When he entered the hospital room, he thought for a moment that Signorina Elettra had been at work here as well, for masses of flowers exploded from every available flat surface. Roses, iris, lilies and orchids flooded the room with their mingled sweetness, and the wastepaper basket overflowed with crumpled wrapping paper from Fantin and Biancat, the two florists where Venetians were most likely to go. He noticed that Americans, or at least foreigners, had also sent flowers: no Italian would have sent a sick person those immense bouquets of chrysanthemums, flowers used exclusively for funerals and for the tombs of the departed. He realized that it made him uncomfortable to be in a hospital room with them but dismissed the sensation as the worst sort of superstition.
Both women were, as he had either expected or hoped, in the room, Brett propped up against the raised back of the bed, head cushioned between two pillows, and Flavia sitting in a chair at her side. Spread out on the surface of the bed between them were a number of coloured sketches of women in long, elaborate gowns. Each wore a diadem that surrounded her head in a jewelled sunburst. Brett glanced up from the drawings when he came in, and her lips moved minimally; the smile was all in her eyes. Flavia, after a moment, and at a reduced temperature, did the same.
‘Good morning,’ he said to both of them and glanced down at the pictures. The wave-patterned border at the hem of two of the dresses made them look oriental. But, instead of the usual dragons, the dresses were patterned with abstract splashes that hurled violent colours at one another and yet managed to create harmony, not dissonance.
‘What are those?’ he asked with real curiosity and, as soon as he spoke, realized he should have been asking Brett how she was.
Flavia answered him. ‘Sketches for the new Turandot at La Scala.’
‘Then you are going to sing it?’ he asked. The press had been buzzing with this for weeks, even though the opening night was almost a full year away. The soprano whose name had been ‘hinted at’ as the one ‘rumoured to be’ the ‘possible choice’ — this was the way things were expressed at La Scala — had said she was interested in the possibility and would consider it, which clearly meant she wasn’t, and wouldn’t. Flavia Petrelli, who had never sung the role, was named as the next possibility, and she had issued, just two weeks ago, a statement to the press saying she refused absolutely even to consider the idea, as close to a formal acceptance as a soprano could be expected to come.
‘You should know better than to try to solve the riddles of Turandot,’ Flavia said, voice falsely light, letting him know he had seen something he was not to have seen. She leaned forward and gathered the drawings together. Quickly translated, both messages meant he was to say nothing about this.
‘How are you?’ he finally asked Brett.
Though her jaws were no longer wired together, Brett’s smile was still faintly idiotic, lips separate from one another and pulling up at the corners. ‘Better. I can go home in a day.’
‘Two,’ Flavia corrected.
‘A day or two,’ Brett amended. Seeing him standing there, still in his coat, she said, ‘Excuse me. Please sit down.’ She pointed to a chair that stood behind Flavia. He picked it up and placed it beside the bed, folded his coat over the back and sat.
‘Do you feel like talking about what happened?’ he asked, encompassing both of them in the question.
Puzzled, Brett asked, ‘But we talked about this before, didn’t we?’
Brunetti nodded and asked, ‘What did they say to you? Exactly. Can you remember?’
‘Exactly?’ she repeated, confused.
‘Did they say enough to let you know where they came from?’ Brunetti prompted.
‘I see,’ Brett said. She closed her eyes and put herself momentarily back in the hall of her apartment, remembered the men, their faces and voices. ‘Sicilian. At least the one who hit me was. I’m less sure about the other. He said very little.’ She looked at Brunetti. ‘What difference does it make?’
‘It might help us identify them.’
‘I certainly hope so,’ Flavia broke in, giving no clues whether she spoke in reproach or hope.
‘Did either of you recognize any of the photos?’ he asked, though he was sure the officer who had brought over the photos of men who matched the descriptions the two women had given would have told him if they had.
Flavia shook her head, and Brett said, ‘No.’
‘You said they warned you not to go to a meeting with Dottor Semenzato. Then you said something about ceramics from the China exhibition. Do you mean the one that was here, at the Doge’s Palace?’
‘Yes.’
‘I remember,’ Brunetti said. ‘You organized it, didn’t you?’ he asked.
She forgot and nodded, then rested her head back on the pillows and waited a moment for the world to stop spinning. When it did, she said, ‘Some pieces came from our dig, in Xian. The Chinese chose me as liaison. I know people.’ Even though the wires were gone, she still moved her jaw gingerly; a deep buzz still underlay everything she said and filled her ears with its constant whine.
Flavia interrupted and explained for her. ‘The show opened first in New York and then went to London. Brett went to the New York opening and then back to close it down for shipment to London. But she had to go back to China before the London opening. Something happened at the dig.’ Turning to Brett, she asked, ‘What was it, cara?’
‘Treasure.’
That, apparently, was enough to remind Flavia. ‘They’d just opened up the passage into the burial chamber, so they called Brett in London and told her she had to go back to oversee the excavation of the tomb.’
‘Who was in charge of the opening here?’
This time, Brett answered. ‘I was, I got back from China three days before it closed in London. And then I came here with it to set it up.’ She closed her eyes then, and Brunetti thought she was tired with the talking, but she opened them immediately and continued. ‘I left before the exhibition closed, so they sent the pieces back to China.’
‘They?’ Brunetti asked.
Brett glanced across at Flavia before she answered, then said, ‘Dottor Semenzato was here, and my assistant came from China to close the show and send everything back.’
‘You weren’t in charge?’ he asked.
Again, she looked at Flavia before answering. ‘No, I couldn’t be here. I didn’t see the pieces again until this winter.’
‘Four years later?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Yes,’ she said and waved her hand as if that would help explain. ‘The shipment got held up on the way back to China and then in Beijing. Red tape. It ended up in a customs warehouse in Shanghai for two years. The pieces from Xian didn’t get back until two months ago.’ Brunetti watched her consider her words, searching for a way to explain. ‘They weren’t the same. Copies. Not the soldier or the jade shroud: they were the originals. But the ceramics, I knew it, but I couldn’t prove it until I tested them, and I couldn’t do that in China.’