The Girl of his Dreams - Brunetti 17 by Donna Leon Page B

as a vegetarian, would not eat, opted for more pasta, as did Raffi, who would no doubt go on to pack away his sister's portion of calamari with undiiriinished appetite and a clear conscience. Brunetti poured himself a glass of wine and assumed the expression of a man who would never think of taking the food from the mouths of his own hungry children.
    Chiara helped carry the plates back to the kitchen and returned with a dish of carrots and peas, while Paola brought out a platter of calamari, and he thought he could smell the carrots and leeks - perhaps even chopped shrimp - with which they were filled. Conversation was general: school, school, and school, leaving Brunetti to say he had seen the Contessa that morning and brought her love to all of them. Paola turned her head and gave him a long look when he said this, though the children found it in no way strange.
    Seeing Chiara reach for the platter, Paola distracted Raffi by asking him if he and Sara Paganuzzi were still planning to go to the cinema that evening and, if so, would he like to eat something before they went? He explained that the film had been supplanted by a Greek translation Sara had still to finish, and so he would be going to her home that evening, both for dinner and to help her with the translation.
    Paola asked him what the text was, and that led to a discussion of the rashness and folly of the Peloponnesian War, which both found sufficiently interesting to distract them from the sight of Brunetti and Chiara finishing the calamari. Nor did they notice Brunetti lift his empty plate and use it to cover his daughter's.
    Athens defeated and the walls destroyed, Raffi finished the vegetables and asked about dessert.
    But by then the sun had disappeared, not only from Brunetti's back but from the sky, which was suddenly covered by clouds slipping in from the east. Paola got to her feet and gathered up the plates, saying there was only fruit for dessert, and they could eat it inside. Relieved, Brunetti pushed back his chair, picked up the empty vegetable bowl and the bottle of wine, and went back towards the kitchen.
    Long exposure to the vagaries of springtime had chilled him sufficiently to render the thought of fruit unattractive. Paola told him she'd make coffee while doing the dishes and sent him into the living room to read the paper.
    She found him there about twenty minutes later. The unopened newspaper lay on his lap, and Brunetti stared off at the rooftops and the sky. That day's headline, giving further details about the recent capture of one of the chief leaders of the Mafia, looked up at the room, shouting for attention.
    She stopped behind the sofa, two cups of coffee in her hands, and asked, 'Reading about your triumph?'
    Brunetti closed his eyes. 'Indeed,' he answered. 'A triumph.'
    'It's enough to make a person give serious thought to emigration, isn't it?' she asked.
    'He's been on the run for forty-three years, and they find him two kilometres from his home.' He raised a hand and let it fall with a helpless slap on the open newspaper. 'Forty-three years, and the politicians fall over themselves praising the police. A triumph.'
    'Perhaps what they really mean is that it's a triumph for the power of the Mafia,' Paola suggested. 'It would all be so much easier if the government simply gave them the right to appoint their own minister.' There followed a reflective pause, after which she asked, 'But what to call him? Minister of Alternative Power? Minister of Extortion?'
    She placed the coffee on the table and sat beside him.
    Knowing he should not say it, Brunetti asked, 'What makes you think they don't?'
    'Don't what?'
    'Have their own minister.'
    Her glance was sudden, alarmed, as she registered that she had just heard something he was not meant to have said.
    Her silence grew eloquent until he was forced to speak into it. 'There are voices,' he said and leaned forward to take his coffee.
    'Voices?'
    Brunetti nodded and sipped at his coffee,