The Visitant: A Venetian Ghost Story

by Megan Chance

  They ended at a slate walkway at the flat part of the roof that skirted the edge, the canal gurgling threateningly below, a dizzyingly long way down. Nero Basilio negotiated it as if he had done so a hundred times, without hesitation or pause, not seeming even to notice the drop, nor the loosened red tiles that skittered from the vibration of our steps. The slate walkway broadened into a kind of terrace surrounding the cupola. He pushed on one of the windowed doors, which didn’t budge, not until he handed me his coffee to hold and braced his shoulder against it. It squealed open, making me wince as he shoved it far enough for us to enter. If Samuel had not yet been awake, he would be now.

  Mr. Basilio stepped back to allow me to come in, apologetic as I handed him his coffee. “It’s been years since I came up here, and I doubt Aunt Valeria has ever stepped foot in it.”

  When I was inside, he closed the door again, more squealing, sounding even louder than before. The cupola was bigger than it looked from the outside. All four sides were windowed, with fanlights styled as the rising sun symbol of the Basilios; three walls were lined with padded benches with cabinets beneath. The cushions had once been pale blue, but were now stained with mildew, stuffing spilling from where they’d been gnawed at by mice or rats, droppings scattered about the floor. There was a table in the middle of the room, a settee—water-or-piss-stained, again with gnawed-at cushions—against the other wall. It stank of wet and neglect and rodents.

  “It’s worse than I remember it,” Mr. Basilio said with a grimace. “But it’s worth it for the view.”

  He was right; the view was stunning. It was the one I’d longed for. Hard to believe only a single floor made such a difference. From the front, tiled roofs and campaniles reached against the expanse of the pied Venetian sky. On one side, in the distance, you could see the train station, the deep blue water beyond; on the other, tiled roofs and a misty blue horizon that must be the lagoon. I spun around, taking it all in, stopping short at the sight of the gothic brick and pilastered church across the canal, the whole of it now before me. Arched, mullioned windows, a domed campanile, a campo of stone in red and gray before it, and the water beyond, breathlessly lovely.

  He came up behind me. I felt the warmth of his breath against my neck as he spoke. “The Madonna dell’ Orto. Tintoretto’s church. His paintings grace the altar. His tomb is there as well. I’ll take you to see them sometime, if you like. If you can pull yourself away from your patient for an hour. It’s only just across the bridge.” He pointed to the left. “And over there the Sant’ Alvise. Not so pretty from the outside, but inside . . .”

  Oh, it was everything I’d hoped for. Tintoretto’s church! “It’s beautiful,” I breathed. “If I’d known this was the view I would have been up here every day.”

  “You sound like my cousin. She would sit up here for hours when she was young. Reading. Staring. A daydreamer.”

  “It would be easy to get lost in daydreams here.”

  “It’s not as old as the rest of the house,” he said. “Quite new, in fact. They built it to watch the Austrian bombs during the Revolution.”

  “They came up here to watch bombing? Weren’t they afraid?”

  “Not until one of the bombs took out the wall,” he said, disdainfully amused. “Then I understand that my grandfather forbade the women the view.”

  “But the men took the risk themselves.”

  “It was something Venice had never seen, and what Venetian doesn’t love novelty?” He handed me a fritter, still warm from his hand. “Try it. Tomas is a fritterer by trade.”

  “Tomas?”

  “Giulia and Zuan’s older brother. The one who couldn’t take his eyes from you.”

  “Oh.” I remembered now; Zuan had mentioned his name before. I took the fritter, biting into it. Crisp outside, chewy inside, sugar clinging to my lips.

  “He’s married, but as I said, Venetians like novelty. I think he’s never seen an American woman before.”

  “This is very good,” I said, taking the last bite. “But if Tomas didn’t come around again, I wouldn’t mind it.”

  “You’ve nothing to worry about. He won’t trouble you now.”

  “What did you say to him?”

  “That you were my guest, and one to be treated with respect,” he said.

  “Giulia didn’t like you defending me,” I noted.

  “I don’t care about Giulia.” He sat down. The cushion expelled dust and more stuffing. “Or my aunt. Or anyone in this place.”

  I sat down on a cushion against another wall, keeping a respectable distance. “Do you miss your cousin very much?”

  He laughed. “Do you know what I like about Americans?”

  “What?”

  “How forthright they are. Just asking questions outright that are none of their business.”

  “I’m sorry—”

  “No, that’s not what I mean. I’m not offended. It’s refreshing. Venetians are just as curious, but they’d never think of asking. They’d rather sneak about, spying, gossiping”—he made a sound of disparagement—“everything out of sight, so you can’t grasp it. It’s our history, you know. The Council of Ten, the bocca di leone for people to drop anonymous notes about their neighbors . . . no one in Venice actually tells you what they’re thinking. Everyone lies constantly. You have to parse everything. But Americans . . . you wear your curiosity like a badge of pride. Samuel’s like that too. It’s why we’ve been friends for so long. He keeps no secrets. He always says exactly what he thinks.”

  I felt suddenly uncomfortable. I wondered what he would say if he knew exactly how big a secret Samuel and I kept. Nero Basilio seemed the kind of man who could keep a secret like that. It suddenly seemed absurd that Samuel had not told him.

  But it wasn’t my place to say anything. To resist temptation, I changed the subject. “You’ve nicely deflected my question, I notice. But I’ll understand if you have no wish to answer it. You’re right; it’s none of my concern.”

  He set his cup on the table. “Yes, I miss her. She was everything to me. We’d been betrothed since we were children. The world is uncertain, but the fact that Laura would be my wife, that was something constant. Something I always knew waited for me. Nothing else might go as I wished, but there was always Laura.” He sat back against the window. “There’s a very wise saying: I morti verze i oci ai vivi. The dead open the eyes of the living. I didn’t realize until she was gone just how much I took her for granted. I was out traveling the world, trying to make something of myself, while she became a pretty wrapped package awaiting my dispensation. I could go anywhere, while she must stay here, where the history of despair is in the very walls.”

  Trapped. I understood too well how she must have felt. “A history of despair. How poetic. And sad.”

  “It’s the truth. My father inherited a ruined palazzo and nothing else. He sold every painting or pilaster he could, but he could not bring himself to touch the piano nobile. Not even to keep it from ruin. The worry that the noble house of Basilio might be reduced to one of poverinos . . . his pride couldn’t bear it. It drove him to suicide. My mother drank herself into oblivion.” He stopped suddenly, as if he’d surprised himself. “I never tell anyone those things. What are you, cara, a witch to pull my secrets from me?”

  The marveling way he looked at me was exhilarating. “Not a witch, no, but it does seem to be a talent of mine. It used to happen with my father’s patients all the time. He would send me in to talk to them when they were reluctant to say the truth of what ailed them. They would tell me anything.” And I would believe it. “He said I had a calming presence.”

  “I don’t think I would call it calming, exactly.” His voice was bewitchingly soft and deep. “There’s something about you that makes me wonder . . .”

  “Wonder what?”

  “Ah, perhaps nothing. In my heart, I’m too Venetian; I see myst
eries and tragedy in everyone. I come from a long line of troubled souls. You should take care. This house is full of ghosts. Truthfully, I should have taken Laura away long ago. Perhaps she would still be alive if I had. But it never occurred to me. Not until it was too late. Then again, it would have required money, and as you see”—he spread his hands—“Conte che non conta, non conta niente.”

  I recognized it. “A count who doesn’t count, counts for nothing,” I translated quietly. “Zuan said it too. I’m so sorry.”

  Nero Basilio shrugged again. “Every Venetian has a similar story. Hopelessness is in the air. Don’t you feel it? It’s almost as if God wants us to abandon the city. I’d like to accommodate him.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  “Lack of funds—what else? And obligation. This place is all that remains of the Basilio fortune. Do you see how proudly I hold it?” His tone dripped sarcasm. “I don’t think I would care if it fell. It would be good to have all reminders of the past gone. All encumbrances.”

  “Yes,” I agreed, thinking of my own encumbrances. “I understand that. The past can be a burden.”

  “Spoken as one who bears burdens of her own,” he said. “How can it be so? You’re so young—”

  “Not young. Twenty-four.”

  “Ah then, let me guess: an engagement gone awry? A scandal?” His eyes twinkled when he said it, a tease. It was obvious he didn’t believe it could be that. He could not possibly know how close he came. “Please tell me yes. I like scandalous women.”

  “That hardly surprises me,” I said.

  “I’ve told you my sad past. Now you must tell me yours.”

  “You’ve just said Americans are too forthright.”

  “I also said I liked it.”

  But there was too much I couldn’t reveal, too much that was knotted with Samuel’s secrets. I was uncertain what I could say that wouldn’t lead to more questions, and so I kept it as simple as I could. “My past is not sad, nor very interesting, I’m afraid. My father trained me to work by his side. He could not leave his patients so precipitously when the Farbers asked him to tend to Samuel. So he sent me.”

  “And when you deliver Samuel to his bride, what then? You’ll return to your parents? Or perhaps . . . to a lover?”

  His question encompassed everything, didn’t it? Everything I must do, the price I must pay if I could not bring Samuel to heel.

  “You do have a lover,” he said.

  I forced myself to look at him. “I’m to have six months in Europe to spend as I will.”

  He raised a disbelieving brow. “A woman alone? What did you do, cara, to make them so eager to destroy you? I would no sooner send my sister abroad alone than I would drown myself.”

  “You don’t have a sister, do you? And I won’t be alone. I have a chaperone. My widowed French tutor. She’s to meet me in Paris when this is all over. I’m so looking forward to it. I’ve never been anywhere, and I want so to see all the museums and the theater, and music and . . .” I trailed off, hearing the frantic yearning in my voice, realizing too late how much I revealed.

  “Everything,” he finished quietly.

  “Yes. Yes. I want to see everything.”

  “And perhaps do everything.” There was something in his voice that made me think of the book beneath my mattress, Samuel’s words about the perfume of my desire. “Before you go back to New York City and marry whoever is waiting for you and live the quiet life you’re destined for.”

  I started at his perception.

  “It’s not so hard to guess, cara. You’re a pretty, well-bred woman. To not have someone waiting to marry you would be the surprise. And your longing to see the world before you’re caged, that’s obvious too. The only real surprise is that your betrothed would allow you such freedom.”

  “I’m hoping he won’t be my betrothed in six months,” I said quietly.

  “I see. Does he know this?”

  “It’s not a love match.”

  “Just your parents wishing to find someone to take you off their hands?”

  I nodded. Not quite true, but close enough.

  “Perhaps I can be of some service to you then. I can show you all the best places.”

  It was appealing; too much so. “I told you, I have a chaperone. If I gave her up to go with you, it would ruin me.”

  He eyed me, a smile playing at his lips. “I have the idea that ruin is your intention, Miss Spira.”

  “Knowledge is my intention,” I said firmly.

  The smile grew. “As you say. I wonder if they’re not the same thing.”

  “I cannot allow them to be.” How prim I sounded. Priggish even. I wished I hadn’t said it, and I waited for him to mock me, but he only laughed, and it was so charming, so irresistible, and suddenly I was remembering Samuel’s words about broken hearts and my naïveté, and . . . and . . . Samuel.

  I had forgotten about him completely.

  I gasped. “I’ve been away too long. I must be getting back.”

  “And just when things were getting interesting.” Mr. Basilio rose languidly. “Very well, as you wish. Though I don’t think Samuel deserves such dedication.”

  I went to the door, nearly trembling in my haste, pulling at the handle. The door did not budge.

  “Perhaps we’re locked in. That happened to Laura and me once.”

  When I turned to look at him, his expression was wistful, tender with memory. He stared out at the roofs checkerboarding the view before us. From somewhere I heard the coo of doves, and it seemed to mirror his mood, which had been teasing only moments before. How quickly he’d changed. His expression pulled at my heart.

  “We were here for hours before someone found us,” he went on. “You know, you remind me of her, Miss Spira.”

  “No doubt because we have the same color hair,” I said, tugging again at the door.

  He looked bemused. “How do you know that?”

  “Samuel told me.”

  “He mentioned the color of her hair?”

  I jerked harder at the door. “This won’t open at all.”

  He seemed confused, uncertain.

  “Please, Mr. Basilio,” I said.

  He blinked, obviously shaking away his thoughts. “It’s only stuck.” He came up beside me, his hand on mine, curling around my fingers so I was trapped between him and the handle. I felt the heat of him at my back. “Last chance. Are you quite certain you wish to return to your patient? Or would you rather stay here and see if there isn’t some kind of knowledge to be found?”

  I didn’t know whether to be tempted or afraid. Nervously, I shook my head, thinking of Samuel, of what I could not afford to lose. “Please,” I managed.

  Nero Basilio’s sigh sent a loosened strand of my hair bouncing against my ear. “Very well.” I felt the flexing in his chest and arm as he pulled the door. It didn’t budge, didn’t budge, and then, suddenly it did, so quickly that I stumbled back, fully into him. He caught me, a settling hand on my shoulder, and I stepped away, skin tingling, and suddenly I wished that I had said yes, let’s stay. Let’s see what there is to discover . . . oh, how stupidly dangerous.

  The door screamed as he dragged it fully opened. I stepped out, moving quickly to retrace our steps.

  “Not so fast. Some of those tiles are loose.”

  I stopped short, though it was all I could do not to run. He came up beside me, moving past me. “Follow me,” he said, and together we went down the stairs.

  He left me at the third floor. “Ciao, cara.” At the bottom of the next flight, he paused, looking up at me with a grin that turned into an exaggerated grimace before he opened the door. I could not help but laugh.

  When he was gone, I opened my own door. I stepped inside and heard a noise, a shuffling, and there was Samuel, coming around the corner of the doorway of the sala, b
racing himself on the frame. He took one look at me, and I knew that he’d heard us in the cupola. He knew exactly where I’d been, and when he turned away in disappointment, I hurried after him.

  Chapter 15

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you woke,” I said, following him into the sala.

  “It was you who woke me,” he said, which of course I’d known. “What were you doing up there with him?”

  “He wanted to show me the view.”

  “No doubt.”

  “That was what he wanted,” I insisted. “He’s proud of it, even as he says he’d like it all to fall into the lagoon.”

  “He can thank his aunt that it hasn’t,” Samuel said wearily.

  “I don’t think he’s very grateful.”

  “No, he wouldn’t be.” Samuel snorted, and then, at my questioning look, “She’s his burden and his curse.”

  “She doesn’t like him. I thought I was imagining it, but—”

  “I don’t think you are. Nero’s spoken of it before. He thinks she resents him because she’s so beholden to him. Nero’s father made him promise to take care of her. She was always a bit fragile, I take it.”

  “Fragile?” I laughed in disbelief. “She’s like steel.”

  “Yes, well, perhaps that is the fragility. In any case, Nero’s father also made him promise to keep the art on the piano nobile intact.”

  I remembered Mr. Basilio telling me how his father feared their noble name sinking into poverty, and how it had led to suicide. I remembered the flaking gilding, diseased muses. “What has that to do with his aunt?”

  “The place is falling apart, but Nero can’t fix anything, because there isn’t the money. To get the money, he’d have to sell something, which he promised his father he’d never do. You see the dilemma? But it seems that, over these last few years, Madame Basilio’s been selling off pieces. A canvas here, a fresco there. If she hadn’t done it, the whole palazzo would be crumbling worse than it is about our ears. They would have starved to death. Nero’s angry with her for making him break his promise, and I think he’s heartbroken too. She’s angry at him for . . . too many things. I don’t know them all. They’re bound together in ways they can’t get free of, which always makes for trouble.”