‘I didn’t want him to come to visit. If he did, he’d see what it was like and know what I did,’ Bianchi said.
Brunetti noticed that the other man’s face was covered with sweat and that his dark glasses had started to slip down his nose. Because Bianchi’s good hand was still on the dog’s head, he used the thumb of the other to shove them back into place, a gesture Brunetti observed with something akin to disgust.
‘And if he had found out?’ Brunetti asked, fully aware of what the other man was talking about. ‘Why would that change things?’
Bianchi snapped out an answer without thinking. ‘Because he’d understand who was paying for it all. That they offered, and I took it. Like Pozzi.’ He said the other man’s name with despair, the way a Christian would speak of Judas.
‘And he didn’t,’ Brunetti said out loud.
Bianchi shook his head. Griffoni and Bardo remained motionless and silent, the dog because he was asleep and the woman because she did not want to make any sound that would draw Bianchi’s attention away from Brunetti.
‘Why wouldn’t he let them pay him?’ Brunetti demanded.
With a dry laugh that held no humour, Bianchi said, ‘Because he was a better man than either of us.’ He shifted his body to one side, removed his hand from the dog, and reached into the pocket of his trousers. He pulled out a white handkerchief and shook it open. He moved it to the other hand, which took it between thumb and last finger. Then he reached up with his undamaged hand and placed his thumb and first two fingers on the rim of his glasses.
Griffoni and Brunetti lowered their gaze; they kept their eyes on the ground for some time, until Bianchi said, ‘We all had suspicions – everyone who worked there did – about what they were doing, where the trucks were going and what was in them.’ They looked at him again and saw that his face was dry, the dark glasses back in place, no sign of the handkerchief.
‘But that was years ago, and who knew then or cared about those things?’ Bianchi said, now back to his old friend, the rhetorical question. ‘So long as it disappeared, what business of ours was it where it went? Besides, we were workers, tough men with wives and families to take care of, so we had no time for …’ He stopped and began to run his hand down Bardo’s sleeping body, careful to pick it up before reaching the tail and to return it accurately to the back of the dog’s head.
Brunetti found it strangely peaceful to watch Bianchi do this and so said nothing for some time. Finally, when Bardo stirred in his sleep and flopped over to his other side, Bianchi removed his hand and said, ‘No time to think of anything or anyone beyond our own small circles, and no time to think of the future and what we were doing to it.’
‘What happened?’ Brunetti asked.
‘The accident, of course,’ Bianchi said, sounding disappointed at Brunetti’s obtuseness.
‘No, I mean what happened to Casati? To change him so.’
‘Ah,’ Bianchi said, ‘of course.’ And then he didn’t speak for a long time.
‘I think it must have been the pain and the slowness of time passing,’ he finally answered. ‘When you’re in pain, you need to think of something so that at least part of you can be free of the pain, so that your mind can go somewhere where there’s no pain.’ As if to stop them from questioning this, he continued, ‘I’m talking about pain that goes on for weeks and that you think is never, not in your whole life, ever going to end.’
Again, Bianchi sighed. ‘That’s what changed him. He was in the hospital for months because his wounds didn’t heal the way they should – that’s what happens with big burns like the ones he had – and he kept getting new infections.’ He paused, as if to give them time to speak, but neither did.
‘That’s when he changed, during those months. Franca moved into his room and refused to leave when the nurses told her to. She sent Federica to stay with her brother, and she went to the hospital with a suitcase and stayed until he was well enough to go home.’ Bianchi stopped suddenly and sat silent, as if playing back the memory of what he had heard. Then, more insistent than he had been, he said, ‘That’s why it was so terrible for him when …’
‘When did he tell you all this?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Oh, he never did. That is, not directly, in one telling. It sort of slipped into what he said when we talked over the years.’
‘That’s a long time,’ Brunetti said. ‘Did you ever meet him again?’
‘No. Talking was enough,’ Bianchi said, sounding as though he didn’t really believe it. ‘Davide’d gone to live on Sant’Erasmo. He had his pension. At first he didn’t want to take it, but his wife told him he deserved it.’
‘He believed her?’ Brunetti asked.
‘He earned it,’ Bianchi shot back.
After letting some time pass, Brunetti asked, ‘Is that all he got from them?’ He glanced around the gazebo and out into the rose garden but said nothing.
When the expression on Bianchi’s face showed Brunetti that he was not going to get an answer to that question, he asked, ‘What about Pozzi?’
Bianchi’s mouth tightened at the mere mention of Pozzi. Brunetti watched his face as the blind man considered the question and was struck by how much the eyes revealed: hide them and there were no easy clues. ‘He earned it, too,’ Bianchi finally said.
‘To stay here?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Yes.’
‘And you? How did you earn it?’ Brunetti responded without hesitation.
Bianchi’s body stiffened at the abruptness and aggression of Brunetti’s question. Again, Brunetti studied the eyeless, unresponsive face. The answer was long delayed, and when it came, Bianchi rationed out his reasons in a soft, level voice. ‘With pain,’ he said acidly. ‘And then with laziness. Fear. Shame.’ Brunetti thought he had finished and was about to speak, when Bianchi added, ‘Greed.’
Brunetti and Griffoni exchanged a glance, but neither chose to speak.
Bianchi made a noise, half grunt, half laugh. ‘We’re a bit like animals, Pozzi and I. We were born in the forest and lived there for a long time, but then we were captured and turned into house pets, and now we’re too well trained and housebroken to be able to go back to the forest. So we stay here, where we’re fed and cared for and safe.’ He nodded a few times, as though he’d been listening to a comparison he’d never thought about before and found it accurate.
He put his good hand on the dog’s head. ‘Even Bardo’s braver than we are: he still barks and growls and bites.’ He smiled at them and added, ‘They told me that, last week, he caught a baby rabbit and tore it to pieces.’ He smiled again, at the thought, proud of his dog. ‘While Pozzi and I sit here and wait for lunch to be served.’
‘While Casati went back to the forest?’ Brunetti asked.
Again, Bianchi made the grunting noise. ‘Yes, I suppose you could say that.’