by Joseph Kanon
The military had been a light presence in Venice during the occupation, and since the official changeover in December soldiers were even less visible, more like tourists passing through than conquerors. In Germany it had been rubble and jeep patrols and lowering your eyes when a soldier passed, keeping out of trouble. Here, in the close quarters of the boat, the Burano families stared openly, curious, as if they were sizing up customers. I thought of the Germans finishing coffee at Quadri’s. Now the Allies. Who might like a little Burano lace to send home.
Surprisingly, however, the GIs got off with us at Torcello. I looked at the sluggish canal, the lonely marshes beyond, and wondered if they’d made a mistake, but after a quick glance at a map they went straight toward the piazza. Claudia hung back, letting them go ahead. No one else was around. Somewhere on the island, on one of the farms, a dog barked. Otherwise it was quiet, no summer insects yet, just the wind moving through the reeds. By the time we caught up with the GIs, they were standing in the piazza, a worn patch of grass, looking as melancholy and lost as the shuttered buildings around it.
“There’s supposed to be a restaurant here,” one of them said. “Locanda. You know where that is?”
I pointed to the closed-up inn across from us.
“That’s the one Harry’s runs?”
“Yes, but only in the summer,” I said. “It’s too early.”
“Well, shit,” he said, then dipped his head toward Claudia, an apology to a lady.
“They didn’t tell you?”
“I never asked. I just heard about it. Shit.” He looked around the empty island. “What’s the rest, a ghost town?”
“No, people live here. Farms. It’s just a little early in the season. You’re welcome to have some of ours.” I pointed to the picnic bag.
“That’s okay, we’ll just catch the next boat.”
“That’ll be a while. You check the schedule?”
He shook his head, then grinned. “Never thought to look.”
We opened the wine and shared out the salami sandwiches, sitting on the steps of the Greek church, Claudia slightly away from us, uncomfortable. They were on furlough, trying to see something worth seeing before they headed back to Stuttgart. It was the usual service talk-where I’d been stationed, where they were from, when their separation papers were coming through.
“And I can’t wait,” he said. “I mean, I can’t fucking wait. They can keep the whole thing.” He spread his arm to take in all of Europe, then remembered Claudia and dropped it, embarrassed. Instead, as if it would explain things, he pulled out his wallet and showed us a picture of his wife, Joyce. Head tilted for the camera, blond, ordinary, holding a baby in her arms.
“A boy?” Claudia said.
He grinned back. “Jim junior. Haven’t seen him yet. Just this.”
“Well, but soon, yes? They’re sending everybody home now. We saw it in the newsreels,” she said. “All the boats.” Thousands of waving soldiers, the skyscraper shot, then running down the gangplank, arms open.
“You from here?” he said, intrigued by her accent, maybe the first Italian he’d met. He looked around. “What is this place, anyway?”
“It was the first Venice, where it started.”
“So what happened?”
“The canals silted up. Malaria too, I think.”
He gave her an “I’ll bet” look. “Anything here to see? I mean, you came out, and you knew the restaurant was closed.”
“The basilica is very old, eleventh century. The original was seventh,” Claudia said. “The mosaics are famous.” But she was losing them. They were already looking away, uninterested. “And, you know, for walks.”
“Right,” he said, nodding. “Walks.” A smile, just a trace of a leer. “And here we are, in the way.” He brushed off his trousers, standing up.
“But you don’t want to see inside?”
“Tell you what, you take a look for me. I never know what I’m looking at anyway. We’ll just go wait for the boat, let you be.”
“It’s a long wait.”
“Not in this sun. I could just soak it up, after Germany.” He grinned. “Fucking sunny Italy, huh?”
They took a photograph of us, then headed down the canal path to the pier, turning once to wave.
“So that’s who comes to Cipriani’s,” Claudia said, amused.
“Not usually,” I said, leaning back. A favorite of Bertie’s before the war. “I wonder how they heard about it.”
“Oh, how do people hear about anything? Somebody tells them.”
“Yes,” I said lazily, closing my eyes. “And who tells him?”
“Somebody else.”
“And him?” I said, playing.
“I don’t know. Maybe Cipriani.”
I smiled, letting the thought drift, then sat up, taking a cigarette out of my pocket. “So who told Gianni? I mean, how did he know?”
She looked at me blankly.
“Rosa said he wouldn’t know a partisan-somebody would have to tell him. Not the SS. If they already knew, why use him? Somebody else. Maybe I’ve been looking at this backwards.”
“How do you mean, backwards?”
“We’ve been tracking what happened after, and we’re getting nowhere. But what about before?” I bent over, lighting the cigarette, then saw her confused expression. “Look, the only one in that house who’d been in hospital was a man called Moretti. If there was a connection to Gianni, he’d be it. But he was discharged more than a week earlier. So where was Gianni all that time? There’s nothing to prove he was involved at all.”
“So maybe he wasn’t,” Claudia said calmly.
“No proof,” I said, not listening. “A few visits to Villa Raspelli. But if he did know about Moretti, how did he know? Maybe that’s what we should be looking for. The link before.”
“And if you don’t find that either?”
I exhaled some smoke. “Then we can’t prove he did anything.”
“He gave them my father.”
“But there’s no proof he did.”
“No,” she said, “only me.”
“I didn’t mean-”
“Just my word. And now he can’t answer. So how can you prove it? Maybe I made it up. The camp too. Maybe it’s all in my head.”
“I didn’t mean-” I said again.
But she was gathering things up, finished with it. “Let’s see the church.”
I put out my cigarette, still thinking, and followed her inside. Santa Maria Assunta had been built before churches became theaters-the walls were austere and the air was damp. We could see our breath in little streams. Venice was still primitive here, the island a mud bank with reeds again, the world full of mystery and fear. But then there were the mosaics at the end, cold and glittering, spreading over the chancel in an arch of colored light. People would have knelt here on the rough stone floors, dazed.
“You see the tear on her cheek?” Claudia said, pointing. “Mary crying. It’s unique.”
We studied the Apostles for a while, then walked slowly back to the west wall and the big mosaic of the Last Judgment, the afterlife arranged in tiers, a medieval sorting out, with hellfire on the bottom. Dying wasn’t enough for the early Christians-there had to be punishment too. Claudia stood before it with her arms folded across her chest, working her way down through the levels of grace to the figures on the lower right, engulfed in flames.
“So this is what happens after,” she said. “But they didn’t want the Jews to wait. They burned us here.”
The chill of the old stone followed us out into the piazza, not quite as sunny as before. We took one of the footpaths leading away from the canal, waving to the GIs, who were still waiting on the dock for the Burano boat. “Why are they laughing?”
“They think we’re going parking.”
“Parking?”
“Kissing. In a car. People drive somewhere to be alone.”
“America,” she said. “Everyone has a car.”
&nbs
p; “Will you like that? You’ll have to learn to drive.” An unexpected thought, jarring, because I had never imagined us beyond Venice, anywhere outside her room.
“Drive,” she said, maybe jarred too. “Here, no one does.”
Except Gianni’s brother, I thought. Who had actually pushed him off the road? Maybe a connection. Something to ask Rosa.
We passed the farm with the dog, then turned onto a path that led down to the water, a cleared patch of dry land that looked back through the reeds to the campanile. In summer, lovers would come with picnics. Now we pulled our jackets tight against the wind.
It was only after his brother’s death that Gianni had made the house calls to Villa Raspelli. Younger, but head of the family, Father Luca had said. His brother’s keeper.
“So you’re thinking again,” she said. “Why is this so important to you?”
“I don’t want to be wrong.” I turned to her. “Then it’s just personal-something I did for myself.”
She stopped in the path. “He was trying to kill you.”
I looked over the reeds. His eyes, hesitating, about to stop, then the slippery stairs, my hand underneath, getting cold as I held him there, my breath ragged.
“What?” she said.
“No, I wanted to do it,” I said finally. “I wanted to do it.”
She came over to me. “You know what he was.”
“If he was. I was wrong about him and my mother. He was never after her money, never. Anyway, it turns out there isn’t any.”
“No?” she said, then started to smile, raising her hand to brush at my hair. “So it’s lucky I found the lace shop.”
“I was wrong,” I said, not letting go.
She brushed my hair again. “It doesn’t matter now. It doesn’t change anything.”
“Of course it matters.”
“Why? So you can blame yourself? And then what? For you it’s like the mosaic.” She tossed her head toward the church. “Always a judgment. There is no judgment. No one is judging. No one is watching.” She stopped, dropping her hand. “No one is watching.”
“Then we have to,” I said.
“Oh, like he did,” she said, annoyed, moving away. “Play God. Of course, a doctor, they’re used to that, aren’t they? Then he plays it with my father. Bah.” She waved her hand. “But that’s not enough for you. How guilty does he have to be? Before it’s all right?”
She walked to the end of the clearing where it was sunny and faced the water, using her back to put an end to the conversation. I went over to her, not saying anything.
“That’s Jesolo,” she said, pointing, meaning nothing, not expecting a response.
I took out my cigarettes and offered her one, waiting for her lead. But she seemed to enjoy the silence, turning her face to the sun, then squatting down to test the ground for dampness, sitting, and lying back. I sat down next to her.
“This is better. All week in the shop, never any sun,” she said.
I stretched out, leaning on my elbow to prop up my head as I looked at her.
“You don’t have to work there,” I said, going along. “I mean, with your English. They’re always looking for translators. Joe would hire you in a second.”
“For the army? No, not even yours. Not carabinieri either. Or police. No uniforms.” She glanced over. “I don’t work for the police. One of us is enough.”
I turned and lay on my back, squinting at the bright sky. In the distance was the faint sound of a boat’s motor, maybe the GIs’ vaporetto. “What’s wrong?” I said. “All week. It’s not Cavallini, not really. What?”
“I don’t know.” She paused. “I’m worried.”
“About what? I’m telling you, they don’t know.”
She shook her head. “Not that. It’s different between us. At first, it made us closer. And now, already we’re quarreling.” She turned to me. “You can’t change it. What it is. You want to make it better. Nothing makes it better.”
“I know.”
“But you keep thinking, maybe. It’s in your head.” She lay on her back again.
“Nothing’s different between us. I just want to know about him, that’s all. It’s important.”
She closed her eyes, another way of turning her back, and said nothing for a few minutes, then sighed, not much louder than the moving reeds.
“They have sun in Georgia?” she said. “Where that soldier lives?”
“Nothing but.”
“So he’s happy there. But not you,” she said, thinking aloud. “You don’t want to go home.”
“I’m happy here.”
“No. Something else. Those men on the ship-in the film, remember? So excited. It’s over for them.” She turned, opening her eyes. “But not for you.”
I said nothing, remembering Rosa wagging her finger between us, both of us still with files.
“Maybe it takes an ocean, and then it’s gone,” she said. “Oh, I want-”
I looked over at her. “What?”
“What? What do I want?” she said to herself. “I want to be Joyce. The girl in the picture. Make curtains. Wait for the ship. Feed the baby.” She stopped, her voice drifting off. “Think how wonderful, not to know about any of it. Not any of it.”
“And that’s the life you want,” I said, teasing. “Joyce.”
“No.” She turned. “Anyway, I can’t. No babies. So that’s something you should know,” she said, her voice tentative, waiting for a response.
“Oh,” I said finally, trying to sound easy.
“Do you mind about that?”
“No.”
“No?”
Another pause, this time waiting for her.
“I got rid of it myself, in the camp. I knew that if he found out, he’d send me. And there was no one to help, so I did it myself. That’s why.”
I looked at her for a minute, not saying anything. Then she moved to brush off a blade of grass, pushing at her sleeve, and for an instant I saw Rosa’s arm again with its jagged patch of white. Visible scars, reminders. But what about the others, the ones you couldn’t see? Years of them, nobody unblemished now.
I reached over and touched her hand. “I don’t want Joyce.”
“So it’s lucky for me.” She closed her eyes. “But now there’s this. Maybe you enjoy it, being police. But it’s both of us they’ll catch. Why do you have to know?”
“I held him under, Claudia. Me. What if-?”
For a minute she didn’t say anything. Then she took a breath. “When it happened, I thought you did it for me. So they wouldn’t take me. I thought my heart would stop. Imagine, someone doing that for me. Everyone else wanted me dead, and you-” She moved her hand away and sat up. “But now it has to be something else, I don’t even know what. You can’t change what happened, whatever he was. Say you did it for me. Isn’t that enough?”
“Yes,” I said quietly.
“But you still want to know.”
I sat up, looking straight at her. “I saw the body. What he looked like after. I can’t explain-it’s different when you see what it really means.” I dropped my head. “It won’t take long. Nobody suspects.” I ran my hand over the grass. “How else are we going to live with this?”
She smiled slightly, giving up, a movement of the lips, not really a smile at all. “Oh, how. You can live with anything. Anything.”
“What was Paolo like?”
“Paolo? A puppy,” Bertie said. “Why Paolo all of a sudden?”
We were having coffee in Santo Stefano, a chance meeting on my way to Ca’ Maglione, where Giulia was waiting with Gianni’s papers. The sun was bright enough for umbrellas at the cafe tables, but the air was still cool. Bertie was wearing a three-piece oyster-colored suit, perfectly pitched, like the weather, somewhere between winter and summer.
“I don’t know about him. About any of Gianni’s family, for that matter.”
“ Now you want to know?”
“It might help.”
“Who? Y
our friends at the Questura? I hear you’re thick as thieves. Is this an official visit?” he said, his voice rising slightly, like an arched eyebrow.
I smiled. “I’m just trying to help. It was Giulia’s idea.”
“Oh, Giulia’s idea. The fair Giulia.” He looked over at me, then tilted his head, his eyes beginning to twinkle. “No, it’s too penny dreadful. Still.”
“Having fun?”
“I admit it’s a little novelettish, but think how suitable.”
“Well, don’t.”
“And Grace the dogaressa after all.” He giggled.
“Bertie.”
“Oh, I know, I know. Very bad. It’s just a thought. Anyway, you’re otherwise attached. As we know. There’d be that to contend with, wouldn’t there?” His voice casual, Claudia still an inappropriate affair to him, unaware we were joined by blood now, our hands streaked with it.
“Yes, there would.” I leaned forward, serious. “Bertie, tell me something. What happened at the Accademia?”
“Me? Why ask me?”
“Because you know.”
“I don’t always, you know. Better not to. Venice is a very small town. You don’t want to be telling tales out of school-people don’t like it.”
“Tell this one.”
He looked at me, then nodded. “I don’t want any reactions, please. It’s not perfect, the world, not even here.” He glanced around the sunny campo, the terra-cotta planters sprouting bits of white, the first spring flowers. “Some attitudes-not very nice, but they just don’t go away overnight, either. And at first, of course, no one thought to ask. There’d never been any, you know, not in the curatorial department.” He let it hang, awkward, and took a sip of coffee.
“Are you trying to tell me they fired her because she’s Jewish?”
“I didn’t say that,” Bertie said quickly. “And I don’t want you saying it either. I merely said they didn’t think she was-suitable.”
I thought of the Montanaris. Just a look.
“Who didn’t?”
“Oh, what does it matter? All right, old Buccati, if you must know. He’s nearly ninety. At that age, all you’ve got is old ideas, whatever they are. Mostly he just naps away the afternoon, like an old tabby, but this time he pricks up his ears and makes a fuss. And of course it is Buccati, so they can’t very well say no. What a tear. Even me, if you please. Because I’d recommended her. Which I only did because Emilio asked. I thought, a cousin. And then not even that. I had no idea-”