The Death of Faith (29 page)

‘I just said they’re a secret society.’

‘The world is full of secret societies, but most of them are a joke: the Masons, the Rosicrucians, all those Satanic cults the Americans are always inventing. But people are really afraid of Opus Dei. The way they were afraid of the SS, the Gestapo.’

‘Paola, wouldn’t you say that’s an extreme position?’

‘You know I can’t be rational on this subject, so don’t ask me to be, all right?’ Neither spoke for a moment, and then she added, ‘But it really is strange; the way they’ve managed to create such a reputation about themselves while still managing to remain almost entirely secret.’ She set the shirt aside and stuck the needle into the pincushion that sat beside her. ‘What is it they want?’

‘You sound like Freud,’ Brunetti said with a laugh. ‘ “What do women want?’“

She laughed at the joke: contempt for Freud and all his works and pomps was part of the intellectual glue that held them together. ‘No, really. What do you think it is they really want?’

‘Beats me,’ Brunetti was forced to admit. Then, after he had considered it for a while, he answered, ‘Power, I suppose.’

Paola blinked a few times and shook her head. ‘That’s always such a frightening idea for me, that anyone would want it.’

‘That’s because you’re a woman. It’s the one thing women believe they don’t want. But we do.’

She looked up, half-smiling, thinking this was another joke, but Brunetti, straight-faced, continued, ‘I mean it, Paola. I don’t think women understand how important it is for us, for men, to have power.’ He saw that she was going to object, but he cut her off. ‘No, it’s got nothing to do with womb envy. Well, at least I don’t think it does — you know, feeling we’re inadequate because we don’t have babies and have to make it up in other ways.’ Brunetti paused, never having articulated this, not even to Paola. ‘Maybe it’s no more than that we’re bigger, so we can get away with pushing other people around.’

‘That’s terribly simplistic, Guido.’

‘I know. Doesn’t mean it’s wrong.’

She shook her head again. ‘I just can’t understand it. In the end, no matter how much power we have, we get old, we get weak, and we lose it all.’

Brunetti was suddenly struck by how much she sounded like Vianello: his sergeant argued that material wealth was an illusion, and now his wife was telling him that power was no more real. And what did that make him, the gross materialist yoked between two anchorites?

Neither of them spoke for a long time. Finally Paola glanced at her watch, saw that it was after eleven, and said, ‘I’ve got an early class tomorrow.’ At her hint, Brunetti stood, but even before she could get to her feet, the phone rang.

She started to get up to answer, but Brunetti moved more quickly, certain that it would be Vianello or someone from the hospital. ‘
Pronto
,’ he said, mastering both fear and excitement and keeping his voice calm.

‘Is this Signor Brunetti?’ a strange woman’s voice asked.

‘Yes, it is.’

‘Signor Brunetti, I need to speak to you,’ she began in a rush. But then, as though her spirit had been deflated, she paused for a moment and then said, ‘No, could I speak to Signora Brunetti, instead?’

The tension in her voice was so strong that Brunetti didn’t dare ask who it was, for fear that she would hang up. ‘One minute, please. I’ll get her,’ he said and set the phone down on the table. He turned to Paola, still seated on the sofa, looking up at him.

‘Who is it?’ she asked in a low voice.

‘I don’t know. She wants to talk to you.’

Paola came to the table and picked up the receiver. ‘
Pronto
,’ she said.

Not knowing what to do, Brunetti turned to walk away, but then he felt Paola’s hand snap out and grab his arm. She shot one quick glance toward him, but then the woman on the other end said something, and Paola’s attention was pulled away from him and she released him.

‘Yes, yes. Of course you can call.’ Paola, as was her habit, started to play with the coiled wire of the phone, wrapping it around her fingers in a series of living rings. ‘Yes, I remember you from the meeting with the teachers.’ She pulled the wires from her left fingers and began to wrap them around the right ones. ‘I’m very glad you called. Yes, I think it was the right thing to do.’

Her hands grew still. ‘Please, Signora Stocco, try to stay calm. Nothing’s going to happen. Is she all right? And your husband? When will he be back? The important thing is that Nicoletta’s all right.’

Paola glanced up at Brunetti, who raised his eyebrows interrogatively. She nodded twice, though he had no idea what that was supposed to mean, and shifted her weight to lean against him. He put an arm around her and continued to listen to her voice and the sharp crackle from the other end of the line.

‘Of course, I’ll tell my husband. But I don’t think he can do anything unless you . . .’ The voice cut her off. It went on for a long time.

‘I understand, I understand completely. If Nicoletta’s all right. No, I don’t think you should talk to her about it, Signora Stocco. Yes, I’ll speak to him tonight and call you tomorrow. Could you give me your number, please?’ Leaning away from him, she jotted down a number and then asked, ‘Is there anything I could do for you tonight?’ She paused and then said, ‘No, of course it’s no trouble. I’m very glad you called.’

Another pause, and then she said, ‘Yes, I’d heard rumours, but nothing definite, nothing like this. Yes, yes, I agree. I’ll talk to my husband about it and I’ll call you tomorrow morning. Please, Signora Stocco, I’m glad to be of help in any way I can.’ More sounds from the other end.

‘Try to get some sleep, Signora Stocco. The important thing is that Nicoletta is all right. That’s all that matters.’ After another pause, Paola said, ‘Of course you can call again if you want to. No, it doesn’t matter what time it is. We’ll be here. Of course, of course. You’re welcome, Signora. Good night.’ She replaced the receiver and turned to him.

‘That was Signora Stocco. Her daughter Nicoletta is in Chiara’s class. R.E. class.’

‘Padre Luciano?’ Brunetti asked, wondering what new lightning bolt was to be hurled at him by the forces of religion.

Paola nodded.

‘What happened?’

‘She didn’t say. Or she didn’t know. She was helping Nicoletta with her homework tonight — her husband’s in Rome for business all this week — and she said Nicoletta started to cry when she saw the religion book. When she asked her what was the matter, she wouldn’t say. But after a while, the girl said that Padre Luciano had said things to her in the confessional and then that he had touched her.’

‘Touched her where?’ Brunetti asked, a question he asked as much as a father as a policeman.

‘She wouldn’t say. Signora Stocco decided not to make too much of it, but I think she’s shaken. She was crying when she talked to me. She asked me to speak to you.’

Brunetti was already far ahead, thinking of what would have to happen before he could separate parent from policeman and act. ‘The girl would have to tell us,’ he said.

‘I know. From what the mother said, I think that’s unlikely.’

Brunetti nodded. ‘Unless she does, there’s nothing I can do.’

‘I know,’ Paola said. She was silent for a while and then added, ‘But I can.’

‘What do you mean?’ Brunetti asked, surprised by the strength and suddenness of his fear.

‘Don’t worry, Guido. I won’t touch him. I promise you that. But I will see that he’s punished.’

‘You don’t even know what he did,’ Brunetti said. ‘How can you talk of punishment?’

She backed away a few paces and looked at him. She started to speak and then stopped. After a pause during which he saw her start to speak twice and stop, she stepped toward him and put her hand on his arm. ‘Don’t worry, Guido. I won’t do anything that is illegal. But I will punish him and, if necessary, I will destroy him.’ She watched his shock turn into acceptance that she meant what she’d said. ‘I’m sorry,’ she apologized, ‘I always forget how you hate melodrama.’ She looked at her watch and then up at him. ‘As I said before, it’s late and I have an early class.’

Leaving him there, Paola went down the corridor toward their bedroom and their bed.

* * * *

Chapter Eighteen

Usually a sound sleeper, that night Brunetti was kept awake by dreams, animal dreams. He saw lions, turtles, and a peculiarly grotesque beast with a long beard and a bald head. The bells of San Polo counted out the intermittent hours for him, keeping him company as he endured the long night. At five, the realization came to him that Maria Testa must recover and begin to speak, and as soon as he saw that, he slipped into a sleep so peaceful and dreamless that even Paola’s noisy departure failed to wake him.

He woke a little before nine and spent twenty minutes lying in bed, planning it, attempting vainly to hide from himself the fact that it was she who would run all of the risks attendant upon her resurrection. The desire to put it into action grew so strong that he was finally driven up and into the shower, then out of the apartment and toward the Questura. From there, he called the chief of neurology at the Ospedale Civile and from him received his first setback, for the doctor insisted that Maria Testa could not, under any circumstances, be moved. Her condition was still too uncertain and precarious to allow her to be disturbed. A long history of battles with the health system suggested to Brunetti that a more realistic explanation lay in the fact that the staff simply didn’t want to be bothered by something they considered as inconsequential as this, but he knew it was useless to argue.

He asked Vianello to come up to his office and began by explaining his plan. ‘All we do,’ he concluded, ‘is have a story put in the
Gazzettino
tomorrow morning, saying that she’s come out of the coma. You know how they love that sort of thing
— Back from the Edge of the Grave.
Then, whoever was in that car, once they believe she’s recovered and able to talk, they’ll have to try again.’

Vianello studied Brunetti’s face, as if seeing new things in it, but said nothing.

‘Well?’ Brunetti prompted.

‘Is there time for the story to get in by tomorrow?’ the sergeant asked.

Brunetti looked at his watch. ‘Of course there is.’ When Vianello looked no more content, Brunetti asked, ‘What’s wrong?’

‘I don’t like the idea of putting her at even greater risk,’ the sergeant finally answered. ‘Using her as bait.’

‘Someone will be in the room, I told you.’

‘Commissario,’ Vianello began, and Brunetti was immediately on his guard, as he was whenever Vianello addressed him by his title and in that patient tone. ‘Someone in the hospital will have to know what’s going on.’

‘Of course.’

‘Well?’

‘Well what?’ Brunetti snapped. He had thought of all of this and knew the dangers, so the force of his reaction to Vianello’s question was no more than a reflection of his own unease.

‘That’s a risk. People talk. All anyone has to do is go into the bar on the ground floor and start asking about her. Someone — an orderly, a nurse, a doctor even — is bound to say something about there being a guard in the room with her.’

‘Then we don’t tell them it’s a guard. We say the guard’s been removed. We can say they’re relatives.’

‘Or members of the order?’ Vianello suggested, voice so level that Brunetti couldn’t tell if he was being helpful or sarcastic.

‘No one in the hospital knows she’s a nun,’ Brunetti said, though he seriously doubted this.

‘I’d like to believe that.’

‘What does that mean, Sergeant?’

‘Hospitals are small places. It’s not easy to keep a secret for long. So I think we should take it as given that they know who she is.’