Through a Glass Darkly by Donna Leon Read Free Book Online

anything else she could have done in life. ‘Yes. I help him run the
fornace
. I was there even before I was in school.’
    â€˜She’s the paid slave,’ Rubetti said and ruffled her hair.
    She bowed her head as if to escape his hand, but it was obvious that she enjoyed both the attention and the contact. ‘Oh, stop it, Marco. You know I love it.’ She looked at Paola and asked, ‘What do you do, Signora?’
    â€˜Call me Paola,’ she offered, slipping automatically into the familiar
tu
. ‘I teach English literature at the university.’
    â€˜Do you love it?’ Assunta asked with surprising directness.
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Then you understand,’ Assunta said. Brunetti was glad she did not think to ask him the same question, for he had no idea how he would have answered. She put a hand on Paola’s arm and continued, ‘I love to see the things grow and change and become more beautiful, even love to see them resting there overnight in the
fornace
.’ She put her palm flat against the side of the display cabinet. ‘And these objects, I love them because they seem to be so alive. Well, at least to me.’
    â€˜Then I’d say you have the perfect job,’ Brunetti told her.
    Assunta smiled and moved, if possible, closer to her husband. Brunetti waited for her to announce that she had also found theperfect man, but instead she said, ‘I just hope I can keep it.’
    Paola made no attempt to disguise her concern and asked, ‘Why? It’s not a job you’re afraid of losing, is it?’
    Paola was looking at Assunta’s face, so she missed the glance Ribetti gave her, a slight shake of the head and a momentary narrowing of the eyes. But his wife saw it and immediately said, ‘Oh, no, of course not.’ Brunetti watched her search for something else to say, other than what she had been about to say. After a long pause, Assunta went on, ‘You just want these things to last for ever, I guess.’
    â€˜Yes, of course,’ Brunetti said, smiling and pretending that he had not observed Ribetti’s glance and had not registered the change of atmosphere, the lowering of the human temperature of the conversation. He put his arm around Paola’s shoulder and said, ‘I’m afraid I’ve got to drag us away, though.’ He looked at his watch. ‘We’ve got to meet people for dinner, and we’re already late.’
    Paola, no slouch as a liar, looked at her watch and gasped, ‘Oh my God, Guido. We
are
late. And we’ve got to get to Saraceno.’ She reached into her bag, searching for something, finally abandoned the search, and asked Brunetti, ‘I forgot my
telefonino
. Can you call Silvio and Veronica and tell them we’ll be late?’
    â€˜Of course,’ Brunetti said smoothly, though Paola had never had a
telefonino
, and none oftheir friends were called Silvio. ‘I’ll do it from outside. The reception will be better.’
    There followed the usual exchange of pleasantries, the two women kissing on the cheek while the two men tried to jockey around the business of choosing between
Lei
and
tu
.
    It wasn’t until they were outside on the
riva
that he could look Paola in the eye and ask, ‘Silvio and Veronica?’
    â€˜Every woman must have her dream,’ she intoned piously and then turned to begin to walk towards the vaporetto that would take them back to Venice and home.

5
    THE RETURN OF spring also brought the return of tourists to the city, and that brought in its wake the usual mess, just as the migration of wildebeest lures the jackals and hyenas. The Romanians with the die hidden under one of three cups appeared on the tops of bridges, from which their sentries could watch for the arrival of the police. The
vu cumprà
fished into their capacious holdalls and produced the new models just launched by the designer bag-makers. And both