Uniform Justice
by
Donna Leon
Donna Leon has lived in Venice for many years and previously lived in
Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, Iran and China, where she worked as a
teacher. Her previous novels featuring Commissario Brunetti have all
been highly acclaimed, most recently Friends in High Places, which won
the CWA Macallan Silver Dagger for Fiction, A Sea of Troubles and
Wilful Behaviour.
Uniform Justice
Also by Donna Leon
In uomini, in sol dati spe rare fe delta
You expect fidelity in men, in soldiers?
Cost fan tutte --Mozart
Thirst woke him. It was not the healthy thirst that follows three sets
of tennis or a day spent skiing, thirst that comes slowly: it was the
grinding, relentless thirst that comes of the body's desperate attempt
to replenish liquids that have been displaced by alcohol. He lay in
his bed, suddenly awake, covered with a thin film of sweat, his
underwear damp and clinging.
At first he thought he could outwit it, ignore it and fall back into
the sodden sleep from which his thirst had prodded him. He turned on
his side, mouth open on the pillow, and pulled the covers up over his
shoulder. But much as his body craved more rest, he could not force it
to ignore his thirst nor the faint nervousness of his stomach. He lay
there, inert and utterly deprived of will, and told himself to go back
to sleep.
For some minutes he succeeded, but then a church bell somewhere towards
the city poked him back to consciousness. The idea of liquid seeped
into his mind: a glass of sparkling mineral water, its sides running
with condensation; the drinking fountain in the corridor of his
elementary school; a paper cup filled with Coca-Cola. He needed liquid
more than anything life had ever presented to him as desirable or
good.
Again, he tried to force himself to sleep, but he knew he had lost and
now had no choice but to get out of bed. He started to think about
which side of bed to get out of and whether the floor of the corridor
would be cold, but then he pushed all of these considerations aside as
violently as he did his blankets and got to his feet. His head
throbbed and his stomach registered resentment of its new position
relative to the floor, but his thirst ignored them both.
He opened the door to his room and started down the corridor, its
length illuminated by the light that filtered in from outside. As he
had feared, the linoleum tiles were harsh on his naked feet, but the
thought of the water that lay ahead gave him the will to ignore the
cold.
He entered the bathroom and, driven by absolute need, headed to the
first of the white sinks that lined the wall. He turned on the cold
tap and let it run for a minute: even in his fuddled state he
remembered the rusty warm taste of the first water that emerged from
those pipes. When the water that ran over his hand was cold, he cupped
both hands and bent down towards them. Noisy as a dog, he slurped the
water and felt it moving inside him, cooling and saving him as it went.
Experience had taught him to stop after the first few mouthfuls, stop
and wait to see how his troubled stomach would respond to the surprise
of liquid without alcohol. At first, it didn't like it, but youth and
good health made up for that, and then his stomach accepted the water
quietly, even asked for more.
