by Donna Leon
At no particular time in their long silence, Brunetti decided he would tell her everything he knew. Though it took some time, Paola waited until it was clear he had finished, when she asked, ‘It’s a strange thing to happen to someone who spent so much time on the water, isn’t it?’
‘Rizzardi said he must have been battered about by the storm. The anchor rope was twisted around his leg and pulled him in.’
‘Ah,’ Paola said. ‘I’m sorry for his daughter.’
‘Yes,’ he said and pushed his cup and saucer farther back on the table.
He rested his head against the sofa and thought about the carefree days he had spent with Casati. In all of those days, he had not thought about Pucetti’s impulsive gesture during the interview with Ruggieri, just as he had not heard from anyone at the Questura.
‘I told you. He talked about his bees,’ Brunetti said.
‘Bees,’ Paola repeated flatly.
Brunetti nodded. ‘He kept bees out on the barene in the laguna, and we went out to inspect them.’
‘To get honey?’
‘No. It’s too early for that. Not until the end of the summer.’ Then he added, ‘He said they were dying.’
‘Yes,’ Paola said and closed her eyes in thought for a moment. ‘I’ve read about it: it’s happening everywhere and they seem unable to stop it.’ And then she asked, ‘If he wasn’t going to get the honey, what was he going out to inspect?’
‘We went out to see them so that he could take samples.’
‘Samples of what?’
‘Once it was a few dead bees. He put them in a plastic tube, the sort they use for blood samples, to have them tested.’
‘Once?’
‘Another time, he came back to the boat with a vial of mud.’
‘Could the mud have been killing them?’ she asked.
‘I doubt it,’ Brunetti said after a brief pause. ‘He told me people kept the same hives in the same places for generations. If the mud was going to kill them, I suppose it would have done so a long time ago.’
Paola closed her eyes for a time and finally asked, eyes still closed, ‘Who would test them?’
Brunetti, who had been on the island for more than a week, didn’t hesitate to answer. ‘No one on Sant’Erasmo, that’s for sure.’
‘Then he’d have to send it somewhere else. How do you send something from Sant’Erasmo?’
‘The post office, I suppose.’
Without a word, Paola got up and went towards the back of the apartment and her study. A few minutes later, she came back, saying, ‘There’s no post office on Sant’Erasmo.’
‘Then what do they do?’
‘Go to Burano, I suppose. That’s the nearest one.’
Before giving it conscious thought, Brunetti said, ‘Then I’ll try the post office. I can stop on my way back to Sant’Erasmo.’
‘You’re going back?’ Paola asked, unable to hide her surprise.
‘All anyone there knows is that I’m a relative of Emilio’s who’s spending a few weeks in the house.’
Paola gave him a long look and waved her fingers in front of his face. ‘Earth to Commissario Brunetti. Earth to Commissario Brunetti. Can you hear me? Can you read me, Commissario?’ she asked in an otherworldly voice.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ he asked, though he knew.
‘It means that, by now, everyone on the island has heard about what happened. They know you went out on the boat from the Capitaneria, know you’re a commissario di polizia – probably know the serial number on your warrant card – and know that you took his body to the hospital.’
‘I’m still going to go back,’ Brunetti insisted.
‘Do you think people will talk to you?’
‘If they think there’s no risk if they do, and if I express the proper sentiments.’
‘Which are?’ she asked.
Brunetti had to think for a while about this but finally said, ‘I spent almost two weeks with him, five, six hours a day. We talked about a lot of things while we were out there, though I never had the sense that I knew much about him except that he was a decent, honourable man, and now it pains me that he’s dead.’
‘I see,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry if that doesn’t sound like much,’ Brunetti said.
Paola leaned forward and put her hand on his knee. ‘I’m glad you feel that way about him.’ She sat back and gave him time to speak, but Brunetti could think of nothing more to say.
‘What are you going to do?’ she asked.
He slid down in the sofa and crossed his ankles. ‘Go back and listen to what people say about him. See if he talked to anyone about his bees. Try to find this woman. And try to find out if he sent anything from the post office on Burano.’
‘And what will all that tell you?’ she asked with real interest.
‘I have no idea,’ he admitted. ‘But I hope it will help me understand his death.’
17
The next morning, Brunetti was at the hospital at nine-forty-five. He waited a moment at the main entrance, but then it occurred to him that Federica and her husband, if they arrived on the 13 from Sant’Erasmo, would get off at Fondamente Nove, in which case they’d enter the hospital from the back or even from the entrance near the church. After what her husband had said about her reaction to the news, Brunetti was reluctant to phone Federica, so he sent a text message, saying that he would meet them outside the office of Dottor Rizzardi on the ground floor, in Area D. This spared his having to write ‘Morgue,’ a word he hated and that most people feared.
He had not bought a newspaper, thinking it would be disrespectful if they came upon him reading it, so he stood at the entrance to the corridor that led to Rizzardi’s office and watched the people passing.
Brunetti thought of the rope around Casati’s leg, and that turned his thoughts to the living Casati. He remembered the older man and his delight in pointing out the wading and nesting birds in the laguna, and in the sheer explosion of life that was to be seen at every moment. He remembered the fledgling black-winged stilts Casati had shown him, perfectly camouflaged to blend in with the reeds and stalks of dry grass. Casati knew the names and habits of all the birds they saw and had had endless patience when pointing them out to the city slicker.
He remembered asking Casati, on one of the first days they went rowing, why his bees were so important to him. They had been up at the top of Canale Bussolaro at the time. The last words of his question had been dulled by the wind-borne thunder of a plane taking off from the airport behind them. Casati hadn’t answered until it was quiet enough for them to speak again. ‘They’re the only thing that gives me hope, the bees.’
He’d stopped rowing then, and Brunetti’d pulled up his own oar and turned to look at the older man. ‘Look at that,’ Casati had said, pointing his chin to the left, and when that failed to encompass his meaning, he’d waved his left hand in a wide arc towards the mainland. ‘Everywhere, we’ve built and dug and torn up and done what we wanted with nature. And look at this,’ he’d said, turning to his right and waving out over the laguna, ‘we’ve poisoned this, too.’ His face had grown rough with anger.
Tight-voiced, he’d gone on. ‘They’ve done what they wanted with nature, and our children will pay the price.’ Immediately, Brunetti had thought of the MOSE, the tidal barrier that many people believed could not work, and realized that Casati’s prophecy included Brunetti’s own children. ‘We’ve poisoned it all, killed it all,’ Casati had said, turning back to Brunetti.
Then, in the midst of this catalogue, Casati’s expression had softened, and when he spoke, his voice had grown calm. ‘But the bees have had fifty million years, maybe more, to become what they are. My Queens lay two thousand eggs a day, Guido, each one of them, in every hive. More than their own body weight – just think of it – every day. So, hard as we try, we’ll never manage to kill them all. They’ll survive us and what we’ve done to them.’ His smile had drifted away and he’d
added in a softer voice Brunetti suspected he was not meant to hear, ‘And what I did to them.’
When Brunetti realized Casati was finished, he’d asked, ‘And they give you hope?’
The question wiped away the last remnants of Casati’s smile. Sounding like the worst sort of Old Testament prophet, the older man had answered, ‘Only the good deserve to hope.’ Then, to show that the conversation was over, Casati had put his oar into the fórcola and started to row again.
For no reason, Brunetti’s thoughts veered from this memory to the man in the bar trying to silence his friend when he mentioned the ‘woman on Burano’ that Casati had gone to see. Brunetti recalled as well his own masculine satisfaction that Casati might have found a woman, but now, satisfaction long fled, all Brunetti wanted was to find her.
His reverie was broken by the sound of a woman’s voice speaking his name. He looked up and saw Federica, wearing a black skirt and grey blouse and holding the arm of a tall man with a high widow’s peak and a thick nose that had been broken and badly set.
Brunetti approached them, and she opened her arms and embraced him. He felt her begin to sob and held his arms around her until she managed to stop and could move back from him, her face averted. Brunetti put out his hand to the man, who shook it a few times and presented himself as Massimo. That done, he stepped around Brunetti to take his wife’s arm. There was protectiveness, but no claim of possession, in his gesture.
‘Can we see him?’ Massimo asked.
‘Yes,’ Brunetti answered. ‘The room is down the hall. After, if he’s free, we can talk to Doctor Rizzardi.’
‘Is he the pathologist?’ Federica’s husband asked.
‘Yes,’ Brunetti answered. ‘He’s a good man,’ he added, then wondered what difference this could possibly make to them.
Brunetti led them down the corridor and stopped at the familiar door. He knocked and the same attendant as the day before opened it. This time, the man stepped back immediately and allowed Brunetti to lead the others into the small viewing room where relatives and friends were taken to identify their dead. He muttered something soft and inaudible as they entered.
The room was as cold as Brunetti remembered it, shocking on this July day. The walls were a neutral grey, the floor enormous dark slate slabs Brunetti had always thought looked unfortunately like tombstones.
A wheeled stretcher stood in the centre of the room; a single window gave out on a courtyard in which a palm tree grew under the protective shade of a pine. He wanted to study the trees, but instead he studied the draped figure on the stretcher. There was the nose, and there, aslant, the feet.
The attendant approached the body and put both hands on the top of the cloth, the part covering the face. ‘Signori,’ he said softly, ‘I am going to uncover his face. I’d like you to tell me if this is Davide Casati.’
Federica and her husband nodded silently. She wrapped her arms around her body, as if hoping to bring some warmth into the room. Her husband placed his arm around her shoulder again, pulling her slightly towards him.
The attendant moved the cloth. Casati’s eyes were finally closed, and a sort of baker’s cap was pulled down over his forehead. To cover the incision, Brunetti knew and hoped they did not.
Federica stiffened and turned to bury her face in her husband’s chest. He coughed lightly once and said, ‘Yes, that’s Davide Casati.’
‘Thank you,’ the attendant said and covered Casati’s face again.
Brunetti looked at the attendant, who nodded towards the door. Federica and Massimo turned and moved towards it, Brunetti behind them. Somehow the attendant got to the door first and held it open for them. Brunetti let the others leave and when they had started down the hall, asked the attendant, ‘Can they see the Dottore?’
‘I’m sorry but the doctor’s started another autopsy.’ Before Brunetti could protest, he added, ‘It’s a little boy. He had his tonsils out three days ago and was sent home yesterday.’
‘He died?’ Brunetti asked, hoping he had misunderstood.
‘His parents found him last night.’
‘That’s horrible,’ Brunetti said.
The attendant nodded. ‘So they asked him to do it immediately. They need to know.’
Who did he mean? Brunetti asked himself. The parents? The doctors? The hospital administration? The police? Dear Jesus, keep my children from harm. He knew it was the worst sort of primitive superstition; he knew there was no- sense to it and no chance that it could help, but he could not stop himself from thinking this silent prayer. And let the boy’s parents not be destroyed by this, he added, though he knew that prayer was useless.
Brunetti rejoined the others, saying, ‘Dottor Rizzardi can’t see you now. He’s busy.’ He thought it better not to explain.
Federica demanded, eyes wide, ‘Does that mean we don’t get any information? No one tells us what happened?’
‘I spoke to him yesterday, very briefly,’ Brunetti said. He led them out to the courtyard and around to the side where few people passed. He sat on the low wall and asked them to join him. He leaned forward so he could see them both and told them what Rizzardi had found: her father had apparently been caught by the storm and had somehow become tangled in his anchor rope and been pulled into the water by it.
Brunetti watched Massimo, who sat beside him, factor in the experience of a man who surely had found himself alone in the laguna with wind and rain howling around him. Ropes would be driven wildly along the floor of the boat, almost anything could be picked up by a random gust and tossed over the side. Brunetti saw him nod, accepting the possibility.
Federica, her hands clasped between her knees, stared at the pavement, silent. Brunetti saw her in profile and watched her mouth tighten and relax, tighten and relax as she struggled to understand, perhaps imagine, the scene. Her left hand sneaked from her lap and took Massimo’s, and then she asked Brunetti, ‘Did he say anything to you while you were out in the laguna?’
‘He said a lot, Federica. We were together hours every day.’
‘I know that,’ she said shortly. ‘I mean did he say anything unusual? Strange?’ Her eyes remained on the pavement.
Brunetti could think only of the times Casati had talked about his bees and the damage that had been done to the laguna, but he felt that their spirits had so mingled during those long days that he could no longer judge what the other man had said to be strange.
‘No,’ Brunetti finally said.
‘Did he talk about my mother?’
‘No more than to give me a sense that he missed her terribly.’
‘“That he missed her terribly”,’ Federica repeated. She sat upright and Massimo’s body blocked Brunetti’s view of her, and then said, voice desolate and slow, ‘Well, he won’t any more, will he?’
Massimo’s head whipped round to face her. A moment passed and the fisherman said, ‘You told him not even to think about it, Fede.’
‘But he went there,’ she said with despair that left Brunetti’s mouth open. She got to her feet. Massimo stood, as if in response to a current that had passed between them simultaneously. He pulled his lower lip between his teeth and covered his mouth with his right hand. ‘Poor man, poor man.’
Massimo reached out his hand and shook Brunetti’s. ‘Thank you for your help.’
Federica wiped at tears with an inattentive hand, then took her husband’s forearm in a strong grasp. ‘We’ll go now,’ she said.
‘Shall I go to the boat with you?’ Brunetti asked.
‘No,’ she answered quickly. ‘I think we’d like to be alone.’ She turned and walked towards the door that led to the main exit, her husband beside her. After a few steps, she stopped and leaned against Massimo, who put both arms around her and held her for some time. Then she moved away from him, wiped at her face, and started walking again. Brunetti watched them go, certain now that he would return to Sant’Erasmo the next day.
Brunetti could think of nothing better to do than to go for
a long, purposeless walk, which took up some hours of the afternoon, after which he went home and had a nap. After dinner, he explained the scene at the hospital, trying to make his vague feelings clear to Paola. They still sat at the dinner table, dishes stacked at the side of the sink, drinking their coffee.
‘It’s all grey, everything that happened,’ Brunetti finally said. ‘It might have been an accident; he could easily have stepped into the coiled rope – remember a couple of years ago, one of the crew of a vaporetto did that and it took his leg off him.’ Telling that story was no help, he knew; every accident was different from all others, and there was no real connection.
‘She asked if he ever said anything strange to me,’ he told her. ‘And whether he talked about her mother. If you’d heard her voice when she said he wouldn’t miss her any more, your hair would have stood up on your head, believe me. That was stranger than anything Casati said to me.’ If despair had a voice, in that instant Federica had used it, and if her father’s death had been the result of his own despair, she would have reason for it.
‘It could mean a number of things,’ Paola said.
Brunetti agreed with her but said, ‘Yesterday, before I found him, I was in the bar at the other end of the island, talking to some of the men he knew. One of his friends said something about his going to visit a woman on Burano, but the man he was talking to quickly turned the conversation away. It was nothing obvious, but I sensed there was something they didn’t want a stranger to know. It was just a false note, and I didn’t pay much attention to it at the time. But the islands are small places, and there are no secrets.’ He set his cup on the table and got to his feet.
‘If he’d gone to see this woman, it would at least be a sign of life, of still being in life.’
‘And the daughter would have to feel jealousy, not despair?’ Paola asked. ‘Is that better?’
‘Yes,’ Brunetti declared. ‘A thousand times better.’
‘May I say something terrible?’ Paola surprised him by asking.
‘What?’
