‘Here,’ Paola said, handing him the cup and saucer. ‘There’s already sugar in it.’
She sat on his side of the bed and watched as he took his first sip of coffee, closed his eyes, and rested his head back against the pillow. ‘The patient will live,’ he said and finished his coffee. He set the cup and saucer on the bedside table. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be teaching?’ he asked her.
‘Not until ten.’
‘I’m not doing anything until twelve today,’ he boasted.
‘Why is that?’
‘Because I don’t feel like it.’
‘That’s certainly a compelling reason,’ she agreed.
‘When’s the last time I missed even a half-day of work?’ he demanded. ‘How many days have I taken sick leave in all these years?’
‘You were in the hospital for almost a week.’
‘That was years ago.’
‘Yes,’ she admitted.
‘I can’t bear it today,’ he said: he had told her about the medical report the night before. ‘I don’t know why that is, but it’s true. Just for one morning, I don’t want to think about it, go there, do it.’
‘Is this a life-altering change?’
He had to consider this. ‘Probably not.’
She bent over him and pressed his shoulder, then got to her feet.
‘Why’d you stay?’ Brunetti asked.
‘To bring you coffee.’
‘Don’t let your feminist friends find out you did that,’ Brunetti said.
‘Love trumps principle,’ she said and left.
Brunetti spent another hour reading Apollonius. How often it was true in these stories: love trumped principle. Paola tossed out these things so easily. Did she sit on the vaporetto and make them up or did they come to her in flashes?
He set the book aside, took a shower and got ready to leave the house. While he had been lolling in swinish sleep and reading, the sun had come out and got immediately to work: the streets were dry, and it was warm enough to wear only a sweater and jacket.
In the street, he decided to walk: it was faster than taking a vaporetto and making the long S towards Riva di Biasio. Besides, the air was an inducement to walk. Brunetti set out in what would be, in a normal city, a straight line, heading north-west. Venice, however, took him left and right, over bridges, around corners he wasn’t aware of turning or planning to turn. Within fifteen minutes, he was walking along the embankment of Rio Marin, heading towards the gas office. A few doors before it, he saw the windows and door of a bar, stopped and glanced inside, searching for a man he wouldn’t recognize.
There were two women at a table, each with a coffee cup in front of them. Three young tourists, two girls and a boy, sat at another table, a map spread out in front of them, each holding a glass of beer as they bent over it.
Brunetti entered and went to the bar. The barman looked at him and nodded. Brunetti had eaten nothing that morning and so did not want wine or a spritz. Nor did he want a coffee so close to lunch. He asked for a glass of mineral water and said, ‘I’m supposed to meet Pietro Cavanis, but he doesn’t seem to be here.’
‘No,’ the man said as he set a glass in front of Brunetti. ‘He hasn’t been in for a couple of days. At least, I haven’t seen him. He might have been here in the morning, when my son works, but he’s not much of a one for the morning, Pietro.’
‘I know,’ Brunetti said with a friendly smile. ‘He told me.’ He took a few sips of his water and set the glass down. ‘He told me to ask you for the keys if he wasn’t here.’
The barman smiled and stepped over to the cash register and pulled a much-handled envelope from where it was stuffed between the machine and the wall. He took out a set of keys and handed them to Brunetti. ‘It’s the green door on the other side of the canal. Top floor.’
‘I know that, too,’ Brunetti said, thanked the man, and took the keys. Without asking what he owed, Brunetti left two euros on the counter and started for the door. Holding up the keys, he turned at the door and said, ‘I’ll bring them back.’
The barman, who had already removed Brunetti’s glass and was wiping at the place where it had been, waved the cloth in his direction.
The bridge on the left was closer, so he crossed that and went along the riva to the green door. He stepped back and looked at the fa?ade of the building: the shutters on the first floor were all closed and sun-bleached, as were the four on the left side of the second floor. Two of the shutters on the right side were open, the inside bleached to a dull grey-green, suggesting that they were never pulled closed. The building looked sick, as if withering away to death. There were two empty rectangles on the left side of the bells; only Cavanis’ name was there: top row, right side.