Donna Leon - The Girl of his Dreams

Moisture had condensed on the bridge that morning, and the dampness would surely cling to his long skirt. As Brunetti watched him walk down the other side and into the Campo, he recalled an observation Paola had once made, after a train trip from Padova to Venice when they had sat opposite a long-gowned mullah, busy with his prayer beads for the entire trip. His robes has been whiter than any businessman's shirt Brunetti had ever seen, and even Signorina Elettra would have envied the perfection of the pleats in his skirt.

As they walked down the steps of the station, the mullah moving gracefully off to his left, Paola said, 'If he didn't have a woman to take care of his costume for him, he'd probably have to go out and work for a living.' In response to Brunetti's observation that she was displaying a certain lack of multi-cultural sensitivity, she replied that half the trouble and most of the violence of the world would be eliminated if men were forced to do their own ironing, 'which word I use as a metonym for all housework, please understand,' she had hastened to add.

And who would disagree with her, he wondered? Brunetti, like most Italian men, had been spared the necessity of housework by the tireless labour of his mother, a background panel of his childhood, seen every day but never noticed. It was only when he did his military service that he had confronted the reality that his bed did not make itself each morning, nor did the bathroom clean itself. He had been lucky enough, after that, to marry a woman much given to what she called 'fair play', who conceded that her paltry hours of teaching allowed her sufficient time to see to some things in the house as well as the hiring of a cleaning woman to do the things she did not care for.

Brunetti gave himself a mental shake, and when the figure of the priest disappeared between the buildings on the other side of the canal, he went back to his desk. He looked at the top sheet of paper there, but soon his gaze drifted off as idly as did the clouds above the church of San Lorenzo. Who would know about this group or about their leader, Leonardo Mutti? He tried to think of anyone in the Questura who was of a religious persuasion, but something in him balked at asking them to make some sort of involuntary betrayal. He tried to summon up the name of anyone he knew who could be considered a believer or who had anything to do with the Church, but could think of no one. Was this a statement about his own lack of faith or of an intolerance he felt towards people who did believe?

He dialled his home number.

'Pronto’ Paola responded on the fourth ring.

'Do we know anyone religious?'

'In the business itself or a believer?'

'Either.'

'I know a few who are in the business, but I doubt they'd talk to someone like you,' she said, never one to spare his feelings. 'If you want someone who believes, you might try my mother.'

Paola's parents had been in Hong Kong when Brunetti's mother died; he and Paola had decided not to inform them or summon them home, not wanting to ruin what was said to be a holiday. Somehow, however, the Faliers had learned of Signora Brunetti's death but had succeeded in arriving only the morning after the funeral; Brunetti had seen them both and been warmed by the sincerity of their sympathy and the warmth of its expression.

'Of course,' Brunetti said. 'I'd forgotten.'

‘I think she forgets sometimes, too,' Paola said and set the phone down.

From memory, he dialled the home number of Count and Countess Falier and spoke to one of the Count's secretaries. After a few minutes' delay, he heard the Contessa say, 'How lovely to speak to you, Guido. What can I do for you?'

Did everyone in his family, he wondered, think that he could have no interest in them aside from police business? For a moment, he was tempted to lie and tell her he had called simply to say hello and ask how they were adjusting to jet lag, but he feared she would see through that and so he answered, 'I'd like to speak to you.'

He had come, after some years of hesitation and diffidence, to use the familiar tu when speaking to her and the Count, but it did not fall trippingly from his tongue. It was certainly less difficult with the Contessa, a fact which reflected his greater ease in dealing with her in every way.

'Whatever for, Guido?' she said, sounding interested.

'Religion,' he answered, hoping to surprise her.

Her answer was long in coming, but when she spoke, it was in an entirely conversational voice. 'Ah, from you, of all people.' And then silence.

'It has to do with an investigation,' he hastened to explain, though really this was not strictly the truth.

She laughed. 'Good heavens, you hardly have to tell me that, Guido.' Her voice disappeared for a moment, as though she had covered the receiver with her palm. Then she was back, saying, 'I've got someone here, but I could see you in an hour, if that's convenient.'

'Of course,' he said, glad of the chance this offered to be out and about. ‘I'll be there.'

'Good,' she answered with what sounded like real pleasure and replaced the phone.

He could have stayed and looked at papers, opened files and initialled them, busied himself with the documents that flooded from one side of his desk to the other in a pattern dictated by the tides of crime. Instead, he left the office and walked out to Riva degli Schiavoni and turned right into the midst of glory.

A ferry was passing and he studied the trucks on board, not finding it unusual for a moment that trucks filled with frozen vegetables or mineral water or, for that matter, cheese and milk, were constrained to take a ferryboat in the middle of their delivery route.

A herd of tourists came down the steps of the church, engulfing him briefly before the current of culture carried them down towards the Naval Museum and the Arsenal. Brunetti, who had been becalmed inside their close passage, bobbed in their wake for a few seconds and then set off again up towards the Basilica.

On his left he saw a metal stanchion, used by the boats of those sufficiently wealthy to pay the mooring fees and thus effectively block the view across to San Giorgio of anyone who lived on the lower floors of the buildings on his right. In the absence of a boat, he sat on the stanchion, looking across at the church, the angel, and then the other domes that hopscotched their way up the far side of the Giudecca Canal. He leaned back and wrapped his fingers around the metal edge, enjoying the warmth of it, and studied the way the point of the Salute divided the two canals, watching the boats entering and emerging from them.

His dark grey trousers soon absorbed the rays of the sun and he felt the heat on his thighs. He stood suddenly and brushed the heat away before continuing towards the piazza.

At Florian's, he went into the bar at the back and had a coffee, nodding to one of the barmen whom he recognized but could not place. It was after eleven, so he could have had un'ombra, but it was perhaps wiser to arrive at the palazzo smelling of coffee rather than wine. He paid and left, pausing for a moment to gear himself for the plunge into the tide of tourists. He thought of the Gulf Stream and his daughter's frequent reminders that it might be coming to a halt. Aside from Paola's worship of Henry James as a household deity, Chiara's interest in ecology was as close to a religion as anyone in the family came.

At times the world's equanimity in the face of the mounting evidence of global warming and its likely consequences alarmed him: after all, he and Paola had had good years, but if even a portion of what Chiara read was true, what sort of future awaited his children? What sort of future awaited them all? And why were so few people alarmed as the grim news kept piling up? But then he glanced to the right, and the facade of the Basilica drove all such thoughts from his mind.