The Waters of Eternal Youth

by Donna Leon

  Vittori sat and pulled the legs of his trousers up so as not to stretch the knees. Brunetti gave the lapels and shoulders a quick look and decided the suit was worth the trouble.

  He waited a moment, but Vittori remained silent, something he had probably told himself to do. His look was attentive and interested, but also faintly confused, perhaps meant to indicate his perplexity as to why the police would want to talk to him, of all people.

  ‘The Contessa has spoken to me about you,’ Brunetti began, smiling amiably while managing to suggest that he and the Contessa were close friends. ‘She’s very pleased with your work and says you’re gifted.’

  Vittori looked at his shoes in an affected gesture of modesty. ‘It’s kind of her to say that,’ Vittori said.

  ‘What is it you design for her?’ Brunetti asked with genuine interest.

  ‘The apartments that will be rented to young couples. The floors of the palazzi are being divided into smaller units, and we try to keep the size of the apartments and the design and fixtures similar.’

  ‘Why is that?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘So that no one will feel cheated if they see the apartment of the person living next to them. There is no conspicuous difference between them.’

  ‘If I might admit to curiosity,’ Brunetti began, knowing that it was important to establish the pattern of question and answer early on in an interview, ‘what sort of rents do people pay, and how large are the apartments?’

  ‘They’re all about a hundred to a hundred and ten square metres,’ Vittori said. ‘Two bedrooms and two baths. The rent is about five hundred euros a month.’

  ‘But that’s nothing,’ Brunetti said, not having to pretend to be surprised.

  ‘That’s the purpose,’ Vittori said, with a proud smile. ‘To let young people remain in their city.’

  ‘Well, good for Demetriana,’ Brunetti exclaimed, using her first name casually, as though in the habit of doing so. ‘I knew the rents were low, but she never told me how low.’ That was certainly true enough. Then, with admiration, ‘It’s a worthy project.’

  ‘It’s a shame more people in the city don’t do it,’ Vittori said.

  ‘I couldn’t agree more strongly. ‘I think . . .’ Brunetti was interrupted by a knocking at the door of his office. ‘Avanti,’ he called. The door opened and in walked Griffoni. She had had time to freshen her lipstick, Brunetti noticed, and approved.

  Vittori was on his feet and had turned towards her.

  ‘Ah, Signor Vittori,’ Brunetti said, ‘let me introduce my colleague, Commissario Griffoni.’

  Claudia approached, her hand extended. Vittori took it and bent over it; he kissed the air just above it as Griffoni shot Brunetti a blazing smile. Vittori had obviously failed to recognize the hatted and dripping woman he had seen on the street.

  ‘Please have a seat, Claudia,’ Brunetti said. Vittori stood behind the second chair and pulled it back a few milli­metres. Griffoni swept her skirt under her and sat, feet and knees modestly pressed together.

  ‘Signor Vittori was just telling me about his work,’ Brunetti said.

  ‘You’re an architect, aren’t you, Signore?’ Griffoni asked.

  ‘Well,’ Vittori said modestly, ‘I took a degree in architecture, but I have to confess I prefer working on interiors, using the various elements of space and light to create a setting in which people will feel comfortable and at home while still being aware of the beauty around them.’

  ‘You Venetians have the advantage of living with beauty around you everywhere,’ she said with an admiring smile.

  Vittori returned her smile. What sort of fool was he, Brunetti asked himself. He’s in front of two commissari di polizia and he thinks he’s Casanova: if he charms Claudia, she’ll help him against me. Well, let him give that a try.

  ‘Yes, that’s certainly true,’ Brunetti interrupted abruptly. ‘But I asked you to come here, Signor Vittori, to talk about the meeting on the street with Manuela ­Lando-­Continui, to which both the Commissario and I were parties.’

  ‘Oh, was that you?’ Vittori asked Griffoni. ‘I was distracted by the screaming of that woman,’ he said and quickly added, ‘Or I certainly would have noticed you.’

  Griffoni gave him another smile but turned her attention, with visible reluctance, to Brunetti. ‘For the sake of correctness, should we be recording this, Commissario?’ she asked, careful to use his title, while he had called her by her first name, to show that the men were in charge in this room, and let there be no doubt of it.

  With a smile in Vittori’s direction, Brunetti said, ‘Only if Signor Vittori has no objections.’

  In the ensuing silence, Vittori looked from Brunetti’s face to Griffoni’s encouraging smile. ‘No, of course not,’ he said, and Brunetti pressed the button on the front of his desk that activated the tape recorder, gave the date, time, and location, adding, ‘Conversation among Alessandro Vittori, Commissario Guido Brunetti, and Commissario Claudia Griffoni.’

  He moved the pile of papers in front of him to the side, pulled his chair closer to the desk, and gave his attention to Vittori.

  ‘Signor Vittori,’ he began, ‘yesterday afternoon, in Calle del Tintor, Commissario Griffoni and I were witnesses to a heated meeting between you and Signorina Manuela ­Lando-­Continui. Could you tell us what happened?’

  ‘Why do you think it was a meeting, Commissario?’ Vittori asked with easy curiosity. ‘I was walking with a friend, when this woman began – and I think you will have to bear witness that I was at some distance from her when she started – screaming, either at me or at my friend: it was impossible to say.’ Vittori sounded genuinely puzzled. ‘After all, we were walking side by side.’

  ‘She appeared to be pointing at you,’ Brunetti said. ‘And she kept looking at you.’

  ‘You sound very certain of that,’ Vittori said condescendingly. ‘It was raining heavily, both my friend and I were wearing raincoats but were soaked to the skin, so I rather doubt that even our mothers would have been sure which of us was which.’

  Griffoni smiled, then pretended that she had not. She looked at Brunetti, who said, ‘From where I was standing, she was pointing at you, Signor Vittori. And you say you know her.’

  Vittori held up a monitory hand. ‘Don’t be putting words in my mouth, Commissario. I said I recognized her, not that I knew her. I’ve seen her on the street a few times, but I’ve never met her.’ He looked to Griffoni, as if asking her to confirm the truth of what he’d just said.

  She nodded, held up a hand, palm toward Brunetti in a repetition of Vittori’s gesture, then suddenly pulled it back and put it over her mouth. She coughed lightly, then more strongly, and then bent over and started to cough violently, gasping for air. Vittori turned to her and placed a hand on her arm, but she continued to cough, her entire body ­shaking now. She removed her hand in an effort to breathe, then slapped it back over her mouth but failed to stop coughing.

  Vittori, at a loss, did the gentlemanly thing and handed her the handkerchief from his breast pocket. She pressed it to her mouth and continued to cough but managed to give him a few nods and hold up one hand to show him she was all right. Slowly, she stopped and sat in the chair, breathing heavily.

  ‘Are you all right, Signora?’ Vittori asked, leaning towards her.

  She nodded. ‘Thank you. Yes,’ she said in a small, rough voice. Brunetti saw that her face was still red, and her voice had grown hoarse.

  At a loss for what to do, Brunetti could only wait until it seemed she was breathing normally, when he asked, ‘Would you like some water?’

  She waved the offer away and smiled at Vittori, as though he had been the one to speak.

  ‘Then let us accept that the young woman’s words were directed at one of you, Signor Vittori,’ Brunetti resumed. ‘She insisted that you had hurt her in some way,’ he said, then,
before Vittori could correct him, amended it to, ‘that one of you had hurt her. Have you any idea why she might have said that?’

  ‘Maybe I poked her with my umbrella,’ Vittori said and turned to Griffoni to share his clever remark.

  Brunetti saw the flash of rage in her eyes, but perhaps Vittori saw only a flash and interpreted it as he pleased. His smile remained even after he looked back at Brunetti.

  Better to pass over reference to the umbrella for the moment, Brunetti thought.

  ‘Signor Vittori,’ Brunetti went on, ‘Are you quite sure you never saw her before, perhaps worked with her? Something that would at least allow her to recognize you, no matter how excessive her behaviour?’

  ‘How could someone like that have a job?’ Vittori said automatically, apparently pleased to find something to criticize in Brunetti’s remarks. ‘She’s been like that for a long time,’ he added.

  Brunetti put on a confused smile and asked, ‘ “Someone like that”, Signor Vittori?’

  ‘A retarded woman, if I might use that antiquated phrase,’ Vittori said primly. Then, unable to disguise his spite, ‘A ­seven-­year-­old.’

  ‘Thank you, Signor Vittori. I’ll have to ask her grandmother if she’s ever done anything like this before,’ Brunetti said, interested that Vittori should be sufficiently familiar with Manuela’s history as to gauge her mental age.

  ‘I’m surprised you didn’t take the trouble to do that before asking me to come in here,’ Vittori said with the righteous irritation of the persecuted. Then, turning to Griffoni, he said, ‘But it did give me the chance to meet your colleague.’ My God, Brunetti thought, do adult men still behave like this?

  ‘If you’d never met Manuela, how is it that you know so much about the nature of her handicap?’ Griffoni asked, allowing her Neapolitan accent to appear.

  Had she been a puppy that bit his caressing hand, Vittori could have been no more startled. In fact, he pulled away from her at the question, attempting to distance himself from this most unfeminine behaviour.

  ‘Everyone knows,’ he said. ‘Every Venetian, that is.’ Take that, you southerner, he seemed to be saying.

  ‘Knows what, Signor Vittori?’ Brunetti inquired.

  ‘That she fell into a canal – was drunk or drugged or tried to kill herself – and was under the water so long that her brain was damaged.’

  ‘And now she’s a ­seven-­year-­old?’ Griffoni asked mildly, then added, ‘You do seem to know a lot about a person you’ve never met, Signore.’

  ‘Everyone in the city knows,’ he repeated, and then added, with a ­self-­satisfied smile, ‘As I’ve already told you.’ After thoughtful reflection, he said, ‘Besides, you just have to look at her to know there’s something wrong.’

  ‘You’re a very observant man,’ she said and smiled.

  For a moment, Brunetti watched instinct and habit take over as Vittori smiled at the compliment. But then the smile grew uneasy and forced. ‘You just have to look at her face, those vacant eyes.’ Brunetti was surprised Griffoni didn’t shudder when she heard this.

  Griffoni smiled and raised her chin, as if about to engage in some sort of philosophical speculation: and then did just that. ‘I wonder what sort of woman she’d be if she hadn’t gone into the water? If she were a ­thirty-­year-­old instead of a ­seven-­year-­old.’ She lowered her eyes and looked at Vittori. ‘Did you ever wonder about that, Signor Vittori?’

  Vittori froze, his face a mask of incomprehension, and Brunetti felt a chill at the realization that Vittori had never posed this question to himself. Fifteen years had passed for him, while Manuela had remained trapped in the amber of immutability. And he had never given it a thought.

  The silence expanded. Brunetti felt his mind and heart harden against this man; he looked at Griffoni and saw bleak resolution in her eyes. Vittori sat with his mouth slightly open, as if trying to find some new way to breathe.

  Finally he said, ‘Why should I think about something like that?’

  Rape, attempted murder, murder: Brunetti considered this escalation of crimes. But what appalled him was the fact that Vittori really meant what he said: why should he bother to think about what had been done to Manuela?

  Brunetti looked at Vittori and said, ‘I’ve lived here all my life, and I’d never seen her before.’ He paused, as though considering a possibility, then went on, forcing a smile, ‘Of course, it could be that we live in entirely different parts of the city.’

  Vittori sat up straighter in his chair, glanced at Griffoni as though she were a person who’d come to sit next to him on the vaporetto when the rest of the boat was empty, and said, ‘I seldom have reason to go to Santa Croce.’

  By force of will, Brunetti prevented himself from glancing at Griffoni. He didn’t know if she would pounce on Vittori now for admitting he knew where this person he didn’t know lived, or would wait until later in the interview.

  ‘My concern here,’ Brunetti began, talking man to man, ‘is that she might make some sort of official complaint against you. Say something to her mother or her grandmother, either of whom would be sure to ask us what we know about the incident. In that case, I’d be obliged to repeat what I saw and heard her say.’

  Vittori threw his hands in the air as a sign of his exasperation. ‘How can that be possible, if she’s a ­half-­wit? Who’d believe her?’

  Brunetti dismissed the possibility. ‘I’m thinking about the effect on your reputation. As you said, her grandmother is your employer. I have no way of knowing what her reaction would be.’

  ‘But she wouldn’t believe her, would she?’ asked a scandalized Vittori.

  ‘Manuela’s her granddaughter,’ Brunetti said, suggesting that there was no way of calculating the extent to which people would be carried, once the idea of family was involved. Besides, women were so hopelessly sentimental, weren’t they?

  ‘All the more reason for her grandmother not to believe her,’ Vittori said. ‘If the Contessa’s been with her all these years, she knows what her granddaughter is.’ Vittori sat quietly for a few moments and then said angrily, ‘It’s not only my reputation, it’s my honour that’s at stake here.’ He took two quick breaths and then burst out, ‘The very idea that I’d assault . . . Why, it’s ridiculous.’

  I will not look at Claudia. I will not look at Claudia. I will not look at Claudia, Brunetti told himself, forcing his eyes to remain fixed on Vittori.

  The other man had risen to the role and now de­­manded, ‘How dare she make an accusation like that? How dare she?’

  Brunetti allowed time for sweet reason to come to his aid and said, ‘The difficult thing here is that people today tend to believe the woman.’

  ‘But she’s not a woman. She’s just a child,’ Vittori said, with no attempt to disguise his anger. ‘No one will believe her.’

  Brunetti was about to respond when his phone rang. He saw that it was Signorina Elettra’s number, so he picked it up with a curt ‘Sì.’

  ‘Giorgio just called me. The last call on one of those cards in Cavanis’ garbage was made the morning of the day he was killed to the home number of the man who’s with you now. Eight ­forty-­three: it lasted six minutes. It came from a public phone two bridges from Cavanis’ home.’ And then she was gone.

  28

  Brunetti folded his hands just in front of him on his desk, the way he could remember the first Questore he worked for doing when he summoned Brunetti for the yearly evaluation of his performance. He allowed himself a quick glance at Griffoni, who sat with her hands folded in her lap. He noticed a small bulge in the sleeve of her sweater, just at the cuff: Vittori’s handkerchief, he assumed. Here were traces that would not be compromised by the rain.

  ‘Signor Vittori,’ he began in a serious and not particularly friendly voice, ‘I’d like to turn your attention away from the vague accusation made on the street
yesterday to events in the past.’

  ‘Not when she went into the water, I hope,’ Vittori said, trying for irony but coming just short of belligerence.

  ‘No, far closer in time,’ Brunetti said easily. ‘I refer to the morning on which you received a phone call from Pietro Cavanis.’ He looked at Vittori, whose face had been wiped clean of all expression. ‘Could you tell me if you remember that, Signor Vittori?’

  Vittori tried to look uninterested in the question, but he was no good at it. His head moved backwards a few millimetres, and his mouth contracted in what, in other circumstances, might have been pique or irritation. Had he not shaved his beard, the tiny moue might not have been noticed by either Brunetti or Griffoni.

  Brunetti, imitating his Questore, lowered his head and stared at his hands for a moment. When he glanced at Vittori again, he saw that the man was staring at his own hands, clasped in his lap. Brunetti looked at Griffoni, who nodded, face rigid, then indicated to Brunetti that he was in charge and she’d follow his lead.

  ‘That was a Thursday, wasn’t it?’ Vittori asked in a calm voice, head still lowered.

  ‘No, it was a Sunday,’ Brunetti said and gave him the precise date.

  ‘A Sunday . . . I’d probably have been at home.’

  ‘Don’t you remember?’ Brunetti asked.

  After pausing for further reflection, Vittori said, ‘I believe I didn’t go out that day,’ and Brunetti did not call Vittori’s attention to the fact that he did not bother to ask who Pietro Cavanis was.

  ‘I’ve had a lot of work to finish, so I often take it home with me,’ Vittori said. Then, in the manner of one over­burdened bureaucrat speaking to another, he said, ‘You know what it’s like.’

  Ignoring the question, Brunetti asked, ‘Do you remember speaking to Signor Cavanis?’

  Vittori stared at him as though Brunetti had somehow gained access to his brain.

  ‘I might have, although I have no clear memory of it,’ he answered, with no attempt to hide what he attempted to make look like mild indignation.