Donna Leon - About Face

‘Yes, we did,’ the Contessa said promptly and tried to smile. ‘And we still are.’ Brunetti did not ask about this, and the Contessa went on. ‘Paola was gone,’ she said, then smiled. ‘Married to you. It had been years, but I suppose I still missed having a daughter in the house. She’s younger than Paola, of course, so perhaps I missed having a granddaughter. Well, a young person.’ She paused a moment and added, ‘She knew almost no one here and was so terribly shy then; one wanted so much to help her.’ She glanced at Brunetti and said, ‘Still is, don’t you think?’

‘Shy?’ Brunetti asked.

‘Yes.’

‘I think so, yes,’ Brunetti said, just as if he had not watched Franca Marinello shoot a man to death the previous evening. At a loss for what to say, the best Brunetti could think of was, ‘Thank you for seating me opposite her. I never have anyone to talk to about books. Other than you, I mean.’ Then, in justice to his wife, he added, ‘Well, the ones I like.’

The Contessa’s face brightened. ‘That’s what Orazio said. That’s why I put you with her.’

‘Thank you,’ he repeated.

‘But you’re here for work, aren’t you?’ she asked. ‘Not for books.’

‘No, not for books’ he said, though that was not the entire truth.

‘What do you need to know?’ she asked.

‘Anything you can tell me that might help,’ he said. ‘You knew this Terrasini?’

‘Yes. No. That is, I never met him, and Franca never talked about him. But other people did.’

‘Saying that they were lovers?’ Brunetti asked, fearing it was too soon to be so direct but wanting to know.

‘Yes, saying that.’

‘Did you believe it?’ Brunetti asked.

Her look was as cool as it was level. ‘I don’t want to answer that question, Guido,’ she said with surprising force. ‘She’s my friend.’

He thought of what she had whispered before and asked in honest confusion, ‘Did you say something about a dentist?’

Her surprise was real. ‘You mean you don’t know?’

‘No. I don’t know anything about her. Or about a dentist.’ The second part was true.

‘The dentist who did that to her face,’ she said, adding to his confusion. When his expression did not change, she continued heatedly, ‘I could understand if she had shot him . But it was too late. Someone already did.’ Saying that, she stopped speaking and looked across the canal.

Brunetti leaned back in his chair and put both hands flat on the arms. ‘I don’t understand any of this.’ When her face remained impassive, Brunetti said, ‘Please tell me.’

She pushed herself back in her chair, mimicking his posture. She studied his face for some time, as though trying to determine how and what and how much to tell him. ‘Soon after she married Maurizio, whom I’ve known for most of my life,’ she began, ‘they made plans to go on vacation — I suppose it was a kind of honeymoon. Somewhere in the tropics, I don’t remember now where it was. About a week before they were to leave, she started having trouble with her wisdom teeth. Her dentist was on holiday, so some friend from the university told her about one she went to in Dolo. No, not Dolo: somewhere out there. So she went to him and he said that both teeth had to come out. He took X-rays and told her it wouldn’t be difficult, that he could do it in his surgery.’

The Contessa looked at him, then closed her eyes for a moment. ‘So she went there one morning and he did it, extracted them both, gave her some painkillers and an antibiotic in case of infection and told her she could leave on vacation in three days. The next day she had some pain, but when she called him he told her that was normal and told her to take more of the painkillers he’d given her. The next day it was no better, so she went to see him, and he told her there was nothing wrong, gave her more painkillers, and off they went on vacation. To wherever it was, some island somewhere.’

She was silent for so long that Brunetti finally asked, ‘What happened?’

‘The infection continued, but she was young and she was in love — they were both in love, Guido. I know that to be true — and she didn’t want to ruin their vacation, so she kept taking the painkillers, and when the pain still didn’t go away, she kept taking them.’

This time, Brunetti sat quietly and waited for her to go on. ‘After five days on the island, she collapsed, and they took her to a doctor — there wasn’t much in the way of medical attention there. He said there was an infection in her mouth, something he wasn’t able to treat, so Maurizio hired a plane and took her to Australia. That was the nearest place where he thought she could get help. Sydney, I think.’ Then, absently, ‘Not that it matters.’

She picked up the water, drank half of it and set the glass down. ‘She had one of those terrible hospital infections. Apparently it had spread from where the teeth had been and gone into the tissue of her jaw and face.’ The Contessa covered her own face in her hands, as if trying to protect it from what she was saying.

‘The doctors there had no choice. They had to go in and try to save what they could. It was one of those infections that doesn’t respond to antibiotics, or she was allergic to them. I really don’t remember now.’ The Contessa uncovered her face and looked at Brunetti. ‘She told me once, years ago. It was terrible to hear her talk about it. She was such a lovely girl. Before it happened. But they had to do so much, destroy so much. To save her.’

‘So that explains it,’ said a bemused Brunetti.

‘Of course,’ the Contessa said fiercely. ‘Do you think she’d want to look like that? For the love of God, do you think any woman would?’

‘I had no idea,’ Brunetti said.

‘Of course you didn’t. And no one else does.’

‘But you do.’

She nodded sadly. ‘Yes, I do. When they came back, she looked like she looks now. She called me and asked to come to see me, and I was overjoyed. It had been months, and all I knew was what Maurizio told me on the phone, that she had been very sick, but he didn’t say what. When she called me, Franca told me she had had a terrible accident, and I wasn’t to be shocked when I saw her.’ Then, after a moment, ‘At least she tried to prepare me. But nothing could, could it?’ she asked, but Brunetti had no answer to give her.

He sensed that the Contessa was bringing it all back by speaking of it. ‘But I was shocked, and I couldn’t hide it. I knew she’d never want to do something like that. And she was so pretty, Guido: you can have no idea how pretty she was.’

The photo in the magazine had given him an idea, and so he did know.

‘I started to cry. I couldn’t help myself: I simply started to cry. And Franca had to comfort me. Guido, think about it — she came back like that, and I was the one who broke down.’ She stopped talking and blinked her eyes a few times, but she managed to fight back tears.

‘It was the best the surgeons in Australia could do. Because the infection had gone on for too long.’

Brunetti cast his attention out the window and studied the buildings on the other side of the canal. When he looked back, tears ran down the Contessa’s cheeks. ‘I’m sorry, Mamma ,’ he said, quite unconscious of calling her that for the first time.

She gave herself a shake. ‘I’m sorry too, Guido, so sorry for her.’

‘But what did she do?’

‘What do you mean, what did she do? She tried to live her life, but she always had that face and the assumptions people made about it.’

‘She didn’t tell anyone?’

The Contessa shook her head. ‘I told you: she told me, and she asked me not to tell anyone. And until today, I haven’t. Only Maurizio and I know, and the people in Australia who saved her life.’ She gave a sigh and sat up straighter. ‘For there’s that to say, Guido: they saved her life.’