The Death of Faith by Donna Leon Read Free Book Online

had decided not to pursue the subject.
     
    Bending down to pick up his coat and jacket and take them back into the hall, he saw a brown manila envelope on the table.
     
    ‘Is that Chiara’s report card?’ he asked as he reached toward it.
     
    ‘Um huh,’ Paola said, adding salt to the pot of water that boiled on a back burner.
     
    ‘How is it?’ he asked. ‘Good?’
     
    ‘Excellent in everything except one subject.’
     
    ‘Physical Education?’ he guessed, at a loss, for Chiara had catapulted to the head of her first class in grammar school and had remained there for the last six years. Like him, his daughter preferred lolling about to exercise, and so that was the only subject he could imagine her not doing well in.
     
    He opened the envelope, pulled out the page, and cast his eye across it.
     
    ‘Religious instruction?’ he asked. ‘Religious instruction?’
     
    Paola said nothing and so he continued and read the notes added by the teacher in explanation of her grade of ‘unsatisfactory’.
     
    ‘ “Asks too many questions?’“ he read. And then, ‘ “Disruptive behaviour.” What’s this all about?’ Brunetti demanded, holding the page out toward Paola.
     
    ‘You’ll have to ask her when she gets home.’
     
    ‘She isn’t back yet?’ Brunetti asked, and the wild thought came to him that Chiara knew of the bad report and was hiding out somewhere, refusing to come home. He glanced at his watch and saw that it was still early; she wouldn’t be back for another fifteen minutes.
     
    Paola, who was setting four plates onto the table, nudged him gently aside with her hip.
     
    ‘Has she said anything about this to you?’ he asked, moving out of her way.
     
    ‘Nothing special. She said that she didn’t like the priest, but she never said why Or I didn’t ask her why.’
     
    ‘What kind of priest is he?’ Brunetti asked, pulling out a chair and sitting at his place.
     
    ‘What do you mean, “what kind”?’
     
    ‘Is he, what do you call it, regular clergy, or a member of an order?’
     
    ‘I think he’s just a regular parish priest, from the church by the school.’
     
    ‘San Polo?’
     
    ‘Yes.’
     
    As they spoke, Brunetti read through the comments of the other teachers, all forthright in their praise of Chiara’s intelligence and industry. Her mathematics teacher, in fact, referred to her as ‘an extraordinarily talented pupil, with a gift for mathematics,’ and her Italian teacher went so far as to use the word ‘elegance’ when speaking of Chiara’s written expression. In none of the comments was there a word of qualification, no evidence of that natural inclination of teachers to deliver a stern warning to offset the danger of vanity that was sure to result from each word of praise.
     
    ‘I don’t understand it,’ Brunetti said, slipping the pagella back in its envelope and tossing it gently back down onto the table. He thought for a moment, considering how to phrase his question, and asked Paola, ‘You haven’t said anything to her, have you?’
     
    Paola was known to her wide circle of friends as many things, and those things varied, but everyone who knew Paola considered her ‘ una mangia-preti’ , an eater of priests. The anti-clerical rage that sometimes flashed out from her still managed to surprise Brunetti, even though it was not often that he could any longer be surprised by anything Paola said or did. But this was the red flag subject which, more than any other, could launch her — with no warning and almost without fail — into fulminant rage.
     
    ‘You know I agreed,’ she said, turning away from the stove and facing him. It had always surprised Brunetti that Paola had so readily acquiesced to their families’ suggestion that the children be baptized and sent to religious instruction classes at their schools. ‘It’s part of Western Culture,’ Paola often said with chilling blandness. No fools, the children had quickly