Donna Leon - About Face

Caught in the implacable tide of the game, a few losers were sucked away from the table and out of the oval; others swept in to fill their places, among them Brunetti and Paola. Without bothering to look where he put the chip, Brunetti set one down on the table. He waited, watching the faces on the opposite side, though they were all intent on the croupier and then, as soon as the ball left his hand, on the wheel.

Paola stood at his side, hugging his arm as the ball slipped into number seven and his chip followed many others into the narrow slit of oblivion, she as cast down as if it had been ten thousand Euros and not ten that he lost. They stood there for a few more spins, then were driven away by the bovine prodding of those behind them, eager with the anticipation of loss.

They drifted over to another table and stood on the outskirts for a quarter of an hour, watching the tides drift in and out. Brunetti’s attention was caught by a very young man — he could not have been much older than Raffi — standing directly across the table from them. Each time, just as the croupier called for last bets, he pushed a pile of chips on to number twelve, and each time they were swept away.

Brunetti studied his face, still soft with youth. His lips were full and gleaming, like the lips of one of Caravaggio’s feral saints. His eyes, however, which should have glistened, if only with the pain of repeated loss, were as distant and opaque as those of a statue. Nor did the eyes deign to glance at his pile of chips, which he chose at random: red, yellow, blue. Thus no bet he placed was for the same amount, though the pile of chips was generally about the same height: ten chips, give or take.

He lost repeatedly, and when the chips in front of him were gone, he reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out another fistful, which he scattered randomly on the table in front of him, not looking at them and thus making no attempt to sort them by value.

It suddenly came to Brunetti to wonder if the boy were blind and could play only by touch and by sound. He watched him for a while with this possibility in mind, but then the boy glanced across at him, a look of such bleak dislike that Brunetti was forced to turn his eyes away as though he had caught someone engaged in an obscene act.

‘Come away from here,’ he heard Paola say, and he felt her grip on his elbow, not at all gentle, as she pulled him out into the empty space between the tables. ‘I can’t stand to look at that boy,’ she said, voicing his thoughts.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I’ll buy you a drink.’

‘Big spender,’ she gushed, but she allowed herself to be led to the bar, where Brunetti talked her into having a whisky, something she seldom drank and never liked. He passed her the heavy square glass, touched hers with his own, and watched as she took her first sip. Her mouth screwed up, perhaps more than a bit melodramatically, and she said, gasping, ‘I don’t know why I always let you talk me into drinking this stuff.’

‘You’ve been saying the same thing to me, if memory serves, for nineteen years, since we went to London for the first time.’

‘But you’re still trying to convert me,’ she replied, taking another sip.

‘You drink grappa now, don’t you?’ he asked mildly.

‘Yes, but I like grappa. With this,’ she said, flourishing the glass, ‘I might as well be drinking paint thinner.’

Brunetti finished his whisky and set the glass on the bar; he ordered a grappa di moscato and took Paola’s glass from her.

If he expected her to object, she surprised him by saying, ‘Thanks’ and taking the grappa from the barman. Turning back towards the room they had just left, she said, ‘It’s depressing, watching them in there. Dante writes about souls like this.’ She sipped at the grappa and asked, ‘Are brothels more fun?’

Brunetti choked, spitting the whisky back into the glass. He set the glass on the bar, took out his handkerchief, and wiped at his lips. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I mean it, Guido,’ she said quite amiably. ‘I’ve never been to one, and I wonder if there, at least, anyone manages to have any fun.’

‘And you ask me?’ he asked, not sure which tone to use and ending up with something between amusement and indignation.

Paola said nothing, sipped at her grappa, and Brunetti finally said, ‘I’ve been in two, no, three.’ He waved to the barman and when he came, shoved the glass towards him and signalled for a fresh drink.

When it arrived, Brunetti said, ‘The first time was when I was working in Naples. I had to arrest the son of the madame: he lived there while studying at the university.’

‘What was he studying?’ she inquired, as he knew she would.

‘Business management.’

‘Of course,’ she said and smiled. ‘Was anyone having fun?’

‘I didn’t consider that at the time. I went in with three other men, and we arrested him.’

‘For what?’

‘Homicide.’

‘And the other times?’

‘Once in Udine. I had to question one of the women who worked there.’

‘Did you go during working hours?’ she asked, a phrase that conjured up an imaginary picture of the women coming in and punching their time cards, pulling their net stockings and high heels out of a locker, having regular coffee breaks, and sitting around a table, smoking, chatting, and eating.

‘Yes,’ he said, as if three in the morning were a regular working hour.

‘Anyone having fun?’

‘It was probably too late to tell,’ he said. ‘Almost everyone was asleep.’

‘Even the woman you went to question.’

‘She turned out to be the wrong woman.’

‘And the third time?’

‘That was a case in Pordenone,’ he said in his most distant voice. ‘But someone called them, and the place was empty when we got there.’

‘Ah,’ she said with winsome longing. ‘I did want to know.’

‘Sorry I can’t help,’ he said.

She set her empty glass on the bar and rose up on her toes to kiss his cheek. ‘All things considered, I’m rather glad you can’t,’ she said, then, ‘Shall we go back and lose the rest of our money?’

They went back inside, content to remain behind the groups crowding around tables, both of them paying more attention to the people playing than to what they won or lost. Like Santa Caterina di Alessandria, the young man was still bound to his wheel: Brunetti found him so immeasurably sad that he could no longer bear to watch him. He should be out chasing girls, cheering on some stupid soccer team or wild rock band, mountain climbing, doing something — anything — excessive and rash and foolish that would consume his youthful energy and leave joyful memories.

He grabbed Paola’s elbow and all but pulled her into the next room, where people sat around an oval table, tipping up the corners of cards to take a furtive glance. Brunetti remembered the bars of his youth, where rough-looking workers congregated after work to play endless hands of scopa . He recalled the tiny flare-topped glasses of red wine, so dark it appeared black, that each man kept to his right and at which he sipped between hands. The level of liquid seemed never to decrease, and Brunetti could not remember that any of them ever ordered more than one glass a night. They played with exuberance, slapping winning cards down with a mighty thump that made the legs of the table tremble, sometimes leaning forward with a joyous hoot to pull towards them the evening’s winnings. What had that been then, a hundred lire, enough to pay for the wine of the other players?

He remembered the shouts of encouragement from the men standing at the bar, the billiard players resting on their cues while they gazed at the men who were enjoying a different game, often commenting on its progress. Some of the men at the table had washed their faces and put on their good jackets before they came; others arrived straight from work still in their dark blue boiler suits and heavy boots. Where had those clothes and those boots gone? What, in fact, had happened to all the men who worked with their bodies and their hands? Had they been replaced by the smooth types who kept the exclusive shops and boutiques and who looked as though they would collapse under a heavy weight or before a heavy wind?