Brunetti looked towards the back of the apartment.
'Just follow the noise,' she said and went back to bouncing the boy on her lap.
He did as he was told and went into a bedroom on the right side of the corridor, where he found two cribs that stood head to head. Bright-coloured mobiles floated from the ceiling, and a small zoo of stuffed animals stood behind the bars of the cribs. A little girl lay in one of them, beside her a furry elephant just as big as she. He walked over to her, saying, 'Emma, how are you? Aren't you a pretty girl? Come on, now, we're going out to see your nonna, eh?'
He bent and picked her up, surprised to find that she lay limp in his hands, like a frightened animal. Not-quite-forgotten habit slipped into operation and he put her over his shoulder, noticing the insubstantiality of her, patting her warm back with his right hand, saying nonsense things to her all the way back to the living room.
'Just put her here, next to me’ the woman said when he came in. He seated the little girl next to her grandmother, whereupon she tilted to the right and fell over. She made a low noise but did not move.
Before Brunetti could reach down and set her upright, the woman said, 'No, leave her. She can't sit up yet.'
At two, both of his children were walking, even running, and Raffi had declared war on any object within his reach. Brunetti made himself respond as if he found her remark in no way surprising.
'Has she seen a doctor?'
'Ah, doctors,' she said, the way Venetians always spoke of doctors.
She got to her feet, propped the little boy upright next to his sister, stuck a pillow on his other side, and took a packet of Nazionale blu out of the pocket of her apron. 'Would you watch them while I go and have a cigarette?' she asked. 'Sonia and Giorgio don't want me to smoke in the house, so I have to go out on the landing and open the window.' She grinned at this. 'I suppose it's only fair. I did it to Sonia, God knows, for years.' The grin turned into a smile and she added, 'At least, with her, it worked, and she doesn't smoke. I suppose I should be thankful for that.'
Before Brunetti could agree, she walked to the door of the apartment and out onto the landing, leaving the door ajar. He decided to sit on the chair to the left of the sofa, leaving the children as undisturbed as possible. The little boy seemed to forget his grandmother as soon as she was gone and returned his attention to the plump figures on the screen that were now jumping into a river of blue flowers. The little girl lay where she had fallen. Brunetti sat, gazing at the small children, suddenly overcome by a wild uneasiness that something would happen to one of them while their grandmother was out of the room and he would not know how to deal with the situation. He watched the twins, amazed at the difference in their sizes, looked at the half-closed door, and then at the television screen.
After a few minutes, the woman came back into the apartment, trailing the odour of smoke. 'Giorgio never stops telling me how bad it is for me’ she said, patting the cigarettes that appeared to be back in her pocket. 'And I suppose he's right, but I've been smoking since before he was born, so it can't be as bad for me as he says.' She saw Brunetti's reluctant smile and added, 'Whenever he keeps at it, I always tell him that the salad he's eating is probably just as dangerous as my cigarettes.' She raised her shoulders, lowered them, and sighed deeply. 'I suppose we're both right, but you'd think he'd know me well enough by now to leave me alone about it.' Another sigh, another shrug. 'But he wants to believe what he wants to believe. Just like all of us. Pazienza.'
She took her seat on the sofa again, but this time she lifted the little girl on to her lap, placed a hand at her waist, and held her upright. The boy, seeing that she was holding his sister, scrambled onto his feet on the sofa and wrapped his grandmother's neck in his embrace, whispering secrets in her ear and laughing.
'Oh, look at them,' the woman said, pointing a finger at the screen and using that voice of feigned enthusiasm that seems always to deceive children. 'Look what they're doing now.'
The little boy fell for it and turned his attention away from his grandmother's ear and back to the television. Though he kept one arm draped around her shoulders, he appeared to forget about her. 'What was it you wanted to talk to him about?' she asked Brunetti. The little girl lay inert on her lap.
'Your son-in-law works at the De Cal fornace, I believe’ Brunetti said.
'At the factory?' she asked.
'Yes.'
'What do you want to know? He's only the watchman.'
Brunetti was surprised by her reaction to what had seemed an entirely innocuous question.
"There's been talk of threats being made there, and I wanted to speak to your son-in-law about it’ Brunetti said, not thinking it necessary to tell her any more than that.
'Whatever he said, I'm sure it was just talk and he didn't mean it’ she said.
'Do you know Signor De Cal?' Brunetti asked.
Her free hand moved automatically towards her cigarettes and patted them for whatever comfort the packet might provide. 'I've seen him, but I've never spoken to him’ she said. 'People say he's a difficult man to get along with, and there was that fight in the bar a couple of years ago. Everyone on Murano knows about it.'
'So your son-in-law has told you about the threats?' Brunetti asked.
She patted the little boy's bottom, pulled him a bit closer, but his attention was entirely engaged by the figures on the screen and he could not be distracted. Finally she said, 'Yes. But I told you, it was just talk. I'm sure he didn't mean anything.'
Then why, Brunetti wondered, mention the fight? 'Did your son-in-law tell you exactly what was said?'
Brunetti thought she looked as though he had trapped her into saying something she should not have said and regretted ever having spoken to him. 'He's always blamed De Cal’ she began, speaking softly. 'I know, I know, even though there's nothing that can prove it, Giorgio still believes it. Just like with the cigarettes: he believes it and that's that. No use talking to him.'
She looked at the little girl and placed her palm on her back, covering it completely. 'I've tried to talk to him. Sonia's tried. The doctors. Nothing. He believes it and that's that.'
Brunetti felt as though he had been looking at one programme on television, and while he was momentarily distracted, someone had pressed the remote control and he was now watching a different programme with no idea of what had happened at the beginning.
'And the threat?' was the only thing he could think to ask.
'I don't know what made him do it. In the past, he's always been careful what he said, never said anything directly. Though I'm sure they know what he thinks: no one keeps any secrets out there, and he's talked to the men he works with.' She raised her hands as if her open palms could summon help from heaven. Two weeks ago, he told Sonia he was close to having the final proof. But he's said that so many times’ she went on, her face and her voice growing sadder. 'Besides, we know there's no proof.'
She wrapped her right arm around the boy and pulled him close to her, then used her left hand to wipe her eyes. Suddenly speaking in a voice close to anger, she took her hand from her face and waved it in the direction of the bookcase on the opposite wall. 'I should have known when he started reading all that stuff. How long is it? Two years? Three? And all he wants to do is read. So he keeps that job that pays almost nothing so he can read all night. But the children have to eat, we have to eat, and if I didn't own this apartment and couldn't stay home with the children, God knows what would happen to them: Sonia wouldn't work, and they'd starve on what he earns alone.' Her voice tightened with rage and she made a spitting motion with her lips. 'And try to get any help from this government; just try it. With all the proof they've got, with doctors' letters and certificates and tests from the hospital, and what do they give them? Two hundred Euros a month. And nothing for me, even though I have to stay here with them all the time. You try to raise two children on two hundred Euros a month and come and tell me how easy it is.'