He glanced at her and she went on. ‘Before drugs. Well, before everyone used drugs.’ She sipped at her wine, then added, ‘I think I might have smoked marijuana twice in my whole life. And thank God it never did anything to me.’
‘Why, “Thank God”?’
‘Because if I had liked it or if it had done for me what it’s supposed to do for people, I might have liked it enough to use it again. Or to move on to something stronger.’
He thought of his similar good fortune.
‘What killed him?’ she asked.
‘Heroin.’
She shook her head.
‘I was with his parents until just now.’ Brunetti sipped again at his wine. ‘His father’s a farmer. They came down from the Trentino to identify him and then went back.’
‘Do they have other children?’
‘There’s one younger sister; I don’t know if there are others.’
‘I hope so,’ Paola said. She stretched out her legs and stuck her feet under his thigh. ‘Do you want to eat?’
‘Yes, but I want to take a shower first.’
‘All right,’ she said, pulling her feet out and setting them on the floor. ‘I’ve made the sauce with peppers and sausage.’
‘I know.’
‘I’ll send Chiara to get you when it’s ready.’ She got to her feet and set her own glass, still more than half full, on the table in front of the sofa. Leaving him there in her study, she went back to the kitchen to finish preparing dinner.
By the time they all sat down, Raffi having returned home just as Paola was serving the pasta, Brunetti’s spirits had lifted a bit. The sight of his two children swirling the freshly made pappardelle around their forks filled him with an animal sense of security and well-being, and he began to eat his own with gusto. Paola had gone to the trouble of scorching and removing the skins of the red peppers, so they were soft and sweet, just as he liked them. The sausages contained large flecks of red and white peppercorns which lay inside the tender filling like depth charges of taste, ready to burst open at the first bite, and Gianni the butcher had used a lot of garlic when making them.
Everyone had second helpings, embarrassingly similar in size to the first. Afterwards, no one had room for anything except green salad, but when that was gone, each of them discovered a tiny space capable of holding just the smallest serving of fresh strawberries flavoured with a drop of balsamic vinegar.
During all of this, Chiara continued in her role as Ancient Mariner, endlessly cataloguing the flora and fauna of far-off lands, presenting them with the shocking information that most eighteenth-century sailors could not swim, and, until Paola reminded her they were eating, describing the symptoms of scurvy.
The children disappeared, Raffi to the Greek aorist and Chiara, if Brunetti understood her aright, to shipwreck in the South Atlantic.
‘Is she going to read all of those books?’ he asked, sipping at his grappa and keeping Paola company as she did the dishes.
‘I certainly hope so,’ Paola answered, attention on the serving platter.
‘Is she reading them because you liked them so much or because she likes them herself?’
Her back to him as she scoured at the bottom of a pot, Paola asked, ‘How old is she?’
‘Fifteen,’ Brunetti answered.
‘Can you name one living fifteen-year-old, indeed, one fifteen-year-old who has ever existed, who does what her mother wants her to do?’
‘Does that mean adolescence has struck?’ he asked. They’d gone through it with Raffi, about twenty years of it, if he remembered correctly, so he did not relish the idea of experiencing it again with Chiara.
‘It’s different with girls,’ Paola said, turning around and wiping her hands on a towel. She poured herself a whisper of grappa and leaned back against the sink.
‘Different how?’
‘They just oppose their mothers, not their fathers, too.’
He considered this. ‘Is that a good thing or a bad thing?’
She shrugged. ‘It’s in the genes or in the culture, so there’s no way we can get around it, whether it’s good or bad. We can just hope it doesn’t last a long time.’
‘How long would that be?’
‘Until she’s eighteen.’ Paola took another sip, and together they considered the prospect.
‘Would the Carmelites take her until then?’
‘Probably not,’ Paola said, voice rich with winsome regret.
‘Do you think this is why the Arabs let their daughters marry so young, to avoid all of this?’
Paola remembered the heated defence Chiara had made that morning of her need to have her own telephone. ‘I’m certain of it.’
‘No wonder people speak of the Wisdom of the East.’
She turned and set her glass in the bottom of the sink. ‘I’ve still got some papers to grade. Want to come and sit with me and see how your Greeks are doing on their trip home while I do it?’
Gratefully Brunetti got to his feet and followed her down the hall to her study.
15
The next morning, and with considerable reluctance, Brunetti did something he seldom did: he involved one of his children in his work. Raffi didn’t have to get to school until eleven and had a date to meet Sara Paganuzzi before then, so he appeared at breakfast looking bright and cheerful, qualities which seldom accompanied him at that hour. Paola was still asleep, and Chiara was in the bathroom, so they sat alone in the kitchen, eating the fresh brioche that Raffi had gone downstairs to get at the local pastry shop.
‘Raffi,’ Brunetti began, as they ate their first brioche, ‘do you know anything about who sells drugs here?’
Raffi paused with the remaining piece of brioche halfway to his mouth. ‘Here?’
‘In Venice.’
‘Drugs like hard drugs or light stuff like marijuana?’
Though he was faintly troubled by the distinction Raffi made and would have liked to know more about the reason for Raffi’s casual dismissal of ‘light stuff like marijuana’, he didn’t ask. ‘Hard drugs: heroin specifically.’
‘Is this about that student who OD’d?’ he asked, and when Brunetti looked surprised his son opened the
‘Yes.’
Raffi broke the remainder of his brioche in two pieces and dipped one into his coffee. After some time he said, ‘There’s talk that there are people at the university who can get it for you.’
‘People?’
‘Students. At least I think so. Well,’ he said after a moment’s reflection, ‘people who are enrolled for classes there.’ He picked up his cup and sat with his elbows propped on the table, the cup encircled in both hands, a gesture he must surely have picked up from Paola. ‘You want me to ask around?’
‘No.’ Brunetti’s answer was immediate. Before his son could respond to the sharpness of his voice, Brunetti added, ‘I’m just curious in general, wondered what people were saying.’ He finished his brioche and sipped at his coffee.
