they have.”
“So there is a file.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
But maybe he already knew. “Because I asked them to start one.”
He looked at me for a moment, then at the waiter gathering up cups. “I must get back. But it’s so nice today. Perhaps you’d walk with me? Part of the way?”
Outside, we stopped in front of San Moise, the rococo stone dark with grit even in the bright sun.
“You asked for this investigation?”
“Yes. Didn’t you know?” I said, probing.
“Your mother mentioned something,” he said casually. Known all along. Take nothing for granted.
“Then you also know why.”
He nodded. “The incident with Signorina Grassini, I think. Several have mentioned this.” Why? I felt warm, a rush of blood. Had he been asking about her? Running through his checklist, rumors and times I left the hotel and who had seen what? But the engagement party had been bound to come up. It had happened. And so had the ball, when we’d spent the evening with him, having our pictures taken. Just move the party off his checklist, away from Claudia. “An embarrassment for you.”
“And for her now,” I said, starting to walk, the narrow calle feeling suddenly like a tightrope. Keep your balance and don’t look down. “You know, when something terrible happens, you look for someone to blame. Anybody. And Gianni was there when they were taken. You don’t always think, you just-then later you realize it’s a mistake. You can’t blame someone personally. Of course, Gianni was nice about it. I suppose for my sake. So they made a truce.” The same word he’d used when he lied to me on the fondamenta, maybe a word that was always a lie. “In the end they were both relieved, I think.”
“But you asked your friend-Lieutenant Sullivan? — to investigate him.”
“I wanted to reassure her that Gianni was all right. That she’d made a mistake.”
“And did it? Reassure her?”
“Yes,” I said, looking at him, “because I didn’t tell her what they found.”
He was quiet for a minute, thinking, then stopped. We were near the turnoff for Harry’s, standing next to one of the stores. Shoes and handbags and cashmere, with Harry’s at the end of the calle, my mother’s Venice.
“But you want to tell me?” he said, a question, not a request, his eyes slightly apprehensive. I remembered the broad smile that first night at Harry’s, pleased to see Gianni.
“Yes. But only you. It wouldn’t be fair to his daughter. To my mother, for that matter. Nobody has to know. Not yet. They’re only suggestions. Not proof, suggestions.”
“What suggestions?” he said calmly.
“That he was working with the Germans. That he betrayed partisans.”
“You believe this?”
“I don’t know what to believe. People have to do things in wartime-it’s hard to judge. So maybe yes. But the point is that if he did, then there’s a motive. Why would anyone want to kill Gianni? But if he betrayed them, or if they thought he did-”
He was nodding to himself. “Yes, there were such cases. Rosa knows this. And yet she runs away when I ask.”
“She doesn’t want it to be a partisan.”
“That’s your idea, that it was a partisan?”
We started walking again, past the jewelry stores and into the deep shadow of the arcades.
“You know, Signor Miller, everyone worked for the Germans. We don’t like to say now, but what could we do? This was an occupied country. Even the police worked for them.”
“Not like this.”
“Like this,” he repeated, waiting. “There was a suggestion-”
“That he was an informer for the SS. There was a raid, an atrocity.”
“A fire.”
“So you know about it.”
“I thought it must be that. With Rosa.”
Just then we came out of the arcades into the bright open piazza, that exhilarating first moment when the space of San Marco dazzles. Even Cavallini stopped, looking across at the campanile and the domes of the basilica.
“It seems impossible, doesn’t it, that such things could happen,” he said, “where it’s so beautiful.” I glanced at him, surprised. “Look at this,” he said, genuinely moved. And in fact the piazza was spectacular, flooded with spring light, the sun flashing off the gold mosaics, the pigeons swooping up and around in the soft air. “Imagine,” he said, “to be a Maglione in this city.” He turned to me. “I hope you’re wrong, Signor Miller. So many years, and then a disgrace like this on the name.”
“I hope I’m wrong too. For my mother’s sake.”
“Yes, forgive me,” he said. We started to walk across the piazza. “I forgot what this would mean to her. I was thinking of my wife’s family. An indulgence. Do such things happen? Who knows better than a policeman? Of course you’re right-we must know. I’m grateful to you for your help.”
“Maybe we can help each other.”
“Yes?”
“I can find out what Joe Sullivan has-well, Rosa, really. But if we want to take this any further, there are hospital records to check, and I’d need your authority for that.”
“My authority? But the Allies have all the authority you need.”
“For war crimes. But now he’s dead. They’re not interested in trying a dead man. What would be the point? So it’s a police matter. Your case.”
“My case,” he said to himself, as if he were trying out the phrase. He looked up at me, a faint grin under the mustache. “And you want to be the Dr. Watson? The partner? It’s not usual, such an offer.”
“Just an assistant. If it would help.”
“Oh, I accept, I accept. An experienced investigator? For you it’s like old times, maybe. More Germans.”
“No, no trials this time. I just want to know whether he did it.” I looked at Cavallini. “And then we’ll know why he was killed.”
Unexpectedly, he extended his hand. “I am so grateful for your help. At the Questura, do they want this? To know why? With you, it’s a family matter, they say to me. You see, you can understand that. But the others? They just want it to go away. For everything to be normal. The tourists will be here soon.”
Around us, as a kind of live illustration, the waiters were putting out more tables at Florian’s, even one day’s sun an excuse to start the season. In a few days the musicians would be back, playing waltzes, and everything would be the same. I watched for a second, uneasy, even the white-jacketed waiters carrying chairs suddenly surreal. I was supposed to be one of the people sitting down for coffee, reading an English newspaper, writing postcards. Not lying to policemen, who were grateful for my help.
“Will you come back to the Questura?”
“I can’t now,” I said. “Anyway, I’d better call Joe. Get you the file.” After I’d read it first, decided what to pass on. “So we can start.”
“Yes, thank you,” he said, but the idea seemed to darken his mood again, a reminder. “I remember the incident of the house very well. Those were the worst times, near the end. I don’t know why.”
I shrugged. “The losers are desperate and the winners aren’t accountable yet. So it’s open season. It was the same in Germany. At the War Crimes Commission, most of the cases were recent.”
“War crimes,” he said. “Sometimes I think everything in the war was a crime.”
I looked at him, surprised again. “And nothing. That’s the problem. It’s war, so it doesn’t count.”
“Well, now it’s over,” he said, taking one last look at the piazza, still filling with chairs. “Now it counts.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
