About Face

by Donna Leon

  As Paola took her hand away, Cataldo smiled at his wife and turned towards Paola and her father; Franca Marinello looked across at Brunetti. ‘It’s terribly cold, isn’t it?’ she began, and Brunetti braced himself for yet another one of those dinner conversations.

  Before he could find a suitably bland answer, the Contessa spoke from her end of the table: ‘I hope no one will mind if we have a meatless dinner this evening.’ She smiled and looked around at the guests and added, in a tone that suggested both amusement and embarrassment, ‘What with the dietary peculiarities of my own family and because I let it go until too late to call each of you to ask about yours, I decided it would be easiest simply to avoid meat and fish.’

  ‘“Dietary peculiarities?”’ whispered Claudia Umberti, the wife of the Conte’s lawyer. She sounded honestly puzzled, and Brunetti, who sat beside her, had seen her and her husband at enough family dinners to know she understood that the only dietary peculiarity of the extended Falier family – Chiara’s off and on vegetarianism aside – was an insistence on ample portions and rich desserts.

  No doubt wanting to save her mother the awkwardness of being caught in an open lie, Paola spoke into the general silence to explain, ‘I prefer not to eat beef; my daughter Chiara won’t eat meat or fish – at least not this week; Raffi won’t eat anything green and doesn’t like cheese; and Guido,’ she said, leaning towards him and placing a hand on his arm, ‘won’t eat anything unless he gets a large portion.’

  Everyone at the table obliged with gentle laughter, and Brunetti kissed Paola’s cheek as a sign of good humour and sportsmanship, vowing at the same time to refuse any offer that might be made of a second helping. He turned to her and, still smiling, asked, ‘What was that all about?’

  ‘I’ll tell you later,’ she said and turned away to ask a polite question of her father.

  Apparently having decided not to comment on the Contessa’s remarks, Franca Marinello said, when Brunetti’s attention returned to her, ‘The snow on the street’s a terrible problem.’ Brunetti smiled, quite as if he had neither noticed her shoes nor been listening to that same remark for the last two days.

  According to the rules of polite conversation, it was now his turn to make some meaningless remark, so he did his part and offered, ‘But it’s good for the skiers.’

  ‘And the farmers,’ she added.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Where I come from,’ she said, in an Italian that displayed no trace of local accent, ‘we have a saying, “Under the snow is bread. Under the rain is hunger.”’ Her voice was pleasantly low: had she sung, she would have been a contralto.

  Brunetti, urban to the core, smiled apologetically and said, ‘I’m not sure I understand.’

  Her lips moved upward in what he was coming to recognize as her smile, and the expression in her eyes softened. ‘It’s supposed to mean that the rain simply runs away, doing only temporary good, but the snow lies on the mountains and melts away slowly all summer long.’

  ‘And thus the bread?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘Yes. Or so the old people believed.’ Before Brunetti could comment, she went on, ‘But this snowfall was a freak storm here in the city, only enough to close the airport for a few hours; no more than a few centimetres. In Alto Adige, where I come from, it hasn’t snowed at all this year.’

  ‘So it is bad for the skiers?’ Brunetti asked with a smile, picturing her in a long cashmere sweater and ski pants, posed in front of a fireplace in some five-star ski resort.

  ‘I don’t care about them, only the farmers,’ she said with a vehemence that surprised him. She studied his face for a moment, and then added, ‘“Oh, farmers: if only they recognized their blessings.”’

  Brunetti all but gasped, ‘That’s Virgil, isn’t it?’

  ‘The Georgics,’ she answered, politely ignoring his surprise and everything it implied. ‘You’ve read it?’

  ‘At school,’ Brunetti answered. ‘And then again a few years ago.’

  ‘Why?’ she inquired politely, then turned her head aside to thank the waiter placing a dish of risotto ai funghi in front of her.

  ‘Why what?’

  ‘Why did you reread it?’

  ‘Because my son was reading it in school and said he liked it, so I thought I should have another look.’ He smiled and added, ‘It was so long since I read it at school that I no longer had any memory of it.’

  ‘And?’

  Brunetti had to think before he answered her, so rarely was he presented with the opportunity to talk about the books he read. ‘I have to confess,’ he said as the waiter set his risotto in front of him, ‘all that talk about the duties of a good landowner didn’t much interest me.’

  ‘Then what subjects do interest you?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m interested in what the Classics say about politics,’ Brunetti answered and prepared himself for the inevitable dimming of interest on the part of his listener.

  She picked up her wine, took a small sip, and tipped the glass in Brunetti’s direction, swirling the contents gently and saying, ‘Without the good landowner, we wouldn’t have any of this.’ She took another sip, and set the glass down.

  Brunetti decided to risk it. Raising his right hand, he waved it in a small swirling circle that encompassed, should one be inclined so to interpret it, the table, the people at it, and, by extension, the palazzo and the city in which they sat. ‘Without politics,’ he said, ‘we wouldn’t have any of this.’

  Because of the difficulty her eyes had in widening, her surprise was registered in a gulp of laughter. This grew into a girlish peal of merriment that she attempted to stifle by putting one hand over her mouth, but still the helpless giggles emerged, and then they turned into a fit of coughing.

  Heads turned, and her husband withdrew his attention from the Conte to place a protective hand on her shoulder. Conversation stopped.

  She nodded, raised a hand and made a small waving gesture to signify that nothing was wrong, then took her napkin and wiped her eyes, still coughing. Soon enough the coughing stopped and she took a few deep breaths, then said to the table in general, ‘Sorry. Something went down the wrong way.’ She covered her husband’s hand with her own and gave it a reassuring squeeze, then said something to him that caused him to smile and turn back to his conversation with the Conte.

  She took a few small sips from her water glass, tasted the risotto, then put down her fork. As if there had been no interruption, she looked across to Brunetti and said, ‘It’s Cicero I like best on politics.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he was such a good hater.’

  Brunetti forced himself to pay attention to what she said rather than to the unearthly mouth out of which the words emerged, and they were still discussing Cicero when the waiters took away their almost untouched plates of risotto.

  She moved on to the Roman writer’s loathing of Cataline and all he represented; she spoke of his rancorous hatred of Marc’Antonio; she made no attempt to disguise her joy that Cicero had finally won the consulship; and she surprised Brunetti when she spoke of his poetry with great familiarity.

  The servants were removing the plates from the next course, a vegetable loaf, when Signora Marinello’s husband turned to her and said something that Brunetti could not hear. She smiled and gave her attention to him, and she continued speaking to him until the dessert – a cream cake so rich as to atone fully for any lack of meat – was finished and the plates had been taken away. Brunetti, called back to the conventions of social intercourse, devoted his attention to the wife of Avvocato Rocchetto, who informed him of the latest scandals involving the administration of Teatro La Fenice.

  ‘. . . finally decided not to bother to renew our abbonamento. It’s all so terribly second-rate, and they will insist on doing all that wretched French and German rubbish,’ she said, almost quivering with disapproval. ‘It’s no different from a minor theatre in some tiny provincial French town,’ she concluded, sweeping the th
eatre to oblivion with a wave of her hand and taking French provincial life along with it. Brunetti reflected upon Jane Austen’s suggestion that a character ‘save his breath to cool his tea’, and thus resisted the temptation to observe that Teatro la Fenice was, after all, a minor theatre in a tiny provincial Italian town and so no great things should be expected of it.

  Coffee came, and then a waiter moved around the table pushing a wheeled tray covered with bottles of grappa and various digestive. Brunetti asked for a Domenis, which did not disappoint. He turned in Paola’s direction to ask her if she wanted a sip of his grappa, but she was listening to something Cataldo was saying to her father. She had her chin propped on her palm, the face of her watch towards Brunetti, and so he saw that it was well after midnight. Slowly, he slid his foot along the floor until it came up against something hard but not as solid as the leg of a chair. He gave it two slight taps.

  Not more than a minute later, Paola glanced at her watch and said, ‘Oddio, I’ve got a student coming to my office at nine, and I haven’t even read his paper yet.’ She leaned forward and said down the table to her mother, ‘It seems I spend my life either doing my homework or having to read someone else’s.’

  ‘And never getting it done on time,’ the Conte added, but with affection and resignation, making it clear that he was not speaking in reproach.

  ‘Perhaps we should think about going home, as well, caro?’ Cataldo’s wife said, smiling at him.

  Cataldo nodded and got to his feet. He moved behind his wife and pulled her chair back as she rose. He turned to the Conte. ‘Thank you, Signor Conte,’ he said with a small inclination of his head. ‘It was very kind of you and your wife to invite us. And doubly so because we had a chance to meet your family.’ He smiled in Paola’s direction.

  Napkins were dropped on to the table, and Avvocato Rocchetto said something about needing to stretch his legs. When the Conte asked Franca Marinello if they would like him to have them taken home in his boat, Cataldo explained that his own would be waiting at the porta d’acqua. ‘I don’t mind walking one way, but in this cold, and late at night, I prefer going home in the launch,’ he said.

  In staggered pairs, they made their way back through the salone, from which had already vanished all sign of the drinks that had been served there, and towards the front hall, where two of the evening’s servants helped them into their coats. Brunetti glanced aside and said softly to Paola, ‘And people say it’s hard to find good staff these days.’ She grinned but someone on his other side let out an involuntary snort of laughter. When he turned, he saw only Franca Marinello’s impassive face.

  In the courtyard, the group exchanged polite farewells: Cataldo and his wife were led towards the porta d’ acqua and their boat; Rocchetto and his wife lived only three doors away; and the other couple turned in the direction of the Accademia, having laughed off Paola’s suggestion that she and Brunetti walk them to their home.

  Arm in arm, Brunetti and Paola turned towards home. As they passed the entrance to the university, Brunetti asked, ‘Did you enjoy yourself?’

  Paola stopped and looked him in the eye. Instead of answering, she asked, coolly, ‘And what, pray tell, was that all about?’

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ Brunetti answered, stalling.

  ‘You beg my pardon because you don’t understand my question, or you beg my pardon because you spent the evening talking to Franca Marinello and ignoring everyone else?’

  The vehemence of her question surprised Brunetti into bleating out, ‘But she reads Cicero.’

  ‘Cicero?’ asked an equally astonished Paola.

  ‘On Government, and the letters, and the accusation against Verres. Even the poetry,’ he said. Suddenly struck by the cold, Brunetti took her arm and started up the bridge, but her steps lagged and slowed him to a halt at the top.

  Paola moved back to get perspective on his face, but kept hold of his hand. ‘You realize, I hope, that you are married to the only woman in this city who would find that an entirely satisfactory explanation?’

  Her answer forced a sudden laugh from Brunetti. She added, ‘Besides, it was interesting to watch so many people at work.’

  ‘Work?’

  ‘Work,’ she repeated, and started down the other side of the bridge.

  When Brunetti caught up with her, she continued unasked, ‘Franca Marinello was working to impress you with her intelligence. You were working to find out how someone who looks like her could have read Cicero. Cataldo was working to convince my father to invest with him, and my father was working to try to decide whether he should do it or not.’

  ‘Invest in what?’ Brunetti asked, all thought of Cicero banished.

  ‘In China,’ she said.

  ‘Oddio,’ was the only thing Brunetti could think of to say.

  2

  ‘Why in God’s name would he want to invest in China?’ Brunetti demanded.

  That stopped her. She came to a halt in front of the firemen’s dining hall, windows dark at this hour and no scent of food spilling into the calle. He was honestly puzzled. ‘Why China?’ he repeated.

  She shook her head in a conscious imitation of complete befuddlement and looked around, as if seeking sympathetic ears. ‘Please, would someone tell me who this man is? I think I see him in the morning sometimes, beside me in bed, but this can’t be my husband.’

  ‘Oh, stop it, Paola, and tell me,’ he said, suddenly tired and in no mood for this.

  ‘How can you read two newspapers every day and not have any idea of why a person would want to invest in China?’

  He took her arm and turned her towards home. He saw no sense in standing on a public street and discussing this, not when they could do it while heading for home, or in their bed. ‘Of course, I know all that,’ he said. ‘Soaring economy, fortunes to be made, stock market gone wild, no end in sight. But why would your father want any part of it?’

  He felt her pace grow slower; fearing a pause for further rhetorical flourishes, he kept moving, forcing her to keep up with him. ‘Because my father has the ichor of capitalism flowing in his veins, Guido. Because, for hundreds of years, to be a Falier has been to be a merchant, and to be a merchant is to make money.’

  ‘This,’ Brunetti observed, ‘from a professor of literature who maintains she has no interest in money.’

  ‘That’s because I’m the end of the line, Guido. I’m the last person in our family who will carry the name: our children have yours.’ Her steps slowed, as did her voice, but she did not stop. ‘My father has made money all his life, thus permitting me, and our children, the luxury of not having to take an interest in making it.’

  Brunetti, who had played what must have been thousands of games of Monopoly with his children, was sure that the capitalist gene had run true to form in them and that they already had the interest, perhaps even the ichor itself.

  ‘And he thinks there’s money to be made there?’ Brunetti asked, and then quickly added, if only to prevent her from again demanding how he could ask such a question, ‘Safe money?’

  She turned to him again. ‘Safe?’

  ‘Well,’ he said, hearing himself how silly that had sounded, ‘Clean money?’

  ‘At least you accept that there’s a difference,’ she said with the bite of her years of voting Communist.

  He said nothing for a while. Suddenly he stopped and asked, ‘What was all that about, what did your mother call it, “dietary peculiarities”? And all that nonsense about what the kids wouldn’t eat?’

  ‘Cataldo’s wife is a vegetarian,’ Paola said. ‘And my mother didn’t want to call attention to her, so I decided that I should be the one to – as you police people say – “take the fall”.’ She squeezed his arm.

  ‘And thus the fiction of my appetite?’ he could not prevent himself from asking.

  Did she hesitate an instant? Regardless, she repeated, tugging his arm and smiling at him, ‘Yes. Thus the fiction of your appetite.’

  Had Brunetti
not warmed to Franca Marinello because of their conversation, he might have remarked that she hardly needed dietary peculiarities to draw attention to herself. But Cicero had intervened to change Brunetti’s opinion and he had come, he realized, to feel protective of the woman.

  They passed in front of Goldoni’s house, then the sudden left and right and down towards San Polo. As they walked out into the campo, Paola stopped and gazed across the open space. ‘How strange to see it empty like this.’

  He loved the campo, had loved it since he was a boy, for its trees and its sense of openness: SS Giovanni e Paolo was too small, the statue in the way, and soccer balls were prone to end in the canal; Santa Margherita was oddly shaped, and he’d always found it too noisy, even more so now that it had become so fashionable. Perhaps it was the lack of commercialization that made him love Campo San Polo, for only two sides of it held shops, the others having resisted the lure of Mammon. The church, of course, had succumbed and now charged people to enter, having discovered that beauty brought more income than grace. Not that there was all that much to see inside: a few Tintorettos, those Tiepolo Stations of the Cross, a bit of this and that.

  He felt Paola tugging at his arm. ‘Come on, Guido, it’s almost one.’

  He accepted the truce her words offered, and they made their way home.

  Unusually, his father-in-law phoned Brunetti at the Questura the next day. After thanking him for the dinner, Brunetti waited to see what was on the Conte’s mind.

  ‘Well, what did you think?’ the Conte asked.

  ‘Of what?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘Of her.’

  ‘Franca Marinello?’ Brunetti asked, hiding his surprise.

  ‘Of course. You sat opposite her all evening.’

  ‘I didn’t know I was supposed to be interrogating her,’ Brunetti protested.

  ‘But you did,’ the Conte answered sharply.

  ‘Only about Cicero, I’m afraid,’ Brunetti explained.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ the Conte said, and Brunetti wondered if it was envy he heard in his voice.