The Chamber of Ten

gaze focused as it always did upon the white facade of San Giorgio Maggiore to the east, but then, as the water taxi approached the dock at Fondamenta de la Crosa, she spotted a gondola motionless across the waterway. A man argued with the gondolier, who was talking in a never-ending stream of fast Italian, waving his arms and looking at the heavy old buildings surrounding them, while a fat woman knelt and looked down into the water. She had one sleeve rolled up and was saying, “But, my phone, my phone. It has my pictures, all my pictures. My phone!”

Their driver honked his horn and gesticulated, and the gondolier redirected his stream of invective. Domenic shouted something to their driver and pointed toward the side of the canal. Their motor roared, and the taxi drifted in that direction.

“Shortcut,” Domenic said. “I know a way.”

Geena could see no way to exit the boat into the building, but she knew better than to question Domenic. As the boat stilled again he stepped into the water. Geena looked over the side and saw the small wooden dock just below the canal surface.

“Is it safe?” she asked, but Domenic grabbed her hand and urged her over the side without answering. He paid their driver then reached up to a pair of heavy wooden shutters, fiddling with the catch and sighing audibly when they fell open.

“I once loved someone here,” he said, explaining before Geena asked. They ducked into the building, climbed some stairs, passed through two empty rooms whose uses were lost to history, then descended to exit onto a narrow alley between buildings.

Did Nico really come this way? Geena wondered. Ever since leaving the library she’d felt that she had also left Nico behind. She tried to shrug this idea away because it spoke of terrible things, but the air around her was empty of him, the sun beating down on streets no longer touched by his shadow. She sobbed once, and a fat man glanced at her with a look of disgust.

“What?” she snapped, and Domenic steered her away.

There was not enough room to run, yet they moved quickly. Perhaps it was their expressions that prompted people to step aside and let them pass, or maybe it was simply the stink rising from their clothes. As they reached the end of a narrow alley and emerged into a small square filled with trees, Geena felt some outside influence blossoming deep in her mind.

She paused and grinned, and thought, Nico! She caught a shimmer of other streets—how he saw them, not how she saw them. Venice was his home; he’d been born here, and everything was familiar.

But beneath that sensation was one of fear and pursuit, and she felt Nico’s hairs prickling on the back of her neck.

“What is it?” Domenic asked. Geena could not answer. She waved him away, trying to make sense of what she sensed and felt, and trying to discern whether it was her pursuit of Nico that troubled him so. But already the contact was gone, leaving a dark void within her, and a terrible sense of doom.

She waited for another touch, but perhaps it had been wishful thinking.

Domenic guided her through the streets, steering her through the neighborhood like only a person who had lived here all his life could. When she would have gone left onto one of the main streets, he went right and they ducked through archways and courtyards, lost in a part of that amazing city where even the ever-inquisitive tourists rarely found themselves. She let him lead, but when she realized where they were she started running, heading for her building and trying to gasp out Nico’s name. But she was too out of breath, and felt queasy from the filthy water she had swallowed.

He’ll be in the apartment, in the shower, confused at what happened and apologetic for scaring us all so much. She dug out her keys as she ran, narrowly avoiding being run down by a boy on a scooter. She burst through the main doors and hurtled upstairs to the second floor, and Domenic was still behind her when she unlocked her own door and threw it open. Nico wouldn’t have locked it behind him, she thought, and even before the emptiness of the flat became apparent she knew he was not there.

“I’ll call Ramus,” Domenic said quietly, because the people back at the library would need to know that they might be looking for a body.

Geena folded into her sofa and let the tears come, but when she shifted she started retching. Domenic was with her when she vomited, holding a towel and wiping her mouth afterward. She looked into the towel and all she could think of was that slick stuff dripping between Nico’s fingers.

“What has he done?” she asked. But Domenic shook his head, because he did not, could not, understand.

In Geena’s dream, she relived that afternoon on a continuous loop. They arrived, Domenic made some food, she ate even though she thought she could not, and then he fetched a bottle of wine from the kitchen. Pouring, she knew she could not drink. Drinking, she knew she could never sleep. And finally falling asleep, she would find herself arriving at the flat’s front door again, realizing its emptiness and knowing she could never eat, drink, or sleep until they had found Nico, one way or another. The dream was disturbing partly because it was so normal, and partly because she knew she was dreaming. Her life would be stuck in a loop until Nico was found, and her subconscious stated that most obviously whilst asleep. Each time she reached the drinking part and Domenic reached for the phone, her hopes would rise… but then she’d see his face when he answered, and recognize her friends’ concern when he turned away to tell them how she was. I’m not good, she thought, downing another glass of wine and knowing she would never sleep.

I know I’m dreaming yet still I hope, and how cruel is that? She finished the bottle of wine and Domenic helped her into her bed, her body showered clean and filthy clothes replaced with a loose shirt and pair of sweatpants, and she fell asleep again, waiting for her arrival at the flat’s front door with hope once more burning bright.

This time the door did not open. Darkness flooded her mind, and when she opened her eyes she saw the vague outline of the bedroom windows, curtains shifting slightly beneath the sea breeze.

“This is different,” she whispered, and then she knew she was no longer dreaming. She sat up and breathed in deeply, ran a hand across her chest and felt the buttons of the clean shirt she’d put on. Nico’s shirt. He liked seeing her dressed like this.

Then she turned and saw Nico’s body lying on her bed.

Geena screamed. She couldn’t help it, even when Nico sat upright and reached for her, muttering calming noises, tears glittering on his cheeks. She screamed because her dreams had convinced her there was no hope and that nothing changed, and here she was with Nico lying beside her as he had so many times before.

Domenic rushed into the room and snapped on the light, silver hair in disarray and eyes squinting from sleep.

“Nico!” he shouted, and the joy in his voice drove away the last of Geena’s fear. She fell sideways with her arms out, and because Nico had already been coming for her they propped each other up, hugging and crying.

“I thought you were dead,” she said with her face pressed into his neck. She felt his pulse against her cheek and that made her cry even harder. He stank, and she breathed in the stink because even below that she could smell his familiar scent.

“I thought I was lost,” he said, sobbing into her neck.

“Nico, you crazy bastard!” Domenic said. He joined them on the bed and hugged them both, and Geena took so much comfort from the contact that she did not allow either man to let her go for some time.

“Tell me this isn’t a dream,” she said at last.

“Which part?” Domenic gushed. “Petrarch’s library, almost drowning, or nearly losing this idiot?”

He laughed out loud, and beneath his laughter Geena heard her love whisper, “I can’t tell you it’s no dream.”

She was too relieved for it to register. Later, she’d have cause to think back to that moment, go over what he had said again and again, and she would realize that Nico had lost the ability to discern the difference between reality and nightmare. I thought I was lost … I can’t tell you it’s no dream.

But right then all that mattered was the rising sun, the City of Bridges welcoming in another day, and that they were alive.