by Donna Leon
19
Walking home, Brunetti played back in his mind the conversation with Signora Jacobs. He was puzzled by the paradox between her bleak observation that Guzzardi was capable of loving only himself and the profundity of the love she still felt for him. Love rendered people foolish, he knew, sometimes more than that, but it usually provided them with the anaesthesia necessary to blind them to the contradictions in their own behaviour. Not so Signora Jacobs, who seemed utterly devoid of illusions about her former lover. How sad, to be as clear-eyed about your weakness as helpless to resist it. Guzzardi had been handsome, but it was a kind of slick-haired, matinee idol beauty that was today usually associated with pimps and hairdressers rather than with those men which current taste defined as handsome, most of whom looked to Brunetti like nonentities in suits or little blond boys bent on keeping puberty at bay.
But the signs of long-term love were there. She had been eager to speak of Guzzardi, had certainly wanted Brunetti to admire his photo, a strange thing to expect one man to do of another. She had spoken of his trial and of his time - it must have been a terrible time - in San Servolo with visible pain, and there was no disguising the effect it had upon her, even now, after so much time, to speak of his death.
She had said the Guzzardis had no knack of resting in peace. Recalling that remark, he remembered that she had made it in reference to Luca Guzzardi’s son, Benito, but then the conversation had sheered away from him, and so Brunetti had never learned in what way he had failed to find peace. And if there had been a son, and there had been Claudia, then there was a mother. Claudia had said her mother’s mother was German, and had referred to her own in the past tense; Lucia told him Claudia had said her father was dead; Signora Gallante said that, although Claudia spoke of her mother as gone, the old woman did not have the sense that this meant she was dead. She could, Claudia’s mother, be anywhere from her late thirties to her fifties and anywhere in the world, but all he knew was that her name was Leonardo, hardly a German surname.
He allowed his mind to run over the available sources of information. With Claudia’s date of birth, they could find out where in the city her mother had been resident when she was born. But Claudia had no Venetian accent, so she could have been born on the mainland, indeed, even in some other country. His thoughts keeping pace with his steps, he realized that all of this information would be easily available either at the university or in the Ufficio Anagrafe, where she would have to be registered. She was so young that all of the information would be computerized and thus readily available to Signorina Elettra. He glanced up and smiled to himself, pleased to have found something else with which to engage Signorina Elettra and thus remind her of how essential she was to the successful running of the Questura.
Claudia’s grandmother had gone off with a British soldier after the war, taking Claudia’s father with her. How, then, had the girl ended up in Venice, speaking Italian with no trace of accent, and how had it happened that she had come to think of Signora Jacobs as her adoptive grandmother? Much as he told himself that all speculation on these matters was futile, Brunetti could not keep his imagination from worrying at them.
These thoughts accompanied him home, but as he turned into the final flight of steps leading up to the apartment, he made a conscious effort to leave them on the stairway until the following morning took him back into the world of death.
This decision proved a wise one, for there would have been no room for the people who filled his thoughts at a table that already held not only his family but Sara Paganuzzi, Raffi’s girlfriend, and Michela Fabris, a schoolfriend of Chiara’s, come to spend the night.
Because Marco had caused him to miss his lunch, Brunetti felt justified in accepting a second portion of the spinach and ricotta crepes that Paola had made as a first course. He was too busy sating his hunger to say much as. he ate them, and so talk broke into two sections, like the chorus in a Scarlatti oratorio: Paola talked with Chiara and Michela about a movie actor whose name Brunetti didn’t recognize but with whom his only daughter seemed to be hopelessly besotted; while Raffi and Sara conversed in the impenetrable code of young love. Brunetti remembered having once been able to speak it.
As his hunger diminished, he found himself better able to pay attention to what was going on around him, as though tuning in to a radio station. ‘I think he’s wonderful,’ Michela sighed, encouraging Brunetti to change stations and tune in to Sara, but listening was no easier on that channel, save that the object of her adoration was his only son.
It was Paola who saved him by bringing to the table an enormous frying pan filled with stewed rabbit with what looked to him, as she set it down in the centre of the table, like olives. ‘And walnuts?’ he asked, pointing to some small tan chunks that lay on the top.
‘Yes,’ Paola said, reaching for Michela’s plate.
The girl passed it to her but asked, sounding rather nervous, ‘Is that rabbit, Signora Brunetti?’
‘No, it’s chicken, Michela,’ she said with an easy smile, placing a thigh on the girl’s plate.
Chiara started to say something, but Brunetti surprised her into silence by reaching over to pick up her plate, which he passed to Paola. ‘And what else is in it?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Oh, some celery for taste, and the usual spices.’
Passing the plate to Chiara, Brunetti asked Michela, ‘What movie were you and Chiara talking about?’
As she told him, not forgetting to extol the charms of the young actor who held her in thrall, Brunetti ate his rabbit, smiling and nodding at Michela as he tried to determine whether Paola had put a bay leaf in, as well as rosemary. Raffi and Sara ate quietly, and Paola came back to the table with a platter of small roasted potatoes and zucchini cooked with thin slices of almonds. Michela turned to the two previous films which had catapulted her actor to stardom, and Brunetti served himself another piece of rabbit.
As she spoke, Michela ate her way through everything, pausing only when Paola slipped another spoonful of meat and gravy on to her plate, at which point she said, ‘The chicken is delicious, Signora.’
Paola smiled her thanks.
After dinner, when Chiara and Michela were back in her room, giggling at a volume achievable only by teenage girls, Brunetti kept Paola company as she did the dishes. He sipped at nothing more than a drop of plum liquor while Paola slipped the dishes into the drying rack above the sink.
‘Why wouldn’t she eat rabbit?’ he finally asked.
‘Kids are like that. They don’t like to eat animals they can be sentimental about,’ Paola explained with every indication of sympathy for the idea.
‘It doesn’t stop Chiara from eating veal,’ Brunetti said.
‘Or lamb, for that matter,’ Paola agreed.
‘Then why wouldn’t Michela want to eat rabbit?’ Brunetti asked doggedly.
‘Because a rabbit is cuddly and something every city child can see or touch, even if it’s only in a pet shop. To touch the other ones you have to go to a farm, so they aren’t really real.’
‘You think that’s why we don’t eat dogs and cats?’ Brunetti asked. ‘Because we have them around all the time and they become our friends?’
‘We don’t eat snake, either,’ Paola said.
‘Yes, but that’s because of Adam and Eve. Lots of people have no trouble eating them. The Chinese, for example.’
‘And we eat eel,’ she agreed. She came and stood beside him, reached down for his glass, and took a sip.
‘Why did you lie to her?’ he finally asked.
‘Because she’s a nice girl, and I didn’t want her to have to eat something she didn’t want to eat or to embarrass herself by saying she didn’t want to eat it,’
‘But it was delicious,’ he insisted.
‘If that was a compliment, thank you,’ Paola said, handing him back the glass. ‘Besides, she’ll get over it, or she’ll forget about it as she gets older.’
‘And eat rabbit?’
‘
Probably.’
‘I don’t think I have much of a feeling for young girls,’ he finally said.
‘For which I suppose I should be very grateful,’ she answered.
* * * *
The next morning he went directly to Signorina Elettra’s office, where he found her engaged in conversation with Lieutenant Scarpa. As the lieutenant never failed to bring out the venom in his superior’s secretary, Brunetti said a general good morning intended for both of them and moved over to stand by the window, waiting for them to finish their conversation.
‘I’m not sure you’re authorized to take files from the archives,’ the lieutenant said.
‘Would you like me to come and ask for your authorization each time I want to consult a file, Lieutenant?’ she asked with her most dangerous smile.
‘Of course not. But you have to follow procedures.’
‘Which procedures would those be, Lieutenant?’ she asked, picking up a pen and moving a notepad closer to her.
‘You have to ask for authorization.’
‘Yes, and from whom?’
‘From the person who is authorized to give it,’ he said, his voice no longer pleasant.
‘Yes, but can you tell me who that person is?’
‘It’s whoever is listed on the personnel directive that details the chain of command and responsibility.’
‘And where might I find a copy of the directive?’ she asked, tapping the point of her pen on the pad, but lightly and only once.
‘In the file of directives,’ the lieutenant said, voice even closer to the edge of his control.
‘Ah,’ Signorina Elettra said with a happy smile. ‘And who can authorize me to consult that file?’
Scarpa turned and walked from her office, pausing at the door as if eager to slam it but then, aware of Brunetti’s bland presence, resisting the temptation.
Brunetti moved over to her desk. ‘I’ve warned you about him, Signorina,’ he said, managing to keep any hint of disapproval out of his voice.
‘I know, I know,’ she said, pursing her lips and letting out an exasperated sigh. ‘But the temptation is too strong. Every time he comes in here telling me what I have to do, I can’t resist the impulse to go right for his jugular.’
‘It will only cause you trouble,’ he admonished.
She shrugged this away. ‘It’s like having a second dessert, I suppose. You know you shouldn’t, but it just tastes so good you can’t resist.’
Brunetti, who had had his own fair share of trouble with the lieutenant, would hardly have chosen that simile, but his nature was not as combative as Signorina Elettra’s and so he let it pass. Besides, any sign of aggressiveness on Signorina Elettra’s part was to be welcomed as evidence of her general return to good spirits, however paradoxical that might seem to anyone who didn’t know her, so Brunetti asked, ‘What have you learned about Guzzardi?’
‘I told you I was looking into his ownership of houses when he died, didn’t I?’
He nodded.
‘Only he didn’t own them at the time of his death. Ownership was transferred to Hedi Jacobs when he was in jail, awaiting trial.’
‘Interestinger and interestinger,’ Brunetti said in English. ‘Transferred how?’
‘Sold to her. It was all perfectly legal; the papers are all in order.’
‘What about his will?’
‘I found a copy at the College of Notaries.’
‘How did you know where to look?’
She gave her most seraphic smile. ‘There’s only one notary who’s been named in all of this,’ she said, but she said it modestly.
‘Filipetto?’ Brunetti asked.
The smile returned.
‘He was Guzzardi’s notary?’
‘The will was recorded in his register soon after Guzzardi’s death,’ she said, no longer able to keep the glow of pride from her voice. ‘And when Filipetto retired, all of his records were sent to the college, where I found it.’ She opened her top drawer and drew out a photocopy of a document typed in the now archaic letters of a manual typewriter.
Brunetti took it from her and went over to the light of the window to read. Guzzardi declared that all of his possessions were to pass directly to his son, Benito and, in the event that his son should predecease him, to his son’s heirs. It could not have been more simple. No mention was made of Hedi Jacobs, and no indication was given as to what his estate might consist of. ‘His wife? Is there any sign she contested this?’ he asked, holding up the document.
‘There’s no record in Filipetto’s files that she did.’ Before Brunetti could ask, she added, ‘And that probably means that she divorced him before he died or didn’t know or didn’t care that he did die.’
Brunetti went back to her desk. ‘The son?’
‘The only mention of him is what you were told, sir, that his mother took him to England after the war.’
‘Nothing more?’ Brunetti couldn’t disguise his irritation that a person could so easily disappear.
‘I’ve sent a request to Rome, but all I have to give them is his name; not even an exact date of birth.’ They shared a moment’s despair at the likelihood of getting any sort of a response from Rome. ‘I’ve also contacted a friend in London,’ she went on, ‘and asked him to check the records there. It seems the British have a system that works.’
‘When can you expect an answer?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Long before I can expect anything from Rome, certainly.’
‘I’d like you to contact the university and the Ufficio Anagrafe and see what information they have about Claudia Leonardo. Her parents’ names should be listed, perhaps their dates of birth, which you might send to London to see if that will help.’ He thought of the German grandmother, but before he asked Signorina Elettra to begin to investigate the possibilities that created, he would see what there was to find here in the city and in London.
As he went back upstairs he remembered a passage from an ancient poem Paola had insisted on reading to him years ago. The lines described, if he recalled correctly, a dragon that sat on top of what the poet described as treasure trove, breathing fire and destruction at all who came near. He wasn’t sure why it came to him, but he had a strange vision of Signora Jacobs nesting upon her treasures, willing destruction upon anyone who tried to extract anything from her hoard.
Even before he got to his office, he changed his mind and went back downstairs and out of the Questura. It was rash, he knew, and he shouldn’t go back to Signora Jacobs’s so soon after being dismissed, but she was the only person who could answer his questions about the treasures that surrounded her. He should have left word where he was going; he should have sat at his desk and answered the phone and initialled papers; no doubt he should also have reprimanded Signorina Elettra for her lack of deference to Lieutenant Scarpa.
Given the hour and the crowds of tourists who flooded the boats, he decided to walk, sure that he could avoid the worst gaggles of them until he neared Rialto and equally certain that their numbers would decrease again once he got past the pescheria. So it proved, but the brief period he spent pushing and evading his way through the streets between San Lio and the fish market soured his humour and brought his ever-simmering dislike of tourists to the boil. Why were they so slow and fat and lethargic? Why did they all have to get in his way? Why couldn’t they, for God’s sake, learn to walk properly in a city and not moon about like people at a country fair asked to judge the fattest pig?
His mood lifted as soon as he was free of them and moving through empty streets toward Campo San Boldo. He rang the bell, but there was no answer. Remembering a technique Vianello had employed to awaken people who fell asleep with the television on too loud, he pressed his thumb against the bell and left it there while he counted to a hundred. He counted slowly. There was still no answer.
The man in the tobacco shop had said he took the cigarettes up to her, so Brunetti went back, showed his warrant card and asked if the man had a key to the
apartment.
The man behind the counter seemed not at all interested that the police wanted to speak to Signora Jacobs. He reached into his cash drawer and pulled out a single key. ‘All I have is the key to the portone downstairs. She always let me into the apartment.’
Brunetti thanked him and said he’d bring the key back. He used it to open the heavy ground floor door and went up the steps that led to her apartment. He rang the bell, but there was no answer. He knocked on the door, but still there was no sound from inside. He employed Vianello’s technique again.
Later, he realized that he knew, in the silence that expanded across the landing when he took his thumb off the bell: knew that the door would be unlocked and would open when he turned the handle. And he supposed he also knew that he would find her dead, fallen or thrown from her chair, a thin thread of blood trailing from her nose. If anything surprised him, it was to discover that he had been right, and when he realized he felt nothing stronger than that, he tried to trace the cause. He accepted then that he hadn’t liked this woman, though the habit of compassion for old people had been strong enough to disguise his dislike and convince him that what he felt was the usual pity and sympathy.
