Donna Leon - About Face

‘But not in his private life,’ Brunetti said. ‘Perhaps he was vain, and weak, but in the end he was an honest man, I think. And a brave one.’

She studied his face, weighing what he had said. ‘The first thing I said to Antonio was that you were a policeman and had come to arrest him,’ she told him. ‘He always carried a gun. I knew him well enough by then. .’ she began and paused a long time after saying that, as if listening to an echo, then went on, ‘to know he would try to use it. But then he saw you — I think he saw you both, with guns — and I told him it was useless, that his family’s lawyers could get him out of any trouble he might be in.’

She pressed her lips together, and Brunetti was struck by how very unattractive the gesture was. ‘He believed me, or he was so confused he didn’t know what to do, so he handed me the gun when I told him to.’

The front door slammed and they both looked in that direction, but it was only a woman with a pram trying to leave. One of the women at the table near the door got up and held the door for her, and she left.

Brunetti looked back at her. ‘What did you say to him then?’ he asked.

‘I told you I knew him well enough by then, didn’t I?’

‘Yes.’

‘So I told him I thought he was gay, that he fucked like a fag, and that he probably wanted me because I didn’t really look like a woman.’

She waited for his response, but Brunetti made none, and she said, ‘It wasn’t true, of course. But I knew him, and I knew what he’d do.’ Her voice changed, all emotion long since leached from it, and she said with a detachment that was almost academic, ‘Antonio had only one reaction to opposition: violence. I knew what he’d do. So I shot him.’ She paused, but when Brunetti remained silent, she went on, ‘And when he was on the ground, I realized I might not have killed him, so I shot him in the face.’ Her own face remained immobile as she said this.

‘I see,’ Brunetti finally said.

‘And I’d do it again, Commissario. I’d do it again.’ He was tempted to ask her why, but he knew she was now incapable of stopping herself from explaining. ‘I told you: he had unpleasant tastes.’

And that was the last thing she said.

‘Well,’ Paola said, ‘I’d give her a medal.’ Brunetti had gone to bed soon after dinner, saying he was tired, not explaining why. Paola had come to bed some hours later, had fallen instantly asleep, only to be awakened at three by a sleepless, motionless Brunetti lying beside her, his memory chasing after everything that had happened the day before. He went over his conversations with the Contessa, with Griffoni, and then with Franca Marinello.

It took him some time to tell all of this, his voice interrupted every so often by the sound of bells from different parts of the city that neither of them paid any attention to. He could explain, theorize, try to imagine, but his memory kept swirling back to that phrase she had sought, and found: ‘unpleasant tastes’.

‘God above,’ Paola had said when he repeated it. ‘I don’t know what it could mean. And I think I don’t want to know.’

‘Would a woman let something like that go on for two years?’ he finally asked, knowing as he spoke that he had sounded the wrong note.

Instead of answering, she switched on her bedside lamp and turned towards him.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing,’ Paola said. ‘I just want to see the face of a person capable of asking a question like that.’

‘What question?’ asked an indignant Brunetti.

‘Whether a woman would let something like that go on for two years.’

‘What’s wrong with it?’ he asked. ‘The question, I mean.’

She slid down a bit and pulled the covers over her shoulder. ‘To begin with, it assumes that there is something like the female mind, that all women would react in the same way in those circumstances,’ she said. Abruptly, she propped herself up on her elbow and said, ‘Think about the fear, Guido: think about what has been happening to her for two years. This man was a murderer, and she knew what he had done to the dentist and his wife.’

‘Do you believe that she felt she had to sacrifice herself to keep her husband’s illusions about himself intact?’ he asked, feeling quite virtuous in doing so and in phrasing it the way he did. He tried, but failed, to keep himself from going on and asked, ‘What sort of a feminist are you, to defend something like that?’

For a moment, even though she opened her mouth to speak, Paola found it difficult to find the words. Finally she said, ‘Look at the pulpit from which this sermon comes.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘It isn’t supposed to mean anything, Guido. But what it does mean is that you are not, especially in this matter, allowed to present yourself as a paladin of feminism. I will allow you a lot, and I will allow you at other times and in other circumstances to be a paladin of anything you like, even of feminism, but not now, not about this.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said, though he feared he did.

She pushed back the covers and sat up, facing him. ‘What I’m talking about is rape, Guido.’ Then, before he had the chance to say anything, she said, ‘And don’t give me that look, as if all of a sudden I’m a hysterical woman, afraid that any man I smile at is going to jump out of the wardrobe, or that I assume every compliment is the prelude to an assault.’

He turned away and switched on his own lamp. If this was going to go on a long time — and he now suspected it would — he might as well be able to see her clearly.

‘It’s different for us, Guido, and you men simply don’t want to see that or you can’t see it.’

She paused after that and he took the opportunity to say, ‘Paola, it’s four in the morning, and I don’t want to listen to a speech, all right?’

He feared that would inflame her yet it seemed to do just the opposite. She reached aside and put a hand on his arm. ‘I know, I know. All I want you to do is try to see it as a situation in which a woman consented to sex with a man with whom she did not want to have sex.’ She thought for some time, then added, ‘I’ve spoken to her only a few times. It’s my mother who likes her — loves her, really — and her judgement is good enough for me.’

‘What judgement did your mother make about her?’ he asked.

‘That she wouldn’t lie,’ Paola said. ‘So if she told you she did this unwillingly — and I think “unpleasant tastes” is enough to suggest it was — then it’s rape. Even if it went on for two years, and even if her reason was to protect her husband’s sense of himself.’ When his expression did not change, she said, in a much warmer voice, ‘You work around the law in this country, Guido, so you know what would have happened if she had gone to the police and if any of this had ever been dragged into the courts. What would happen to that old man, and to her.’

She stopped and looked at him, but he chose not to answer and chose not to object.

‘Our culture has very primitive ideas about sex,’ she said.

To lighten the mood, Brunetti said, ‘I think our society has very primitive ideas about a number of things.’ But as soon as he said it, he realized how firmly he believed this and so it did little to cheer him.

And that was when she said it: ‘Well, I’d give her a medal.’

Brunetti sighed, then shrugged, then reached aside to turn off the light.

When he felt the pressure, he noticed that her hand had never left his arm. ‘What are you going to do?’ she asked.

‘I’m going to go to sleep,’ he said.