him. ‘I couldn’t be married to a policeman for twenty years and not have thought of the consequences.’

  ‘To yourself?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And to me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you don’t regret them?’

  ‘Of course I regret them. I don’t want to lose my job or have your career suffer.’

  ‘But...?’

  ‘I know you think I’m a terrible show-off, Guido,’ she began and continued before he had the chance to say anything. ‘And it’s true, but only at times. This isn’t like that, not at all. I’m not doing this to be in the newspapers. In fact, I can tell you honestly that I’m afraid of the trouble this is going to cause us all. But I have to do it.’ Again, when she saw him about to interrupt, she amended that. ‘I mean, someone has to do it, or, to use the passive voice you hate so much,’ she said with a gentle smile, ‘it has to be done.’ Still smiling, she added, ‘I’ll listen to anything you have to say, but I don’t think I can do anything different from what I’ve chosen to do.’

  Brunetti changed the position of his feet, putting the left on top, and leaned a little to the right. ‘The Germans have changed the law. They can now prosecute Germans for things they do in other countries.’

  ‘I know. I read the article,’ she said sharply.

  ‘And?’

  ‘And one man was sentenced to a few years in jail. As the Americans say, “Big fucking deal.” Hundreds of thousands of men go there every year. Putting one of them in jail, in a well-lit German jail where he gets television and visits from his wife every week, is not going to stop men from going to Thailand as sex-tourists.’

  ‘And what you want to do, that will?’

  ‘If the planes don’t go, if no one’s willing to take the risk of organizing the tours, with hotel rooms and meals and guides to take them to the brothels, well, then fewer of them will go. I know it’s not much, but it’s something.’

  ‘They’ll go on their own.’

  ‘Fewer of them.’

  ‘But still some? But still a lot of them?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Then why do it?’

  She shook her head in annoyance. ‘Maybe all of this is because you’re a man,’ she said.

  For the first time since coming into her study Brunetti felt anger. ‘What’s that suppose to mean?’

  ‘It means that men and women look at this differently. Always will.’

  ‘Why?’ His voice was level, though both of them knew that anger had slipped into the room and between them.

  ‘Because, no matter how much you try to imagine what this means, it’s always got to be an exercise in imagination. It can’t happen to you, Guido. You’re big and strong and, from the time you were a little boy, you’ve been accustomed to violence of some sort: soccer, rough-housing with other boys; in your case police training as well.’

  She saw his attention drifting away. He’d heard this before and never believed it. She thought he didn’t want to believe it, but she had not told him that. ‘But it’s different for us, for women,’ she went on. ‘We spend our lives being made afraid of violence, made to think always of avoiding it. But still every one of us knows that what happens to those kids in Cambodia or Thailand or the Philippines could just as
easily have happened to us, could still happen to us. It’s as simple as that, Guido: you’re big and we’re little.’

  He gave no response, and so she went on, ‘Guido, we’ve been talking about this for years and we’ve never really agreed. We don’t now.’ She paused for a moment, then asked, ‘Will you listen to two more things, then I’ll listen to you?’

  Brunetti wanted to make his voice sound amiable, open and accepting; he wanted to say ‘Of course’, but the best he could manage was a tight ‘Yes’.