by Sophie Love
“I don’t know, losing my laptop. Ruining all my notes by accident. Getting pickpocketed.”
She avoided mentioning Cristiano’s name. Her mom would surely not approve of her moving on so quickly from Shane, especially since she’d thought she’d moved on too quickly after Zach in the first place.
“Honey, that sounds tough,” her mom soothed. “But I have to ask you a question. What city are you in right now?”
Keira looked ahead of her, at the sight of the exquisite Venetian architecture, the impossible canal, the extraordinary glamour.
“Venice.”
“Exactly. When are you ever going to get to be in Venice again in your lifetime? Not to mention the fact you’re being paid to be there, to write, which is the thing you love doing more than anything in the world.”
Keira listened to her mother’s soothing voice and let her words sink in. She could be such a great comfort, and sometimes she really did offer good advice.
“I’m stuck here for another day anyway,” Keira replied. “So I don’t need to make a decision any time soon.”
“Stuck in Italy,” her mom teased. “How awful.”
“Okay, Mom, I get it,” Keira replied.
Laughing, she bade farewell to her mom and headed in the direction of San Marco Square.
Venice in the early morning was a whole new treat. Only a few stores and cafes had opened their doors and since the tourists were all sleeping off last night’s partying, she pretty much had the place to herself.
Keira purchased a new notebook and pen, then sat at one of the square’s many coffee shops, under a large umbrella that would shield her from the heat of the rising sun. Yesterday this square had been filled with people, music, and smells. But now it was almost silent.
A waiter came over to take her order.
“I wasn’t sure if anywhere would be open today,” Keira told him. “It’s a national holiday, isn’t it?”
He nodded. “It is the day we celebrate all the saints in Catholicism. But those of us who work in tourism don’t get the luxury of enjoying it. Venice is a city for tourists and the tourists want to party. Sometimes All Saints’ Day is confused with All Souls’ Day. Sometimes it gets added in with Halloween as well.” He shook his head sadly, clearly lamenting a simpler time. “It is one big celebration now. Disrespectful.”
It seemed a shame to Keira that certain people could not enjoy their traditions because they had to cater to other people.
Once her cappuccino arrived, Keira began to write about Venice, inspired by what the waiter had told her about how tourism was affecting the city.
I venture into Venice just as the sun is rising, to discover a secret side of the city I hadn’t realized existed. Without the throngs of chattering tourists, Venice sings. Her song is comprised of footsteps echoing through alleyways, seabirds calling to one another, and the gentle slosh of waves against the sidewalk. Had it not been for an unfortunate gondola accident last night, I would never have seen this serene side of Venice, nor heard her beautiful voice.
But while Capri represents the passion of love, and Rome the romance of it, once Venice is stripped back to its core, it comes to represent the lesser known side of love—sacrifice and compromise. It is a city reliant on tourism but stifled because of it, an allegory for real love. Unlike the giddy passionate love Capri promises, or the hand-in-hand love of Rome, Venice is a city that reminds us that love, inevitably, must also include pain.
Keira sat back and sighed, knowing already what kind of feedback she’d get from Elliot. She was still holding back, not really including herself in the piece or her romance. But how was she supposed to involve herself?
In Capri, I fell for an Italian Lothario. In Venice, I fell out of a gondola.
She laughed bitterly and scratched the sentence out. She knew she had to involve herself more personally in her piece but she just couldn’t make a fool out of herself so publicly in that way. Even though it was the brave thing to do, she’d been humiliated enough being witnessed by so many people that she didn’t want her audience to know about it too.
But that left her unsure about where the piece was going, torn between the safe bet and the riskier option which was what Elliot wanted.
She tried a few different passages, inserting her doomed romance with Cristiano only to rip it up or scribble it out again. Usually, on her laptop the process was much quicker. But writing by hand and being forced to slow down had the side effect of making her really feel every word she wrote. Going over the finer details of things with Cristiano was making her sad. It was like a perpetual feedback loop; her words bringing her down, her mood darkening the tone of her words in turn. The loneliness of early-morning Venice seemed to mirror the loneliness she felt without Cristiano. Her yearning to return home grew even stronger.
But like her mom had said, this was her dream job. If Keira had the power to go back in time and tell the recently graduated version of herself that in a few years’ time she’d be writing travel articles in Venice, she’d have been thrilled. But the reality was different. Her career did not exist in a vacuum. On one hand she was behaving like a brat for wanting to quit, but on the other she had a very valid reason for wanting to walk away. Her personal and professional lives were not two separate things. They intertwined. One affected the other and vice versa, a continuous loop of cause and effect. Life imitating art imitating life. That was why it was she who was supposed to be the Romance Guru, rather than Denise or Lisa or any of the other writers at Viatorum. It was because she allowed her personal life to encroach on her professional life that she was given these assignments in the first place, and that meant putting her heart on the line time and time again. She just didn’t know whether she had the energy to keep doing it.
As the day progressed, Keira watched the square transform. Tarpaulins and stalls were erected ready for the celebrations. Large vats of soup were brought into the square, the aroma of chickpeas, celery, carrots, onions, tomatoes, and pork making Keira’s mouth water. There were also stacks of different breads, a sweet variety made with raisins, crumbled biscuits, cinnamon, and chocolate; another made with figs and walnuts.
Then the tourists began to flock in, dressed in costumes and masks.
Keira remembered the costume ball and fetched her own mask from her purse, toying with it in her hands, deliberating over whether she should put it on. She remembered Bryn and Nina telling her how much fun it could be to play a character. Perhaps she ought to go anyway, and pretend to be someone else; someone happy, confident, and free of worries.
She headed in the direction of the where the ball was to be held. The sky was starting to darken behind her as another night closed in. But when she reached the location, she shook her head and put her mask back in her purse. Faking it was not her style. Without Cristiano by her side, there was no way she would be able to enjoy the celebrations.
She stood. As the tourists swarmed into the ballroom, Keira went against the flow, against the grain, in search of another hotel in which to spend another night alone. Whether it was to be her last in Italy, Keira didn’t yet know. That it would be another spent alone, however, she was certain.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
Keira woke in the morning, still uncertain as to whether she would remain in Italy or not. One call to Heather would be all it took for a new flight to be arranged that would whisk her back to her life in New York City.
She remembered from her itinerary that today—All Souls’ day—was the scheduled trip to Florence. She wondered whether she was strong enough to tour it alone, without Cristiano supporting her. She’d survived Naples alone, after all, and that was considered the most dangerous city in Italy.
But whether she could and whether she wanted to were two different matters. In Naples she’d survived because she had no other choice. Now the choice was there. Leaving was a real option.
Still deliberating, Keira headed out into the street. The hotel she’d selected last night was very off
the beaten track, down a sleepy side street. The owners were a friendly elderly couple, unassuming, who’d largely left her alone. It was the first time she didn’t feel out of place or like the tourist she was.
She went to the local store and picked up some bread for breakfast, adding to her basket some underwear, a shirt, and a skirt. After returning to the inn and changing, she realized she was also now dressed like a local.
She used the inn’s computer to type up the notes she’d written yesterday, then emailed them on to Elliot.
I don’t know yet whether I’m staying to finish the article or not but I thought I may as well write while I deliberated. This is my article on Venice.
She hit send. Just then, the female innkeeper came in.
“Scusi,” she said when she saw Keira at the computer. She went to back out of the room.
“It’s fine,” Keira said. “Stay. Restare.”
The innkeeper smiled at Keira’s attempt to speak Italian, and she came in, sitting on the couch.
“Avete dormito bene?” the woman asked.
Keira shrugged, not able to understand. The woman mimed sleeping.
“Did I sleep well?” Keira asked. “Yes. Si. Bene.”
The lady smiled. Keira remembered the fresh loaf of bread she’d purchased for her breakfast. She offered some to the innkeeper. The woman accepted the offer and cut off a chunk, slathering it with butter and jam. Keira joined her.
In the quiet moment, Keira felt very at peace. Though neither could communicate properly with the other, her loneliness was alleviated just be the presence of the calm innkeeper.
“Is Florence nice?” Keira asked the lady.
“Firenze,” the innkeeper corrected. “In Italiano.”
“Florence is called Firenze in Italian?” Keira asked, surprised. She’d had no idea.
“Si.” The woman beamed.
“Is it nice?” Keira asked. She shook her head, recalling the scant bit of Italian she knew. “Bene?”
“Si, si, si,” the innkeeper replied, smiling widely. “Tu ci vai?”
Keira’s extremely limited grasp of Italian did not stretch to understanding the question. But once again the woman mimed an action, this time of a train wheel in motion.
Keira laughed. “Am I taking the train there?” She pondered a moment. “I don’t know. Do you think I should?”
This time it was the innkeeper’s turn to shrug. Her limited grasp of English prevented her from understanding what Keira was asking her.
Keira smiled to herself then. Even if she could have understood, how on earth was she supposed to know the answer? It was up to Keira whether she braved the trip to Florence alone, not this sweet and unassuming inn owner.
The innkeeper spoke then, breaking through Keira’s reverie.
“Guarda,” she was saying, beckoning Keira to stand. She had the same serene smile on her face, an inviting and soothing expression.
Keira stood from the couch, and the woman did too, stiffly, groaning a little from the effort. Keira took her arm to support her.
“Okay?” she said.
The woman nodded. “Si, si.”
She hobbled across the room, turning her face over her shoulder sporadically, to check she was still following, Keira presumed. Then she stopped at a large bookcase in the corner and pointed upward.
Keira looked up. There were many heavy, leather-bound books up on the towering shelves, covered in dust. The innkeeper pointed emphatically over and over at one particular book. Keira was short, but not hunched like the elderly lady, and her fingertips were just able to reach the book. Giving herself an extra inch by going up onto her tiptoes, Keira was able to fish the book down.
The innkeeper clapped with delight. Keira handed the book to her, watching as she took it in her hands like it was a prized possession. Keira wondered how long it had been stuck up on that shelf, just out of the lady’s reach.
They went back to the couch and Keira helped the lady into her seat. The innkeeper opened up the book and gave a delighted gasp. She handed Keira a photograph that had been slid inside the front jacket.
“Mia figlia,” the woman said.
Keira looked down at the picture, of a young woman sitting on the hood of a car. She was wearing shorts, of a distinctively 1970s style. Her smile was wide and infectious, and long blond hair flowed down her back. Keira could see in the openness and warmth in her face that she was most definitely a relation to the elderly woman sitting beside her.
“Who is this?” Keira asked.
“Mia figlia,” the woman repeated.
Keira was so intrigued by who the girl was in the picture, she took her cell phone out and logged onto her translation app. She typed the words as she heard them—mia fia. The app took a moment to work out from her phonetic translation what she might be getting at, then a word appeared on the screen. Daughter.
“This is your daughter?” Keira asked, a lilt of joy in her voice. “She’s beautiful. Bellissimo.”
The woman smiled and nodded. She handed Keira another photo. This time the woman was sitting inside a car—the same one, Keira noted—and there was a bag on the back seat. Keira saw then, on the passenger seat, a notebook and pen. It gave Keira an uncanny feeling. She herself was never without her notebook. If not tucked under her arm, it was always in her purse, almost as though it were an extension of herself. She wondered whether the innkeeper’s daughter might also have been a writer.
She pointed at the notebook and asked the innkeeper, “She wrote?”
“Scrittore,” the innkeeper said.
Keira typed scrit-or-ray into her app. Again, it took a moment to work out what she was trying to say and give her the option of the correct spelling—scrittore—then gave her the translation. Writer.
“Giornalista,” the innkeeper added.
Keira didn’t need her app to translate that. Its pronunciation—journalista—sounded very similar to the English word.
Keira sat back, shocked by the coincidence of the innkeeper’s daughter sharing a similar profession to her own. Had the innkeeper recognized the writer in Keira instinctively? It was an almost eerie sensation.
The innkeeper handed the heavy, leather-bound book to Keira then. She ran her fingers over the gilded gold letters on the front. Italia: la terra degli amanti. The author was listed as Nicoletta Affini.
Keira opened the book up. Inside, the blank first page had been signed. The ink was a faded blue.
Per mia madre, Nicoletta.
Keira was sure she recognized the word madre, but to be certain, she typed it into her app. It revealed her suspicion was true. Madre meant mother.
“Your daughter wrote this book?” Keira asked. “Figlia?” She mimed writing.
The innkeeper nodded, her smile widening even more. She was clearly very proud of her daughter’s accomplishment and Keira could certainly see why. She could just imagine the beautiful young Nicoletta driving around the gorgeous Italian countryside in her car, her trusty notebook by her side, stopping to write wherever the inspiration took her; mountains, piazzas, canal sides, watching the gorgeous sunsets, living life to the fullest.
It hit Keira then like an epiphany. This book was a sign from the Universe to carry on. What a terrible waste it would be to leave Italy now, when Florence was ready and waiting for her!
Feeling calmer and more confident than she had been for the last day, Keira decided then and there that she was going to continue on alone and see what Florence had to offer her. The interaction with the innkeeper had been very soothing for her soul.
Turning to the innkeeper and taking her hands, she said with heartfelt gratitude, “Grazie.”
The elderly woman chuckled. Keira kissed her on both cheeks, as was customary, then stood. From the door she looked back and grinned.
“Addio,” she said to the innkeeper.
The woman smiled up at her from her position on the couch.
“Prendi cura cara,” she replied.
Keira didn�
��t know what she’d said, but she could feel the emotion behind the woman’s words, communicated through her eyes and heart. Goodbye. Good luck. I wish you the best.
The romance of Italy, Keira realized as she left, was not just for lovers, but for strangers, for friends, for anyone.
She slung her purse over her shoulder and left the inn, heading in the direction of the train station. She felt more light-footed than she had in days, more at ease with the unfamiliar country.
Even the busy station did not faze her much as it did previously.
After purchasing her ticket, Keira decide to wait out the duration before her train’s departure outside the station so she could drink in the last drops of Venice. She’d had a rollercoaster of an experience here.
Then she saw the time had come to board her train. With one final look at Venice, she turned her back and headed onward, alone, to experience the next part of her story.
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
Stepping out of the train station at Florence, Keira found herself swept up in a vortex of tourists. With no itinerary to follow, she gave in to the power of the current, letting it lead her where it may.
Keira didn’t know much about the city of Florence, other than it being the birthplace of Renaissance art and the home to the infamous statue of David. Seeing him in the flesh (or, more specifically, marble) would be enough to make the trip here worthwhile on its own. But there was so much more to Florence that Keira hadn’t even anticipated. The whole city was packed with art. Considering how small it was, the sheer amount of culture it contained was astounding.
She went to the Uffizi Museum and strolled around, her pace more like the leisurely Italian locals than the hurrying tourists.
Despite the beauty, Keira couldn’t lift her spirits completely. She found a corner of the museum to settle in and began to write—longhand again—another passage for the article she might never finish.
For Italians, food and the act of eating is inherently romantic. The smells, the tastes and sensations, the fact that any food is considered an aphrodisiac (yes, even pizza). The lesser mentioned sense, however, is sight, and it is in Florence that my eyes are seduced by art. There is more packed into this small city than anywhere else in the world. My companions in the Uffizi gallery are Botticelli, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian and Caravaggio...
