by Donna Leon
‘It happens to us all,’ Brunetti said, turning away from the Basilica and starting towards the calle that would take them down to the Vallaresso stop.
‘My landlady: she’s retired, must be in her late sixties,’ Griffoni began. ‘She taught little kids all her life. But now she has no work to go to, so she spends her days walking around the city with her husband.’
‘Is she Venetian?’ he asked.
‘As much as you are.’
‘She’s just looking?’
‘Yes. She said she finds something new every day, or they go back to places they remember from their youth.’
‘Does she have a guidebook?’
‘No. I asked her that. She said she just keeps her eyes open. And she said she always keeps looking up. So when there are too many tourists, she goes down into Castello or over to Santa Marta, or some place where there won’t be a lot of them. And she looks at things and always manages to find something new.’
‘And then?’
‘From what I can understand, then she goes home, cooks dinner, and watches television with her husband.’
‘Well, praise the Lord that she walks and sees the city all day.’
Griffoni stopped in her tracks and stared at him. ‘“Praise the Lord?”‘ she asked.
‘Don’t panic, Claudia. It’s something my mother said.’
‘Ah,’ she said and resumed walking. They got on to the Number Two that was just leaving. There was a sharp breeze, so they went inside and walked towards the back. After they sat down, Brunetti asked, ‘How do we proceed?’
Griffoni gazed at the passing buildings and finally said, ‘I could be her niece, you know, the one from Naples, with the strong Neapolitan accent,’ she began, and as she continued, her accent weaved away from the elegant Italian she normally spoke towards some southern variant of the same language, one in which the vowels would have to be written differently. Looking out the window, she planned her niecehood. ‘I come to visit two or three times a year, and this time Zia Matilde gave me these coupons and told me to go shopping with them and get something to make myself beautiful.’
It was on the tip of Brunetti’s tongue to tell her she hardly needed help to be that, but he chose, instead, to say, ‘I’ll go in when you do and find something to buy. I’d prefer to see and hear whatever I can of your attempt to use the coupons.’
Griffoni nodded in approval of his plan, then said, ‘It might be better if I told them it’s all for her.’ She gave him a broad smile and added, ‘Pity I didn’t think of making a shopping list in wavy, uncertain handwriting: that would make things look even more authentic.’
‘You’ll manage,’ Brunetti said just as the vaporetto pulled up at the stop: three people got off with them. They went around the back of the church and out to San Leonardo and turned left. As they approached the pharmacy, Brunetti fell behind and let Griffoni proceed and enter alone. He paused to study the masks in the window of the shop next door and gave each one the same glance he gave to tourists: distant, uninterested, and faintly displeased.
He allowed a few minutes to pass before he went into the pharmacy. His eyes passed over Griffoni, alone at the counter, talking to a salesgirl. She had had time to do her shopping: before her on the counter, Brunetti saw three boxes of lipstick and a few other small items he couldn’t recognize. She was just handing the coupon to the younger woman.
The salesgirl took it and examined it, then looked at Griffoni. ‘But you’re not Signora Gasparini,’ she said with no special inflection.
‘No, I’m her niece,’ Griffoni said, dulling her consonants so that her Neapolitan accent all but fell on to the counter with a heavy thud.
‘Ah,’ the young woman said. Then, quite pleasantly, she asked, ‘Could you wait a moment? I’ll get Dottor Donato.’
‘Certainly,’ Claudia answered. ‘I’ll go and have a look at the face creams.’
Brunetti busied himself looking at dental floss and toothbrushes, even took one down and studied the bristles through the plastic container.
An older man came to the counter, tall and robust, with dark hair and a moustache. Brunetti saw his name on the plastic card on his lapel: ‘Dott. Donato.’
Griffoni had returned to the counter, a pale blue box in her hand. The man asked her, ‘May I help you, Signora?’
Brunetti replaced the toothbrush and picked up a bottle of mouthwash.
‘Yes, if you’d be so kind, Dottore,’ Griffoni said. ‘My aunt asked me to come and pick up some things for her. She gave me some coupons and told me I should pay with them.’ Her voice was filled with the warmth and friendliness of the South, and Brunetti, who was looking at the bottle and not at Griffoni, was sure her smile was equally warm.
He took a glance and saw that the coupon was still on the counter; Griffoni picked it up and handed it to the pharmacist. He nodded his thanks and examined it carefully, his eyebrows raised. He had a face on which suspicion would look out of place: round and rosy-cheeked, he had large brown eyes that looked on a world they had judged to be a friendly and interesting place. Smiling, he set the paper back on the counter and asked, ‘And you’re Signora Gasparini’s niece, you say?’
‘Yes, I am,’ Griffoni answered, just as if she had not heard his last two words. ‘I come up to visit her every few months.’ She shifted the tenor of her voice to semi-guilt and added, ‘I don’t come as often as I should, I know.’ Then lightness played forth again as she said, ‘But she’s my aunt, and I’m always glad to come here to visit her and try to help her while I’m here.’
Dottor Donato braced his hands against the counter and leaned closer to her. In a voice so low that Brunetti could barely make out the words, he said, ‘I can understand how someone would want to help her.’ His voice was filled with affection and regard. ‘She’s been my client for some time.’ Brunetti, who knew the date on which he’d filled Signora Gasparini’s first prescription, looked down to continue reading the label on the bottle in his hands.
He moved to the left, farther away from them, and began to study the tubes of sunblock. A moment later, a young male pharmacist was at his side, asking, ‘May I help you, Signore?’
‘Yes,’ Brunetti said. ‘My wife and I are going on a cruise, and she asked me to get some sunblock because she read somewhere that we should wear it even in the winter, especially if we’re going to be at sea.’ He smiled at him and added, ‘The reflection, I think.’
‘That’s certainly true,’ the pharmacist, whose plastic tag also read ‘Dott. Donato’, answered and asked what level of protection his wife had told him to get.
Brunetti first looked startled and then said he didn’t know anything about that and asked what the doctor would recommend. As the young man explained the difference between the various creams, Brunetti shot a glance at Griffoni and the older pharmacist, with whom she seemed to be in the midst of a discussion. He heard the pharmacist say, ‘any such person’, but the rest of the phrase was blotted out by the voice of the young man, who held out a yellow tube, saying, ‘… fifty. It should be good for even the brightest sun.’
Brunetti smiled, thanked him, and said, ‘My wife asked me to get some aspirin, too.’
‘Pills or effervescent, sir?’
‘Pills, please,’ he answered, hoping they would be behind the counter or in the back room, somewhere that would take him away and allow Brunetti to hear the continuing conversation between Griffoni and the pharmacist, who was still behind the counter but now looking stiffer and decidedly less amiable than before.
‘If you have no objection, Signora,’ Brunetti heard when he tuned back into their conversation, ‘I’ll keep the coupon until your aunt comes in.’ The tone was pleasant and light; his face was not. ‘If you’d like to pay for those items you’ve chosen …’ he began but left the sentence unfinished and lingering in the space between them.
‘No,’ she said amiably, ‘I think it would be better to let my aunt decide what to do.’
‘Then I�
�ll keep them, shall I, until she comes in?’ Saying this, Dottor Donato swept the items towards him.
Brunetti’s pharmacist stepped out from the back room, and he went to the counter to pay for the sunblock and the aspirin. Two other people had come in while the younger man was getting the aspirin and they stood between Brunetti and the owner, whose full attention was still on Griffoni.
‘I look forward to seeing your aunt,’ the pharmacist said, opened a drawer, and placed the items into it. Griffoni thanked him for his help and started towards the door. The pharmacist stared after her, cold-eyed, the intensity of his expression at odds with his rosy cheeks. Then he turned to the next client, a robust woman with tightly permed white hair who gave him a warm smile. ‘Ah,’ he said in a voice grown suddenly friendly, ‘Cara Signora Marini, how can I help you?’
Brunetti waited until Signora Marini began to speak, took his change, turned and walked slowly to the door.
Outside, Griffoni stood a few metres away, looking into the window at a panorama of masks. The Chinese proprietor sat at a counter at the back of the shop. When Brunetti stopped beside her, Griffoni said, ‘I was at the hairdresser’s last week, and the girl who was washing the hair of the old woman beside me asked her if she wanted the “anti-yellow treatment”.’ She pointed to one particularly horrid mask and continued, ‘I interrupted and told her I thought that was an unkind thing to say in a city with so many Chinese residents.’ After a moment, she turned away from the window, and added, ‘But now I think I shouldn’t have reproached her.’
‘I’ve noticed how your sense of humour wins you friends everywhere you go, Claudia,’ Brunetti said and then asked, ‘What did Dottor Donato tell you?’
‘First, that my aunt has often told him that she has only one nephew, so he wondered how it was that I could be her niece. I laughed and told him that I was actually the daughter of a cousin of hers and that in Naples, that fell into the category of niece.’
‘And he …?’
‘He was very apologetic but insisted that he couldn’t allow it because her name was on the coupon, and only her signature was valid.’ She pulled the coupons out of her bag and handed him one, pointing to Signora Gasparini’s surname written at the top. ‘There’s no place for a signature.’
‘What do you make of it?’ Brunetti asked.
‘It could be that he’s a scrupulously honest man and won’t permit it because he thinks it’s wrong,’ she said, then grew silent as she considered other interpretations.
Impatient, Brunetti asked, ‘Then why lie about needing a signature?’
‘Exactly,’ she said in full agreement. ‘There was no need. He could simply have refused.’
They had been idly walking back towards the embarcadero when Brunetti said, ‘I think we should talk to your Aunt Matilde again.’
‘So do I,’ Griffoni agreed. Like characters in a cartoon, they wheeled around and turned into the calle that would take them back to the San Marcuola embarcadero.
As they passed in front of the church of the Carmini, Brunetti said, ‘Since you’re best friends now, perhaps you should do the talking.’
‘But you’re the man.’
He turned his head slowly towards her, not breaking step, and said nothing.
‘She’s in her eighties, Guido, so however much she might find me amusing and good for a talk about this and that, the man is still the one who decides.’
‘You sound pretty accepting of that,’ Brunetti remarked.
‘It’s her age,’ Griffoni said. ‘Besides, she didn’t spend all that money on cosmetics to make herself more attractive to women.’
That remark brought them to the front door. Brunetti rang and explained to Beata that they’d like to speak to the Signora again. With no hesitation, she snapped open the door that let them into the entrance hall.
Upstairs, the young woman welcomed them with a smile. ‘The padrona was very happy about your visit, signori. She’s talked about it ever since. I’m happy you came again.’ She stepped back to let them enter and turned to lead them down the corridor.
At the door of the living room, she paused. ‘Let me tell her you’re here.’
‘Of course,’ answered Brunetti, to whom she had spoken, ignoring Griffoni.
They heard indistinct voices from inside, then Beata came back and opened the door fully to allow them to enter. She left, closing the door behind her.
Signora Gasparini sat where she had been the previous day, looking as if she had not moved from her chair. The dragons were still upon her, and the stripes still led from her waist to just above her feet. Nor had the tremor abated. The motion, still minimal, was each time made more obvious by her red cloud of hair as it jerked to the side and back.
‘How nice of you to come to see me again,’ she said, speaking in the singular, smiling at Brunetti with real delight and raising her hands in a welcoming gesture.
‘We’re delighted to come back, Signora,’ Brunetti said, stepping aside to give the old woman a clearer view of Griffoni. ‘It’s a pleasure to come into such an imposing room. And even more pleasant for both of us to be so warmly greeted.’ Signora Gasparini looked at Griffoni then and gave the cool nod courtesy demanded a stranger be given.
‘Yes,’ Signora Gasparini said, looking away and around the room as though seeing it for the first time. ‘It is lovely, isn’t it? It was my grandfather’s study, and I use it to receive visitors.’ She smiled and waved to include everything in the room. ‘I think it gives them a sense of who we are.’ Brunetti had no way of telling whether the rhythm with which the tremors came and went was the same as the last time.
‘Indeed it does, Signora,’ gushed Griffoni, looking around as though she could not have enough of it. ‘It’s all so beautiful.’
Signora Gasparini, who still apparently did not recognize Griffoni, smiled, unable to contain her pleasure at such heartfelt compliments. She invited them to sit, and they did. ‘Could you tell me again what you’ve come for?’ she asked, trying to sound forceful but unable to disguise her confusion at their return. Brunetti was pierced with pity for her. Griffoni was right: she was tough and asked no quarter of life.
‘We came because of your nephew,’ Brunetti began and then added, ‘Tullio,’ just to be sure. ‘He wanted us to try to sort out the confusion with the pharmacy. But I’m afraid I still don’t understand what happened, so I’ve come back to ask for your help. I think that will make it possible to have the cash returned,’ he said, including the talismanic word to maintain her interest.
‘Help?’ she asked, as if she could not understand the word.
‘Could you explain to me how you were given the coupons, Signora? I don’t think I can try to persuade Dottor Donato to give you your money until I understand just how this came about.’
Brunetti saw her grasp her hands together.
‘It’s because of the prescriptions,’ she said.
‘Which prescriptions are those, Signora?’
‘The ones I have filled every month. I go to the pharmacy and give in my prescriptions, and I get the medicines.’
‘I see, Signora. And are you exempt from paying the full price for this medicine?’
‘Of course. It’s the least I can get for the taxes I’ve been paying all my life.’ And why should the rich not get something for what they contribute to the health system? Brunetti asked himself.
From beside him, he heard a whispered, ‘Brava’ from Griffoni. He saw that her praise had captured the older woman’s attention, as well.
She looked at Griffoni. ‘Mark my words, my dear: by the time you’re my age, there will be nothing left. They’ll have stolen it all, the swine.’
‘Could you tell us the name of the medicine, Signora?’ Brunetti interrupted, not wanting to open those particular floodgates.
‘Oh, don’t ask me about things like that. They’re what my doctor prescribes, and I take them.’
Brunetti understood her reluctance to name her diseases, although
their signs were evident in every tremor, twitch, and failure of memory. ‘I see, Signora. And the coupons?’
‘Sometimes, when I’m very busy or I have too many things on my mind, I forget to take my prescription with me.’ She spoke as though her days were a succession of meetings and boardroom decisions instead of time spent in this room, without books, without television, without company.
‘And then what happens, if I might ask?’
‘Oh, Dottor Donato knows how important my medicines are for my health, but without the prescriptions, he can’t submit the forms to the health system.’
‘Of course,’ Griffoni muttered, as if involuntarily.
‘So what does he do to help you, Signora?’ Brunetti inquired.
‘He asks me to pay for it, the full price, instead of the two Euros I’m supposed to pay, and then he gives me a coupon.’ She looked at them, and they smiled. Encouraged by their approval, she waved them closer to her with her bent fingers and pointed to the door so that they would understand that Beata was not to hear this. Lowering her voice, she went on. ‘Dottor Donato told me that, if we did it this way, he’d be able to add twenty per cent to the value of the coupons.’
Both of them smiled, and Griffoni could not resist exclaiming, ‘Oh, that’s very kind of him, Signora,’ as though to suggest the pharmacist should be given an award for exemplary citizenship.
‘He doesn’t have to, I know. But he’s a kind man,’ Signora Gasparini said with a smile that showed the perfection of her teeth. She sat up, wiped away her smile, and said, ‘And it doesn’t hurt anyone, does it?’
‘Not at all,’ Griffoni assured her.
They had obviously won her confidence because she continued. ‘Dottor Donato said it’s an offer he makes only to faithful clients; people he can trust.’ She stopped abruptly, as if she’d heard an echo of what she had just said. ‘He asked me not to talk about it, so please don’t say anything.’ She studied them closely, as though suddenly noticing them there, listening to her, and said, ‘I know I can rely on you.’
