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Il Conte gave him a level look and said, ‘You always were known for the moderation of your views, Guido.’
Brunetti pretended he was a piece of moss on a rock and sat and waited. Rain could fall, feet could walk past, animals might nibble at his edges. He would sit and wait. He did not cross his legs nor move his feet. His arms rested on those of the chair. His drink might well have been in a different room. Or on a different planet.
The boats went by; he could hear them because the palazzo, as part of the artistic patrimony of the city, could not have double-glazed windows, so the sounds of the motors and the horns, as well as the occasional siren, were a normal backdrop to all conversation in the front rooms. The rooms in the back were darker and quieter.
Brunetti walked to the window but saw nothing he liked. Personal success didn’t interest him, and praise embarrassed him.
‘Votta ‘a petrella e annasconne ‘a manella.’ Throw the stone and then hide the hand. Indeed.
Poseidon’s words: ‘What fools men are to raze a city, destroying tombs, and temples, and sacred places, when they are so soon to die themselves.’ He wondered how many wise people had said the same over the millennia, yet here we are, still sending in the helmeted men in search of revenge. And loot.
‘Is it because Gonzalo’s gay?’ Chiara asked hesitantly. ‘No,’ Brunetti said without a moment’s hesitation. ‘That’s not important to your grandfather.’
He sat on the sofa and mused about this: these fictive people and what happened to them were much more upsettingly real to him than what he read in even the most graphic police reports. Himself no writer, a man who had no special ability with words, Brunetti found in their power traces of what he was embarrassed to call the divine.
‘And someone will love us for who we are, not for what we own?’ Brunetti asked.
The young man was merely another of the bright young things, men and women both, making compromises on their way down the long road towards success.
Nor did he question that most would believe it was natural for a woman to sell herself for money, although not for a man.
They hadn’t lived long enough to understand what grace it was to die in an instant and not to linger.
‘If he were an ancient Roman, he’d probably already have put a funeral mask in the atrium of the house.’
‘“La nobiltà ha dipinta negli occhi l’onestà“,’ Brunetti whispered.
‘It would be nice if we could choose the people we love, but love chooses them.’
