Donna Leon - The Girl of his Dreams

'And vows of celibacy?' she asked.

As he knew she knew, Brunetti said, 'Celibacy has little to do with chastity, as I have no need to remind you. They have to take a vow not to get married, after which most of them manage to interpret the rule in the way most convenient to them.'

Brunetti leaned back and closed his eyes, and after a time he heard her set her cup down on the table. 'Do you think it's possible that he's telling the truth and he's really worried that this man will be tricked into giving his money and his home away?' she asked.

'What makes you ask that?'

'Because he was good to your mother, Guido.'

He turned, surprised, to look at her. 'How do you know that?'

'The sisters at the hospital told me. And once, when I went out to visit her, I found him in her room. He was holding her hand, and she looked very happy.'

After a long pause, and not believing his own words, Brunetti said, 'It's possible, I suppose.' Because he had to leave soon, he failed to pursue this possibility. He thought back over the events of the morning and recalled his earlier dismay. 'I couldn't think of anyone I knew who would admit that they believe in God,' he said.

'Boaster,' Paola said, restoring his good spirits.

Though he was tempted to stop for a cognac on the way back to the Questura, Brunetti resisted, feeling more than a bit proud of himself for his self-restraint. His route that day took him through Campo SS. Giovanni e Paolo, so he decided to stop at the rectory and see if Antonin was there. Or better, that Antonin was not there, and he would thus be free to make enquiries about him.

This in fact turned out to be the case, for when he asked the housekeeper who answered the door for Padre Antonin, she said that he was out and asked if he would like to speak to the parroco, instead. Brunetti recognized the white-haired woman, then tried to remember why he should do so.

Finally he had it. 'The flower stall at Rialto,' he said.

Her smile threw her wrinkles into confusion. 'Yes. With my grand-niece. I help out on Tuesday and Saturday, when they come in with the flowers.' She placed a hand on his arm and said, 'We've known each other for years, haven't we, Signore?' Then she added, 'And your wife and daughter, too. She's a very pretty girl.'

'So's your great-niece, Signora.'

'We'll have lots of iris this Saturday,' she said, delighting him that she remembered about the flowers.

'Keeps peace in the family if I bring them,' he answered with mock resignation.

'I've seen little need of that over the years, Signore, if you don't mind my saying so.' She stepped back to let him enter, having no doubt assumed that he would want to speak to the pastor.

‘I don't mean to disturb the parroco’ he lied.

'No, it's no trouble for him, Signore. Believe me. Padre Stefano's just finished lunch, so he's free.' She started towards the steps leading to the upper part of the house, then looked back at him to add in a softer voice, 'He'll be glad of the company, I'm sure.'

While she paused at the top to draw a few deep breaths, Brunetti admired a print of the Sacred Heart on the wall to his right. The long-haired Christ pressed one hand to his chest and held up the other, first finger raised as though trying to get the waiter's attention.

Brunetti was released from contemplation by the sound of the woman's feet moving off down the corridor. He was suddenly aware of how cold it was in the hallway, cold and damp as though the springtime that was busy with the rest of the city had not yet found time to get here. He understood, now, why the woman wore two thick sweaters and heavy brown stockings of the sort he had not seen for decades.

She stopped outside a door on the right and knocked a few times, waited a moment, and then knocked again with force sufficient to do an injury either to her knuckles or the panelling of the door. She must have heard something, for she opened the door and stepped inside, saying loudly, 'Padre Stefano, there's someone to see you.'

Brunetti heard a man's voice answer, but he could not make out the words. The woman appeared at the door and waved him inside. 'Would you like something to drink, Signore? He's had his coffee, but I could easily make you one.'

'That's very kind of you, Signora,' Brunetti said, 'but I just had one in the campo’

She wavered, caught between the demands of hospitality and those of age, so Brunetti insisted, 'Really, Signora, it's as though I'd accepted.'

This seemed to satisfy her. She told him she would be downstairs if he wanted anything and left the room.

Brunetti moved towards where the voice had come from. To the left of the windows that looked out on the campo, but facing away from them, an old man sat in a deep armchair, looking as lost between its arms as the Contessa had in hers. Woolly white hair surrounded a natural tonsure that was, like the skin of his face, almost as white as his hair. The eyes of a child looked out of the face of an ascetic. He glanced up at Brunetti, braced his hands on the arms of the chair, and started to push himself to his feet.

'No, Father, please don't bother,' Brunetti said and closed the distance between them before the older man could hoist himself up from the chair.

Brunetti bent over and extended his right hand. 'How nice to see you, my son. How kind of you to come and visit an old man.' He spoke in Veneziano in a sweet, high tenor. Had the old man's hand been made of paper, Brunetti could have been no more frightened of crushing it with his own.

He must have been a tall man once, Brunetti thought. He saw it in the long bones of the priest's wrists and in the length of bone between ankle and knee. The old man wore the long white tunic of his order, his black scapular rusty with age and repeated washing. He wore black leather bedroom slippers, the sole of one of them hanging loose like a cat's mouth.

'Please, please, have a seat’ the priest said, looking about with puzzled eyes, as if suddenly conscious of where he was and concerned about finding a chair for his guest.

Brunetti found a heavy wooden armchair with a tattered embroidery seat and carried it over. He sat and smiled at the older man, who leaned forward, reaching across the narrow distance between them, to pat Brunetti's knee. 'How nice to see you, my son. How nice that you've come to see me.' The old man considered this marvel for some time and then asked, 'Did you come for me to hear your confession, my son?'

Brunetti smiled and shook his head. 'No, Father, thank you.' When Brunetti saw the look he gave at this, he raised his voice and said, 'I've already made my confession, Father. But it's very kind of you to ask.' Well, he had made his confession, hadn't he? And there certainly was no need to tell this old man how many decades ago it had been made.

The priest's expression softened and he asked, 'What may I do for you, then?'

'I'd like to ask you about your guest.'

'Guest?' the old man repeated, as if he weren't sure he had heard the word correctly or, if he had, what the word might mean. He glanced over Brunetti's shoulder and had a look around the room. Guest?

'Yes, Father. About Padre Antonin Scallon.'

The priest's face changed; perhaps it was nothing more than a sudden tightness around the mouth, a fading of the brightness in his eyes. 'Padre Scallon?' he asked in a neutral voice, and Brunetti heard thunder in his failure to refer to his guest by his first name.

'Yes,' Brunetti said, as though unaware of the change in the priest's manner. 'He came to my mother's funeral last week, and I wanted to thank him for it.' As he realized how loud he was speaking and felt almost deafened by it, he watched the priest's reaction to the neutrality in his voice. Just to make the message clear, Brunetti added, 'My wife said I should come and thank him.'