Anonymous Venetian

by Donna Leon

  Knowing that he was to go, he slept badly, kept awake by memory, heat, and the mosquitoes. He finally woke at about eight, woke to the same decision that he had to make every second Sunday: whether to go before or after lunch. Like the visit itself this made no difference whatsoever and today was influenced only by the heat. If he waited until the afternoon, it would only be more infernal, so he decided to go immediately.

  He left the house before nine, walked to Piazzale Roma and was lucky to get there only minutes before the bus for Mira left. Because he was one of the last people to get on, he stood, rocked from side to side as the bus crossed the bridge and entered on to the maze of overpasses that carried traffic above or around Mestre.

  Some of the faces on the bus were familiar to him; often some of them would share a taxi from the station in Mira or, in better weather, walk together from the station, seldom talking about anything more than the weather. Six people climbed down from the bus at the main station; two of them were women familiar to him, and the three of them quickly agreed to share a taxi. Because the taxi was not air-conditioned, they could talk about the weather, all of them glad of that distraction.

  In front of the Casa di Riposo, each pulled out five thousand lire. The driver used no meter; everyone who made the trip knew the fare.

  They went inside together, Brunetti and the two women, still expressing hope that the wind would change or that rain would come, all protesting that they had never known a summer like this one, and what would happen to the farmers if it didn’t rain soon?

  He knew the way, walked to the third floor, the two women going their separate way on the second floor, where the men were kept. At the top of the stairs, he saw Suor’Immacolata, his favourite of the sisters who worked here.

  ‘Buon giorno, Dottore,’ she said, smiling and coming across the corridor towards him.

  ‘Buon giorno, Sister,’ he said. ‘You look very cool, as if the heat doesn’t bother you at all.’

  She smiled at this, as she did every time he joked with her about it. ‘Ah, you Northerners, you don’t know what real heat is. This is nothing, just a taste of springtime in the air.’ Suor’Immacolata was from the mountains of Sicily, had been transferred here by her community two years before. In the midst of the agony, madness, and misery which engulfed her days, the only thing she minded was the cold, but her remarks about it were always wry and casually dismissive as if to say that, exposed to real suffering, it was absurd to discuss her own. Seeing her smile, he saw again how beautiful she was: almond-shaped brown eyes, a soft mouth, and a thin, elegant nose. It made no sense. Worldly, believing himself to be a man of the flesh, Brunetti could see only the renunciation and could make nothing of the desires that might have animated it.

  ‘How is she?’ he asked.

  ‘She’s had a good week, Dottore.’ That could, to Brunetti, mean only negative things: she hadn’t attacked anyone, she hadn’t destroyed anything, she had done no violence to herself.

  ‘Is she eating?’

  ‘Yes, Dottore. In fact, on Wednesday, she went and had lunch with the other ladies.’ He waited to learn what disaster that might have brought, but Suor’Immacolata said nothing more.

  ‘Do you think I could see her?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, certainly, Dottore. Would you like me to come with you?’ How beautiful, the grace of women; how soft their charity.

  ‘Thank you, Sister. Perhaps she would be more comfortable if she could see you with me, at least when I first went in.’

  ‘Yes, that might take away the surprise. Once she gets accustomed to another person, she’s usually all right. And once she senses that it’s you, Dottore, she’s really quite happy.’

  This was a lie. Brunetti knew it, and Suor’Immacolata knew it. Her faith told her it was a sin to lie, and yet she told this he to Brunetti and his brother each and every week. Later, on her knees, she prayed to be forgiven for a sin she could not help committing and knew she would commit again. In the winter, after she prayed and before she slept, she would open the window of her room and remove from her bed the single blanket she was allowed. But, each week, she told the same lie.

  She turned and led the way, the well-known way, down towards room 308. On the right side of the corridor, three women sat in wheelchairs pushed up against the wall. Two of them beat rhythmically against the arms of their wheelchairs, muttering nonsense, and the third rocked back and forth, back and forth, a mad human metronome. As he passed, the one who always smelled of urine reached out and grabbed at Brunetti. ‘Are you Giulio? Are you Giulio?’ she asked.

  ‘No, Signora Antonia,’ Suor’Immacolata said, leaning down and stroking back the old woman’s short white hair. ‘Giulio was just here to see you. Don’t you remember? He brought you this lovely little animal?’ she said, taking a small chewed teddy bear from the woman’s lap and putting it into her hands.

  The old woman looked at her with puzzled, eternally confused eyes, eyes from which only death could remove the confusion, and asked, ‘Giulio?’

  ‘That’s right, Signora. Giulio gave you the little orsetto. Isn’t he beautiful?’ She held out the tiny bear to the old woman, who took it from her and asked Brunetti, ‘Are you Giulio?’

  Suor’Immacolata took his arm and led him away, saying, ‘Your mother took Communion this week. That seemed to help her a great deal.’

  ‘I’m sure it did,’ Brunetti said. When he thought about it, it seemed to Brunetti that what he did when he came here was similar to what a person who was going to experience physical pain - an injection, exposure to sharp cold - did with his body: he tensed his muscles and concentrated, to the exclusion of all other sensation, on resisting that anticipated pain. But, instead of tightening his muscles, Brunetti found himself, if such a thing could be said to be, tightening his soul.

  They stopped at the door of his mother’s room, and memories of the past crowded around and beat at him like the Furies: glorious meals filled with laughter and singing, his mother’s clear soprano rising up above them all; his mother breaking into angry, hysterical tears when he told her he wanted to marry Paola, then coming into his room that same night to give him her gold bracelet, her only remaining gift from Brunetti’s father, saying that it was for Paola, for the bracelet was always supposed to belong to the wife of the eldest son.

  A twist of his will, and all memory fled. He saw only the door, the white door, and the white back of Suor’Immacolata’s habit. She opened the door and went in, leaving the door open.

  ‘Signora,’ she said, ‘Signora, your son is here to see you.’ She moved across the room and went to stand near the bent old woman sitting by the window. ‘Signora, isn’t that nice? Your son’s come to visit you.’

  Brunetti stood by the door. Suor’Immacolata nodded to him, and he stepped inside, leaving the door open behind him, as he had learned to do.

  ‘Good morning, Dottore,’ the nun said loudly, enunciating clearly. ‘I’m so glad you could come to see your mother. Isn’t she looking well?’

  He came a few more steps into the room and stopped, holding his hands well away from his body. ‘Buon di, Mamma,’ he said. ‘It’s Guido. I’ve come to see you. How are you, Mamma?’ He smiled.

  The old woman grabbed at the nun’s arm and pulled her down, whispered something into her ear, never taking her eyes off Brunetti.

  ‘Oh, no, Signora. Don’t say such things. He’s a good man. It’s your son, Guido. He’s come to see you and see how you are.’ She stroked the old woman’s hand, knelt down to be closer to her. The old woman looked at the nun, said something else to her, then looked back at Brunetti, who hadn’t moved.

  ‘He’s the man who killed my baby,’ she suddenly shouted. ‘I know him. I know him. He’s the man who killed my baby.’ She pushed herself from side to side in her chair. She raised her voice and began to shout, ‘Help, help, he’s come back to kill my babies.’

  Suor’Immacolata put her arms around the old woman, held her tight, and whispered in her ear, b
ut nothing could contain the woman’s fear and wrath. She pushed the nun away with such force that she fell sprawling on the ground.

  Suor’Immacolata quickly pushed herself to her knees and turned to Brunetti. She shook her head and made a gesture to the door. Brunetti, keeping his hands clearly visible in front of him, backed slowly out of the room and closed the door. From inside, he heard his mother’s voice, screaming wildly for long minutes, then gradually growing calmer. Under it, in soft counterpoint, he heard the softer, deeper voice of the young woman as she soothed, calmed, and gradually removed the old woman’s fear. There were no windows in the corridor, and so Brunetti stood outside the door and looked at it.

  After about ten minutes, Suor’Immacolata came out of the room and stood beside him. ‘I’m sorry, Dottore. I really thought she was better this week. She’s been very quiet, ever since she took the Communion.’

  ‘That’s all right, Sister. These things happen. You didn’t hurt yourself, did you?’

  ‘Oh, no. Poor thing, she didn’t know what she was doing. No, I’m all right.’

  ‘Is there anything she needs?’ he asked.

  ‘No, no, she has everything she needs.’ To Brunetti, it seemed like his mother had nothing she needed, but maybe that was only because there was nothing she needed any longer, and never would again.

  ‘You’re very kind, Sister.’

  ‘It’s the Lord who is kind, Dottore. We merely do His service.’

  Brunetti found nothing to say. He put out his hand and shook hers, kept her hand in his for long seconds, and then wrapped his other hand around it. ‘Thank you, Sister.’

  ‘God bless you and give you strength, Dottore.’

  * * * *

  Chapter Sixteen

  A week had passed, so the story of Maria Lucrezia Patta was no longer the sun around which the Questura of Venice revolved. Two more cabinet ministers had resigned over the weekend, each vociferous in his protestations that his decision had nothing whatsoever to do with and was in no way related to his having been named in the most recent scandals about bribery and corruption. Ordinarily, the staff of the Questura, like all of Italy, would yawn over this and turn to the sports page, but as one of them happened to be the Minister for Justice, the staff took a special interest, if only to speculate about what other heads would soon be seen rolling down the steps of the Quirinale.

  Even though this was one of the biggest scandals in decades - and when had there ever been a small scandal? - popular opinion held that it would all be insabbiata, buried in sand, hushed up, just as had happened with all of the other scandals in the past. Once any Italian got this particular bit between his teeth, he was virtually unstoppable, and there usually followed a list of the cases that had been effectively covered up: Ustica, PG2, the death of Pope John Paul I, Sindona. Maria Lucrezia Patta, no matter how dramatic her exit from the city had been, could hardly be expected to keep company at such dizzy heights, and so life drifted back to normal, the only news being that the transvestite found in Mestre last week had turned out to be the director of the Banca di Verona, and who would have expected that, a bank director, for God’s sake?

  One of the secretaries in the passport office up the street had heard in her bar that morning that this Mascari was pretty well known in Mestre and that it had been an open secret for years what he did when he went away on his business trips. Furthermore, it was learned at another bar, his marriage wasn’t a real marriage, just a cover for him because he worked in a bank. Here someone interjected that he hoped his wife had at least worn the same size clothing; why else marry her? One of the fruit vendors at Rialto had it on very good authority that Mascari had always been like that, even when he was at school.

  By late morning, it was necessary for public opinion to pause for breath, but by the afternoon, common knowledge had it that Mascari was dead as a result of the ‘rough trade’ he pursued, even against the warnings of those few friends who knew of his secret vice, and that his wife was refusing to claim his body and give it Christian burial.

  Brunetti had an appointment with the widow at eleven and went to it ignorant of the rumours that were swirling around the city. He called the Banca di Verona and learned that, a week before, their office in Messina had received a phone call from a man identifying himself as Mascari, explaining that his visit would have to be delayed, perhaps for two weeks, perhaps a month. No, they had not bothered to confirm this call, having no reason to suspect its validity.

  The Mascari apartment was on the third floor of a building one block back from Via Garibaldi, the main thoroughfare of Castello. When she opened the door for Brunetti, the widow looked much the same as she had two days before, save that her suit today was black, and the signs of weariness around her eyes were more pronounced.

  ‘Good morning, Signora. It’s very kind of you to speak to me today.’

  ‘Come in, please,’ she said and stepped back from the door. He asked permission, then walked into the apartment and, for a moment, had a strange sense of complete dislocation that he had already been here. It was only after he looked around that he realized the source of this feeling: the apartment was almost identical to the apartment of the old woman in Campo San Bartolomeo and had the look of a place in which the same family had lived for generations. An identical heavy credenza stood against the far wall, and the velvet upholstery on the two chairs and sofa was the same vaguely patterned green. Curtains were also pulled closed in front of these windows, either to keep out the sun or the eyes of the curious.

  ‘Can I get you something to drink?’ she asked, an offer that was clearly formulaic.

  ‘No, please, nothing, Signora. I would like only a bit of your time. There are some questions we have to ask you.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ she said and moved back into the room. She sat in one of the overstuffed chairs, and Brunetti took the other. She removed a small piece of thread from the arm of the chair, rolled it into a ball, and put it carefully in the pocket of her jacket.

  ‘I don’t know how much you’ve heard of the rumours surrounding your husband’s death, Signora.’

  ‘I know he was found dressed as a woman,’ she said in a small, choking voice.

  ‘If you know that, then you must realize that certain questions must be asked.’

  She nodded and looked down at her hands.

  He could make the question sound either brutal or awkward. He chose the latter. ‘Do you have any or did you have any reason to believe that your husband was involved in such practices?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said, though it must have been clear what he meant.

  ‘That your husband was involved in transvestism.’ Why not just say the word, ‘transvestite’, and have done with it?

  ‘That’s impossible.’

  Brunetti didn’t say anything, waiting for her.

  All she did was repeat, stolidly, ‘That’s impossible.’

  ‘Signora, has your husband ever received strange phone calls or letters?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Has anyone ever called and spoken to him, after which he seemed worried or preoccupied? Or perhaps a letter? Or had he seemed worried lately?’

  ‘No, nothing like that,’ she said.

  ‘If I might return to my original question, Signora, did your husband ever give any indication that he might have been drawn in that direction?’

  ‘Towards men?’ she asked, voice high with disbelief, and with something else. Disgust?

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No, nothing. That’s a horrible thing to say. Revolting. I won’t let you say that about my husband. Leonardo was a man.’ Brunetti noticed that her hands were drawn into tight fists.

  ‘Please be patient with me, Signora. I am merely trying to understand things, and so I need to ask you these questions about your husband. That does not mean that I believe them.’

  ‘Then why ask them?’ she asked, voice truculent.

  ‘So that we can find
out the truth about your husband’s death, Signora.’

  ‘I won’t answer any questions about that. It’s not decent.’

  He wanted to tell her that murder wasn’t decent, either, but, instead, he asked, ‘During the last few weeks, had your husband seemed different in any way?’

  Predictably, she said, ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘For example, did he say anything about his trip to Messina? Did he seem eager to go? Reluctant?’