Death at La Fenice

it?’

He shrugged. ‘She might have. Everyone’s busy trying to give me the idea that she’s the Latin fireball, all passion, knife in the ribs the instant the offending word is spoken. But you’ve just seen how well she can act, so there’s nothing to say she isn’t cold and calculating and entirely capable of having done it the way it was done. And she’s intelligent, I think.’

‘What about her friend?’

‘The American?’

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t know about her. She told me Petrelli went to see him after the first act, but only to argue with him.’

‘What about?’

‘He’d been threatening to tell her ex-husband about the affair with Brett.’

If Paola was surprised at his use of the first name, she gave no sign of it.

‘Are there children?’

‘Yes. Two.’

‘Then it’s a serious threat. But what about her, about Brett, as you call her. Could she have done it?’

‘No, I don’t think so. The affair isn’t that fundamental to her life. Or she won’t let it be. No, it’s not likely.’

‘You still didn’t answer me about Petrelli.’

‘Come on, Paola, you know I’m always wrong when I try to work by intuition, when I suspect too much or I suspect too soon. I don’t know about her. The only thing I know is that this has got to have something to do with his past.’

‘All right,’ she said, agreeing to leave it. ‘Let’s eat. I have chicken, and artichokes, and a bottle of Soave.’

‘God be praised,’ he said, getting to his feet and pulling her up from the arm of the chair. Together, they went into the kitchen.

As usual, the minute before dinner was on the table and they were ready to eat, Raffaele, Brunetti’s firstborn, son, and heir appeared from his room. He was fifteen, tall for his age, and took after Brunetti in appearance and gesture. In everything else, he took after no one in the family and would certainly have denied the possibility that his behavior resembled that of anyone, living or dead. He had discovered, by himself, that the world is corrupt and the system unjust, and that men in power were interested in that and that alone. Because he was the first person ever to have made this discovery with such force and purity, he insisted upon showing his ample contempt for all those not yet graced with the clarity of his vision. This included, of course, his family, with the possible exception of Chiara, whom he excused from social guilt because of her youth and because she could be counted on to give him half of her allowance. His grandfather, it seemed, had also somehow managed to slip through the eye of the needle, no one understood how.

He attended the classical liceo, which was supposed to prepare him for the university, but he had done badly for the last year and had recently begun to talk of not going anymore, since ‘education is just another part of the system by which the workers are oppressed.’ Nor, should he quit school, had he any intention of finding a job, as that would make him subject to ‘the system that oppresses the workers.’ Hence, to avoid oppressing, he would refuse to get an education, and to avoid being oppressed, he would refuse to get a job. Brunetti found the simplicity of Raffaele’s reasoning absolutely Jesuitical.

Raffaele slumped at the table, propped on his elbows. Brunetti asked him how he was, this still being a topic safe to mention.

‘OK.’

‘Pass the bread, Raffi.’ This from Chiara.

‘Don’t eat that clove of garlic, Chiara. You’ll stink for days.’ This from Paola.

‘Chicken’s good.’ This from Brunetti. ‘Should I open the second bottle of wine?’

‘Yes,’ piped up Chiara, holding out her glass. ‘I haven’t had any yet.’

Brunetti took the second bottle from the refrigerator and opened it. He moved around the table, pouring wine into each of their glasses. Standing behind his son, he rested his hand on the boy’s shoulder as he leaned over to pour the wine. Raffaele shrugged off his hand, then changed the gesture into an attempt to reach for the artichokes, which he never ate.

‘What’s for dessert?’ asked Chiara.

‘Fruit.’

‘No cake?’

‘Piggy,’ said Raffaele, but in definition, not in criticism.

‘Anyone want to play Monopoly after dinner?’ Paola asked. Before the children could agree, she established conditions. ‘Only if your homework’s done.’

‘Mine is,’ Chiara said.

‘So’s mine,’ Raffaele lied.

‘I’m banker,’ insisted Chiara.

‘Bourgeois piggy,’ Raffaele amended.