Quietly in Their Sleep by Donna Leon Page B

collar, the new green leaves on the vine coming back to life on the wall across the canal, a wine bottle drifting by on the surface of the water, itself a gleaming field. For no reason other than the light, Vianello spread his arms wide and smiled.
     
    Bonsuan’s attention was drawn by the movement, and he stared. Caught between embarrassment and joy, Vianello began to turn his motion into the tired stretch of a deskbound man, but then a pair of amorous swifts flashed by, low to the water, and Vianello dropped all pretence. ‘It’s springtime,’ he called happily to the pilot and leaped onto the deck beside him. He clapped Bonsuan on the shoulder, his own joy suddenly overflowing.
     
    ‘Do we owe all of this to your exercise class?’ Brunetti asked as he came aboard.
     
    Bonsuan, who apparently knew nothing about Vianello’s latest enthusiasm, gave the sergeant a disgusted look, turned, hit the motor into life, and pulled the launch out into the narrow canal.
     
    Spirits undampened, Vianello remained on deck while Brunetti went down into the cabin. He pulled down a city guide that rested on a shelf running along one side of the cabin and checked the locations of the three addresses on the list. From inside, he watched the interaction between the two men: his sergeant, as unashamedly filled with high spirits as an adolescent; the dour pilot, staring ahead as they pulled out into the bacino of San Marco. As he watched, Vianello placed a hand on Bonsuan’s shoulder and pointed off to the east, calling his attention to a thick-masted sailboat that came toward them, its sails fat-cheeked with the fresh spring breeze. Bonsuan nodded once but turned his attention back to their course. Vianello tossed his head back and laughed, sending the deep sound spilling down into the cabin.
     
    Brunetti resisted until they were in the middle of the bacino, but then he gave in to the magnet of Vianello’s happiness and came up on deck. Just as he stepped outside, the wake of a passing Lido ferry caught them broadside, knocking Brunetti off balance and toward the boat’s low railing. Vianello’s hand shot out; he grabbed Brunetti by the sleeve and pulled him back. He held his superior’s arm until the boat steadied, then let him go, saying, ‘Not in that water.’
     
    ‘Afraid I’d drown?’ Brunetti asked.
     
    Bonsuan broke in. ‘More likely the cholera would get you.’
     
    ‘Cholera?’ Brunetti asked, laughing at his exaggeration, the first joke he’d ever heard Bonsuan attempt.
     
    Bonsuan swung his head around and gave Brunetti a level glance. ‘Cholera,’ he repeated.
     
    When Bonsuan turned back to the wheel, Vianello and Brunetti stared at one another like guilty schoolboys, and Brunetti had the impression that it was with difficulty that Vianello stopped himself from laughing.
     
    ‘When I was a boy,’ Bonsuan said with no introduction, ‘I used to swim in front of my house. Just dive into the water from the side of the Canale di Cannaregio. You could see to the bottom. You could see fish, crabs. Now all you see is mud and shit.’
     
    Vianello and Brunetti exchanged another glance.
     
    ‘Anyone who eats a fish from out of that water is crazy.’ Bonsuan said.
     
    Late last year, there had been numerous cases of cholera reported, but in the south, where that sort of thing happened. Brunetti remembered that the health authorities had closed the fish market in Bari and warned the local people to avoid eating fish, which had seemed to him like telling cows to avoid eating grass. The autumn rains and floods had driven the story from the pages of the national newspapers, but not before Brunetti had begun to wonder whether the same thing was possible, here in the north, and how wise it was to eat anything that came from the increasingly putrid waters of the Adriatic.
     
    When the boat pulled up at the gondola stop to the left of Palazzo Dario, Vianello grabbed the end of a coiled rope and leaped onto the