The Visitant: A Venetian Ghost Story (28 page)

Chapter 34

In the days after, I waited to feel her presence. I paused at every movement I caught from the corner of my eye. I waited for the uncanny cold, the whiff of her perfume. But her revenge had been complete, her unfinished business finished now and done. Laura was gone. It wasn’t as if the despair or sadness that was the palazzo’s history had disappeared, but now it felt old and distant, patinaed like copper in moist air, corroded but somehow inert and soft, tinged not with anger but with acceptance.

“If it’s any comfort, I was wrong,” Samuel told me. “He did truly love you. I saw it at the end.”

The world felt as if it should stop, but it didn’t, of course. It only started again, inexorable, unmoved, and yet . . . forever changed. The funerals had been brief, the mourners few—Giulia and Zuan and the Nardis; Father Pietro and another priest from the Madonna dell’ Orto. Samuel had taken charge, and as there was no family left, no one cared enough to question him. He was still not well, and the effort of arrangements left him exhausted often, headachy and collapsing into bed. But at least now his health was something I knew how to manage—healing ribs and knee and epilepsy, and if I sometimes saw shadows in his eyes, I think that it helped him that they were in mine too, that I had borne witness, that I understood.

We had kept everything very quiet; what friends of Nero’s might have come to the service were only told once it was over. Madame Basilio’s body was borne in a red gondola—the traditional Venetian color of mourning—to the island cemetery near Murano. The only funeral procession was the gondola following that carried me and Samuel, Giulia and Zuan. Nero could not be buried on consecrated ground, so his body was burned, his ashes scattered into the dyer’s canal—we waited until the water was blue, the color he’d loved.

“If there’s something you want to remind you of him, you should take it before they do the inventory,” Samuel told me. “No one will know.”

But there was nothing. The most personal things I had of him were the Basilio knife I’d carried for weeks that had killed him, and the Pulcinello mask that had revealed the truth to me. I wanted neither of these; the burden of them was too great. What I wanted was the man he’d been to me before I’d suspected anything, that first night; his gentleness and ardor, his laughing eyes and his tease, his body next to mine, my fingers in his curls. How did one keep hold of such ephemeral things? How could one live without them?

And yet . . . how could I have lived with them once I’d known the truth? How long would I have been able to pretend, because it was only by pretending that I could have him?

I suspected I could have done so for a very long time.

“
You can save me
,”
he’d said, and I think I would have tried.

I didn’t know who I was anymore. I didn’t know what I wanted, and as the days went by, and the decision of what to do drew ever closer, I knew there must be a reckoning. I saw the way Samuel watched me too; measuring, thoughtful, and I remembered what he had said so many months ago—no, not that long, it only seemed that way. One of us would have to make a sacrifice for the other. I could not forget what he had offered in the sala. To go to prison, to take the blame, so that I might turn my head and live with a lie.

It seemed only fair that I should offer my own sacrifice in return. There was the redemption I’d wanted so desperately, and I wanted to save my father too, his reputation, his life. The truth was that I no longer knew how, or even if I could. Nero’s regret and misery had taught me that. He had not been able to live with the things he’d done, and perhaps in the end, that choice was all we had, the only redemption left to us—to live or not with the consequences we made, hoping we could do better, knowing that perhaps we could not.

I sent a letter to my father, and prepared myself to return.

I didn’t tell Samuel. I wanted what little time was left to me, and I didn’t want to give him the chance to make some heroic gesture. I would wait to say anything until it was too late. It was made easier by the fact that we didn’t speak of the future, of life beyond this moment. We spent our days arranging things: the distant branch of the Basilio family must be contacted in Crete, where they’d been for generations, hardly remembering their relations in Venice. Giulia and Zuan must be cared for; Samuel lavished money on them. It seemed Zuan had always wanted to open a cookshop, and it was a simple matter to help him. Samuel bought good will and promises—no, they would never speak of what happened at the Basilio; they would call Madame Basilio’s death an accident; they would talk of Nero with affection and respect. Not such hard things to do, it seemed. Giulia had been half in love with him all his life, and Zuan was a docile man who had no interest in angering his new patron.

Even after everything was done, we delayed, a tacit agreement. We had until the end of January, after all, and neither of us was in a hurry to face what must be faced. We spent long hours in cafés, walking the city, getting lost in the narrow streets until Samuel could not go farther because of his knee, which would probably always be weak, and then hiring gondolas to take us about. Art and churches, promenading the Riva to take advantage of the sun in the afternoon, the Public Gardens and the Zattere to watch the artists at work, both of us thinking of Nero and neither speaking of him, or the things he might have shown us in this city of his youth, neither admitting that we were procrastinating.

Then, finally, it was time.

We were sitting in a café on the Riva Schiavoni, in a shaft of sun that warmed a small slice of the damp cold. The sky was impossibly blue, the Canal riffled with hundreds of tiny diamond sparks in a dark chop, gondolas swaying on the waves, the fishing boats in the distance with their ruddy-colored sails decorated with the black marks of saints. The air smelled of a low tide in the lagoon—fetid mud and seaweed, the tang of salt—and the bitter warm aroma of coffee and chocolate; nutty, rich roasted chestnuts from a peddler just down the way.

Samuel toyed with his tiny cup, swirling and dipping the last syrupy remains of coffee as if he meant to paint patterns. He said, “I don’t want you to go back to New York.”

I looked at him in surprise and dismay.

“I want you to have a Grand Tour, the way you hoped.”

“If we could all only have what we want,” I said. “You’ve already offered too much. I can’t watch you go back and marry that woman and live . . . that way. I couldn’t be happy knowing that you’d done it for me. Don’t ask me to.”

“Elena—”

“No. I’ve written my father already. I’ve told him that I’ve failed. No, don’t protest—I’ve already done it, so there’s nothing you can do. Tell your parents you won’t marry that woman. I release you from any obligation to me. You’re free to do whatever you like.”

He eyed me thoughtfully. “So you’ll go home and marry your cousin?”

I had wanted him to protest, I realized, though I had done all I could to prevent it. I nodded shortly. “It’s all right. I don’t need a Grand Tour. I’ve had these last weeks, after all. They’ve been lovely. Mostly.”

“But you miss him, despite everything.”

That ache behind my eyes, the quick blur of vision. “Yes. I miss him.”

“So do I.” Samuel sighed heavily. “I don’t know what to do without him, to be honest. I feel . . . adrift. I was angry with him half the time. He was intemperate. He took foolish risks. He got into trouble constantly . . . but I loved him. I wish . . . well, I suppose we all keep secrets. I didn’t want to believe things about him that I knew in my heart were true.”

“I believed him,” I said.

“We always want to think the best of those we love,” he said gently. “But he was right in the end, Elena. You couldn’t save him.”

My quick laugh turned into a sob. “I haven’t been able to save anyone, it seems.”

“Nero made a choice. So did your father. So did I. Everyone does what they must to survive. You can’t save people from themselves. No one can. You can only save yourself.”

I blinked through my tears, dashing them away with the back of my hand. “I mean to at least try to save you.”

“By giving up your life.”

“You were willing to give up yours.”

“Well, mine is worthless, isn’t it?” His smile was grim. “I told you: madness and idiocy. There’s my future.”

“I don’t believe that,” I said. “I don’t think it’s worthless.”

“Neither is yours.” He paused, looking down into that cup, swirling it again. “I’m going to go back. I’m going to talk to my parents. My mother will listen to me. My father . . . well, perhaps I can make him see reason. In any case, I won’t marry this woman and make her life miserable, or my own. I’m done with that. It’s time to find something new. Some other way to live.”

Dryly, I said, “A return to decadence and debauchery? Drinking yourself into unconsciousness?”

“I was thinking perhaps I might hire myself a nurse. Someone to make me take my medicine. Cold baths. Burning liniments. Things like that. In return, I thought I could show her the world. There’s a place in Paris that caters to contortionists and dwarves, you know. It might be entertaining. I don’t suppose you know anyone who’d be interested in the job?”

“Oh, Samuel. I can’t. You know I can’t. My parents . . . my father.”

His full lips thinned. “I won’t press you for more than friendship, if that’s what worries you. I’ve no wish to compete with him for your affections.”

“That’s not it,” I said.

He said nothing more. He didn’t try to persuade, and I was glad. I was afraid I would give in, just when I’d accepted what must happen. I was ready to take my punishment. I even wanted it, in a way, my own hair shirt, something to make me feel better for every mistake I’d made, my own inability to see the truth of things, the longing for something more that had blinded me when I wanted to be blind.

Samuel left the next morning. My ticket was for a week later, bought long ago, before I could know how I would feel to see him board that gondola and disappear from my life forever, the only one who knew what we had been through, who understood how deeply burrowed grief and remorse and impossibility. It was something we could never explain to anyone—how could we? How did one say that a ghost and a murderer had brought us together and tempered us in ways we never thought to know?

He only tipped his hat to me, a smile, and then he was gone, and I was left to wander the rooms of the Basilio—not eerie now, only quiet, resting, as if it waited for something to bring it to life again. Something to erase the sorrow in these walls. I hoped the new owners could do so, and I packed my things and waited for the day I was to leave. I avoided Samuel’s room. There was too much I didn’t want to be reminded of, though the urge to go in there pressed every day, wheedling, coaxing, and every day I resisted it. They were both gone, and I didn’t want to remember, but neither did I expect my missing of Samuel to lodge so firmly in my heart. I had not known until he left how much he meant to me.

My father’s letter came two days later.

My Dearest Elena,

Your letter arrived 15th January, and your mother and I will be happy to see you returned to us, as will your cousin be. I know you are not overjoyed at the prospect of marriage, but we believe you will come to know it as a blessing and a delight, as we do. Michael is a good man, who is anxious to do well by you. I think he is a bit nervous at the idea of having a wife from the city who does not know how to milk a cow, but I have assured him you are an adept learner. You have always been a joy to me in our work together, and you know that I would love nothing better than to have you return to my side, if that were possible. I would like to think it will be someday, when there is time for the rumors and innuendo to die away, but by then I have hopes you will be concerned with children of your own, and will have no time for me!

You should have no worry for myself and your mother. I have managed to secure a position at a small hospital upstate. They know of my circumstances, but are in dire need of a physician, and I have assured them that I shall be more vigilant than ever. Your mother is in no trifling way dismayed at our living in a village, but I think too that she is looking forward to a respite from her travels in society, and will appreciate the peace. At last, she will have time to devote herself to her silly novels.

We expect you in mid-February, and look forward to seeing you and hearing about your time in Venice—don’t forget to bring back some token for your mother, who, as you know, enjoys such mementos.

I am, as always,

Your Loving Father

I was glad. Truly I was glad. To see him in such good spirits even as he must start over again in a small town, his prodigious talents turned to agues and coughs instead of the latest techniques for treating hysteria or catatonia or epilepsy. I wanted to cry at his optimism, at the need for it.

And I’ll admit that I also felt resentment about that optimism, a resistance I told myself not to fight, as if all of me strained to avoid that ticket home, that narrow room with no doors waiting, my cousin Michael and a marriage built on what was expected, mutual respect and friendliness instead of the love and passion I’d hoped for.

But I’d had that once, hadn’t I? How often did most people experience that in a lifetime? Wasn’t I luckier than most? I’d known even as I’d fallen into bed with Nero that it could not last, that it was a memory I was harvesting, a secret of my own to hold tight, something to take out to help me weather weary, endless days, to know that once I’d held a bright jewel that still shone, even with the tarnish of its setting.

I resigned myself. I packed my bags. I said good-bye to these rooms. The sala, where I could hardly stand to be. The bedroom that was mine that had once been his. I looked upon the bed and remembered what he’d looked like lying there that morning, all grays and blacks and whites, a drawing that even now seemed unreal, an artist’s rendering, a portrait only, but mine.