Brunetti went to his office and looked at the papers on his desk. He opened his newspaper and glanced at the front page. When he had read that, he skipped to pages eight and nine, where the existence of countries other than Italy might be acknowledged. Fixed elections in Central Asia, with twelve dead and troops in the streets; Russian businessman and two bodyguards killed in an ambush; mudslides in South America brought on by illegal logging and heavy rains; fear of the imminent bankruptcy of Alitalia.
Did these things happen, Brunetti wondered, with such dismaying regularity, or did the papers simply pull them out and use them when little had happened over a weekend and there was nothing else to write about except sports? He turned another page, but saw nothing he thought he could read with interest. That left culture, entertainment, and sports, but he could not deal with any of those this morning.
His phone rang. He answered with his name and the guard at the front door told him there was a priest there to see him.
'A priest?’ Brunetti repeated.
'Si, Commissario’
'Would you ask him his name, please?'
'Of course’ The officer covered the receiver, and then he was back. 'He says his name is Padre Antonin, Dottore.'
'Ah, you can send him up, then’ Brunetti said. 'Show him the way, and I'll meet him at the top of the steps.' Padre Antonin was the priest who had given the final blessing over his mother's coffin; he was Sergio's friend and not his, and Brunetti could think of no reason that would bring him to the Questura.
Brunetti had known Antonin for decades, since he and Sergio had been schoolboys. Antonin Scallon had come close to being a bully then, always trying to make the boys, especially the younger ones, do what he wanted, name him the leader of the gang. Sergio's friendship with him had never made any sense to Brunetti, though he did notice that Antonin never gave orders to Sergio. After middle school, the brothers had gone to different schools, and so Antonin fell out of Brunetti's orbit. Some years later, Antonin had decided to enter the seminary, and from there he had gone to Africa as a missionary. During the time he spent in a country the name of which Brunetti could never remember, the only news of him Sergio received was contained in a circular letter which came just before Christmas, talking enthusiastically about the work the mission was doing to save souls, and ending with a request for money. Brunetti had no idea whether Sergio had answered the request: out of principle, he had refused to send anything.
And then, about four years ago, Antonin was back in Venice, working as a chaplain in the Ospedale Civile and living with the Dominicans in their mother house beside the Basilica. Sergio had mentioned his return, just as he had occasionally shown him the letters from Africa. The only other time Sergio had mentioned his former friend was to ask Brunetti if he minded if the priest came to the funeral and gave a blessing, a request Brunetti could hardly have refused, even had he been inclined to do so.
He went to the top of the stairs. The priest, dressed in the long skirt of his calling, was just turning into the final flight. He kept his eyes on his feet and one hand on the banister. From above, Brunetti could see how thin the man's hair was, how narrow his shoulders.
The priest stopped a few steps from the top and took two deep breaths, looked up, and saw Brunetti watching him. 'Ciao, Guido’ he said and smiled. He was Sergio's age, which made him two years older than Brunetti, yet anyone looking at the three men together would assume the priest to be their uncle. He was thin, thin to the point of emaciation, with cheekbones that poked through the skin of his face to create taut dark triangles below.
He slid his hand up the banister, looked back at his feet, and continued up the stairs, and Brunetti could not help noticing the way he pulled on the railing with every step. At the top, the priest paused again, and put out his hand to shake Brunetti's. There was no attempt to embrace him or give him the kiss of peace, and Brunetti was relieved at that.
The priest said, ‘I can't seem to get used to stairs again. I didn't see them for twenty years or so, and I suppose I forgot about them. They still seem strange to me. And exhausting’ The voice was still the same, with the exaggerated sibilance common to the Veneto. He had lost the cadence, though, and with it had gone what would once have made him immediately recognizable as being from the province. When the other man still did not move, Brunetti realized that Antonin was talking about the stairs in order to give himself a chance to regain his breath.
'How long were you there?' Brunetti asked, doing his bit to stretch out the moment.
'Twenty-two years.'
'Where were you?' he asked before he remembered he should have known that, if only from the letters Sergio had received.
'In Congo. Well, it was called Zaire when I got there, but then they changed the name back to Congo’ He smiled. 'Same place, but different countries. In a way’
'Interesting’ Brunetti said neutrally. He held the door open for the other man, closed it behind him, and walked slowly after.
'Sit here,' Brunetti said, angling one of the chairs away from his desk, then turning another to face it, careful to pull it back to leave space between the two chairs. He waited for the priest to sit and then did the same.
'Thank you for coming to give the blessing,' Brunetti said.
'Not the best way to see old friends again for the first time’ the priest answered with a smile.
Was that meant as a reproach that neither he nor Sergio had made any attempt to contact him in the years since his return to Venice?
'I visited your mother in the nursing home’ Antonin continued. 'A number of the people I knew when they were first in the hospital went out there’ he added, meaning the private nursing home outside the city where Brunetti's mother had spent her last years. ‘I know it was very good; the sisters there are very kind.' Brunetti smiled and nodded. 'I'm sorry I was never there when you and Sergio were’ Abruptly the priest got to his feet, but it was only to pull his long skirt out from under him and flick it to one side; then he sat down again and went on. 'The sisters told me you went often, both of you.'
'Not as often as we should have, I suppose’ Brunetti said.
‘I don't think there's any "should" in these circumstances, Guido. You go when you can and you go with love’
'Did she know that we went?' Brunetti found himself asking.
Antonin studied his hands, folded together in his lap. ‘I think she might have. Sometimes. I never know what they think or what's going on inside them, these old people.' He raised his hands in an arc of confusion. ‘I think that what they do know is feelings. Or that they register them. I think they sense if the person with them is kind and is there because they love them or like them.' He looked at Brunetti and then again at his hands. 'Or pity them.'
Brunetti noticed that Antonin's fingernails covered only half of the bed of the nail, and at first he thought they must have been bitten down, a strange habit in a man of his age. But then he noticed that the nails were brittle and broken off in irregular layers, faintly concave and spotted, and he realized it must be some sort of disease, perhaps brought back from Africa. If so, why did he still have it?
'Do they register all those things the same way?' Brunetti asked.
'You mean the pity?' Antonin asked.
'Yes. It's different from love or liking, isn't it?'
'I suppose so,' the priest said and smiled. 'But the ones I saw were happy to get it: after all, it's much more than most old people get.' Absently, Antonin pinched up the cloth of his robe and ran the fold between the fingers of his other hand to make a long crease. He let it drop, looked at Brunetti and said, ‘Your mother was lucky that she still had so many people who came to her with love and liking.'