Death at La Fenice

by Donna Leon

  ‘Come on,’ Paola encouraged. ‘You were the only person I could think of who would be bound to know about him.’

  Padovani fixed her with a level glance. ‘And do you expect me to blacken the memory of a man who is not yet cold in his grave?’

  From the sound of things, Brunetti thought that might well add to Padovani’s fun.

  ‘I’m surprised you waited that long,’ said Paola.

  Padovani gave her remark the attention it deserved. ‘You’re right, Paola. I will tell you all – that is, if the delicious Guido will go and get us all three enormous drinks. If he doesn’t do it soon, I might begin to rail at the predictable tedium to which your parents have once again subjected me and, I note with wonder, half of what passes for the most famous people in the city.’ Then, turning to Brunetti, ‘Or better yet, Guido, if you could perhaps procure an entire bottle, we could, all three of us, steal away to one of the many ill-decorated rooms with which, alas, your parents’ home is filled.’ But he wasn’t finished and turned back to Paola. ‘And there, you using the blandishment of your beauty and your husband his unspeakable policeman’s methods, you could together pry the nasty, niggling, dirty truth out of me. After which, if you were so minded, you, or perhaps’ – he broke off and gave Brunetti a long look – ‘both of you, could have your way with me.’ So that’s the way things were, Brunetti suddenly realized, surprised that he had so successfully missed all the clues.

  Paola shot Brunetti an entirely unnecessary warning glance. He liked the man’s excess. He had no doubt that the invitation, wildly put as it had been, was entirely sincere, but that hardly seemed something to become angry about. He went off, as directed, to see about finding a bottle of Scotch.

  It was a comment on either the count’s hospitality or the laxity of the staff that he was given a bottle of Glenfiddich for the mere asking. When he got back to them, he found them arm in arm, whispering like conspirators. Padovani hushed Paola to silence and explained to Brunetti, ‘I was just asking her whether, if I were to commit a really heinous crime, perhaps tell her mother what I think of the drapes, you’d take me down to your office to beat me until I confessed.’

  ‘How do you think I got this?’ Brunetti asked, and held up the bottle.

  Padovani and Paola both laughed. ‘Lead us, Paola,’ the writer commanded, ‘to a place where we can have our way with this, if not’ – with a cow-eyed glance at Brunetti – ‘with one another.’

  Ever practical, Paola said flatly, ‘We can use the sewing room,’ and led them out of the main salon and through a set of massive double doors. Then, like Ariadne, she led them unerringly down one corridor, turned to the left, down another, through the library, and into a smaller room, in which a number of delicate brocade-covered chairs stood in a semicircle around an enormous television.

  ‘Sewing room?’ asked Padovani.

  ‘Before ‘Dynasty’,’ explained Paola.

  Padovani threw himself down into the most substantial chair in the room, swept his patent-leather shoes up onto the intaglio table, and said, ‘Right, darlings, shoot,’ no doubt lapsing into English by the mere force of the presence of the television. When neither of them asked a question, he prompted them. ‘What is it you want to know about the late and not by anyone I can think of lamented Maestro?’

  ‘Who would want to see him dead?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘You are direct, aren’t you? No wonder Paola capitulated with such alarming speed. But to answer your question, you’d need a phone book to hold the list of names.’ He stopped speaking for a while and held out his glass for some whisky. Brunetti poured him a generous glassful, gave himself some as well, and poured a smaller amount into Paola’s glass. ‘Do you want me to give it to you chronologically, or perhaps by nationality, or a breakdown according to voice type or sexual preference?’ He rested his glass on the arm of his chair and continued slowly. ‘He goes back in time, Wellauer does, and the reasons people hated him go back along with him. You’ve probably heard the rumours about his having been a Nazi during the war. It was impossible for him to stop them, so like the good German he was, he simply ignored them. And no one seemed to mind at all. Not at all. No one does much anymore, do they? Look at Waldheim.’

  ‘I’ve heard the rumours,’ Brunetti said.

  Padovani sipped at his glass, considering how to phrase it. ‘All right, how about nationality? There are at least three Americans I could name, two Germans, and half a dozen Italians who would have been glad to see him dead.’

  ‘But that hardly means they’d kill him,’ Paola said.

  Padovani nodded, granting this. He kicked off his shoes and pulled his feet up under him in the chair. He might be willing to vilify the countess’s taste, but he would never stain her new brocade. ‘He was a Nazi. Take that as given. His second wife was a suicide, which is something you might look into. The first left him after seven years, and even though her father was one of the richest men in Germany, Wellauer gave her a particularly generous settlement. There was talk at the time of nasty things, nasty sexual things, but that,’ he added, sipping again, ‘was when there still existed the idea that there were sexual things that could be nasty. But before you ask, no, I don’t know what those sexual things were.’

  ‘Would you tell us if you did?’ Brunetti asked.

  Padovani shrugged.

  ‘Now for things professional. He was a notorious sexual blackmailer. Any list of the sopranos and mezzo-sopranos who sang with him ought to give you an idea of that; bright, young, anonymous things who suddenly sang a Tosca or a Dorabella and then just as suddenly disappeared. He was so very good that he was permitted these lapses. Besides, most people can’t tell the difference between great singing and competent singing anyway, so few people noticed, and no great harm was done. And I have to give him the credit that they were always at least competent singers. A few of them even went on to become great singers, but they probably would have done that without him.’

  To Brunetti, this hardly sounded sufficient to provoke murder.

  ‘Those were the careers he helped, but there are just as many he ruined, especially among men of my particular persuasion and,’ he added, sipping at his drink, ‘women of similar taste. The late Maestro was incapable of believing that he was unattractive to any woman. If I were you, I would look into the sexual stuff. The answer might not be there, but it might be a good place to begin. But that,’ he said, pointing with his glass to the enormous television that loomed in front of them, ‘might merely be a response to an overexposure to that.’

  He seemed to realize how unsatisfactory his information had been, so he added, ‘In Italy, there are at least three people who had good reason to hate him. But none of them is in a position to have done him any harm. One is singing in the chorus of the Bari Opera Company. He might have become an important Verdi baritone had he not, in the dreadful sixties, made the mistake of not bothering to hide his sexual preference from the Maestro. I’ve even heard that he made the mistake of approaching the Maestro himself, but I can’t believe that anyone could have been that stupid. Probably a myth. Whatever the cause, Wellauer is said to have dropped his name with a columnist who was a friend of his, and the articles started soon thereafter. That’s why he’s singing in Bari. In the chorus.

  ‘The second is teaching music theory at the Palermo conservatory. I’m not sure what happened between them, but he was a conductor who had received a good deal of excellent publicity. This was about ten years ago, but then his career stopped after a few months of devastating reviews. Here, I admit, I have no direct information, but Wellauer’s name was mentioned in relation to the reviews.

  ‘The third is only a faint bell in my gossip’s mind, but it involves someone who is said to be living here.’ When he saw their surprise, he amended, ‘No, not in the palazzo. In Venice. But she’s hardly in a state to have done anything, since she must be close to eighty and is said to be a recluse. And I’m not sure that I’ve got that story straight or even reme
mber it correctly.’

  When he saw Paola’s look, he held up his glass in excuse and explained, ‘It’s this stuff. Destroys brain cells. Or eats them.’ He swirled the liquid around in the glass, watching the small waves he created, waiting for them to produce the tide of memory.

  ‘I’ll tell you what I remember or what I think I remember. Her name is Clemenza Santina.’ When neither of them showed any sign of recognition, he explained: ‘She was one of the most famous sopranos right before the war. Same thing happened to her that happened to Rosa Ponselle in America – discovered singing in a music hall with her two sisters, and within a few months she was singing at La Scala. One of those natural, perfect voices that come along only a few times a century. But she never recorded anything, so the only memory we have of her is what people heard, what they recall.’ He saw their growing impatience, so he dragged himself back to the point. ‘There was something between her and Wellauer, or between him and one of the sisters. I can’t remember what it was or who told me, but she might have tried to kill him, or she threatened to kill him.’ He waved his glass in the air, and Brunetti saw how drunk the man was. ‘Anyway, I think someone got killed or died, or maybe it was just a threat. Maybe I’ll remember in the morning. Or maybe it’s not important.’

  ‘What made you think of her?’ asked Brunetti.

  ‘Because she sang Violetta with him. Before the war. Someone I was talking to, I can’t remember who it was, told me that they’d tried to interview her recently. Let me think for a minute.’ Again he consulted his drink, and again the memory came floating back. ‘Narciso, that’s who. He was doing an article on great singers of the past, and he went to see her, but she refused to speak to him, was very unpleasant about it. Didn’t even open the door, I think he said. And then he told me the story he’d heard about her and Wellauer, before the war. In Rome, I think.’

  ‘Did he say where she lives?’

  ‘No, he didn’t. But I can call him in the morning and ask.’

  Either the alcohol or the waning conversation drained the sparkle from Padovani. As Brunetti watched, the foppishness subsided, and he became a middle-aged man with a thick beard and the beginnings of a substantial paunch, sitting with his feet tucked under him, exposing an inch of calf above black silk socks. Paola, he noticed, looked tired, or was she simply tired of having had to keep up the level of university banter with her former classmate? And Brunetti felt himself to be at that balance point that alcohol brought: if he continued drinking, he would soon be fuzzy and content; if he stopped, he would just as quickly be sober and sombre. Choosing the second, he set his glass on the floor under his chair, sure a roving servant would find it before morning.

  Paola set hers down as well and moved to the edge of her seat. She glanced over at Padovani, waiting for him to move, but he waved them off and picked up the bottle from the table. He poured himself a generous drink and said, ‘I’ll finish this before I return to the revels.’ Brunetti wondered if he was as bored with the fiction of scintillating chatter as Paola seemed to be. The three of them exchanged bright nothings, and Padovani promised to call in the morning if he managed to get the address of the soprano.

  Paola led Brunetti back through the labyrinth of the palazzo, towards the lights and the music. When they entered the main salon, they noticed that more people had arrived and the music had increased in volume, keeping pace with the sound of conversation.

  Brunetti looked around, filled with anticipatory boredom at the sight and sound of these well-dressed, well-fed, well-versed people. He sensed that Paola had registered his feelings and was about to suggest they leave, when he saw someone he recognized. Standing at the bar, glass in one hand and cigarette in the other, was the doctor who had first examined Wellauer’s body and declared him dead. At the time, Brunetti had wondered how someone who was wearing jeans had managed to be sitting in the orchestra. Tonight she was dressed much the same, a pair of grey slacks and a black jacket, with an obvious lack of concern for her own appearance that Brunetti would have thought impossible in an Italian woman.

  He told Paola he had seen someone he wanted to talk to, and she replied that she would try to find her parents to thank them for the party. They separated, and he went across the room towards the doctor, whose name he had forgotten. She made no attempt to disguise the fact that she recognized and remembered him.

  ‘Good evening, Commissario,’ she said when he came up beside her.

  ‘Good evening, Doctor,’ he replied, and then added, as if they had managed sufficient homage to the rule of formality, ‘My name is Guido.’

  ‘And mine is Barbara.’

  ‘How small the city is,’ he observed, the banality of the remark allowing him, a formal man, to avoid having to commit himself to addressing her as either lei or tu.

  ‘Sooner or later, everyone meets everyone,’ she concurred, avoiding with equal skill any direct address.

  Deciding on the formal lei, he said, ‘I’m sorry I never thanked you for your help the other night.’

  She shrugged this away and asked, ‘Was my diagnosis correct?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, wondering how she could have avoided reading about it in every newspaper in the country. ‘It was in the coffee, as you said.’

  ‘I thought so. But I have to confess I recognized the smell only from reading Agatha Christie.’

  ‘Me too. It’s the only time I ever smelled it in real life.’ Both of them ignored the awkwardness of that last word.

  She stubbed out her cigarette in a potted palm the size of an orange tree. ‘How would a person get it?’ she asked.

  ‘That’s what I wanted to ask you, Doctor.’

  She paused and considered for a few moments before she suggested, ‘In a pharmacy, a laboratory, but I’m sure it would be a controlled substance.’

  ‘It is and it isn’t.’

  She, being an Italian, understood immediately. ‘So it could disappear and never be reported, or even missed?’

  ‘Yes, I think so. One of my men is checking the pharmacies in the city, but we could never hope to check all the factories in Marghera or Mestre.’

  ‘It’s used for developing film, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, and with certain petrochemicals.’

  ‘There’s enough of that in Marghera to keep your man busy.’

  ‘For days, I’m afraid,’ he admitted.

  Noticing that her drink was gone, he asked, ‘Would you like another?’

  ‘No, thank you. I think I’ve had enough of the count’s champagne for one evening.’

  ‘Have you been here other evenings?’ he asked, frankly curious.

  ‘Yes, a few. He always invites me, and if I’m free, I try to come.’

  ‘Why?’ The question slipped out before he had a chance to think.

  ‘He’s my patient.’

  ‘You’re his doctor?’ Brunetti was too astonished to disguise his response.

  She laughed. What was more, her amusement was entirely natural and without resentment. ‘If he’s my patient, then I suppose I’ve got to be his doctor.’ She relented. ‘My office is just on the other side of the campo. I was the servants’ doctor first, but then, about a year ago, I met the count when I was here to visit one of them, and we began to talk.’

  ‘About what?’ Brunetti was astonished at the possibility that the count was capable of an action so mundane as talking, especially with someone as unpretentious as this young woman.

  ‘That first time, we talked about the servant, who had influenza, but when I came back, we somehow started to talk about Greek poetry. And that led to a discussion, if I remember correctly, of Greek and Roman historians. The count is particularly fond of Thucydides. Since I’d gone to the classical liceo, I could talk about them without making a fool of myself, so the count decided I must be a competent doctor. Now he comes to my office every so often, and we talk about Thucydides and Strabo.’ She leaned back against the wall and crossed her ankles in front of her. ‘He’s very much
like my other patients. Most of them come to talk about ailments they don’t have and pain they don’t feel. The count is more interesting to talk to, but I suppose there’s really not much difference between them. He’s lonely and old, just like them, and he needs someone to talk to.’

  Brunetti was shocked to silence by this assessment of the count. Lonely? A man who could pick up the phone and triumph over a Swiss bank’s code of secrecy? A man who could find out the contents of a man’s will before the man was buried? So lonely that he would go and talk to his doctor about Greek historians?

  ‘He talks about you sometimes as well,’ she said. ‘About all of you.’

  ‘He does?’

  ‘Yes. He carries your pictures in his wallet. He’s shown them to me a number of times. You, your wife, the children.’

  ‘Why are you telling me this, Doctor?’

  ‘As I told you, he’s a lonely old man. And he’s my patient, so I try to do whatever I can to help him.’ When she saw that he was going to object, she added, ‘Whatever I can, if I think it will help him.’

  ‘Doctor, is it normal for you to accept private patients?’

  If she saw where this was leading, she made no sign of it. ‘Most of my patients are public health patients.’

  ‘How many private patients do you have?’

  ‘I don’t think that’s any of your business, Commissario.’

  ‘No, I suppose it’s not,’ he admitted. ‘Would you answer one about your politics?’ It was a question that, in Italy, still had some meaning, the parties not yet all being carbon copies of one another.

  ‘I’m Communist, of course, even with the new name.’

  ‘Yet you accept as your patient one of the richest men in Venice? Probably one of the richest in Italy?’

  ‘Of course. Why shouldn’t I?’

  ‘I just told you. Because he’s a very rich man.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with my accepting him as a patient?’