passing to the right of the industrial horror of Marghera. Like a person who cannot keep from prodding an aching tooth with his tongue, Brunetti failed to look away from the forest of cranes and smokestacks and the miasma of filthy air that drifted back across the waters of the
Soon after Mestre, barren winter fields replaced the industrial blight, but the general prospect was not much improved. After the devastating drought of the summer, most of the fields were covered with unharvested corn that had proved too expensive to irrigate and too parched to pick.
The train was only ten minutes late, so he was on time for his appointment with the doctor, whose office was in a modern building not far from the university. Because he was Venetian, Brunetti didn’t think to use the elevator and climbed the stairs to the third floor. When he opened the door to the office, he found the waiting room empty save for a white-uniformed woman who sat behind a desk. ‘The doctor will see you now,’ she said when he entered, not bothering to ask who he was. Did it show? Brunetti wondered yet again.
Dr. Treponti was a small, neat man with a short dark beard and brown eyes that were slightly magnified by the thick glasses he wore. His cheeks were as round and tight as a chipmunk’s, and he carried a small marsupial paunch in front of him. He didn’t smile when Brunetti came in, but he did offer his hand. Gesturing to a chair in front of his desk, he waited for Brunetti to sit down before resuming his own chair, and then he asked, ‘What is it you’d like to know?’
Brunetti took a small publicity still of the conductor from his inside pocket and held it out to the doctor. ‘Is this the man who came to you? The man you said was Austrian?’
The doctor took the photo, studied it briefly, and handed it back to Brunetti. ‘Yes, that’s the man.’
‘Why did he come to see you, Doctor?’
‘Aren’t you going to tell me who he is? If the police are involved in this and his name isn’t Hilmar Doerr?’
Brunetti was amazed that anyone could live in Italy and not know about the death of the conductor, but he simply said, ‘I’ll tell you that after you tell me what you can about him, Doctor.’ Before the other man could object, he added, ‘I don’t want anything you might tell me to be colored by that information.’
‘This isn’t political, is it?’ the doctor asked, with the deep distrust that only Italians can put into the question.
‘No, it has nothing to do with politics. I give you my word.’
However dubious the value of that commodity might have seemed to the doctor, he agreed. ‘Very well.’ He opened the manila folder on his desk and said, ‘I’ll have my nurse give you a copy of this later.’
‘Thank you, Doctor.’
‘As I said, he told me that his name was Hilmar Doerr, and he said he was an Austrian who lived in Venice. Because he was not part of the Italian health plan, he came to me as a private patient. I saw no reason not to believe him.’ As he spoke, the doctor studied the notes on the lined paper in front of him. Brunetti could see how neat they were, even upside down.
‘He said that he had suffered some loss of hearing during the last months and asked me to check it. This was,’ the doctor said, flipping the chart back to the front and checking the date there, ‘on the third of November.
‘I performed the usual tests and found that there had been, as he said, a significant hearing loss.’ He anticipated Brunetti’s question and answered it. ‘I estimated that he still had sixty to seventy percent of normal hearing.
‘What confused me was his saying that he had not had any hearing problems before; they had suddenly appeared in the last month or so.’
‘Would this sort of thing be common in a man of his age?’
‘He told me he was sixty-two. I assume that, too, is a lie? If you could give me his proper age, I might be better able to answer the question.’
‘He was seventy-four.’
Hearing this, Dr. Treponti turned the file back to the cover, crossed out something, and wrote a correction above it. ‘I don’t think that would change things,’ he said, ‘at least not substantially. The damage was sudden, and because it was to nerve tissue, it was irreversible.’
‘Are you sure about that, Doctor?’
He didn’t even bother to answer. ‘Because of the nature of the loss, I suggested he return in two weeks, when I repeated the tests and found that there had been even more loss, and more damage. Also irreversible.’
‘How much more?’
‘I would estimate,’ he said, glancing down again at the figures on the chart, ‘another ten percent. Perhaps a bit more.’
‘Was there anything you could do to help him?’
‘I suggested one of the new hearing aids. I hoped—I didn’t really believe—that it would help him.’
‘And did it?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘He never returned to my office.’
Brunetti calculated for a moment. The second visit had taken place well into rehearsals for the opera. ‘Can you tell me more about this hearing aid?’
‘It’s very small, mounted on a pair of normal-looking glasses, with clear or prescription lenses. It works on the principle of—’ He broke off. ‘I’m not sure why this is important here.’
