Death at La Fenice by Donna Leon
‘Again I apologize for disturbing you, Signora, but there is new information, and I’d like to ask you some more questions.’
‘About what?’ she asked, making no move to open the door any further.
‘The results of the autopsy on your husband,’ he explained, certain that this would be enough to give him entry. With a sharp, graceless motion, she pulled the door back and stood aside. Silently, she led him to the room where they had had their two previous interviews and pointed to what he was beginning to think of as his chair. He waited while she lit a cigarette, a gesture so habitual with her that he now paid almost no attention to it.
‘At the time of the autopsy’ – he began with no preliminaries – ‘the pathologist said that he found signs of bruising on your husband’s body that might have been caused by injections of some sort. The same thing is mentioned in his report.’ He paused, giving her the opportunity to volunteer an explanation. When none came, he continued. ‘Dr Rizzardi said that they might have come from anything: drugs, vitamins, antibiotics. He said that the pattern of the bruises was inconsistent with your husband’s having given them to himself – he was right-handed, wasn’t he?’
‘Yes.’
‘The bruises on the arm were on the right side as well, so he couldn’t have given himself those injections.’ He allowed himself a minimal pause. ‘If they were injections, that is.’ He paused again. ‘Signora, did you give your husband these injections?’
She ignored him, so he repeated the question. ‘Signora, did you give your husband these injections?’ No response. ‘Signora, do you understand my question? Did you give your husband these injections?’
‘They were vitamins,’ she finally answered.
‘What kind?’
‘B12.’
‘Where did you get them? From your former husband?’
The question clearly surprised her. She shook her head in strong denial. ‘No; he had nothing to do with it. I wrote a prescription for them while we were still in Berlin. Helmut had complained of feeling tired, so I suggested that he try a series of B12 injections. He had done so in the past, and they had helped him then.’
‘How long ago did you begin with the injections, Signora?’
‘I don’t remember exactly. About six weeks ago.’
‘Did he seem to improve?’
‘What?’
‘Your husband. Did he improve as a result of these injections? Did they have the effect you intended?’
She glanced up at him sharply when he asked this second question, but answered calmly. ‘No, they didn’t seem to help. So after six or seven, I decided to discontinue them.’
‘Did you decide that, or did your husband, Signora?’
‘What difference does it make? They didn’t work, so he stopped taking them.’
‘I think it makes a great deal of difference, Signora, who decided to stop them. And I think you know that.’
‘Then I suppose he decided.’
‘Where did you get the prescription filled? Here in Italy?’
‘No; I’m not licensed to practice here. It was in Berlin, before we came down here.’
‘I see. Then the pharmacist would surely have a record of it.’
‘Yes, I suppose he would. But I don’t remember where I had it filled.’
‘You mean you just wrote a prescription and chose a pharmacy at random?’
‘Yes.’
‘How long have you lived in Berlin, Signora?’
‘Ten years. I don’t see why that’s important.’
‘Because it seems strange to me that a doctor would live in a city for ten years and not have a permanent pharmacy. Or that the Maestro wouldn’t have a pharmacy where he usually went.’
Her response was just a second too long in coming. ‘He did. We both do. But that day, I wasn’t at home when I wrote the prescription, so I just took it to the first pharmacy I saw and asked them to fill it.’
‘But surely you remember where it was. It wasn’t so long ago.’
She looked out the window, concentrating, trying to remember. She turned to him and said, ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t remember where it was.’
‘That’s no matter, Signora,’ he said dismissively. ‘The Berlin police will certainly be able to find it for us.’ She glanced up at this, surprised, or something more. ‘And I’m sure they’ll be able to find out what the prescription was, what sort of’ – he paused for just a second before saying the last word – ‘vitamin.’
Though her cigarette was still burning in the ashtray, she reached for the package, then changed the motion and simply pushed the pack around with one finger, giving it a precise quarter turn each time. ‘Shall we stop this now?’ she asked, voice neutral. ‘I’ve never liked games, and you aren’t very good at them, either.’
Through the years, he had seen this happen more times than he could count, seen people reach the point they couldn’t go beyond, the point where they would, however reluctantly, tell the truth. Like a city under siege: their outer defences gave in first, then came the first retreat, the first concession to the approaching enemy. Depending upon the defender, the struggle would be fast or slow, bogged down at this rampart or that; there could be a counterattack, or there could be none. But the first motion was always the same, the almost relieved shrugging off of the lie, which led, in the end, to the final opening of the gates to truth.
‘It wasn’t a vitamin. You know that, don’t you?’ she asked.
He nodded.
‘And do you know what it was?’
‘No, I don’t know what it was, not exactly. But I believe it was an antibiotic. I don’t know which one, but I don’t think that’s important.’
‘No, it’s not important.’ She looked up at him with a small smile, its sadness centered in her eyes. ‘Netilmicina. I believe that’s the name it’s sold under here in Italy. The prescription was filled at the Ritter Pharmacy, about three blocks from the entrance to the zoo. You shouldn’t have any trouble finding it.’
‘What did you tell your husband it was?’
‘Just as I told you, B12.’
‘How many injections did you give him?’
‘Six, at six-day intervals.’
‘How soon was it before he began to notice the effect?’
‘A few weeks. We weren’t speaking much to each other then, but he still saw me as his doctor, so first he asked me about his fatigue. And then he asked me about his hearing.’
‘And what did you tell him?’
‘I reminded him of his age, and then I told him it might be a temporary side effect of the vitamin. That was stupid of me. I have medical books in the house, and he could easily have gone and checked what I told him.’
‘Did he?’
‘No, no, he didn’t. He trusted me. I was his doctor, you see.’
‘Then how did he learn? Or how did he begin to suspect?’
‘He went to see Erich about it. You know that, or you wouldn’t be here now, asking these questions. And after we were here, he began to wear the glasses with the hearing aid, so I knew he must have gone to see another doctor. When I suggested another injection, he refused. He knew by then, of course, but I don’t know how he found out. From the other doctor?’ she asked.
Again he nodded.
She gave the same sad smile.
‘And then what happened, Signora?’
‘We had come down here in the middle of the treatment. In fact, I gave him the last injection in this room. Even then he might have known but refused to believe what he knew.’ She closed her eyes and rubbed at them with her hands. ‘It becomes very complicated, this idea of when he knew everything.’
‘When did you finally realize that he knew?’
‘It must have been about two weeks ago. In a way, I’m surprised it took him so long, but that was because we were so much in love.’ She looked across at him when she said this. ‘He knew how much I loved him. So he couldn’t believe that I’d do this to him.’ She smiled
‘When did you realize that he knew what the injections were?’
‘I was in here one night, reading. I hadn’t gone to the rehearsal that day, the way I usually did. It was too painful, listening to the music, to the bad chords, the entrances that came too soon or too late, and knowing that I’d done that, done it as surely as if I’d taken the baton from his hands and waved it crazily around in the air.’ She stopped speaking, as though listening to the discordant music of those rehearsals.
‘I was in here, reading, or trying to read, and I heard –’ She looked up at the sound of the word and said, like an actor delivering an aside in a crowded theatre, ‘My God, it’s hard to avoid that word, isn’t it?’ and slipped back into her role. ‘He was early, had come back early from the theatre. I heard him come down the hall and then open the door. He was still wearing his coat, and he was carrying the score of Traviata. It was one of his favourite operas. He loved to conduct it. He came in and stood there, just over there,’ she said, pointing to a space where no one stood now. ‘He looked at me, and he asked me, ‘You did this, didn’t you?’ She continued looking at the door, waiting for the words to be said again.
‘Did you answer him?’
‘I owed him that much, didn’t I?’ she asked, voice calm and reasonable. ‘Yes, I told him I’d done it.’
‘What did he do?’
‘He left. Not the house, just the room. And then we managed not to see each other again, not until the prima.’
‘Did he threaten you in any way? Say that he was going to go to the police? Punish you?’
She seemed to be honestly puzzled by his question. ‘What good would that have done? If you’ve spoken to the doctor, you know that the damage is permanent. There was nothing that the police could do, there was nothing that anyone could do, to get his hearing back. And there was no way he could punish me.’ She paused long enough to light another cigarette. ‘Except by doing what he did,’ she said.
‘And what is that?’ Brunetti asked.
She chided him openly. ‘If you know as much as you seem to know, then you must know that as well.’
He met her glance, keeping his face expressionless. ‘I still have two questions, Signora. The first is an honest question that I ask out of ignorance. And the second is simpler, and I think I know the answer already.’
‘Then start with the second one,’ she said.
‘It concerns your husband. Why would he try to punish you in this way?’
‘By “in this way”, do you mean by making it look as if I had murdered him?’
‘Yes.’
He watched as she tried to speak, saw the words begin to form themselves and then drop, forgotten. At last she said, voice low, ‘He saw himself as above the law, above the law the rest of us had to follow. I think he believed that it was his genius that gave him this power, this right. And God knows we all encouraged him in that. We made him a god of music, and we fell down and worshiped him.’ She stopped and looked across at him. ‘I’m sorry; I’m not answering your question. You wanted to know if he was capable of trying to make it look as if I was responsible. But you see,’ she said, raising her hands to him, as if she wanted to pull understanding from him, ‘I was responsible. So he did have a right to do this to me. It would have been less horrible if I had killed the man; that would have left the god untouched.’ She broke off, but Brunetti said nothing.
‘I’m trying to tell you how he would have seen it. I knew him so well, knew how he felt, what he thought.’ Again she paused, then she continued with her attempt to make him understand. ‘Something strange occurred to me after he died and I began to realize how careful he had been, inviting me back, letting me into the dressing room. It seemed to me then, and it still does now, that he had a right to do what he did, to punish me. In a way, he was his music. And I killed that instead of killing him. He was dead. Before he died, he was already dead. I’d killed his spirit. I saw it during the rehearsals, when he peered over those glasses and tried to hear through his useless hearing aid what was happening to the music. And he couldn’t hear. He couldn’t hear.’ She shook her head at something she didn’t understand. ‘He didn’t have to punish me, Mr Brunetti. That’s been done. I’ve spent my time in hell.’
She folded her hands in her lap and continued. ‘Then, the night of the prima, he told me what he was going to do.’ When she saw Brunetti’s surprise, she explained: ‘No, he didn’t tell me, not like that, not clearly. I didn’t realize it at the time.’
‘Was this when you went backstage?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Yes.’
‘What happened?’
‘At first, he didn’t say anything when he saw me at the door. Just looked up at me. But then he must have seen someone in the corridor behind me. Perhaps he thought they were coming towards the dressing room.’ She bowed her head wearily. ‘I don’t know. All he said was something that sounded rehearsed: what Tosca says when she sees Cavaradossi’s body – “Finire così, finire così.” I didn’t understand then – “to finish like this, like this” – but I should have. She says it just before she kills herself, but I didn’t understand. Not then.’ Brunetti was surprised to see a grin of near amusement flash across her face. ‘That was very like him, to be dramatic at the last minute. Melodramatic, really. Later, I was surprised that he would take his last words from an opera by Puccini.’ She looked up, serious. ‘I hope that doesn’t sound strange. But I thought he would want to be remembered quoting something by Mozart. Or Wagner.’ He watched her struggle with mounting hysteria. He stood and went over to a cabinet that stood between the two windows and poured her a small glass of brandy. He stood for a moment, glass in hand, and looked off at the bell tower of San Marco. Then he went back to her and handed her the glass.
Not really conscious of what it was, she took it and sipped at it. He returned to the window and continued his observation of the bell tower. When he was sure it was the way it had always been, he resumed his seat opposite her.
‘Will you tell me why you did it, Signora?’
Her surprise was genuine. ‘If you were clever enough to find out how I did it, then surely you must know why.’
He shook his head. ‘I won’t say what I think, because if I’m wrong, I’ll dishonour the man.’ Even as he spoke the words, he knew how much he was himself sounding like a Puccini libretto.
‘That means you do understand, doesn’t it?’ she asked, and leaned forward to place the still-full glass next to the package of cigarettes.
‘Your daughter, Signora?’
She bit at her upper lip and gave a nod so small as to be imperceptible. When she released her lip, he saw the white marks where she had bitten into it. She extended her hand towards the cigarettes, pulled it back, caught it in the other, and said in a voice so low he had to lean forward to hear her, ‘I had no idea,’ and shook her head at the ugliness of it. ‘Alex is not a musical child. She didn’t even know who he was when I started seeing him. When I told her that I wanted to marry him, she seemed interested. Then, when I told her that he had a farm and that he had horses, she was very interested. That’s all she ever cared about, horses, like the heroine in an English book for children. Horses and books about horses.
‘She was eleven when we were married. They got on well. After she learned who he was – I think her classmates must have told her – she seemed a little frightened of him, but that passed. Helmut was very good with children.’ She stopped and grimaced at the grotesque irony of what she had just said.
‘And then. And then. And then,’ she repeated, unable to free herself from the grooves of memory. ‘This summer, I had to go back to Budapest. To see my mother, who isn’t well. Helmut said that everything would be all right while I was gone. I took a cab, and I went to the airport. But the airport was closed. I don’t remember why. A strike. Or trouble with the customs officers.?
‘No, Signora.’
‘There was a long delay, more than an hour, and then we were told that there would be no flights until the following morning. So I took another cab and went home. It wasn’t very late, not even midnight, so I didn’t bother to call and tell him I was coming back. I went home and let myself into the house. There were no lights on, so I went upstairs. Alex has always been a restless sleeper, so I went to her room to check on her. To check on her.’ She looked up at him, expressionless.
‘When I got to the top of the stairs, I could hear her. I thought she was having a nightmare. It wasn’t a scream, just a noise. Like an animal. Just a noise. Only that. And I went to her room. He was there. With her.
‘This is the strange part,’ she said quite calmly, as though she were sharing a puzzle with him, asking him what he thought of it. ‘I don’t remember what happened. No, I know that he left, but I don’t remember what I said to him or he said to me. I stayed with Alex that night.
‘Later, days later, he told me that Alex had had a nightmare.’ She laughed in disgust and disbelief. ‘That’s all he said. We never talked about it. I sent Alex to her grandparents. To school there. And we never talked about it. Oh, how modern we were, how civilized. Of course, we stopped sleeping together, and stopped being with each other. And Alex was gone.’
‘Do her grandparents know what happened?’
A quick shake of her head. ‘No; I told them what I told everyone, that I didn’t want her schooling interrupted when we came to Venice.’
‘When did you decide? To do what you did?’ Brunetti asked.
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. One day, the idea was simply there. The only thing that was really important to him, the only thing he really loved, was his music, so I decided that was the thing I’d take away from him. At the time, it seemed fair.’
‘And does it now?’
She considered this for a long time before she answered. ‘Yes, it still does seem fair. Everything that’s happened seems fair. But that’s not the point, is it?’