Drawing Conclusions - Donna Leon [100]
Morandi nodded, then covered his eyes with his right hand, as if the sight of Brunetti’s knowledge was too much for him to bear. Brunetti glanced away for a moment, and when he looked back he saw that tears were seeping from beneath his fingers.
For some time the old man sat like that, then heaved himself to one side and pulled an enormous white handkerchief from his pocket. He wiped his eyes and blew his nose, folded the handkerchief carefully, and put it back in his pocket.
As if he had not heard Brunetti’s question, Morandi said, ‘The old woman died a few days later. Three. Four. Then Cuccetti submitted the will, and we were asked about it. I had to explain to Maria that she had to say we saw her sign it, or we’d all get in trouble.’
‘And she did?’
‘Yes. Then.’
‘But later?’
‘But later she began not to believe me.’
‘Was it because of the apartment?’
‘No, I told her my aunt left it to me. She lived in Torino and she died about then, so I told Maria that’s what happened.’
‘She believed you?’
‘Yes. Of course.’ Seeing Brunetti’s face, he said, voice almost pleading, ‘Please. You have to understand that Maria is an honest person. She couldn’t lie, even if she wanted to. And she doesn’t think other people can.’ He paused, considering, and then added, ‘And I never had. Not to her. Not until then. Because I wanted us to have a home we could be proud of and be together there.’
How convenient that desire made things for him, Brunetti found himself thinking.
‘What did you do with the drawings?’ Brunetti asked. He was tired of this, tired of having to consider everything Morandi said to determine which of the two men he had seen in him was speaking.
As if he had been expecting the question, Morandi said, with a vague gesture towards Brunetti’s pocket, as if they were there, ‘I put them in the bank.’
Brunetti stopped himself from smacking his palm against his forehead and shouting out, ‘Of course, of course.’ People like Morandi didn’t live in large apartments near San Marco, and no one expected poor people to have safe deposit boxes. But what else was that key if not the key to a safe deposit box?
‘When did she take the key?’
Morandi pulled his lips together in the manner of a schoolboy being reproved for some minor offence. ‘A week ago. Remember, that warm day?’ Brunetti did indeed remember: they’d had dinner on the terrace, but the warm spell had ended suddenly.
‘I went out into the campo to have a cigarette. I left my overcoat lying on the bed. She must have taken the key when I was outside. I didn’t notice it until I got home and opened the door, but it was too late to go back to the casa di cura then, and when I asked her about it the next day, she said she didn’t know what I was talking about.’
‘Did she know what the key was?’ Brunetti said.
Morandi shook his head. ‘I don’t know, I don’t know. I never thought she knew anything or understood what had happened. About the apartment. Or about the drawings.’ He gave Brunetti a long look and said, his confusion to be heard in every word, ‘But she must have, don’t you think?’ Brunetti did not answer, and Morandi asked, ‘To take the key? She must have known? All these years?’ There was a hint of desperation in his voice at the need to consider what this possibility did to his vision of and belief in the sainted Maria.
Brunetti found no words. People knew things they said and thought they did not know. Wives and husbands learned far more about the other person than they were ever meant to learn.
‘I have to have the key,’ Morandi blurted out. ‘I have to have it.’
‘Why?’ Brunetti asked, though he knew.
‘To pay the bills.’ The old man looked around the room, ran his palm across the velvet of the sofa. ‘You know what the public places are like: you’ve seen them. I can’t let her go there.’ At the thought, the tears began again, but this time Morandi was unconscious of them. ‘You wouldn’t put a dog there,’ he insisted.
Brunetti, who had not put his mother there, said nothing.
‘I have to pay them. I can’t move her now, not from this into one of those places.’ He choked