Anonymous Venetian Read Online Free

blinded
by the light and the reflection from the canal, he reached into the breast
pocket of his jacket and pulled out his sun-glasses. Before he had taken five
steps, he could feel the sweat seeping into his shirt, crawling down his back.
He turned right, deciding in that instant to go up to San Zaccaria and get the
No. 82, though it would mean walking in the sun a good part of the way to get
there. Though the calli that led to Rialto were all shaded from the sun
by high houses, it would take him twice as long to get there, and he dreaded
even so little as an extra minute spent outside.
     
    When he emerged at Riva degli
Schiavoni, he looked off to the left and saw that the vaporetto was tied to the
landing stage, people streaming from it. He was confronted with one of those
peculiarly Venetian decisions: run and try to get the boat or let it go and
then spend ten minutes in the trapped heat of the bobbing embarcadero, waiting for the next one. He ran. As he pounded across the wooden boards of the
landing stage, he was presented with another decision: pause a moment to stamp
his ticket in the yellow machine at the entrance and thus perhaps lose the
boat, or run on to the boat and pay the five hundred lire supplement for
failing to stamp the ticket. But then he remembered that he was on police
business and, consequently, could ride at the expense of the city.
     
    Even the short run had flooded
his face and chest with sweat, and so he chose to remain on deck, body catching
what little breeze was created by the boat’s stately progress up the Grand
Canal. He glanced around him and saw the half-naked tourists, the men and women
with their bathing suits, shorts, and scoop necked T-shirts, and for a moment
he envied them, even though he knew the impossibility of his appearing like
that any place other than a beach.
     
    As his body dried, the envy fled,
and he returned to his normal state of irritation at seeing them dressed like
this. If they had perfect bodies and perfect clothing, perhaps he would find
them less annoying. As it was, the shabby materials of the clothing and the even
shabbier state of too many of the bodies left him thinking longingly of the
compulsory modesty of Islamic societies. He was not what Paola called a ‘beauty
snob’, but he did believe that it was better to look good than bad. He turned
his attention from the people on the boat to the palazzi that lined the
canal, and immediately he felt his irritation evaporate. Many of them, too,
were shabby, but it was the shabbiness of centuries of wear, not that of
laziness and cheap clothing. The city had grown old, but Brunetti loved the
sorrows of her changing face.
     
    Though he hadn’t specified where
the car was to meet him, he walked to the Carabinieri station at Piazzale Roma
and saw, parked in front of it, motor running, one of the blue and white sedans
of the Squadra Mobile of Mestre. He tapped on the driver’s window. The young
man inside rolled it down, and a wave of cold air flowed across the front of
Brunetti’s shirt.
     
    ‘Commissario?’ the young man
asked. At Brunetti’s nod, the young man got out, saying, ‘Sergeant Gallo sent
me,’ and held open the rear door for him. Brunetti got into the car and rested
his head for a moment against the back of the seat. The sweat on his chest and
shoulders grew cold, but Brunetti couldn’t tell if its evaporation brought him
pleasure or pain.
     
    ‘Where would you like to go, sir?’
the young officer asked as he slipped the car into gear.
     
    On vacation. On Saturday, he
said, but only in his mind and only to himself. And to Patta. ‘Take me to where
you found him,’ Brunetti directed.
     
    At the other end of the causeway
that led from Venice to the mainland, the young man pulled off in the direction
of Marghera. The laguna disappeared, and soon they were riding down a
straight road blocked with traffic and with a light at every intersection. Progress
was slow. ‘Were you there this