The Girl of his Dreams - Brunetti 17 (10 page)

Brunetti hesitated and checked his watch, then he rang the bell. After a moment, a woman's voice answered,
'Si?'

Brunetti spoke in Veneziano. 'Signora, could you tell me if this is the place where the friends of Brother Leonardo meet?' There was no disguising the eagerness in his voice, but eagerness could have many causes.

'Yes, it is,' she answered. 'Are you interested in joining us?'

'Very much so, Signora,' he answered.

'We meet on Tuesday
’
she said, then quickly added, 'I'm sorry if I don't let you in, but it's time for the children to eat.'

'I'm the one who's sorry, Signora
’
he said.
‘I
know what it's like, so go and feed them. But could you tell me what time the meeting begins?'

'Seven-thirty
’
she said. 'That way people can be home for dinner.'

1 understand. Good,' Brunetti answered. 'Go and feed your children now, Signora. Please. I'll see you on Tuesday, then
’
he said in his kindest voice.

Brunetti turned away. From behind him, he heard a tinny voice ask, 'What's your name, Signore?'

He made an indecipherable noise, then added '-etti' to the end of it, not wanting to lie. There'd be time enough for that on Tuesday.

9

Vianello and Brunetti met below the clock in front of the Banca di Roma at seven-fifteen on Tuesday evening, accompanied by their wives, who had been, if not delighted, at least curious enough to come along.

After the women exchanged kisses, they turned away from Rialto and started towards San Giacomo dell'Orio. The women lagged behind Vianello and Brunetti, looking into windows and commenting on what they saw and, as all Venetians did, on how the nature of the shops had changed in recent years to suit the tastes of the tourists. 'At least they're still here,' Paola said, stopping to admire the dried fruit in Mascari's window.

Nadia, at least a head shorter than Paola and significantly rounder, said, 'My mother still talks about the way they used to wrap everything up in newspaper when they sold it. She's living with my brother in Dolo now, but she still wants fi
gs from Mascari; won't eat them
unless she recognizes the paper.' With a resigned shake of her head, Nadia started off after the men, who had disappeared ahead of them.

As they emerged into Campo San Giacomo dell'Orio, the men paused to await the women then rearranged themselves into couples. Brunetti led them down the narrow
calle
and stopped before the door of the building. He rang the bell for Sambo, and with no questions asked about who they might be, they were buzzed into the building. There was nothing unusual about the entrance: orange and white patterned marble floor, dark wooden panelling a bit the worse for damp, and insufficient lighting.

At the top of the second flight of stairs, the murmur of voices seeped out on to the landing. Uncertain whether to knock on the open door, Brunetti stuck his head inside and called, 'Signora Sambo?' When no one came, he took one step into the apartment and repeated, 'Signora Sambo?'

A short woman with light brown hair appeared through a doorway on the right. She smiled and extended her hand to each of them in turn, encircling their hands with both of hers and leaning forward to kiss them on both cheeks, saying, very formally, 'Welcome to our home.' She made it sound as though her home were somehow theirs, as well.

She had dark brown eyes the outer folds of which tilted sharply down, giving her face a decidedly Oriental cast; her thin nose and fair skin, however, could only be European. 'Come and meet the others.' She smiled again before turning away to lead them into another room, a smile that spoke of her enormous pleasure at their presence.

On the walk over, Brunetti and Vianello had decided it would be best - since they did not know what the legal consequences of their presence here might be - to use their real names, but this woman's unquestioning hospitality had made that decision redundant.

The room into which she led them had a long row of windows that gave out, unfortunately, on to the windows opposite. About twenty people were standing around. On a table against one wall were glasses and a row of bottles of mineral water and fruit juice. A few rows of folding chairs faced away from the windows and towards a single straight-backed chair that stood in front of the far wall. No one smoked.

'May I get you something to drink?' their hostess asked. In response to their replies, she brought juice for the women and mineral water for the men. As Brunetti glanced around the room, he saw that this was the standard choice.

The men, as did he and Vianello, all wore suits and ties; the women tended to wear trousers or skirts that fell below the knee. No beards, not a tattoo in sight, and no piercing, though some of the people seemed to be still in their twenties. What makeup the women wore was subdued and none of them wore any kind of low-cut blouse or sweater.

Brunetti looked at Paola and found that she was already talking to a middle-aged man and woman. Not far from her, Vianello stood, holding his glass in one hand, while Nadia smiled as she listened to a white-haired woman who had placed one hand familiarly on her arm.

The room was decorated with ceramic plates bearing the names of restaurants and pizzerias. The one closest to him had a folkloristic painting of a man and woman in some sort of traditional costume: long skirt and high shoes for the woman, baggy trousers and broad-brimmed hat for the man. Not far fro
m it was a fuming volcano with P
izzeria Vesuvio' arching over it in pink letters.

On the far wall, above the chair, hung a large crucifix with crossed olive branches wedged behind it. Through the door at one side of the room, he could see a kitchen where the counter held tall glass jars of pasta, rice, and sugar and more paper containers of fruit juice.

He turned his attention back to Paola and heard the middle-aged woman say,'... especially if you have children
’

The man nodded, and Paola said, 'Of course
’
Brunetti was suddenly conscious of a diminution of sound behind him as conversation dropped away. He saw Paola glance towards the silence, and he turned to face it.

A door on the wall opposite the kitchen had opened, and a tall man stood with his back to them, pulling it closed. Brunetti saw grey hair, cut very short, a thin stripe of white above the collar of a black jacket, and very long legs encased in baggy black trousers. The man moved across the room. Brunetti noticed his thick eyebrows, an even paler grey than his hair, and a large nose in the centre of a clean-shaven face. His eyes seemed almost black by contrast, his mouth warm and relaxed into an expression that could very easily become a smile.

As the man crossed the room slowly, he nodded to a few people, pausing once or twice to place his hand on someone's arm as he said something, but never slowing in his progress towards the chair that stood facing the others.

By unspoken agreement, everyone set their glasses on the table and made their way towards the neatly aligned folding chairs. Brunetti, Vianello, and their wives followed and found four seats at the end of the last row. From here, they could see not only the man facing them but the sides of the faces of some of the people sitting in front of them.

The tall man waited for a moment before the people, looking across at them and smiling. He raised his right hand, fingers half cupped and half pointing at them, a gesture Brunetti had seen in countless paintings of Christ newly risen from the grave. The man made no attempt to make the sign of the cross over the heads of his seated audience.

The smile that had been the promise of his mouth broke forth as he began to speak. Tt gives me great joy to be with you again, my friends, because it means that, together, we can examine the idea of doing some good in the world. We live in a time, as you all know, when there isn't a lot of good in evidence where we would most like to see it. Nor do we see much virtue in the people whose duty it is to offer an example.'

The man did not specify, Brunetti noticed, just who these people might be. Politicians? Priests? Doctors? For all Brunetti knew, he could be talking about film producers or television comedians.

'Now, before you ask me who I'm talking about,' the man went on, raising his hands in a gesture that attempted to quell even their unasked questions, 'let me explain that I'm talking about us, about those of us here in this room.' He smiled as though he knew he had just played a joke on them, inviting them to be as amused by it as he was.

'It's too easy to talk about politicians and priests and bishops and I don't know who else, about their duty to set us a good example. But we can't force them to behave in a way we think is good unless we are willing to commit ourselves to the good.' He paused a long moment and then added, 'And, I'm afraid, not even then.

'The only person we can influence in any way to do what we think is good is ourselves. Not our wives or husbands, nor our children, or relatives, or friends or the people we work with, and not the politicians we have elected to act on our behalf. We can tell them, of course, and we can complain about them when they don't do what we think is right. And we can gossip about our neighbours,' and here he gave a complicit smile, as if to sug
gest he was one of the first to
do this,
‘
B
ut we can't affect their behaviour, not in any positive way.

'The simple fact is that we can't force people to be good; we can't beat them with a stick, the way we can a donkey or a horse. Well, of course we can force them to do some things: we can get children to do their homework, or we can make people give us money and we can give that money to a charity. But what happens when we put the stick away? Do people continue to give money? And do the children continue to do their homework?'

A number of people in front of Brunetti shook their heads or turned aside to whisper. He glanced at Paola and heard her say, 'Clever, isn't he?'

'...
only ourselves that we can make do good things, because it's only ourselves that we can persuade to
want
to do good things. I know this must sound like an insult to the intelligence of all of you here, and I apologize for that. But it is a truth, at least I think it is a truth, so self-evident that it is easy, too easy, to overlook it. We cannot make people
want
to do things.

'By now, I'm sure most of you are thinking how easy it is for me to
talk
about doing good. And I agree: it's too easy to sit and tell people that they should do good, but it's not at all easy to decide just what good is. I know, I know, those of you who have studied more than I have - and that's probably most of you, I'm afraid -' he said with a proper note of humility, 'you know that philosophers have been arguing about this for millennia, and they're still arguing about it today.

'Yet while philosophers argue about it and write treatises about it, you and I have an instinctive understanding of what good means. We know, in the instant that we see or hear something, that this is good or that is good, or that that other thing is not good.'

He closed his eyes and when he opened them he seemed to be studying the floor in front of his feet. 'It's not my place to tell you what is good and what is not. But I will tell you that goodness usually leaves people who receive it, and those who do it, better in spirit. Not richer, not more wealthy, not with a bigger house or a better car, but simply aware that the sum of goodness in the world has been increased. They can give or they can receive, but afterwards they are richer in spirit and can live more easily in the world.'

He raised his eyes and gazed out at each of the faces in front of him. 'And at the base of this idea of goodness is nothing more complicated than simple human kindness and generosity of spirit. Because we are united here in the Christian spirit, we most often turn to the Gospels for our examples of human kindness and goodness, to the Beatitudes and to the example set by Jesus Christ in His dealings with the world and with the people around Him. He was a well of forgiveness and patience, and His anger, those few times when it was shown, was always directed at offences that we too would see as wrong: turning religion into a business run for profit, corrupting children
’

After some time, he went on, 'People sometimes ask me how they should behave
’
He smiled, as though he found the very idea absurd. 'And I have little to tell them, for the example is already there, in the life of Christ and in the examples He has given us. So I think I will do what comes most naturally and most easily to me: I will ask you to speak to my boss
’
He laughed, and the others joined him.

'Or perhaps better to say "our boss", for I assume that all of you here tonight believe that He is the one who can tell us and show us by His example how to do good. He never used a stick, never even thought of using a stick. He simply wanted us to learn to see that the good is there for us to choose, and He wanted us to choose it
’

He stopped speaking, raised his hand to the height of his shoulder, and let it fall again.

As the silence lengthened, Brunetti decided that the man had finished, and he turned to Paola, but then the man resumed, though what he said was little different from what had gone before. Citing the Gospels, he gave examples of Christ's charity and goodness and pointed to the spirit of loving kindness that must have animated Him to behave in this fashion. He spoke of Christ's sacrifice, described His suffering, both before and during the Crucifixion, in vivid detail, always explaining that these were things that Christ had chosen to do in order that good would result. Few things, he said, were a greater good than giving mankind the gift of salvation.