The Visitant: A Venetian Ghost Story

by Megan Chance

  “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.

  “Good-bye,” I whispered. “I’m sorry. I love you.”

  He was not there. Not even a murmur in response, though I listened for that. I supposed it was best. I did not want his spirit lingering, unhappy, looking for vengeance or redemption, something undone. I wanted peace for him.

  I paused in the hall, glancing toward Samuel’s room, and felt that urge to go inside again, gently pressing, but insistent, and I thought, why not? One last time. Pay it the courtesy of a farewell.

  I stepped inside, and the memories flooded back, my arrival and Giulia’s insolence. And then Samuel, huddled in the bed, racked and ruined, staring at me through a laudanum haze as if I were a ghost come to tend him.

  Then I saw the envelope on the bed. His writing in broad, looping strokes on the outside. Elena.

  It was lucky I’d seen it. I could have left without even coming to this room. What had he been thinking to leave it here? I picked it up, curious, puzzled—what more was there to say that hadn’t already been said?

  I tore it open. Something fluttered to the bed, and I ignored it for the moment to read the words he’d written, short and to the point:<
br />
  Save yourself.

  I glanced down at the paper that had fallen. It was a train ticket to Rome. Attached to it was another piece of paper, a scrap, Samuel’s writing again. Albergo Rosina, and a reservation for rooms in my name, and below that: 3:30, Café Tacchi. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Wait for me.

  My heart jumped. The ticket was for tonight—two hours from now. If I’d come here even an hour later, it would have been too late; I would miss it.

  And perhaps I still should.

  I took a deep breath, not knowing what to do. A life waited for me in New York. The life my parents wanted for me, the life I’d accepted. My penance and my atonement.

  Save yourself.

  “What should I do?” I whispered, feeling foolish as I said it, expecting to hear an answer, expecting to hear Nero’s voice, his soul clinging to mine still, profoundly set. I heard nothing, but . . . the urge to go to the balcony had me crossing the room almost before I knew it, his words ringing in my head, “we often left the day’s fortunes to the dyer . . . is the rio green or blue?” and I told myself that was what would decide me. I would go if it was Nero’s favorite color. I would go if it was blue.

  I rushed to the door, opening it, stepping out. All of it settled on a color, the caprice of a dyer. Please, I prayed, still not certain what I prayed for. Please.

  I was almost afraid to look, but finally I did, and everything in me sagged in disappointment. The canal was no color at all. Not blue, not red, not yellow. No dye in it today, just its usual, dull olivey brown. Just a shallow canal stinking in the winter sun.

  I’d left it to Fate, and Fate had answered. Tear up the ticket Samuel had bought. Forget the Café Tacchi and an appointment for three thirty every afternoon. Forget looking up from a table to see him cross the room, a smile on his face, relief in his eyes.

  I started to turn away. But then . . . no, a faint touch, a gentle nudging, the same press that had set upon me every day as I looked toward Samuel’s room, as if someone brushed my shoulder, urging me to wait, to turn. “Look.” His voice in my ear, that same breathless whisper from the day he’d shown me the purple canal, that dreamcast voice, and I found myself obeying, twisting back to see.

  Nothing at first, and then . . . yes, there it was, barely there, so slight as to be an illusion, a thread of color, a ribbon unfurling through the murk, dodging and spinning in the current, and then growing, a stream, and then a river, spreading and spreading beneath a misty Venetian sun.

  Vibrant, stunning blue.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Many, many thanks to my wonderful, sharp-eyed, and lovely editors Jodi Warshaw and Heather Lazare, whose insightful comments truly opened up some doors and made the novel better. Also thanks must go to my author team at Lake Union—Thom Kephart, Gabriella VandenHeuvel, Maggie Sivon, among others—for their wonderful support—you really make this all so much easier. Thank you once more to Kim Witherspoon, Allison Hunter, Nathaniel Jacks, and the staff at Inkwell Management, for their continued encouragement and attention, and to Kristin Hannah, who has not only been a creative and personal lifesaver, but an inspiration as well. Jan Berlin generously provided a crucial Venetian translation for me (not all of them—blame me for errors!), for which, among many of her other generosities, I am eternally grateful. Last, but never least of course, I could not do this without Kany, Maggie, and Cleo, who weather everything with equanimity (sometimes), patience (mostly), and love (always).

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Photo © 2012 CMC Levine

  Megan Chance is a critically acclaimed, award-winning author of historical fiction. Her novels have been chosen for the Borders Original Voices and Book Sense programs. A former television news photographer and graduate of Western Washington University, Chance lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and two daughters.