The Girl of his Dreams

Antonin shook his head but gave no explanation, forcing Brunetti to ask, 'Why?'

'He married again after his wife – Patrizia's mother -died, and she and Patrizia have never… they've never got on.'

'I see,' Brunetti murmured.

To him, it seemed a relatively common story: a family was in danger of losing its home and had to find a place to live. Brunetti saw this as the major problem: a homeless child and her mother, an apartment which they might have to leave and another one to which they could not return. The solution was to find them a home, yet this seemed not to concern Antonin, or if it did concern him, it seemed to do so only because it was related to the sale of the young man's house.

'Where is this apartment he inherited?'

'In Campo Santa Maria Mater Domini. You look straight across at it when you come down the bridge. Top floor.'

'How big is it?'

'Why do you want to know all this?' the priest asked. 'How big is it?'

'About two hundred and fifty square metres.'

Depending on the condition, the state of the roof, the number of windows, the views, when the last restoration had been done, the place could be worth a fortune, just as easily as it could be a pit greatly in need of major work and major expenditure. But still worth a fortune.

'But I have no idea what it could be worth. I don't know that sort of thing’ Antonin said after a long time.

Brunetti nodded in apparent belief and understanding, though the discovery of a Venetian ignorant of the value of a piece of real estate would ordinarily trigger a phone call to Il Gazzettino.

'Have you any idea how much money he's already given this man?' Brunetti asked.

'No’ the priest answered instantly, then added, 'Patrizia won't tell me. I think it embarrasses her.'

‘I see’ Brunetti said. Then, trying to sound solemn, he went on, 'Too bad. Too bad for all of them.' The priest created two more creases in the cloth of his tunic. 'What is it you'd like me to do, Antonin?' Brunetti asked.

Eyes still lowered, the priest answered, 'I'd like you to see what you can find out about this man.'

'The one from Umbria?'

'Yes. Only I don't think he is’

'Where do you think he's from, then?'

'The South. Maybe Calabria. Maybe Sicily’

'Um-hum’ was all Brunetti was willing to hazard.

The priest looked at him, letting the cloth drop on to his lap. 'It's not that I recognize anything or know the dialects down there, only he sounds like the actors I hear in the films who are meridionali or who are playing the parts of men who come from there.' He tried to find a better way to explain this. 'I was out of the country so long, maybe I'm not an accurate judge any more. But that's what he sounds like, though only at times. Most of the time, he speaks standard Italian.' He gave a self-effacing snort and added, 'Probably better than I do.'

'When did you have a chance to listen to him?' Brunetti asked, wondering if he had phrased the question innocuously enough.

'I went to one of their meetings’ the priest answered. 'It was in the apartment of one of them, a woman whose whole family has joined. Over near San Giacomo dell'Orio. It started at seven. People came in. They all seemed to know one another. And then the leader, this man I mentioned, came in and greeted them all’

'Was your friend's son there?'

'Yes. Of course.'

'Did you go with him?'

'No,' Antonin answered, obviously surprised by the question. 'He didn't know me then.' Antonin paused a moment, then added, 'And I didn't wear my habit when I went’

'How long ago was this?'

'About three months.'

'No talk of money?'

'Not that night. No.'

'But some other time?'

'The next time I went,' Antonin began, apparently having forgotten saying he had gone to only one meeting, 'he spoke, this Brother Leonardo, about the need to help the less fortunate members of the community. That's what he called them, 'less fortunate', as though it would hurt them to be called poor. The people there must have been prepared for this because some of them had envelopes, and when he said this they pulled them out and passed them forward to him.'

'How did he behave when this happened?' Brunetti asked, this time with the real curiosity that was beginning to stir in him.

'He looked surprised, though I don't see why he should have been’

Brunetti asked, 'Is it like this at all the meetings?'

Antonin raised a hand in the air. ‘I went to only one more, and the same thing happened then’

'I see, I see’ Brunetti muttered and then asked, 'And your friend's son, is he still going to these meetings?'

'Yes. Patrizia complains about it all the time.'

Ignoring the accusatory tone, Brunetti asked, 'Can you tell me anything more about this Brother Leonardo?'

'His surname is Mutti, and the mother house – if that's what it's called, and if there really is one – is somewhere in Umbria.'

'Are they associated with the Church in any way, do you know?'

'You mean the Catholic Church?' Antonin asked. 'Yes.'

'No, they're not.' His response was so absolute that Brunetti didn't pursue it.

After some time, Brunetti asked, 'What is it, precisely, that you'd like me to do?'

'I'd like to know who this man is and whether he's really a monk or a friar or whatever he says he is.' Brunetti kept to himself his surprise that the priest should want to farm out this research: wouldn't it be easier for a person who was, as it were, in the business to attend to something like this?

'Do they have a name?'

'The Children of Jesus Christ.'

'Exactly where in San Giacomo do they meet?'

'You know that restaurant to the right of the church?'

'The one with the tables outside?'

'Yes. There's a calle by the restaurant, first door on the left. The name on the bell is Sambo.'

Brunetti jotted this down on the back of an envelope on his desk. The man had sprinkled water on his mother's casket, and he had also gone to visit her in her last days, and so Brunetti felt himself in the priest's debt. 'I'll see what I can do,' he said and got to his feet.

The priest rose and put out his hand.

Brunetti took it, but the memory of the priest's fingernails made him glad that the handshake was brief and perfunctory. He took the priest to the door, then stood at the top of the steps and watched him walk down and out of sight.

5

Brunetti went back to his office, but instead of returning to his chair, he went and stood by the window. After a few minutes, the priest appeared two floors below, at the foot of the bridge leading over to Campo San Lorenzo, easily recognizable even from this acute angle by his long black skirts. As Brunetti watched, he started slowly up