‘How’d they react?’
‘Most of them ignored him and continued walking as if he weren’t there. But some of them couldn’t avoid him.’
‘What did he do?’
‘He got very close to them, stood in their way. Once he touched a girl’s arm, but she pulled it away from him,’ Vianello said. ‘It looked to me as if he was only trying to get her attention.’
‘Did any of them give him money?’
‘No, not one.’
‘How long did this go on?’
‘About ten minutes. I stayed at the bar, watching. I wanted to see what he’d do. A couple of the boys said things to him, and he answered them, but there wasn’t any aggression or trouble. Finally, when there were no more kids coming out of the school, he turned back into the calle and walked away, heading towards Accademia.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I followed him.’
‘And?’
‘When we got out into the campo, I walked up beside him and showed him my warrant card and asked to see his identification,’ Vianello began. ‘I could see him thinking about running, but then he said he’d left it in his room and it was all in order. He had only a few words in Italian, but he made that much clear.’
‘And then?’
‘I asked where he was from, and he said the Central African Republic. Then he tried to charm me with his big smile and calling me “amico”.’
Vianello sounded un-charmed, and Brunetti said nothing.
‘I told him I wasn’t his amico but la Polizia; then I told him to stay away from the school.’
‘Did he understand?’
‘I think I made it sufficiently clear,’ Vianello said.
‘You don’t sound very sympathetic,’ Brunetti observed.
‘Why should I be? He’s here, he has no job, so I’m paying his way with my taxes. The state’s given him a place to live and fifty euros a day . . .’
Before Vianello could continue, Brunetti asked, ‘How do you know it’s fifty euros?’
‘Everybody knows it,’ Vianello said.
‘Everybody might say it,’ Brunetti admitted, ‘but I’m not sure that anybody knows it. You ever multiply fifty by thirty?’ he asked.
‘What?’ Vianello asked defensively.
‘You ever multiply fifty by thirty?’
Before Vianello could say anything else, Brunetti said, ‘That’s how many days there are in a month. Times fifty.’
He watched Vianello work out the numbers. ‘It’s one thousand, five hundred euros,’ Vianello said, making no attempt to hide his surprise.
‘Do you think the government has that much to give to each one of them?’ Brunetti asked. ‘Plus a place to live?’
Vianello ran his hands through his hair. ‘But . . .’ he began. ‘But it’s what everyone says.’
After a while, he added, ‘They also say that they don’t have to pay tax on it.’ He looked at Brunetti. ‘If that’s the case, then it’s what a person who makes about three thousand euros a month would take home.’ He folded the newspaper in half and slid it slowly to the edge of his desk.
Looking at Brunetti he asked, ‘It can’t be true, can it? That they’d be given so much?’
‘I doubt it,’ Brunetti answered. ‘I’ve heard lots of variants on the same story: that they have entire apartments, not just rooms in an apartment. That their names always go to the top of the lists for housing, so Italians have no place to live.’ One of the circulars he’d been sent from the Ministry of the Interior estimated a cost of fifty euros, but that was the cost to the government for each day it kept an immigrant at one of its shelters or housing facilities: very little went directly into their hands. ‘The government might spend fifty euros a day on them, but it doesn’t go to them,’ he concluded.
‘Mamma mia,’ Vianello exploded. ‘Next thing you know, I’ll be voting for the Lega Nord.’
As if to justify his critical stance, Brunetti said, ‘Logic was my favourite class in school. I liked it because it’s a way to see how what someone says is nonsense.’
‘For example?’ Vianello asked.
‘As with these immigrants and the argument that they impoverish us as a country, take all of the money that should be ours. And our jobs and our women.’
He paused, but Vianello did not prompt him with another question, so he went on. ‘In logic, that’s the appeal to fear. Make people afraid of something and you can make them do what you want.’
Vianello, who had just joked about joining the Lega, added, ‘Once you multiply the fifty euros a day by a couple of months, you do see it’s impossible.’
Brunetti shrugged. ‘Exactly. Appeal to fear,’ he said.
‘Lot of that around, isn’t there?’ Vianello asked.