The Girl of his Dreams

8

Discovering information about the meetings of the religious group headed by Leonardo Mutti, however, proved more difficult than Brunetti had foreseen. He did not want Antonin to know what he was doing, there was no listing in the phone book, and his computer skills could find no website for the Children of Jesus Christ. When he asked among the uniformed staff, the best he came up with was Piantoni, who had a cousin who was a member of a different group.

That left Brunetti with no alternative but to go over to Campo San Giacomo dell’Orio and the reported meeting house of the group, a prospect which left him strangely disgruntled, as if the campo were located in some other city instead of only ten minutes from his home. How strange, the way some places in the city seemed so far away, while others, actually much farther, seemed but a moment's walk. Just the thought of going to the Giudecca exhausted Brunetti, yet San Pietro di Castello, which took almost half an hour to reach from his home, depending on the boats, seemed right around the corner. Perhaps it had to do with habit and the places he had gone as a boy, or where his friends had lived. With San Giacomo, the police officer in Brunetti had to accept that it could also have to do with the campo's former reputation as a place where drugs were readily available or as a place where the residents had once been perceived as being not only poor but also more at variance with the law than those living in other parts of the city.

The drugs were gone now, or so the police believed. Gone from the area with them, as well, were many of the former residents, replaced by people who were not only not poor, but not Venetian. For two days he delayed going over to have a look but finally decided to go, half amused and half embarrassed at his own insistence on viewing the expedition as a major undertaking.

In Campo San Cassiano, because he felt no need to hurry, he decided to have a look at the Tintoretto Crucifixion. Brunetti had always been struck by how bored this Christ looked, stuck artfully up there on his cross, posed in front of the hedge of perpendicular spears that divided the painting in half. Christ seemed finally to have come to accept the truth of those warnings that all this business about becoming human would come to no good; He seemed eager to get back to the job of being God.

Brunetti's eyes moved to the stations of the cross on the far wall, where the dead Christ in the Deposition gave every evidence of being a man pretending to be asleep who would soon jump up and shout, 'Surprise!' How few of these painters seem to have studied the dead carefully or to have seen their terrible vulnerability.

Brunetti had always been struck by the helplessness of the dead, their rigid limbs and stiff fingers no longer capable of defending themselves, not even of covering their nakedness.

After some time, he went back outside: the sun fell on his shoulders like a blessing. In Campo Santa Maria Mater Domini he glanced up at the stairway visible through a window and remembered the apartment they had looked at there, first married and frightened by all that space, to say nothing of all that price. Instinct led him on.

Down Ponte del Forner, then past the one remaining place in the city where someone would bother to fix an iron, and then into Campo San Giacomo dell'Orio. He glanced at his watch and saw that he still had time to slip into the church, where he had not been for years.

Just inside the door, on the right, he found a wooden structure that looked very much like a toll booth in a children's book. Inside sat a young woman with dark hair, head bent over a book. There was a list of what appeared to be prices taped to the right of the window behind which she sat; a red velvet cord isolated the entrance from the rest of the church.

'Two-fifty, please,' she said, glancing up from her book.

'For residents, too?' Brunetti asked, failing to keep indignation from his voice. This was, after all, a church.

'For residents it's free,' she said. 'Can I see your carta d'identital'

Making no attempt to disguise his mounting irritation, Brunetti took out his wallet, opened it, and reached for the document. But then he remembered that it was in the office, being photocopied so that it could be attached to the application for the renewal of his licence to carry a firearm.

He pulled his warrant card from his wallet and passed it under the glass.

'What's this?' she asked. Her voice was neutral and her face was pleasant, even pretty.

'It's my identification as a policeman. A commissario.'

'I'm sorry,' she said, with what was probably meant to be a smile, 'but you have to have a carta d'identita.' She slid the warrant card back towards him, looked at him again, and added, 'A valid one.'

Years of standing in front of Patta's desk had trained Brunetti in the art of reading upside down, so he saw from the title at the top of the page that she was reading Washington Square. 'Are you reading that for school?' he asked.

Utterly confused, she glanced at his warrant card, then at the book and, understanding, said, 'Yes. For a class in the American Novel.'

'Ah,' Brunetti said, realizing that she must be one of Paola's students. He picked up the warrant card, slid it back into his wallet, and returned it to his back pocket. A student in his wife's class.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out some change. He sorted through it until he found the right coins and placed them on the counter. She pulled them towards her, peeled off a ticket, and slipped it under the glass.

'Grazie,' she said and returned to her book.

'Prego’ he answered and walked through the opening in the scarlet cord and into the nave of the church.

He emerged twenty minutes later and walked back around the church to the restaurant. Following Antonin's description, he entered the calle to the left and studied the names beside the first door on the left. And there it was: 'Sambo', the second bell from the bottom.

Brunetti hesitated and checked his watch, then he rang the bell. After a moment, a woman's voice answered, 'Si?'

Brunetti spoke in Veneziano. 'Signora, could you tell me if this is the place where the friends of Brother Leonardo meet?' There was no disguising the eagerness in his voice, but eagerness could have many causes.

'Yes, it is,' she answered. 'Are you interested in joining us?'

'Very much so, Signora,' he answered.

'We meet on Tuesday’ she said, then quickly added, 'I'm sorry if I don't let you in, but it's time for the children to eat.'

'I'm the one who's sorry, Signora’ he said. ‘I know what it's like, so go and feed them. But could you tell me what time the meeting begins?'

'Seven-thirty’ she said. 'That way people can be home for dinner.'

1 understand. Good,' Brunetti answered. 'Go and feed your children now, Signora. Please. I'll see you on Tuesday, then’ he said in his kindest voice.

Brunetti turned away. From behind him, he heard a tinny voice ask, 'What's your name, Signore?'

He made an indecipherable noise, then added '-etti' to the end of it, not wanting to lie. There'd be time enough for that on Tuesday.