CB18 About Face (2009)

‘She represents consumption,’ the Conte said, waving back at the painting. ‘Just have a look at the size of her and think of the amount she’s had to eat in her lifetime to create that mass of flesh, to make no mention of what she’d have to eat to maintain it. And look at the colour of those cheeks: that’s a woman much given to drink. Again, just imagine the quantities. And the brocade: how many silkworms perished to produce her dress and mantle, or the silk on her chair? Look at her jewellery. How many men died in the gold mines to produce it? Who died digging out the ruby in the ring? And the bowl of fruit on the table next to her? Who cultivated those peaches? Who made the glass next to the fruit bowl?’

  Brunetti looked at the painting with this new optic, seeing it as a manifestation of the wealth that feeds consumption and is in turn fed by it. The Conte was right: it could easily be read this way, but just as easily it could be seen as an example of the skill of the painter and the tastes of his age.

  ‘And are you going to make some connection in all of this to Cataldo?’ Brunetti asked in a light voice.

  ‘Consumption, Guido,’ the Conte went on as if Brunetti had not spoken. ‘Consumption. We’re obsessed by it. Our desire is to have not one, but six, televisions. To have a new telefonino every year, perhaps every six months, as new models are produced. And advertised. To upgrade our computers every time there is a new operating system, or every time the screens become bigger, or smaller, or flatter or, for all I know, rounder.’ Brunetti thought of his request for his own computer and wondered where this speech was going.

  ‘If you’re wondering where all of this is leading,’ the Conte astonished him by saying, ‘it’s leading into the garbage.’ The Conte turned to him as though he had just delivered the final proof of the validity of a syllogism or an algebraic formula, and Brunetti stared at him.

  The Conte, no mean showman, allowed time to pass. From the other room of the gallery, they heard the owner turn a page of his book.

  At last the Conte said, ‘Garbage, Guido. Garbage. That’s what Cataldo wanted to propose to me.’

  Brunetti remembered the list of Cataldo’s businesses and began to study them in a new light. ‘Aha,’ he permitted himself to say.

  ‘You at least did some research on him, didn’t you?’ the Conte asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you know what businesses he’s involved in?’

  ‘Yes,’ Brunetti said, ‘at least some of them. Shipping: cargo ships and trucks.’

  ‘Shipping,’ the Conte repeated. ‘And heavy equipment for excavation,’ he added.’ He has a shipping line, and trucks. And earth-moving equipment. He also – and I found out about this only through my own people, who are sometimes as good as yours – has a waste disposal business that gets rid of all of those things I was just talking about that we don’t want any more: telefonini, computers, fax machines, answering machines.’ The Conte glanced back at the portrait of the woman and said, ‘Most desirable model one year; the next year, useless junk.’

  Brunetti, who knew where this was leading, decided to remain silent.

  ‘That’s the secret, Guido: new model one year, junk the next. Because there are so many of us and because we consume so much junk and throw away so much junk, someone has to be around to pick it up and dispose of it for us. It used to be that people were happy to be handed old junk: our kids took our old computers or our old televisions. But now everyone has to have new junk, their own junk. So now we not only have to pay to buy it; we also have to pay to get rid of it.’ The Conte’s tone was calm, descriptive. Brunetti had heard his daughter and granddaughter give much the same speech, but the Conte’s descendants delivered it with anger, not with his cool dispassion.

  ‘And this is what Cataldo does?’

  ‘Yes. Cataldo is the garbage man. Other people amass it, and when they get tired of it, or it breaks, he sees that it is taken out of their way.’

  When Brunetti did not reply, the Conte went on more quietly. ‘That’s what his interest in China is all about, Guido. China, the garbage heap of the world. But he waited too long.’

  ‘Too long for what?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘He overestimated the Africans,’ the Conte said. In response to the inquisitive noise with which Brunetti greeted this, the Conte continued. ‘Three ships he chartered left Trieste a month ago.’ Before Brunetti could ask, he said, ‘Yes, garbage ships. Filled with material it would be very expensive to dispose of here. He’s been working with the Somalians for years. If what my people have told me is to be believed, he’s sent them hundreds of thousands of tons. If he paid them enough, they’d take anything he wanted to send them: no questions asked about where it came from or what it was. But times change, and there’s been so much bad press – especially after the tsunami – that the UN is trying to blockade the traffic, so it’s almost impossible to send things there any more.’ From the Conte’s tone, it was impossible to judge his opinion of this.

  ‘Besides, it doesn’t make sense now. You have to pay the Africans to take it,’ he added, shaking his head at the thought of these old-fashioned business practices. ‘The Chinese will pay you to bring most things to them. Then they pick through it and save what they can and, I suspect, send the really dangerous stuff out to be dumped in Tibet.’ He shrugged, ‘There’s very little they won’t take.’

  He gave Brunetti a long look, as if weighing whether he could be trusted with information. He must have liked what he saw, for he expanded, ‘Have you ever asked yourself why the Chinese went to the trouble and expense of building a railway line from Beijing to Tibet, Guido? You think there are enough tourists to justify an expense like that? For a passenger train?’

  All Brunetti could do was shake his head.

  ‘But I was talking about Cataldo,’ the Conte resumed. ‘And his ships. He miscalculated. There are some things even the Chinese balk at taking now, and he’s got three ships full of it. They’ve got nowhere to go, and they can’t come back here until they get rid of their cargo because no European port would let them in.’

  As the Conte paused to order his thoughts, Brunetti wondered how it was that some European port let the ships sail in the first place, a question he thought it best not to propose to the Conte. Instead, he asked, ‘What will happen to the cargo?’

  ‘He has no choice but to contact the Chinese and make a deal with them. They’re sure to know all about it by now. They learn everything, sooner or later. So they’ll hold him up and he’ll have to pay a fortune to get rid of it.’ Seeing Brunetti’s response, he tried to explain. ‘Cataldo has chartered these ships, mind you: they’re not his,’ the Conte continued. ‘And they’re sailing around in the Indian Ocean, waiting for him to find a place for them to unload. So every day is costing him a significant amount. And the longer they stay there, the more people will know what’s on them and the more the price for taking it will rise.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘My guess is that it’s nuclear waste and highly toxic chemicals,’ the Conte said in as cool a voice as Brunetti had ever heard him use. After he said this, the Conte turned his attention back to the portrait of the woman, studying her anew. Then, as if he could read Brunetti’s mind, he continued, eyes still on the portrait, ‘I know you, Guido, and I know how you think. So I suspect what I’ve just said has you hoping, even if only half hoping, that I’ve had some sort of epiphany.’

  Brunetti kept his face motionless, neither acknowledging nor denying what the Conte had just said.

  ‘I did have an illumination, Guido, but I’m afraid it’s not the kind you’d like me to have.’ Before Brunetti could ask himself what sort of father-in-law that would make him, the Conte said, ‘I haven’t begun to repent my ways, Guido, and I haven’t been converted to seeing the world the way you do – or Paola does.’

  ‘Then what’s happened?’ Brunetti asked, keeping his voice level.

  ‘I’ve spoken to Cataldo’s lawyer: that’s my illumination. Well, to tell the truth, one of my lawyers spoke to one o
f his lawyers, and he’s learned that Cataldo is stretched too far and too thin – he’s already beginning to sell his real estate here – and his banker has told him it’s better if he doesn’t ask for another loan.’ The Conte turned from the portrait and looked at his son-in-law, reached out to put a hand on his arm. ‘I think this might be privileged information, Guido, and so I’d like you to keep it to yourself.’

  Brunetti nodded, understanding now why Signorina Elettra had not been able to see the full extent of Cataldo’s financial difficulties.

  ‘Greed, Guido, greed,’ the Conte surprised him by saying. He was being descriptive, not judgmental.

  ‘And so what will happen to him?’

  ‘I have no idea. The news about him isn’t public yet, but when that happens – and it’s only a matter of time – he won’t be able to find a partner for his Chinese venture. He waited too long.’

  ‘What will happen to him?’

  ‘He’ll take an enormous loss.’

  ‘Could you help him?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘If I wanted to, I suppose I could,’ the Conte said, turning to meet his glance.

  ‘But?’

  ‘But it would be a mistake.’

  ‘I see,’ Brunetti said, realizing this was something he did not need to know about. ‘What will you do?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, I’ll make the deal in China, but not with Cataldo.’

  ‘Alone?’

  The Conte’s smile was minimal. ‘No. In partnership with someone else.’ Brunetti could not prevent himself from wondering if the someone else was Cataldo’s lawyer. ‘Everything Cataldo told me was wrong. He painted a rosy picture of his contacts in China, but none of it was true. He offered me a chance to get in on the ground floor.’ The Conte closed his eyes, as if he could not imagine someone’s being so foolish as to make him an offer like this and not expect him to investigate.

  ‘What did you tell him?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘I said I was over-extended at the moment and don’t have the capital it would take to form the partnership he suggested.’

  ‘Why didn’t you just say no and leave it at that?’ Brunetti said, feeling not a little bit foolish with the question.

  ‘Because, to tell the truth, I’ve always been slightly afraid of Cataldo, but this time I was sorry for him.’

  ‘And for what was going to happen to him.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘But not enough to help him?’

  ‘Guido. Please.’

  17

  Even though Brunetti had had a generation to accustom himself to the Conte’s business ethics, he was still surprised. He glanced away from him, as if suddenly interested in the portrait of the woman, then back at the Conte. ‘And if he’s ruined?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘Ah, Guido,’ the Conte said, ‘people like Cataldo are never ruined. I said he’d take a loss, but it won’t ruin him. He’s been in business a long time, and he’s always been politically well connected: his friends will take care of him.’ Conte Falier smiled. ‘Don’t waste your time feeling sorry for him. If you want to feel sorry for anyone, feel sorry for his wife.’

  ‘I do,’ Brunetti confessed.

  ‘I know,’ the Conte said coolly. ‘But why? Because of the sympathy you feel for a person who reads?’ he asked, but without any hint of sarcasm. The Conte was also a reader, and so it was a normal question. He went on, ‘When Cataldo was courting me – and that’s what it was – I went to dinner at their home. I told you, I was placed next to her, not him, and she talked to me about what she was reading. Just as she did with you the other night. All the time she was talking to me about the Metamorphoses, I had the sense that she was very lonely. Or very unhappy.’

  ‘Why?’ Brunetti asked, struck by how her choice of reading brought his attention back to her face and the changes it must have undergone.

  ‘Well, there’s the fact that she reads what she does, but there’s also her face. People immediately think what they want about her because of all the lifting.’

  ‘And what do you think they think?’ Brunetti asked.

  The Conte turned to the portrait of the woman and studied it for some time. ‘We find that face strange,’ he observed, waving a negligent hand at the painting. ‘But in her epoch she was probably perfectly acceptable, perhaps even attractive. Whereas to us, she’s just a fat barrel of a woman with greasy skin.’ Then, unable to resist the temptation, he added, ‘Not unlike the wives of many of my business associates.’

  Brunetti saw the similarities but said nothing.

  ‘In our times,’ the Conte went on, ‘Franca Marinello is not acceptable because of the way she looks. What she has done to her face is too unusual for most people to observe without comment.’ He paused; Brunetti waited. The Conte closed his eyes and sighed. ‘God knows how many of the wives of my friends have done it: the eyes, the chin, then the whole face.’ He opened his eyes and looked at the portrait, not at Brunetti. ‘So she’s doing what they’re doing, only she’s doing it to a degree that makes the whole thing grotesque.’ He looked at Brunetti and said, ‘I wonder, when women talk about her, whether they’re thinking about themselves and whether, by talking about her as though she were some sort of freak, they’re trying to assure themselves that they’d never do anything like that, that they’d stop themselves from going so far.’

  ‘That still doesn’t explain why she did it, though, does it?’ Brunetti asked, recalling that strange, otherworldly face.

  ‘God knows,’ the Conte said, then, after a moment, ‘Perhaps she told Donatella.’

  ‘Told her?’ Brunetti asked, wondering why Marinello should tell such a thing to anyone, let alone the Contessa.

  ‘Why she did it, of course. They’ve been friends since she was a girl at the university. Donatella has a cousin who’s a priest up there where she comes from, and Franca’s related to him somehow. He gave Donatella her name when she came to Venice and didn’t know anyone. And they became great friends.’ Then, before Brunetti could speak, the Conte said, holding up one hand, ‘Don’t ask me. I don’t know how, only that Donatella thinks very highly of her.’ With a grin that was both boyish and mischievous, he asked, ‘Didn’t you wonder why she ended up opposite you?’

  Of course he had. Brunetti said, ‘No, not really.’

  ‘Because Donatella knows how much Franca misses being able to talk about what she reads. You, too. So she agreed when I suggested that you would enjoy talking to her.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Good. Donatella will be pleased.’

  ‘Did she?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Signora Marinello,’ Brunetti answered. ‘Enjoy herself, that is.’

  The Conte gave him a strange look, as though surprised by both his formality of address and his question, but said only, ‘I’ve no idea.’ Then, as if tired of this talk of a living woman, the Conte waved toward the painting, saying, ‘But we were talking of beauty. Someone thought this woman beautiful enough to paint her or commission a portrait of her, didn’t they?’

  Brunetti considered the suggestion, then the painting, and reluctantly said ‘Yes.’

  ‘So someone, perhaps Franca herself, is likely to find what she has had done to her face beautiful,’ the Conte said. More soberly, he added, ‘I’ve heard talk that there’s someone else who does. You know what this town is like, Guido: there’s always talk.’

  ‘You mean there’s talk about another man?’

  The Conte nodded. ‘Donatella let drop something the other evening, but when I tried to ask her what she meant, she realized she had said too much and went clam-like.’ He could not resist adding, ‘I imagine you are familiar with this behaviour in Paola.’

  ‘Am I not,’ Brunetti observed. After a moment’s reflection, he asked, ‘What else have you heard?’

  ‘Nothing. It isn’t exactly the sort of thing people tell me.’

  Suddenly reluctant to prolong talk of Franca Marinello, Brunetti asked abruptly, ‘What was it you want
ed to talk to me about?’

  Disappointment – and could it be offence? – flashed across the Conte’s face. Brunetti watched him prepare an answer, and eventually the Conte said, ‘There was no precise reason, Guido. I enjoy conversation with you: nothing more than that. And we seldom get to talk, what with one thing and another.’ He flicked a speck from his sleeve, then looked back at Brunetti and said, ‘I hope you don’t mind.’

  Brunetti leaned across and placed his hand on the Conte’s forearm. ‘I’m delighted, Orazio,’ he said, unable to explain fully how touched he was by the Conte’s remark. Then he turned his attention back to the portrait of the woman. ‘Paola would probably say it’s the portrait of a woman, not a lady.’

  The Conte laughed and said, ‘No, she won’t do, not at all, will she?’ He got to his feet and went over to the portrait of the young man, saying, ‘That, however, is something I’d like to have.’ He went to the back of the gallery to talk to the dealer, leaving Brunetti to contemplate the two paintings, the two faces, the two visions of what was beautiful.

  By the time they had walked back to Palazzo Falier, Brunetti carrying the carefully wrapped portrait under one arm, and then discussed where to hang it, it was after nine.

  The Contessa was not at home, Brunetti was disappointed to learn. In recent years, he had come to appreciate both her decency and her good sense, and he had half a mind to ask her if she would talk to him about Franca Marinello. Instead, he took his farewell of an unusually silent Conte, still warmed by their conversation and pleased that the older man took such pleasure in something as simple as a new painting.

  He walked home slowly, vaguely discomfited, as he was every winter, by the early arrival of the darkness and oppressed by the dampness and cold that had been increasing since the morning. At the bottom of the bridge where he had first seen Franca Marinello and her husband, he paused to lean against the parapet, struck by how much he had learned in the last – how long had it been? – less than a week, he was surprised to realize.

  Suddenly Brunetti recalled the Conte’s expression when he had asked why his father-in-law had wanted to speak to him, with its implication that he could be motivated only by self-interest. Brunetti had been concerned at first that his question had offended the Conte, but what he had failed to admit then was the other man’s pain. It was the pain of an old man who feared the rejection of his family, the expression he had seen on the faces of elderly people when they feared they were no longer loved, or had never been. The image of that bleak field in Marghera seeped back into his memory.