Beastly Things

humming noise he heard Vianello making and now understanding that it succeeded in blocking out some of the noise that rose up from what was still going on below them. Something appeared beside him, at shoulder height, appearing to keep pace. Brunetti broke step for a moment but quickly regained control and kept walking, his eyes straight in front and not for an instant giving in to the temptation to look at what was floating alongside him.

He found Vianello slumped on one of the benches in the changing room, one arm removed from his protective suit, the other forgotten, or trapped, inside it. He looked to Brunetti like one of the heroes of the Iliad, broken in defeat, armour hanging half slashed from his body, the enemy about to slay him and strip him clean. Brunetti sat beside him, then slumped forward and rested his forearms on his thighs and remained like that, staring at his shoes. Anyone seeing them from the doorway would see two middle-aged but oddly dressed athletes, exhausted by the game they had just played, waiting for the coach to come in and tell them how they’d done.

But there was no sign of Coach Bianchi. Brunetti leaned down and slipped off the plastic shoe covers and kicked them aside, then shoved himself to his feet and fumbled to unzip his suit. He slipped his arms out, then pushed it down below his knees and sat down again to rip it over his shoes. For want of anything else to do, he picked it up and made a sloppy attempt to fold it, then simply dropped it in a heap on the bench beside him.

Turning to Vianello, Brunetti noticed that he had not moved. ‘Come on, Lorenzo. The driver’s outside.’

Moving like a man asleep or under water, Vianello pulled his other arm free and used both hands to push himself upright. He yanked the suit down, failing to notice that he had not unzipped it down to the bottom. It stuck at his waist and hips and hard as he pushed at it, he could not force himself free.

‘The zipper, Lorenzo,’ Brunetti said, pointing to it, reluctant to try to help him. Vianello saw what he had to do, and did it. He too sat down, first to remove his shoes, then to slip the suit over his feet, and then to replace his shoes. He had a moment of confusion before he figured out he had to remove the plastic covers before he put his shoes back on, but once he saw that, he was quickly finished. Like Brunetti, he bunched his suit together and left it on the bench beside where he had been sitting.

‘Bene,’ Vianello said. ‘Andemmo.’

In the continued absence of Bianchi and Signorina Borelli, the two men retraced their steps towards the entrance. When they walked outside, the sun fell across their bodies, their heads, their hands, even their feet, with a generosity and grace that made Brunetti think of the carvings he had seen of Akhenaten receiving the radiant blessing of Aten, the sun god. They stood there, as silent as Egyptian statues themselves, letting the sun warm them and cleanse them of the miasmic air of the building.

Soon enough the car appeared just in front of them, neither having heard it approach, their ears still attuned to the things they had heard inside.

The driver lowered the window and called to them, ‘You ready to leave?’

20

THIS TIME, BOTH of them got into the back seat of the car. Though the day was by no means warm, Brunetti and Vianello rolled down the windows of the car and sat, heads leaning back against the seat, to let the air wash over them. The driver, aware of something he did not understand, remained silent but had the sense to use the car phone to call the Questura and ask that a boat be sent to pick the two men up when they got to Piazzale Roma.

On the way to the city, they passed through quiet countryside that was preparing to expand into the richness of summer. The trees had put out their first green shoots that would unfurl into the magic of leaves. Brunetti gave thanks for the green and for its promise. Birds Brunetti recognized but could not name sat amidst the green shoots, chatting with one another about their recent flight north.

They did not notice the villas this time, only the cars that came towards them or those that passed them and fell into line in front of them. Nor did they speak; neither to one another nor to the driver. They let time pass, knowing that time would take away the brightness of some of their memories. Brunetti returned his attention to the landscape. How lovely it was, he thought: how lovely growing things were: trees, grapevines just waking from the winter, even the water in the ditch at the side of the road would soon help the plants in their scramble back to life.

He turned back to face the oncoming traffic and closed his eyes. After what seemed only a moment, the car came to a halt and the driver said, ‘Here we are, Commissario.’ Brunetti opened his eyes and saw the ACTV ticket office and, beyond it, water and the embarcadero of the Number Two.

Vianello was already getting out of the other side of the car as Brunetti thanked the driver and closed the door gently. He was pleased to see Vianello say something to the driver. The Inspector smiled, smacked his hand lightly on the roof of the car, and turned towards the water.

They went down the low steps and off to the left, where they saw Foa’s assistant, talking to a taxi driver while keeping his eye on the place from which they were likely to appear. Brunetti was astonished to see that the young man looked exactly as he had some hours before. The pilot raised a hand to the brim of his cap, but it might as easily have been a wave of friendly recognition as a salute: Brunetti found himself hoping it was the first.

The pilot reached to hand him that morning’s Gazzettino, folded and stuck behind the wheel. But Brunetti needed to see distance and colour and beauty and life, not the close-together lines of the printed word, so he made no gesture to take it, and the pilot bent to turn on the engine.

‘Don’t go around the back of the station. Let’s go up the canal.’ That way, though the trip would take longer, they would avoid having to make the turn next to the causeway, where they would see the smokestacks of Marghera; they would also avoid having to pass between the hospital and the cemetery. Neither Brunetti nor Vianello spoke, though both chose to remain on deck in the sun. It beat down on them, warming their heads and causing them to sweat under their jackets. Brunetti felt his damp shirt clinging to his back, even felt a faint trickle just over his temple. He had forgotten his sunglasses and so, like some eighteenth-century sea captain, he shielded his eyes with his hand and looked off into the distance. And he saw, not a tropical atoll surrounded by pristine beaches and not the tempestuous waters of the Cape of Good Hope, but the Calatrava Bridge, appearing diaper- clad in its current state, with short-sleeved tourists hanging over the side to take a photo of the police launch. He smiled up at them and waved.

None of the three men spoke as they passed under the bridge, nor when they passed under the next one and the others, nor when they passed the Basilica, and San Giorgio on the right. What would it be, Brunetti tried to imagine, to see all of this for the first time? Virgin eyes? It came to him that this assault of beauty was the opposite of what had happened in Preganziol, though each experience was overwhelming, each ravishing the viewer in its own way.

The pilot glided the launch up to the dock in front of the Questura, hopped out with the mooring rope in his hand, and hitched it over the bollard. As Brunetti stepped from the boat, the pilot started to say something to him, but the engine gave a sudden burp and he jumped back on deck. By the time he cut the motor, Brunetti and Vianello were already inside the building.

Brunetti didn’t know what to say to Vianello: he could not remember ever being in this position, as though what they had just experienced together was so intense as to render all comment, almost to render all future conversation, futile. This awkwardness was broken by the man at the door, who said, ‘Commissario, the Vice- Questore wants to see you.’

The thought of having to talk to Patta came almost as a relief: the predictable unpleasantness of that experience was sure to nudge Brunetti back towards ordinary life. He glanced at Vianello and said, ‘I’ll talk to him, then come and get you, and we’ll go down to the bar.’ First the reintroduction to ordinary life and then the enjoyment of ordinary humanity.

Because Signorina Elettra was not at her desk, Brunetti knocked on Patta’s door with no advance warning of the level, or cause, of his superior’s irritation. He had no doubt that this was the Vice-Questore’s mood: it was only in moments of severe displeasure with his subordinate that the Vice-Questore could be moved to leave an order downstairs telling Brunetti to see him as soon as he came in. Before their meeting, Brunetti, like a gymnast about to leap up to grab the rings, took a few deep breaths and did his best to prepare himself for his performance.

He knocked firmly, made it as manly a sound as he could muster: three quick shots of noise announcing his