The Waters of Eternal Youth (Commissario Brunetti, #25)
Donna Leon
For Megan and Martin Meyer
Ah, perché, oh Dio,
Perché non mi lasciasti
crudel, morir nell’acque, e mi salvasti?
Ah, why, oh God,
Did you not leave me, oh cruel One,
to drown in the waters, but saved me?
Radamisto
Handel
1
He had always hated formal dinners, and he hated being at this one. It made no difference to Brunetti that he knew some of the people at the long table, nor was his irritation lessened by the fact that the dinner was being held in the home of his parents-in-law and, because of that, in one of the most beautiful palazzi in the city. He had been dragooned into coming by his wife and his mother-in-law, who had claimed that his position in the city would add lustre to the evening.
Brunetti had insisted that his ‘position’ as a commissario di polizia was hardly one that would add lustre to a dinner held for wealthy foreigners. His mother-in-law, however, using the Border Collie tactics he had observed in her for a quarter of a century, had circled his heels, yipping and yapping, until she had finally herded him to the place where she wanted him to be. Then, sensing his weakness, she had added, ‘Besides, Demetriana wants to see you, and it would be a great favour to me if you’d talk to her, Guido.’
Brunetti had conceded and thus found himself at dinner with Contessa Demetriana Lando-Continui, who sat perfectly at ease at the end of a long table that was not her own. Facing her at the other end was the friend of her heart, Contessa Donatella Falier, the use of whose home she had requested in order to host this dinner. A burst pipe in the room above her own dining room, which had managed to bring down a good portion of the ceiling, had rendered the room unusable for the foreseeable future, and she had turned to her friend for help. Contessa Falier, although not involved in the foundation for which this benefit dinner was being given, was happy to oblige her friend, and thus they sat, two contessas, a bit like bookends, at either end of the table at which were seated eight other people.
A small woman, Contessa Lando-Continui spoke lightly accented English in a voice she had to strain to make carry down the entire table but seemed at ease speaking in public. She had taken care with her appearance: her hair was a cap of dull gold curls, cut short in a youthful style that seemed entirely natural to someone as small as she. She wore a dark green dress with long sleeves that allowed attention to be paid to her hands, long-fingered and thin and entirely unblemished by the spots of age. Her eyes were almost the same colour as the dress and complemented her choice of hair colour. As he studied her, Brunetti renewed his conviction that she must have been a very attractive woman a half-century before.
Tuning back into her conversation, Brunetti heard her say, ‘I had the good fortune to grow up in a different Venice, not this stage set that’s been created for tourists to remind them of a city where, in a certain sense, they’ve never been.’ Brunetti nodded and continued eating his spaghetti with shellfish, thinking of how much like Paola’s it was, probably because the cook who had prepared it was the same woman who had helped Paola learn to cook.
‘It is a cause of great sadness that the city administration does everything it can to bring more and more of them here. At the same time,’ the Contessa began and raised her eyes in a quick sweep of the faces before her, ‘Venetian families, especially young ones, are driven out because they cannot afford to rent or buy a home.’ Her distress was so palpable that Brunetti glanced across the table at his wife, Paola, and met her eyes. She nodded.
To the Contessa’s left sat a pale-haired young Englishman who had been introduced as Lord Something or Other. On his other side sat a famous English historian whose book about the Savoia family Brunetti had read, and liked. Professor Moore’s invitation had perhaps been prompted by her having made no mention in her book of the involvement of her hostess’ late husband’s family, the Lando-Continui, with Mussolini’s regime. On her left sat another Englishman who had been introduced to Brunetti as a banker and then, just opposite Brunetti, his own wife, sitting at her mother’s right hand.