by Donna Leon
'Imagine that,' he said aloud.
Brunetti was distracted from further contemplation of this marvel by a call from Signorina Eletrra, who began by saying, 'I've found a number of things about that Mutti person.'
Her pronunciation of the name was as good as a shriek. 'Found what?' he enquired.
'As I told you, sir, he's never been a member of any religious order.'
'Yes, I remember’ Brunetti said, then added, for her tone demanded he do so, 'But?'
'But Padre Antonin was right when he mentioned Umbria. Mutti was there for two years, in Assisi. He wore a Franciscan habit then.'
In response to her careful phrasing, Brunetti asked, 'What was he doing?'
'Running a sort of wellness retreat centre.'
'Wellness retreat centre?' Brunetti repeated, feeling himself taking yet another step forward into the time in which he was living.
'A place where wealthy people could go for a weekend of ... well, of purification.'
'Physical?' he asked, thinking of Abano, where she had so recently been, though not forgetting the mention of the Franciscan habit.
'And spiritual.'
'Ah,' Brunetti allowed himself to say, then, 'And?'
'And both the health authorities and the Guardia di Finanza were obliged to step in and close it down.'
'And Mutti?' Brunetti enquired, omitting the clerical title.
'He knew nothing about the finances of the place, of course. He was there as a spiritual consultant.' 'And the financial records?' 'There were none.' 'What happened?'
'He was convicted of fraud, given a fine, and released.' 'And?'
'And apparently he transferred himself to Venice’ 'Indeed’ Brunetti said and then, deciding, 'I'd like you to call the Guardia di Finanza. Ask for Capitano Zeccardi.
Tell him everything you've just told me and say that he might want to take a closer look at whatever Mutti's up to’
'Is that all, Commissario?'
'Yes’ Brunetti said, and then, remembering, contradicted himself and said, 'No. Tell the Captain this is to thank him for the ride he gave me in the laguna. He'll understand’
During dinner he was perhaps less talkative than usual, though none of the others seemed to heed it, so involved were they in a discussion of the street war that seemed to be in process in Napoli.
Two of them got shot today’ Raffi said, reaching for the bowl of ruote with melanzane and ricotta. 'It's like the Wild West down there. You walk out of your house, going down to the corner for a litre of milk, and Zacchetel - someone blows your head off’
In the voice she used to cool the enthusiasm of youth, Paola said, 'I suspect, if it's Napoli, they are more likely to be going down to the corner for a litre of cocaine.' Without a break, she asked, 'Chiara, would you like more pasta?'
'They aren't all like that, are they?' Chiara enquired of her father, nodding in response to her mother's request.
'No’ Brunetti said, slipping into his role as source of police authority. 'Your mother is exaggerating again.'
Chiara said, 'Our teachers say that the Mafia is being fought by the police and the government.' To Brunetti, this sounded like something that had been memorized.
'And how long has that fight been going on?' her mother asked her in a deceptively reasonable voice. 'Ask them that, the next time one of them is stupid enough to say such a thing’ Paola concluded, once again doing her best to foster her children's faith in their teachers, to make no mention of the government.
Brunetti started to protest, but she cut him off, saying, 'Can you name a war that's been going on for sixty years? In Europe? We've had it ever since the real war ended and the Americans brought the Mafia back to help fight the menace -' and here her voice took on the tones of soft and liquid faith, as it tended to do when she mouthed any of the pieties that disgusted her - 'of international Communism. So, instead of having the risk that the Communists might have entered the government after the war, we've got the Mafia, and we'll have them around our necks for ever.'
As a member of the forces of order, it was here Brunetti's duty to oppose her in this belief and maintain that, under the serious leadership of the current government, the police and the other organs of state were making great strides in their fight against the Mafia. Instead, he asked what was for dessert.
24
A day passed, during which Brunetti was kept busy compiling a report on patterns of crime in the Veneto: Patta would use this information for a speech he was to deliver at a conference to be held in Rome in two months. Rather than foist the research on to Signorina Elettra or the men in his department, Brunetti decided to do it himself and thus spent hours each day reading police files from all over the Veneto as well as checking figures available from other provinces and countries.
As he searched the current statistics, he was assailed by those four words: Zingari, Rom, Sinti, Nomadi, for the majority of the people arrested for certain crimes belonged to them. Robbery, theft, breaking and entering: time and time again, those arrested were nomads of one sort or another. Even without records of the arrest of children for these crimes, a reader did not have to be particularly skilled in the arcana of police files to be able to interpret the repeated explanation given for the use of police vehicles for trips on the mainland: 'return child to guardian', 'return unaccompanied minors to parents'.
Brunetti read of one case of a young man who had been arrested numerous times but who had repeatedly claimed to be only thirteen and thus too young to be arrested. In the absence of written proof of his identity, the presiding magistrate ordered a complete body X-ray to be taken of him so as to determine his age by the condition of his bones.
The nomads had, all these centuries, managed to keep themselves almost completely separated from the societies in whose midst they lived. Horse-traders and trainers, tinkers, gem-setters by trade, most of their jobs had been rendered obsolete in the modern age. But they continued to live off what they called the gadje - considering theft not much different from trade. During the last war, this alienation had cost them dear, for they had gone to their death in frightening numbers.
As he continued to compile statistics from other regions, the pattern became more common: break-ins, pickpocketing, burglary: all over the country, members of the nomad groups were arrested in disproportionate numbers and with disproportionate frequency. But there were some cases - especially a particularly vile one in Rome - of organized prostitution, the children rented out, it would appear, by members of the clans to the men interested in their services. Brunetti thought of the autopsy report.
Though he forced himself back to the examination of general crime statistics, that particular case continued to nag at him, and the girl's face, both in death and in the photos he had placed on the steps of the caravan, would return to him at odd times and more than once in his dreams. Pushing those memories aside, he forced himself back to the business of tabulating comparisons among the numbers of crimes, but when he found himself at a loss for the Venetian equivalent of automobile theft, he stopped and gave up for the moment.
'See if there's anything that can be done for the mother,' Patta had enjoined him. Brunetti had no idea what could be done for the mother of an eleven-year-old girl who had drowned, and he suspected that the Vice-Questore would also be at a loss. But Patta had given the command, and Brunetti would obey it.
This time the car that took him there belonged to the Squadra Mobile, and the driver, when Brunetti told him where he wanted to go, recognized the name of the camp. 'Be easier if we just ran a normal service like a bus, Commissario,' he said. He was a man in his forties and had slipped into the dialect he heard Brunetti speak. He was tall and fair-skinned, with an open, relaxed manner. 'Why's that?' Brunetti asked.
'Because we go out there so often. Or maybe it's more like a taxi service for their kids.'
'Like that, eh?' Brunetti asked, noticing that the trees were in stronger bloom today: the green was darker, more sure of itself. 'Soun
ds bad.'
'Not my place to say whether it's bad or good, sir,' the driver said. 'But after you do it for a while, it's got to look pretty strange.'
'Why?'
'It's like there's a different law for them than there is for the rest of us.' He risked a side glance at Brunetti, and sensing that the Commissario was both listening and interested, the driver went on. ‘I’ve got two kids at home: six and nine. Can you imagine what would happen if I refused to send them to school and if they got brought home for stealing? Six times? Ten times?'
'What would be different?' Brunetti asked although he had a pretty fair idea.
'Well, for one thing, I'd pound both of them into next week,' the driver said with a smile, making it clear that 'pound' would translate into strong words and no television for a month. 'And I'd lose my job. That's for sure. Or it would be so hard for me to keep it that I'd quit.' That, Brunetti suspected, was a bit of an exaggeration, but he was reminded of similar cases, when the children of policemen had been arrested, and their fathers' careers had been damaged seriously.
'How else?'
'Well, if they kept away for a long time, I suppose the social services could step in and take the kids away, maybe send them to foster homes. I don't know.'
'You think that would be right?' Brunetti asked.
The driver changed lanes smoothly and didn't speak for some time, eyes careful on the road. 'Well, speaking for myself, sir, for my own family, I think it would be too much. Really I do. I'd find a way to stop them.' He thought about this, then said, 'Well, maybe these people wouldn't like to have their kids taken away, either, now that I think about it.' Another long silence, and then the driver said, ‘I guess we don't all have to love our kids in the same way, eh?'
'No, I suppose not,' Brunetti agreed.
'And the kids, what do they know about anything?'
'I'm not sure I follow you,' Brunetti said.
'What they get is normal, isn't it? I mean, to them it is. All kids know about a family is what they see around them. That's what's normal. For them, I mean.' He let Brunetti consider this and then added, 'When I take them back, it's obvious the kids love their families.' 'And the parents?'
'Oh, they love the kids; at least the mothers do. That's obvious, too.'
'Even though it's the police who's bringing them back?' Brunetti asked.
The driver let out a surprised laugh. 'Oh, that doesn't matter to them, sir. They're happy, and the kids are, too.' He stole a glance at Brunetti in the mirror and said, ‘I guess family's always family, eh, sir?'
'I suppose so,' Brunetti agreed. 'Still, if the police brought your kids home ...'
'That wouldn't happen to begin with, sir. My kids are in school, and if they weren't there, we'd know about it.' Then, suddenly changing the subject, the driver said, ‘I never got much of an education, sir. So here I am, driving a police car for a living.'
'Don't you like it?' Brunetti asked, not certain how one subject had led to the other.
'No, sir, it's not that I don't like it. Times like this, when I get to talk to someone, well, someone who talks to me like I was a person or something, I like it. But what sort of life is this for a man? Driving other people around, and knowing those other people are always going to be more important than I am? I'm a police officer, yes, and I get the uniform and a gun, but all I'm ever going to do is drive this car. Until I retire.'
'Is that why you think it's important your children go to school?' Brunetti asked.
'Exactly. They get an education, they can do something with their lives’ He put on the indicator and started up the exit ramp of the autostrada. He glanced briefly at Brunetti and said, ‘I mean, that's all that matters, isn't it, that our kids have a better life than we did?'
'Let's hope, eh?' Brunetti asked.
'Yes, sir,' the officer answered.
He drove through the exit from the autostrada, stopped at a red light and looked both ways, then turned to the left. Because of the oncoming traffic or perhaps because he had said all he had to say, the driver grew silent, and Brunetti shifted his attention to the passing scenery. It was difficult for him to understand how drivers found their way back to a place. So much could change: trees and flowers blossomed or died, fields were ploughed or harvested, parked cars changed their places. And if a driver lost his way, it was difficult to pull over and stop, even worse to try to go back in the direction from which he had come. And there was the perpetual irritation of traffic, cars buzzing at them like insects from every side.
They made another turn. Brunetti looked around and recognized nothing. The houses disappeared and the world turned green.
After some time the car pulled up at the gates to the camp. The driver got out and opened them, came back and drove inside, then got out again and closed them. If they were so easy to open, what purpose did the gates serve?
Two men sat on the steps of one of the caravans; three others stood around the open bonnet of a car, bent over and peering inside. None of them acknowledged the arrival of the police car, though Brunetti saw from the sudden stillness that passed over their bodies like a wave that they were aware of it.
Brunetti got out of the car, motioning to the uniformed driver to remain inside. He walked towards the three men at the car. 'Buon giorno, signori’ he said.
One after the other, they glanced at him, then back into the viscera of the car. One of them said something Brunetti could not understand, pointing to a plastic bottle with a hose running through a red cap on the top. He reached forward and prodded it so hard that the liquid inside it could be seen to ripple, then the other two remarked on what he had done.
The three men stood upright and, as if they had practised the manoeuvre, pushed themselves away from the car at the same instant and headed back towards the caravans. After a time, Brunetti approached the two men sitting oh the steps. They glanced at him as he approached.
'Buon giorno, signori,' he said.
'No italiano,' one of them said, smiling at his friend.
Brunetti walked back to the police car. The driver rolled down the window and looked at Brunetti, who asked, 'You know a lot about cars?'
'Yes, sir, I do.'
'Anything wrong with any of the cars you see here? I mean legally wrong.' Brunetti added, pointing with his chin to the circle of cars in front of them.
The driver opened the door and got out. He took two steps nearer the cars and ran his eyes carefully over them. 'Two of them have broken tail lights,' he turned to tell Brunetti. 'And three of them are driving on tyres that are almost bald.' He looked at Brunetti, then asked, 'You want more?'
'Yes.'
The driver walked over to the line of cars and, one by one, made a careful circuit of them, glancing into the back seats to check for seat belts, looking for broken headlights and the absence of green insurance cards.
He walked back to Brunetti and said, 'Three of them can't be driven legally. One has tyres that might as well not be there, and two of them have insurance cards that expired more than three years ago.'
'That enough to get them towed away?' Brunetti asked.
'I'm not sure, sir. I've never worked in traffic.' He glanced back at the cars, then added, 'But it might be.'
'We'll see,' Brunetti said. 'Who's got jurisdiction here?'
'The province of Treviso’
'Good,' Brunetti answered.
Brunetti had often reflected on the meaning of the phrase 'net worth', especially as it was used in an attempt to calculate the wealth of a person. It usually included their investments, homes, bank accounts, possessions: only those things which could be seen, touched, counted. Never considered, as far as he could tell, were such intangibles as the good or ill will which followed a person through life, the love he gave or the love which was felt for him, nor, important in this instance, the favours he was owed.
Brunetti, whose net financial worth could easily be quantified, had vast other resources upon which he could draw, in this case a universit
y classmate who was now Vice-Questore of Treviso and upon whose order, thirty minutes later, three police tow trucks, one after the other, pulled up to the gates to the nomad camp.
Brunetti's driver opened the gates, and the trucks drove in. From the first one, a uniformed police officer climbed down and, ignoring Brunetti and the driver, walked over to the first of the three cars Brunetti had reported. Using a hand-held computer, he typed in the licence plate, waited for the response to come up on the screen, then typed in some more information. After a moment, the computer spat out a small sheet of white paper, which the officer tucked under the windscreen wiper of the car. He followed the same process with two other cars, and when he was finished, waved his hand to the drivers of the three trucks.
With a precision Brunetti could but admire, they drove their trucks closer to the rear of the cars, turned, backed up to them, and got out. In a motion as practised as that of the three nomads pushing themselves away from the hood of the car, they attached their tow hooks to the backs of the cars and returned to the cabs. The fourth officer saluted Brunetti, climbed back into the cab of the first truck, and slammed his door. The engines of the three trucks whined to a new pitch. Slowly, the rear ends of the cars rose into the air. Then the trucks lined up in a row and drove through the gate, each towing a car. Outside, they stopped, and the same officer got out and came back to close the gates. The trucks drove off. The entire operation had lasted less than five minutes.
Brunetti's driver returned to their car, but Brunetti remained standing in front of it. After a few minutes, the man who had acted as leader the last time Brunetti visited the camp opened the door to his caravan and came down the steps. Brunetti took a few steps forward. Tanovic walked over and stopped about a metre from him.
'Why you do that?' he asked angrily, jerking his head aside to indicate the places where the cars had stood.
‘I don't want you people to run any risks,' Brunetti said. Then, before the man could speak, he added, 'It's dangerous to break some laws.'
