Death at La Fenice

your Paola, we were convulsed by jealousy and, I admit, loathing for this Guido who seemed to have arrived from the stars to carry her heart away from us. First she wanted to know all about him, then it was “Will he take me for a coffee?” which as quickly developed into “Do you think he likes me?” until all of us, much as we loved the daffy girl, were quite ready to throttle her one dark night and toss her into a canal, just to have some freedom from the dark incubus that was Guido and so be left in peace to study for our exams.’ Delighting in Paola’s obvious discomfiture, he continued: ‘And then she married him. You, that is. Much to our delight, as nothing is such an effective remedy for the mad excesses of love,’ and here he paused to sip from his drink, before adding, ‘as is marriage.’ Content with having made Paola blush and Brunetti look around for another drink, he said, ‘It’s really a very good thing you did marry her, Guido, else not a one of us would have managed to pass our exams, so smitten were we with the girl.’

‘It was my only purpose in marrying her,’ Brunetti replied.

Padovani understood. ‘And for that charity, let me offer you a drink. What would you like?’

‘Scotch for us both,’ Paola answered, then added, ‘But come back quickly. I want to talk to you.’

Padovani bowed his head in false submission and headed off in pursuit of a waiter, moving like a very royal yacht of politeness as he made his way through the crowd. In a moment, he was back, holding three glasses in his hands.

‘Are you still writing for L’Unita?’ Paola asked as he handed her the drink.

At the sound of the name of the newspaper, Padovani pulled down his head in mock terror and shot conspiratorial glances around the room. He gave a very theatrical hiss and waved them close to him. In a whisper, he told them, ‘Don’t dare pronounce the name of that newspaper in this room, or your father will have the servants turn me out of the house.’ Though Padovani’s tone made it clear he was joking, Brunetti suspected that he was far closer to the truth than he realized.

The critic stood up to his full height, sipped at his drink, and changed to a voice that was almost declamatory. ‘Paola, my dear, could it be that you have abandoned the ideals of our youth and no longer read the proletarian voice of the Communist Party? Excuse me,’ he corrected himself, ‘the Democratic Party of the Left?’ Heads turned at the sound of the name, but he went on. ‘God above, don’t tell me you’ve accepted your age and begun to read Corriere or, even worse, La Repubblica, the voice of the grubbing middle class, disguised as the voice of the grubbing lower class?’

‘No, we read L’Osservatore Romano,,’ Brunetti said, naming the official organ of the Vatican, which still fulminated against divorce, abortion, and the pernicious myth of female equality.

‘How wise of you,’ Padovani said, voice unctuous with praise. ‘But since you read those glowing pages, you wouldn’t know that I am, however humbly, the voice of artistic judgment for the struggling masses.’ He dropped his voice and continued, aping perfectly the orotund voices of the RAI newscasters announcing the most recent fall of the government. ‘I am the representative of the clear-eyed laborer. In me you see the rude voiced and grubby- fingered critic who seeks the values of true proletarian art in the midst of modern chaos.’ He nodded in silent greeting to a passing figure and continued. ‘It seems a great pity that you are not familiar with my work. Perhaps I can send you copies of my most recent articles. Pity I don’t carry them about with me, but I suppose even genius must display some humility, however spurious.’ They had all begun to enjoy this, so he continued. ‘My most recent favorite was a wonderful piece I wrote last month about an exhibition of contemporary Cuban art—you know, tractors and grinning pineapples.’ He made a moue of feigned distress until the exact words of his review came back to him. ‘I praised its—how did I put it?—”its wonderful symmetry of refined form and purposeful integrity.”‘ He leaned forward and whispered in Paola’s ear, but so loud that Brunetti had no trouble hearing. ‘I lifted that from one I wrote two years ago about Polish woodblocks, where I praised, if memory serves, “refined symmetry of purposeful form.”‘

‘And do you?’ Paola asked, glancing at his velvet jacket, ‘go to the office like that?’

‘How deliciously bitchy you have remained, Paola.’ He laughed, leaning forward to kiss her lightly on the cheek. ‘But to answer your question, my angel, no, I do not think it seemly to take this opulence to the halls of the working class. I don more suitable attire, namely a dreadful pair of trousers my maid’s husband would no longer wear and a jacket my nephew was going to give to the poor. Nor’— he held up a hand to prevent any interruption or question—’do I any longer drive there in the Maserati. I thought that would establish the wrong tone; besides, parking is such a problem in Rome. I solved the problem, for a while, by borrowing my maid’s Fiat to drive to the office. But it would be covered with parking tickets, and then I lost hours taking the commissario of police to lunch to see that they were taken care of. So now I simply take a cab from my house and have myself left off just around the corner from the office, where I deliver my weekly article, speak angrily about social injustice, and then go down the street to a lovely little pasticceria, where I treat myself to a shockingly rich pastry. Then I go home and have a long soak in a hot tub and read Proust.

‘“And so, on each side, is simple truth suppressed,”‘ he said, quoting from a Shakespeare sonnet, one of the texts to which he had devoted the seven years he spent getting a degree in English literature at Oxford. ‘But you must want something, some information, dearest Paola,’ he said with a directness that was out of character or, at least, out of the character he was playing. ‘First your lather calls me personally with an invitation to this party, and then you attach yourself to me like a button, and I doubt that you’d do that unless you wanted something from me. And as the divine Guido is here with you, all you can legitimately want is information. And since I know just what it is Guido does for a living, I can but surmise it has to do with the scandal that has rocked our fair city, struck dumb the music world, and, in the doing, removed from the face of the planet a nasty piece of work.’ The introduction of the British expression had the intended effect of surprising them both to gasps. He covered his mouth and gave a giggle of purest delight.

‘Oh, Dami, you knew all along. Why didn’t you just say so?’

Though Padovani’s voice was steady when he answered, Brunetti could see that his eyes were bright, perhaps with alcohol, perhaps with something else. It mattered little to him what it was, so long as the man would explain his last remark.

‘Come on,’ Paola encouraged. ‘You were the only person I could think of who would be bound to know about him.’

Padovani fixed her with a level glance. ‘And do you expect me to blacken the memory of a man who is not yet cold in his grave?’

From the sound of things, Brunetti thought that might well add to Padovani’s fun.

‘I’m surprised you waited that long,’ said Paola.

Padovani gave her remark the attention it deserved. ‘You’re right, Paola. I will tell you all—that is, if the delicious Guido will go and get us all three enormous drinks. If he doesn’t do it soon, I might begin to rail at the predictable tedium to which your parents have once again subjected me and, I note with wonder, half of what passes for the most famous people in the city.’ Then, turning to Brunetti, ‘Or better yet, Guido, if you could perhaps