Suffer the Little Children by Donna Leon Page B

Pedrolli’s room, Brunetti was told that his request had been recorded.
    Changing tactics, Brunetti dialled the office number of Elio Pelusso, a friend who workedas a journalist for
Il Gazzettino
. Within a few minutes, he had the names, professions, ages, and addresses of the people who had been arrested, as well as the name of the clinic in Verona where many of those arrested had sought treatment.
    He took this information down to Signorina Elettra and repeated what Signora Marcolini had told him about their attempts to have a child. She nodded as she wrote this down, then said, ‘There’s a book about this, you know.’
    â€˜Excuse me?’
    â€˜A novel, by an English writer, I forget who. About when there are no more babies and what people will do to get them.’
    â€˜A rather anti-Malthusian idea, isn’t it?’ Brunetti asked.
    â€˜Yes. It’s almost as if we’re living in two worlds,’ she said. ‘There’s the world where people have too many children, and they get sick and starve and die, and our world, where people want to have them and can’t.’
    â€˜And will do anything to get them?’ he asked.
    She tapped a finger on the papers in front of her and said, ‘So it seems.’
    Back in his office, Brunetti called his home number. When Paola answered with the laconic
sì
that suggested he had taken her away from a particularly riveting passage of whatever it was she was reading, Brunetti said, ‘Can I hire you as an Internet researcher?’
    â€˜That depends on the subject.’
    â€˜Treatments for infertility.’
    There was a long pause, after which she said, ‘Because of this case?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Why me?’
    â€˜Because you know how to do research.’
    After an overly loud sigh, Paola said, ‘I could easily teach you how, you know.’
    â€˜You’ve been telling me that for years,’ Brunetti replied.
    â€˜As have Signorina Elettra and Vianello, and your own children.’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Does it make any difference?’
    â€˜No, not really.’
    There unfolded yet another long silence, after which Paola said, ‘All right. I’ll give you two hours of my time and print out whatever seems interesting.’
    â€˜Thank you, Paola.’
    â€˜What do I get in return?’
    â€˜Undying devotion.’
    â€˜I thought I had that already.’
    â€˜Undying devotion and I’ll bring you coffee in bed for a week.’
    â€˜You were called out of bed at two this morning,’ she reminded him.
    â€˜I’ll think of something,’ he said, conscious of how lame that sounded.
    â€˜You better,’ she said. ‘All right, two hours, but I can’t begin until tomorrow.’
    â€˜Why?’
    â€˜I have to finish this book.’
    â€˜What book?’
    â€˜
The Ambassadors
,’ she answered.
    â€˜Haven’t you read it already?’
    â€˜Yes. Four times.’
    A man less familiar with the ways of scholars, the ways of marriage, and the ways of wisdom might have raised some objection here. Brunetti caved in, said, ‘All right,’ and hung up.
    As he put the phone down, Brunetti realized he could have asked Vianello, or Pucetti, or, for all he knew, any one of the other officers downstairs. He had grown up reading printed pages, at school had learned from printed pages, and he still had the habit of belief in the printed page. The few times he had allowed someone to try to teach him how to use the Internet to search for information, he had found himself flooded with ads for all manner of rubbish and had even stumbled onto a pornographic website. Since then, on the few occasions when he had placed his trembling feelers on the web, he had quickly drawn them back in confusion and defeat. He felt incapable of understanding the links by which things were connected.
    That thought reverberated in his mind. Links. Specifically, what