The Girl of his Dreams

'I've seen little need of that over the years, Signore, if you don't mind my saying so.' She stepped back to let him enter, having no doubt assumed that he would want to speak to the pastor.

‘I don't mean to disturb the parroco’ he lied.

'No, it's no trouble for him, Signore. Believe me. Padre Stefano's just finished lunch, so he's free.' She started towards the steps leading to the upper part of the house, then looked back at him to add in a softer voice, 'He'll be glad of the company, I'm sure.'

While she paused at the top to draw a few deep breaths, Brunetti admired a print of the Sacred Heart on the wall to his right. The long-haired Christ pressed one hand to his chest and held up the other, first finger raised as though trying to get the waiter's attention.

Brunetti was released from contemplation by the sound of the woman's feet moving off down the corridor. He was suddenly aware of how cold it was in the hallway, cold and damp as though the springtime that was busy with the rest of the city had not yet found time to get here. He understood, now, why the woman wore two thick sweaters and heavy brown stockings of the sort he had not seen for decades.

She stopped outside a door on the right and knocked a few times, waited a moment, and then knocked again with force sufficient to do an injury either to her knuckles or the panelling of the door. She must have heard something, for she opened the door and stepped inside, saying loudly, 'Padre Stefano, there's someone to see you.'

Brunetti heard a man's voice answer, but he could not make out the words. The woman appeared at the door and waved him inside. 'Would you like something to drink, Signore? He's had his coffee, but I could easily make you one.'

'That's very kind of you, Signora,' Brunetti said, 'but I just had one in the campo’

She wavered, caught between the demands of hospitality and those of age, so Brunetti insisted, 'Really, Signora, it's as though I'd accepted.'

This seemed to satisfy her. She told him she would be downstairs if he wanted anything and left the room.

Brunetti moved towards where the voice had come from. To the left of the windows that looked out on the campo, but facing away from them, an old man sat in a deep armchair, looking as lost between its arms as the Contessa had in hers. Woolly white hair surrounded a natural tonsure that was, like the skin of his face, almost as white as his hair. The eyes of a child looked out of the face of an ascetic. He glanced up at Brunetti, braced his hands on the arms of the chair, and started to push himself to his feet.

'No, Father, please don't bother,' Brunetti said and closed the distance between them before the older man could hoist himself up from the chair.

Brunetti bent over and extended his right hand. 'How nice to see you, my son. How kind of you to come and visit an old man.' He spoke in Veneziano in a sweet, high tenor. Had the old man's hand been made of paper, Brunetti could have been no more frightened of crushing it with his own.

He must have been a tall man once, Brunetti thought. He saw it in the long bones of the priest's wrists and in the length of bone between ankle and knee. The old man wore the long white tunic of his order, his black scapular rusty with age and repeated washing. He wore black leather bedroom slippers, the sole of one of them hanging loose like a cat's mouth.

'Please, please, have a seat’ the priest said, looking about with puzzled eyes, as if suddenly conscious of where he was and concerned about finding a chair for his guest.

Brunetti found a heavy wooden armchair with a tattered embroidery seat and carried it over. He sat and smiled at the older man, who leaned forward, reaching across the narrow distance between them, to pat Brunetti's knee. 'How nice to see you, my son. How nice that you've come to see me.' The old man considered this marvel for some time and then asked, 'Did you come for me to hear your confession, my son?'

Brunetti smiled and shook his head. 'No, Father, thank you.' When Brunetti saw the look he gave at this, he raised his voice and said, 'I've already made my confession, Father. But it's very kind of you to ask.' Well, he had made his confession, hadn't he? And there certainly was no need to tell this old man how many decades ago it had been made.

The priest's expression softened and he asked, 'What may I do for you, then?'

'I'd like to ask you about your guest.'

'Guest?' the old man repeated, as if he weren't sure he had heard the word correctly or, if he had, what the word might mean. He glanced over Brunetti's shoulder and had a look around the room. Guest?

'Yes, Father. About Padre Antonin Scallon.'

The priest's face changed; perhaps it was nothing more than a sudden tightness around the mouth, a fading of the brightness in his eyes. 'Padre Scallon?' he asked in a neutral voice, and Brunetti heard thunder in his failure to refer to his guest by his first name.

'Yes,' Brunetti said, as though unaware of the change in the priest's manner. 'He came to my mother's funeral last week, and I wanted to thank him for it.' As he realized how loud he was speaking and felt almost deafened by it, he watched the priest's reaction to the neutrality in his voice. Just to make the message clear, Brunetti added, 'My wife said I should come and thank him.'

'And without your wife's suggestion?' the priest enquired, and the astuteness with which he asked the question made Brunetti revise his assessment of this man as perhaps feeble of mind as well as hearing.

Brunetti gave something that was meant to resemble a shrug and then, as though suddenly conscious of how rude this might appear, he said, 'It's the correct thing to do, Padre. He was at school with my brother, and so someone from the family should thank him.'

'And your brother?' the old man asked.

Making an attempt to look evasive, Brunetti said, 'My brother couldn't come, so he asked me to.'

‘I see, I see,' the priest answered and staring at his own hands, one of which, Brunetti noticed only now, held a rosary. He looked up and asked, 'Was there no time at the funeral?'

'Well, we were all a bit… how shall I say this? We were distracted, and so when we got back to Sergio's house we realized that none of us had thought to invite him along with us.'

'But if he said the Mass, wouldn't he have been invited?' the old man asked.

Brunetti did his best to look embarrassed. 'My mother's parish priest said the Mass, Padre. Padre Scallon,' he said, referring to him formally, 'was at the cemetery, and he gave a blessing there.'

'Ah, I understand now’ the priest said. 'So you'd like to thank him for giving the blessing?'

'Yes. But if he's not here, perhaps I could come back’ Brunetti suggested, though he had no intention of doing so.

'You could leave him a note’ the old man said. ‘I know, I know. I could have done that. But it was a sign of respect for our mother for him to come, and

so… ‘ Brunetti let his voice trail off. ‘I hope you can understand, Padre’

'Yes’ he said with a smile that enveloped Brunetti in its sweetness, 'I think I can understand that.' He lowered his head, and Brunetti saw a few of the beads pass through his fingers. Then he looked back at Brunetti and said, ‘It's strange, the death of our mothers. It's usually one of the first funerals we go to, and at the time I'm sure we think it's the worst. But if we're lucky, then it turns out to be the best.'

Brunetti let some time pass then said, 'I'm not sure I follow you, Padre.'

'If we were lucky, then all we'll have is good memories and not painful ones. I think it's easier to let someone go when that's true. And we usually have good memories of a mother. If we're luckier still, we were good to them and don't have anything to reproach ourselves with: often, that's so.' When Brunetti did not speak, he asked, 'Were you good to yours?'

Brunetti, having deceived this man about Antonin, owed him the truth at least about this, and so he said, 'Yes. I was good to her. But now that she's gone, I keep thinking that I wasn't good enough.'

The priest smiled again and said, 'Oh, we're never good enough to anyone, are we?'

Brunetti restrained the impulse to put his hand on the old man's arm. Instead, he asked, 'Am I correct in thinking that you have some reservations about Antonin, Padre?' Before the priest could answer, Brunetti said, 'I'm sorry if I put it that way: I don't want to create an awkward situation for you. You don't have to answer: it's none of my business, really'

The priest thought this over and then surprised