The Girl of his Dreams

and what would she care if she did?

'The Contessa is waiting to see you,' Luciana said, making it sound as if the other woman were waiting for Christmas. Then she quickly returned to the really important things: 'You're sure they're both eating enough?'

‘If they ate any more than they do, Luciana, I'd have to take a mortgage on the apartment and Paola would have to start taking in private students to tutor,' Brunetti answered, beginning an exaggerated list of what the kids could eat in one day, which left her laughing out loud with one hand held over her mouth to quiet the sound.

Still laughing, she led him across the courtyard and up into the palazzo, and Brunetti made sure the list lasted until they arrived at the corridor that led to the Contessa's study. She stopped there and said, 'I've got to get back to lunch. But I wanted to see you and know that everything's all right.' She patted his arm and turned towards the kitchen, which was at the back of the palazzo.

It always took Brunetti a long time to walk down this hallway because of the Goya etchings from the Disasters of War series. Here the man, just shot, and still hanging from the pole to which he was tied; the children, faces covered in horror; the priests, looking so much like vultures poised at the point of flight, their long necks similarly featherless. How could things this horrible be so beautiful?

He knocked at the door, then heard footsteps approaching. When it opened, Brunetti found himself looking down at another woman who appeared to have grown shorter overnight.

They kissed. Brunetti must have failed to hide his surprise, for she said, It's because I'm wearing low shoes, Guido. No need to worry that I'm turning into a little old lady. Well, littler old lady, that is.'

He looked at the Contessa's feet and saw that she was wearing what looked like a pair of trainers, but the sort on sale in Via XXII Marzo, complete with iridescent silver stripes down the sides. Above them was a pair of what looked like black silk jeans and a red sweater.

Before he could ask, she explained, 'I did a stretching exercise for my yoga class that must have been beyond me, and it seems I've inflamed a tendon. So it's children's shoes and no yoga for a week.' She gave a conspiratorial smile and added, ‘I confess I'm almost glad to be kept away from all that concentration and positive energy. There are times when it's so exhausting I can't wait to get home and have a cup of tea. I'm sure it's all very good for my soul, but it would be so much easier just to sit here and read something like Saint Teresa of Avila, wouldn't it?'

'Nothing serious, is it?' Brunetti asked, nodding towards her foot and choosing to avoid discussion of her soul for the moment.

'No, not at all, but thank you for asking, Guido,' she said, leading him over to the sofa and easy chairs that sat looking across the Grand Canal. She did not limp, but she walked more slowly than was her wont. From behind, she had the form and somehow managed to radiate the energy of a far younger woman, despite her silver hair. To the best of his knowledge, the Contessa had never had cosmetic surgery, or else she had had the best available, for the light wrinkles around her eyes added character, and not years, to her face.

Before they sat, she asked, 'Would you like anything to drink? Coffee?'

'No, thank you. Nothing at all.'

She did not insist. She patted the sofa where he liked to sit, because of the view, and took her own seat in one of the large chairs, her body all but disappearing between the high armrests. 'You wanted to talk about religion?' she asked.

'Yes,' Brunetti answered, 'in a way.'

'Which way?'

'I spoke to someone this morning who told me he was concerned about a young man who had fallen under the sway – please understand that these are his words, not mine – under the sway of a preacher of some sort, Leonardo Mutti, who is said to be from Umbria.'

Resting her elbows on the arms of the chair, the Contessa brought her latched fingers to just under her chin and rested it on them.

'According to the person who spoke to me, this preacher is a fraud and is interested only in getting money from people, including this young man. The young man owns an apartment and is, I'm told, trying to sell it so as to be able to give the money to this preacher.'

When the Contessa said nothing, he went on, 'Because of your interest in religion and your' – he paused to find the proper word – 'faith, I thought it possible that you would have heard of this man.'

'Leonardo Mutti?' she asked.

'Yes.'

'May I ask what your involvement in all of this is?' she asked politely. 'And if you know either the young man or the preacher?'

‘I know the man who reported all of this to me. He was a friend of Sergio's when we were younger. I don't know the young man and I don't know Mutti.'

She nodded and turned her chin aside, as if considering what she had just been told. Finally she looked back at him and asked, 'You don't believe, do you, Guido?'

'In God?'

'Yes.'

In all these years, the only information he had had about the Contessa's beliefs had come from Paola, and all she had said was that her mother believed in God and had often gone to Mass while Paola was growing up. As to why Paola had, if anything, an adversarial relationship with religion, this had never been explained beyond Paola's maintaining that she had had 'good luck and good sense'.

Because it was not a subject he had ever discussed with the Contessa, Brunetti began by saying, 'I don't want to offend you.'

'By saying that you don't believe?'

'Yes.'

'That could hardly offend me, Guido, since I think it's an entirely sensible position.'

When he failed to hide his surprise, she said, her wrinkles contracting in a soft smile, 'I've chosen to believe in God, you see, Guido. In the face of convincing evidence to the contrary and in the complete absence of proof -well, anything a right-thinking person would consider as proof – of God's existence. I find that it makes life more acceptable, and it becomes easier to make certain decisions and endure certain losses. But it's a choice on my part, only that, and so the other choice, the choice not to believe, is entirely sensible to me.'

'I'm not sure I see it as a choice,' Brunetti said.

'Of course it's a choice,' she said with the same smile, as though they were talking about the children, and he'd just repeated one of Chiara's clever remarks. 'We've both been presented with the same evidence, or lack of evidence, and we each choose to interpret it in a particular way. So of course it's a choice.'

'Do you include belief in the Church in this choice?' Brunetti couldn't stop himself from asking, knowing that the Faliers' social position often put them in contact with members of the hierarchy.

'Good heavens, no. A person would have to be mad to trust them.'

He laughed out loud and shook his head in confusion, encouraging her to say, 'Just look at them, Guido, in their dear little costumes, with their hats and their skirts and their rosaries and their turned around collars. All those things do is demand people's attention, and they often get their respect, as well. I'm sure if all these clerics had to walk around looking just like everyone else and earning respect the way everyone else does – only by the way they act – I'm sure that most of them would have no interest in it, that they'd go out and get jobs and work for a living. If they couldn't use it as a way to make people think they're special, and superior, most of them would have no interest in it at all.' After a long pause, she added, 'Besides, I don't think God profits from the help they offer.'

'That's rather a severe opinion, if I may say so,' Brunetti ventured.

‘Is it?' she asked, seeming honestly puzzled. Tm sure there are some perfectly nice and decent ones, but I think that, as a group, clerics are best avoided.' Before he could comment, she added, 'Unless, of course, one is forced into their company, in which case they deserve common civility. I suppose.' He waited, familiar with her pauses. 'It's their interest in power, I think, that makes me so dislike them: so many of them are driven by it. I think it distorts their souls.'

'Would you include a man like Leonardo Mutti in what you've just said?' Brunetti asked. He was never sure how to take the Contessa's opinions and wondered if this would prove to have been a long prelude to some sort of revelation about the man.