by Evie Blake
She realises that he must be calling her in the middle of the night, and perhaps without Debbie knowing. He is probably not allowed to make long-distance phone calls. How could her brother be so very different from her? She wouldn’t even think of asking Theo’s permission to do something like that. Besides, Theo wouldn’t want her to. Yet her brother seems happy. He has managed to stay married for years, something her mother has not been able to do. Her mother always told her that Mattia took after her own mother, Maria, who was killed in a plane crash when Tina was only twenty-six. Her mother described Maria Rosselli as ‘square’, and claimed that she had always felt closer to her grandmother, who was a rather eccentric old lady. It is strange how people can inherit the characteristics of their ancestors, Valentina muses. She sincerely hopes that her mother’s traits have skipped a generation.
Despite her offhand manner on the phone, she is in fact intrigued by the package her brother will be sending her. More photographs for her to investigate. She feels bad now that she snapped at him. He really does seem to care about her welfare, even though he has never actually spent much time with her. She really should try to get to know his family. Maybe one day she’ll get her act together and go to New York. And then maybe, just maybe, she might head on to Santa Fe to see her mother. She bites her lip at the thought, drawing blood. No. Why should she go to her? It’s up to her mother to come back to Milan. It was she who abandoned Valentina when she was so heartbroken and alone. She put herself before her daughter, and really, Valentina wonders if she will ever be able to forgive her for that. It seems her brother is much more magnanimous, able to accept their mother despite her blatant rudeness to his wife and her lack of interest in her grandchildren.
Valentina turns away from the window and picks up her camera from where she left it when she got home last night. It’s time to delve into her darkroom and develop the Atlantis Room pictures. This will be a test to see how far she can remain the observer in her erotic art, and how much she desires to be a part of it. She glances at her watch. She has more than eight hours before it’s time to return to Leonardo’s club. She has no idea what he has set up for her tonight. Part of her dreads it, and yet, if she is honest, another part of her is excited.
She hesitates, putting down the camera again. She should write Theo an email and tell him what she is involved in. Should she tell him about Rosa and Celia? No, she would rather do that in person. Besides, he hasn’t told her anything about why he is away and what he is doing, so why should she fill him in on her news?
When she checks her inbox, there is an email from Theo already. She clicks on it, hopeful that he will explain to some small extent what his gift means. However, he has sent her only a bare few lines. They are frustratingly cryptic.
Dear Valentina, I am writing this in haste, and wish I could explain further. But for now my message is to trust no one if you are asked anything about me. I will explain when I get back. And my other message is, please, Valentina, try to have some fun. Theo x
What does he mean? Trust no one? Try to have some fun? Again, that word that is so incongruous with all of who she is. She is not a fun person! She has that feeling again, that he wants her to cheat. And yet he tells her to trust no one. Is he referring to himself in a roundabout way? Somehow she thinks not.
The apartment ticks in forbidding silence. She hears her neighbour in the flat above her thumping across his living-room floor and pulling up the blinds on his windows. She listens to the clock marking time on the wall, and the sound of a motorbike spluttering past in the rain. She looks at the painting on the wall facing her. It is one of Antonella’s passionate compositions, layers of blue, from pale china to indigo, scraped away to reveal a wavering line of scarlet, as tactile as sticky fresh blood. The painting is called Anticipation. It matches her mood.
Valentina breathes in, and around her the apartment breathes out, but barely. It is as if she is holding her breath, waiting for something to happen. There is an electrical charge in the air, like the feeling before a storm. Valentina senses she is on the cusp of change. Whether it is for better or worse, she has no idea.
Belle
THIS DAY SHE IS LOUISE. HER HUSBAND IS AT HOME, AND they have guests coming for dinner. Business associates of Signor Brzezinski, and their wives. Her cook, Renate, and Pina, the maid, have done all the shopping and preparation for tonight. She gives them free rein and couldn’t care less what Renate puts on the table for dinner. All Louise has to do is look beautiful and be a good hostess. This she finds more challenging than anything. She would rather be Renate or Pina, behind the scenes in the kitchen, than centre stage in her husband’s social scene. None of the women like her. She has heard their whispers about how standoffish she is, and why haven’t they got children yet? Barren Brzezinska, that’s what she heard one of the old cows call her last time they went out to dinner.
These women bore Louise so. All they want to talk about is their children, and if she tries to engage them in any kind of conversation that takes them beyond the domestic, they respond with hostile silence. Louise is ambivalent about having children. She certainly doesn’t want one if it is going to turn her into one of these twittering fools. In any case, the likelihood of her having a child is pretty slim, since her husband has been trying to get her pregnant for years. There is no point in wishing for something she believes she will never have.
Her husband’s male associates are nearly as bad as their wives. There are only a couple of them she likes: Varelli, because he seems less enthusiastic about Mussolini (and she suspects he has secret communist leanings); and Greenberg, because he is an American Jew and is the only one of the men who talks to her as an equal. She wonders how long those two will stay in Italy now Mussolini is getting into full swing. All the communists she used to know seem to be disappearing into thin air. She doesn’t like this mood in Italy. All this talk of returning to the glory of Rome. Ancient Rome is not a society to be admired. It was far too brutal.
Yet of course there were all those orgies, she thinks, as she trims her fringe, snapping the scissors impatiently just above her eyebrows. The Romans seemed more open with their sexuality than Mussolini’s Italy. She remembers hearing the story about the Princess Julia, daughter of Emperor Augustus, who disguised herself and worked as a prostitute in Rome. Louise is just like her, then. Leading a double life. She understands exactly why Julia would do it. The Roman princess was trapped in a loveless marriage as well.
Louise sighs with frustration. She puts down the scissors and brushes out her hair, scowling at herself in the mirror. She is bored. She wishes she could escape and be Belle today. She feels like a caged bird. Maybe there is a way she can get out, just for an hour. That would be enough. All she wants to do is go to her apartment, have a cigarette and watch the gondolas gliding down the canal. Today she wants to be alone.
She glances at the little carriage clock on her dressing table. Her husband is having his afternoon nap. Sometimes he eats so much at lunchtime that he can sleep for two whole hours. She could be there and back in that time. He wouldn’t know a thing.
Before she has a chance to change her mind, Louise ties a lace scarf around her neck, buttons on her boots, picks up her purse and skips out of her bedroom and down the staircase, pulling the heavy front door wide open with glee. She feels like a child released from her studies. The city is gleaming. How different Venice is when the sun shines. It becomes a metaphor – a fragile ring of joy that can sometimes surround the bereaved. Belle thinks of her mother, after her father died. The way her eyes shone when she told her daughter about the dreams she had of her dead husband and the messages he passed on to her. Or what he said to her the night he passed away.
I love you always.
Belle’s mother grieved, but her grief was like the sun in Venice, an essentially melancholy city emblazoned with a sudden silvery burst of light. Such love her parents shared. It makes Belle clench her fists tight to think of it. Such selfish love.
; She is not going to reminisce today. It is a sunny afternoon and she is free for an hour or two. What joy! She walks as fast as propriety will allow along the narrow streets and over the bridges. There are reflections everywhere, of the canal on the underside of bridges, and the sky in the water, and the water on the stone, and the people in the buildings. She makes her way through San Polo, crossing Ponte di Rialto and heading into Castello. She passes the hospital, and its marble façade is blindingly white, forcing her to close her eyes for a moment. When she opens them again, she sees him. The wolfish sailor. He is walking towards her across Campo San Giovanni e Paolo and she is not sure whether he notices her as well. Should she run into the church and hide from him? She watches him bending down and stroking a black cat, which rubs itself against his legs. She can’t help thinking how she would like to be that cat, especially when she sees him lift the cat’s chin with his hand, and stroke underneath it.
To feel those long fingers tickling her throat!
He straightens up and walks towards her. She is unable to move, forwards or backwards. He is an unforgettable figure, she thinks, attired in his sailor’s white cap, long admiral’s coat with waistcoat underneath, and white trousers. She takes a step forward, yet he makes no sign that he has seen her, and she suddenly feels overwhelmed with shyness. Usually she has no problem looking at men when she is Belle. She is adept at giving them the eye. Yet today she feels like a bashful young girl again. Just as the sailor passes by her, she gives him a quick sideways glance, but he is looking straight ahead. She walks along feeling a little disappointed, yet as she gets to the far corner of the campo, she turns around one last time and is surprised to see that he has done the same and is looking at her. Their eyes lock, and Louise feels the heat rising in her breast, up her neck, as she strives to remain calm and collected. He is the most beautiful man she has ever laid eyes on. She feels the same urge to flee that she felt the other day when she saw him in the taverna, and yet there is another part of her that can’t walk out of this campo. As if his gaze has her trapped.
She circles the campo, peruses the window of a café, and he does the same in the opposite direction, staring up at the marble façade of the hospital before walking in a circle towards her. This time as they pass, he speaks.
‘Have we not already met?’
She stops and looks up at him, pretending she has only just noticed him. Courage floods her as she is warmed by his admiring gaze. She gives him a rare smile.
‘I thought sailors had more imagination than to come up with a line like that,’ she replies teasingly.
‘You are quite wrong.’ He looks at her with a wicked gleam in his eyes. ‘Sailors have no imagination at all. We have no need of it, since our fantasies are the true stories of all our adventures.’
She knows she shouldn’t become Belle. She hasn’t time. And yet she can’t let this particular sailor walk away from her right now.
‘I would love to hear about some of your adventures,’ she suggests coyly.
‘Certainly,’ he complies, his smile wide. ‘But only if you tell me some of yours.’
They walk out of the campo together, and Belle is now certain that she will not be home in time to wake her husband from his nap. Yet she doesn’t care, despite the consequences.
‘Let me introduce myself,’ the sailor says. ‘My name is Santos Devine. My father was a sailor from Cork in Ireland and my mother a dancer from Granada in Spain. However, I am from nowhere in particular. I have been sailing, or more accurately adventuring for twenty years.’
Belle looks at him in wonder. Is he a real man, or a figment of her imagination? She has never been so attracted to another person. She is magnetised by his tall, lean body, and his easy way of moving. He is as graceful as a dancer, a quality he must have inherited from his mother, and yet she senses his strength mixed with the ethereal, his Celtic heritage. His hair is as black as hers, and his face is a mixture of masculine rogue and feline beauty. Even his hands are beautiful as he takes hold of hers.
‘And what is your name?’
‘Belle,’ she replies.
‘Very appropriate. I don’t think I have ever seen such a beautiful woman in all the seven seas I have sailed.’
‘I am sure you say that to the girls in every port,’ Belle replies smartly, and Santos’s eyes glint mischievously in response. He doesn’t deny her accusation, and yet still he manages to charm her.
‘Ah,’ he says. ‘But I cannot say that any girl has such hair as yours. So short and angular, the perfect frame for your delicious face, shiny and black like a blackbird’s feathers.’
‘I love the blackbird’s song,’ Belle says, holding him with her eyes. ‘It is full of the joy of life.’
‘Do you have blackbirds in Venice?’
‘Occasionally, in the winter. But I remember them mostly from my childhood home.’
‘Well I shall call you Belle Blackbird, then.’
As they walk through Venice, her home for so many years, it becomes another place altogether. In broad daylight they enter a part of the city where she is known, yet it matters to her not. She is seeing Venice through Santos’s eyes as he tells her why he is in the city. He is currently trading, bringing silk from the East and exchanging it for Venetian glass. He tells her he has just sailed from China, and regales her with stories of Chinese warlords and banditry.
‘But don’t you ever get tired of moving around?’ Belle asks him, fascinated. ‘Wouldn’t you like a home? A family?’
‘I have never been interested in the things that most men are interested in,’ Santos tells her. ‘I have no desire to acquire great wealth or power. For with that comes bondage. I am seeking freedom for myself and others.’ He looks at her searchingly, puts his arm around her waist and draws her to him. ‘Particularly for women,’ he says softly into her ear, and she can feel his lips brushing her neck as he speaks, sending a tremor through her body.
They walk together arm in arm across Piazza San Marco towards Canal Grande. Belle’s world begins to tilt. As if she is losing a sense of perspective, as if she is standing on a shelf jutting out into the lagoon, and all these jewel-like buildings, the Basilica and the Doge’s Palace, are a mirage on a marble raft floating on the pale green gloaming canal.
‘Can I invite you for a cup of coffee perhaps?’ Santos asks her. ‘Although maybe you would prefer a glass of rum in my local taverna.’
He is grinning at her broadly. She looks at the deep cleft in his chin, and wants to push her finger into it. Her eyes lift to his, and she notices that they have changed colour. Now they are the colour of the canal, moonstone over green jade. She maintains her composure.
‘A cup of coffee would be delightful,’ she replies formally, but she can sense the heat in her glance as she looks at him.
He brings her to Caffe Florian. She knows it is a risk. This is where her husband often meets associates to discuss business and politics. But he is asleep, she reminds herself, safely snoring his head off at home, and it is siesta time. The square is quiet. Besides, she is not Louise for now. She is Belle. And Belle is as free as a bird.
It is such a fine day that they sit outside, the campanile and basilica behind her, so that all Belle can do is focus on Santos Devine, and his startling eyes.
‘Where are you from, Belle?’ Santos asks her, stirring his tiny cup of coffee with a small silver spoon, as daintily as if he were a duke.
‘Why, I am from Venice,’ she replies. ‘I live here.’
‘Ah yes, I know that . . . but you are not born Italian.’ He puts his head on one side. ‘Your Italian is very good, so I suppose you have lived in Italy for many years, yet I can tell it is not your mother tongue.’
She looks at him curiously. No one has shown much interest in where she is from in all her years in Venice. Not even the Russian.
‘I am from Warsaw,’ she says, casting her eyes downwards and stirring her own coffee.
‘Ah, you are from the tragic kingdom of Poland,’
he exclaims.
‘It was not Poland when I was born. It was still part of the Empire.’ She takes a sip of her coffee. ‘And why so tragic?’
‘Poor Poland,’ Santos says. ‘Always stuck in the middle between two big brothers at loggerheads.’
‘You mean Russia and Germany?’
‘Indeed.’ Santos nods, taking a sip of his coffee. ‘So you and I are from very different places,’ he continues. ‘We are opposites in a way. I was born on the western edge of Europe. In my soul is the Atlantic, its big galloping waves, its freedom and abandon.’
‘And what am I, then?’
‘You are as deep as the thick soil of Poland, as secretive as her woods, and besieged on all sides. You are trapped, like Poland.’
She shakes her head, suddenly angry.
‘No, I am not!’ She smashes her cup down on her saucer, shattering it, so that what remains of her thick, dark espresso leaks on to the linen tablecloth. She brings her gloved hand to her mouth in shock. A waiter comes bustling over to clear up the mess, and she gushes apologies at him, while Santos remains silent, staring at her all the while. Despite her attraction, she wants to hate this man. He is condescending and intrusive. Yet why do you want to hate him, Belle? Louise asks. Because he is right?
Once the waiter has cleared up the mess, and replaced her coffee with a fresh one, Santos speaks.
‘I am sorry if I have offended you, Belle.’ He speaks to her in Polish. She is so surprised to hear her native tongue after all these years that she feels a lump of emotion forming in her throat.
‘Have you been to Poland?’ she asks, burning to know how he learnt to speak Polish.
‘Why, yes,’ he says, in Italian now. ‘I had the misfortune to witness the retreat of the Imperial Russian Army in 1915, and their treatment of your countrymen and your land.’
Nineteen fifteen. The year Belle’s father died. The year she got married.
