by Donna Leon
From behind her, a high voice called out, ‘Who is it, Eleonora?’ When she did not answer, the voice repeated the question, then, as she remained silent, asked it again. ‘Who is it, Eleonora?’
‘You’d better come in. You’ve upset him now,’ she said, backing into the apartment and holding the door for them. The voice continued from some inner place, repeating the same question; Brunetti was certain that it would not stop until the question was answered.
Brunetti saw her lips tighten and felt a faint sympathy for her. The scene reminded him of something, but the memory wouldn’t come: something in a book.
Silently, she led them towards the back of the apartment. From behind, she was equally angular: her thin shoulders were parallel with the floor, and her hair, streaked heavily with grey, was cut off in a straight line just above the collar of her dress.
‘I’m coming, I’m coming,’ she called ahead of them. Either in response to the sound of her voice or perhaps, like a clock running down, the other voice stopped.
They arrived at an enormous archway; two inlaid wooden doors stood open on either side. ‘He’s in here,’ she said, preceding them into the room.
An old man sat at a broad wooden desk, a semicircle of papers spread out around him. A small lamp to his left threw a dim light on the papers and kept the upper half of his face in shadow.
His mouth was thin, his lips stretched back over a set of false teeth that had grown too large as the flesh of his face was worn away by age. Heavy dewlaps, so long as to remind Brunetti of those of a hound, hung from both sides of his mouth; the skin below hung in wattles, bunched loosely over his collar.
Brunetti was aware that the man was looking at them, but the light did not reach Filipetto’s eyes, so it was impossible for him to read the man’s expression. ‘Si?’ the old man asked in the same high-pitched tone.
‘Notaio,’ Brunetti began, stepping a bit closer so as to afford himself a better view of Filipetto’s entire face, ‘I’m Commissario Guido Brunetti,’ he began, but the old man cut him off.
‘I recognize you. I knew your father.’
Brunetti was so surprised that it took him a moment to recover, and when he did he thought he saw a faint upturning of those thin lips. Filipetto’s face was long and thin, the skin waxlike. Sparse tufts of white hair adhered to his speckled skull, like down on the body of a diseased chick. As Brunetti’s eyes adjusted to the light, he saw that Filipetto’s own were hooded and vulpine, the irises tinged the colour of parchment.
‘He was a man who did his duty,’ Filipetto said in what was clearly meant to be admiration. He said nothing more, but his lips kept moving as he sucked them repeatedly in and out against his false teeth.
The comment confirmed Brunetti’s memory of the man and was all he needed. ‘Yes, he was, sir. It was one of the things he tried to teach us.’
‘You have a brother, don’t you?’ asked the old man.
‘Yes, sir, I do.’
‘Good. A man should have sons.’ Before Brunetti could respond to this, though he had no idea what he could say, Filipetto asked, ‘What else did he teach you?’
Brunetti was vaguely aware that the woman was still standing in the doorway and that Vianello had automatically pulled himself up straighter, as close to a stance of military attention as he could achieve while wearing a yellow tie.
‘Duty, honour, devotion to the flag, discipline,’ Brunetti recited, doing his best to remember all the things he had always found most risible in the pretensions of Fascism, but pronouncing them in earnest tones. At his side, he sensed Vianello growing even straighter, as if bolstered by the invigorating force of these ideas.
‘Sit down, Commissario,’ Filipetto said, ignoring Vianello. ‘Eleonora, hold his chair,’ he commanded. She came from the door and Brunetti forced himself to wait as would a man accustomed to the service of women. She pulled out a chair opposite the old man and Brunetti sat in it, not bothering to thank her.
‘What is it you’ve come about?’ Filipetto asked.
‘Your name has come up, sir, in an investigation we’re conducting. When I read it, I. . .’ Brunetti began, coughed a nervous little laugh, then looked over at the old man and said, ‘Well, I remembered the way my father always spoke of you, sir, and I, to tell the truth, I couldn’t resist the opportunity finally to meet you.’
To the best of Brunetti’s memory, the only time he had ever heard his father mention Filipetto’s name was when he raged against the men who had been most guilty of plundering the state’s coffers during the war. Filipetto’s name had not been at the top of the list, a place always reserved for the man who had sold the Army the cardboard boots that had cost Brunetti’s father six toes, but it had been there, his name among those others who had made the effortless passage from wartime profiteering to post-war prominence.
The old man glanced idly at Vianello and, observing the smile of approval with which he greeted his superior’s last remark, Filipetto said, ‘You can sit down, too.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ Vianello said and did as he was told, though he was careful to sit up straight, as if attentive and respectful to whatever further truths would be revealed during this conversation between men who so closely mirrored his own political ideals.
Brunetti used the momentary distraction caused by Filipetto’s remark to Vianello to look at the papers in front of the old man. One was a magazine containing photos of Il Duce in various, but equally fierce, postures. The rest were documents of some sort, but before he could adjust his eyes to try to read them, Filipetto demanded his attention.
‘What investigation is this?’ he asked.
‘Your name,’ Brunetti began, assuming that a phone number was as good as a name, ‘was found among the papers of a person who died recently, and I wanted to ask you if you had any dealings with her.’
‘Who?’ he asked.
‘Claudia Leonardo,’ Brunetti said.
Filipetto made no sign that the name meant anything to him and once again looked at the papers, but the radar of long experience told Brunetti that it was not unfamiliar to him. Given the coverage the murder had had in the papers, it was unlikely that anyone in the city would be unfamiliar with her name.
‘Who?’ the Notary asked, head bowed.
‘Claudia Leonardo, sir. She died - she was murdered -here in the city.’
‘And how did my name come to be among her effects?’ he asked, looking again at Brunetti but not bothering to inquire how or why Claudia had been killed.
‘It doesn’t matter, sir. If you’ve never heard of her, then there’s no need to continue with this.’
‘Do you want me to sign something to that effect?’ Filipetto asked.
‘Sir,’ Brunetti answered hotly, as if unable to disguise his surprise, ‘your word is more than enough.’
Filipetto looked up then, his teeth bared in a smile of open satisfaction ‘Your mother?’ he asked. ‘Is she still with us?’
Brunetti had no idea what Filipetto meant by this: whether his mother was alive, which she was; whether she was still sane, which she was not; or whether she still held true to the political ideas that had cost her husband his youth and his peace. As she had never held those ideas in anything but contempt, Brunetti felt secure in answering the first question, ‘Yes, sir, she is.’
‘Good, good. Though there are many people now who are beginning to realize the value of what we tried to do, it’s comforting to know that there are still people who are faithful to the old values.’
‘I’m sure there will always be,’ Brunetti said, without a trace of the disgust he felt at the idea. He stood, leaving the chair where it was, and leaned across the table to shake the old man’s hand, cold and fragile in his own. ‘It’s been an honour, sir,’ he said. Vianello nodded deeply, unable to convey his complete agreement in any other way.
The old man raised a hand and waved towards the woman, who was still standing at the doorway. ‘Eleonora, make yourself useful. See the Commissar
io out.’ He gave Brunetti a valedictory smile and again bent his head over his papers.
Eleonora, her connection to the old man still unexplained, turned and led them to the front door of the apartment. Brunetti made no attempt to penetrate the veil of silent resentment she had wrapped so tightly about herself during this interview and at the door did no more than mutter his thanks before preceding Vianello down the stairs and out into the campo.
* * * *
16
‘Enough to choke a pig,’ was Vianello’s only comment as they walked out into the cool evening air.
‘Well he did make the trains run on time,’ Brunetti offered.
‘Yes, of course. And, in the end, what’s a couple million dead and a country in ruins if the trains run on time?’
‘Exactly.’
‘God, you think they’re all dead and then you turn over a rock and you find one’s still under there.’
Brunetti grunted in assent.
‘You can understand young people believing all that shit. After all, the schools don’t teach them anything about what really happened. But you’d think people who lived it, who were adults all during it and who saw what happened, you’d think they’d realize.’
‘I’m afraid it costs people too much to abandon what they believe,’ Brunetti offered by way of explanation. ‘If you give your loyalty and, I suppose, your love to ideas like that then it’s all but impossible to admit what madness they are.’
‘I suppose so,’ Vianello conceded, though it sounded as if he weren’t fully persuaded. They walked side by side, reached the riva and turned up toward the Piazza.
‘It’s strange, sir,’ Vianello began, ‘but for the last few years - and I think it’s happening more and more often - I meet someone and they say things, and I come away from talking to them thinking that they’re crazy. I mean really crazy.’
Brunetti, who had had much the same experience, asked only, ‘What sort of things?’
Vianello paused over this for a long time, suggesting that he had perhaps never before revealed this to anyone. ‘Well, I talk to people who say they’re worried about the hole in the ozone layer and what will happen to their kids and future generations, and then they tell me that they’ve just bought one of those monster cars, you know, the ones like the Americans drive.’ He walked on, in step with Brunetti, considered a moment, then continued. ‘This isn’t even to mention religion, with Padre Pio being cured by a statue they flew over his monastery in a plane.’
‘What?’ Brunetti asked, having thought this was something Fellini invented for a film.
‘What I’m trying to say is that it doesn’t matter which story they tell about him. He was a nut, and they want to make him a saint. Yes,’ Vianello said, his ideas clarified, ‘it’s things like that, that people can believe all of that, that makes me wonder if the whole world isn’t mad.’
‘My wife maintains that she finds it easier to accept human behaviour if she thinks of us as savages withtelefonini,’ Brunetti said.
‘Is she serious?’ Vianello asked, his tone one of curiosity, not scepticism.
‘That’s always a very difficult thing to judge, with my wife,’ Brunetti admitted, then, turning the conversation back to their recent visit, he asked, ‘What did you think?’
‘He recognized the name, that’s for sure,’ Vianello said.
Brunetti was glad to see his own intuition confirmed. ‘Any ideas about the woman?’
‘I was paying more attention to the old man.’
‘How old do you think she is?’ Brunetti asked him.
‘Fifty? Sixty? Why do you ask?’
‘It might help in figuring out how she’s related to him.’
‘Related, as in relative?’
‘Yes. He didn’t treat her like a servant.’
‘He told her to pull out your chair,’ Vianello reminded him.
‘I know; that’s what I thought at first. But it’s not the way people treat servants: they’re politer with them than with their families.’ Brunetti knew this because, for decades, he had observed the way Paola’s family treated their servants, but he didn’t want to explain this to Vianello.
‘His name wasn’t listed in her address book, was it?’ Vianello asked.
‘No, only the phone number.’
‘Has Signorina Elettra checked the phone records to see how often the girl call him?’
‘She’s doing that now.’
‘Be interesting to know why she called him, wouldn’t it?’
‘Especially as he said he didn’t know her,’ Brunetti agreed.
They found themselves in the Piazza, and it was only then that Brunetti realized that he had been leading Vianello away from his house. He stopped and said, ‘I’m going to go up and take the Number One. Would you like a drink?’
‘Not around here,’ Vianello said, his eyes taking in the Piazza and its hosts of pigeons and tourists, one as annoying as the other. ‘Next thing, you’ll be suggesting we go to Harry’s Bar.’
‘I don’t think they let anyone in who isn’t a tourist,’ Brunetti said.
Vianello guffawed, as Venetians often do at the thought of going to Harry’s Bar, and said he’d walk home.
Brunetti, with farther to go, walked up to the vaporetto stop and took the Number One towards San Silvestro. He used the trip to gaze inattentively at the facades of the palazzi they passed, thinking back over his visit to Filipetto. The room had been so dim that he had not observed much, but nothing he had seen there suggested wealth. Notaries were believed to be among the richest people in the country, and the Filipettos had been notaries for generations, each one succeeding to the studio and practice of the one before him, but no sign of wealth had been evident in the room or what Brunetti could see of its furnishings.
The old man’s jacket had been worn bald at the ends of the cuffs; the woman’s clothing was undistinguished by any quality other than drabness. Because he had been taken directly to see Filipetto, he had not gained any idea of the total size of the apartment, but he had had a glimpse down the central corridor, and it suggested the existence of many rooms. Besides, a poor notaio was as inconceivable as a celibate priest.
At home, though Paola did not ask if there had been any progress, he could sense her curiosity, so he told her about Filipetto while she was dropping the pasta into boiling water. To the left of the pot simmered a pan of tomatoes with, as far as he could identify, black olives and capers. Before she could comment, he asked, ‘Where’d you get such big capers?’
‘Sara’s parents were on Salina for a week, and her mother brought me back half a kilo.’
‘Half a kilo of capers?’ he asked, astonished, ‘It’ll take us years to eat them.’
‘They’re salted, so they’ll keep,’ Paola responded and then said, ‘You might like to ask my father about him.’
‘Filipetto?’
‘Yes.’
‘What does he know?’
‘Ask him.’
‘How long will the pasta . . .’ Brunetti began, but she cut him off saying, ‘Wait to call him until after dinner. It might take some time.’
Because of Brunetti’s eagerness to make the call, the capers, to make no mention of the pasta, went less appreciated than they might ordinarily have been. The instant he finished his barely tasted dessert, Brunetti returned to the living room and made the call.
At the mention of Filipetto, the Count surprised Brunetti by saying, ‘Perhaps we could talk about this in person, Guido.’
Without hesitation, Brunetti asked, ‘When?’
‘I’m leaving for Berlin tomorrow morning and I won’t be back until the end of the week.’
Before the Count could suggest a later date, Brunetti asked, ‘Have you time now?’
‘It’s after nine,’ the Count said, but only as an observation, not as a complaint.
‘I could be there in fifteen minutes,’ Brunetti insisted.
‘All right. If you like,’ the Count said and put do
wn the phone.
It took Brunetti less than that, even including the time he spent explaining to Paola where he was going and then listening to her greetings and best wishes to her parents, given as though she didn’t speak to them at least once a day.
* * * *
The Count was in his study, wearing a dark grey suit and a sober tie. Brunetti sometimes wondered if the midwife who had delivered the heir to the Falier title had been taken aback by the emergence of a tiny baby already wearing a dark suit and tie, a thought he had never dared voice to Paola.
