“Is that your mom?” asked the boy, his voice cracking.
“No,” Gwen replied. “But I better go.”
Claire stepped back as the door collapsed inward again and the boy appeared, brushing past her without meeting her eyes. He couldn’t have been more than fifteen, she noticed with relief. Then Gwen slowly extricated herself and stepped into the aisle.
“We were just talking.”
“Don’t insult my intelligence, just get back to your seat.” She’d almost ended with “young lady,” and was surprised by her automatic parental reaction. The desire to take the girl firmly by the arm, march her down the aisle in double time, and put her in her seat with a grim, “You’re grounded,” felt programmed into her DNA, the impulse was so strong. Of course the grounding idea probably wouldn’t be very effective, being, as they were, currently airborne.
She couldn’t imagine what her own mother would have done in the same situation, probably because her mother hadn’t had to face anything like this. As a teenager, Claire actually had been sweet, shy, and perfectly normal, a description that fit Gwendolyn Fry about as well as the jeans that were currently cutting off circulation to her pelvis. If Gwendolyn Fry was a perfectly normal teenager, Claire was going to have a tubal ligation the moment she got home from Italy. “Devil spawn” would be a more fitting description, she thought as she squeezed past her and sat down.
Gwen immediately launched into her defense. “He was just showing me his tattoo, that’s all.”
“I don’t want to know about it. Gwendolyn, this isn’t going to work out. We’ll be landing in Milan soon and when we do I’m going to call your father and tell him I’ll take you to Nice, or he can come to Milan to pick you up, but one way or another we are not going to continue traveling together.”
Gwen pondered this outburst with a thoughtfulness Claire hadn’t seen before, as if she were carefully weighing her options. “But if you do that,” she replied, “you won’t get to go to Venice. He’s only paying for your trip because you’re with me.”
The girl was right. Claire’s anger had made her overlook a rather important fact; she hadn’t thought beyond handing Gwendolyn back to her father. Her plane ticket would still be good, she supposed, but what about the hotel, the food, the other expenses?
“No me, no Venice.” Gwen smiled loopily and giggled, and Claire got a whiff of her breath.
“Have you been drinking?”
“Just a little rum and Coke. No biggie.”
“Oh, Christ,” Claire groaned. No biggie. She thought of something else she would do as soon as she got home: kill Meredith. Then she’d have her tubes tied.
Gwen opened up Claire’s CD case. “Still using the old technology, I see,” she said. “So, what kind of music do history teachers listen to?” Gwen flipped the plastic sleeves. “Vivaldi, Bach, Vivaldi, Bach, Mozart, Vivaldi, Bach. All ancient, just like I thought. Oh, look at this. The Beatles. Well, these guys are pretty old, too. They’re so old,” she snickered, “half of them are dead.”
“Not funny,” said Claire, snatching the CDs away from her.
The line for passport control at Venice’s Marco Polo Airport stretched the length of the terminal. Claire, with Gwen following wearily, took a place at the end. Up ahead—which seemed an endless distance from them, one filled with two hundred other travelers—were six Plexiglass booths, but only two were occupied by fresh-faced officials. They sat under interrogation-style lamps, heads solemnly bowed, as they carefully studied each passport.
“You’d think there would be more people working here,” Claire remarked to Gwen. “It’s high season in one of the most visited cities in the world.”
“Uhhhh,” Gwen replied, and burped.
Claire peered ahead impatiently. Gwen’s intoxication had caught up with her at the Milan airport. They’d spent a joyless hour in the women’s bathroom while Gwen was sick, had missed their flight to Venice, and had had to wait over an hour for the next one. Claire checked her watch. If they managed to get through this line in less than a half hour, she just might make it to the Biblioteca Marciana before it closed.
Ten minutes passed and they didn’t move forward so much as a foot. This is what Ellis Island must’ve been like, Claire thought, when it was filled with the huddled masses. At this rate she wouldn’t get to the Marciana at all that day. An entire day wasted!
Two people broke away from the line Claire and Gwen waited in and went to stand in the much shorter line in front of the passport-control booth marked EU. If they held European passports, Claire wondered, why had they waited in this endless line before moving over?
Perhaps they knew something she didn’t. Perhaps it was okay for non-EU citizens to go through the EU passport control when, as now, there was such a disparity between the two lines. And why not? Soon the EU guy would be sitting there with nothing to do. If you put your American passport in front of him, and it was clear that you were a law-abiding kind of person, he would probably stamp it and wave you through, wouldn’t he?
“Gwen, pick up your pack.” Claire lifted her carry-on onto her shoulder.
“Huh?” She was still in a stupor, which her lunch of cheeseburger and coffee had done little to ameliorate.
“Your pack. We’re moving.”
They walked across the terminal to the end of the other line. From here, Claire could actually see the face of the passport-control officer. He looked young and friendly. Surely he wouldn’t mind if they went through the EU passport booth. And this line seemed to be moving, unlike the other. She felt a little of her tension dissipate.
Gwen noticed the sign above the booth. “What’s the EU?”
“The European Union.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a group of European nations that have joined together because they have more economic and political power as a group than they had individually. It’s kind of like when the thirteen colonies became the United States of America. Now the countries in the EU have a common currency and, well, other stuff”—Claire didn’t want to admit that she was stumped about the other stuff—“like this special line at passport control, for instance.”
“All of the European countries are in it?”
“Most of them, I think.” Claire envisioned a map of Europe and started at the top left. “The UK, Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, and Portugal.”
“You’ve forgotten Finland, Luxembourg, and Greece,” said the man standing behind them.
Claire turned. The possessor of the unmistakably English voice regarded them with a cool disdain, as if he were peering through a microscope at a dead insect. “You’ve also left out the ten countries that have recently joined, which include Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic,” he added.
His speech seemed more like a lecture than a friendly interjection, and Claire wasn’t entirely certain if she should be offended or not. She searched for a clue in his appearance, which was at odds with his manner. Perhaps he believed that superciliousness compensated for his lack of sartorial splendor. His brown slacks, green wool sport coat, and light blue button-down shirt appeared well-worn and quite possibly slept in, in addition to being a combination of hues agreeable only to the color-blind. In his left hand, he carried a saddle-colored leather satchel; in his right, a black umbrella. That was what was strange about him; the weather outside in Venice was, reportedly, eighty degrees and sunny, and he was dressed for London fog.
His face was pleasant enough, in an unremarkable sort of way. He had dark wavy hair, which apparently had not been combed or even looked at recently, for then he would have been aware that it was sticking up oddly on the left side. He hadn’t shaved in a while, and the hollows of his cheeks and his upper lip were marked by a blue-tinged shadow.
“Well,” Claire said, with a vague feeling that she had been put down or snubbed in some way, “you certainly are a font of useful information.”
“Thank you,�
�� he replied. “However, as I am also quite certain that America is not a part of the EU, and as I can tell from your accent that you are an American, I believe that you’re in the wrong queue, and should be standing”—he pointed his umbrella at the huddled masses—“over there.”
For a moment, Claire was too stunned to reply. “But there must be two hundred people over there,” she sputtered.
“At least.”
“And you think we should move anyway.”
“We’ve already established that you are not a citizen of the EU.”
“That sign,” Claire pointed at the passport control booth, “does not say EU only.”
“You regard it as just a suggestion, do you?”
“It could be.”
“Well, isn’t that just like an American.”
“What exactly do you mean by that?”
“You Americans seem to believe that the entire world belongs to you. What the sign actually means is that no one but EU citizens are allowed in this queue, and that everyone else, including you, must go over there.” Again, he pointed the umbrella.
“Excuse me, but are you a customs official? Or in any way affiliated with the policing apparatus of the Italian state?”
“No.”
“Then why don’t you mind your own business?”
“Because the European nations have spent billions of dollars so that we can more easily cross the borders of our neighboring countries, in addition to ‘other stuff,’ as you so cleverly put it. If we let everyone else in the world use our border facilities, then there was little point in creating them in the first place.”
Gwen had witnessed their exchange with complete bewilderment. She nudged Claire and nodded at the passport booth. “That cost billions of dollars?”
“No. Shush.” Claire addressed the Englishman once more. “Since you seem to feel that we’re inconveniencing you, why don’t you take a place in the line ahead of us?”
“Thank you, I will.” He stepped forward and stood in front of them.
Claire fumed. “You know, a real gentleman wouldn’t have done that. Instead, if he felt that I was doing something unconventional, he would assume that it was necessary to bend the rules a bit in my favor, and that I was in need of assistance.”
He turned back to them. “Are you in need of assistance?”
“This girl”—Claire grabbed Gwen by the arm and pulled her closer—“is very ill, and she needs to get to our hotel as soon as possible.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. What is her problem?”
“I have a hangover,” Gwen said.
“Ah,” he said, in a high, clipped voice. He noted Gwen’s tender age, more obvious now that her face was washed clean of makeup. “I see.” A brief, disapproving glance at Claire. “Right.” He turned his back to them again.
Claire glared at Gwen.
“What’s the matter with you?” Gwen asked.
“I believe,” the Englishman said, barely turning toward them as he spoke, “that a gentleman would warn an American that she was in the wrong queue, and tell her to go to the correct one, before the official in the booth up ahead has an Italian militiaman escort her there, or to one of those rooms for questioning.” He nodded at a row of spartan offices that lined the far side of the terminal. “I’ve seen it happen before.”
He walked to the booth, leaving them at the front of the line.
“Come on.” Claire pulled Gwen back to the end of the other line, still over two hundred strong.
“Why are we moving again?”
“We either go of our own accord or have a military escort, apparently. Insufferable British. If it weren’t for Americans, he’d be speaking German.”
“Really?” Gwen asked. “Why?”
“Because of the war, of course.”
“There was a war? What war?”
“Never mind.”
“But I don’t understand. Why would he be speaking German?”
“Oh, shut up,” Claire said.
Chapter Seven
THE WATER TAXI rounded the eastern end of the island and the heart of Venice came into view. Even at a distance, Claire could see the distinctive shape of the Campanile, its pointed green and white rooftop towering above the Piazza San Marco, and the Gothic facade of the Doge’s Palace. As exhausted as she was, she still felt excited: at last, she would be in the city where Vivaldi had composed his greatest works, where Palladio had revived classical Roman architecture, where Titian and Tintoretto had ushered in the Venetian Renaissance. Where Alessandra Rossetti had saved Venice from the evil machinations of the Spanish Conspiracy.
“Isn’t it incredible?” Claire said. Gwen sat next to her, gripping the rail and looking down into the water with a glassy-eyed stare. A dead rat floated on top of the short, choppy waves of the lagoon.
“I think I’m going to be sick again,” she replied. “We should have taken the bus.”
“It would have taken too long.” Making up for lost time wasn’t her only concern. For centuries, before the causeway that joined the city to the mainland was built, the only approach to Venice was by boat—a boat directly to the Piazza San Marco, as they were headed now. She’d wanted her first sight of the city to be the same as if she’d been arriving four hundred years ago. “We’re almost there,” she said, prodding Gwen to make her look up at the view.
The unbroken line of buildings facing the Riva degli Schiavoni, the waterfront walk along the lagoon, glowed with the honey-colored light of the late-afternoon sun. Tourists crowded the promenade, to stroll in the sunlight, browse at souvenir kiosks, or dine in the open-air cafés facing the lagoon and the island monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore. The thickest throng covered the bridge just east of the Piazzetta, and as their water taxi motored past, Claire could see what had drawn them there: fifty yards behind the bridge, suspended above the canal, the Bridge of Sighs connected the Doge’s Palace to the prison directly behind it.
The boat glided into a slip adjacent to a row of gondolas. The pilot, an older man with a sympathetic smile and a striking profile, helped Claire lift her luggage onto a narrow dock, then offered his hand as she climbed out of the boat. She looked up to see the twin marble columns, topped by the Lion of San Marco and the statue of San Teodoro, which marked the entrance to Venice. Four hundred years ago, the Piazzetta had been as much of a tourist mecca as it was today, filled with market stalls and people from all parts of the world, alive with exotic costume and custom. Games of chance flourished in the space between the two columns, which was also the traditional spot for executions. Four hundred years ago, Claire reflected, some of the Spanish conspirators had died in this very place. Superstitious Venetians didn’t walk between the Lion of San Marco and the statue of San Teodoro, even now.
They stepped onto the Piazzetta. The white, two-story Sansovino library, which housed the Biblioteca Marciana, fronted the west side and faced the Doge’s Palace. But it was already past six o’clock and the library was closed. With their wheeled suitcases trailing behind them, Claire and Gwen reached the base of the Campanile. According to the map the travel agent had provided, their hotel was located just beyond the northwest corner of the Piazza San Marco. Dodging people and pigeons, Claire started diagonally across the square, Gwen plodding along after her.
An hour later, they entered the lobby of the Hotel Bell’acqua, a hostelry that was only a ten-minute walk from the Piazza San Marco, when one knew where one was going. Happily, their labyrinthine path was well rewarded: the small but luxurious hotel was qualified to please in every way, with its picturesque location near two intersecting canals, its elegant lobby, and, not least of its charms, a front-desk clerk who, Gwen insisted as they ascended to the top floor in a tiny elevator, was really cute.
Their fourth-floor suite elicited a yawn from Gwen and a feeling of gratitude from Claire, whose budget would never have included such a room, one that was as delicately pretty as a rococo music box. Its Wedgwood blue walls were crowned by elaborate w
hite molding; from the high ceiling hung not one but two Venetian glass chandeliers. The two beds were covered by blue brocade duvets and fluffy down pillows. A small sofa, two chairs, and a hand-painted writing desk occupied a spacious alcove off the main room. Four shuttered windows faced an enchanting panorama of canals, stone bridges, and quaint shop fronts. At the bend of the larger of the two canals, a group of gondoliers stood watch on a row of gondole. It was almost too perfect to be real; it looked like the stage set of a fantasy Venice.
“You’ve got to see this,” said Claire, turning back from the window.
Gwen lay facedown on one of the beds, arms flung wide, snoring softly. She hadn’t even bothered to take off her shoes.
At nine o’clock that evening, Claire and Gwen were wandering the narrow lanes near the hotel in search of a restaurant recommended by the cute front-desk clerk. He had directed them to a place only a few blocks away, and had drawn their route on a map. Even so, Claire wasn’t entirely sure that the restaurant they eventually found was the restaurant he’d mentioned; but as it had the appealing ambience of a vintage trattoria, she decided it would do quite well.
An elderly waiter wearing a knee-length white apron gave them each a menu as they sat down. Gwen didn’t even look at hers.
“I want a cheeseburger,” she said.
“But that’s what you had for lunch.” Or was that breakfast? Their meal in the Milan airport seemed as if it had occurred days ago instead of hours.
“So?”
“Don’t you think it’s a good idea to vary your diet a little?”
“I vary my diet,” she replied. “Sometimes I eat pizza.”
“I don’t think this place has cheeseburgers.”
“What kind of restaurant doesn’t have cheeseburgers?”
“A good one.” Claire scanned the menu. “Why don’t you try the margherita? It’s pizza, more or less.”
“I want a cheeseburger.”
A waiter walked over to their table. “Buona sera, signorine,” he said. “I am Giancarlo. What can I bring you tonight?”
The Rossetti Letter (v5) Page 10