‘That means he trusts you.’
The fingers of Bianchi’s full hand dug in under Bardo’s neck, and Brunetti thought he heard the dog sigh in contentment. As he watched, Bardo’s eyes went out of focus with joy.
‘Signor Bianchi,’ he began, ‘we’d like to ask you some more questions about your old friend, Davide Casati.’ Bianchi remained silent, so Brunetti added, ‘I knew him, but only briefly. We rowed together in the laguna and spent days talking to one another. Not about anything in particular, just talk.’
Bianchi nodded, his hand still busy under Bardo’s neck. ‘It’s good to talk like that, to another man,’ he agreed.
‘Did you and he row together?’ Brunetti asked, responding to something in Bianchi’s voice.
‘No, I never had a feeling for the water, the way Davide did. Anyway, we were much younger then. Different people.’
‘When you worked together?’
‘Even before. We knew one another for a long time.’
‘Were you close friends?’ Brunetti asked, acutely aware of Bianchi’s use of the simple past tense.
‘Brothers are no closer.’
‘But you argued with him?’ Brunetti asked.
Bianchi lowered his head, a habit, perhaps, from sighted times. ‘We disagreed.’
‘About?’
‘He asked me for my advice, and when I gave it to him, he refused to listen to me.’
‘What did he ask you?’
Bianchi’s non-gaze remained lowered; he gave no indication of having heard what Brunetti said. He continued to scratch Bardo’s neck; then his hand stopped and lay quiet on the dog’s head. ‘I don’t know what colour Bardo is,’ he surprised them both by saying. ‘And even if someone told me he was brown and white, it wouldn’t mean anything to me because I’ve forgotten what colours look like. I can’t see them in my mind any more.’
Brunetti noticed that Bianchi drew in his lips after he said that, showing dismay and perhaps resignation. Then he said, ‘He told me he was going to cause trouble.’
‘About what?’ Brunetti asked.
‘I don’t think it matters now. I’ve seen too much trouble in my life. I don’t want to see any more.’
The word pounded at Brunetti: was he the only one to hear it? ‘Was it going to be his trouble, or yours?’
Bianchi said nothing.
‘Which?’ Brunetti insisted.
‘If it was his trouble, it was my trouble, as well.’
‘Is that why you disagreed? Because you didn’t want trouble for yourself?’
Bianchi’s face lifted towards him so quickly that Brunetti couldn’t stop himself from pulling back from the man’s anger. Bardo responded to the motion by jumping down from Bianchi’s lap and going over to Griffoni. He put one paw on her knee, and she bent down to pick him up. He sat upright, alert, eyes turned towards his master.
Speaking slowly and pronouncing his words very clearly, Bianchi said, ‘I didn’t want him to have trouble. I told you: I’ve had a lot of trouble; I didn’t want him to have it, too.’
‘You’ve already had the same kind of trouble, you two,’ Brunetti insisted. ‘Remember, I told you I went swimming with him, so I saw the results of the trouble he’d had.’ Brunetti felt suffocated by the word and by the constant emphasis on seeing, seeing, seeing.
‘I tried to make him understand that he’d never live in peace if he didn’t listen to me,’ Bianchi said, voice lowered and slowed under the weight of sadness.
‘And now he’s dead,’ Brunetti declared.
Bianchi said nothing and patted at the spot on his lap where Bardo had been, as though in want of the comfort of the dog’s presence. Finally he said, ‘Yes. Now he’s dead.’
‘Because he didn’t listen to you?’ Brunetti asked.
Bianchi’s shrug pushed up the shoulders of his woollen jacket, a different one today, but no less heavy. He sighed deeply. Bardo responded by jumping down from Griffoni’s lap and returning to Bianchi’s, this time curling up and batting his tail against his master’s chest. The blind man put his good hand on the dog’s back, and his tail grew quiet.
Bianchi moved his head from side to side a few times and finally said, ‘No, not because of that but because he couldn’t listen to anyone.’ After a moment’s thought, he added, ‘Or wouldn’t.’ He gave a half-smile and asked, ‘It’s strange, isn’t it, the way we always say “can’t” when what we really mean is “won’t” but aren’t honest enough to say it?’
Griffoni raised a hand and gave a small wave that caught Brunetti’s attention. Bardo watched the gesture, but Bianchi could not. She gave a grimace of disbelief, then raised her right forefinger and waved it back and forth to signal uncertainty. Brunetti, too, had heard the change in tone when Bianchi passed from sombre reflection to rhetorical deflection.
‘What did you tell him that he wouldn’t listen to?’ Brunetti asked.
Bianchi shook his head, as though to express his disbelief that this man could continue to think any of this important. For a moment, Brunetti feared Bianchi would make some enigmatic remark to the dog by way of answer: if he did that, Brunetti might be driven to tease another cripple. His thoughts slid away and he considered why teasing cripples was so much worse than hurting them. They were cripples because their bodies had been damaged in some way, not their dignity. Teasing attacked any pride that had managed to survive. How was it that his mother had understood this?
‘ … for his wife’s death,’ Brunetti heard Bianchi say when he returned his attention to the other man.
Brunetti did the best he could to disguise having wandered off. ‘I’m afraid I don’t understand,’ he said.
The tilt of Bianchi’s head showed his puzzlement. ‘I think what I said was clear enough, Commissario. He blamed himself for his wife’s death, however absurd that might be.’
‘Why did he blame himself?’ Griffoni interrupted to ask.
Bianchi shrugged. ‘He told me that he hadn’t protected her. He said he should have known about the danger.’
No one spoke for some time until Griffoni broke the silence to ask, ‘How did your conversation end?’
Bianchi cleared his throat and then, still facing Brunetti, he answered Griffoni’s question. ‘We argued. It was the first time in all those years. I tried to stop him, but he wouldn’t listen to me.’
‘Because you disagreed with him?’ she asked.
Bianchi took a deep breath, expelled it and said, ‘No, not that. Because I couldn’t explain.’
‘Why was that?’ she asked softly.
‘Because I lied to him about this place from the time I came here.’ After he said that, Bianchi lowered his head and put his good hand over his eyes, as though he wanted to hide from these sighted people.
‘Why?’ she asked.