Death at La Fenice cgb-1

by Donna Leon

  She rose and came across the room to shake his hand. The intervening time had not been gentle to her, Brunetti thought, seeing the dark circles under her eyes, the skin that had become drier, rougher in texture. She went back to where she had been sitting, and Brunetti saw that there was nothing near her— no book, no magazine, no sewing. Apparently she had been sitting and waiting for him, or for the future. She sat down and lit a cigarette. She held the package toward him, offering him one. ‘Sorry; I forgot you don’t smoke,’ she said in English.

  He took the same seat as before, but this time he didn’t bother with the business of the notebook. ‘Signora, there are some questions I have to ask you,’ he said. She made no acknowledgment of this, so he continued. ‘They are delicate questions, and I would prefer not to have to ask them, especially at this time.’

  ‘But you want the answers to them?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then I’m afraid you’ll have to ask them, Dottor Brunetti.’ She was, he realized, merely being literal, not severe, and so he said nothing. ‘Why do you have to ask these questions?’

  ‘Because they might help me find the person responsible for your husband’s death.’

  ‘Does it matter?’ she asked.

  ‘Does what matter, Signora?’

  ‘Who killed him.’

  ‘Doesn’t it matter to you, Signora?’

  ‘No, it doesn’t matter. It never did. He’s dead, and there’s no bringing him back. What do I care who did it, or why?’

  ‘Don’t you have any desire for vengeance?’ he asked before he remembered that she wasn’t Italian.

  She tilted her head back and peered at him through the smoke of her cigarette. ‘Oh, yes, Commissario. I have a great desire for vengeance. I have always had that. I believe that people should be punished for the evil things they do.’

  ‘Isn’t that the same thing as vengeance?’ he asked.

  ‘You’re in a better position to judge that than I am, Dottor Brunetti.’ She turned away from him.

  Before he realized it, he spoke out of his lack of patience. ‘Signora, I’d like to ask you some questions, and I’d like to get honest answers for them.’

  ‘Then ask your questions, by all means, and I shall give you answers to them.’

  ‘I said I would like honest answers.’

  ‘All right. Honest answers, then.’

  ‘I’d like to know about your husband’s opinion of certain kinds of sexual behavior.’

  The question obviously startled her. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’ve been told that your husband particularly objected to homosexuality.’

  He realized that this was not the question she had been expecting. ‘Yes, he did.’

  ‘Do you have any idea of the reason for that?’

  She stabbed out her cigarette and leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms. ‘What is this, psychology? Next are you going to suggest that Helmut was really a homosexual and, all these years, disguised his guilt in the classic way, by hating homosexuals?’ Brunetti had seen this often enough in his career, but he didn’t think it was the case here, so he said nothing. She forced herself to laugh in contempt of the idea. ‘Believe me, Commissario, he was not what you think he was.’

  Few people, Brunetti knew, ever were. He remained silent, curious to hear what she would say next. ‘I don’t deny that he disliked homosexuals. Anyone who worked with him would soon know that. But it was not because he feared that in himself. I was married to the man for two years, and there was nothing homosexual in him, I assure you of that. I think he objected because it offended some idea he had of order in the universe, some Platonic ideal of human behavior.’ Brunetti had certainly heard stranger reasons than this.

  ‘Did his dislike extend to lesbians as well?’

  ‘Yes, but he tended to be more offended by males, perhaps because their behavior is often so outrageous. I suppose, if anything, he took a prurient interest in lesbians. Most men do. But it’s not a subject we ever discussed.’

  During his career, Brunetti had spoken to many widows, interrogated many, but few of them managed to sound as objective about their husbands as this woman did. He wondered if the reason for that resided in the woman herself or in the man she seemed not to be mourning.

  ‘Were there any men, any gay men, against whom he spoke with special dislike?’

  ‘No,’ she answered immediately. ‘It seemed to depend on whom he was working with at the moment.’

  ‘Did he have a professional prejudice against them?’

  ‘That would be impossible in this milieu. There are too many. Helmut didn’t like them, but he managed to work with them when he had to.’

  ‘And when he worked with them, did he treat them any differently from the way he treated other people?’

  ‘Commissario, I hope you aren’t trying to construct a scenario here of a homosexual murder, someone who killed Helmut because of a cruel word or a canceled contract.’

  ‘People have been murdered for far less.’

  ‘That’s not worth discussing,’ she said sharply. ‘Have you anything else to ask?’

  He hesitated, himself offended by the next question he had to put to her. He told himself that he was like a priest, a doctor, and that what people told him went no further, but he knew that wasn’t true, knew that he would respect no confidence if it would lead him to find the person he was looking for.

  ‘My next question is not a general one, and it is not about his opinions.’ He left it at that, hoping she would understand and volunteer some information. No help came. ‘I refer specifically to your relations with your husband. Were there any peculiarities?’

  He watched her fight down the impulse to leave her chair. Instead she ran the middle finger of her right hand over her lower lip a few times, elbow propped on the arm of her chair. ‘I take it you are referring to my sexual relations with my husband.’ He nodded. ‘And I suppose I could become angry and demand what do you mean, in this day and age, by “peculiarities.” But I will simply tell you that, no, there was nothing “peculiar” about our sexual relations, and that is all I choose to tell you.’

  She had answered his questions. Whether he now had the truth was another issue entirely, one he chose not to deal with then. ‘Did he seem to have any particular difficulty with any of the singers in this production? Or with anyone else involved in it?’

  ‘No more than the usual. The director is a known homosexual, and the soprano is currently rumored to be so.’

  ‘Do you know either one of them?’

  ‘I’ve never spoken to Santore, other than to say hello to him at rehearsals. Flavia I do know, though not well, because we’ve met at parties and spoken to each other.’

  ‘What do you think of her?’

  ‘I think she’s superb singer, and so did Helmut,’ she answered, deliberately misunderstanding him.

  ‘And personally?’

  ‘Personally, I think she’s delightful. Perhaps a bit short on sense of humor at times, but a pleasant person with whom to pass a few hours. And she’s surprisingly intelligent. Most singers are not.’ It was obvious that she was still choosing to misunderstand his questions and wouldn’t give him what he wanted until he asked directly.

  ‘And the rumors?’

  ‘I’ve never considered them sufficiently important to give them any thought.’

  ‘And your husband?’

  ‘I think he believed them. No, that’s a lie. I know he believed them. He said something to that effect one night. I can’t remember now just what it was he said, but he made it clear that he believed the rumors.’

  ‘But it wasn’t enough to convince you?’

  ‘Commissario,’ she said with exaggerated patience, ‘I’m not sure you’ve understood what I’ve been saying. It’s not whether Helmut could or could not convince me of the truth of these rumors. It’s that he couldn’t convince me that they mattered. So I forgot about it until you mentioned it now.’

&nb
sp; He gave no sign whatsoever of his approval and, instead, asked, ‘And Santore? Did your husband say anything in particular about him?’

  ‘Not that I can remember.’ She lit another cigarette. ‘This was a subject we did not agree on. I had no patience with his prejudice, and he knew that, so we avoided, by mutual consent, any discussion of the subject. Helmut was enough of a musician to keep his personal feelings to the side. It was one of the things I loved about him.’

  ‘Were you faithful to him, Signora?’

  It was a question she had clearly been anticipating. ‘Yes, I think I was,’ she said after a long silence.

  ‘I’m afraid that’s a remark I can’t interpret,’ Brunetti said.

  ‘It depends, I think, on what you mean by “faithful.”‘

  Yes, he supposed so, but he also supposed that the meaning of the word was relatively clear, even in Italy. He was suddenly very tired of this. ‘Did you have sexual relations with anyone else while you were married to him?’

  Her answer was immediate. ‘No.’

  He knew it was expected of him, so he asked, ‘Then why did you say only that you thought you were?’

  ‘Nothing. I was simply tired of predictable questions.’

  ‘And I of unpredictable answers,’ he snapped.

  ‘Yes, I imagine you would be.’ She smiled, offering a truce.

  Since he hadn’t bothered with the charade of the notebook, he couldn’t signal the end of the interview by putting it in his pocket. So he got to his feet and said, ‘There is one more thing.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘His papers were brought back to you yesterday morning. I would like your permission to take another look at them.’

  ‘Isn’t that what you were supposed to do while you had them?’ she asked, making no attempt to hide her irritation.

  ‘There was some confusion at the Questura. The translators saw them, then they were returned before I saw them. I apologize for the inconvenience, but I’d like to take a look at them now, if I might. I’d also like to speak to your maid. I spoke to her briefly when I came in, but there are some questions I’d like to ask her.’

  ‘The papers are in Helmut’s office. It’s the second door on your left.’ She chose to ignore his question about the maid and remained seated, not bothering to extend her hand to him. She watched as he left the room, then she went back to waiting for her future.

  Brunetti walked down the corridor to the second door. The first thing he saw when he entered the room was the buff envelope of the Questura, sitting on the desk, unopened, still plump with documents. He sat at the desk and pulled the envelope toward him. Only then did he glance out the window and notice the rooftops that soared away from him across the city. In the distance, he could see the steeply pointed bell tower of San Marco and, to his left, the grim facade of the opera house. He pulled his attention away from the window and ripped open the envelope.

  The papers, which he had already read in translation, he placed to one side. They concerned, he knew, contracts, engagements, recordings, and he had judged them to be of no importance.

  He pulled three photographs from the envelope. Predictably, the report he had read made no mention of photos, probably because there were no words written on them. The first was of Wellauer and his widow, taken at a lake. They appeared tan and healthy, and Brunetti had to remind himself that the man must have been over seventy years old when the photo was taken, for he didn’t look much older than Brunetti, he imagined. The second photo showed a young girl standing by a horse, a docile short thing, as round as it was high. The girl had one hand raised to the bridle of the horse and one foot halfway between the ground and the stirrup. Her head was swung around at an awkward angle, obviously caught off guard by the photographer, who must have called to her just as she was about to mount. She was tall and slender and had her mother’s light hair, which swung out in two long braids under her riding helmet. Taken by surprise, she hadn’t had time to smile and looked curiously somber.

  The third photo was of the three of them together. The girl, almost as tall as her mother, but awkward even in repose, stood in the center, the adults a bit behind her, with their arms wrapped around each other. The child seemed a bit younger than in the other photo. All three launched prepared smiles into the camera.

  The only other thing inside the envelope was a leather-bound datebook, the year embossed in gold on the cover. He opened it and glanced through the pages. The names of the days were given in German, and many days bore inscriptions in the slanting Gothic script he remembered from the Traviata score. Most of the notes were the names of places and operas or concert programs, abbreviations he could easily understand: ‘Salz—D.G.’; ‘Vienna—Ballo’; ‘Bonn—Moz 40’; ‘Ldn—Cosi.’ Others appeared to be personal or, at least, non-musical: ‘Von S—5PM’; ‘Erich & H—8’; ‘D&G tea—Demel—4.’

  Starting with the date of the conductor’s death, he paged backward through the book for a total of three months. He found a schedule that would have exhausted a man half Wellauer’s age, a list of engagements that grew heavier, the further back in time he went. Interested in this gradual increase, he opened the book to August and read forward in time; this way, he saw the pattern in reverse, a gradual decline in the number of dinners, teas, luncheons. He took a sheet of paper from one of the drawers in the desk and quickly sorted out the pattern: personal engagements to the right, music to the left. In August and September, except for a two-week period when almost nothing was noted, there had been some sort of engagement almost every day. In October, the number started to dwindle, and by the end of the month, there were almost no social engagements at all. Even the professional engagements had diminished, from at least two a week to only one or two every few weeks.

  He flipped into the next year, which Wellauer would never see, and found, noted for late January, ‘Ldn—Cos!.’ What caught Brunetti’s attention was the small mark he saw after the name of the opera. Was it a question mark or only a carelessly drawn accent?

  He took another sheet of paper and made a second list, this one of the personal notes he found, beginning in October. For the sixth, he read: ‘Erich & H—9PM.’ Already familiar with those names, he could make sense of that On the seventh: ‘Erich—8AM.’ On the fifteenth: ‘Petra & Nikolai—8PM,’ and then nothing until the twenty-seventh, when he saw a note that read: ‘Erich—8AM.’ It seemed an odd time to meet a friend. The final entry of this sort was made two days before they left for Venice: ‘Erich—9AM.’

  And that was all, save for a note that Brunetti saw on the page for the thirteenth of November: ‘Venice—Trav.’

  He closed the book and slipped it back into the envelope, along with the photos and papers. He folded the papers on which he had taken his notes and went back to the room where he had left Signora Wellauer. She was just as she had been when he left, sitting in front of the open fire, smoking.

  ‘Have you finished?’ she said, when he came in.

  ‘Yes, I have.’ Still holding the papers, he said, ‘I noticed from your husband’s datebook that during the last few months, he was far less active than he had been in the past. Was there a particular reason for this?’

  She paused a moment before answering. ‘Helmut said he felt tired, didn’t have the energy he once had. We saw a few friends, but not as many, as you noted, as we had in the past. But not everything we did was noted in the datebook.’

  ‘I didn’t know that. But I’m interested in this change in him. You said nothing when I asked you about him.’

  ‘As you might recall, Commissario, you asked about my sexual relations with my husband. Unfortunately, they are not noted in the datebook.’

  ‘I notice that the name Erich appears frequently.’

  ‘And why is that supposed to be important?’

  ‘I didn’t say it was important, Signora; I simply said that the name appears regularly during the last months of your husband’s life. It appears often, joined with the initial “H,” but it
also appears alone.’

  ‘I told you that not all of our engagements were listed in the datebook.’

  ‘But these were important enough for your husband to note them down. May I ask who this Eric is?’

  ‘It’s Erich. Erich and Hedwig Steinbrunner. They are Helmut’s oldest friends.’

  ‘And not yours?’

  ‘They became my friends, but Helmut had known them for more than forty years, and I had known them for only two, so it is logical that I think of them as Helmut’s friends rather than my own.’