'You've known about this for years,' Brunetti said, letting himself sink deeper into the sofa.
'Yes, I've known about it,' she agreed. 'But I didn't have this,' she said, picking up the booklet again and opening it to the last page. 'I didn't have the information that thirty-six million tons of "material" flow through there every year. I've no idea how much thirty-six million tons is, and God knows they don't tell us what it's thirty-six million tons of, but I suspect it would take considerably less than that, in the case of fire, to ...' Her voice drifted off.
'What makes you think something like that will happen?' he asked.
'Because I spent an hour and a half today trying to give the new expiry date of my credit card to the phone company’ she shot back.
'The connection?' he inquired with Olympian calm.
'They sent me a letter, telling me the card had expired and asking me to dial their free number. When I did, I got the usual menu of cheerful suggestions: press one for this and two for that and three if you want to sign up for new services. And then the line died. Six times.'
'Why did you try six times?'
'What other choice is there? Even if I want to tell them to cancel the service, I still have to speak to them and tell them to do so and send the final bill to the bank.'
'And when is it that you are going to explain the connection with Marghera?' he asked, aware suddenly of how tired he was and how much he longed not to be involved in this conversation.
She removed her glasses, the better to see him or the better to fix him with her basilisk eye. 'Because the same people work in both places, Guido. The same people set up the programs and work on the safety systems. At the end of all of this, I was told, by the human being I finally managed to talk to, that I had to send the expiry date of the card to a fax number because their system did not allow her to take the information over the phone.'
Brunetti rested his head against the back of the sofa and closed his eyes. 'I still don't get the connection,' he said.
'Because the person who failed to put the fax number on the letter they sent me could just as easily be the man whose job it is to turn a handle or a knob at one of the factories in Marghera and who, instead of turning it like this,' she said and waited for him to open his eyes. When he did, he saw her grab a giant, invisible wheel and turn it to the right. Turns it like this’ she continued, turning her hands to the left. 'And there goes Marghera, and there goes Venice, and there go all of us.'
'Oh come on,' he said, tired and irritated by her histrionics, 'you're being a catastrophist.'
'Just like Vianello?' she asked.
Brunetti no longer remembered how he had been dragged into this, but he no longer cared what he said. 'In his wilder moments, yes. You are.'
A tense silence had replaced the eager humour of her first remarks. Brunetti leaned down and fished up that week's Espresso. He flipped it open and found himself looking at the movie reviews. Doggedly he concentrated on reviews of films he would never, even in his wildest moments, think of seeing. Having finished reading these, he fanned through the pages and came to the lead story: the Marghera trial. He shut the magazine and let it drop to the floor.
'All right,' he said. 'All right.' He let some time pass and said, 'I've had a long day, Paola. And I don't want to spend what little is left of it arguing with you.'
His eyes closed, he heard her rather than saw her come close, and then he felt her weight on the sofa beside him. 'I'll go make dinner’ she said. Her weight shifted, and then he felt her lips on his forehead.
An hour later, as they sat down to dinner, Brunetti watched his children as the family ate and drank, and he listened to them complain about their teachers and the pressure of homework that seemed never to ease.
'If you want to go to the university,' he said, 'then homework's the price you have to pay.'
'And if I don't go,' Chiara asked, 'then what?' Brunetti failed to detect defiance in her words; he noticed that Paola had tuned into the question.
'Then I suppose you try to find a job,' Brunetti answered in a voice he attempted to make sound factual rather than critical. The choice seemed obvious enough to him.
'But everyone's always saying that there aren't any jobs’ Chiara complained.
'And that's what's always in the papers’ Raffi added, his fork poised over his swordfish steak. 'Look at Kati and Fulvio’ he said, naming the older brother and sister of his best friend. 'Both of them are dottori, and neither one of them has a job.'
"That's not true’ Chiara said. 'Kati's working in a museum.'
'Kati is selling catalogues at the Correr, you mean’ Raffi said. "That's not a job, not after six years at the university. She'd make more money if she sold shoes at Prada.' Brunetti wondered if Raffi considered that a better job.
'Prada's not the smartest place in the world to work if you want to get a job as an art historian’ Chiara said.
'Neither is the bargain basement at the Correr Museum’ her brother shot back.
Brunetti, who had seen the last exhibition there and paid more than forty Euros for the catalogue, hardly saw the museum shop as a bargain basement, but he kept this thought to himself and, instead, asked, 'What about Fulvio?'
Raffi looked down at his fish, and Chiara reached out to take some more spinach, though her knife and fork had been neatly lined up on her plate before. Neither answered, and the atmosphere filled with a palpable awkwardness. Brunetti pretended he had noticed nothing and said, 'Well, he's sure to find something. He's a bright boy.' Then, to Paola, he said, 'Would you pass me the spinach? If Chiara decides to leave any, that is.'
As she passed the dish to him, Paola gave every indication she had registered the response to Fulvio's name by ignoring it and saying, 'It's the same with my students. They write their theses, get their degrees, begin to call themselves dottore, and then think they're lucky if they can find a job as a substitute teacher in some place like Burano or Dolo.'
'Plumbing’ Brunetti interrupted, holding up a hand to gather their attention. "That's what I tell my children to study: plumbing. There's always work to be had. Lots of interesting company and plenty of work. Nothing good can come of reading all those books, sitting in libraries, talking about ideas: it's bad for the brain. No, give me a real man's job: fresh air, good pay, honest hard work.'
'Oh, Papa,' Chiara said, as usual, the first to get it, 'you are so silly sometimes.' Brunetti feigned not to understand her and tried to convince her that she should stop studying mathematics and learn to weld. Dessert interrupted his performance, and by then the ghost of whatever Fulvio was up to had been driven from the feast.
It was not until they were in bed, Brunetti exhausted by his day, that he asked, 'What about Fulvio?'
The light was already out, so he felt rather than saw her shrug. 'My guess is drugs,' Paola said.
'Using them?'
'Could be,' she answered, not at all persuaded.
"Then selling them’ he said and turned onto his right side to face her dim outline.
'More likely.'
'Poor boy’ Brunetti said, adding, 'poor everyone.' He shifted onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. 'Do you have any idea if . . .' he began, wondering at the extent of the boy's sales and whether it was a matter he should interest himself in professionally. And who would Ful-vio's customers be? The very question released the worm that was forever poised and ready to begin crawling towards every parent's heart.