Death at La Fenice

by Donna Leon

  ‘It was poison, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good.’ There was no malice, no venom in her voice. She could have been remarking on a passage of music or a meal, for all the enthusiasm she showed. He noticed that her hands were joined together now, fingers nervously weaving in and out. ‘But I’m sorry someone killed him.’ Which was it? he asked himself. ‘Because I would have liked it to be suicide, so he would damn his soul as well as die.’ Her tone remained level, dispassionate.

  Brunetti shivered; his teeth started to chatter. Almost involuntarily, he got up from his seat and began to walk around in an effort to bring some warmth back into his limbs. At the bureau, he stopped in front of the photo and studied it. The three girls wore the exaggerated fashions of the thirties: long lace dresses trailing to the floor, open-toed shoes with immense heels. All three had the same dark, bow-shaped lips and razor-thin eyebrows. Under the make-up and marcelled hair, he could see that they were very young. They were arranged in descending order of age, the oldest to the left. She might have been in her early twenties, the middle one a few years younger. The last seemed little more than a child, perhaps in her early teens.

  ‘Which one are you, Signora?’

  ‘In the centre. I was the middle one.’

  ‘And the other two?’

  ‘Clara. She was older. And Camilla. She was the baby. We were a good Italian family. My mother had six children in twelve years, three girls and three boys.’

  ‘Did your sisters sing too?’

  She sighed, then gave a small snort of disbelief. ‘There was a time when everyone in Italy knew the three Santina sisters, the Three C’s. But that was a long time ago, so there is no reason that you should know.’ He saw the way she looked at the photo and wondered if they were still, to her, the way they were in that photo, young and beautiful.

  ‘We began singing in the music halls, after the films. There was little money in our family, so we sang, the daughters, and we made some money. And then we began to be recognized, so there was more money. Somehow I discovered that I had a real voice, so I started singing in the theatres, but Camilla and Clara continued to sing in the music halls.’ She stopped talking and picked up her coffee, drank it down in three quick swallows, then hid her hands under the warmth of the blankets.

  ‘Did your trouble with him involve your sisters, Signora?’

  Her voice was suddenly tired and old. ‘That was too long ago. Does it matter?’

  ‘Did it involve your sisters, Signora?’

  Her voice shot up into the soprano register. ‘Why do you want to know? What does it matter? He’s dead. They’re dead. They’re all dead.’ She pulled the loose covers more tightly around her, protecting herself from the cold and from the cold sound of his voice. He waited for her to continue, but all he heard was the low puff and hiss of the kerosene heater giving voice to its futile attempt to keep the killing chill from the room.

  Minutes passed. Brunetti could still taste the bitterness of the coffee in his mouth, and he could do nothing to lessen the cold that continued to seep into his bones.

  Finally, she spoke, her voice absolute. ‘If you’ve finished your coffee, you can go.’

  He went back to the table and took the two cups over to the sink. When he turned, she had unburied herself and was already at the door to the room. She shuffled ahead of him down the long corridor, which, if possible, had grown even colder while they had been in the other room. Slowly, scrabbling at the locks with her twisted hands, she pulled back the bolts and held the door open enough for him to slip through. As he turned to thank her, he heard the bolts being driven home. Though it was early winter and cold, he sighed with relief and pleasure at the faint touch of the afternoon sun on his back.

  15

  As the boat carried him back to the main island, he tried to think of who would be able to tell him what had happened between the singer and Wellauer. And between him and her sisters. The only person he could think of was Michele Narasconi, a friend of his who lived in Rome and somehow managed to make a living as a travel and music writer. Michele’s father, now retired, had done the same sort of thing, though with far greater success. He had been, for two decades, the leading reporter of the superfluous in Italy, a nation that demanded a steady stream of that sort of information. The older man had written, for years, weekly columns in both Gente and Oggi, and millions of readers had depended upon him for reports – accuracy being no requirement – about the various scandals of the Savoia family, stars of stage and screen, and the limitless flock of minor princelings who insisted upon migrating to Italy both before and after their abdications. Though Brunetti had no clear idea of what he was looking for, he knew that Michele’s father would be the person to ask for it.

  He waited until he was back at the office to place the call. It had been so long since he had spoken to Michele that he had to ask the interurban operator for the number. While the phone rang, he tried to think of a way to ask for what he wanted without insulting his friend.

  ‘Pronto. Narasconi,’ a woman’s voice answered.

  ‘Ciao, Roberta,’ he said. ‘It’s Guido.’

  ‘Oh, Guido, it’s so nice to hear from you again. How are you? And Paola? And the children?’

  ‘We’re all fine, Roberta. Listen, is Michele there?’

  ‘Yes; let me go and get him for you.’ He heard the solid clunk of the phone’s being set down, Roberta’s voice calling to her husband. Various slammings and thumps ensued, and then Michele’s voice said, ‘Ciao, Guido. How are you, and what do you want?’ The laugh that followed the question removed any possibility of malice from it.

  Brunetti decided not to waste time or energy in being coy. ‘Michele, this time I need your father’s memory. It’s too far back for yours. How is he?’

  ‘Still working. RAI wants him to write a programme about the early days of television. If he does, I’ll let you know so you can watch it. What is it you want to know?’ A reporter by instinct as well as profession, Michele wasted no time.

  ‘I want to know if he remembers an opera singer named Clemenza Santina. She sang right before the war.’

  Michele made a faint noise. ‘Sounds faintly familiar, though I can’t remember why. If it was around the war, Papà will remember.’

  ‘There were two other sisters. They all sang,’ Brunetti explained.

  ‘Yes, I remember now. The Singing C’s, or the Beautiful C’s; something like that. What do you want to know about them?’

  ‘Anything at all, anything he can remember.’

  ‘Is this related to Wellauer?’ Michele asked out of an instinct that was seldom wrong.

  ‘Yes.’

  Michele gave a long, appreciative whistle. ‘Is it yours?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Again, the whistle. ‘I don’t envy you that, Guido. The press will eat you alive if you don’t find out who did it. Scandal to the Republic. Crime against Art. All that stuff.’

  Brunetti, who had already had three days of this, said a simple ‘I know.’

  Michele’s response was immediate. ‘Sorry, Guido, sorry. What do you want me to ask Papà?’

  ‘If there was ever any talk about Wellauer and the sisters.’

  ‘The usual kind of talk?’

  ‘Yes, or any other kind of talk. He was married at the time. I don’t know if that’s important.’

  ‘Is that the one who committed suicide?’ So Michele had read the papers too.

  ‘No; that was the second one. He was still married to number one. And I wouldn’t mind if your father could remember anything about that, as well. But this was right before the war – ‘38, ‘39.’

  ‘Wasn’t there some sort of political trouble she got herself into? Insulted Hitler or something?’

  ‘Mussolini. She spent the war under house arrest. If she had insulted Hitler, she would have been killed. I want to know what her connection to Wellauer was. And, if possible, the sister’s.’

  ‘How urgent i
s this, Guido?’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘All right. I saw Papà this morning, but I can go over this evening. He’ll be delighted. It’ll make him feel important, being asked to remember. You know how he likes to talk about the past.’

  ‘Yes, I do. He was the only person I could think of, Michele.’

  His friend laughed at this. Flattery was still flattery, no matter how true it happened to be. ‘I’ll tell him you said that, Guido.’ Then, laughter gone, he asked, ‘What about Wellauer?’ This was as close as Michele would permit himself to come to asking a direct question, but that is what it was.

  ‘Nothing yet. There were more than a thousand people in the theatre the night it happened.’

  ‘Is there a connection with the Santina woman?’

  ‘I don’t know, Michele. I can’t know until I hear what your father remembers.’

  ‘All right. I’ll call you tonight after I talk to him. It’ll probably be late. Should I still call?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll be there. Or Paola will. And thanks, Michele.’

  ‘It’s nothing, Guido. Besides, Papà will be proud you thought of him.’

  ‘He’s the only one.’

  ‘I’ll be sure to tell him.’

  Neither of them bothered to say they had to get together soon; neither had the time to travel half the country to see an old friend. Instead they said goodbye and wished each other well.

  When he had finished speaking to Michele, he realized it was time to go back to the Wellauer apartment for his second talk with the widow. He left a message for Miotti, saying he wouldn’t be back in the office that afternoon, and scribbled a short note, asking one of the secretaries to place it on Patta’s desk at eight the next morning.

  He was a few minutes late getting to the Maestro’s apartment. This time it was the maid who let him in, the woman who had been sitting in the second row of pews at the funeral mass. He introduced himself, gave her his coat, and asked if he might trouble her for a few words after he had spoken to the signora. She nodded and said no more than ‘Si,’ then led him to the room where he had spoken with the widow two days before.

  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 towards 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 acknowledgement 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 behaviour.’

  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 behaviour.’ 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 behaviour 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 cancelled 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 prop
ped 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 rumoured 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 a 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 humour 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 rumours?’

  ‘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 rumours.’

  ‘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 rumours. It’s that he couldn’t convince me that they mattered. So I forgot about it until you mentioned it now.’