Venetian Masks

by Kim Fielding

  But Jeff got through the full-body scanner and retrieved his luggage without incident and then had three hours to kill because he’d been neurotic about getting to the airport early. After all, what if there had been an accident on the Yolo Causeway or a backup on the Bay Bridge? These things happened.

  He’d stuffed some granola bars into his suitcase for the journey, even though he knew meals were free on international flights. Christ knew what they were going to serve, and he might get extra hungry. Besides, if he didn’t eat the bars en route, he’d have them in Europe. Didn’t Europeans have muesli instead of granola? In any case, he left his stash where it was and bought a bagel and a bottle of water from one of the airport snack vendors. Then he found his gate and settled in before carefully recording the total of his purchase on the iPhone app he’d downloaded for that purpose. He’d never been much of a spender and had a little extra money saved up, but he intended to stick to a pretty tight budget because his housing situation was bound to be dismal when he returned.

  Once he’d tucked the iPhone away again—set on airplane mode and with data roaming off—he pulled out his Kindle. He liked to think that everyone else assumed he was reading great literature, or at least something with spies or rogue cops, but the truth was that he had a single vice, one that Kyle had teased him about unmercifully: Jeff liked to read romance novels. Gay romance especially, although he’d been known to dip into the het stuff now and then. He knew that it was a stupid addiction, that he would never fall head over heels in love with an angsty baron or sexy fireman or handsome cowboy, that there were no happily-ever-afters in real life. But he read the things anyway.

  He was three-quarters of the way through a novella about a gladiator and his master when the plane began boarding. Jeff put the Kindle away and got in line, his boarding pass clutched tightly in his slightly sweaty hand. He was really going to do it—he was going to get on an airplane and fly thousands of miles to another continent, and he was going to do it by himself. He felt faintly ill.

  IT WAS an enormous relief to deplane in Zurich, although Jeff felt groggy as he slogged his way through passport control. He was relieved to see that the airport looked pretty much like any American airport he’d been in, and all the signs were in English. Although he noticed they were in German as well, and the prices at the duty-free shops were all in euros. Before he found his connecting gate, he used an ATM to withdraw some euros from his debit card—a much better deal than trying to go through a currency exchange, according to his research—and bought a Toblerone, then carefully recorded the expense.

  He didn’t feel as though he was in another country, despite the multilingual conversations buzzing around him. Not that he’d expected Switzerland to be especially exotic. In fact, he was a little disappointed, as if he had secretly thought he might find yodelers and alphorns at the snack bars or Saint Bernards delivering brandy to weary travelers.

  There was only a two-hour layover, so Jeff didn’t have to wait long until his new flight boarded—a much smaller plane with only two seats across. A woman in her early twenties sat in the window seat next to him, but she ignored him as she scribbled busily in a journal of some kind. At least this flight was very short—a fact that he especially appreciated when the passenger in front of him reclined his seat nearly into Jeff’s lap.

  It was early evening by the time they landed in Venice. Jeff was glad that his carry-on preempted the baggage claim, but his pleasure flagged when he was faced with the truly daunting prospect of leaving the relative familiarity of the airport. Map and guidebook in hand, he went off in search of the vaporetto stop. He could take a water taxi, but that would be quite a bit more expensive, and the vaporetto would let him off within a few blocks of the building owned by his time-share employer. Assuming, that was, he caught the correct boat, got off at the correct stop, and didn’t end up spending the night aimlessly wandering the lagoon.

  He bought a seven-day pass—thankfully, the man at the booth spoke good English—and with some fumbling, figured out the automatic validation machine. But the vaporetto itself made him nervous. It wasn’t a very big boat, and it was packed full of people. He wondered how careful the Italians were about safety regulations. Did the boats capsize very often or crash into one another? Were life vests tucked away somewhere? Jeff wasn’t a very strong swimmer. He chewed his lip nervously, tried to concentrate instead on the cute guy who tied the vaporetto to the dock at every stop, and then dredged up his very rusty Spanish in a vain attempt to decipher some of the Italian signs.

  He was relieved to recognize the name of the appropriate stop: Fondamente Nove. It must have been a popular destination, because almost half the boat got off with him. But once he was on shore, he was struck very suddenly with how different this place was from home.

  The buildings here were old. Not midcentury old, like his mortgaged house, which was relatively ancient by Sacramento standards. Not gold rush-era old, like the wooden buildings of Old Sacramento, most of which were probably reproductions anyway. No, these buildings in front of him, three and four and five stories high, had probably been built around the time Columbus was mistaking the Bahamas for India. And they weren’t roped off as part of a museum—people lived in them. He looked up at a woman in a nearby building, leaning out a window to drag her laundry in from a third-floor clothesline.

  The age of the city wasn’t the only difference. There were no cars. For a born-and-bred Californian, this was especially jolting. There were no real streets at all, just stone sidewalks of various widths, each with a sign on a wall indicating its name. Jeff couldn’t imagine living in a place where you got around solely on foot or by boat. All the stuff you owned—furniture, groceries, everything—would need to be carried or carted. Of course, he’d read about all this before leaving Sacramento, but to see it in real time was something else entirely.

  And the other thing that hit him right away was that the layout of the city wasn’t in neat little square blocks. Although a river ran through Sacramento, most of the city was dry and flat, and the streets were laid out in a grid. Downtown they were numbered in one direction and lettered in the other. Here, he couldn’t even pronounce the names of the streets, and they wandered this way and that, going off at angles, crossing through squares of various sizes, traversing water via footbridges. The route to the time-share looked pretty straightforward on his map, but in the darkening reality of nightfall, Jeff was soon hopelessly lost.

  As he passed by a particular restaurant for the third time, he had to stop himself from leaning up against a wall and giving in to tears. He was tired and hungry and lost, and he wished he’d never left home.

  But then a woman stopped to look at him. She was probably in her midsixties, with carefully coifed gray hair and a neat suit. She had a plastic grocery bag on one arm and a large purse on the other. She said something to him in Italian.

  “Um, sorry,” he said, flushing hotly. “I only speak English.”

  Her polite smile didn’t fade. “Of course. May I help you?” She had an accent, naturally, but she spoke the language very well.

  He wanted to kiss her. Instead, he held out the piece of paper with the address of his destination. “Can you please tell me how to get there?”

  She had to put on a pair of reading glasses to peer at it, but then she nodded. “You are very close. Please, come with me.” And she was off at a smart clip, heading in the direction from which Jeff had just come.

  It turned out that he was only a few blocks off, having chosen a path at the far right of one of the squares when he should have stayed to the middle. His new temporary home was in a different square, and it had a small and very discreet sign over the arched wooden door.

  “Thank you so much,” Jeff said. “I really appreciate this.”

  She gave a tiny shrug. “Enjoy your stay in Venezia.” And then she sailed away into the darkness.

  Maybe, Jeff decided as he approached the building, Venice wouldn’t be so bad after all.
r />   Chapter 2

  THE person behind the counter was either a slightly effeminate boy or a slightly masculine girl. Whatever the gender, the person was young—early twenties—slender, and attractive, with a pointed elfin face, and hair with multiple layers and several bright colors.

  “Benvenuto!” The voice seemed a bit too high for a male.

  “Um, hello,” Jeff replied. “I’m checking in?” He hated the way the question mark betrayed his lack of confidence.

  But the girl only gave him a friendly smile. “Of course. Signore Dawkins. Welcome to Venezia. Did you have a good journey?” She had a charming accent.

  “I got lost after I got off the vaporetto.”

  Her grin didn’t fade. “Everyone gets lost here at first. By tomorrow you will be an expert. Besides, you cannot get terribly lost in this city—you will very shortly find yourself at the lagoon or one of the larger canals.”

  “Well, I guess that’s reassuring,” he said, unconvinced. He could picture himself endlessly wandering the maze of narrow streets.

  “You will fall in love with Venezia. Everyone does.” She pulled a key card from beneath the desk. “My name is Mita. Let me show you to your room.”

  Jeff’s company had bought this particular property a few years earlier. It used to be an apartment building and was far smaller than most of the resorts they owned. Demand was very high, and Jeff had been successful in booking a full week only because he had access to the company’s computers and had rigged an alert when someone cancelled a reservation. Really, though, it was only the very low cost that had convinced him to book the time-share instead of a hotel. A hotel would have meant a concierge, daily maid service, and dining out. A time-share allowed him to avoid those expenses. It also meant being left mostly on his own. He resisted the urge to clutch at poor Mita.

  Jeff’s room was on the ground floor, at the end of a long, narrow corridor. Mita unlocked the door for him with a little flourish and gestured him inside. She stepped in as well but stopped in the doorway. “The front desk is attended except between twenty-three hundred and six,” she said.

  Twenty-three hundred? Oh, right. They used military time here. He’d read about that. So, no front desk beginning at 11:00 p.m. He gave her an encouraging little nod.

  “If you wish to enter the building during the off hours, the key hangs on a hook in your kitchen. But there is an emergency mobile number listed there as well, should you lock yourself out. There are some brochures and guidebooks in the kitchen and a list of recommended restaurants. Also a notebook with instructions on the use of the washing machine, the stove, and the water heater.”

  Oh God. Instructions? Couldn’t he just punch some buttons? He was good with computers but not so much with anything else mechanical.

  Mita didn’t seem to notice his dismay. “Is there anything else I can help you with tonight?”

  He could think of about a thousand things but settled on one. “Is there a grocery store nearby?”

  “Of course. There are two small markets very close and a bakery just off our campo, but if you wish a larger selection, the Billa is only a few blocks away. The address and directions are in the notebook.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  “You will fall in love with Venezia,” she repeated. “Enjoy your visit, Signore Dawkins.” And then she was gone.

  Jeff hesitated in the entryway for a minute or two, still clutching his suitcase handle in one hand. The small introductory space wasn’t very exciting. The walls were a pale cream color, and the floor was tiled with some kind of weird colored stone stuff—terrazzo, if he remembered correctly. The only other items were a red metal coatrack and a wheeled cart of the sort that old ladies used for their shopping.

  Just through the entryway and to the left was a small living room with a couch, a chair, and a TV on a stand. He wondered if there were many television programs in English. Just beyond that was the bedroom. Small but serviceable, with a dresser, a chair and small table, and a largish bed flanked by a pair of nightstands. When he ventured into the bedroom, he saw there was no true closet, but a big wooden wardrobe was shoved up against one wall. The kitchen was directly across from the bedroom. The walls were orange, and although there was no dishwasher, near the oven was a washing machine. The table was piled with the promised notebook and literature and with brightly colored cloth place mats. The bathroom was off the kitchen: nicely tiled, with a shower instead of a bath—and with a bidet, which made him snicker.

  The place would do for a week, he supposed. As he stood in the center of the kitchen, he was suddenly overcome with a wave of exhaustion so strong his knees almost buckled. He had just enough energy to walk to the bedroom, shuck most of his clothing, and crawl into bed. He didn’t even have to take a pill.

  HE WOKE up in a dark room, confused and disoriented. It wasn’t until he stumbled out of bed, tripped over his suitcase, and almost fell on his face that he remembered where he was.

  Oh, yes. Italy.

  The bedroom window had heavy curtains and, on the other side of the glass, a set of iron shutters. He unbarred the shutters and opened them just enough to peek at the square—the campo, he corrected himself—in front of the building. Weak sunlight shone down on a man wearing a scarf knotted around his neck to keep off the morning chill. He and a little girl in a pink skirt and yellow jacket entered a doorway in the ochre-colored building across the way.

  Jeff checked his phone and learned that it was nearly eight o’clock, which meant he’d slept almost twelve hours straight. He hadn’t slept that long since he was a teenager, and if he’d had any nightmares, he didn’t remember them now. However, his bladder was urgently reminding him to get a move on. As was his stomach.

  After a quick detour to the bathroom, he returned to the bedroom and fished out one of the granola bars. He munched on it as he unpacked and put his small pile of clothing away. He sat on the edge of the bed and made a list on his phone of the things he needed to get at the grocery store. Then he considered a plan of action for the day: shopping, a walk to get a feel for the neighborhood, lunch with his guidebook in hand to plan the week, maybe a museum or something, and a light dinner. It was a good plan, he thought. Oh, and he’d better e-mail his parents and let them know he’d arrived without incident.

  When he turned on the shower, the water was ice-cold. He fiddled with the knob, turning it this way and that, and waited as patiently as he could, but the temperature never warmed. Swearing under his breath, he went into the kitchen and found the water heater, a metal box with obscurely marked plastic knobs. He fiddled with them for a bit, hoping he wouldn’t blow anything up, but nothing seemed to happen. As far as he could tell, the pilot light was out. He stood there, naked and shivering, before remembering the notebook Mita had mentioned the evening before.

  The notebook was actually a blue three-ring binder stuffed with pages in plastic sheet protectors. When he leafed through, he discovered maps, instructions, menus, and diagrams, all in multiple languages. It took him several minutes to find the instructions he was looking for. They appeared to have been translated into English from Italian by way of Swahili, and they were barely understandable. Still, after more swearing and several attempts at clicking knobs, he heard the comforting whoosh of a pilot light.

  It was good to stand in the shower and let the water sluice over him. He’d felt sticky and grimy after the long trip, and his hair—which he really should have had cut before he left—had felt greasy. Now he scrubbed happily and noted that he’d need to get some decent soap when he went shopping. And some shampoo; he’d brought only a tiny travel-size bottle. He wondered how to say “shampoo” in Italian.

  The shower effectively rebooted his system, and he shaved and dressed and ate another granola bar. After carefully entering the lockout emergency number into his phone, he spent a while trying to memorize the route to the store—which looked relatively simple on paper. He tucked some cash into his Rick Steves-approved money belt, stuck an extra ma
p in his jacket pocket, and ventured out of his apartment.

  A portly middle-aged man was at the desk this morning. He nodded at Jeff and then returned to his book.

  As soon as Jeff entered the campo, he was again hit hard with the realization that he was no longer in Sacramento. Although the buildings surrounding him were in good condition, their age was even more evident during the day, the tangle of wires that ran along them reminding him that the structures far predated electricity and other modern comforts. In the center of the campo was an odd circular structure made of stone and metal and nearly five feet in diameter; he guessed it must be one of the capped-off cisterns that had once provided Venetians with drinking water. The few passersby ignored him, as did the softly whistling man setting up tables outside the little restaurant to Jeff’s left. The air smelled very faintly briny, and also a little like cigarette smoke and baking bread.

  This would be his home for a week. Only seven days. And if he wanted to, he could simply spend those days holed up inside, apart from occasional forays for food—and for his mother’s earrings. Well, he did at least need a grocery trip. He set off in what he hoped was the right direction.

  He got lost twice on the way, ending up first in a dead-end alley and then at an especially wide expanse of water he guessed might be the Grand Canal. But he found his bearings and, ultimately, the store.

  At first he thought the Billa was tiny. Then he realized that it twisted and turned for quite a distance. There were small shopping carts, but he chose a handbasket instead. He hadn’t thought to bring the wheeled cart from the apartment, so he could only buy a limited amount anyway.