‘It opens a record with the police about you,’ Brunetti said.
‘But nothing happens to you,’ she insisted.
Through all of this, Raffi’s head had turned back and forth between his sister and his father as though he were watching a shuttlecock. Paola pushed her chair back, collected the plates, and carried them to the sink at the end of the room. Brunetti took a sip of wine and finally asked, ‘Why are you curious about this, Chiara?’
‘Maybe she’s looking for a way to pick up some pocket money in the afternoons after school,’ Raffi suggested, ‘and she wants to know if she’ll be arrested.’ His sister snatched up her napkin and flicked it in his direction. Paola turned at the sound, but by the time she saw them, the napkin was already back in Chiara’s lap and she was taking a sip of water.
Chiara looked at her father and then at her mother, and then down at her plate. Brunetti waited, and Paola, at the counter, returned to spooning vegetables into two ceramic bowls.
‘There’s one of those new Africans,’ Chiara began at last, then paused for a long time before continuing. ‘He stops us all and asks for money. Every day: he’s always there when we get out of classes.’
‘What do you mean by “new” Africans?’ Paola raised her voice to ask.
‘Not like the vu cumprà,’ Raffi interrupted to explain. Brunetti expected Chiara to object, but she simply nodded in agreement. Over the years, Brunetti, like most Venetians, had grown accustomed to the presence of the Senegalese immigrants, called vu cumprà by everyone in the city, even though political correctness demanded that they be called venditori ambulanti. Brunetti had tried to use the polite term but kept forgetting it and so ended up calling them, as did everyone else, by their original name.
‘I still don’t understand,’ Paola said.
Chiara and Raffi exchanged a long glance, as though asking one another if their parents lived in the same city as they did, and then Chiara said, ‘They’ve been around for only the last year or so, the ones I mean. And they’re different.’
‘In what way?’ Paola asked.
‘Aggressive,’ Raffi said, then looked across at Chiara for confirmation. ‘At least the ones I see are.’
Chiara nodded. ‘The vu cumprà have been here a long time. They all speak Italian. And they know a lot of us, too. So we joke with them, and it doesn’t matter if we don’t buy anything: they’re still friendly,’ she said, confirming Brunetti’s impression of the Senegalese street vendors.
‘And the new ones?’ Paola asked, bending to pull a platter from the oven.
Chiara propped her chin in one hand, something she was forbidden to do at table. Brunetti ignored it and Paola didn’t see. ‘He gives me the creeps,’ she finally said, as if confessing to a crime. ‘I know I’m not supposed to say that about immigrants, but this guy is different. He’s sort of menacing, and sometimes he puts his hand on your arm.’ Her voice grew stronger, as if she were defending herself. ‘The vu cumprà would never do that. Never.’
Brunetti, whose chair faced the stove, exchanged a glance with Paola, who was suddenly motionless and attentive to the conversation. Brunetti didn’t like the idea of any man putting his hand uninvited on his daughter’s arm. He realized how atavistic his response was and didn’t care in the least.
‘While asking for money?’ he asked in his calmest of calm voices.
‘Yes.’
Brunetti picked up his fork to give himself something to do while he thought about this. Glancing at his place, he was surprised to see that his plate had disappeared. As he looked at the empty place, it was suddenly filled as Paola set a plate of yellow peppers filled with meat and ricotta in front of him.
When everyone was served and Paola had sat down again, he took an exploratory bite. He ate a little more and was about to speak, when Raffi said, sounding both amused and exasperated, ‘And we’ve got the drug people, but they ignore us. It’s only the tourists they want.’
‘What drug people?’ Paola asked, her own voice rough with badly controlled fear.
Raffi turned to her and raised a hand. ‘Calm down, Mamma. I said it wrong: the anti-drug people.’
Brunetti glanced at Paola and saw her plaster a look of amiable curiosity on to her face, then mirror it in her voice. ‘Which is it, Raffi, pro or con?’ Surely this calm voice could not be that of the mother of a teenage child she’d just heard speak so casually of drugs.
‘Oh, they say they’re against them,’ Chiara said. ‘But look at them.’
‘At their teeth,’ Raffi added, reminding Brunetti of what he had seen in the grimaces of some of the addicts who had passed through the Questura on their way to prison, and of what was to be seen in the photos taken when they were booked.