Market the next day to buy vegetables: that’s a trip, isn’t it?’
Vianello had spoken of his aunt over the years: she was his late mother’s favourite sister and his favourite aunt, as well, probably because she was the most strong-willed person in the family. Married in the fifties to an apprentice electrician, she had seen her husband go off to Torino in search of work within weeks of marrying him. She waited almost two years to see him again. Zio Franco had had good luck in finding work, most of it with Fiat, where he had been able to study and become a master electrician.
Zia Anita moved to Torino to join him and spent six years with him there; after the birth of their first son, they had moved to Mestre, where he set up his own business. The family grew, the business grew: both prospered. Franco had retired only in his late seventies and, much to the surprise of his children, all of whom had grown up on terraferma, moved back to Venice. When asked why none of her children had wanted to move back to Venice with them, she had said, ‘They had gasoline in their veins, not salt water.’
Brunetti was content to sit and listen to whatever Vianello said about his aunt. The distraction would keep him from going to the window every few minutes to see if . . . If what? If it had started to snow?
‘And she’s started watching them on television,’ Vianello continued.
‘Horoscopes?’ Brunetti asked, puzzled. He watched television infrequently, usually forced to do so by someone else in the family, and so had no idea of what sort of thing was to be found here.
‘Yes. But mostly card readers and those people who say they can read your future and solve your problems.’
‘Card readers?’ he could only repeat. ‘On television?’
‘Yes. People call in and this person reads the cards for them and tells them what they should watch out for, or they promise to help them if they’re sick. Well, that’s what my cousins tell me.’
‘Watch out not to fall down the stairs or watch out for a tall, dark-haired stranger?’ Brunetti asked.
Vianello shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I’ve never watched them. It sounds ridiculous.’
‘It doesn’t sound ridiculous, Lorenzo,’ Brunetti assured him. ‘Strange, perhaps, but not ridiculous.’ He added, ‘And maybe not even so strange, come to think of it.’
‘Why?’
‘Because she’s an old woman,’ Brunetti said, ‘and we tend to assume – and if Paola were here, or Nadia, they’d accuse me of prejudice against both women and old people for saying this – that old women will believe that sort of thing.’
‘Isn’t that why the witches got burnt?’ Vianello asked.
Even though Brunetti had once read long passages of Malleus Maleficarum, he still had no idea why old women had been the specific targets of the burnings. Perhaps because many men are stupid and vicious and old women are weak and undefended.
Vianello turned his attention to the window and the light. Brunetti sensed that the Ispettore wanted no prodding; he would get to whatever it was sooner or later. For the moment, Brunetti let him study the light and used the moment to study his friend. Vianello never bore the heat well, but he seemed more oppressed by it this summer. His hair, slicked down by perspiration, was thinner than Brunetti remembered. And the skin of his face seemed puffy, especially around his eyes.Vianello broke into his observations to ask, ‘But do you think old women really are more likely to believe in it?’
After considering the matter, Brunetti said, ‘I’ve no idea. You mean any more than the rest of us?’
Vianello nodded and turned back towards the window, as if willing the curtains to increase their motion.
‘From what you’ve said about her over the years, she doesn’t sound the type,’ Brunetti eventually said.
‘No, she isn’t. That’s why it’s so confusing. She was always the brains in the family. My uncle Franco’s a good man, and he was a very good worker, but he never would have had the idea to go into business for himself. Or the ability to do it, come to that. But she did, and she kept the books until he retired and they moved back here.’
‘Doesn’t sound like the sort of person who would begin her day by checking what’s new in the house of Aquarius,’ Brunetti observed.
‘That’s what I don’t understand,’ Vianello said, raising his hands in a gesture of bewilderment. ‘Whether she is or not. Maybe it’s