Suffer the Little Children

released her arm.

'Thank you,' she said, still breathing heavily. Eyes still closed, she said, 'It was terrible. The noise woke me up. Men shouting, and when I looked, I saw a man hit Gustavo with something, and then he was on the ground, and then Alfredo started to scream, and I thought they were there to hurt us.'

She opened her eyes and looked at Brunetti. 'I think we must have been a little crazy. From the fear.'

‘Fear of what, Signora?' Brunetti asked softly, hoping his question would not propel her into rage again.

That they'd arrest us,' she said.

'Because of the baby?'

She lowered her head, but he heard her answer, 'Yes.'

8

'Would you like to tell me about it, Signora?' Brunetti asked. He glanced along the corridor and saw the man in the white lab coat leave the room on the left and head back towards the double glass doors at the end of the corridor. The man went through the doors, turned, and disappeared.

Experience told Brunetti to remain as still as he could until his presence became an almost imperceptible part of the woman's surroundings. A minute passed, and then another. Intensely aware of the woman beside him, he continued to gaze off down the corridor.

Finally she said, in a softer voice, 'We couldn't have children. And we couldn't adopt.' Another pause, and then she added, 'Or, if we

could have, by the time our papers were processed and we were approved, the only children we could have would be ... well, would be older. But we wanted’ she said, and Brunetti prepared himself to hear what she would say,

.. a baby’ She spoke calmly, as though entirely unconscious of the pathos of what she had said, and Brunetti found an even greater pathos in that.

He still did not look at her; he permitted himself to nod in acknowledgement, but still he said nothing.

'My sister isn't married, but Gustavo's sister has three children,' she said. 'And his brother has two.' She glanced at him as if to register his response to this evidence of their failure, and went on. 'Then someone here at the hospital -I think it was one of his colleagues, or one of his patients - well, someone told Gustavo about a private clinic’ He waited for her to continue, and she added. 'We went and we had tests, and there were ... there were problems.' The fact that Brunetti knew about the nature of the visit embarrassed him as much as if he had been caught reading someone else's mail.

Idly, she rubbed the toe of her shoe against a long scratch in the floor tiles that had been left by a cart or some heavy object. Still looking down, she added, 'We both had problems. If it had been just one of us, it might have been possible. But with both of us.. ‘ Brunetti let the pause stretch out until she added, 'He saw the results. He didn't want to tell me, but I made him.'

Brunetti's profession had made him a master of pauses: he could distinguish them the way a concert-master could distinguish the tones of the various strings. There was the absolute, almost belligerent pause, after which nothing would come unless in response to questions or threats. There was the attentive pause, after which the speaker measured the effect on the listener of what had just been said. And there was the exhausted pause, after which the speaker needed to be left undisturbed until emotional control returned.

Judging that he was listening to the third, Brunetti remained silent, certain that she would eventually continue. A sound came down the corridor: a moan or the cry of a sleeping person. When it stopped, the silence seemed to expand to fill its place.

Brunetti glanced at her then and nodded, a gesture that could be read as agreement or as encouragement to continue. She apparently took it as both and went on, 'After we had the results, we had no choice but to resign ourselves. To not having a baby. But then Gustavo - it must have been a few months after we went to the clinic - he said that he was examining the possibility of private adoption.'

It sounded to Brunetti as if she were repeating a statement she had prepared in advance. ‘I see, he said neutrally. 'What sort of possibility?'

She shook her head and said, her voice barely above a whisper, 'He didn't say.'

Though Brunetti doubted this, he gave no indication and merely asked, 'Did he mention the clinic?'

She gave him a puzzled glance, and Brunetti explained. The clinic where you had the tests.'

She shook her head. 'No, he never mentioned the clinic, only that there was a possibility that we could have a baby.'

'Signora,' Brunetti said, 'I can't force you to tell me these things.' In a certain sense this was true, but sooner or later someone would have the authority to force her to do so.

She must have realized this, for she continued, 'He didn't say from where, said he didn't want me to get my hopes up, but that it was something he thought he could arrange. I assumed it was because of his work or because of people he knew.' She looked through the window, then at Brunetti. 'If I have to tell the truth, I suppose I didn't want to know. He said that everything would be in regola and that it would be legal. He said he had to claim that the child was his, but it wouldn't be: he told me that.'

Had he been questioning a suspect, Brunetti would have asked, voice pumped full of scepticism, 'And you believed him?' Instead, in the voice of concerned friendship, he asked, 'But he didn't tell you how this would happen, Signora?' He allowed three beats to pass and added, 'Or did you think to ask him?'

She shook the question away. 'No. I think I didn't want to know. I just wanted it to happen. I wanted a baby.'

Brunetti gave her a moment to recover from what she had said, then asked, 'Did he tell you anything about the woman?'

'Woman?' she asked, genuinely confused.

'Whose baby it was.'

She hesitated but then tightened her lips. 'No. Nothing.' Brunetti had the strange sensation that she had aged during this conversation, that the lines formerly confined to her neck had migrated up to the sides of her mouth and eyes.

'I see,' Brunetti said. 'And you never learned any more?' Surely, thought Brunetti, the man must have told her something; she must have wanted to know.

He saw that her eyes in fact were light grey and not green. 'No,' she said, lowering her head. 'I never discussed it with Gustavo: I didn't want to. He thought - Gustavo, that is - well, I suppose he thought it would upset me to know. He told me he wanted me to think from the very beginning that the baby was ours, and...' She stopped herself, and Brunetti had the feeling that she had forced herself not to add some vital final phrase.

'Of course,' Brunetti muttered when he realized she was not going to end the sentence. He had no idea how much more he could induce her to tell him, and he did not want to continue to question her if, by displaying curiosity rather than concern, he weakened the confidence she appeared to have developed in him.

Sandra opened the door to the room down the corridor and gestured to Signora Marcolini.

'Your husband's very agitated, Signora. Perhaps you could come and speak to him.' Her concern was evident, and Pedrolli's wife responded to it instantly by joining her at the door, then closing it after them.

Assuming that she would be some time in the room with her husband, Brunetti decided to try to find Dottor Damasco and ask if there had been any change in Pedrolli's condition. He knew the way to neurologia, and when he got there he started down the corridor toward where he knew the doctors had their offices.

He found the door, but when he knocked, a male nurse who was passing told him that the doctor was just finishing his rounds and usually came back to his office after that. When he added that this should be within the next ten minutes or so, Brunetti said he would wait. When the nurse was gone, he sat in one of the now-familiar, and familiarly uncomfortable, orange chairs. Without anything to read, Brunetti leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes, the better to consider what he might ask Dottor Damasco.

'Signore? Signore?' was the next thing he heard. He opened his eyes and saw the male nurse. 'Are you all right, Signore?' the young man asked.

'Yes, yes,' Brunetti said, pushing himself to his feet. It all came back, and he asked, 'Is the doctor free