'What would they be worth now?'
Thaf s impossible to answer. No one knows what they were or how many of them there were, and there's no proof that it happened.'
'That the Guzzardis took them?'
'Yes.'
'What do you think?'
'Of course they took them,' the Count said. 'That's the sort of people they were. Scum. Pretentious, upstart scum, the usual sort of people who are attracted to that kind of political idea. It's the only chance they'll ever have in their lives to have power or wealth, and so they gang together like rats and take what they can. Then, as soon as the game's up, they're the first to say they were morally opposed all the time but feared for the safety of their families. It's remarkable the way men like that always manage to find some high-sounding excuse for what they did. Then, at the first opportunity, they join the winning side.' The Count threw up one hand in a gesture of angry contempt.
Brunetti could not remember ever seeing the Count pass so quickly from distant, amused contempt into raw anger. He wondered what particular set of experiences had led the Count to feel so strongly about these far-off events. This was hardly the time, however, to give in to his curiosity, so he contented himself with repeating his thanks and shaking the Count's hand before leaving Palazzo Falier to return to his more modest home and to his lunch.
7
In the apartment, he found the children in the middle of an argument. They stood at the door to the living room, voices raised, and barely glanced in Brunetti's direction when he came in. Years of evaluating the tones of their various interchanges told him that their hearts weren't in this one and they were doing little more than going through the motions of combat, rather in the fashion of walruses content to rise to the surface of the water and display their tusks to an opponent. As soon as one backed off, the other would flop down and swim away. The dispute concerned a CD, its ownership as disputed as it was currently divided: Raffi had the disc in his hand, and Chiara held the plastic box.
‘I bought it a month ago at Tempio della Musica’ Chiara insisted.
'Sara gave it to me for my birthday, stupid,' retorted Raffi.
Applauding himself for his self-restraint, Brunetti did not suggest that they emulate a previous judgment, cut the squealing thing in two, and have done with it. Instead, he inquired, 'Is your mother in her study?'
Chiara nodded but turned immediately back to combat. ‘I want to listen to it now’ Brunetti heard her say as he went down the corridor.
The door to Paola's study was open, so he went in, saying, 'Can I claim refugee status?’
'Hummm?' she asked, looking up from the papers on her desk, peering at him through her reading glasses as though uncertain of the identity of the man who had just walked in unannounced.
'Can I claim refugee status?'
She removed her glasses. 'Are they still at it?' she asked. As formulaic as a Haydn symphony, the children's bickering had moved into an adagio but Brunetti, in expectation of the allegro tempestoso that was sure to come, closed the door and sat on the sofa against the wall.
‘I spoke to your father’
'About what?' she asked.
'This thing with Claudia Leonardo’
'What 'thing'?' she asked, refusing to ask him how he came to know her name.
'This grandfather and his criminal behaviour during the war’
'Criminal?' Paola repeated, interested now.
Quickly, Brunetti explained what Claudia had told him and what he had learned from her father.
When he was finished, Paola said, 'I'm not sure Claudia would like other people to know about this. She asked if she could talk to you, but I don't think she's the sort of person who'd like her family's business being made public’
'Talking to your father is hardly making what she told me public’ Brunetti said shortly.
'You know what I mean,' she returned in the same tone. ‘I assumed that she spoke to me in confidence’
‘I didn't make the same assumption,' Brunetti said and waited to see Paola's response. 'She came to see me in the
Questura, so she knows I'm a policeman. How else am I supposed to answer?'
'As I remember, the question was only a theoretical one.'
'I needed to know more about it to be able to answer her,' Brunetti explained for what seemed the hundredth time, conscious of how similar their conversation had become to the one he'd heard on entering the apartment, which conversation, he was happy to note, appeared to have concluded. 'Look,' he added in an effort at reconciliation, 'your father said he'd try to remember more about what happened.'
'But is there any chance of some sort of legal rehabilitation?' she asked. That's all she wants to know.'
'As I said to you before, I can't answer that until I know more.'
She studied him a long time, her right hand fiddling idly with one of the earpieces of her glasses, then said, 'It sounds like you already know enough to be able to give her an answer.'
'That it’s impossible?'
'Yes.'
'It probably is,' he said.
'Then why ask my father about it? Is it because you're curious?' When he didn't answer, she said, in a far softer voice, 'Has my knight in shining armour climbed yet again upon the broad back of his noble steed, prepared to ride off in pursuit of justice?'
'Oh, stop it, Paola,' he said with an embarrassed smile.
'No, my dear,' she said, picking up her glasses and putting them on again. ‘I make you sound like my husband and the man I love.' Hiding whatever expression accompanied these words, she looked at the papers and added, 'Now go into the kitchen and open the wine. I'll be out as soon as I finish correcting this paper.'
Wishing the children could see and then emulate the celerity with which he obeyed their mother's command, Brunetti went to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. He took out a bottle of Chardonnay and set it on the counter, opened the drawer to search for the corkscrew, then changed his mind, replaced the bottle, and took out one of prosecco. The workman is worthy of his hire,' he muttered as he popped the cork. Taking glass and bottle, he retreated to the living room in hopes of finishing that day's
Twenty minutes later, they sat down to lunch. The argument over the CD had apparently been settled, he hoped most fervently in Chiara's favour. She at least still remained browbeaten by her parents into using a Discman: Raffi had last year bought a small stereo system for his room and insisted upon using it to broadcast to the family, and to that part of the world within a fifty-metre radius of their home, a sort of music which made Brunetti think longingly of the symptoms of tinnitus he'd once read about: constant mechanical roaring or buzzing in the ear that blocked out all other sound.
In keeping with the change in season, Paola had made risotto di zucca and into it at the last minute had tossed grated slivers of ginger, its sharp bite softened to amiability by the chunk of butter and the grated parmigiano that had chased it into the pot. The mingled tastes drove all dread of Raffi's music from Brunetti's mind, and the chicken breast grilled with sage and white wine that followed replaced that music with what Brunetti thought must be the sound of angels' singing.
Brunetti set down his fork and turned to his wife. 'Bring me a Braeburn apple, a thin slice of Montasio and a glass of Calvados,' he began, 'and I will cover you in diamonds the size of walnuts, place pearls as white as truffles at your feet, pluck emeralds as large as kiwi fruit...'
Chiara cut him off before he could continue. 'Oh,
