cabinets filled with boxes of pharmaceuticals, and the end of a paper-sheeted exarnining table emerging from behind a portable screen.
Calamandri got to his feet and leaned across his desk to offer his hand, first to Signorina Elettra and then to Brunetti. He said good afternoon and indicated two of the chairs in front of his desk. Dottor Fontana took the remaining seat to their right.
'I have your file here,' Calamandri said in a businesslike voice. From a pile of folders, with unerring aim, he pulled out a brown manila one. He pushed papers to one side to clear a space and opened the file. He placed his right palm, fingers spread, on the contents and looked at them. Tve seen the results of all of your tests and exams, and I think the best thing I can do is tell you the truth.' Signorina Elettra raised a hand halfway to her mouth. Calamandri went on, ‘I realize this will not be the news you came here hoping for, but it's the most honest information I can give you.'
Signorina Elettra let out a small sigh as her hand fell to her lap, where it joined the other in grasping at her handbag. Brunetti glanced at her and put a comforting hand on her arm.
Calamandri waited for her to speak, or Brunetti, but when neither did, he went on, ‘I could suggest that you have the tests done again’
Signorina Elettra cut him off with a violent shake of her head. 'No. No more tests’ she said in a harsh voice. Turning to Brunetti, she said, voice grown softer, ‘I can't do that again, Guido’
Calamandri raised a comforting hand and said, addressing Brunetti, 'I'm afraid I agree with your, er...' Failing to find the word to describe her connection with Brunini, Calamandri turned his attention to Signorina Elettra directly and repeated, ‘I'm afraid I agree with you, Signora.' She responded with a small, pained smile.
Glancing back and forth between Brunetti and Signorina Elettra to show that what he had to say now was intended for both of them, Calamandri added, 'The tests you've had, both of you, are definitive. You've had them twice, so there is really no purpose in your bothering with them again.' He looked at the papers in front of him, then towards Brunetti. 'In the second test, the count is even lower’
Brunetti thought of lowering his head in shame at this blow to his masculinity but refused the temptation and continued to meet the doctor's eye, but he did so nervously.
To Signorina Elettra, Calamandri said, ‘I don't know what the other doctors have told you, Signora, but from what I read here, I'd say that there is almost no likelihood of conception.' He turned a page, glanced at whatever had been concocted there by Rizzardi and his friend at the lab, then back at her. 'How old were you when this happened?' he asked.
'Eighteen’ she answered, meeting his glance.
'If I might ask, why did you wait so long to have the infection treated?' he asked, managing to keep any sign of reproach out of his voice.
'I was younger then’ she answered and gave a small shrug, as if to distance herself from that younger person.
Calamandri said nothing, and his silence eventually prodded her into self-justification. 'I thought it was something else. You know, a bladder infection or something like that; one of those fungus things you get.' She turned to Brunetti and took his hand. 'But by the time I went to a doctor, the infection had spread.'
Brunetti was careful to keep his eyes on her face, gazing at her as though she were rearing a sonnet or singing a lullaby to the child they could not have, instead of referring to a bout of venereal disease. He hoped Calamandri had enough experience to recognize a man gone stupid through love. Or lust. Brunetti had seen enough of bom to believe the signs were identical.
'Did they tell you then what the consequences of the infection were likely to be, Signora?' Calamandri asked: 'that you probably would not be able to have children?'
'I told you’ she said, making no attempt to disguise the anger that underlay her embarrassment, 'I was younger then.' She shook her head a few times and pulled her hand back from
Brunetti's to wipe at her eyes. Then she looked at Brunetti and said, with an intensity that suggested no one was in the room with them, 'That was before I met you,
‘I see,' the doctor said, and closed the file. He folded his hands and placed them very sombrely on top of it. He glanced at his colleague and said, 'Do you have anything to add, Dottoressa?'
She leaned forward and spoke to Brunetti, who sat on the other side of Signorina Elettra. 'Before. I looked at the file, I thought assisted conception might be possible, but after seeing the X-rays and reading the report from the doctors at the Ospedale Civile, I no longer think that’s feasible.'
Signorina Elettra burst out, 'Don't blame me.'
As if she had not spoken, Dottoressa Fontana continued, turning her attention to her colleague, 'As you say, Dottore, the sperm count is too low, so I don't think it's likely that conception could take place in the normal fashion in any case, regardless of the Signora's condition’ She turned to Signorina Elettra and said coolly, 'We're doctors, Signora. We don't blame people; we simply try to treat them’
'So what does that mean?' Brunetti asked before Signorina Elettra had a chance to speak.
'I'm afraid it means,' said Calamandri with a small tightening of his lips, 'that we can't help you’
'But that's not what I was told,' Brunetti blustered.
'By whom, Signore?’ Calamandri inquired. 'By my doctor in Venice. He said you worked miracles.'
Calamandri smiled and shook his head. 'I'm afraid only
'But I have the money,' Brunetti said. 'There's got to be something you can do.'
'I'm afraid the only thing I can do, Signore,' Calamandri said with a very conspicuous glance at his watch, 'is to suggest that you and your wife consider the possibility of adoption. The process is a long one and perhaps not the easiest, but in your circumstances, it's the only route I can see that might be open to you.'
How did she manage to blush, Brunetti wondered? How on earth did Signorina Elettra manage to have her entire face, even her ears, flush a bright red and remain that way for long seconds as she looked down into her lap and began to snap open and closed the hinge on her bag?
'We're not married,' Brunetti said in order to end the silence, something no one else in the room seemed willing or able to do. 'I'm separated from my wife. Well, not legally, that is. And Elettra and I have been together now for more than a year’ His wife, the joy of his life, was in Venice and he was in Verona, so he was indeed separated from her. There existed no legal separation between them and, please heaven, let that possibility remain always as absurd as it was at this moment. And Signorina Elettra had been working at the Questura for a decade now, so he and she had been together, surely, for more than a year. Whatever their profound deceit, then, all of his statements were quite literally true.
He glanced aside at Signorina Elettra and saw that she was still staring at her lap, though her hands were quiet now, and her face had grown a deathly white. 'So, you see,' he said, looking back at Calamandri, 'we can't adopt. That's why we hoped to be able to have a baby. Together.'
After quite a long time, Calamandri said, ‘I see.' He closed Brunetti's file and slid it to his right. He glanced at Dottoressa Fontana, but she had nothing to say. Calamandri got to his feet. Dottoressa Fontana followed suit, as did Brunetti. When Signorina Elettra remained in her seat, Brunetti bent down and placed a hand on her shoulder. 'Come on,
She turned a tear-streaked face to him and said, voice pleading, 'But you said we'd have a baby. You said you'd do anything.'
Kneeling at her side and pulling her weeping face into his shoulder, Brunetti said softly, but not so softly that the other two would not hear, ‘I did promise. I promise on my mother's head. I'll do anything.' He looked at Calamandri and Fontana, but they were already leaving.
When they had closed the door behind them, Brunetti helped Signorina Elettra to her feet and placed his arm around her shoulders. ‘Come on, Elettra, we'll go home now. There's nothing else here for us.'
'But you promise, you promise you'll do something?' she pleaded.
'Anything’ Brunetti repeated, and led the weeping woman towards the door.
15
