My mother was back in the room, carrying a brown envelope. Of sentimental value.
“So, another meeting.” Father Luca was leaning over the table to pick up a biscotti. “A very different occasion,” he said sadly, looking at it as if he were referring to the food.
“Yes, very different. A beautiful service, though.”
He nodded. “Father Prato,” he said, “always excellent.” A professional appraisal. He bowed to Claudia, who acknowledged it, then glanced away, uncomfortable.
“He will be buried tomorrow?” I said, making conversation. “In the country, not at San Michele?”
“Yes, of course, the country. All the Magliones are buried there.”
“I didn’t realize he had a house there.”
He looked at me, stupefied, as if this were too absurd to answer. “Yes,” he said finally, “they always preferred it there. Not Gianni, he loved Venice, but the others.” He waved his hand. “Always this love of land. Well, you can see how lucky it was for them. Poor Venice. The trade declines, what do the families do? Buy more ships. But the Magliones? Land. And now the other families are gone. How many of these are left?” he said, indicating the palazzo. “In the family? Not a hotel. Not a museum. Still Ca’ Maglione. It’s because they bought land. It’s an irony, yes? A house in the water, still here, all because of land.”
“How much do they own?”
He looked at me again. “You mean exactly? I don’t know. These are private matters, family matters-”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. Just in general. It’s a farm?”
“A farm? But Signor Miller, the Magliones are the largest landowners in the Veneto. Surely you knew that.”
“No,” I said, disconcerted.
“Yes, from the Brenta-” He started spreading his arms, then stopped. “Well, considerable property. Of course, Giulia, the first wife, also had property. Near Ferrara.” He paused. “His first-his wife, I should say. Now she will be the only one.” He placed his hand on my arm. “I am so sorry for your loss.”
I looked at him, then nodded, a silent thank-you. “I wish I’d known him better.” Something to say.
Surprisingly, this seemed to move him. He gripped my arm tighter. “Your mother. She’s-?”
“It’s hard for her.”
Father Luca shook his head in sympathy. “To lose a man like that. And think of the family. Always taking care of everybody. Paolo, everybody. Even as a child you could see it-the head of the family.”
“But I thought Paolo was older.”
“Yes, but Gianni was the head. Even then. Boys. Well, we were all boys. And now? A tragedy, a tragedy. So much evil in the world now.”
“More than before?” Bertie said, coming up behind him. “I wonder. Luca, I have to drag you away. Hello, Claudia,” he said, his voice cooler. “What a surprise.” He met her eye for a second, then backed away, turning to me instead. “I promised Luca a proper lunch. You must be famished,” he said to him, glancing at the table. “She’s the mother’s daughter, isn’t she?” He sighed. “Be lovely to pay a little attention to the living.”
“But this is traditional.”
“Oh, I’m sure it’s perfect. Just right. The mother was like that too. And you never had a decent meal in her house.”
“Signor Howard,” the priest said.
“Oh, I know. Very bad of me. Anyway, come to lunch. Adam, you ought to get Grace home. It’s a strain, a thing like this.”
“She seems all right.”
“Mm. It’s all this holding herself together I don’t like. Much better to collapse with a good weep and get it over with. Much better in the end.”
Father Luca took my hand. “If you ever want to talk, I knew him very well.”
Bertie threw me a “What are you up to” look, then turned to the room. “Aren’t people extraordinary?” I followed his gaze to the crowd in suits and black dresses, idly talking, sipping coffee. “You’d think he’d had a heart attack.”
It was Giulia finally who found us, smoking out on the balcony, pretending there was more sun than there was. “You’re Adam,” she said simply, extending a hand. I introduced Claudia, who moved back against the railing, suddenly skittish, but Giulia nodded graciously. There was no sign of recognition, the engagement party scene apparently not known to her. Another relief, something already fading, no longer gossiped about.
“I saw you looking at me before,” she said.
“I’m sorry. It’s just, you look so like your father.”
“You think so? Most people think my mother.”
“Well, I never knew her.”
“No,” she said, suddenly embarrassed. “Well, the eyes maybe. Everyone says that.”
But her eyes had none of Gianni’s sharpness. They were soft, almost hazy, as if she had just taken off glasses and were trying to focus. “You went to San Michele,” she said, her voice flat, so that for a second I wondered if she resented it, felt it was an intrusion.
“The police asked me.”
“Yes,” she said quickly. “I am so grateful. To see him like that-” She stopped herself. “I gave your mother some pictures. From his youth. They knew each other then, before-before the others.”
“Yes.”
“So it’s a romantic story. I didn’t know.”
“He never told you?”
She looked down. “We didn’t talk about it, no. Well, maybe he tried.” She lifted her head, clear-eyed, no longer soft or unfocused. “You know, it’s not easy to say this. I disagreed with him about this marriage. I thought he was bewitched.”
I smiled to myself. A word never used in conversation. Despite the perfect English, foreign after all.
“But now, I meet her and I see I was wrong. Not the fortune hunter. An affair of the heart.”
“Fortune hunter?” I said, thrown by the unexpectedness of it.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know how to say it. You know, with my father there was always that danger, so it was natural-” She paused. “A mistake. I apologize to you.”
“No, I just meant-” But what did I mean? That she would appreciate the irony? That it was the other way around? I put out my cigarette, stalling. “I wish we’d met earlier.”
“Yes, I apologize for that too. Of course I had examinations, but that was an excuse, really. Anyway, I didn’t come. So that was the last thing he said to me. ‘Good luck with the examinations.’ ” She looked out at the canal, where a vaporetto was passing, catching the faint sun on its white roof.
“You’re going to be a lawyer?” I said, bringing her back to somewhere neutral.
She smiled. “In Italy? A woman? No. They let me study-well, because of my father. But in the courtroom? They wouldn’t like that so much.” This to Claudia, who gave a thin smile back.
“So what will you do?”
“Oh, it was to work with my father. Like a son, you know? He used to say that to me, ‘You’re my son.’ So it’s a good thing to know, law, to run the businesses. My father used to trust everybody, and of course they cheated him. So now his son is there, a lawyer, they don’t cheat so easily.” Not soft. Gianni telling me exactly what would happen at the trial he’d never have. She stopped, smiling shyly. “I’m sorry, it’s boring to talk about this.”
“No,” I said automatically. Businesses, not just land.
“We should go in. It’s getting cold,” Claudia said, folding her arms across her chest and starting for the door.
Giulia glanced into the room, still filled with people. “Yes, they can’t go until they tell me how sorry they are. It’s the form. Over and over, how sorry.”
“Who was the woman with you in church?”
“My grandmother.”
“Gianni’s mother?” I said, a nervous twinge in my stomach. A child killed-nothing was worse. Not just killed.
“No, my mother’s. She’s the only one left now.”
I opened my hand to indicate “After you,” expecting her to follow Claudia through the door, but she
