Acqua Alta

children, a tall boy and a young girl still plump with the fat of childhood.

His smile disappeared, and a different one took its place. Using this one, he approached their table and took her extended hand.

She smiled up at him. ‘Oh, Guido, how wonderful to see you. What a glorious day.’ She turned to the boy and said, ‘Paolino, this is Dottor Brunetti.’ The young boy stood, almost as tall as Brunetti, took his hand and shook it.

‘Buon giorno, Dottore. I’d like to thank you for helping my mother.’ It sounded as if he had practised the line, and he delivered it formally, as from one trying to be a man to one who already was. He had his mother’s dark eyes, but his face was longer and narrower.

‘Me too, Mamma,’ the girl piped up, and, when Flavia was slow to respond, stood and held her hand out to Brunetti. ‘I’m Victoria, but my friends call me Vivi.’

Taking her hand, Brunetti said, ‘Then I’d like to call you Vivi.’

She was young enough to smile, old enough to look away before she blushed.

He pulled out a chair and sat, then angled the chair to get his face info the sun. They talked generally for a few minutes, the children asking him questions about being a policeman, whether he carried a gun, and when he said he did, where it was. When he told them, Vivi asked if he had ever shot anyone and seemed disappointed when he said that he had not. It didn’t take the children long to realize that being a policeman in Venice was a great deal different from being a cop on Miami Vice, and after that revelation, they seemed to lose interest both in his career and in him.

The waiter came and Brunetti ordered a Campari soda; Flavia asked for another coffee, then changed it to a Campari. The children grew audibly restless, until Flavia suggested that they walk up along the embankment to Nico’s and get themselves gelato, an idea that was met with general relief.

When they were gone, Vivi hurrying to keep up with Paolo’s longer steps, he said, ‘they’re very nice children.’ Flavia said nothing, so he added, ‘I didn’t know you’d brought them to Venice with you.’

‘Yes, it’s seldom that I get a chance to spend a weekend with them, but I’m not scheduled to sing the matinee this Saturday, so we decided to come here. I’m singing in Munich now,’ she added.

‘I know. I read about you in the papers.’

She gazed out over the water, across the canal to the church of the Redentore. ‘I’ve never been here in the early spring before.’

‘Where are you staying?’

She pulled her eyes back from the church and looked at him. ‘At Brett’s.’

‘Oh. Did she come back with you?’ he asked. He had last seen Brett in the hospital, but she had stayed there only overnight, then she and Flavia had left for Milan two days later. He’d had no word of either of them until the day before, when Flavia had called and asked him to meet her for a drink.

‘No, she’s in Zurich, giving a lecture.’

‘When will she come back?’ he asked politely.

‘She’ll be in Rome next week. I finish in Munich next Thursday night.’

‘And then what?’

‘And then London, but only for a concert, and then China,’ she said, voice carrying her reproach that he had forgotten. ‘I’m invited to give master classes at the Beijing Conservatory. Don’t you remember?’

‘Then you’re going to go through with it? You’re going to take the pieces back?’ he asked, surprised that she would do it.

She made no attempt to disguise her own delight. ‘Of course we are. That is, I am.’

‘But how can you do that? How many pieces are there? Three? Four?’

‘Four. I’m carrying seven pieces of luggage, and I’ve arranged it that the Minister of Culture will meet me at the airport. I doubt that they’re going to look for antiques being smuggled into the country.’

‘What if they find them?’ he asked.

She gave a purely theatrical wave of the hand. ‘Well, I can always say that I was bringing them to donate to the people of China, that I was going to present them after I’d taught the classes, as a token of my gratitude for their having invited me.’

She’d do it, too, and he was certain she’d get away with it. He laughed at the thought. ‘Well, good luck to you.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, certain that she’d need no luck there.

They sat in silence for a while, Brett a third party, invisible but present. Boats puttered past; the waiter brought their drinks, and they were glad of the diversion.

‘And after China?’ he finally asked.

‘Lots of travelling until the end of summer. That’s another reason I wanted to spend the weekend with the children. I’ve got to go to Paris, then Vienna; and then back to London.’ When he said   nothing she tried to lighten the mood by saying, ‘I   get to die in Paris and Vienna, Lucia and Violetta.’

‘And in London?’ he asked.

‘Mozart. Fiordiligi. And then my first attempt at Handel.’

‘Will Brett go with you?’ he asked and sipped at his drink.

She looked over to the church again, the church of the Redeemer. ‘She’s going to stay in China for at least a