by Donna Leon
She got to her feet, propped the little boy upright next to his sister, stuck a pillow on his other side, and took a packet of Nazionale blu out of the pocket of her apron. 'Would you watch them while I go and have a cigarette?' she asked. 'Sonia and Giorgio don't want me to smoke in the house, so I have to go out on the landing and open the window.' She grinned at this. 'I suppose it's only fair. I did it to Sonia, God knows, for years.' The grin turned into a smile and she added, 'At least, with her, it worked, and she doesn't smoke. I suppose I should be thankful for that.'
Before Brunetti could agree, she walked to the door of the apartment and out onto the landing, leaving the door ajar. He decided to sit on the chair to the left of the sofa, leaving the children as undisturbed as possible. The little boy seemed to forget his grandmother as soon as she was gone and returned his attention to the plump figures on the screen that were now jumping into a river of blue flowers. The little girl lay where she had fallen. Brunetti sat, gazing at the small children, suddenly overcome by a wild uneasiness that something would happen to one of them while their grandmother was out of the room and he would not know how to deal with the situation. He watched the twins, amazed at the difference in their sizes, looked at the half-closed door, and then at the television screen.
After a few minutes, the woman came back into the apartment, trailing the odour of smoke. 'Giorgio never stops telling me how bad it is for me’ she said, patting the cigarettes that appeared to be back in her pocket. 'And I suppose he's right, but I've been smoking since before he was born, so it can't be as bad for me as he says.' She saw Brunetti's reluctant smile and added, 'Whenever he keeps at it, I always tell him that the salad he's eating is probably just as dangerous as my cigarettes.' She raised her shoulders, lowered them, and sighed deeply. 'I suppose we're both right, but you'd think he'd know me well enough by now to leave me alone about it.' Another sigh, another shrug. 'But he wants to believe what he wants to believe. Just like all of us. Pazienza.'
She took her seat on the sofa again, but this time she lifted the little girl on to her lap, placed a hand at her waist, and held her upright. The boy, seeing that she was holding his sister, scrambled onto his feet on the sofa and wrapped his grandmother's neck in his embrace, whispering secrets in her ear and laughing.
'Oh, look at them,' the woman said, pointing a finger at the screen and using that voice of feigned enthusiasm that seems always to deceive children. 'Look what they're doing now.'
The little boy fell for it and turned his attention away from his grandmother's ear and back to the television. Though he kept one arm draped around her shoulders, he appeared to forget about her. 'What was it you wanted to talk to him about?' she asked Brunetti. The little girl lay inert on her lap.
'Your son-in-law works at the De Cal fornace, I believe’ Brunetti said.
'At the factory?' she asked.
'Yes.'
'What do you want to know? He's only the watchman.'
Brunetti was surprised by her reaction to what had seemed an entirely innocuous question.
"There's been talk of threats being made there, and I wanted to speak to your son-in-law about it’ Brunetti said, not thinking it necessary to tell her any more than that.
'Whatever he said, I'm sure it was just talk and he didn't mean it’ she said.
'Do you know Signor De Cal?' Brunetti asked.
Her free hand moved automatically towards her cigarettes and patted them for whatever comfort the packet might provide. 'I've seen him, but I've never spoken to him’ she said. 'People say he's a difficult man to get along with, and there was that fight in the bar a couple of years ago. Everyone on Murano knows about it.'
'So your son-in-law has told you about the threats?' Brunetti asked.
She patted the little boy's bottom, pulled him a bit closer, but his attention was entirely engaged by the figures on the screen and he could not be distracted. Finally she said, 'Yes. But I told you, it was just talk. I'm sure he didn't mean anything.'
Then why, Brunetti wondered, mention the fight? 'Did your son-in-law tell you exactly what was said?'
Brunetti thought she looked as though he had trapped her into saying something she should not have said and regretted ever having spoken to him. 'He's always blamed De Cal’ she began, speaking softly. 'I know, I know, even though there's nothing that can prove it, Giorgio still believes it. Just like with the cigarettes: he believes it and that's that. No use talking to him.'
She looked at the little girl and placed her palm on her back, covering it completely. 'I've tried to talk to him. Sonia's tried. The doctors. Nothing. He believes it and that's that.'
Brunetti felt as though he had been looking at one programme on television, and while he was momentarily distracted, someone had pressed the remote control and he was now watching a different programme with no idea of what had happened at the beginning.
'And the threat?' was the only thing he could think to ask.
'I don't know what made him do it. In the past, he's always been careful what he said, never said anything directly. Though I'm sure they know what he thinks: no one keeps any secrets out there, and he's talked to the men he works with.' She raised her hands as if her open palms could summon help from heaven. Two weeks ago, he told Sonia he was close to having the final proof. But he's said that so many times’ she went on, her face and her voice growing sadder. 'Besides, we know there's no proof.'
She wrapped her right arm around the boy and pulled him close to her, then used her left hand to wipe her eyes. Suddenly speaking in a voice close to anger, she took her hand from her face and waved it in the direction of the bookcase on the opposite wall. 'I should have known when he started reading all that stuff. How long is it? Two years? Three? And all he wants to do is read. So he keeps that job that pays almost nothing so he can read all night. But the children have to eat, we have to eat, and if I didn't own this apartment and couldn't stay home with the children, God knows what would happen to them: Sonia wouldn't work, and they'd starve on what he earns alone.' Her voice tightened with rage and she made a spitting motion with her lips. 'And try to get any help from this government; just try it. With all the proof they've got, with doctors' letters and certificates and tests from the hospital, and what do they give them? Two hundred Euros a month. And nothing for me, even though I have to stay here with them all the time. You try to raise two children on two hundred Euros a month and come and tell me how easy it is.'
The figures disappeared from the screen, and it was as if the little boy had suddenly been released to feel his grandmother's rage. He turned and put his arms around her neck. 'Good nonna, good nonna,' he said and began to stroke both her cheeks, pressing his face closer to hers.
'See?' she said, looking across at Brunetti. 'See what you've made me do?'
He saw that the woman was emotionally exhausted and was unlikely to answer any more questions, and so he said, 'I'd still like to speak to your son-in-law, Signora.' He pulled out his wallet and handed her one of his cards, then took out a pen and said, 'Could you give me his number so I can get in touch with him?'
'You mean the number of his telefonino?' she asked with an abrupt laugh.
Brunetti nodded.
'He doesn't have a telefonino,' she said, this time her voice carefully restrained. 'He won't use one because he believes the waves that come out of it are bad for his brain.' From her voice, it was evident how little credence she gave this opinion. "That's another idea he got from his books,' she said. 'It's not enough that he thinks he's contaminated; he's got to think telefonini are dangerous.'
'Can you believe that?' she asked with real curiosity. 'Can you believe they'd let that happen, that rays could come out and hurt you?' She made the spitting motion again, though what emerged was really little more than a puff of disbelief. She gave him the phone number of the house, and Brunetti wrote it down.
The woman's agitation finally registered with the little girl, who began to squirm around on the sofa. She mad
e a noise, but it was nothing like the peeping noise her brother had made in time to the motions of the dancing figures. It was a bleat, a wail, the voice of anguish in a very high register. It started, it went on, and then the woman said, 'You better go now. Once she starts like this, it can go on for hours, and I don't think you want to hear it.'
Brunetti thanked her, did not offer her his hand, and did not pat the little boy on the head, as he would have done had the girl not begun to wail. He left the apartment, went down the stairs, and out into the light.
8
As he walked back towards the Questura, Brunetti found himself dwelling on a noise and a confusion. The noise was the one made by the little girl: something prevented him from referring to it as her voice. The other was the strangely parallel conversation he had had with the grandmother: he spoke of threats, and she said they were meaningless, nothing, all the while suggesting that De Cal was a potentially violent man. He tried to remember everything they had said and could come up with only one alternative interpretation: it was Tassini who had made the threats, perhaps provoked into them by De Cal's violence. If not this, then the old woman was talking nonsense, and that was something Brunetti was convinced this particular woman would not do. Lie, perhaps; evade, certainly; but she would always talk sense.
His phone rang, and when he stopped walking to answer it he heard Pucetti's voice asking, 'Commissario?'
'Yes. What is it, Pucetti?'
'You had lunch yet, sir?'
'No’ Brunetti answered, suddenly reminded that he was hungry.
'Would you like to go out to Murano and talk to someone?'
'One of your relatives?' Brunetti asked, pleased that the young man had worked so fast.
'Yes. My uncle.'
'I'd be happy to’ Brunetti said, changing direction and starting back towards Celestia, where he could get a boat to Murano.
'Good. What time do you think you could be there?'
'It shouldn't take me more than half an hour.'
'All right. I'll tell him to meet you at one-thirty.'
'Where?'
'Nanni's’ Pucetti answered. It's on Sacca Serenella, the place where all the glass-workers eat. Anyone can tell you where it is.'
'What's your uncle's name?'
'Navarro. Giulio. He'll be there.'
'How will I know him?'
'Oh, don't worry about that, sir. He'll know you.'
'How?' Brunetti asked.
'Are you wearing a suit?'
'Yes.'
Did he hear Pucetti laugh? 'He'll know you, sir', he said and broke the connection.
It took Brunetti more than half an hour because he just missed a boat and had to wait at the Celestia stop for the next and then again at Fondamenta Nuove. As he got off the boat at Sacca Serenella, he stopped a man behind him and asked where the trattoria was.
'You mean Nanni's?' he asked.
'Yes. I've got to meet someone there, but all I know is that it's the place where the workers go.'
'And where you eat well?' the man asked with a smile.
'I wasn't told that’ Brunetti answered, 'but it wouldn't hurt.'
'Come with me, then,' the man said, turning off to the right and leading Brunetti along a cement pavement that ran beside the canal towards the entrance to a shipyard. 'It's Wednesday,' the man said. 'So there'll be liver. It's good.'
'With polenta?' Brunetti asked.
'Of course,' the man said, pausing to glance aside at this man who spoke Veneziano yet who had to ask if liver was served with polenta.
The man turned to the left, leaving the water behind them, and led Brunetti along a dirt trail that crossed an abandoned field. At the end, Brunetti saw a low cement building, its walls striped with what looked like dark trails of rust running down from leaking gutters. In front of it, a few rusted metal tables stood around drunkenly, their legs trapped in the dirt or propped up with chunks of cement. The man led Brunetti past the tables and to the door of the building. He pushed it open and held it politely for Brunetti to enter.
Inside, Brunetti found the trattoria of his youth: the tables were covered with sheets of white butcher paper, and on most tables lay four plates and four sets of knives and forks. The glasses had once been clean, perhaps even still were. They were squat things that held little more than two swigs of wine; years of use had scratched and clouded them almost to whiteness. There were paper napkins, and in the centre of each table a metal tray that held suspiciously pale olive oil, some white vinegar, salt, pepper, and individually wrapped packets of toothpicks.
Brunetti was surprised to see Vianello, in jeans and jacket, sitting at one of these tables, accompanied by an older man who bore no resemblance whatsoever to Pucetti. Brunetti thanked the man who had led him there, offered him un'ombra, which the man refused, and walked over to greet Vianello. The other man stood and held out his hand. 'Navarro,' he said as he took Brunetti's hand. 'Giulio.' He was a thick man, with a bull-like neck and a barrel chest: he looked like he had spent his life lifting weight, rather than lifting weights. His legs were slightly bowed, as if they had slowly given way under decades of heavy burdens. His nose had been broken a few times and badly set, or not set at all, and his right front tooth had been chipped off at a sharp angle. Though Navarro was surely more than sixty, Brunetti had no doubt that he would have no trouble lifting either him or Vianello and tossing them halfway across the room.
Brunetti introduced himself and said, "Thanks for coming to talk to us’ including Vianello, though he had no idea how the Inspector happened to be there.
Navarro looked embarrassed by such easy gratitude. 'I live just around the corner. Really.'
'Your nephew is a good boy,' Brunetti said. 'We're lucky to have him.'
This time, it was praise that made Navarro glance away in embarrassment. When he looked back, his face had softened, even grown sweet. 'He's my sister's boy,' he explained. 'Yes, a good boy'
'As I suppose he's told you’ Brunetti said as they seated themselves, 'we'd like to ask you about some of the people out here.'
'He told me. You want to know about De Cal?'
Before Brunetti could answer, a waiter came to the table. He had no pen or order pad, rattled off the menu and asked them what they'd like.
Navarro said the men were friends of his, which caused the waiter to recite the menu again, slowly, with comments, even with recommendations.
They ended up asking for spaghetti with vongole. The waiter winked to suggest that they had been dredged up, perhaps illegally, but definitely in the laguna, the night before. Brunetti
had never much liked liver, so he asked for a grilled rombo, while Vianello and Navarro both asked for coda di rospo.
'Patate bollite?' the waiter asked before he walked away.
They all said yes.
Without asking, the waiter was soon back with a litre of mineral water and one of white wine, which he set down on their table before going into the kitchen, where they could hear him shouting out their order.
As if there had been no interruption, Brunetti asked, 'What do you know about him? Do you work for him?'
'No’ Navarro answered, obviously surprised by the question. 'But I know him. Everyone here does. He's a bastard.' Navarro tore open a package of grissini. He put one in his mouth and nibbled it right down to the bottom, like a cartoon rabbit eating a carrot.
'You mean in the sense that he's difficult to work with?' Brunetti asked.
'You said it. He's had two maestri now for about two years: longest he's ever kept any of them, far as I know.'
'Why is that?' asked Vianello, pouring wine for all of them.
'Because he's a bastard.' Even Navarro sensed the circularity of his argument and so added, 'He'll try anything to cheat you.'
'Could you give us an example?' Brunetti asked.
This seemed to stump Navarro for a moment, as though a request to supply evidence to support a judgement were a novelty for him. He drank a glass of wine, filled hi
s glass and drank another, then ate two more grissini. Finally he said, 'He'll always hire garzoni and let them go before they can become serventi so he won't have to pay them more. He'll keep them for a year or so, working off the books or working with two-month contracts, but then when it's time for them to move up, and get more money, he fires them. Invents some reason to get rid of them, and hires new ones.'
'How long can he go on doing this?' Vianello asked.
Navarro shrugged. 'So long as there are boys who need jobs, he can probably go on doing it for ever.'
'What else?'
'He argues and fights.'
'With?' Vianello asked.
'Suppliers, workers, the guys on the boats who bring the sand or the guys on the boats who take the glass away. If there's money involved— and there's money involved in all of this—then he'll argue with them.'
'I've heard about a fight in a bar a couple of years ago . . .' Brunetti began and let his voice drop away.
'Oh that’ Navarro said. 'It's probably the one time the old bastard didn't start it. Some guy said something he didn't like and De Cal said something back, and the guy hit him. I wasn't there, but my brother was. Believe me, he hates De Cal more than I do, so if he said the old bastard didn't start it, then he didn't.'
'What about his daughter?' Brunetti asked.
Before Navarro could answer, the waiter brought their pasta and set the plates in front of them. Conversation stopped as the three men dug into the spaghetti. The waiter returned with three empty plates for the shells.
'Peperoncino,' Brunetti said, mouth full.
'Good, eh?' Navarro said.
Brunetti nodded, took a sip of wine, and returned to the spaghetti, which was better than good. He had to remember to tell Paola about the peperoncino, which was more than she used but still good.
When their plates were empty and the other plates full of shells, the waiter came and took them all away, asking if they had eaten well. Brunetti and Vianello said enthusiastic things: Navarro, a regular customer, was not obliged to comment.
