by Donna Leon
lunch with his family.
Brunetti arrived before the children did, so he opted to keep Paola
company while she finished preparing the meal. As she set the table,
he lifted pot lids and opened the oven, comforted to find nothing but
familiar dishes: lentil soup, chicken smothered in red cabbage, and
what looked like radicchio di Treviso.
"Are you bringing all of your detective skills to bear in examining
that chicken?" Paola asked as she set glasses on the table.
"No, not really," he said, closing the oven and standing upright. "My
investigation has to do with the radicchio, Signora, and whether there
are perhaps traces in it of the same pancetta I detected in the lentil
soup."
"A nose as good as that," she said, coming over and placing the tip of
her finger on it, 'could effectively put an end to crime in this city."
She lifted the lid from the soup and stirred it round a bit, then said,
"You're back early."
"I was over near San Marco and so it didn't make any sense to go back,"
he said, taking a sip of mineral water. "I went to
see Signora Moro/ he began, pausing to see if Paola would react. She
did not, so he went on, "I wanted to talk to her about the hunting
accident
"And?" Paola prodded.
"Someone shot at her from the woods near her friends' house, but then
some other hunters came along and took her to the hospital."
"Are you sure they were other hunters?" Paola asked, giving evidence
that her native scepticism had been enhanced by more than two decades
of marriage to a policeman.
"It would seem so he said, leaving it at that.
Knowing how reluctant he would be to mention him, Paola asked, "And the
boy?"
"She said that he didn't kill himself, and that's all she said."
"She's his mother," Paola said. "Believe her."
"It's as simple as that?" Brunetti asked, unable to disguise his own
scepticism.
"Yes, it's as simple as that. If anyone knew what he was capable of,
it's she."
Unwilling to argue the point, he poured himself another glass of water
and wandered over to stand at the window that looked off to the north.
From behind him, Paola asked, "What's she like?"
He thought about the woman, remembered her voice, the eyes that took
little interest in seeing him, the paper-thin skin of her neck.
"Reduced/ he finally said. "She's not a whole person any more." He
thought Paola would ask about this, but she didn't. "All I saw was a
photo of her, taken some years ago, with the boy. And her husband. She
still looks like the same person; I mean, you could recognize her from
the photo, but there's less of her."
"That makes sense Paola said, 'there is less of her."
He had no idea why he thought Paola would have an answer, but he asked
her anyway, "Will that ever go away, the diminishing?"
It was only then that Brunetti realized that his question would force
Paola to think about the death of her own children because the only way
to answer the question was to put herself in the other woman's place.
He regretted asking the question as soon as he had spoken. He had
never had the courage to ask her if she thought about that possibility
and, if so, how often. Though he had always found it absurd that
parents should worry excessively about the safety of their children,
that is, worry in the absence of any real danger, a day did not pass
but he worried about his own. The fact that he knew it to be
ridiculous, especially in a city without cars, in no way reduced his
concern or prevented him from counting out the ways the safety of his
children could be imperilled.
Paola's voice broke into his reverie. "No, I don't think the death of
a child is something a person ever recovers from, not fully."
"Do you think it's worse because she's a mother?" he asked.
She dismissed this with a shake of her head. "No. That's nonsense."
He was grateful that she chose not to give an example to prove that a
father's grief could be as deep.
He turned back from looking at the mountains, and their eyes met. "What
do you think happened?" she asked.
He shook his head, utterly at a loss to make any sense of what had
happened to the Moro family. "All I have is four events: he writes his
report, though nothing much comes of it except that he's punished; he
gets elected to Parliament and then leaves before his term in office is
over; his wife is shot just before he resigns; two years later, his son
is found hanged in the bathroom of his school."
"Does the school mean anything?" Paola asked.
"Mean anything in what way? That it's a military academy?"
That's the only thing that's unusual about it, isn't it?" she asked.
That and the fact that they spend the winter walking
around the city looking like penguins. And the rest of the year
looking like they have a bad smell under their noses." This was
Paola's usual description of snobs and their behaviour. As she had
been born to a conte and conte ssa and had spent her youth surrounded
by wealth and titles and the hangers-on who are drawn to both, he
figured she'd seen her fair share of snobs.
"I always heard it had a good academic record he said.
"Bah/ she exploded, erasing that possibility from the air with a puff
of breath.
"I'm not sure that serves as a conclusive counter argument he said.
"Articulate and well-reasoned as it is."
Paola turned to face him and put her hands on her hips, looking like an
actress trying out for the role of Angry Woman. "My counter-argument
might not be conclusive she said, 1?ut I shall do my best to make it
articulate."
"Oh, I love it when you're angry like that, Signora Paola/ he said in a
voice he forced up to its highest register. Her hands fell to her
sides and she laughed. "Tell me he said, reaching for the bottle of
Pinot Noir that stood on the counter.
"Susanna Arid/ she said, 'used to teach there, right after she came
back from Rome and was waiting-for a job at a state school. She
thought that by taking the job she was offered at the Academy, even
though it was only part time, she'd at least have entered the state
system." At Brunetti's questioning glance, she explained, "She thought
it was run by the Army, which would make it a state school. But it's
entirely private, not attached to the Army in any official way, though
it seems it somehow manages to receive quite a bit of state funding. So
all she had was a badly paid part-time job. And then when the
permanent position came up, they didn't give her the job, anyway."
"What did she teach, English?" Brunetti had met Susanna a number of
times. The youngest sister of a classmate of Paola's, she had gone to
Urbino to study, then come back to
Venice to teach, where she still was, happily divorced and living with
the father of her second daughter.
"Yes, but for only one year."
This had been almost ten years ago, so Brunetti asked, "Couldn't things
have changed since then?"
; "I don't see why anything should have. Certainly, the public schools
have done nothing but get worse, though I imagine the students have
remained pretty much the same: I don't see why things in private
schools should be any different."
Brunetti pulled out his chair and sat. "All right. What did she
say?"
That most of their parents were terrible snobs and that they passed
this feeling of superiority on to their sons. To their daughters as
well, for all I know, but as the Academy takes only boys..." Paola's
voice trailed off, and for a moment Brunetti wondered if she were going
to use this opportunity to launch into a denunciation of single-sex
schools that received funds from the state.
She came and stood near him, took his glass of wine and sipped at it,
then handed it back to him. "Don't worry. Only one sermon at a time,
my dear." Brunetti, unwilling to encourage her, stifled a smile.
"What else did she say?" he asked.
That they felt entitled to everything they had or their parents had and
that they believed themselves to be members of a special group."
"Doesn't everyone?" Brunetti asked.
"In this case Paola went on, 'it was more a case that they felt
themselves bound only to the group, to its rules and decisions."
"Isn't that what I just said?" Brunetti asked. "Certainly we police
feel that way. Well, some do."
"Yes, I suppose so. But you still feel bound by the laws that govern
the rest of us, don't you?"
"Yes/ Brunetti agreed, but then his conscience, and indeed his
intelligence, forced him to add, "Some of us."
"Well, what Susanna said was that these boys didn't. That is, they
thought that the only rules that governed them were the rules of the
military. So long as they obeyed them and remained loyal to that
group, they believed they could pretty much do anything else they
wanted."
Paola studied him as she spoke, and when she saw the attention he gave
to what she said, she went on, "What's more, she said that the
teachers, most of whom had a military background, did everything they
could to encourage the students to think like this. They told them to
think of themselves as soldiers first and foremost." And then she
smiled, though grimly. "Just think of the pathos of it: they aren't
soldiers, aren't associated with the military in any real way, yet
they're being taught to think of themselves as warriors, loyal only to
the cult of violence. It's disgusting."
Something that had been nibbling at the edge of his memory finally
broke through. "Was she there when that girl was raped?" he asked.
"No, I think that was a year or two after she left. Why?"
"I'm trying to remember the story. The girl was the sister of one of
them, wasn't she?"
"Yes, or a cousin," Paola said, then shook her head as if that would
better summon the memory. "All I remember is that the police were
called to the school and at first it looked as if the girl had been
raped. But then it dropped out of the papers like a stone."
"It's strange, but I don't have a clear memory of it, just that it
happened, but none of the details are clear."
The think it happened when you were in London on that course," Paola
suggested. "I remember thinking, at the time, that I had no way of
knowing what really happened because you weren't here to tell me, and
the only source of information I had was the newspapers."
"Yes, that must be it," he agreed. "I'm sure there's something in the
files; there's got to be, at least the original report."
"Could you find it?"
"I'm sure Signorina Elettra could."
"But why bother?" Paola suddenly countered. "There's no surprise
here: rich boys, rich parents, so everything goes suddenly quiet and,
next thing you know, it's disappeared from the press and, for all I
know, from the public record."
"I can still ask her to have a look Brunetti said. Then he asked,
"What else did Susanna say?"
That she never felt comfortable there. She said there was always an
undercurrent of resentment at the fact that she was a woman."
"No way she could change that, is there?" Brunetti asked.
They did the next best thing when they hired her replacement Paola
said.
"Let me guess. A man?"
"Very much so."
Speaking carefully, always conscious of when he was about to stumble
over one of Paola's hobby-horses, he asked, "It couldn't be a bit of
reverse sexism I'm detecting here, could it?"
Paola's look was fierce, but then it disappeared, replaced by a
tolerant smile. "According to Susanna, he spoke English about as well
as the average Parisian taxi driver, but he'd been to the Naval Academy
in Livorno, so it didn't matter how well he spoke it. For that fact,
it probably didn't matter if he spoke it at all. You know the place is
just a finishing school for those boys before they step into their
fathers' shoes in the Army or into whatever businesses they run, and
it's not as if the Army's an institution that makes serious
intellectual demands on anyone." Before Brunetti could question this,
Paola said, "But, yes, it might be that she exaggerated. Susanna does
tend to see sexism where it doesn't exist."
When he got his breath back, Brunetti asked, "You remember her saying
all of this at the time?"
"Of course. I was one of the people who recommended her for the job,
so when they let her go, she told me. Why do you ask?"
"I wondered if you've talked to her since this happened."
"You mean the boy?"
"Yes."
"No, we haven't spoken in, oh, at least six months. But I remember it,
probably because it confirms everything I've ever thought about the
military. They have the morals of pit vipers. They'll do anything to
cover up for one another: lie, cheat, commit perjury. Just look what
happened when those Americans flew into the cable car. You think any
of them told the truth? I haven't noticed any of them going to jail.
How many people did they kill? Twenty? Thirty?" She made a noise of
disgust, poured herself a small glass of wine, but left it untouched on
the counter as she went on. They'll do anything they want to anyone
who isn't a member of the group, and the instant the public begins to
ask questions, they all clam up and talk about honour and loyalty and
all that other noble shit. It's enough to make a' pig vomit." She
stopped talking and closed her eyes, then opened them enough to see her
glass of wine and pick it up. She took a small sip, and then a larger
one. Suddenly she smiled. "End of sermon."
Brunetti had, in his youth, done eighteen months of undistinguished
military service, most of it spent hiking in the mountains with his
fellow Alpini. His memories, and he admitted that they had acquired
the golden patina of age, were chiefly of a sense of unity and
belonging entirely different from those his family had given him. As
he cast his mind back, the image that came through with greatest
clarity was of a dinner of cheese, bread and s
alami, eaten in company
with four other boys in a freezing mountain hut in
Alto Adige, after which they had drunk two bottles of grappa and sung
marching songs. He had never told Paola about this evening, not
because he was ashamed of how drunk they had all got, but because the
memory could still fill him with such simple joy. He had no idea where
the other boys men now had gone or what they had done after finishing
their military service, but he knew that some sort of bond had been
forged in the cold of that mountain hut and that he would never
experience anything like it again.
He pulled his mind back to the present and to his wife. "You've always
hated the military, haven't you?"
Her response was instant. "Give me one reason not to."
Certain that she would dismiss his memory as the worst sort of male
bonding ritual, Brunetti found himself with precious little to say.
"Discipline?" he asked.
"Have you ever ridden on a train with a bunch of them?" Paola asked,
then repeated his answer with a little puff of contempt.
"Discipline?"
"It gets them away from their mothers."
She laughed. That's perhaps the only certain good thing it does.
Unfortunately, after they have their eighteen months, they all come
back home to roost."
