The Death of Faith (16 page)

‘And you’re the gardener?’ Brunetti asked, though it was hardly necessary.

‘By the goodness of God, I am that. I’ve worked in this garden,’ he began, giving Brunetti a closer look, ‘since the time you were a boy.’

‘It’s beautiful, Brother. You should be proud of it.’

The old man gave Brunetti a sudden look from under his thick eyebrows. Pride was, after all, one of the seven deadly sins. ‘Proud that beauty like this gives glory to God, that is,’ Brunetti amended, and the monk’s smile was restored.

‘The Lord never makes anything that isn’t beautiful,’ the old man said as he started across the brick path that led across the garden. ‘If you have any doubt of that, all you’ve got to do is look at His flowers.’ He nodded in affirmation of this simple truth and asked, ‘Do you have a garden?’

‘No, I’m afraid I don’t,’ Brunetti answered.

‘Ah, that’s a shame. It’s good to see things grow. Gives a sense of life.’ He came to a door and opened it, standing aside to allow Brunetti to pass into the long corridor of the monastery.

‘Do children count?’ Brunetti asked with a smile. ‘I’ve got two of those.’

‘Oh, they count more than anything in the world,’ the monk said, smiling at Brunetti. ‘Nothing is more beautiful, and nothing gives greater glory to God.’

Brunetti smiled at the monk and nodded in full agreement with at least the first proposition.

The monk stopped in front of a door and knocked. ‘Go right in,’ he said without bothering to wait for an answer. ‘Padre Pio tells us never to stop anyone who wants to see him.’ With a smile and a pat on Brunetti’s arm, the monk was gone, back toward the garden and his lilacs — what Brunetti had always believed was the scent of paradise.

A tall man sat at a desk, writing. He looked up when Brunetti came in, set his pen down, and stood. He came out from behind the desk and walked toward his unknown visitor, hand extended, a smile beginning in his eyes, then moving to his mouth.

The priest’s lips were so red and full that anyone seeing him for the first time would immediately centre their attention on them, but it was his eyes that revealed his spirit. Somewhere between grey and green, his eyes were alive with a curiosity and interest in the world around him that Brunetti suspected would characterize everything he did. He was tall and very thin, this last emphasized by the long folds of the habit of the Order of the Sacred Cross. Though the priest must have been in his forties, his hair was still black, the only sign of age a thinning natural tonsure at the crown.

‘Buon giorno,’
the priest said in a warm voice. ‘How may I help you?’ His voice, though it moved in the undulant Veneto cadence, did not have the accent of the city. Perhaps from Padova, Brunetti thought, but before he could begin to answer, the priest continued. ‘But excuse me. Let me offer you a seat. Here.’ Saying this, he pulled out one of two small cushioned chairs that stood to the left of the desk and waited until Brunetti was seated before he lowered himself into the one opposite.

Suddenly Brunetti was filled with the desire to do this quickly and have done with it, finish with Maria Testa and her story. ‘I’d like to speak to you about a member of your order, Father.’ A puff of wind blew into the room, rustling the papers on the desk and reminding Brunetti of the rich promise of the season. He felt how warm it was and, looking around him, saw that the windows were open to the courtyard to allow the scent of the lilacs to flood in.

The priest noticed his glance. ‘I seem to spend my entire day holding papers down with one hand,’ he said with an embarrassed smile. ‘But the season for the lilacs is so short, I like to appreciate them as much as I can.’ He looked down for a moment, then up at Brunetti. ‘I suppose it’s a form of gluttony.’

‘I don’t think it’s a serious vice, Father,’ Brunetti said with an easy smile.

The priest nodded his thanks for Brunetti’s remark. ‘I hope this doesn’t sound rude, Signore, but I think I have to ask who you are before I can discuss a member of our order with you.’ His smile was an embarrassed one, and he extended a hand half-way across the distance that separated them, palm open in a request for Brunetti’s understanding.

‘I’m Commissario Brunetti,’ he said by way of explanation.

‘Of the police?’ the priest asked, making no attempt to hide his surprise.

‘Yes.’

‘Good heavens. No one’s been hurt, have they?’

‘No, not at all. I’ve come to ask you about a young woman who was a member of your order.’

‘Was, Commissario?’ he asked. ‘A woman?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then I’m afraid I can’t be much help to you. The Mother Superior could give you more information than I can. She is the spiritual mother of the sisters.’

‘I believe you know this woman, Father.’

‘Yes, who is it?’

‘Maria Testa.’

The priest’s smile was a completely disarming attempt to apologize for his own ignorance. ‘I’m afraid the name doesn’t mean anything to me, Commissario. Could you give me her name when she was still a member of our order?’

‘Suor’Immacolata.’

The priest’s face lit up with recognition. ‘Ah yes, she worked at the San Leonardo nursing home. She was a great help to the patients. Many of them loved her deeply, a feeling I think she returned. I was saddened to learn of her decision to leave the order. I’ve prayed for her.’ Brunetti nodded, and the priest went on, voice suddenly alarmed, ‘But what do the police want with her?’

This time it was Brunetti who extended a hand across the distance between them. ‘We’re merely asking some questions about her, Father. She hasn’t done anything, believe me.’ The priest’s relief was visible. Brunetti continued. ‘How well did you know her, Father?’

Padre Pio considered the question for several moments. ‘That’s difficult to answer, Commissario.’

‘I thought you were her confessor.’

The priest’s eyes opened wide at this, but he quickly glanced down to disguise his surprise. He folded his hands, considering what to say, and then looked back up at Brunetti. ‘I’m afraid this might seem needlessly complicated to you, Commissario, but it is important that I distinguish here between my knowledge of her as a superior in the order and my knowledge of her as her confessor.’

‘Why is that?’ Brunetti asked, though he knew.

‘Because I cannot, under pain of serious sin, reveal to you anything she has told me under the seal of confession.’

‘But those things you know as her religious superior, can you tell me those?’

‘Yes, certainly, especially if they will be of any help to her.’ He unfolded his hands, and Brunetti noticed one of them reach for the beads of the rosary that hung from his belt. ‘What is it you’d like to know?’ the priest asked.

‘Is she an honest woman?’

This time the priest made no attempt to hide his surprise. ‘Honest? Do you mean if she’d steal?’

‘Or lie.’

‘No, she’d never do either of those things.’ The priest’s answer was immediate and unqualified.

‘What about her vision of the world?’

‘I’m afraid I don’t understand the question,’ he said with a small shake of his head.

‘Is she, do you think, an accurate judge of human nature? Would she be a reliable witness?’

After a long moment’s thought, the priest said, ‘I think that would depend on what she was judging. Or whom.’

‘Meaning?’

‘I think she is, well, I suppose “excitable” is as good a word as any. Or “emotional”. Suor’Immacolata is very quick to see the good in people, a quality beyond price. But,’ and here his face clouded, ‘she is often just as ready to suspect the bad.’ He stopped, measuring out the next words. ‘I’m afraid this next is going to sound terrible, like the worst sort of prejudice.’ The priest paused, evidently uncomfortable about what he was going to say. ‘Suor’Immacolata is from the South, and I think, because of that, she has a certain vision of mankind or of human nature.’ Padre Pio looked away and Brunetti saw the way his teeth caught at his bottom lip, as if he wanted to bite the offending part and thus punish himself for having said what he just had.

‘Wouldn’t the convent be a strange place to take that vision?’

‘You see?’ the priest said, obviously embarrassed. ‘I don’t know how to say what I want to say. If I could speak in theological terms, I’d say she suffers from lack of hope. If she had more hope, then I think she would have more faith in the goodness of people.’ He stopped talking and fingered his beads. ‘But I’m afraid I cannot say any more than that, Commissario.’

‘Because of the danger of revealing something to me that I shouldn’t know?’

‘That you can’t know,’ the priest said, voice filled with the ring of absolute certainty. When he saw the look Brunetti gave him, he added, ‘I know this seems strange to many people, especially in today’s world. But it is a tradition as old as the Church, and I think it is one of the traditions we strive most strongly to maintain. And must maintain.’ His smile was sad. ‘I’m afraid I can’t say more than that.’

‘But she wouldn’t lie?’

‘No. You can be sure of that. Never. She might misinterpret or exaggerate, but Suor’Immacolata would never knowingly lie.’

Brunetti got to his feet. ‘Thank you for your time, Father,’ he said, extending his hand.

The priest took it; his grasp was firm and dry. He accompanied Brunetti across the room and, at the door, said only ‘Go with God,’ in response to Brunetti’s renewed thanks.

As he emerged into the courtyard, Brunetti saw the gardener kneeling in the dirt beside the back wall of the monastery, hands digging at the roots of a rose bush. The old man saw Brunetti and pushed one hand flat on the ground in an attempt to push himself to his feet, but Brunetti called across to him, ‘No, Brother, I’ll let myself out.’ When he did that, the scent of the lilacs trailed him down the
calle
until he turned the first corner, following him like a benediction.

* * * *

The next day, the current Minister of Finance visited the city, and even though it was an entirely personal visit, the police were still responsible for his safety while he was there. Because of this and because of a late winter outbreak of flu that had five policemen in bed and one in the hospital, the copies of the wills of the five people who had died at the San Leonardo Casa di Cura lay unnoticed on Brunetti’s desk until early the next week. He did manage to think about them, even asked Signorina Elettra about them once, only to receive the brisk reply that they had been placed on his desk two days before.

It was not until the Minister had returned to Rome and the Augean Stables of the Ministry of Finance that Brunetti thought again about the copies of the five wills, and he did that only because his hand fell upon them when he was searching his desk for some missing personnel files. He decided to take a look at them before giving them to Signorina Elettra and asking her to find some place to file them.

His university degree was in law, and so he was familiar with the language, the clauses which provided, bestowed, granted possession of bits and tatters of the world to people not yet dead. Reading through the cautious phrases, he could not help thinking of what Vianello had said about the impossibility of ever really owning anything, for here was proof of that impossibility. They had passed on the fiction of ownership to their heirs and had thus perpetuated that illusion, until more time passed, when the heirs too would have ownership stolen from them by death.

Maybe those Celtic chieftains had it right, Brunetti speculated, when they had all their treasure piled on a barge with their bodies and the whole thing set ablaze to drift to sea. It occurred to him that this sudden turning against material possessions was perhaps no more than a response to having spent time in the company of the Minister of Finance, a man so crass, vulgar, and stupid as surely to turn anyone against wealth. Brunetti laughed aloud at this and returned his attention to the wills.