Acqua Alta

director.

‘Oh, there’s always something.’

* * * *

Chapter Six

When he left Lele’s gallery, he turned left and ducked into the underpass that led out to the Zattere, the long, open fondamenta that ran alongside the canal of the Giudecca. Across the water he saw the church of the Zittelle and then, further along, that of the Redentore, their domes soaring up above them. A strong wind came in from the east, stirring up whitecaps that knocked and bounced the vaporetti around like toys in a tub. Even at this distance, he could hear the thundering reverberation as one of them crashed against its mooring, saw it buck and tear at the rope that held it to the dock. He pulled up his collar and let the wind push him forward, keeping to the right, close against the buildings, to avoid the spray that spewed up from the embankment. Il Cucciolo, the waterside bar where he and Paola had spent so many hours during the first weeks after their meeting, was open, but the vast wooden deck in front of it, built out over the water, was completely empty, stripped of tables, chairs and umbrellas. To Brunetti, the first real sign of spring was the day when those tables and chairs appeared after their winter’s hibernation. Today, the thought made him shiver. The bar was open, but he avoided it, for the waiters were the rudest in the city, their arrogant slowness tolerable only in exchange for idle hours in the sun.

A hundred metres along, past the church of the Gesuati, he pulled open the glass door and slipped into the welcoming warmth of Nico’s bar. He stamped his feet a few times, unbuttoned his coat, and approached the counter. He ordered a grog and watched the waiter hold a glass under the spigot of the espresso machine and shoot it full of steam that quickly condensed to boiling water. Rum, a slice of lemon, a generous dash of something from a bottle, and then the barman placed it in front of him. Three sugars, and Brunetti had found salvation. He stirred the drink slowly, cheered by the aromatic steam that rose up softly from it. Like most drinks, it didn’t taste as good as it smelled, but Brunetti had grown so accustomed to this truth that he was no longer disappointed by it.

The door opened again, and a rush of icy wind blew two young girls in before it. They wore ski parkas lined with fur that burst out and surrounded their glowing faces, thick boots, leather gloves, and woollen slacks. From the look of them, they were American, or possibly German; if they were rich enough, it was often hard to tell.

‘Oh, Kimberly, are you sure this is the place?’ the first one said in English, sweeping the place with her emerald eyes.

‘It said so in the book, Alison. Nico’s is, like, famous.’ (She pronounced ‘Nico’ to rhyme with ‘sicko’, a word Brunetti had picked up at his last Interpol convention.) ‘It’s famous for gelato.’

It took a moment for the possibility of what might be about to happen to register on Brunetti. The instant it did, he sipped quickly at his grog, which was still so hot it burned his tongue. Patient, he took his spoon and began vigorously to stir the drink, moving it up high on the sides of the glass in hopes that this would somehow force it to cool more rapidly.

‘Oh there it is, I bet, under those round lid things,’ the first one said, coming to stand next to Brunetti and peering over the bar, down at where Nico’s famous gelato, production severely cut back in acknowledgement of the season, did indeed lie under those round lid things. ‘What flavour do you want?’

‘Do you think they’d have Heath Bar?’

‘Nah, not in Italy.’

‘Yeah, I guess not. I guess we’re gonna have to stick to, like, basics.’

The barman approached, smiling in acknowledgement of their beauty and radiant good health, to make no mention of their courage. ‘Si?’ he asked, smiling.

‘Do you have any gelato?’ one of them asked, pronouncing the last word loudly, if not correctly.

Without a pause, apparently accustomed to this, the barman smiled again and reached behind him to pull two cones from a tall pile on the counter.

‘What flavour?’ he asked in passable English.

‘What flavours have you got?’

‘Vaniglia, cioccolato, fragola, fior di latte, e tiramis u .’

The girls looked at each other in great perplexity. ‘I guess we better stick with vanilla and chocolate, huh?’ one asked. Brunetti could no longer distinguish between them, so similar was the bored nasality of their voices.

‘Yeah, I guess.’

The first one turned to the barman and said, ‘Due vanilla and chocolatto, please.’

In a moment, the deed was done, the cones made and handed across the counter. Brunetti found the only consolation he could in taking a long drink of his grog, holding the half-full glass under his nose for a long time after he had swallowed.

The girls had to remove their gloves to take the cones, then one of them had to hold both cones while the other dug into her pockets for four thousand lire. The barman handed them napkins, possibly in the hope that this would keep them inside while they ate the ice cream, but the girls were not to be stopped. They took the napkins and wrapped them carefully around the base of the cones, pushed open the door, and disappeared into the increasing gloom of the afternoon. The bar filled with the sad boom of another boat as it crashed against the wharf.

The barman glanced at Brunetti. Brunetti met his eyes. Neither said a word. Brunetti finished the grog, paid, and left.

It was fully dark now, and Brunetti found himself eager to be at home, out of this cold, and away from the wind that still sliced across the open space along the waterside. He crossed in front of the French consulate, then cut back alongside the Giustiniani Hospital, a dumping ground for the old, and headed towards home. Because he walked quickly, it took him only ten minutes to get there. The entrance hall smelled damp, but the pavement was