A Noble Radiance (14 page)

'It's called a modem,
sir’

'Ah, yes, I remember.
Well, see what it can tell you about the Lorenzonis’

Before Signorina
Elettra, newly appalled at his ignorance, could begin to explain to him just
what a modem was and how it worked, Brunetti turned and left her office.
Neither viewed his precipitate departure as a lost opportunity for the advancement
of human understanding.

11

His phone was ringing
when he got to his office; he half ran across the room to pick it up. Even
before Brunetti could give his name, Vianello said, It's Lorenzoni.'

"The X-rays
match?'

'Yes, perfectly.'

Though Brunetti had
expected this, he found himself adjusting his mind to the certainty. It was one
thing to tell someone that there was every possibility the body of his cousin
had been found; how vastly different to tell parents that their only child was
dead. Their only son.
'Gesu,
pieta’
he whispered and
then in a louder voice asked Vianello, 'Did the dentist have anything to say
about the boy?'

'Nothing directly,
but he seemed sad to learn that he was dead. I'd say he liked him.'

'What makes you say
that?'

'From the way he
spoke of him. After all, the boy was a patient for years, from when he was
fourteen. In a sense, the dentist watched him grow up.' When Brunetti said
nothing, Vianello asked, 'I'm still in his office. Do you want me to ask
anything else?'

'No, no, don't
bother, Vianello. I think you'd better come back here. I want you to go up to
Belluno tomorrow morning, and I want you to read through the whole file before
that.'

'Yes, sir,' Vianello
said and, with no further questions, hung up.

Twenty-one years old
and dead with a bullet in his brain. At twenty-one, life hasn't been lived, hasn't
even been properly begun; the person who will emerge from the cocoon of youth
is still almost entirely dormant. And this boy was dead. Brunetti thought of
his own father-in-law's tremendous wealth and again thought that it might just
as easily have been his only grandson, Raffi, who had been kidnapped and
murdered. Or it might have been his granddaughter. That possibility drove
Brunetti from his office, from the Questura, and towards his home, filled with
an irrational concern for his family's safety: like St Thomas, he could believe
only what his hands could touch.

Though he was not
aware of climbing the stairs more quickly than he usually did, he was so winded
when he got to the bottom of the last flight that he had to lean against the
wall for a minute until his breath came back to him. He pushed himself away
and up the last steps, taking his keys from his pocket as he did.

He let himself in and
stood just inside the door, listening to see if he could locate all three of
them and know them to be safe within the walls he had given them. From die
kitchen, he heard the dang of metal as something fell to the floor and then
Paola's voice, 'It doesn't matter, Chiara. Just wash it off and put it back on
the pan.'

He turned his
attention to the back of the apartment, towards Raffi's room, and coming from
it he heard the heavy bass of some dreadful noise, known to younger people as
music. And never had melody, though he could discern none here, had a sweeter
sound.

He hung his coat in
the cupboard in the hall and went down the long corridor towards the kitchen.
Chiara turned towards him as he came in.

'Ciao, Papa. Mamma's
teaching me how to make ravioli. We're going to have them
tonight.' She held her flour-covered hands behind her back and came a few steps
towards him. He leaned down and she kissed him on both cheeks; he wiped a long
smear of flour from her left cheek. 'Filled with
funghi,
right
Mamma?'
she asked, turning to Paola, who stood at the stove,
stirring the mushrooms in a large frying pan. She nodded and kept stirring.

Behind them on the
table lay a few crooked piles of oddly shaped pale rectangles. 'Are those the
ravioli?' he asked, remembering the neat geometry of the squares his mother
used to cut and fill.

'They will be,
Papa,
as
soon as we get them filled.' She turned to Paola for confirmation. 'Won't they,
Mamma?'

Paola stirred and
nodded, turned to Brunetti and accepted his kisses without comment.

'Won't they,
MammaT
Chiara
repeated, voice a tone higher.

'Yes. Just a few more
minutes for the mushrooms and we can start to fill them.'

'You said I could do
it myself.
Mamma,'
Chiara insisted.

Before Chiara could
turn to Brunetti to witness this injustice, Paola conceded the point. 'If your
father will pour me a glass of wine while the mushrooms finish, all right?'

'Would you like me to
help you to fill them?' Brunetti asked, half joking.

'Oh,
Papa,
don't
be silly. You know you'd make a mess.'

'Don't talk to your
father that way,' Paola said.

‘What
way?'

'That way.'

‘I don't understand.'

‘You do so
understand.'

'White or red,
Paola?' Brunetti interrupted. He walked past Chiara, and seeing that Paola had
turned back to the stove, he narrowed his eyes at Chiara and gave a small shake
of his head while motioning towards Paola with his chin.

Chiara pursed her
lips, shrugged, but then nodded. 'All right,
Papa,
if
you want to, you can.' Then, after a grudgingly long pause, 'So can
Mamma
if
she wants to.'

'Red,' Paola said and
stirred the mushrooms around the pan.

Brunetti walked past
her and stooped to open the cabinet under the sink. 'Cabernet?' he asked.

'Uh, huh,'Paola
agreed.

He opened thewine and
poured out two glasses.

When she reached out
a hand to take the glass, he took her hand, pressed her palm to his lips, and
kissed it. Surprised, she looked up at him. 'What's that for?' she asked.

'Because I love you
with all my heart,' he said and handed her the glass.

'Oh,
Papa’
Chiara
moaned. 'Only people in the movies say things like that.'

‘You know your father
doesn't go to the movies,' Paola said.

'Then he read it in a
book,' Chiara said, already losing whatever little interest she had in the sort
of things grown-ups found to say to one another. 'Aren't the mushrooms done
yet?'

Glad of the
distraction provided by her daughter's impatience, Paola said, 'one more minute
and they're done. But you've got to wait until they're cool.'

How long will that
take?'

'Ten or fifteen
minutes.'

Brunetti stood with
his back to them, looking out of the window and off to the mountains to the
north of Venice.

'Can I come back then
and do it?'

'Of course.'

He heard Chiara leave
the kitchen and go down the hall towards her room.

'Why did you say
that?' Paola asked when she was gone.

'Because if s true,'
Brunetti said, still looking out of the window.

'But why did you say
it now?'

'Because I never say
it’ He sipped at his wine. It occurred to him to ask if she didn't believe him
or if she didn't like hearing it, but he said nothing, took another sip of
wine."

Before he heard her
move, he felt Paola come up beside him. She wrapped her left arm around his
waist and pulled herself close to him. Saying nothing, she stood beside him,
looking out of the window with him. 'I can't remember the last time it was this
clear. Is that the Nevegal, do you think?' she asked, raising her right hand to
point to the closest of the mountains.

'That's up near
Belluno, isn't it?' he asked.

‘I think so, yes.
Why?'

‘I might have to go
up there tomorrow.'

'What for?'

'They've found the
Lorenzoni boy's body. Up near Belluno.'

It was a long time
before she said anything. 'Oh, the poor boy. And his parents. Terrible.' After
I
another
long pause, she asked, 'Do they know?'      

'No, I have to tell
them now. Before dinner.'

'Oh, Guido, why do
you always have to do these awful things?'

'If other people
wouldn't do awful things, I wouldn't have to, Paola.'

For an instant, he
feared she would take offence at his reply, but she ignored it and leaned even
closer to him. ‘I don't know them, but I'm sorry for them. What a horrible
thing to happen.' And he felt her grow tense as the thought came to her that it
might have been her child, her son. Their son. How awful. How awful to do a
thing like that. How can they?'

He had no answer to
this, just as he had no answer to any of those big questions about why people
committed crimes or savaged one another. He had answers only to the smaller
questions. 'They do it for money.'

'All the worse’ was
her immediate reply. 'Oh I hope they get them’ and then, as she remembered, she
said, ‘I hope you get them.'

So did he, he
realized, surprised by the strength of his desire to find the people who had
done this. But he didn't, not now, want to talk of this; instead, he wanted to
answer her question about why he had said he loved her. He was not a man accustomed
to speaking of his emotions, but he wanted to tell her, to bind her to him anew
with the power of his words and his love. 'Paola,' he began, but before he
could say anything further, she pulled herself roughly away from him, shocking
him to silence.

"The mushrooms’
she said, pulling the pan from the flame with one hand and opening the window
with the other. And talk of love, with the mushrooms, went up in smoke.

12

When he finished his
wine, he went down the hall and knocked at Raffi's door. Hearing nothing but
the continued boom boom boom of the music from inside, Brunetti pushed open the
door. Raffi lay on his bed, a book open on his chest, sound asleep. Thinking of
Paola, Chiara, the neighbours, and human sanity in general, Brunetti walked to
the small stereo on Raffi's bookcase and turned the volume down. He looked at
Raffi, who didn't
 
move, and turned it down even more. Moving closer
to the bed, he glanced at the title of the book:
Calculus.
No
wonder he slept.

Chiara was in the
kitchen, muttering dark threats at the pieces of ravioli which refused to
maintain the shape into which she squeezed them. He said goodbye and went down
the hall to Paola's study. He stuck his head inside and said,

If it's necessary, we
can always go over to Gianni's for a pizza.'

She glanced up from
her papers. 'No matter what she does to those poor ravioli, we are going to eat
every one she puts on our plates, and you are going to ask for seconds.' Before
he could protest, she cut him off, pointing a threatening pencil at him. If s
the first dinner she's cooked, all by herself, and it's going to be wonderful.'
She saw him start to speak and cut him off again. 'Burned mushrooms, pasta that
will have the consistency of wallpaper glue, and a chicken that she's chosen to
marinate in soy sauce and which will consequently have the salt content of the
Dead Sea.'

'You make it sound
inviting.' Well, Brunetti thought, she can't do anything with the wine. 'What
about Raffi? How are you going to get him to eat it?'

Don't you think he
loves his little sister?' she asked with the false indignation he knew so well.
Brunetti said nothing.

'All right,' Paola
admitted, 'I promised him ten thousand lire if he ate everything.'

'Me too?' Brunetti
asked and left.