Death at La Fenice

‘And the children? How do you get on with them?’

‘Pretty well. Paolo is thirteen and Vittoria’s eight, so at least he might have some idea of what’s going on. But again, Flavia has never said anything, nothing has ever been said.’ She shrugged, openhanded, and in that gesture ceased to be in any way Italian and became entirely American.

‘And the future?’

‘You mean old age? Sipping tea together in the afternoon at Florian’s?’

It was rather a more sedate picture than he might have painted, but it would do. He nodded.

‘I have no idea. While I’m with her, I can’t work, so I have to decide about that, about what I want.’

‘What is it you do?’

‘I’m an archaeologist. Chinese. That’s how I met Flavia. I helped arrange the China exhibit in the Doge’s Palace three years ago. The bigwigs brought her along because she was singing Lucia at La Scala. And then they brought her to the party after the opening. Then I had to go back to Xian; that’s where the dig is, the one I’m working on. There are only three of us there, three Westerners. And I’ve been away for three months now, and I have to go back or I’ll be replaced.’

‘The soldiers?’ he asked, memory still bright with the image of the terracotta statues he had seen at that show, each one perfectly individualized and looking like the portrait of a man.

‘That’s just the beginning,’ she said. ‘There are thousands of them, more than we have any idea of. We haven’t even begun to excavate the treasure in the central tomb. There’s so much red tape with the government. But last fall we got permission to begin work on the treasure mound. From the little I’ve seen, it’s going to be the most important archaeological find since King Tut. In fact, that will look like nothing once we start to take out what’s buried there.’

He had always believed the passion of scholars to be an invention of people who wrote books, an attempt to render them more recognizably human. Seeing her, he realized how wrong he had been.

‘Even their tools are beautiful, even the small bowls the workers used to eat from.’

‘And if you don’t go back?’

‘If I don’t go back, I lose it all. Not the fame. The Chinese deserve that. But the chance to see those things, to touch them, to have a real sense of what the people who made them were like. If I don’t go back, I lose all that.’

‘And is that more important to you than this?’ he asked, gesturing around the dressing room.

‘That’s not a fair question.’ She made her own broad gesture, one that took in the makeup on the table, the costumes hanging behind the door, the wigs propped up on pedestals. ‘This sort of thing isn’t my future. Mine is pots and shards and pieces of a civilization thousands of years old. And Flavia’s is here, in the middle of this. In five years, she’ll be the most famous Verdi singer in the world. I don’t think there’s a place for me in that. It’s not anything she’s realized yet, but I told you what she’s like. She won’t think of it until it happens.’

‘But you have?’

‘Of course.’

‘What will you do?’

‘See what happens here, with all this.’ She gestured again, this time encompassing the death that had taken place in this theater four nights before. ‘And then I’ll go back to China. Or I think I will.’

‘Just like that?’

‘No, not “just like that,” but I’ll still go.’

‘Is it worth it?’ he asked.

‘Is what worth it?’

‘China.’

She shrugged again. ‘It’s my work. It’s what I do. And, in the end, I suppose it’s what I love as well. I can’t spend my life sitting in dressing rooms, reading Chinese poetry, and waiting for the opera to end so that I can live my life.’

‘Have you told her?’

‘Has she told me what?’ demanded Flavia Petrelli, making a thoroughly theatrical entrance and slamming the door behind her. She swept across the room, trailing behind her the train of a pale-blue gown. She was entirely transformed, radiant, as beautiful as Brunetti had ever seen a woman be. And it wasn’t a costume or makeup that had made this change; she was dressed as what she was and what she did. That had transformed her. Her eyes swept around the room, taking in the two glasses, the amiability of their postures. ‘Hasshe told me what?’ she demanded a second time.

‘That she doesn’t like Traviata,’ Brunetti said. ‘I remarked that it was strange to find her here, reading, while you were singing, and she explained that it wasn’t one of her favorite operas.’

‘It’s also strange to find you here Commissario. And I know it’s not one of her favorite operas.’ If she didn’t believe him, she gave no sign of it. He had stood when she came in. She walked in front of him, took one of the glasses that stood on the counter, filled it with mineral water, and drank it down in four long swallows. She filled it again and drank off half. ‘It’s like being in a sauna, with all those lights.’ She finished the water and set the glass down. ‘What are you two talking about?’

‘He told you, Flavia. Traviata.’

‘That’s a lie,’ the singer snapped. ‘But I don’t have time to talk about it.’ Turning to Brunetti, she said, voice tight with anger and high in the manner of singers’ voices after they have sung, ‘If you’d be so kind as to get out of my dressing room, I’d like to change into my costume for the next act.’

‘Certainly, Signora,’ he said, all politeness and apology. Nodding to Brett, who gave him a brief smile in return but stayed in her chair, he left the room quickly. Outside, he paused and listened, ear close to the door, not at all