was willing to assume some responsibility for the care of their home,
perhaps as evidence of burgeoning maturity. The real Brunetti,
however, a man hardened by decades of exposure to the furtiveness of
criminals, could see it for what it was: cold-blooded bargaining in
which immediate acquiescence was traded for some future reward.
As Raffi reached across the table to pick up his mother's plate, Paola
smiled upon him with favour and, displaying a familiarity with slyness
equal to that of her husband, got to her feet, saying, Thank you so
much, dear, for offering, and no, you cannot take scuba lessons.'
Brunetti watched her leave the room, then turned to watch his son's
face. Raffi's surprise was patent, and when he saw that his father was
looking at him, he removed that expression but had the grace to smile.
'How does she do that?' Raffi asked. 'All the time.'
Brunetti was about to offer some bromide about its being one of the
powers of mothers to be able to read the minds of their children, when
Chiara, who had been busy finishing the fruit on the platter, looked up
at them and said, 'It's because she reads Henry James.'
In her study, Brunetti told Paola about his run-in with the cadets,
deciding not to mention the rush of animal triumph he had felt when his
foot made contact with the boy's ankle.
'It's a good thing it happened here she said when he finished, then
added, 'in Italy.'
'Why? What do you mean?'
'There are a lot of places where something like that could get you
killed.'
'Name two he said, offended that she could so cavalierly dismiss what
he saw as evidence of his bravery.
'Sierra Leone and the United States, to begin with she said. 'But that
doesn't mean I'm not happy you did it.'
Brunetti said nothing for a long time, then asked, 'Does it show, how
much I dislike them?'
Them who?'
'Boys like that, with their wealthy, well-connected families and their
sense of command.'
'Families like mine, you mean?' In their early years together, before
Brunetti came to realize that the shocking brutality of Paola's honesty
was often entirely unaggressive, he would have been astonished by her
question. Now all he did was answer it. 'Yes.'
She laced her fingers together and propped her chin on her knuckles. 'I
think only someone who knows you very well would see it. Or someone
who pays close attention to what you say.'
'Like you?' he asked, smiling.
'Yes.'
'Why do you think it is, that they get to me so easily?'
She considered this; it was not that she had not thought about it
before, but he had never asked the question so directly. 'I think part
of it is your sense of justice.'
'Not jealousy?' he asked, trying to make sure she would be
complimentary.
'No, at least not jealousy in any simple sense.' He leaned back on the
sofa and latched his fingers behind his head. He shifted around,
seeking a comfortable position, and when she saw that he'd found it,
she went on. 'I think part of it comes from your resentment not that
some people have more than others, but that they don't realize or don't
want to admit that their money doesn't make them superior or give them
the right to anything they choose to do.' When he didn't query this
she continued: 'And from their refusal to consider the possibility that
their greater fortune is not anything they've earned or merited.' She
smiled at him, then said, 'At least I think that's why you dislike them
as much as you do.'
'And you?' he asked. 'Do you dislike them?' With a ringing laugh,
she said, There are too many of them in my family to allow me to.' He
laughed along with her, and she added, 'I did, when I was young and
more idealistic than I am now. But then I realized they weren't going
to change, and I had come by then to love some of them so much and I
knew nothing was ever going to change that, so I saw that I had no
choice but to accept them as they are.' 'Love before truth?' he
asked, striving for irony. 'Love before everything, I'm afraid, Guido
she said in deadly earnest.
As he walked to the Questura the next morning, it occurred to Brunetti
that he had been overlooking at least one anomaly in all of this: why
had the boy been boarding at the school? So caught up had he been in
the order and rules of life at the Academy that, as he searched
Ernesto's room, the obvious question had not arisen: in a culture that
encouraged young people to live at home until their marriage, why was
this young man living away from home, when both parents lived in the
city?
