by Donna Leon
‘For fear of what would happen to him?’ Brunetti asked, uncertain of how seriously he meant the remark.
‘Partly,’ she said.
‘And what else?’
‘Fear of what would happen to us.’
He looked at her to see if she was joking, but her face was set and grim. ‘You believe that, Signorina?’
‘It is an organization that has never been kind to its enemies.’
‘And is that what you are, an enemy?’
‘With all my heart.’
Brunetti was about to ask her why, but he stopped himself. It was not that he did not want to know – quite the opposite – just he did not want to begin a discussion of this topic now, and not in the office, standing in front of a door through which Vice-Questore Patta could walk at any moment. Instead, he said, ‘I’ll be very grateful to your friend for any information he can give me.’
The phone rang again, and this time she picked it up. She asked who was speaking and then asked them to hold the line for a moment while she called the files up on her computer.
Brunetti nodded in her direction and went back up toward his office, the papers still in his hand.
Chapter Fifteen
And this, Brunetti thought as he walked back up to his office, was the man to whom he had, all unwittingly, entrusted Chiara’s religious education. He could not say that they had done it together, for Paola had made it clear from the very beginning that she wanted no part of it. He had known, even back when the children were just beginning elementary school, that she opposed the idea, but the social consequences of an outright rejection of religious instruction would be endured by the children themselves and not by the parents making the decision for them. Where would a child whose parents rejected religious instruction sit while his or her peers were learning the catechism and the lives of the saints? What would happen to a child who did not join in the rites of passage marked by First Communion and Confirmation?
Brunetti recalled a legal case much in the headlines last year that concerned a perfectly respectable couple, childless, he a doctor and she a lawyer. The high court of Torino had rejected their application to adopt a child because both of them were atheists, and it was determined that these people would not, therefore, be suitable parents.
He had laughed at the story of those Irish priests in Dublin, as if Ireland were some Third World country in the death grasp of a primitive religion, yet here in his own country signs of the same grasp were surely to be seen, if only to the jaundiced eye.
He had no idea what to do about Padre Luciano, for he knew he had no legal foothold. The man had never been charged with a crime, and Brunetti guessed it would be impossible to find anyone in his old parishes to speak out openly against him. The infection had been passed on for other people to deal with, a natural enough response, and those who were free of him were sure to remain silent, if only because this would assure that they would remain free of him.
Brunetti knew that his society took a jocund view of sex offences, viewing them as little more than excesses of male ardour. It was not a view he shared. What sort of therapy, he wondered, was given to priests like Padre Luciano at this home where he had been sent? If Padre Luciano’s record since his stay there was any indication, whatever treatment he had been given had not proven effective.
Back at his desk, he tossed the papers down in front of him. He sat for a while, then got up and went over to look out the window. Seeing nothing there to interest him, he returned to his desk and pulled together all of the reports and papers having to do with Maria Testa and the various events that could in any way be related to what she had told him that quiet day, now weeks ago. He read through them all, taking an occasional note. When he was finished, he stared at the wall for a few minutes, then picked up the phone and asked to be connected to the Ospedale Civile.
To his surprise, he had no difficulty in being connected to the nurse in charge of the emergency ward, who told him, when he introduced himself, that ‘the police’s’ patient had been moved to a private room. No, there had been no change in her condition: she was still unconscious. Yes, if he waited a moment, she would go and get the police officer who was in front of her door.
It turned out to be Miotti. ‘Yes, sir?’ he asked when Brunetti identified himself.
‘Anything?’
‘Quiet and more quiet.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘Reading, sir. I hope you don’t mind.’
‘Better than looking at the nurses, I suppose. Anyone come to visit her?’
‘Only that man from the Lido. Sassi. No one else.’
‘Did you talk to your brother, Miotti?’
‘Yes, sir. Last night, as a matter of fact.’
‘And did you ask him about that priest?’
‘I did, sir.’
‘And?’
‘Well, at first he didn’t want to say anything. I don’t know if it’s because he didn’t want to spread gossip. Marco’s like that, sir,’ Miotti explained, as if asking his superior’s forbearance about such weakness of character. ‘But then I told him I really needed to know, and he told me that there was talk – just talk, sir – that he was involved with Opus Dei. He didn’t know anything for sure, just that he had heard things. You understand, sir?’
‘Yes, I understand. Anything else?’
‘Not really, sir. I tried to think of what you would want to know, what else you’d ask when I told you this, and I thought you’d want to know if Marco believed the talk, and so I asked him if he did.’
‘And?’
‘And he believes it, sir.’
‘Thank you, Miotti. Go back to your reading.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘What is it you’re reading?’
‘Quattroute,’ he said, naming the most popular of the automobile magazines.
‘I see. Thank you, Miotti.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Oh, sweet merciful Jesus on the cross, save us all. At the thought of Opus Dei, Brunetti could not prevent himself from giving inner voice to one of his mother’s favourite prayers. If any mystery was wrapped up in an enigma, it was Opus Dei. Brunetti knew no more than that it was some sort of religious organization, half clerical, half lay, which owed absolute allegiance to the Pope and which was dedicated to some sort of renewal of power or authority for the Church. And, as soon as Brunetti considered what he knew about Opus Dei and how he knew it, he was aware that he could not be sure of the truth of any of it. If a secret society is, by definition, a secret, then anything that is ‘known’ about it might well be mistaken.
The Masons, with their rings and trowels and tiny cocktail waitress aprons, had always charmed Brunetti. He had little real information about them, but he had always considered them more harmless than menacing, and he had to realize that not a little part of this was the result of his having seen them too frequently neutralized by the beautiful fun of The Magic Flute.
But Opus Dei was a different matter altogether. He knew less about them – had to admit that he knew almost nothing about them at all – but even the sound of the name was a cold breath on the back of his neck.
He tried to distance himself from stupid prejudice and tried to remember anything that he had ever read or heard directly about Opus Dei, anything tangible and verifiable, but he came up with nothing. He found himself thinking about the Gypsies, for he ‘knew’ about the Gypsies in much the same way that he ‘knew’ about Opus Dei: as a result of things repeated, things passed on, but never a name or a date or a fact. The cumulative effect was the atmosphere of mystery that any closed society must exude to those who are not members.
He tried to think of anyone from whom he could get accurate information, but he could think of no one except Signorina Elettra’s anonymous friend in the Patriarch’s office. Surely, if the Church was nursing an adder to its bosom, then it was in that bosom where information must be sought.
She looked up when he came in, surprised to se
e him again. ‘Yes, Commissario?’
‘I have another favour to ask your friend.’
‘Yes?’ she asked, reaching for her notebook.
‘Opus Dei.’
Her surprise, no more than a minimal widening of her eyes, was evident to Brunetti. ‘What would you like to know about them, sir?’
‘How they might be involved in what’s going on here.’
‘You mean these wills and that woman in the hospital?’
‘Yes.’ Then, almost as an afterthought, Brunetti asked, ‘And could you ask him to see if there’s any connection with Father Cavaletti?’
She made a note of this. ‘And the priest whose name you don’t know? Contessa Crivoni’s priest, if I may call him that?’
Brunetti nodded and then asked, ‘Do you know anything about them, Signorina?’
She shook her head. ‘No more than anyone else does. They’re secret, they’re serious, and they’re dangerous.’
‘Don’t you think that’s exaggerating the case?’
‘No.’
‘Do you know if they have a’ – Brunetti struggled for the proper term – ‘chapter in this city?’
‘I have no idea, sir.’
‘It’s strange, isn’t it?’ Brunetti asked. ‘None of us has any accurate information, but that doesn’t stop us from being suspicious and frightened of them?’ When she said nothing, he insisted, ‘It’s strange, isn’t it?’
‘I take the opposite view, sir,’ Signorina Elettra said.
‘What’s that?’
‘I assume that, if we did know about them, we’d be even more frightened.’
Chapter Sixteen
In the papers on his desk, he found the home number of Dottor Fabio Messini, dialled it, and asked to speak to the doctor. The person who answered, a woman, said that the doctor was too busy to come to the phone and asked who was calling. Brunetti said no more than ‘Police’, at which name she agreed, with audible reluctance, to ask the doctor if he could spare a moment.
Many moments passed before a man’s voice said, ‘Yes?’
‘Dottor Messini?’
‘Of course. Who is this?’
‘Commissario Brunetti.’ Brunetti paused to let the rank sink in and then said, ‘There are some questions we’d like to ask you, Dottore.’
‘About what, Commissario?’
‘Your nursing homes.’
‘What about them?’ Messini asked, sounding more impatient than curious.
‘About some of the people who work there.’
‘I don’t know anything about staffing,’ Messini said casually, making Brunetti immediately curious about the Philippine nurses who worked at the nursing home where his mother was living.
‘I’d prefer not to discuss this on the phone,’ Brunetti said, knowing that a sense of mystery was often enough both to up the stakes and incite the curiosity of the person he was talking to.
‘Well, you hardly expect me to come to the Questura, do you?’ Messini asked, voice rich with the sarcasm of the powerful.
‘Not unless you want your patients to be disturbed by a raid from the Guardia di Frontiere when they come to question your Philippine nurses.’ Brunetti waited a hairbreadth before adding, ‘Dottore.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ insisted Messini in a voice that said quite the opposite.
‘As you choose, Dottore. I had hoped this was something we could discuss like gentlemen and perhaps settle before it became an embarrassment, but it seems that’s impossible. I’m sorry to have troubled you,’ Brunetti said in a voice he strained to make sound cordially terminal.
‘Just a moment, Commissario. Perhaps I spoke too soon, and it might be better that we met.’
‘If you’re too busy for it, Dottore, I understand perfectly,’ Brunetti said briskly.
‘Well, I am busy, but certainly I could find some time, perhaps this afternoon. Let me check my schedule here a moment.’ The sound grew muffled as Messini covered the phone and spoke to someone at the other end. After a short pause, his voice returned. ‘I find that my lunch appointment has been cancelled. Could I invite you to lunch, Commissario?’
Brunetti said nothing, waiting for the name of the restaurant, for that would indicate the size of the bribe Messini thought he would have to pay.
‘Da Fiori?’ Messini suggested, and by naming the best restaurant in the city giving evidence of sufficient importance that he felt free to assume a table would always be found for him. More interesting, it told Brunetti that it would be wise to check into the passports and work permits of the foreign nurses who staffed his nursing homes.
‘No,’ said Brunetti in the voice of a civil servant not in the habit of being bought off by lunch.
‘I’m sorry, Commissario. I thought it would be a pleasant atmosphere in which to become acquainted.’
‘Perhaps we could become acquainted in my office at the Questura.’ Brunetti waited a split second and then gave a man-of-the-world laugh at his own joke and added, ‘If that’s convenient for you, Dottore.’
‘Of course. Would two-thirty be convenient for you?’
‘Perfectly.’
‘I look forward to seeing you then, Commissario,’ Messini said and hung up.
By the time of Dottor Messini’s appointment three hours later, a list of the foreign nurses working in his nursing homes had been compiled. Though most, as Brunetti had recalled, were Philippine, two others were from Pakistan, and one from Sri Lanka. All of them were on Messini’s computerized payroll, a system so easy to enter that Signorina Elettra said that even Brunetti could have called Messini’s number and broken in from his home phone. Because the mysteries of her computer remained so impenetrable to him, Brunetti never knew when she was joking. Nor, as usual, did he bother to ask or even to speculate if her invasions were legitimate or not.
With their names, he went down to speak to Anita in the Ufficio Stranieri, and within the hour she brought the files up to his office. In all cases, the women had entered the country as tourists and had subsequently been granted extensions to their visas when they showed proof that they were studying at the University of Padova. Brunetti smiled when he saw the various departments in which they were enrolled, no doubt chosen to deflect just the sort of attention they were now receiving: history, law, political science, psychology, and agronomy. He laughed aloud at the inventiveness of the last choice, a course of study not offered by the university. Perhaps Dottor Messini would prove to be a whimsical man.
The doctor was on time for his appointment; Riverre opened the door to Brunetti’s office at two-thirty precisely and announced, ‘Dottor Messini to see you, sir.’
Brunetti glanced up from the files on the nurses, nodded briefly to Messini, and then, almost as if it were an afterthought, got to his feet and waved a hand to the chair in front of his desk. ‘Good afternoon, Dottore.’
‘Good afternoon, Commissario,’ Messini said, taking his place in the chair and glancing around Brunetti’s office to get an idea of his surroundings and, presumably, of the man he had come to see.
Messini could have been a Renaissance noble man, one of the rich, corrupt ones. A large man, he had reached the point in his life when muscle was swiftly turning to bulk, and that very soon to fat. His mouth was his best feature, lips firmly chiselled and full, turning up naturally at the corners in a smile that suggested good humour. His nose was shorter than it should have been for a head as large as his, and his eyes just that fraction too close together to leave handsomeness behind while stealing away beauty.
His clothing whispered wealth; his shoes gleamed the same word. His teeth, capped so well as to appear faded with age, showed themselves in a friendly smile as he finished examining the room and turned his attention to Brunetti.
‘You said you had some questions about people who work for me, Commissario?’ Messini’s voice was casual and relaxed.
‘Yes, Dottore, I do. I have questions about some of your nursing staff.’
/> ‘And what might those questions be?’
‘How is it that they are working in Italy?’
‘As I told you on the phone this morning, Commissario ...’ Messini began, taking a pack of cigarettes from the inside pocket of his jacket. Without asking, he lit a cigarette, looked around for an ashtray, and, finding none, placed the spent match on the edge of Brunetti’s desk. ‘I do not concern myself with questions of staffing. That is the business of my administrators. It’s what I pay them to do.’
‘And I’m sure you pay them generously,’ Brunetti said with what he hoped was a suggestive smile.
‘Very,’ Messini said, noting both the remark and the tone and taking heart from both. ‘What seems to be the problem?’
‘It seems that a number of your employees are without the proper permits that would allow them to work legally in this country.’
Messini raised his eyebrows in what could pass as shock. ‘I find that difficult to believe. I’m sure that all of the proper permits have been granted and forms filled out.’ He looked across at Brunetti, who was just barely smiling as he looked down at the papers in front of him. ‘Of course, Commissario, if it is the case that some oversight has been made, that other forms are to be filled out, and that,’ he paused, searching for the politest words – and found them, straight off – ‘some application fees have still to be paid, I want to assure you that I will gladly do whatever is necessary to normalize my situation.’
Brunetti smiled, impressed by Messini’s grasp of euphemism. ‘That’s very generous of you, Dottore.’
‘That’s very kind of you to say, but I think it is only correct. I want to do whatever I can to remain in favour with the authorities.’
‘As I said, generous,’ Brunetti repeated, giving a smile he tried to make look venal.
Apparently he succeeded, for Messini said, ‘You have but to let me know about those application fees.’
‘Actually,’ Brunetti said, setting down the papers and looking across at Messini, whom he noted was having considerable difficulty with the ash on his cigarette, ‘it’s not about the nurses that I want to talk to you. It’s about a member of the Order of the Sacred Cross.’
