by Donna Leon
The chaos that lay before them spoke of flight and search, but it had nothing to say of violence. The men in the apartment had decamped, done so, it seemed, suddenly and absolutely. The furniture in the living room stood upright; in the kitchen a few cooking pots and some cutlery remained, and three plates covered with some sort of red stew stood on the table. Packages of food had been removed from the cabinets and poured out on to the table amidst the plates: rice and flour overlapped in small dunes, and on the floor an empty box of tea bags sat on top of its contents.
As they moved farther back into the apartment they saw that all personal items had been removed: there was not so much as a stray sock to indicate who might once have lived here; only the camp-beds in one room indicated their number. One bed was upturned and the others shifted around, as if someone had wanted to see or retrieve what was under them. In the bathroom, a bottle of aspirin lay in the sink, its soggy contents slowly decomposing.
Abandoning any attempt at silence, they went to the apartment above, but it looked much the same as the first: all personal sign of former occupancy was gone, and what had been left behind had been roughly searched through.
After a quick look through the second apartment and without any expressed agreement to do so, they went up to the top floor. The door stood open, and here they found signs of greater wreckage, evidence of a search which the paucity of objects must have rendered short. The box of foodstuffs sat at the end of the bed, its contents spilled beside it. The peanuts and biscuits were heaped together in a small mound on the bed cover, their plastic wrappers thrown to the floor. The piece of Asiago, covered now with a thin film of white mould, lay beside the box.
‘Have you got an evidence bag with you?’ Brunetti asked.
‘No. Maybe my handkerchief?’ Vianello asked and pulled it from the side pocket of his overcoat. He spread it open on the bed and bent over to pick up the plastic wrappers, careful to lift them at the corners by the tips of his fingers. When they were wrapped in the handkerchief, Vianello pulled a plastic shopping bag from his other pocket. Yellow, it blared BILLA in red letters that would have been visible a block away; Vianello slipped the handkerchief inside.
‘Bocchese?’ he asked.
Brunetti nodded. ‘Results to me. Privately.’
‘Worth taking anything from downstairs?’ Vianello asked.
‘Maybe the rice and flour packages,’ Brunetti suggested.
When they had done that, they left the house, having carefully locked all the doors behind them and automatically starting a conversation about the weekend’s soccer results as they went out into the calle. A man who was walking by glanced at them, but hearing Vianello say ‘Inter’ gave them no further attention and turned into the bar on the corner.
By the time they got back to the Questura, they had decided how they would proceed. Vianello went down the corridor to the lab and Bocchese, and Brunetti went up to his office to phone a colleague at the San Marco sub-station, where the arrest records of the vu cumprà were kept, and asked if he could go over to talk to him.
Moretti, a short man with retreating hair, was waiting for him in his office. In all the years they had worked together, Brunetti had never seen him out of uniform or, for that matter, beyond the confines of this building. The desk was as Brunetti remembered it: a phone, a single open file in front of the seated sergeant, and to his left an ornate frame containing a photo of Moretti’s wife, who had died three years before.
The two men shook hands and spoke of unimportant things for a moment. Brunetti declined the offer of coffee, agreed that it was indeed very cold, and then told Moretti he needed information about the vu cumprà.
Deadpan, giving no indication of how he viewed the issue, Moretti said, ‘We’ve been told to refer to them as ambulanti.’
With equal impassivity, Brunetti said, ‘About the ambulanti, then.’
‘What would you like to know?’ Moretti asked.
Brunetti took a photo from the inside pocket of his jacket and leaned forward to place it in front of Moretti. ‘This is the man who was shot the other night. Do you recognize him, or do you remember ever arresting him?’
Moretti slid the photo closer and looked at it, then picked it up and angled it a bit so that more light fell on the man’s features. ‘I’ve seen him, yes,’ he said, his voice pulling out the syllables. ‘But I don’t know that we ever arrested him.’
‘Could you have seen him on the street, then?’ Brunetti inquired.
‘No.’ Moretti’s answer was so quick Brunetti was startled by it. Seeing that, Moretti explained. ‘I try never to go to the places where they are. It bothers me to see them and not be able to do anything about it.’
‘What do you mean, not do anything about it?’ Brunetti asked, honestly puzzled.
‘I can’t arrest them by myself, when I’m not in uniform, and when I have no order to do so. It bothers me to see them there, breaking the law, so I avoid them if I can.’ Brunetti heard the anger in the other man’s voice but chose to ignore it. He waited to see if Moretti would remember where he had seen the dead man. He watched the uniformed man study the photo, watched as his eyes moved off to the middle distance, then back to the photo.
Moretti got to his feet. ‘Wait here a couple of minutes, and I’ll see if anyone else recognizes him.’ When he got to the door, he turned and said, ‘Sure you don’t want a coffee, Commissario?’
‘Thanks, Moretti, but no.’ And the sergeant disappeared, leaving Brunetti to wait. In order to pass the time, Brunetti got to his feet and went over to the noticeboard next to the door and read the various Ministry bulletins pinned there. Opening for a job in Messina — as if anyone in their right mind would want to go there. Description of the proper way to wear the new bulletproof vests: Brunetti wondered if there could be more than one way to wear them. Duty roster for the coming Christmas holiday, which reminded him of his date with Paola at four.
He went back to his chair, curious as to what could be taking Moretti so long. He had seen only three officers downstairs when he came in: how long could it take them to look at a photo? He took out his notebook and found a blank page. At the top, he wrote ‘Christmas Gifts’, carefully underlined both words, and then, in small letters to the left, wrote, in a neat column, ‘Paola’, ‘Raffi’, and ‘Chiara’. Then he stopped, unable to think of anything else to write.
He was still staring at the names when Moretti came back into the office and sat at his desk. He held the photo out to Brunetti and shook his head. ‘No one recognizes him.’
Brunetti refused the photo with an upraised hand and said, ‘Keep it. I have more in my office. I’d like you to ask anyone who’s had anything to do with the ambulanti if they recognize him.’ Moretti nodded and Brunetti, remembering the years they had worked together amicably, said, ‘And I’d like you to talk only to me about this, not to anyone else.’ A glance showed him that Moretti, however curious about the reason for the remark, understood its meaning.
‘For whatever it’s worth,’ Moretti volunteered, ‘we’ve had no encouragement to look into his murder.’
‘And won’t have,’ Brunetti said shortly.
‘Ah,’ was the only comment Moretti permitted himself for a moment, and then added, ‘I’m up for retirement in two years, so I have less and less patience with being told which crimes I can and cannot investigate.’ He picked up the photo and looked at it again. ‘I know I’ve seen this face somewhere. . All I’ve got is a vague memory, and somehow it seems that it didn’t have anything to do with this,’ he said, waving the photo in a half-circle to indicate the police station.
‘What do you mean?’ Brunetti asked.
Moretti turned the photo to display the face to Brunetti. ‘Seeing him like this, with his eyes closed and knowing that he was murdered, I’m sorry for him. He’s young and he’s a victim. And the last time I saw him, he was a victim too, or that’s the way the memory feels to me. But it was because of work I saw him; I’m sure of that.’ He s
et the photo, face down, on the desk, looked at Brunetti and said, ‘If it comes to me, or if anyone recognizes him, I’ll call you.’
‘Good. Thanks,’ Brunetti said and got to his feet. The men shook hands and Brunetti went down the stairs and out into the Piazza.
Had he not had this mildly encouraging conversation with Moretti, Brunetti might have seen himself as a man abandoned by his wife at lunchtime, then might have added that her behaviour was even more heartless given the Christmas season. But Moretti had recognized the man, or thought he recognized him, and so Brunetti could not give himself over wholeheartedly to playing the role of the neglected spouse. He could, however, treat himself to a good lunch. Aunt Federica, apart from her temper, was known for the skill of her cook, so Paola was sure to arrive at their meeting sated not only with the latest family gossip but with the results of the recipes the Faliers had spent the last four centuries enjoying.
He took the public gondola beside the Gritti and arrived at the other side chilled to the bone and much in need of sustenance. This he found at Cantinone Storico in the form of a risotto with tiny shrimp which the waiter promised him were fresh and a grilled orata served with boiled potatoes. Asked if he’d like dessert, Brunetti thought of the heavy eating that lay ahead of him in the next weeks and, feeling quite pleased with himself, said all he wanted was a grappa and a coffee.
He finished just a little after three and so decided to walk to Campo San Bortolo. As he reached the crest of the Accademia bridge, he looked down into the campo on the other side and was surprised to find no sign of the vu cumprà. That morning’s Gazzettino had warned him how little time there remained for Christmas shopping. This made it all the stranger that the black men were not at their usual places. Like sharks in a feeding frenzy, most of the people of Italy — he among them — always seemed to use these last days to buy their gifts. If it was the busiest times for the shops, then it had to be the busiest time for the ambulanti, and yet there was no sign of them.
When he turned right at the church and started into Campo Santo Stefano, he did see some sheets on the ground. At first he thought they must be the forgotten groundsheets of the crime scene, but then he saw the line of wind-up toys and linked wooden train carriages, carved to look like individual letters, spelling names across the sheet. The men stationed behind the sheets were not Africans but Orientals and Tamils, and off to the left he saw a band of poncho-draped Indios and their strange musical instruments. But as for Africans, the more Brunetti looked, the more they were not there.
He walked past the various vendors but resisted the idea of speaking to any of them. Innocent curiosity about the Africans would make no sense, and police questions could provoke flight. As he studied the men and the segregation of their products, he noticed that all of the items had been mass produced, and that caused him to wonder who decided which group would sell which things. And who supplied them? Or determined the prices? And who housed them? And who got them residence and work permits, if they had such things? If the black men from Castello had disappeared, they must have gone somewhere, but where? And as a result of whose decision and with whose help?
Pondering all of these questions and again amazed that this subterranean world could exist in the city where he lived, he continued down Calle della Mandola, through Campo San Luca, and into San Bortolo.
Paola was, as she had promised, waiting for him, right where she had waited for him for decades: beneath the statue of a perpetually dapper Goldoni. He kissed her and wrapped his right arm around her shoulder. ‘Tell me you ate badly and I’ll get you any Christmas present you want,’ he said.
‘We ate gloriously well, and there’s nothing I want,’ Paola answered. When he failed to respond, she went on, ‘Fettucine with truffles.’
‘White or black?’ he asked.
To goad him, she asked, ‘The truffles or the fettucine?’
He ignored the question and asked, ‘And what else?’
‘Stinco di maiale with roast potatoes and a zucchini gratin.’
‘If I hadn’t gone to Cantinone, I’d probably have to divorce you.’
‘And who would help with the Christmas shopping, then?’ she asked. Into his silence, she said, as if by way of consolation, ‘I didn’t have dessert.’
‘Good, me neither. So we can stop on the way home.’
She grabbed his arm and squeezed it and said, ‘Where do we start?’
‘Chiara, I think,’ Brunetti answered. ‘I have no idea. None at all.’
‘We could get her a telefonino,’ she suggested.
‘And thus undo two years of resistance at a single stroke?’ he asked.
‘All her friends have them,’ Paola said, sounding just like Chiara.
‘You sound just like Chiara,’ said Brunetti in dismissal. ‘Clothes?’
‘No, she’s got too many already.’
Brunetti stopped in his tracks, turned to her, and said, ‘I think that is the first time in my life, perhaps in recorded history, that a woman has admitted the concept of too much clothing might exist.’
‘Over-reaction to the truffles,’ she suggested.
‘Perhaps.’
‘I’ll get over it.’
‘Doubtless.’
Telefonino and clothes excluded, Paola suggested books, so they went down towards San Luca, in the general area of which there were three bookstores. In the first they found nothing that Paola thought Chiara would like, but in the second she bought a complete set of the novels of Jane Austen, in English.
‘But you have those,’ Brunetti said.
‘Everyone should have them,’ Paola said. ‘If I thought you’d read them, I’d get you a set, too.’
He started to protest that he had read them once, when Paola’s attention swung away from him and riveted itself to the far wall. He turned, following the direction of her gaze, but all he saw was an enormous poster of a young man who looked vaguely familiar; perhaps, he found himself thinking, this was the way the black man was familiar to Moretti. So intently did Paola stare that Brunetti finally waved his hand in front of her face and said, ‘Earth to Paola, Earth to Paola, can you hear me? Come in, please.’
She looked back at him for an instant and then, her eyes returning to the poster, said, ‘That’s it. That’s perfect.’
‘What’s perfect?’ he asked.
‘The poster. She’ll love it.’
‘The poster?’ he repeated.
‘Yes.’ Before he could ask who the boy was, Paola grew serious and said, ‘Guido, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.’
He imagined the worst: Chiara running off to follow a rock group, joining some sort of sect. ‘What?’
‘Chiara is in love with the future heir to the British throne,’ she said, pointing at the poster.
‘An Englishman?’ Brunetti asked, shocked, remembering everything he’d ever heard about them: Battenberg, Windsor, Hanover, whatever they called themselves. ‘With someone from that family?’ he asked.
‘Would you rather have her be in love with one of the male issue of our own dear Savoia family?’ she asked sweetly.
Brunetti was too stunned to speak. He started to answer her, recalled everything he had ever heard about that family, and pursed his lips. Easily, brightly, surprising not a few people in the bookstore, Brunetti began to whistle ‘Rule, Britannia!’
18
The bookseller suggested they buy a heavy cardboard tube for the poster, which turned out to be a good idea, so thick was the press of people on the streets. Three or four times, bodies bumped into Brunetti with such force that an unprotected print would surely have been crushed. After the third time, Brunetti toyed with the idea of holding the cylinder at one end and using it as a club to beat their way through the crowds, but his awareness of how much at variance this would be with the Christmas spirit, to make no mention of his position as an officer of the law, prevented him from acting on that thought.
After three hours, two coffees, and on
e pastry, both Brunetti’s mind and his wallet were empty. He subsequently remembered going into a CD store and marvelling as Paola reeled off a list of outlandish names, then watching, hypnotized by the colours and designs on the covers, as the clerk wrapped two separate stacks of discs. He chose a sweater for Raffi, exactly the colour of one of his that his son had taken to borrowing, and refused to listen to Paola’s protest that cashmere was wasted on Raffi. His long-term plan included a casual switch of sweaters after a month or two. In a computer store, she bought two games with equally garish covers and, he was certain, equally garish contents.
After that, Paola agreed that she had had enough and turned towards home. As they were coming back towards San Bortolo and the bridge, Brunetti stopped in front of a jewellery store and studied the rings and necklaces in the window. Paola stood silent beside him.
Just as he started to speak, she said, ‘Don’t even think about it, Guido.’
‘I’d like to give you something nice.’
‘Those things are expensive. That doesn’t make them nice.’
‘Don’t you like jewellery?’
‘You know I do, but not like that, with enormous stones looking as if they’ve been tortured into place.’ She pointed to a particularly infelicitous combination of minerals and said, ‘It looks like something Hobbes would give to one of his wives.’ When Paola had first used this name to refer to the current head of government, Brunetti’s puzzled look had forced her to explain that she had chosen the name because of the English philosopher Hobbes’s description of human life: ‘Nasty, brutish, and short’. Brunetti had been so taken with its appropriateness that he now substituted the name, not only when reading newspaper headlines, but also in ministerial documents.
He realized that he was going to get no help from Paola in selecting her own gift, so he abandoned the attempt and went home with her to try to find a place to hide their haul from their prying children. The only thing he could think of was to put them all at the bottom of their wardrobe, but not before attaching to them carefully printed cards bearing Paola’s name, her mother’s, and her father’s. He hoped thus to deflect the children’s sorties. The thought of hiding things took his mind back to the box of salt and its strange contents.
