'That’s a sweeping condemnation, to say the least’ Brunetti commented. 'But none the less true.'
'How long have you known them?' Brunetti asked, interested in fact as well as opinion.
'All my life, probably, at least by reputation. I don't think I had anything to do with them directly until I was back here after the war, when they served as notary, occasionally, when my family bought property.'
Working for you?'
'No.' The Count was emphatic. 'For the sellers.' 'Did they ever work for you?'
'Once’ the Count said tersely. 'At the very beginning.' What happened?'
The Count waited a long time before answering, sipped at his grappa, savoured it, and went on. 'You'll understand if I don't explain in detail’ he said, a genuflection to their mutual belief that only the most minimal explanation of any financial dealing should ever be given to anyone. Brunetti thought of Lele's refusal to discuss anything of importance on the phone and wondered if suspicion were now a genetic trait peculiar to Italians. 'Our purchase of a particular property was based on Filipetto's examination of the records of ownership, and he assured us that it belonged to one of the heirs. My father went ahead and paid a certain amount to the heir’ The Count paused here, allowing Brunetti time to conclude that the payment had been in cash, not recorded, most probably illegal, and hence the reason for his refusal to discuss the matter on the phone. 'And then, when the case had to be decided in court, it turned out that, not only did this person have no legal right to the property, but Filipetto was fully aware of that fact and had probably always been. I never learned whose idea the payment was, his or the heir's, but I'm certain it was divided equally between them.' Brunetti was surprised at how calm the Count's voice and expression remained. Perhaps after a lifetime spent swimming in the shoals of business, a shark was just another sort of fish. 'Since that time,' the Count went on, ‘I have had no dealings with him’
Brunetti glanced at his watch and saw that it was after ten. What time do you have to leave tomorrow?' he asked.
'It doesn't matter. I don't need much sleep any more. That need, like so many desires, seems to decrease with age’
The Count's reference to age sent Brunetti's thoughts to Signora Jacobs. There's an old Austrian woman mixed up in this somehow,' he said. 'Hedwig Jacobs. Do you know her?'
The name's familiar,' the Count said,
'She was Guzzardi's lover.'
'Poor woman, even if she is an Austrian’
'Austrian or not, she remained loyal to him,' Brunetti said, surprised at his speed in leaping to the old woman's defence. When the Count didn't respond, Brunetti added, 'It was fifty years ago.'
The Count considered that for some time and then sighed and said, 'Yes.' He got up, went to the drinks cabinet and came back with the bottle of grappa. He poured them both another glass, set the bottle on the table between them and returned to his seat. 'Fifty years,' the Count repeated, and Brunetti was struck by the sadness with which he spoke.
Perhaps it was the hour, the strange intimacy of their sitting together in the silent
'Are you proud of what you did during the war?' Brunetti asked impulsively, as surprised at the question as was the Count.
If he thought his father-in-law would have to consider before he answered, Brunetti was mistaken, for the answer came instantly. 'No, I'm not proud - I was at the beginning, I suppose. But I was young, little more than a boy. When the war finished I wasn't even eighteen yet, but I'd been living and acting like a man, or like I thought a man was supposed to act, for more than two years. But I had the moral age,' the Count began, paused for a moment and gave Brunetti a smile that seemed strangely sweet, 'of a boy, or the ethical age of a boy, if you will.'
He looked down and studied the carpet at his feet and flicked one errant strand of the fringe back into place; Brunetti was reminded of Claudia Leonardo and the circumstances of her death. The Count's voice summoned him back. 'No one should ever be proud of killing a man, especially men like the ones we killed toward the end.' He looked up at Brunetti, willing him to understand. ‘I suppose everyone has an image of the typical German soldier: a blond giant with the death's head insignia of the SS on his shoulder, wiping the blood from his bayonet after putting it through the throat of, oh, I don't know, a nun or someone's mother. The men I was with said they saw some of those at the beginning, but at the end, they were just terrified boys dressed in mismatched jackets and trousers and calling them a uniform, and carrying guns and hoping they were a real army because they did.
'But they were just boys, frightened out of their wits at the thought of death, just like we were.' He sipped at his grappa, then cradled the glass between his hands. 'I remember one of the last ones we killed.' His voice was calm, dispassionate, as if far removed from the events he was describing. 'He might have been sixteen at the most. We had a trial, or what we called a trial. But it was just like what they say in American movies: 'Give him a fair trial and then hang him.' Only we shot him. Oh, we thought we were important, such heroes, playing at being lawyers and judges. He was a kid, absolutely helpless, and there was no reason we couldn't have kept him as a prisoner. They surrendered a week later. But by then he was dead.'
The Count turned away and glanced toward the window. Lights were visible on the other side of the Canal, and he looked at them while he continued. ‘I wasn't part of the squad that shot him, but I had to lead him up to the wall and give him the handkerchief to tie around his eyes. I'm sure someone had read about that in some book or seen it in a movie. It always seemed to me, even then, that it would be better to let them see the men who were going to kill them. They deserved that much. Or that little. But maybe that's why we did it, so that they couldn't see us.'
He paused for a long time, perhaps considering the explanation he'd just given, then went on. 'He was terrified. Just as I reached up to cover his eyes, he wet his pants. I felt no pity for him then; I suppose I even felt good about it, that we had so reduced this German to such shameful terror. It would have been kinder to ignore it, but there was no kindness in me then, nor in any of us. I looked down at the stain on his pants and he saw me looking. Then he started to cry, and I understood enough German to understand what he said. 'I want my mother. I want my mother,' and then he couldn't stop sobbing. His chin was down on his chest, and I couldn't tie the handkerchief around his eyes, so I moved away from him, and they shot him. I suppose I could have used the handkerchief to wipe away his tears but, as I said, I was a young man then, and there was no pity in me.'
The Count turned away from the lights and back towards Brunetti. ‘I looked down at him after they shot him, and I saw his face covered with snot, and his chest with blood, and the war ended for me then, in that instant. I didn't think about it, not in big terms, I suppose not in anything I could call ethical terms, but I knew that what we had done was wrong and that we'd murdered him, just as much as if we'd found him sleeping in his bed, in his mother's house, and cut his throat. There was no glory in what we were doing, and no purpose whatsoever was served by it. The next day, we shot three more. With the first one I was party to it and I still thought it was right, but after that, even when I realized what we were doing, I still didn't have the courage to try to stop the others from doing it because I was afraid of what would happen to me if I did. So, to answer your question again, no, I'm not proud of what I did in the war.'
The Count emptied his glass and set it on a table. He stood. ‘I don't think there's anything more I want to say about this.'
Brunetti stood and, compelled by an impulse that surprised him, walked over to the Count and embraced him, held him in his arms for a long moment, then turned and left the study.
17
Paola was asleep when he got home, and though she swam up long enough to ask him how it had gone with her father, she was so dull that Brunetti simply said that they'd talked. He kissed her and went to see if the kids were home and in bed. He opened Raffi's door after knocking lightly and found his son lying face down, sprawled in a giant X, one arm and one foot hanging off the edge of the bed. Brunetti thought of the boy's heritage: one grandfather come back from Russia with only four toes and half a spirit, the other willing executioner of unarmed boys. He closed the door and checked on Chiara, who was neatly asleep under unwrinkled covers. In bed he lay for some time thinking about his family, and then he slept deeply.
