Transient Desires (Commissario Brunetti #30)(40)

Indignant youth, discovering the viper hiding under the flag, perhaps wrapped in it. Brunetti remembered the shock of it, the impulse towards shame, the false comfort of the irrelevant fact that just about every nation had done the same, and probably would do so again.

His son’s face was blank, his cheeks red, and Brunetti could think of nothing to say to him.

They sat like that for some time until Raffi leaned forward, elbows on his knees. He turned his head and looked at his father. ‘Where did you learn all this, Papà? About history and people, and the way they are?’

Brunetti had never thought about this and so had no answer to give his son. ‘I don’t know, Raffi. Part of it is that I listen to what people say and try not to make a decision until I’ve heard everything.’ That was badly stated, he knew. ‘And I read a lot.’

‘That’s all?’ Raffi asked as if fearing some sort of trick or evasion on his father’s part.

Brunetti slapped his palms on to his knees and pushed himself to his feet. ‘I’m also more than three decades older than you are, so I’ve had more experience.’

Raffi nodded. ‘That helps.’

Smiling, Brunetti leaned across and roughed up his son’s hair, saying, ‘I wish I could get your mother to think that.’





15


The next morning, Brunetti went first to Signorina Elettra’s office to see if she had arrived. Indeed she had, today wearing a dark blue velvet suit with red piping around the lapels and down the outside of each trouser leg. It glowed with the reflected light of new velvet and gave her the look of an exceedingly modest commander of vast armies with a part-time job as the doorman at an exclusive London club. ‘I like your suit,’ he said after he’d entered the office and seen her standing near the copier.

‘Oh, how very kind, Commissario,’ she answered graciously. ‘I suppose I shouldn’t say this, but it is good to be back.’

‘Rome too busy?’

‘Too crowded,’ she said and gave a dramatic shudder, quite as if she were accustomed to living on a moor in Yorkshire and did not see another person for weeks at a time.

This proved too much for Brunetti and he asked, ‘In comparison with?’

‘Oh, I’m sorry, Commissario. I didn’t mean the city itself, but the Questura. There are hundreds of people there.’

‘There must be more crime in Rome,’ Brunetti ventured.

‘Well,’ she said and gave a long, obviously thoughtful, pause, ‘the government and the Vatican are there.’

Brunetti considered how best to respond to this. ‘I had more in mind the larger population,’ he said.

‘Of course, of course,’ she agreed. ‘That certainly must be taken into account, as well.’ Then, detaching her attention from numbers, she said, ‘They have deliciously secret files there. No matter where you put your hand . . .’ she began, paused, considered, and corrected herself . . .’ speaking metaphorically, that is . . .’

‘Of course,’ Brunetti interjected, and, deciding not to express interest in anything she considered ‘deliciously secret’, asked if there was any news about Marcello Vio’s condition; she shook her head.

‘And the two Americans?’

‘The one with the broken arm was released yesterday and is in a hotel. The father of the other one arrived from the United States yesterday afternoon.’ Seeing Brunetti’s response, she explained, ‘He was at a meeting in Washington and had to come back directly. He’s in a hotel in Mestre.’

‘And his daughter?

‘The hospital said there was no information available about her.’

‘Did you say it was a police matter?’

‘Yes, but it didn’t make any difference.’

Brunetti thanked her and left the office but hesitated before going up the stairs to his own. It might be opportune to talk to Marcello Vio again while he was still in the hospital: people are not necessarily weaker while they are there, but they are often dispirited and thus more likely to respond to the chance of conversation.

Intentionally, Brunetti took a longer way to the hospital and turned into Barbaria delle Tole, intent on passing by the window of the shop that had for years sold Japanese furniture and prints. He’d bought a squat ceramic vase there, years ago, that still stood in the kitchen, holding a bouquet of wooden cooking implements. His haste must have made him walk past it, he thought, and turned back, eager to delight, as he always did, in the pieces exposed in the window, especially a long calligraphy he’d been looking at for years, never sure where he could put it but always glad to see it again and renew the temptation to have it.

It was gone. That is, the windows that had once held the calligraphy were papered over on the inside. A sign in the window read, ‘Cessata attività.’ He hardly needed the sign: the paper was enough to tell him the shop had gone out of business. There was no explanation. He went into the caffè next door and approached the bar. A white-haired man looked up.

‘What happened to the Japanese store?’ Brunetti asked, pointing his thumb to the left.

The man shrugged and said, ‘Usual story. The owner of the building died, and his son doubled the rent when the lease expired.’ He picked up a glass and began to dry it with a not particularly clean towel.