Falling in Love (6 page)

‘Is that good or bad?’

‘Paying attention to words is always good,’ she answered immediately. She resumed walking but had to pull at his arm to get him moving again.

Brunetti thought of the newspapers and magazines he read, the reports of crimes written by his colleagues, government reports. She was right: most of them were as much fiction as fact, and he read them with that knowledge. ‘I think you’re right,’ he said. ‘It’s often impossible to tell the difference.’

‘That’s what art’s all about,’ she said. ‘
Tosca
is a bunch of lies, but what happens to Tosca isn’t.’

How prophetic those words were Brunetti was to learn two nights later when they met Flavia for dinner at Paola’s parents’ home. He and Paola arrived at eight-thirty and found il Conte e la Contessa in the main salon, the one that looked across to the
palazzi
on the other side of the Canal Grande. There was no sign of Flavia Petrelli.

He was surprised by how casually his parents-in-law were dressed until he realized this meant the Conte’s tie was wool and not silk, while the Contessa was wearing black silk slacks and not a dress. Brunetti saw, slipping out from the sleeve of her jacket, the bracelet the Conte had brought back for her from a business trip to South Africa some years before. Well, he brought her chocolates from Zurich, did he not? And so diamonds from South Africa were only fitting.

The four of them sat on facing sofas and talked about the children and their schools and their hopes, and their own hopes for them: the sort of things families always talked about. Raffi’s girlfriend, Sara Paganuzzi, was study-ing in Paris for a year, but Raffi had not yet gone to visit her, which led the four adults to endless speculation about what might be going on between them. Or not. Chiara seemed still resistant to the lure of adolescent boys, which the four adults understood and applauded.

‘It won’t last much longer,’ Paola said, voicing the eternal pessimism of the mothers of young girls. ‘Some day soon she’ll show up at breakfast in a tight sweater and twice as much makeup as Sophia Loren.’

Brunetti put his hands to his head and moaned, then snarled, ‘I have a gun. I can shoot him.’ He sensed the three heads snap in his direction and ran his hands slowly down his face to reveal his grin. ‘Isn’t that what the fathers of teenage girls are supposed to say?’

The Conte took a sip of his prosecco and observed drily, ‘I begin to suspect I should have tried that when Paola brought you home the first time, Guido.’

‘Do stop it, Orazio,’ the Contessa said. ‘You know you stopped thinking Guido was an interloper after a few years.’ This information would have served as little comfort to Brunetti had his mother-in-law not reached across to pat him on the knee. ‘It was far sooner than that, Guido.’ How nice it would be to believe this, Brunetti thought.

She was interrupted by the arrival of Flavia Petrelli, who was shown into the room by the maid. She seemed less tired than she had been the other night and smiled warmly at them all as she entered. The Count was instantly on his feet and moving towards her. ‘Ah, Signora Petrelli, you have no idea how delighted I am you could come.’ He took her hand and bent to kiss the air a few milli-metres above it, then linked his arm in hers to lead her towards the others, quite as proud as a hunter who’d bagged a plump pheasant to bring home for dinner.

Brunetti got to his feet at their approach but contented himself with shaking her hand and saying what a pleasure it was to see her again. Paola stood, as well, and permitted herself the liberty of exchanging kisses with Flavia. The Contessa remained seated but patted the cushion next to her and asked Signora Petrelli to sit beside her. When Flavia was seated, the Contessa told her she had admired her singing since hearing her debut at La Fenice as Zerlina. The fact that she did not mention the year of that debut reminded Brunetti that the Contessa’s family had contributed a large number of diplomats to both the Vatican and the Italian state.

‘That was a lovely production, wasn’t it?’ Flavia asked, a question which led to a discussion of the dramaturgy, the sets and staging, and to the quality of the other singers in the cast. Brunetti noted that she never referred to her own performance and seemed not to have the desire, nor the necessity, to summon up praise for it. He remembered the scene-stealing woman he’d encountered years before and wondered where she had gone, or whether this quiet conversation was merely another example of the remarkable acting skill he had seen in the past.

The Conte handed Flavia a glass of prosecco and took a seat opposite her, leaving it to his wife to engage the singer in reminiscing about a performance he had not seen. When the conversation moved closer in time to the
Tosca
, he said he’d already ordered tickets for the last performance because their plans had changed and they would stay only briefly in London.

‘If it happens,’ Flavia said to universal confusion.

‘I beg your pardon,’ the Conte said.

‘There’s talk of a strike for the last two performances. The usual story: a contract hasn’t been renewed, so they say they won’t work.’ Before they could give voice to their surprise, she held up calming hands and said, ‘Only the stage crew, and it’s unlikely anyone else will join them. So even if they do strike, we can still stand on the stage and sing.’

The maid appeared to tell them that dinner was ready. The Conte stood and offered his arm to Flavia; Brunetti took his mother-in-law’s arm, and then, in a shocking breach of etiquette, pulled Paola up by one hand and, still holding it, took both women into the dining room, all of them leaving behind talk of the possible strike.

Brunetti ended up opposite the singer, who continued speaking to the Contessa, their topic having moved to Flavia’s impression of the city, she having been away from it for a long time.

As the maid served
involtini
with the first green asparagus of the season, Flavia looked around at the faces at the table. ‘You’re all Venetian,’ she said, ‘so perhaps I should keep my opinion to myself.’

A silence fell. Brunetti used the pause and the way the people at the table dedicated themselves to their food to study Flavia’s face. His original assessment was wrong: far from being relaxed, she bristled with tension. She had eaten little, he noticed, nor had she touched her wine. He remembered how deeply he had been struck, years ago, by the beauty of her speaking voice, not only the tone but the fluidity with which she moved from phrase to phrase, each word pronounced clearly, distinct from the others. This evening, she had occasionally stumbled over words and once had not completed a sentence but seemed to have forgotten what she was saying. The tone, however, had the same peach-ripe softness.

Unfamiliar with the stress singers faced in their work, Brunetti asked himself if they ever fully relaxed before the run of an opera was finished and they were freed from worrying about their health, their voice, the weather, their colleagues. Following this train of thought, he tried to imagine what it would be like to spend the whole day thinking about going to work, like athletes condemned to compete only at night.

When he tuned back into the conversation, Brunetti heard Flavia ask the Conte what other operas they had seen that season.

‘Ah,’ he answered, exchanged a glance with his wife, cleared his throat, and finally smiled. ‘I have to confess I haven’t been able to see anything yet,’ he answered, and Brunetti heard in his voice the same nervousness he’d heard in Flavia’s. ‘Yours will be the first.’

Flavia’s look was absolution itself. ‘I’m honoured, then.’ About to continue, she was interrupted by the return of the maid, who cleared the plates from the table. She was quickly back with their plates of
merluzzo con spinaci
.

When she was gone, the Conte tasted the fish, nodded, and said, ‘Hardly, Signora. The theatre is honoured to have you sing there.’

Flavia raised an eyebrow in open scepticism and glanced across at Brunetti, but addressed the Conte. ‘That’s hardly the case, Signor Conte, though I thank you for the compliment.’ In a more serious voice, she added, ‘It was true forty, fifty years ago.
Those
were the singers. And any theatre was honoured to have them.’

While Brunetti’s consciousness was opening itself to the new category of ‘modesty in singers’, the Contessa asked, ‘Is that aimed at the theatre?’

‘I’ve found it wise,’ Flavia said, speaking to the Contessa but, Brunetti suspected, to them all, ‘never to comment on the people who offer me work.’ Then she shifted the need to give an opinion to the Conte by asking, ‘You grew up with La Fenice, Conte. You’ve heard the change in the quality of the singers there.’ When he didn’t answer, she added, ‘You have an
abbonamento
, so you’ve heard the change over the years.’ Brunetti noted the way she avoided asking why he hadn’t bothered to attend this season.

The Conte leaned back in his chair and took a small sip of wine. ‘I suppose it’s like having a cousin who’s gone to the bad: stolen from the family, taken up with loose women, lied about what he’s done, stayed out of jail only because the family’s rich.’ He smiled, sipped at his wine and, with every sign of enjoying the comparison, added, ‘But no matter what he does, how much he steals, you remember how charming he was when he was younger and what good times you had with him and his friends when you were all boys together. And so, when he calls you, half-drunk, at two in the morning and tells you that he’s got a great new idea for his business, or a new woman he wants to marry, but he needs some money from you to do it, you give it to him, even though you know you shouldn’t. You know he’ll spend it on an expensive vacation, maybe with the new woman, or one from his past; you know you’ll never see anything in return; but most of all you know he’ll do the same thing again in six months or a year.’ The Conte set his glass on the table and shook his head in feigned despair, then looked around at all of them in turn. ‘But it’s family.’

‘Great God,’ Flavia burst out, laughing as she spoke. ‘Please don’t let me think of that when I see the Director.’ She laughed so much that she had to cover her mouth with her napkin and look down at her plate. When she stopped, she looked across at the Conte and said, ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d think you worked there.’

7

As if by unspoken agreement that no one could top Flavia’s remark, the topic moved away from opera. Paola asked Flavia about her children: Flavia’s son was the same age as Chiara, her daughter younger than Raffi. Flavia looked pleased to say they were doing well at the international school in Milano, where she lived most of the year, and added – making what seemed an effort not to boast – that they had the advantage of being fluent in Italian, Spanish, and English. Brunetti noted that her only comment about her ex-husband was that he was Spanish.

Talk became general, and Brunetti contributed a few remarks, but his attention had been caught by the singer’s nervousness. She had seemed happy enough to see him the other night, so it was not caused by meeting someone who had once known a great deal about her private life. The Conte and Contessa, when relaxed and at their ease, would soothe even a whippet, perhaps because the dog would be less likely than a human to notice the Titian portrait in the living room and the engraved crests on the cutlery. And Paola, he observed, was on her best mother-of-children behaviour.

The Contessa inquired where Flavia would be singing next, and she said she had another week there, singing Tosca, then some time off, then to Barcelona. Brunetti found it interesting that she didn’t say where she would be going after Venice and didn’t bother to mention what she was going to Spain to sing. He had always assumed that most people were all too ready to talk about themselves: one did not expect self-effacement in a diva.

Paola surprised them all by saying, ‘It must be a difficult life.’

Flavia’s head snapped towards Paola, but then she lowered her eyes and picked up her wine glass. She took a consciously slow sip, put the glass down, and said, ‘Yes, it can be. There’s the constant travel, staying in a city – alone – for weeks at a time. I miss the kids, but they’re at an age when they don’t much want to spend their free time with their mother.’

Then, perhaps aware that this might sound like self-pity, she quickly added, ‘After all these years, I’ve worked with so many people that there’s always someone in the production I know. That makes it easier.’

‘What’s the worst part of it, if I might ask?’ the Contessa inquired, then tried to lighten her question by adding, ‘I’m so seldom alone that I have to say it sounds tempting.’

‘There’s no worst part,’ Flavia answered, and Brunetti thought he was finally hearing her real thoughts. ‘I suspect there isn’t even what I could call a bad part. I’m just whining.’

She glanced around the table and saw that she had their complete attention. ‘The singing is always a joy, especially if you know you’ve sung well and if you have good colleagues to work with.’ She took a drink of water, then added, ‘I suppose it’s no different from any job that requires a lot of preparation and thought – like restoring paintings or making a pair of shoes: you spend a long time learning how to do it, but at the end you have a finished product that’s beautiful.’

Brunetti thought the comparison worked only in part. The others had the painting or the shoes: all the singer had was the memory. Before YouTube, at least.