A Noble Radiance

by Donna Leon

  'She was sure he didn't see her?'

  'Yes. In fact, when he heard her scream and saw what he had done, he was terrified, almost to tears, or so she told Barbara's friend. He got her downstairs and called a water taxi and took her to the pronto soccorso at the civil hospital, and the next day he drove her up to a specialist in Udine who set her hand.'

  'Why was she seeing this other doctor?'

  'She had some sort of skin infection under the cast. He was treating her for that. So of course he asked her how she had broken her hand.'

  'And that's the story she gave?'

  "That’s what he said. He apparently thought she was telling the truth.'

  'Did she bring a civil suit against him for damages?7

  'No, not that I know of’

  'Do you know her name?'

  'No, but I can get it from Barbara's friend’

  'Please do’ Brunetti' asked. 'And see what else you can find out about any of them.'

  'Only criminal things, Commissario?'

  Brunetti's impulse was to agree to this, but then he thought of the apparent contradiction in Maurizio, said to have flown into a rage when a woman refused his invitation, yet to have been moved almost to tears when he saw her broken hand. He began to grow curious about what other contradictions might be lurking amidst the Lorenzoni family. 'No, lef s see what we can find out about them, anything.'

  'All right, Dottore,' she said, turning her chair to bring her hands over the keys of her computer. 'I’ll start with Interpol, then see what Il Gazzettino might have’

  Brunetti nodded towards her computer. 'You really can do it with that, instead of the telephone?'

  She looked at him with infinite patience, just the sort of look his high school chemistry teacher used to give him after each unsuccessful experiment. "The only people who ring me today are the ones who make obscene calls.'

  'And everyone else uses that?' he said, indicating the little box on her desk.

  'It's called a modem, sir’

  'Ah, yes, I remember. Well, see what it can tell you about the Lorenzonis’

  Before Signorina Elettra, newly appalled at his ignorance, could begin to explain to him just what a modem was and how it worked, Brunetti turned and left her office. Neither viewed his precipitate departure as a lost opportunity for the advancement of human understanding.

  11

  His phone was ringing when he got to his office; he half ran across the room to pick it up. Even before Brunetti could give his name, Vianello said, It's Lorenzoni.'

  "The X-rays match?'

  'Yes, perfectly.'

  Though Brunetti had expected this, he found himself adjusting his mind to the certainty. It was one thing to tell someone that there was every possibility the body of his cousin had been found; how vastly different to tell parents that their only child was dead. Their only son. 'Gesu, pieta’ he whispered and then in a louder voice asked Vianello, 'Did the dentist have anything to say about the boy?'

  'Nothing directly, but he seemed sad to learn that he was dead. I'd say he liked him.'

  'What makes you say that?'

  'From the way he spoke of him. After all, the boy was a patient for years, from when he was fourteen. In a sense, the dentist watched him grow up.' When Brunetti said nothing, Vianello asked, 'I'm still in his office. Do you want me to ask anything else?'

  'No, no, don't bother, Vianello. I think you'd better come back here. I want you to go up to Belluno tomorrow morning, and I want you to read through the whole file before that.'

  'Yes, sir,' Vianello said and, with no further questions, hung up.

  Twenty-one years old and dead with a bullet in his brain. At twenty-one, life hasn't been lived, hasn't even been properly begun; the person who will emerge from the cocoon of youth is still almost entirely dormant. And this boy was dead. Brunetti thought of his own father-in-law's tremendous wealth and again thought that it might just as easily have been his only grandson, Raffi, who had been kidnapped and murdered. Or it might have been his granddaughter. That possibility drove Brunetti from his office, from the Questura, and towards his home, filled with an irrational concern for his family's safety: like St Thomas, he could believe only what his hands could touch.

  Though he was not aware of climbing the stairs more quickly than he usually did, he was so winded when he got to the bottom of the last flight that he had to lean against the wall for a minute until his breath came back to him. He pushed himself away and up the last steps, taking his keys from his pocket as he did.

  He let himself in and stood just inside the door, listening to see if he could locate all three of them and know them to be safe within the walls he had given them. From die kitchen, he heard the dang of metal as something fell to the floor and then Paola's voice, 'It doesn't matter, Chiara. Just wash it off and put it back on the pan.'

  He turned his attention to the back of the apartment, towards Raffi's room, and coming from it he heard the heavy bass of some dreadful noise, known to younger people as music. And never had melody, though he could discern none here, had a sweeter sound.

  He hung his coat in the cupboard in the hall and went down the long corridor towards the kitchen. Chiara turned towards him as he came in.

  'Ciao, Papa. Mamma's teaching me how to make ravioli. We're going to have them tonight.' She held her flour-covered hands behind her back and came a few steps towards him. He leaned down and she kissed him on both cheeks; he wiped a long smear of flour from her left cheek. 'Filled with funghi, right Mamma?' she asked, turning to Paola, who stood at the stove, stirring the mushrooms in a large frying pan. She nodded and kept stirring.

  Behind them on the table lay a few crooked piles of oddly shaped pale rectangles. 'Are those the ravioli?' he asked, remembering the neat geometry of the squares his mother used to cut and fill.

  'They will be, Papa, as soon as we get them filled.' She turned to Paola for confirmation. 'Won't they, Mamma?'

  Paola stirred and nodded, turned to Brunetti and accepted his kisses without comment.

  'Won't they, MammaT Chiara repeated, voice a tone higher.

  'Yes. Just a few more minutes for the mushrooms and we can start to fill them.'

  'You said I could do it myself. Mamma,' Chiara insisted.

  Before Chiara could turn to Brunetti to witness this injustice, Paola conceded the point. 'If your father will pour me a glass of wine while the mushrooms finish, all right?'

  'Would you like me to help you to fill them?' Brunetti asked, half joking.

  'Oh, Papa, don't be silly. You know you'd make a mess.'

  'Don't talk to your father that way,' Paola said.

  ‘What way?'

  'That way.'

  ‘I don't understand.'

  ‘You do so understand.'

  'White or red, Paola?' Brunetti interrupted. He walked past Chiara, and seeing that Paola had turned back to the stove, he narrowed his eyes at Chiara and gave a small shake of his head while motioning towards Paola with his chin.

  Chiara pursed her lips, shrugged, but then nodded. 'All right, Papa, if you want to, you can.' Then, after a grudgingly long pause, 'So can Mamma if she wants to.'

  'Red,' Paola said and stirred the mushrooms around the pan.

  Brunetti walked past her and stooped to open the cabinet under the sink. 'Cabernet?' he asked.

  'Uh, huh,'Paola agreed.

  He opened thewine and poured out two glasses.

  When she reached out a hand to take the glass, he took her hand, pressed her palm to his lips, and kissed it. Surprised, she looked up at him. 'What's that for?' she asked.

  'Because I love you with all my heart,' he said and handed her the glass.

  'Oh, Papa’ Chiara moaned. 'Only people in the movies say things like that.'

  ‘You know your father doesn't go to the movies,' Paola said.

  'Then he read it in a book,' Chiara said, already losing whatever little interest she had in the sort of things grown-ups found to say to one another. 'A
ren't the mushrooms done yet?'

  Glad of the distraction provided by her daughter's impatience, Paola said, 'one more minute and they're done. But you've got to wait until they're cool.'

  How long will that take?'

  'Ten or fifteen minutes.'

  Brunetti stood with his back to them, looking out of the window and off to the mountains to the north of Venice.

  'Can I come back then and do it?'

  'Of course.'

  He heard Chiara leave the kitchen and go down the hall towards her room.

  'Why did you say that?' Paola asked when she was gone.

  'Because if s true,' Brunetti said, still looking out of the window.

  'But why did you say it now?'

  'Because I never say it’ He sipped at his wine. It occurred to him to ask if she didn't believe him or if she didn't like hearing it, but he said nothing, took another sip of wine."

  Before he heard her move, he felt Paola come up beside him. She wrapped her left arm around his waist and pulled herself close to him. Saying nothing, she stood beside him, looking out of the window with him. 'I can't remember the last time it was this clear. Is that the Nevegal, do you think?' she asked, raising her right hand to point to the closest of the mountains.

  'That's up near Belluno, isn't it?' he asked.

  ‘I think so, yes. Why?'

  ‘I might have to go up there tomorrow.'

  'What for?'

  'They've found the Lorenzoni boy's body. Up near Belluno.'

  It was a long time before she said anything. 'Oh, the poor boy. And his parents. Terrible.' After I another long pause, she asked, 'Do they know?'

  'No, I have to tell them now. Before dinner.'

  'Oh, Guido, why do you always have to do these awful things?'

  'If other people wouldn't do awful things, I wouldn't have to, Paola.'

  For an instant, he feared she would take offence at his reply, but she ignored it and leaned even closer to him. ‘I don't know them, but I'm sorry for them. What a horrible thing to happen.' And he felt her grow tense as the thought came to her that it might have been her child, her son. Their son. How awful. How awful to do a thing like that. How can they?'

  He had no answer to this, just as he had no answer to any of those big questions about why people committed crimes or savaged one another. He had answers only to the smaller questions. 'They do it for money.'

  'All the worse’ was her immediate reply. 'Oh I hope they get them’ and then, as she remembered, she said, ‘I hope you get them.'

  So did he, he realized, surprised by the strength of his desire to find the people who had done this. But he didn't, not now, want to talk of this; instead, he wanted to answer her question about why he had said he loved her. He was not a man accustomed to speaking of his emotions, but he wanted to tell her, to bind her to him anew with the power of his words and his love. 'Paola,' he began, but before he could say anything further, she pulled herself roughly away from him, shocking him to silence.

  "The mushrooms’ she said, pulling the pan from the flame with one hand and opening the window with the other. And talk of love, with the mushrooms, went up in smoke.

  12

  When he finished his wine, he went down the hall and knocked at Raffi's door. Hearing nothing but the continued boom boom boom of the music from inside, Brunetti pushed open the door. Raffi lay on his bed, a book open on his chest, sound asleep. Thinking of Paola, Chiara, the neighbours, and human sanity in general, Brunetti walked to the small stereo on Raffi's bookcase and turned the volume down. He looked at Raffi, who didn't move, and turned it down even more. Moving closer to the bed, he glanced at the title of the book: Calculus. No wonder he slept.

  Chiara was in the kitchen, muttering dark threats at the pieces of ravioli which refused to maintain the shape into which she squeezed them. He said goodbye and went down the hall to Paola's study. He stuck his head inside and said,

  If it's necessary, we can always go over to Gianni's for a pizza.'

  She glanced up from her papers. 'No matter what she does to those poor ravioli, we are going to eat every one she puts on our plates, and you are going to ask for seconds.' Before he could protest, she cut him off, pointing a threatening pencil at him. If s the first dinner she's cooked, all by herself, and it's going to be wonderful.' She saw him start to speak and cut him off again. 'Burned mushrooms, pasta that will have the consistency of wallpaper glue, and a chicken that she's chosen to marinate in soy sauce and which will consequently have the salt content of the Dead Sea.'

  'You make it sound inviting.' Well, Brunetti thought, she can't do anything with the wine. 'What about Raffi? How are you going to get him to eat it?'

  Don't you think he loves his little sister?' she asked with the false indignation he knew so well. Brunetti said nothing.

  'All right,' Paola admitted, 'I promised him ten thousand lire if he ate everything.'

  'Me too?' Brunetti asked and left.

  As he walked down Rughetta towards Rialto, Brunetti realized that he felt better than at any time since his lunch with his father-in-law. He still had no idea what was bothering Paola, but the ease of their last interchange had convinced him that, whatever it was, the substratum of their marriage would survive. Up and down, up and down the bridges he walked, just as his spirits had gone up and down all day, first with the excitement of a new case, then the Count's upsetting confidence, and the peace given by Paola's confession that she had bribed their son.

  To get through the interview with the Lorenzonis, he had only the hope of the dinner which awaited him, yet how willingly he would have eaten a month of Chiara's dinners, if he could have avoided being the bearer of grief and misery once again.

  The palazzo was near the Municipio, though he had to cut past the Cinema Rossini and come back towards the Grand Canal to get to it. He paused for a moment on Ponte del Teatro and studied the rebuilt foundations of the buildings that lined the canal on either side. When he was a boy, the canals had undergone a perpetual process of cleaning, and the waters were kept so clear that people could swim in them. Now, the cleaning of a canal was a major event, so rare that it was greeted with headlines and talk of good city management. And contact with their waters was an experience many people might choose not to survive.

  When he found the palazzo, a looming four-storey building whose front windows looked out over the Grand Canal, he rang the bell, waited a minute, then rang it again. A man's voice came through the intercom, 'Cornmissario Brunetti?'

  'Yes.'

  'Please come in,' the voice said, and the door snapped open. Brunetti walked through and found himself in a garden far larger than he would have expected to see in this part of the city. Only the most wealthy could have afforded to build their palazzo around so much empty space, and only descendants of equal wealth could continue to maintain it

  ‘Up here’ a voice called from a door at the top of a flight of stairs to his left He turned and started to climb. At the top waited a young man in a double-breasted blue suit. He had dark brown hair with a pronounced widow's peak, which he attempted to hide by brushing his hair across his forehead. As Brunetti approached, he extended his hand and said, 'Good evening, Commissario. I'm Maurizio Lorenzoni. My uncle and aunt expect you’ His grip was one of those limp contacts which always left Brunetti wanting to wipe his palm on his trousers, but it was offset by the young man's glance, which was direct and even. 'Have you spoken to Dottore Urbani?' As neat a way of asking as Brunetti could imagine.

  ‘Yes, we have, and I'm afraid the identification has been confirmed. It's your cousin, Roberto’

  There can't be any question?' he asked in a voice that already knew the answer.

  'No. None’

  The young man jammed his fists into the pockets of his jacket and pressed down, pulling the jacket forward on his shoulders. 'This will kill them. I don't know what my aunt will do’

  'I'm sorry’ Brunetti said, meaning it 'Would it be better if you told them?'
>
  ‘I don't think I could do that’ Maurizio answered, eyes on the ground.

  In all the years he had been bearing news like this to the families of the slain, he had never encountered a person who was willing to do it for him. 'Do they know I'm here? Who I am?'

  The young man nodded and looked up. ‘I had to tell them. So they know what to expect. But if s.. ‘ Brunetti finished the sentence for him: ‘It’s different to expect and then to have it confirmed. Perhaps you could take me to your aunt and uncle’ The young man turned and led Brunetti into the building, leaving the door open behind them. Brunetti stepped back and closed it, but the young man didn't notice. He led Brunetti down a marble-floored corridor to an immense pair of walnut doors. Without knocking, he pushed them open and stepped back to allow Brunetti to go into the room before him.

  Brunetti recognized the Count from photos he had seen of him: the silver hair, the erect posture, and the square jaw that he must have long since tired of hearing compared to Mussolini's. Although Brunetti knew the Count to be in his late fifties, the air of vibrant masculinity that emanated from him created the aura of a man almost a decade younger. The Count stood in front of a large fireplace, staring down at the spray of dried flowers that filled it, but turned to look at Brunetti when he came in.

  Dwarfed by the armchair in which she huddled, a sparrow-like woman stared across at Brunetti as though he were the devil come to take her soul away. As indeed he had, Brunetti thought, filled with sudden pity by the sight of the thin hands nervously folded in her lap. Although the Countess was younger than her husband, the agony of the last two years had drained all youth and all hope from her and left behind an old woman who might more easily have been the Count’s mother than his wife. Brunetti knew she had been one of the great beauties of the city: certainly the elegant bones of her face were still perfect. But there was little other than bone visible in her face.