Donna Leon - Beastly Things

A cranking noise made them return their attention to the twitching pig, which was now moving away from them towards the double plastic flaps of a broad door at the other end of the room. When he saw the pig’s body push the door open and disappear, Brunetti abandoned his quaint idea of intervention or salvation for the doomed beast.

Brunetti cleared his throat and tapped Bianchi on the shoulder. ‘Where do they go from here?’ he asked above the clanks and cries.

The knacker pointed farther back in the building and started in that direction. Brunetti, careful to keep his eyes on the man’s back, followed, and a dazed Vianello trailed along behind them. At the end of the catwalk they came to a thick metal door with a horizontal metal handle. Bianchi appeared hardly to break his stride, so quickly did he push it open and pass through. The others followed, and Vianello pushed the door closed behind them.

At first, Brunetti wondered if they had managed to escape outside and had somehow walked directly into a forest, though he could recall having seen no growth of trees behind the building. It was dark, with light filtering down from above, as in a forest in the early morning. He saw a field of thick shapes just ahead of them, seeming to rise up from the earth. Bushes, perhaps, or young poplar trees in full leaf? Surely they were not tall enough to be full-grown trees, yet they were thick, and that brought his sense-assaulted mind back to the idea of bushes. The three men separated and began to walk about on their own.

If they were outside, however, the day had changed and it had grown terribly cold. Gradually Brunetti’s eyes adjusted to the diminished light, and the bushes or trees began to take on finer definition. His first thought was of autumnal leaves until he saw that the red was muscle and the yellow was streaks of fat. He and Vianello had become so dependent upon Bianchi’s guidance that they had followed him unthinkingly into the midst of the hanging sides of beef and pig and sheep, the headless beasts distinguishable only by their size, and who could differentiate between a large sheep and a small calf? Red and yellow and the frequent streak of white fat.

Vianello broke first. He pushed past Brunetti, no longer concerned with Bianchi and his opinion, or any opinion at all, and staggered drunkenly to the door. He pushed at it uselessly, then pounded it twice and gave it a kick. The knacker materialized from the thicket of bodies, pulled at some handle Vianello could not make out in the dimness, and the door opened. Looking into the greater light of the other room, Brunetti could see Vianello walking away from them, one hand raised to shoulder height beside him, as if to keep it there, ready to grab on to the wire wall of the walkway should he not be able to continue.

Forcing himself to move slowly and keeping his eyes on Vianello’s retreating back, Brunetti went through the door but did not wait for Bianchi to join him. He walked towards the other end of the catwalk, making the same humming noise he heard Vianello making and now understanding that it succeeded in blocking out some of the noise that rose up from what was still going on below them. Something appeared beside him, at shoulder height, appearing to keep pace. Brunetti broke step for a moment but quickly regained control and kept walking, his eyes straight in front and not for an instant giving in to the temptation to look at what was floating alongside him.

He found Vianello slumped on one of the benches in the changing room, one arm removed from his protective suit, the other forgotten, or trapped, inside it. He looked to Brunetti like one of the heroes of the Iliad , broken in defeat, armour hanging half slashed from his body, the enemy about to slay him and strip him clean. Brunetti sat beside him, then slumped forward and rested his forearms on his thighs and remained like that, staring at his shoes. Anyone seeing them from the doorway would see two middle-aged but oddly dressed athletes, exhausted by the game they had just played, waiting for the coach to come in and tell them how they’d done.

But there was no sign of Coach Bianchi. Brunetti leaned down and slipped off the plastic shoe covers and kicked them aside, then shoved himself to his feet and fumbled to unzip his suit. He slipped his arms out, then pushed it down below his knees and sat down again to rip it over his shoes. For want of anything else to do, he picked it up and made a sloppy attempt to fold it, then simply dropped it in a heap on the bench beside him.

Turning to Vianello, Brunetti noticed that he had not moved. ‘Come on, Lorenzo. The driver’s outside.’

Moving like a man asleep or under water, Vianello pulled his other arm free and used both hands to push himself upright. He yanked the suit down, failing to notice that he had not unzipped it down to the bottom. It stuck at his waist and hips and hard as he pushed at it, he could not force himself free.

‘The zipper, Lorenzo,’ Brunetti said, pointing to it, reluctant to try to help him. Vianello saw what he had to do, and did it. He too sat down, first to remove his shoes, then to slip the suit over his feet, and then to replace his shoes. He had a moment of confusion before he figured out he had to remove the plastic covers before he put his shoes back on, but once he saw that, he was quickly finished. Like Brunetti, he bunched his suit together and left it on the bench beside where he had been sitting.

‘ Bene ,’ Vianello said. ‘ Andemmo .’

In the continued absence of Bianchi and Signorina Borelli, the two men retraced their steps towards the entrance. When they walked outside, the sun fell across their bodies, their heads, their hands, even their feet, with a generosity and grace that made Brunetti think of the carvings he had seen of Akhenaten receiving the radiant blessing of Aten, the sun god. They stood there, as silent as Egyptian statues themselves, letting the sun warm them and cleanse them of the miasmic air of the building.

Soon enough the car appeared just in front of them, neither having heard it approach, their ears still attuned to the things they had heard inside.

The driver lowered the window and called to them, ‘You ready to leave?’

THIS TIME, BOTH of them got into the back seat of the car. Though the day was by no means warm, Brunetti and Vianello rolled down the windows of the car and sat, heads leaning back against the seat, to let the air wash over them. The driver, aware of something he did not understand, remained silent but had the sense to use the car phone to call the Questura and ask that a boat be sent to pick the two men up when they got to Piazzale Roma.

On the way to the city, they passed through quiet countryside that was preparing to expand into the richness of summer. The trees had put out their first green shoots that would unfurl into the magic of leaves. Brunetti gave thanks for the green and for its promise. Birds Brunetti recognized but could not name sat amidst the green shoots, chatting with one another about their recent flight north.

They did not notice the villas this time, only the cars that came towards them or those that passed them and fell into line in front of them. Nor did they speak; neither to one another nor to the driver. They let time pass, knowing that time would take away the brightness of some of their memories. Brunetti returned his attention to the landscape. How lovely it was, he thought: how lovely growing things were: trees, grapevines just waking from the winter, even the water in the ditch at the side of the road would soon help the plants in their scramble back to life.

He turned back to face the oncoming traffic and closed his eyes. After what seemed only a moment, the car came to a halt and the driver said, ‘Here we are, Commissario.’ Brunetti opened his eyes and saw the ACTV ticket office and, beyond it, water and the embarcadero of the Number Two.