Through A Glass Darkly

by Donna Leon

  Even worse, from the old man's point of view, were the young man's education and profession. Not only was he a university graduate and thus one of those useless 'dottori' who had studied everything and yet knew nothing; he compounded the fault by working as an engineer for the French company that had won the contract to build garbage dumps in the Veneto, for which he conducted site analyses of location, proximity to rivers and ground water, and soil composition. He wrote reports that obstructed the building of garbage dumps, wrote further reports that made their construction more expensive, and all paid for by money taken from the pockets of people like factory owners, who paid taxes so that the lazy and weak could suck off the public tit and engineers could force cities to spend money just so that some fish and animals wouldn't get dirty or sick.

  Ribetti and his wife, Assunta De Cal, lived in a house on Murano that had been left to her by her mother. Caught between father and husband, she tried to keep both peace and house: because she worked in her father's factory all day, neither task was easy. De Cal, as Brunetti and Vianello had observed, was a choleric man, the owner of a glass factory on Murano that had been in his family for six generations.

  Vianello paused at this point in the story and said, 'You know, hearing myself tell you all this, I'm not sure why I know this much about them. It's not as if Pietro told me all this while he was working there. I mean, even though Marco and I went to school together, we lost touch until about three years ago, so it doesn't make any sense that I know all this. It's not like we're close friends or anything, and he's never talked about the old man.' Vianello was sitting in the back seat of the car taking them across the Ponte della Liberta, so as he spoke, he saw Brunetti's head framed by the smokestacks of Marghera.

  It occurred to Brunetti that Vianello might still, after all this time, not realize the full extent of his ability to draw people into conversation and then into confidence with him. Perhaps it was a natural gift, like perfect pitch or the ability to dance, and those who had it were incapable of seeing it as in any way unusual.

  Vianello recaptured Brunetti's attention by waving at the Marghera factories and saying, 'You know I agree with him, don't you?'

  'About the protests?'

  'Yes’ Vianello answered. 'I can't join them, not with this job, but that doesn't stop me from thinking they should protest and hoping that they continue to do it.'

  'What about De Cal?' Brunetti asked, realizing that they would reach Piazzale Roma in a few minutes and eager to prevent Vianello from launching into another discussion about the fate of the planet.

  'Oh, he's a bastard’ Vianello said, 'as you saw. He's fought with everyone on Murano: over houses, over salaries, over . . . well, over anything people can fight about.'

  'How does he manage to keep his workmen?' Brunetti asked.

  'Well, he does and he doesn't’ Vianello said. 'At least that's what I've heard.'

  'From Ribetti?'

  'No, not from him’ Vianello answered. 'I told you he doesn't talk about the old man, and he doesn't have anything to do with the fornace. But I've got relatives on Murano, and a couple of them work in the fornaci. And everyone knows everybody's business.'

  'What do they say?'

  'He's kept the same two maestri for the last couple of years’ Vianello said, then added, 'That's something of a record for him, even if they're not very good. Not that it matters so much, I suppose.'

  'Why not?' Behind Vianello's head Brunetti saw the side of the Panorama bus: they would soon be there.

  'All they make is that tourist crap. You know, the porpoises leaping up out of the waves. And toreadors.'

  'With the capes and the black pants?' Brunetti asked.

  'Yes, can you believe it, like we had toreadors here. Or porpoises, for that matter.'

  'I thought they were all made in China or Bohemia by now’ Brunetti said, repeating something he had heard frequently, and from people who should know.

  'Lots of it is’ Vianello said, 'but they still can't do the big pieces, at least not yet. Wait five years and it'll all be coming from China.'

  'And your relatives?'

  Vianello turned his palms up in a gesture of hopelessness. 'Either they'll learn how to do something else, or everyone will end up like your wife says we will: dressing in seventeenth-century costumes and walking around, speaking Veneziano, to amuse the tourists.'

  'Even us?' Brunetti asked. "The police?'

  'Yes’ Vianello answered. 'Can you imagine Alvise with a crossbow?'

  Laughter put an end to their conversation, and the matter lapsed, merging into the stream of gossip that flowed through Venice, much of it no cleaner than the water that flowed in the canals.

  When they were back at the Questura, Brunetti went to Signorina Elettra's office to see if the staffing list had been prepared for the Easter holiday. 'Ah, Commissario’ she said as he entered the office, 'I've been looking for you.'

  'Yes?' he asked.

  'It's the lottery, you see’ she said easily, as if he should know what she was talking about. 'I wondered if you'd like to buy a ticket.'

  Even before he considered what sort of a lottery she was referring to, whether related to Easter or to one of Vianello's green projects, he answered, 'Of course', reached into his back pocket and took out his wallet. 'How much?'

  'Only five Euros, sir’ she said. 'We figured we'd sell so many tickets that we could keep the price down.'

  'Fine, then’ he said, taking out a note, only half listening.

  She thanked him and drew a block of notepaper towards her. 'What date would you like, sir?' She looked around her desk, hunting for a pen, then looked up at him again. 'Any time after the first of May, sir.'

  For a moment, Brunetti toyed with the idea of choosing the tenth of May, Paola's birthday, and not inquiring further, but curiosity overcame him and he said, 'I don't think I understand, Signorina.'

  'You have to choose a date, sir. The person who gets the right date wins everything that's been bet.' She smiled, adding, 'And yes, you can choose more than one date, so long as you pay five Euros for each one.'

  'All right,' Brunetti said. 'I confess. I don't know what you're talking about.'

  Signorina Elettra put her hand to her mouth, and he thought he saw a faint blush cross her cheeks. 'Ah . . .' she let escape a long sigh, as though she were a soccer ball and someone had let the air out of her. He watched the play of expressions on her face, saw her toy with the idea of lying, then opt for the truth. Brunetti knew all of tins, but didn't know why or how he knew it.

  'It's about the Vice-Questore, sir,' she said.

  'What about him?' Brunetti asked without impatience.

  'About the Interpol job.'

  'You mean he applied?' Brunetti asked, unable to contain his surprise that Patta had actually done it. It is perhaps more accurate to say that he was surprised that he had not been told that

  Patta had applied for the position—at Patta's level, jobs were called positions.

  'Yes, sir. Four months ago.'

  Brunetti could no longer remember the precise nature of the position his superior had been interested in. He had a vague memory that it involved working with—or, as people with positions said, 'liaising' with—the police of some other nation the language of which Patta did not speak, but he could no longer recall which one.

  Into his silence, she supplied the answer. 'In London, sir. With Scotland Yard, as their expert on the Mafia.'

  As so often happened when he learned of developments in Patta's professional life, Brunetti found himself without suitable words. 'And the lottery?' he finally asked.

  "The date he gets the rejection letter,' she said, voice implacable.

  He cared nothing for the details, but he wanted to know. But how to put it? 'You seem rather certain of that outcome, Signorina.' Yes, that was how to put it.

  'I am,' she said but offered no explanation. Smiling, she waved the pen over the block of paper. 'And the date, sir?'

  'May
the tenth, please.'

  She wrote the date on the top of a small sheet of paper, tore it off, and handed it to him. 'Don't lose it, sir.'

  'In the case of a tie?' he asked as he slipped the paper into his wallet.

  'Oh, that's already decided, sir. There are a few dates a number of people want, but it's been suggested that, in the case of a tie, we give all the money to Greenpeace.'

  'He would, wouldn't he?' Brunetti asked.

  'Who would what, sir?' she asked with every appearance of confusion.

  He let out a little puff of air, as if to suggest that even the blind could see the mind at work behind that suggestion. 'Vianello.'

  'As a matter of fact, sir,' she said, no change in the sweetness of her smile, 'the idea was mine.'

  'In that case,' he picked up seamlessly, 'I'll live in the single hope that I win in a tie so that I can be a part of the money's going to such a noble cause.'

  She looked at him, her expression neutral, but then the smile returned and she said, 'Ah, just listen to the falseness of the man.'

  Brunetti was surprised by how flattered he felt and went back to his office, all thought of holiday staffing forgotten.

  4

  Spring advanced, and Brunetti continued to measure it florally. The first lilacs appeared in the flower shops, and he took an enormous bouquet home to Paola; the little pink and yellow flowers made their full appearance in the garden across the canal, were succeeded by random daffodils, and then by ordered rows of tulips at the side of the path bordering the garden. And then one Saturday Paola commandeered him into moving the large terracotta vases from the cool, dark sottotetto where they spent the winter back onto the terrace, where they would remain until November. From the terrace, he noticed that the flower boxes on the balcony on the other side of the calle and one floor below had been planted with the red geraniums he so much disliked.

  Then there was Palm Sunday, which he was aware of only when he saw people walking around with olive branches in their hands. And then Easter and explosions of flowers in the windows of Biancat, displays so excessive that Brunetti was forced to stop every evening on the way home from work to consider them.

  On Easter Sunday, they had lunch with Paola's parents; this year her aunt Ugolina was also in attendance, wearing a straw hat covered with tiny paper roses that saw the light of day, perhaps, once a year. They took with them—because there was nothing to take to the Faliers that they did not already have and did not already have in a superior form—flowers. The palazzo was already filled with them, but this did not prevent the Countess from gushing over the roses as though they heralded a new species. The excess of flowers also set Chiara off into an impromptu lecture on the ecological wastefulness of hothouse flowers, a discourse she found no one willing to listen to.

  The floral note was continued on an invitation Paola received to a gallery opening that was to present the work of three young artists working in glass. From what Brunetti saw from the photos in the invitation, one produced flat panels using gold leaf and coloured glass; the second made vases with lips that resembled the petals of the flowers that would be put inside; and the third used a more traditional style to create cylindrical vases with smooth lips.

  The gallery was new, run by the friend of a colleague of Paola's at the university who suggested that they attend. The level of crime in Venice was as low as the waters of that year's spring tides, and so Brunetti was happy to accept; because the gallery was on Murano, he wondered if he would get to meet Ribetti and his wife: he hardly thought a gallery opening was the sort of place where he would re-encounter De Cal.

  The opening was scheduled to begin at six on a Friday evening, which would allow people time to see the artists' work, have a glass of prosecco, nibble on something, and then go out to dinner or go home on time to eat. As they boarded the 41 at Fondamenta Nuove, Brunetti realized that years had passed since he had been out to Murano. He had gone there as a boy, when his father had worked in one of the factories for a time, but since then he had been there infrequently, since none of their friends lived on Murano, and he had never had reason to go there professionally.

  Three or four other couples left the boat at Faro and also started down Viale Garibaldi. "The one in red,' Paola said, moving closer to Brunetti and taking his arm in hers, 'is Professoressa Amadori.'

  'And is that the Professore?' Brunetti asked, pointing with his other hand at a tall man with silver hair who walked at the side of the elderly woman in the red coat.

  Paola nodded. 'Behave yourself, look attentive and inferior, and perhaps I'll introduce you to her’ she promised.

  'Is she that bad?' Brunetti asked, glancing again at what appeared to be a completely ordinary woman, the sort one would see at Rialto, haggling over the price of mullet. From behind, her legs were slightly bowed, her feet stuffed into what looked like very uncomfortable shoes, or perhaps that impression resulted from her walk—tiny steps with inturned toes.

  'She's worse’ Paola said. 'I've seen male students come out of their oral exams with her in tears: it's almost a point of pride with her never to be satisfied with their performance.' She paused for a moment, her attention drawn by something in a window, then turned away and continued walking. 'I've known other students who have cancelled exams, even produced doctor's certificates, once they learned that she would be on the examining committee.'

  'Could it be that she's only very demanding of them?' he asked.

  That stopped her in her tracks. She pulled back a step and looked him in the face. 'You have been living with me for the last twenty years, haven't you, Signore?' she asked. 'And you have heard me mention her a few times?'

  'Six hundred and twenty-seven’ Brunetti said. 'If that's a few.'

  "'Good’ she said, taking his arm and starting to walk again. "Then you know that it has nothing to do with being demanding, only with being a jealous bitch who doesn't want anyone, ever, to have a chance at getting anything she's got.'

  'By failing students in their exams?' Brunetti asked.

  'Then they can't get their degrees, which means there's no chance they can join the faculty, and because there's no chance they'll become colleagues, there's no chance they'll ever get an appointment or a promotion or a grant that she might want.'

  "That's crazy,' Brunetti said.

  She stopped again. 'Is this the same man who works for Vice-Questore Giuseppe Patta?' she demanded.

  "That's different’ Brunetti was quick to protest.

  'How?' she demanded, stopping again and no doubt unwilling to move until he answered.

  'He doesn't have any power over what I do. He can't fail me in an exam.'

  She looked at him as though he had started to foam at the mouth and howl. 'No power over what you do?' she asked.

  Brunetti smiled and shrugged. 'All right, but he can't fail me in an exam.'

  She smiled back at him and took his arm. 'Believe me about this, Guido. She's a bitch.'

  ‘I stand warned,' he said affably. "The professor?'

  'A marriage made in heaven,' was all she was willing to volunteer by way of information on that subject.

  When they reached the canal, they turned left and then crossed Ponte Ballarin, turning right at the bottom. 'It's got to be along here somewhere’ Paola said, slowing her steps and looking into the windows of the shops and galleries they passed.

  'It should be on the invitation,' Brunetti said.

  'I know’ she said. 'But I forgot to bring it.'

  They continued walking down the riva, attentive to the windows on their left. Past the pescheria they went, past a few more shops, some still open, some already closed. Three people emerged from a doorway in front of them and paused to light cigarettes, holding each other's drinks while they did so.

  'That's got to be it’ Paola said. A man and a woman walked out, without drinks, and went off hand in hand in the opposite direction.

  When they reached the doorway, two more people emerged, cigarettes already li
t, and went to stand with the three other smokers, all leaning against the wall of the embankment and using it as a table for their glasses.

  The door was open. Paola went in, paused just inside the threshold and looked around for someone she knew. Brunetti did the same, though with less hope of success. He saw some people he recognized, but it was in a Venetian way that he recognized them, from walking past them on the street over the course of years, perhaps decades, without ever learning who they were or what they did. He could hardly go up to the man who had lost so much of his hair and begin a conversation about that, nor could he ask the woman with the newly blonde hair why she had gained so much weight.

  Through a small gap in the wall of people he saw the double row of display cases. He walked towards them, leaving Paola to find someone she knew, or meet someone new, and examined the contents of the first case, which was raised on thin legs to chest height. Upright, gold on one side, cobalt blue on the other, stood a rectangle of worked glass a little bit bigger than a copy of Espresso. The surface was textured, but in no regular, orderly way: it looked more as if someone had dragged their fingers in wet clay from bottom to top and then down again, creating shallow runnels where the light glittered and played. The next case contained another panel: though the size was the same, the texture and colours, even the colour of the gold, were entirely different, making it as unlike the first one as it was like it in size. The third case held four thick glass rectangles with alternating stripes of what appeared to be silver and gold. They were as otherworldly as the others, and quite as beautiful.

  An empty glass had been left on top of the third case, and Brunetti removed it, annoyed to find it there. The almost sandy dregs of red wine clashed with the supple smoothness of the glass objects.