living?'
'No,' Antonin said reluctantly. 'Why?'
'It's complicated,' the priest said. 'Most things are. Why not?'
'Well, the apartment where she was living with her parents belongs to IRE, and when her parents moved to Brescia, the contract passed to her, and she was allowed to stay there because she was unemployed and had a child.'
'How long ago did her parents move?' 'Two years ago.'
'When she was already living with this man?' 'Yes.'
‘I see,' Brunetti said neutrally. The houses and apartments owned and administered by IRE were supposed to be rented to the residents of Venice most in need of financial aid, but over the decades many of those people had turned out to be lawyers, architects, members of the city administration, or people who were related to employees of the public entity itself. Not only that, but many people who rented the apartments, often for derisory rents, managed to sublet them at a considerable profit. 'So she doesn't live there?'
'No ’ the priest answered. 'Who does?'
'Some people she knows ’ the priest answered. 'But the lease is still in her name?' 'I think so, yes.'
'You think so or you know so?' Brunetti enquired mildly.
Antonin could not disguise his irritation and snapped, 'They're friends, and they needed a place to live.'
Brunetti stopped himself from observing that, though this was a need common to most people, it was not generally answered by the chance to live in an apartment owned by IRE. He chose, instead, to ask more directly, 'Are they paying rent?'
‘I think so.'
Brunetti took a deep breath and was careful to make it audible. The priest quickly added, 'Yes, they are.'
What people earned at the expense of the city was not his concern, but it was always useful to know how they did so.
As if sensing a truce, Antonin said, 'But that's not the problem. As I told you, it's that he wants to sell his apartment ’
'Why?'
'That's it, you see ’ the priest said. 'He wants to sell it to give the money to someone.'
Brunetti immediately thought of usurers, gambling debts. 'To whom?' he asked.
'To some charlatan from Umbria who's convinced him that he's his father ’ Brunetti was about to ask if there were any reason the young man should believe this when the priest added, 'His spiritual father, that is.'
Brunetti lived w ith a woman whose chief weapons were irony and, when escalation was forced upon her, sarcasm; over the years he had noticed his own increasing tendency to dip into the same arsenal. Thus he consciously restrained himself and asked only, 'Is this man a cleric of some kind?'
Antonin brushed the question aside. ‘I don't know, though he presents himself as one. He's a swindler, that's what he is, who's convinced Roberto that he - this swindler - has some sort of direct line to heaven.'
Whatever Geneva Convention still governed this conversation went unviolated by Brunetti, who did not point out that many of Antonin's fellow priests made a similar claim to that same direct line. Brunetti moved back in his chair and crossed his legs. There was something surreal in the scene, Brunetti realized, just as he knew that his sense of the absurd was acute enough to allow him to appreciate it. The priest's moral compass might not register a tremor at fraud committed against the city, but it was sensitive enough to be set atremble by the thought of money going to a belief system different from his own. Brunetti wanted to lean forward and ask the priest just how a person was meant to judge true belief from false, but he thought it wiser to wait and see what Antonin had to say. He worked to keep his face bland and thought that he succeeded.
'He met him about a year ago ’ Antonin continued, leaving it to Brunetti to work out the identity of the pronouns. 'He - Roberto, my friend Patrizia's son -was already mixed up with one of those Catecumeni groups.'
'Like the one at Santi Apostoli?' Brunetti asked neutrally, mentioning a church which was used for meetings of a
'No,' Antonin said reluctantly. 'Why?'
'It's complicated,' the priest said. 'Most things are. Why not?'
'Well, the apartment where she was living with her parents belongs to IRE, and when her parents moved to Brescia, the contract passed to her, and she was allowed to stay there because she was unemployed and had a child.'
'How long ago did her parents move?' 'Two years ago.'
'When she was already living with this man?' 'Yes.'
‘I see,' Brunetti said neutrally. The houses and apartments owned and administered by IRE were supposed to be rented to the residents of Venice most in need of financial aid, but over the decades many of those people had turned out to be lawyers, architects, members of the city administration, or people who were related to employees of the public entity itself. Not only that, but many people who rented the apartments, often for derisory rents, managed to sublet them at a considerable profit. 'So she doesn't live there?'
'No ’ the priest answered. 'Who does?'
'Some people she knows ’ the priest answered. 'But the lease is still in her name?' 'I think so, yes.'
'You think so or you know so?' Brunetti enquired mildly.
Antonin could not disguise his irritation and snapped, 'They're friends, and they needed a place to live.'
Brunetti stopped himself from observing that, though this was a need common to most people, it was not generally answered by the chance to live in an apartment owned by IRE. He chose, instead, to ask more directly, 'Are they paying rent?'
‘I think so.'
Brunetti took a deep breath and was careful to make it audible. The priest quickly added, 'Yes, they are.'
What people earned at the expense of the city was not his concern, but it was always useful to know how they did so.
As if sensing a truce, Antonin said, 'But that's not the problem. As I told you, it's that he wants to sell his apartment ’
'Why?'
'That's it, you see ’ the priest said. 'He wants to sell it to give the money to someone.'
Brunetti immediately thought of usurers, gambling debts. 'To whom?' he asked.
'To some charlatan from Umbria who's convinced him that he's his father ’ Brunetti was about to ask if there were any reason the young man should believe this when the priest added, 'His spiritual father, that is.'
Brunetti lived w ith a woman whose chief weapons were irony and, when escalation was forced upon her, sarcasm; over the years he had noticed his own increasing tendency to dip into the same arsenal. Thus he consciously restrained himself and asked only, 'Is this man a cleric of some kind?'
Antonin brushed the question aside. ‘I don't know, though he presents himself as one. He's a swindler, that's what he is, who's convinced Roberto that he - this swindler - has some sort of direct line to heaven.'
Whatever Geneva Convention still governed this conversation went unviolated by Brunetti, who did not point out that many of Antonin's fellow priests made a similar claim to that same direct line. Brunetti moved back in his chair and crossed his legs. There was something surreal in the scene, Brunetti realized, just as he knew that his sense of the absurd was acute enough to allow him to appreciate it. The priest's moral compass might not register a tremor at fraud committed against the city, but it was sensitive enough to be set atremble by the thought of money going to a belief system different from his own. Brunetti wanted to lean forward and ask the priest just how a person was meant to judge true belief from false, but he thought it wiser to wait and see what Antonin had to say. He worked to keep his face bland and thought that he succeeded.
'He met him about a year ago ’ Antonin continued, leaving it to Brunetti to work out the identity of the pronouns. 'He - Roberto, my friend Patrizia's son -was already mixed up with one of those Catecumeni groups.'
'Like the one at Santi Apostoli?' Brunetti asked neutrally, mentioning a church which was used for meetings of a
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