It was dark when they left the bar, each of them going in a different direction. Brunetti chose to walk home, hoping that the sight of beauty would cleanse his memory of the dead man and the impoverished life he must have led in that apartment. Had he been talking with Paola, he probably would have made some remark about how much more harmful television was to the brain than alcohol, had he not known that this was not true, having seen too many drunks who proved how much worse alcohol was.
His steps took him towards Campo SS Giovanni e Paolo, but he passed the basilica without stopping to go in. Down the bridge into Giacinto Gallina: another bridge, another one and there on the left was the back of the Chiesa dei Miracoli. He crossed the fourth bridge so that he could walk along its side, letting the alabaster walls soothe his spirit. He stopped in the tiny campo and studied the fa?ade. He’d once heard of a singer who boasted that her high notes were higher than anyone else’s: the church was more perfect than any other perfect church.
His spirit was at peace by the time he reached home. Paola was happy for his kiss of greeting and the children pleased to have his full attention during dinner. As he ate his bean soup, knowing there was only lasagne to come, he wondered why this wasn’t enough for so many people. Why did they have to have more? his innocent self asked. No sooner had the thought come than a more mature voice told him not to ask such stupid questions.
Later, when Paola came back to place the deep dish of lasagne on the table, Brunetti looked at her, looked at his children, and said, ‘How happy this makes me.’ His family smiled their agreement, thinking he meant the food, but it was the last thing on Brunetti’s mind at that moment.
After dinner, he continued with Apollonius, who finally approached the story of Jason and Medea. The myth had upset Brunetti from the first time he read it. It was Euripides he’d read then with such chilling effect, when still little more than a boy and reading it in Italian, not yet able to attempt the Greek. He recalled how frightened he had been of Medea’s rage as it soared up from every page: ‘Hate is a bottomless pit; I will pour and pour.’ ‘Stronger than lover’s love is lover’s hate.’ Her voice had struck some chord in him; he’d known these things were true, though he had never seen them – not yet – in action. How often, later on, had he heard these confessions in his professional life? Medea had confessed, in a way: ‘I know what evil I am about to do, but even my realization of what will come after cannot stop my rage.’
By a conscious act of will, he set the book aside before Jason arrived in Colchis. Not tonight. Not with the memory of Manuela still fresh and not with tomorrow promising to be a day spent examining the life and death of Pietro Cavanis.
When he reached the Questura the next morning, Brunetti called Bocchese to ask when he could check Cavanis’ telefonino for numbers called and calls received, only to be told that the technicians had not yet checked it for fingerprints, but that should take only a few hours. Brunetti called Griffoni and told her it was movie time again, though it was only a bit after nine.
Together, they spent two hours watching – to no purpose they could fathom – the last of the programmes from the local television station. As if to counteract the cloying sweetness of The Robe, the evening’s viewing had closed with a discussion of the problems facing the city. Did people in other cities spend all their time talking about their city? he wondered.
Present were two former mayors, one who fell and one who was pushed. Along with them were a member of the Centre Right, a representative of the Lega Nord, and, no doubt in an attempt to ensure that at least one of the panel would not become violently abusive, a female journalist from the Corriere del Veneto.
The presenter asked the politician from the Centre Right party to begin by outlining what he thought were the chief problems facing the city. That was the last time one person spoke alone, for no sooner had the politician begun his answer than he was interrupted by one of the former mayors, who was in his turn interrupted by the man from the Lega Nord, which left the other mayor no choice but to interrupt with his own vision of reality.
Brunetti lowered the volume until they were reduced to whispering, then inaudible – though violently agitated – heads: Francis Bacon might have painted them. The journalist brushed the hair back from her forehead, raised her hand as if trying to hail a cab, and then accepted reality and pulled a book from her bag and began to read.
‘Sensible woman,’ Brunetti said and then asked rhetorically, ‘Do you think it makes any sense for us to watch more of this?’