Pullini’s hand nudged his elbow and the commissaris remembered his business.
“Yes, thank you, Mr. Pullini. What do you think about Mr. Bergen?”
“Bergen,” Pullini said, feeling the word with his thick lips. “Bergen, he all right. He buyer, I seller. He buys, he pays. Sometimes he pays later, and Francesco telephones and talks about this and that and then Francesco says ‘Money’ and Bergen, he pays. And sometimes he comes here.”
“You think he is a good businessman?”
“Half.”
“Half?”
“Half. Bergen is salesman. Big salesman, not big buyer. He, how do you say?” Pullini tried some Italian words and the commissaris held up his hands in apologetic despair. “You don’t understand, no? Here.” Pullini breathed in and his chest swelled up. He kept his breath. A foolish grin spread over his face and his eyes narrowed.
“I see,” the commissaris said gratefully. “A showoff. He tries to impress, is that it?”
Pullini breathed out. “Yes. Bergen all right as long as he pays. That other man, he better. I forget name of other man.” Pullini bent and swung his arms. His lips pouted. He frowned.
“Mr. Vleuten?”
“Yes. The monkeyman. He better. But he gone now. One time Francesco thinks maybe monkeyman he marries Mrs. Carnet and take business. Vleuten, he good businessman. Bergen, he sells, to anybody, any price. Like Francesco, but Francesco, he learns, he changes. Bergen, he never learns.”
They had arrived at the hotel. Pullini had puffed himself up again and was strutting around the car’s bumper, leading the way to the hotel. The commissaris followed slowly. Pullini waited.
“And Gabrielle Carnet, what do you think of her, Mr. Pullini?”
Pullini’s face fell. “Me, I don’t know Gabrielle. Francesco, he likes her. Gabrielle, she beautiful, yes?”
The commissaris nodded firmly. “Yes. She is.”
Pullini whistled. The butt of the small cigar the commissaris had given him rolled on his underlip. He scratched his nose.
“Now maybe Camet and Company finished.”
“Possibly.”
“Never mind. We find other company, Holland has many companies. Pullini furniture is good, good quality, good price. Maybe I go to Holland now. Set up own office. Find good Dutchman, good Dutchman he becomes manager. Holland has many good Dutchmen. Maybe you help me, yes? You and I, do a little business?”
The owner of the hotel had come into the street to meet Pullini and the two men embraced. The commissaris was introduced with a flourish and the owner took the overnight bag from Pullini’s hand. His bow to the commissaris showed servility, deep friendship, respect, and a great love. His smile flashed as he straightened up again. They were ushered into the building with another display of exuberant intimacy. The commissaris’s room on the second floor was large. It had a floor of marble slabs and deep windows, each window with its own vase holding matched bouquets of wildflowers. The owner pointed at the bed as if he wanted to excuse its poor appearance but the bed was big and sumptuous, with clean crisp sheets and a stack of downy pillows. The posts of the brass frame were crowned with white and blue ceramic balls.
“Lovely,” the commissaris said, and Pullini translated and patted the owner on the back. The owner pulled his drooping mustache and hunched in a tremendous effort to comment on the compliment. He found a word: “Happy!”
“Yes. Happy.”
The commissaris and die owner beamed at each other. The owner opened a door and showed the bathroom. More marble, once white but aged to a delicate shade of ivory. A tub with brass faucets. A brass tank resting on solid oak.
“Hot,” the owner said proudly.
Pullini and the owner linked arms and marched to die door. They bowed together. “I come back seven o’clock. O.K.?”
“O.K., Mr. Pullini.”
“Have bath, sleep, then walk. Sesto San Giovanni very small, can’t get lost.”
“Sure. Thank you.”
The commissaris sighed as he lowered himself into the bath. His legs felt like two thin dry sticks that had been thrown into a roaring fire. The steaming water would calm the pain once more. A maid had brought a pot of strong tea and he poured himself a cup that rested on the tiled rim of the bath. He forced himself not to think of further developments and made pleasurable little noises instead as the water swept along his legs and hips and reached his chest and shoulders. He even sang, a wordless song consisting of grunts that lengthened and flowed into each other. He sipped his tea and stopped singing. The case had grabbed his mind again and the image of Papa Pullini dominated the stage of his brain.
If only Papa Pullini had married Elaine Carnet. But perhaps it had been too much to expect. A young Italian businessman romancing with a nightclub singer in Paris. All very well. But she gets pregnant. The young Italian businessman fades away. The months pass. The beautiful nightclub singer doesn’t sing anymore. She watches her body grow in an upstairs bedroom in Amsterdam. She writes letters on blue perfumed paper. There is an answer, on the Pullini furniture company’s letterhead. It is not a romantic letter. It avoids the subject of pregnancy and it doesn’t mention the matter of marriage. It offers an agency in furniture. The commissaris’s hand came down and hit the bath water. For God’s sake! What a way to handle the problem. But a way that suited Papa Pullini’s temperament and it had worked. He didn’t know how it had worked and he would probably never find out. Had Elaine left her baby in the care of a relative or paid help and traveled through Holland by train and visited the big stores? Had she shown her prospective customers a catalogue and a price list or had she organized a showroom somewhere and enticed clients to look at her wares? The preposterous fact was mat Camet and Company was born together with Gabrielle. He hit the water again with such force that some of it splashed into his teacup. He put the cup into the tub and pushed it around. Papa Pullini had been very clever and very businesslike but it would have been better if he had married Elaine, for if he had Francesco wouldn’t have pushed his tamer’s former mistress down the garden stairs of her house in the Mierisstraat. A long chain of events crinkling through a space of thirty years, but set off by Papa Pullini’s brilliant egotism.
He imagined the final scene, knowing that he had to be very close to the truth, that he might as well have been in the room, together with Gabrielle, who saw her lover and half-brother kill her mother. Manslaughter, of course, provoked manslaughter, mere had been no premeditation in the act. He saw Elaine Camet, dowdy and painted to hide die lines and folds caused by loneliness and bitter thoughts and continuous frustration. Drunk, most likely. And angry, vengeful. Convinced of her right, snarling with victory. She had been waiting for Francesco, she had probably telephoned him at his hotel. She had created the situation and was, finally, in charge of her circumstances. Francesco had come for one simple reason, his eighty thousand guilders mat Bergen hadn’t paid and that he couldn’t tell Papa Pullini about, for Papa Pullini didn’t know that his son had organized a private commission on all sales to the Dutch firm. Francesco didn’t know why Elaine Camet wanted to give him the money instead of Bergen and he didn’t care, all Francesco wanted was his cash.
He had gone as a helpless beggar and he must have been in a foul mood. Bergen had been threatening not to give him any more orders. The business might be ending then and there. His trip to Amsterdam had turned into a nightmare. He wasn’t feeling well either, he was sniffling and sneezing. And instead of handing him a discreet brown envelope to be stuffed into his inside pocket Mrs. Carnet had been waving the money at him, a thick wad of thousand-guilder notes, a small fortune that he desperately needed to pay for his expensive private pleasures. She had screamed. It had taken him awhile to understand what she was screaming about, but it became clear soon enough. She was explaining, in French, and at the top of her voice, that Papa Pullini was Gabrielle’s father and that he hadn’t married her but had made her work for him instead, to enlarge the Pullini business. That there had been no choice. That she had had to give Papa Pullini business to pay for the upbringing and education of his own child, Gabrielle, Francesco’s half-sister. That she had known, all along, that Francesco and Gabrielle were having an affair, that history was repeating itself. That she knew that Francesco had married in Italy, a rich girl with the right connections, just as his father had done twenty-odd years ago.