Suffer the little Children

by Donna Leon

  He thought he heard Pedrolli gasp. Certainly the noise he made was stronger than a sigh, though the doctor's face remained impassive.

  'What about my son would you like to know?' Pedrolli asked in a voice he struggled to control.

  'Reports I've received suggest that the boy's natural mother is unlikely to make a claim that he be returned to her.' If Pedrolli understood the real meaning of this, he gave no sign of it, so Brunetti continued, 'And so I wondered if you had thought of pursuing the case in the courts.'

  'What case?'

  'Of having him returned to you?'

  'How did you think that might be achieved, Commissario?'

  'Your father-in-law is certainly a man ... well, a man with many connections. Perhaps he could ...' Brunetti watched the other man's face, waiting to see some play of emotion, but there was none.

  The doctor glanced at his watch and said, 'I don't mean to be impolite, Commissario, but these are matters which concern my family and me, and I would prefer not to discuss them with you.'

  Brunetti got to his feet. ‘I wish you well, Dottore. If I can ever be of help to you, I'd like to offer it,' Brunetti said, extending his hand.

  Pedrolli took it, briefly looked as if he was going to say something, but remained silent.

  Brunetti said he knew the way out of the hospital and left, planning to stop and have something to eat before his next meeting, with the doctor's father-in-law.

  21

  Brunetti stopped in a trattoria at the foot of the second bridge between the hospital and Campo Santa Marina but, finding that there was no table free, contented himself with a glass of vino novello and a plate of cicchetti, standing at the bar to eat them. Conversation swirled around him, but he overheard none of it, still recalling Pedrolli's surprise when asked about his medical records, or had it been at the suggestion that inappropriate use might have been made of them?

  The fondi di carciofi were delicious, and Brunetti asked for two more, then another polpetta and another glass of wine. When he was finished, he was still not satisfied, though he was no longer hungry. These pick-up meals that he was often forced to eat were one of the worst things about his job, along with the too-frequent early morning calls, such as the one that had begun this story for him. He paid and left, cut behind the Miracoli and down towards Campo Santa Marina.

  Paola had not had to tell him where the office of Marcolini's party was: its location was etched into the minds and hearts of every Venetian, either by fame or by shame. Lega Doge was one of the separatist political parties that had sprung up in the North in recent years, their platform the usual primitive cocktail of fear, rancour, and resentment at the reality of social change in Italy. They disliked foreigners, the Left, and women with equal ferocity, though their contempt in no way lessened their need for all three: the first to work in their factories; the second to blame for the ills of the country; and the third to prove their masculinity by serving in their beds.

  Giuliano Marcolini was the founder of Lega Doge - Brunetti blanched at the thought of referring to Marcolini as the 'ideologue' because of its suggestion that the party might be involved with ideas. He had managed in the course of twenty years to turn his small plumbing supply business into a chain of megastores: for all Brunetti knew, the workers who had refitted his own bathroom four years earlier had obtained their fixtures from a Marcolini outlet.

  Some wealthy men bought soccer teams; others acquired new wives or had their current ones rebuilt; some endowed hospitals or art galleries: it was Brunetti's destiny to live in a country where they began political parties. In obvious imitation of other separatist parties, Lega Doge had chosen a flag displaying a rampant animal; with the lion, however, having already given its allegiance to another party, the griffin, though it had appeared seldom in Venetian history and was an infrequent subject in its iconography, had been dragged into service. The party's colours were purple and yellow, and its salute a clenched fist thrust above the head, embarrassingly reminiscent, at least to anyone with a sense of history - which clause thus excluded most members of the party - of the Black Power salute given by American athletes at the 1968 Mexico Olympics. One waggish journalist of the Left, upon first seeing the salute, asked if this were meant to represent the legendary tight-fistedness of the Veneti, and the first appearance of the purple and yellow flags and matching T-shirts had, alas, coincided with the use of the same colours in the spring collection of a notoriously gay designer.

  But the intensity of Marcolini's rhetoric and the faith of his listeners had easily overcome these initial obstacles, and within six years of its establishment, Lega Doge had already won the mayorships of four towns in the Veneto and numerous seats on the city councils of Verona, Brescia, and Treviso. Politicians in Rome had begun to pay attention to Signor Marcolini and his ... the Right talked of his ideas, while the Left referred to his opinions. He was courted by those politicians who thought Marcolini might be useful to them, causing Brunetti to reflect upon the observation made of Hitler by the leader of one of the political parties he would subsequently sweep into oblivion: 'Goodness, the man can talk: we could use him’

  As he entered Campo Santa Marina, Brunetti considered who he should appear to be when he arrived. Gruff, of course, a real man who took no nonsense from women or foreigners; well, unless the foreigners were men and Europeans and could speak a civilized language like Italian, though real men spoke in dialect, didn't they? He hadn't known that morning that he would be speaking to Marcolini, or he would have dressed for the occasion, though for the life of him, Brunetti could not imagine the appropriate costume for an appearance at the offices of Lega Doge. Something faintly military, with just a hint of dominance: Marvilli's boots, perhaps?

  He crossed in front of the hotel and turned into Ramo Bragadin. The first door on the right opened on to a courtyard and a flight of stairs leading to the offices of Lega Doge. A marble-cutting workshop was located on the ground floor, and Brunetti wondered what the noise would be like upstairs. The bell was quickly answered by a clean-shaven young man wearing a tweed jacket and black jeans. . 'Guido Brunetti,' he said, omitting his title and putting out his hand. ‘I have an appointment with Signor Marcolini.' Brunetti was careful to pronounce the Italian precisely, as though it did not come to him naturally.

  The young man, who had a face so thin that his eyes looked even closer together than they were, smiled in return and shook Brunetti's hand. In dialect, he responded, 'He'll be free in a moment, Signore. If you follow me, I'll take you back to his office.'

  Brunetti greeted the switch to'dialect with an audible sigh, relieved of the burden of speaking in a foreign language.

  Brunetti had no idea how a plumbing millionaire would choose to decorate the offices of his political party, but what he saw here seemed just about right. One wall of the corridor down which the young man led him had windows that looked out on to the houses opposite and back towards Campo Santa Marina. The other wall was covered with pairs of crossed Lega flags on long wooden poles, about the size of those carried at the head of the Palio parade and thus somewhat outsized for the not very high corridor. There were a few shields, obvious modern copies of medieval originals, which looked like they were made from heavily shellacked papier mache. The young man preceded him into a large room, the ceiling of which contained a newly and quite excessively restored fresco of some celestial event, attendance at which had clearly necessitated the baring, not only of swords, but of great areas of pink female flesh. White stucco decorations encircled the painting with a nervous halo while pastel swirls spread menacingly away from it towards the corners of the room.

  Six chairs made of a wood so highly glossed it succeeded in looking like plastic stood against one wall, and above them was a gold framed print of Vittorio Emanuele ILT inspecting the troops, perhaps before some disastrous First World War battle. As he studied the scene, Brunetti realized that one of two things had happened: either the artist had added twenty centimetres to the King's height, o
r most of the men who fought on the Italian side in the First World War were dwarfs.

  'It's before Caporetto,' the young man said.

  'Ah,' Brunetti let escape him, 'a significant battle.'

  There are sure to be more’ the young man said in a voice so full of longing that Brunetti had to stop himself from staring at. him.

  'No doubt’ Brunetti said, then gave a nod of manly satisfaction in the direction of the pictured scene.

  A red plush sofa that looked as if it had begun life in a French brothel stood against the far wall, and above it were more prints, these of actual battles. The weapons differed, but all of them managed to bring to his knees a young man in uniform who held the Italian flag aloft with one hand while clutching at his heart with the other.

  On the table in front of the sofa lay a series of purple and yellow pamphlets and booklets, their covers all bearing the distinctive griffin, flying protectively over the Italian flag. Brunetti looked up from them and smiled at the young man.

  Before either could speak, a voice called out something from behind a door at one end of the room, prompting the young man to hurry towards it, saying over his shoulder, 'He'll see you now.'

  Brunetti followed him. The young man stepped inside and snapped his heels together in the balletic equivalent, Brunetti thought, of the clenched-fist salute. 'Signor Brunetti to see you, Commendatore’ he said, and actually bowed to usher Brunetti in.

  As soon as Brunetti passed in front of him, the young mart stepped back into the other room, pulling the door shut behind him. Brunetti heard his footsteps click away into the distance. He glanced across the room at the figure just getting to his feet... And recognized the man who had been in the hospital with Patta.

  Brunetti hid his surprise by raising his hand to cover his mouth as he cleared his throat. He turned his face away and coughed once, twice, then continued towards the desk, allowing himself an embarrassed smile.

  In another culture, Giuliano Marcolini might have been described as fat: Italians, however, graced with a language from which euphemism springs with endless sympathy, would describe him as 'robusto’ He was shorter than Brunetti, but his barrel-like chest and the stomach visible below it made him look shorter still. He wore a suit similar to the one he had been wearing when Brunetti had first seen him, but even the vertical grey stripes of this one could not disguise his girth. The extra flesh on his face ironed out all wrinkles and made him look not significantly older than Brunetti.

  His eyes were deeply recessed, the clear eyes of a Northerner, though he was tanned dark as an Arab. His ears were particularly large and seemed even more so because of the shortness of his hair. His nose was long and thick, his hands those of a labourer.

  'Ah, Commissario,' he said, getting to his feet. He came across the room, moving gracefully for so thick a man. Brunetti took his hand with a smile that he did not allow to falter as Marcolini tried to crush all of the bones in his hand. Brunetti returned the pressure, increased it, and Marcolini let go, smiling appreciatively at whatever had just taken place.

  He waved Brunetti to a chair identical to those in the other room, grabbed another one and pulled it round to face Brunetti. 'What can I do for you, Commissario?' Marcolini asked. Behind him was a wooden desk, the surface covered with files, papers, a telephone, and a number of photographs in silver frames, their backs to Brunetti.

  'Find a doctor to look at my hand’ Brunetti said with a chuckle he made sound very hearty while he waved his hand in the air between them.

  Marcolini laughed out loud. ‘I like to get the sense of a man when I meet him’ he said. 'That's one way to do it.'

  Brunetti kept to himself the suggestion that smiling politely and introducing himself might perhaps serve as well and would certainly be less painful. 'And?' Brunetti asked. 'What do you think?' He spoke dialect and put a rough edge on his voice.

  'I think maybe we can talk to one another.'

  Brunetti leaned towards him, started to speak, and then consciously stopped, as if he had thought better of it.

  'What?' Marcolini asked.

  Brunetti said, *My job seldom lets me speak like a real man. Openly, that is. We're in the habit of being careful about what we say. Have to be. Part of the job.'

  'Careful what you say about what?' Marcolini asked.

  'Oh, you know. I wouldn't want to express an opinion that would offend anyone or that would sound aggressive or offensive in any way.' Brunetti spoke in a sort of patter, as though these were things he had been forced by rote, and against his will, to learn to say.

  'To be politically correct?' Marcolini asked, pronouncing the foreign words with a thick accent.

  Brunetti made no effort to disguise the scorn in his laughter. 'Yes, to be politically correct,' he answered, pronouncing the words with an accent just as strong as Marcolini's.

  'Who do you have to be careful about?' Marcolini asked as though he were genuinely interested.

  'Oh, you know. Colleagues, the press, the people we arrest.'

  ‘You have to treat them all the same way, even the people you arrest?' Marcolini asked with manufactured surprise.

  Brunetti answered with a smile he tried to make as sly as possible. 'Of course. Everyone's equal, Signor Marcolini.'

  'Even extracomunitaria?' Marcolini asked with ham-fisted sarcasm.

  Brunetti confined himself to a puffing noise rich with disgust. He was a man who could not yet trust himself with words, but who wanted mis fellow spirit to know how he felt about foreigners.

  'My father called them niggers,' Marcolini volunteered. 'He fought in Ethiopia.'

  'Mine was there, too,' Brunetti, whose father had fought in Russia, lied.

  'It started so well. My father told me they lived like princes. But then it all fell apart.' Marcolini could not have sounded more cheated if all those things had been taken away from him, as well.

  'And now they're all here,' Brunetti said with fierce disgust, oh, so slowly lowering the cards from in front of his chest. He threw up his hands in a gesture redolent of helpless outrage.

  'You're not a member, are you?' Marcolini asked, apparently not thinking it necessary to be more specific.

  'Of the Lega?' Brunetti asked. 'No.' He allowed a short pause and then added, though it was by now clearly no more necessary than

  Marcolini's identifying of the Lega, 'Not a formal member, at any rate.'

  'What does that mean?' Marcolini surprised him by asking.

  That I mink it's wisest to keep my political ideas to myself’ Brunetti said, a man refreshed at finally being able to speak the truth. But then, to avoid any possible confusion, he added, 'At least it's best to do so while I'm at work or working’

  ‘I see, I see’ Marcolini said. 'But what brings you here, Commissario? Conte Falier called and asked if I'd meet you. You're his son-in-law, aren't you?'

  'Yes’ Brunetti agreed in a neutral voice. 'As a matter of fact, it's about your son-in-law that I'd like to speak to you’

  'What about him?' Marcolini asked instantly, with some curiosity but little enthusiasm.

  'My department got drawn into his trouble with the Carabinieri,' Brunetti said, his voice suggesting displeasure at the memory.

  'How?'

  The night of the raid, I was called to the hospital to see him.'

  'I thought that was the Carabinieri’ Marcolini said.

  'Yes, it was, but our office never processed the notice from the Carabinieri, so when it happened, we were called.' Affecting the voice of an irritated bureaucrat, Brunetti added, 'It wasn't our case, but I was told a citizen had been attacked.'

  'So you went?'

  'Of course. When they call you, you have to go’ Brunetti said, pleased with how much he sounded like the little drummer boy.

  'Right. But you still haven't told me why you're here.'

  'I'd like, first, to be completely frank with you, Signore’ Brunetti said.

  Marcolini's nod was surprisingly gracious.

  'M
y superior doesn't like it that we've been mixed up in Carabinieri business, so he's asked me to look into it.' Brunetii paused, as if to check that Marcolini was following him, and at the older man's nod, he went on. 'We've been given different stories about the child. One version says it's Pedrolli's child by some extracomunitaria woman he met in the South’ he said, managing to put as much contempt as he dared into the words, 'extracomunitaria' and 'South'. He saw this register with Marcolini and went on, 'Then there's the other story that says it was this woman's child by her husband.' He paused to let Marcolini speak.

  'Why do you want to know about this, Commissario?'

  'As I told you, Signore, if it's not Pedrolli's child, then we think we should leave it to the Carabinieri.' He smiled, then went on. 'But if the child is his, then some intervention from my superiors, as well as from you, might make enough difference to help.'

  'Intervention?' Marcolini asked. 'Help? I don't know what you're talking about’

  Brunetti put on an expression of limpid good will. 'With the social services, Signore. The child will probably end up in an orphanage.' This was fact, leaving Brunetti to continue with the fiction. ‘It might be possible, in the end - and for the child's good - for him to be returned to his parents.'

  'His parents,' Marcolini exploded, his voice stripped of all affability,'... are a pair of Albanians who sneaked into this country illegally.' He paused for effect and then repeated, 'Albanians, for the love of God.'

  Rather than respond to this, Brunetti changed his expression to one of the most intense interest, and Marcolini went on, 'The mother is probably some sort of whore; whatever she is, she was willing enough to sell the baby for ten thousand Euros. So if he's put in an orphanage and kept away from her, it's all the better for him.'

  ‘I didn't know that, Signore,' Brunetti said, sounding disapproving.

  'I'm sure there's a lot about this you don't know and that the Carabinieri don't know’ Marcolini said with mounting anger. 'That his story about his affair in Cosenza is a lie. He went down there for some sort of medical conference, and while he was there, he made a deal to buy the baby’ Brunetti managed to express surprise at hearing this, as if he were hearing about it for the first time.