About Face - By Donna Leon Page 0,2

as if enchanted by the view and unaware of the Conte’s departure.

Brunetti and Cataldo, as often happened in the city, had never been introduced to one another, though Brunetti knew the general outline of his history. The family had come from Friuli, Brunetti thought, some time early in the last century, had prospered during the Fascist era, and had become even richer during the great boom of the sixties. Construction? Transport? He wasn’t sure.

The Conte reached Brunetti and Paola, kissed them each twice in greeting, and then turned back to the couple with whom he had been talking, saying, ‘Paola, you know them,’ and then to Brunetti, ‘but I’m not sure you do, Guido. They’re eager to meet you.’

This was perhaps true of Cataldo, who watched them approach, eyebrows raised and chin tilted to one side as he cast his eyes from Paola to Brunetti with open curiosity. As for the woman, her expression was impossible to read. Or more accurately, her face expressed pleasant, permanent anticipation, fixed there immutably by the attentions of a surgeon. Her mouth was set to spend the rest of its time on earth parted in a small smile, the sort one gives when introduced to the maid’s grandchild. Though the smile was thin as an expression of pleasure, the lips that made it were full and fleshy, a deep red most usually seen on cherries. Her eyes were crowded by her cheekbones, which swelled up on either side of her nose in taut, pink nodes about the size of a kiwi fruit cut longitudinally. The nose itself started higher on her forehead than it was normal for noses to start and was strangely flat, as though someone had smoothed it with a spatula after placing it there.

Of line or blemish there was no sign. Her skin was perfect, the skin of a child. The blonde hair gave no sign that it differed from spun gold, and Brunetti had learned enough about fashion to know that her dress cost more than any suit he had ever owned.

This, then, must be Cataldo’s second wife, ‘la super liftata’, some distant relative of the Contessa about whom Brunetti had heard a few times but whom he had never met. A quick search through his file of social gossip told him that she was from the North somewhere and was said to be reclusive and, in some never explained way, strange.

‘Ah,’ the Conte began, breaking into Brunetti’s thoughts. Paola bent forward and kissed the woman, then shook the man’s hand. To the woman, the Conte said, ‘Franca, I’d like you to meet my son-in-law, Guido Brunetti, Paola’s husband.’ And then to Brunetti, ‘Guido, may I present Franca Marinello and her husband, Maurizio Cataldo.’ He stepped aside and waved Brunetti forward, as though he were offering Brunetti and Paola the other couple as a Christmas gift.

Brunetti shook hands with the woman, whose grasp was surprisingly firm, and the man, whose hand felt dry, as if it needed dusting. ‘Piacere,’ he said, smiling first into her eyes, and then into the man’s, which were a watery blue.

The man nodded, but it was the woman who spoke. ‘Your mother-in-law has spoken so well of you all these years; it’s a great pleasure finally to meet you.’

Before Brunetti could think of a response, the double doors leading to the dining room were opened from inside, and the man who had collected the coats announced that dinner was served. As everyone made their way across the room, Brunetti tried to remember anything the Contessa might have told him about her friend Franca, but he could summon only that the Contessa had befriended her years ago when she came to study in Venice.

The sight of the table, laden with china and silver, exploding with flowers, reminded him of the last meal he had had in this house, only two weeks before. He had stopped by to bring two books to the Contessa, with whom, in the last years, he had begun to exchange them, and he had found his son there with her. Raffi had explained that he had come to pick up the essay he had prepared for his Italian class and which his grandmother had offered to read.

Brunetti had found them in her study, sitting side by side at her desk. In front of them were the eight pages of Raffi’s essay, spread out and covered with comments in three different colours. To the left of the papers was a platter of sandwiches,