Death in a Strange Country by Donna Leon
After an hour, the traffic began to taper off, everyone had stopped to eat. Soon after he noticed this, he heard the sharp exhalation of air from the brakes of a truck and looked up to see a large truck with a red stripe along the side pass down the hill.
He poked Ambrogiani in the arm. The Carabiniere was instantly awake, his hand turning the key. He pulled onto the road and followed the truck. About two kilometres from where they had been parked, the truck signalled and then turned off to the right, disappearing down a narrow dirt-covered road. They drove past, continuing down the hill, but Brunetti saw Ambrogiani reach out to the dashboard and push the button that moved the mileometer back to zero. After he had gone a full kilometre, he pulled off the road and cut the engine.
‘What was the number plate?’
‘Vicenza,’ Brunetti said and pulled out his notebook to write the numbers down while they were still fresh in his memory. ‘What do you think?’
‘We stay here until the truck passes us on the way down or we wait half an hour and go back.’
After half an hour, the truck had not passed the place where they were parked, so Ambrogiani drove back up towards the road the truck had turned into. They passed it and he pulled off to the right a bit beyond it, angling the car in between two cement road markers.
Ambrogiani got out and went around to the boot of the car. He opened it and reached in. Slipped in next to the tyre was a large calibre pistol, which he pushed into the waistband of his trousers. ‘You have one?’ he asked.
Brunetti shook his head. ‘I didn’t bring it today.’
‘I’ve got another one in here. Want it?’
Brunetti shook his head again.
Ambrogiani slammed the boot closed and together they walked across the road and onto the dirt path that led off towards the mountains.
Trucks had worn a double groove into the dirt of the path; with the first heavy rain, the dirt would turn to mud, and the road would be impassable to vehicles the size of the truck they had seen turn into it. After a few hundred metres, the path widened minimally and curved to run alongside a stream that had to be coming down from the lake. Soon the path branched off to the left, leaving the stream and now following a long line of trees. Ahead, the path took another sharp turn to the left and up a sharp incline, where it seemed to come to an end. With no warning, Ambrogiani stepped behind one of the trees and pulled Brunetti after him. With a single motion, the Carabiniere reached inside his jacket and pulled out his gun with one hand and, with the other, gave Brunetti a brutal push in the centre of his back that sent him spinning away, completely off-balance.
Brunetti flailed at the air with his arms, unable to stop his forward motion. For an instant, he hung between motion and collapse, but then the ground sloped away under him and he knew he was going to fall. As he did, he turned his head and saw Ambrogiani coming directly after him, gun in hand. His heart contracted in sudden terror. He had trusted this man, never stopping to think that the person at the American base who had learned about Foster’s curiosity and who had learned about Doctor Peters’ affair with him could just as easily be an Italian as an American. And he had even offered Brunetti a gun.
He crashed forward onto the ground, stunned, wind knocked from him. He tried to push himself to his knees, he thought of Paola, and he was conscious of the blaze of sunlight all around him. Ambrogiani crashed to the ground beside him, threw an arm over his back, and pushed him back down to the ground. ‘Stay down. Keep your head down,’ he said into Brunetti’s ear, lying beside him, arm across his back.
Brunetti lay on the earth, digging his hands into the grass beneath him, eyes closed, conscious only of the weight of Ambrogiani’s arm and of the sweat that covered his entire body. Through the torrent of his pulse, he heard the sound of a truck coming towards them from what had seemed the end of the road. As he listened, its motor drummed past them then grew dimmer as it made its way back towards the main road. When it was gone, Ambrogiani pushed himself heavily to his knees and started to brush off his clothing. ‘Sorry,’ he said, smiling down at Brunetti and extending his hand. ‘I just did it, didn’t have time to think. You all right?’
Brunetti took his hand, pulled himself up, and stood beside the other man, knees trembling uncontrollably. ‘Sure, fine,’ he said, and bent to swipe the worst of the dust off his trousers. His underclothing stuck to his body, glued there by the sudden wave of animal terror that had overcome him.
Ambrogiani turned and went back towards the path, either in complete ignorance of Brunetti’s fear or in an exquisite gesture of feigned ignorance. Brunetti finished dusting himself off, took a few deep breaths, and followed Ambrogiani down the path to where it started to rise. It did not end but, instead, twisted suddenly to the right and stopped abruptly at the edge of a small bluff. Together, the two men walked up to the edge and looked down over it. Below them spread an area about half the size of a soccer field, most of it covered with creeping vines that could easily have grown up that same summer. The end nearest them, spreading out from the rise of land they stood on, contained about a hundred metal barrels that must once have contained kerosene. Mixed in with them were large black plastic bags, industrial strength, sealed closed at one end. At some point, a bulldozer must have been used, for the barrels at the far end disappeared under a heap of vine-covered earth that had been piled over them. There was no telling how far back the covered barrels extended, no hope of counting them.
‘Well, it seems like we’ve found what the American was looking for,’ Ambrogiani said.
‘I’d guess he found it, too.’
Ambrogiani nodded. ‘No need to kill him if he didn’t. What do you think he did, confront Gamberetto directly?’
‘I don’t know,’ Brunetti said. It didn’t make sense, so severe a response. What was the worst that could have happened to Gamberetto? A fine? Surely, he’d blame the drivers, even pay one of them to say he did it on his own. He would hardly lose a contract to build a hospital if something like this was discovered; Italian law treated it as little more than a misdemeanour. He would be in more serious danger if he were caught driving an unregistered car. That, after all, deprived the government directly of income; this merely poisoned the earth.
‘Do you think we can get down there?’ he asked.
Ambrogiani stared at him. ‘You want to go and look at that stuff?’
‘I’d like to see what’s written on the barrels.’
‘Maybe if we cut down to the left, over there,’ Ambrogiani said, pointing off in that direction to a narrow path that led down towards the dumping ground. Together, they walked down the sharp incline, occasionally sliding in the dust, grabbing at one another to stop their skidding descent. Finally, at the bottom, they found themselves only a few metres from the first of the barrels.
Brunetti looked down at the earth. The dust was dry and loose here, on the outskirts of the dump; inside, it seemed to thicken and turn to paste. He walked towards the barrels, careful where he placed his feet. Nothing was written on the top or sides; no labels, no stickers, no identification of any sort. Moving along the outskirts of the dump, careful not to step too close to them, he studied the tops and visible sides of the barrels that stood there. They came almost to his hip, each with a metal cap hammered tightly into place on the top. Whoever had placed them there had at least been careful enough to place them upright.
When he reached the end of the rows of exposed barrels without seeing any identification, he looked back along the row he had walked beside, searching for a place where enough room stood between them to allow him to move about among them. He went back a few metres and found a place that would allow him to slip between them. The stuff under his feet was more than paste now; it had turned to a thin layer of oily mud that came up the sides of the soles of his shoes. He moved deeper into the standing barrels, bending down now and again to search for any sign of identification. His foot came up against one of the black plastic bags. The barrel it rested against had a flap o
He kicked at the bag. It shifted over on its side, and, from the shapes that protruded inside the plastic, it seemed to be filled with cans. He took his keys from his pocket and slashed at the bag, ripping it open all down one side. Cans and cardboard boxes spilled out. As a can rolled towards him, he stepped back involuntarily.
From behind him, Ambrogiani called out, ‘What is it?’
Brunetti waved his arm above his head to signal that he was all right and bent to examine the writing on the cans and boxes. ‘Government issue. Not for resale or private use’, was written on some of them, in English. A few of the boxes had labels in German. Most of them had the skull and crossbones that warned of poison or other danger. He lifted his foot and prodded at a can with his foot. The label, also in English, read, ‘If found, contact your NBC officer. Do not touch.’
Brunetti turned and walked delicately towards the edge of the dumping ground, even more cautious now where he placed his feet. A few metres from the edge, he dropped his handkerchief to the earth and left it there. When he emerged from the barrels, Ambrogiani came up to him.
‘Well?’ the Carabiniere asked.
‘The labels are in English and German. Some of them come from one of their air force bases in Germany. I have no idea where the rest of it comes from.’ They started to walk away from the dump. ‘What’s an NBC officer?’ Brunetti asked, hoping that Ambrogiani would know.
‘Nuclear, biological, and chemical.’
‘Mother of God,’ Brunetti whispered.
There was no need for Foster to have gone to Gamberetto to put himself in jeopardy. He was a young man who kept books like Christian Life in an Age of Doubt on his shelf. He probably would have done what any innocent young soldier would have done – reported it to his superior officer. American waste. American military waste. Shipped to Italy so that it could be dumped there. Secretly.
They walked back along the path, meeting no trucks on the way. When they got to the car, Brunetti sat on the seat, feet still outside the car. With two quick motions, he kicked his shoes off and far into the grass at the side of the road. Careful to hold them by the top, he peeled off his socks and hurled them after the shoes. Turning to Ambrogiani, he said, ‘Do you think we could stop at a shoe shop on the way to the station?’
21
On the drive back to Mestre train station, Ambrogiani gave Brunetti an idea of how the dumping would be possible. Though the Italian customs police had the right to inspect every truck that came down from Germany to the American base, there were so many that some did not get inspected, and what inspection was given was often cursory, at best. As to planes, don’t even speak; they flew in and out of the military airports at Villafranca and Aviano at will, loading and unloading whatever they chose. When Brunetti asked why there were so many deliveries, Ambrogiani explained the extent to which America saw that its soldiers and airmen, their wives and children, were kept happy. Ice cream, frozen pizza, spaghetti sauce, crisps, spirits, California wines, beer: all of this, and more, was flown in to stock the shelves of the supermarket, and this was to make no mention of the shops that sold stereo equipment, televisions, racing bicycles, potting soil, underwear. Then there were the transports that brought in heavy equipment, tanks, Jeeps. He remembered the navy base at Naples and the base at Livorno; anything could be brought in by ship.
‘It sounds like they’d have no trouble doing it,’ Brunetti said.
‘But why bring it down here?’ Ambrogiani asked.
It seemed pretty simple to Brunetti. ‘The Germans are more careful about this sort of thing. The environmentalists are a real power there. If anyone got wind of something like this in Germany, there’d be a scandal. Now that they’re united, someone would start to talk about throwing the Americans out, not just waiting for them to leave on their own. But here in Italy, no one cares what gets dumped, anywhere, so all they have to do is remove the identification. Then, if what they dump is found, it can’t be tied to anyone, everyone can deny all knowledge, and no one will care enough to find out. And no one here is going to talk about throwing the Americans out.’
‘But they haven’t removed all identification,’ Ambrogiani corrected.
‘Maybe they thought they’d get it covered before anyone found it. It’s easy enough to bring in a bulldozer and finish piling the dirt over it. It looked like they were running out of room there, anyway.’
‘Why not just ship it back to America?’
Brunetti gave him a long look. Surely, he couldn’t be this innocent. ‘We try to unload ours on Third World countries, Giancarlo. To the Americans, maybe we’re a Third World country. Or maybe all countries that aren’t America are Third World.’
Ambrogiani muttered something under his breath.
Up ahead of them, the traffic slowed at the toll booths at the end of the autostrada. Brunetti pulled out his wallet and handed Ambrogiani ten thousand lire, pocketed the change, and put his wallet back in his pocket. At the third exit, Ambrogiani pulled to the right and down into the chaotic Saturday afternoon traffic. They crawled towards Mestre train station, battling the aggression of various cars. Ambrogiani pulled up across from it, ignoring the No Parking sign and the angry honk from a car that wanted to pull in behind him. ‘Well?’ he asked, looking over at Brunetti.
‘See what you can find out about Gamberetto, and I’ll speak to a few people here.’
‘Should I call you?’
‘Not from the base.’ Brunetti scribbled his home number on a piece of paper and handed it to the other man. ‘This is my own number. You can get me there early in the morning or at night. Call from a phone booth, I think.’
‘Yes,’ Ambrogiani agreed, voice sombre, as if this small suggestion had suddenly warned him of the magnitude of what they were involved with.
Brunetti opened the door and got out of the car. He came around to the other side and leaned down towards the open window. ‘Thanks, Giancarlo.’
They shook hands through the open window, saying nothing more, and Brunetti crossed the road to the station while Ambrogiani drove away.
By the time he got to his house, his feet hurt from the new shoes that Ambrogiani had bought for him in a place on the motorway. A hundred and sixty thousand lire and they hurt his feet! As soon as he got inside the door, he kicked them off, then walked towards the bathroom, peeling off his clothing as he walked, dropping it carelessly behind him. He stood in the shower for a long time, soaping his body repeatedly, rubbing at his feet and between his toes with a cloth, rinsing and washing them again and again. He dried himself and sat on the edge of the tub to examine his feet closely. Though they were red from the hot water and scrubbing, he saw no sign of rash or burning on them; they felt like feet, though he wasn’t at all sure how feet were supposed to feel.
He wrapped a second towel around himself and went towards the bedroom. As he did, he heard Paola call from the kitchen, ‘This place doesn’t come with maid service, Guido.’ Her voice was raised over the rush of water into the washing-machine.
He ignored her, went to the closet and got dressed, sitting on the bed while he pulled on a new pair of socks, again examining his feet. They still looked like feet. He pulled a pair of brown shoes from the bottom of the closet, tied them, and walked down towards the kitchen. As soon as she heard him coming, she continued, ‘How do you expect me to get the kids to pick up after themselves if you drop things anywhere you want?’
When he walked into the kitchen, he found her kneeling in front of the washing-machine, thumb poised over the button that turned it on and off. Through the clear glass window, he could see a sodden he
‘What’s the matter with that thing?’ he asked.
She didn’t look up at him as she answered, kept her mesmerized stare on the swirling clothing. ‘It’s unbalanced somehow. If I put towels in it, anything that absorbs a lot of water, the weight of the initial spin tilts it out of balance, and it blows out all of the electricity in the house. So I’ve got to wait for it to start, see that it doesn’t happen. If it does, then I’ve got to turn it off before it happens and wring the clothes out.’
‘Paola, do you have to do this every time you do a wash?’
‘No. Only if there are towels or those flannel sheets from Chiara’s bed.’ She stopped talking here, raised her thumb over the button as the machine made a click. Suddenly, it jolted into sudden motion and the clothing inside began to spin around, pressed against the side of the swirling drum. Paola got to her feet, smiled, and said, ‘Well, no trouble that time.’
‘How long has it been like that?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Couple of years.’
‘And you have to do that every time you do a wash?’
‘If I wash towels. I told you.’ She smiled, irritation forgotten. ‘Where have you been since the crack of dawn? Did you have anything to eat?’
‘Up at Lake Barcis.’
‘Doing what, playing army? Your clothes were filthy. It looks like you’ve been rolling around in the dirt.’
‘I have been rolling around in the dirt,’ he began and told her about his day with Ambrogiani. It took a long time because he had to keep going back to explain about Kayman, his son, the way the boy’s medical records had been ‘lost’, the medical journal that he had received in the post. And, finally, he told her about the drugs that had been hidden in Foster’s apartment.
When he finished, Paola asked, ‘And they told those people that their son was allergic to something from a tree? That everything was all right?’ He nodded and she exploded. ‘Bastards! And what happens when the boy develops other symptoms? What do they tell the parents then?’