‘Hilda Breddes.’
‘She’s not Italian?’
‘No; Belgian.’
He made a note of this. ‘How long were you and the Maestro married?’
‘Two years. We met in Berlin, where I was working.’
‘Under what circumstances?’
‘He was conducting
‘How long did you know each other before you were married?’
‘About six months.’ She busied herself with sharpening her cigarette.
‘You said that you were working in Berlin, yet you are Hungarian.’ When she didn’t comment, he asked, ‘Isn’t this true?’
‘Yes; by birth I am. But I am now a German citizen. My first husband, as I’m sure you’ve been informed, was German, and I took his nationality when we moved to Germany after our marriage.’
She stubbed out her cigarette and looked at Brunetti, as if declaring that she would now devote all her attention to his questions. He wondered that it was these factual issues on which she had decided to focus, for all of them were matters of public record. All her answers about her marriages had been true; he knew because Paola, hopelessly addicted to the gutter press, had filled him in on the details that morning.
‘Isn’t that unusual?’ he asked.
‘Isn’t what unusual?’
‘Your being permitted to move to Germany and take German citizenship.’
She smiled at that, but not, he thought, in amusement. ‘Not so unusual as you here in the West seem to think.’ Was it scorn? ‘I was a married woman, married to a German. His work in Hungary was finished, and he went back to his own country. I applied for permission to go with my husband, and it was granted. Even under the old government, we were not savages. The family is very important to Hungarians.’ From the way she said it, Brunetti suspected she believed it to be of only minimal importance to Italians.
‘Is he the father of your child?’
The question clearly startled her. ‘Who?’
‘Your first husband.’
‘Yes, he is.’ She reached for another cigarette.
‘Does he still live in Germany?’ Brunetti asked as he lit her cigarette, though he knew that the man taught at the University of Heidelberg.
‘Yes, he does.’
‘Is it true that, before marrying the Maestro, you were a doctor?’
‘Commissario,’ she began, voice tight with an anger she did little to contain or disguise, ‘I am still a doctor, and I shall always be a doctor. At the moment, I don’t have a practice, but believe me, I am still a doctor.’
‘I apologize, Doctor,’ he said, meaning it and regretting his stupidity. He quickly changed the subject. ‘Your daughter, does she live here with you?’
He saw the impulsive motion toward the cigarette package, watched as she glided her hand toward the burning cigarette and picked that up instead. ‘No, she lives with her grandparents in Munich. It would be too difficult for her to go to a foreign-language school while we were here, so we decided it would be best for her to go to study in Munich.’
‘With your former husband’s parents?’
‘Yes.’
‘How old is she, your daughter?’
‘Thirteen.’
His own daughter, Chiara, was the same age, and he realized how unkind it would be to force her to attend school in a foreign country. ‘Will you resume your medical practice now?’
She thought awhile before she answered this. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps. I would like to heal people. But it’s too early to think about that.’ Brunetti bowed his head in silent agreement.
‘If you will permit me, Signora, and perhaps forgive me in advance for the question, could you tell me if you have any idea of the sort of financial arrangements your husband made?’
‘You mean what happens to the money?’ Remarkably direct.
‘Yes.’
She answered quickly. ‘I know only what Helmut told me. We didn’t have a formal agreement, nothing written, the way people do today when they marry.’ Her tone dismissed such thinking. ‘It is my understanding that five people will inherit his estate.’
‘And they are?’
‘His children by his previous marriages. He had one by the first and three by the second. And myself.’
‘And your daughter?’
