There were three moments of shared anxiety as Manuela cut the remaining three pieces of cake, but she managed to do it without creating much mess, giving her mother a small piece and cutting one as big as Brunetti’s for Griffoni and setting down the knife long enough to pass it to her, smiling.
Last, she cut herself a normal-sized piece and sat down.
Her mother put a drop of cream on her cake and passed the bowl to Griffoni, who heaped three large spoonfuls on hers. Brunetti knew that she’d prefer not to, but also knew that she would eat it all, perhaps even ask for a second slice. In the past, he had watched her eat pies and cakes in order to placate possible witnesses or to win trust from people who should not have trusted her. Here, however, it had nothing to do with her profession: food is love, he believed, and Manuela needed to love.
Griffoni asked her if she’d like cream and at her nod put a large spoonful on top of Manuela’s cake.
‘Buon appetito,’ her mother said, and they picked up their forks.
Ah, Brunetti thought as he piled cream on his second bite of cake, who says that good actions are not rewarded?
Automatically, the level of conversation became appropriate for Manuela: how good the cake was, how good Alina’s apple cake was, too, and Manuela always helped by peeling the apples; why is cream so good with chocolate cake, and where does cream come from; and would it be possible to ride a cow?
When Manuela asked this question, her mother quickly ate her last bite of cake and asked her daughter if she could have another, although Brunetti suspected she was enjoying the cake as little as Griffoni.
‘Would you like another piece of cake, Signora?’ Manuela asked Griffoni, who put both hands over her stomach and said, ‘If I ate any more, I’d go “pop” and they’d hear it all over the city.’
This set Manuela off into giggles, and the idea of riding a cow – of riding – was abandoned.
When cake and more coffee had been refused, and then refused again, Brunetti and Griffoni got to their feet and said they had to go back to work. Manuela found this thrilling and asked, ‘Do you get to chase bad guys?’
‘No, Signorina Manuela,’ Brunetti said, ‘usually we sit at our desks and read papers all day long. It’s really very boring. Much more fun to come here and have cake.’
She laughed at this as though it were the funniest thing she’d ever heard, and again the bright sound of her laughter cut Brunetti to the heart.
She went with them towards the door, leaning close to Griffoni as they walked. Just as they got there, Brunetti heard Signora Magello-Ronchi call after him. ‘Commissario,’ she said, coming towards them. ‘You forgot this.’ She held up the manila envelope she had brought back from some other room.
He took it and thanked her. Manuela’s name was on the cover. He turned the envelope over and looked at the flap. ‘Didn’t you open it?’
‘I told you. There was no need to,’ she answered, voice moving away from pleasantness.
Griffoni, perhaps in response to the tension that had suddenly entered the room, asked Manuela a question and moved off from the others to hear the answer.
Manuela’s mother closed her eyes for a moment and concentrated on taking a breath. When she opened her eyes, she said, ‘You can read it if you want. It doesn’t interest me.’ She looked towards the door, where Griffoni and Manuela stood close together, talking happily. ‘Only she does,’ she said in a tired voice. ‘Only my baby.’
Brunetti reached out and took her hand and held it. ‘Thank you for talking to us, Signora,’ he said.
‘I hope you liked the cake,’ she chirped back in best hostess fashion, then smiled easily, looking remarkably like Manuela when she did.
Griffoni and Brunetti took their leave, but not before having promised to come back and see Manuela another time.
17
The fastest way to get to the Questura was to take the Number One from San Silvestro. As they waited on the imbarcadero for the vaporetto, Brunetti said, ‘She’s a sweet girl, isn’t she?’ realizing only too late that he had referred to Manuela as a girl.
Griffoni nodded but said nothing.
‘You got on with her very well, it seemed.’
‘All I had to do was think of my nieces.’
‘How old are they?’
‘One’s six and one’s eight. I said to her what I say to them.’ She walked back outside and leaned against the railing with folded arms, looking towards Rialto for a sign of the boat.
Brunetti, without glancing at his watch, said, ‘Four minutes.’
‘Are you joking?’ Griffoni asked in surprise. ‘Do you all have computer chips in your ears with the boat times?’
‘It’s my stop,’ he said. ‘So I don’t need a chip.’
She turned and glanced across the canal and said, ‘It’s strange: there are times when I begin to find all of this normal. It’s where I live and I move around on boats, and addresses mean nothing, and it’s faster to walk to work, and I’m even beginning to get used to the sound of Veneziano.’ She let her voice trail off and stop.