The Art of Waiting (6 page)

As he edged along the backwater that ran up from the Canale Grande towards Campo Santo Stefano, he saw Isabella waiting for
him where they had hurriedly arranged. She was standing close to the wall by the water's edge, wisps of mist around her feet, a halo of light upon her from the streetlamp above, and for a moment Aldo had a vision of an angel suspended on clouds somewhere out in space. He steered the gondola in alongside the quay and she gave him that slow, assured smile, delicate lines around her eyes half-lost behind raven hair. He saw her offered hand and he clutched at it, too abruptly, brushing her fine white fingers as the gondola moved beneath his feet. He lost his fragile composure and his balance, took an inadvertent step backwards, and hauled Isabella unceremoniously off the quay and into the boat. He felt her collapse on top of him, an elegant heap, and the gondola rocked vigorously. She breathed in deeply, then out, her breath caressing his face with its fragrant warmth. He was simultaneously terrified and elated by the physicality of her presence and the ridiculous prospect of her lips lowering themselves to touch his own, fearing now that he would not be up to the challenge. She bowed her head as if considering whether to run the tip of her tongue slowly across his lips, then withdrew and looked him in the eye.

‘Hello there, Aldo.'

‘Hello.'

A stupid response, and he felt such a fool as he said it.

‘Don't you think you should help me up now? That would be the gentlemanly thing to do.'

The sound of her voice made him jump again. ‘Oh yes, of course, I'm so sorry.'

‘Don't be so keen to apologise. It won't do you any good, you know.'

She eased herself aside and Aldo squeezed himself out from under her. He helped her to the bench and took the oar and began to turn the boat around.

‘So, dear boy, where are you planning on taking me? Surprise me, now. I do so like surprises.'

‘Er, well, let's see . . . well, I don't know, really. Where would you like to go? Any ideas?'

She clicked her tongue, shook her head, flashed him that wicked smile again. ‘I must say I'm terribly disappointed, Aldo. Not at all a good start to the evening. I thought you'd have come better prepared. You've had nearly a week to think about it, after all. Haven't I been on your mind? Too many other things to think about? Too many other girls?'

‘No, no, not at all. I mean, yes, on my mind, yes, of course. But no, not much else to think about. Nothing that could compare, anyway.'

She raised an eyebrow.

‘San Marco, perhaps?' he said. ‘It'll be nice down there at this time. Nice and quiet.'

If she replied, her voice was inaudible, so Aldo rowed on in silence, observing the side of her face, as pale and blank and beautiful as an alabaster mask, savouring the moment as one does when you know it to be a fleeting one. Another gondola slipped by, a lantern placed just behind the notched iron
ferro
that protected its bow, the passing gondolier calling out to Aldo as he disappeared into the gloom. The mist was lifting now and the two waterborne strangers watched the shadows of buildings drifting by, as if it were the houses that were moving, suspended on the water, and the boat that lay motionless. They passed the point of Dorsoduro, the domes of Santa Maria della Salute towering above, the darkness around them speckled up high by gulls, and as the boat moved beyond her protecting lee and into the broader expanse of the Canale di San Marco the waves took on more intimidating proportions. Aldo was suddenly aware again of his inexperience as an oarsman and, for the first time since catching sight of Isabella in the glow of the streetlight, he began to concentrate more on navigating the waters of the canal than the equally unfamiliar labyrinths of carnal intrigue. They drifted under a bridge into Rio del Palazzo, lowering their heads to avoid the low stone arch. To their left towered the back wall of the Palazzo Ducale, to the right the walls of the prison, and running directly overhead was the Bridge of Sighs, its name stolen from the laments of thieves and prisoners passing from their cells to the chamber of the state prosecutor and back again.

‘I don't like it in here,' said Isabella. ‘I feel like I'm being judged.'

‘Who's judging you? I'm not.'

‘Not yet.'

A little further along the Canale di San Marco, Isabella indicated an insignificant backwater. ‘Up that way, just past that tower,' she said. ‘Pull the boat over here, Aldo. There, just by that door. Tie it up to that jetty.'

‘Tie it up?'

‘Yes, tie it up. I want to get out.'

‘You want to get out? Already?'

‘Correct. I want to get out.'

Isabella had already stepped out onto the tiny landing stage and was turning the key in a nearby door. She pushed it open and slipped inside. Aldo hesitated, assuming this unexpected turn of events signalled an abrupt end to his evening.

‘Well, aren't you going to come in?' Isabella whispered, suddenly furtive.

A moment later, Aldo was in the hall and Isabella was closing the door behind him. He felt her hand in his, then the tug of her as she led him up barely lit stairs. He was aware of grim portraits that glowered on the walls and a heavy chandelier hanging from the ceiling, its glass tears whispering together in an unexplained stirring of the air. On the landing lay a conspiracy of doors. One, slightly ajar, let in a pale light from across the canal and it streaked the floorboards with its watery beam. Isabella led Aldo down a dark passage and up a short flight of steps. She pushed open another door. In the half-light Aldo could make out a large bed and one or two heavy pieces of furniture, but the high-ceilinged room gave an impression of space. In the far wall, a window of gothic arches looked out on the thinning mist and the terracotta-tiled roofs of the buildings across the canal.

Isabella took off her coat. The dress beneath was simple and dark and resembled the one she was wearing the first time he had seen her, seated next to her husband at the concert in the church near the Ponte di Rialto the week before. Now she stepped towards him and once more he felt her breath on his face, then again, closer
this time. Her lips parted and closed on his, just a brush at first, a glancing blow, then something firmer, more urgent. Her mouth opened wide now, an unhealed wound, pressing hard, the taste of her filling him. She lay down, drawing him onto the bed beside her.

‘Touch me here, Aldo,' she said. ‘Don't worry. You needn't be shy . . .' She guided him to her again. ‘That's it, Aldo, yes. Yes, Aldo, don't worry, I'll show you how.'

She smiled one of her many smiles, a momentary suggestion of vulnerability, then quickly hid herself away again beneath her cloak of irony. ‘Hold me the way you held your violin in the church last week. Run your bow across me gently now . . .' She giggled, a curious delighted little laugh.

Aldo could hear a boat now, out there beneath the darkened window, its sound fading as it slipped under the arch of a bridge, sending ripples pulsing across the water, gliding through the night and ever deeper into the heart of Venice. Isabella was all that mattered now, this world of hers, her body and his, locked together in the dark. And then the intruder, reality, separated time from space once more and Aldo and Isabella lay suddenly still on the bed, the heat of her body mingling with his own, then a chill on their skin as it shone pale in the night. She pulled him beneath the covers.

‘Was that your first time, by any chance?' she asked, just as he was starting to feel comfortable, once more taking him off guard as his mind struggled to come to terms with what had occurred. He had stepped across a threshold, emerging into a parallel existence where everything was essentially the same yet nothing seemed quite as it had before. His bearings were all misaligned, his context changed, unfamiliar. He gave himself up to truth.

‘Um, yes, it was,' he said, propping himself up on one elbow and looking at her.

‘That's remarkably honest,' she said. ‘I approve.'

He looked into her eyes but they hid themselves again in the darkness. ‘What about you?' he asked.

‘Oh, yes, me too.'

‘You're pulling my leg'

‘Of course. Just a little white lie.'

There was a strangely comfortable silence.

‘Why did you arrange all this?' he said. ‘I mean . . .'

She ran a hand across the lower reaches of his abdomen. ‘Oh, Aldo, isn't that obvious?'

‘Well, yes and no. You have a husband, this is your house here, you have a life . . .'

‘I have a life? What do you know about my life?' Her voice was suddenly harsh. ‘Are you so sure you really want to know about all that, about why you're here with me? Maybe you just got lucky and for a few hours I'm yours. It might never happen again. You'll leave this house and you'll never come back. Maybe you'll never even see me again. Didn't that occur to you?'

‘I hadn't really thought.'

‘No, of course not, you hadn't really thought. Listen, Aldo, as you're so interested in the truth, let's play a little game. I ask you a question, and you must answer truthfully. Whatever I ask, you have to answer, and it must be the truth. And then you ask me a question, and I'll answer truthfully, whatever the question. Anything goes.'

‘But how do I know you'll be telling the truth?'

‘Because those are the rules, so you'll just have to trust me. We'll start with an easy one, all right, until you get the hang of it. Which part of this sinking pile of a town do you call home?'

‘Come on, that's a pretty uninspiring question.'

‘Didn't I just tell you the rules? Do you need me to explain them to you again? They're not that hard.'

‘No, I think I've got them.'

‘Good. The questions will get more interesting later, I can assure you of that.'

‘Cannaregio. Fondamenta della Sensa. About half-way along, opposite Ponte del Forno.'

‘Never been there.'

‘Near Tintoretto's house.'

‘Tintoretto? Very nice. That's what I'll call you . . . my little Tintoretto. Now you. Ask me a question. And make it a good one.'

‘Is this your room?'

She exhaled loudly. ‘An equally uninspired question.'

‘You made the rules.'

‘Don't be so cheeky.' She pinched his thigh, not too hard, just a suggestion of control. ‘Of course it's my room. Whose room do you think it is?'

‘I mean is it where you usually sleep?'

‘Yes, this is where I usually sleep. Any more stupid questions?'

‘Where you both sleep?'

‘Where we sleep, and make love, and argue, and all those other things.'

‘Those other things?'

‘Hey, Tintoretto, that's three questions. My turn now. Do you live with your mum and dad, over there at Tintoretto's house?'

‘Near
Tintoretto's house. Yes, with them . . .'

‘Mummy's boy, eh?'

‘. . . and with my dog and my sister.'

‘In that order?'

‘And my grandmother – she's from the Ukraine.'

‘Tintoretski, eh? So you speak Russian?

‘Ukrainian too.'

‘And your dad?'

‘From Burano.'

‘Where the women make lace and the men make babies. A fisherman, is he? Boat-builder?'

‘No, he has a restaurant, just a small one. Casa Luca, in Dorsoduro.'

‘Casa Luca? Don't know it.'

‘You wouldn't. It's not your kind of place.'

‘What's that supposed to mean?'

‘Nothing. It's just my dad's old mates who go there, really. My turn?'

‘Wait, with all this excitement I'm dying for a cigarette.'

She got out of bed and padded across the floor and retrieved her cigarettes from a drawer. She stood at the foot of the bed, placed a
cigarette between her lips, struck a match and sucked hard, drawing in the smoke in the light of the flame, enjoying his gaze.

‘Want one?' she asked.

‘A what?'

‘A cigarette, stupid.'

‘I don't smoke.'

‘Go on, try one. I might as well corrupt you in as many ways as I can.' She threw the pack of cigarettes onto the bed. ‘Go on, take one.'

‘I'd rather choose my own vices.'

‘Oh, you're the one in control now, are you?'

‘I'd rather not.'

‘Suit yourself.' She got back into bed, leant across to kiss him, and transferred the smoke from her mouth to his. ‘Your turn, Tintoretto. Ask me a question. Make it a good one this time.'

‘So, if this is also your husband's room, where's he now?'

‘Why do you want to know that? He's not here, and he won't be back until tomorrow.'

‘Those aren't the rules. I was honest with you.'

‘He's in Rome.'

‘Is that it? No further details?'

‘No. Confidential information, I'm afraid.'

‘What about the truth?'

‘Temporary postponement of the rules.'

‘How convenient.'

‘Shut up, Aldo. My turn now. What's your favourite position?'

‘My favourite position?'

‘Yes, you know, for making love. For fucking. Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot – that's not a fair question, is it? For someone of your limited experience . . .'

‘Well, I quite liked the first one we tried.'

‘The first one?'

‘Yes, you know, the first one.' He stumbled slightly over his words as she breathed out another lungful of smoke.

‘Which one was that?' she asked, smirking slightly.

‘What, you want me to describe it?'

‘Yes, that might help.' She took an especially long drag on the cigarette, then stubbed it out in the marble ashtray she kept on the floor by the bed. ‘Maybe we could try it again if you tell me.'

‘When I was, you know, like this . . .'

‘Oh yes, I like that one too. You can't really see who's there and you can imagine, well, anything, anyone. Sometimes, in the heat of the moment, I really do forget who's there.'