The Collected Stories

‘Very sensible,’ said Mr Unwill.

Another plate of gnocchi replaced the cold one at the French table. The American woman told her daughter that on her wedding day in Nevada she had thrown a cushion out of a window because she’d felt joyful. ‘I guess your momma’d been drinking,’ the father said, laughing very noisily. The Italian couple talked about the Feast of St Martin.

There had been only one love-making weekend since she’d moved back to the family house: she’d told her father some lie, not caring if he guessed.

‘It’s an interesting thing,’ he was saying to her now, ‘this St Martin business. They have a week of it, you know. Old people and children get gifts. Have you seen the confections in the shop windows? San Martino on horseback?’

‘Yes, I’ve noticed them.’ Made of biscuit, she had presumed, sometimes chocolate-coated, sometimes not, icing decorated with sweets.

‘And cotognata,’ he went on. ‘Have you seen the cotognata? Centuries old, that St Martin’s sweetmeat is, far nicer than Turkish delight.’

She smiled, and nodded. She’d noticed the cotognata also. She often wondered how he came by his information, and guessed he was for ever dropping into conversation with strangers in the hope that they spoke English.

‘The first ghetto was in Venice,’ he said. ‘Did you know that? It’s an Italian word, called after the place where the Jewish settlement was.’

‘No, I didn’t know that.’

‘Well, there you are. Something every day.’

The bearded waiter cleared their plates away and brought them each a bowl of fruit.

‘I thought we might wander down the Zattere after dinner,’ her father suggested, ‘and take a glass of mandarinetto and perhaps a slice of cake. Feel up to that, old girl?’

If she didn’t accompany him he’d bother the German girls. She said a glass of mandarinetto would be nice.

‘They’re painting the Allemagna Express. Fine-looking vessel.’

In her bedroom she tied a different scarf around her neck, and put her coat on because the nights were cold. When she returned to the hall her father was not there and when he did appear he came from the dining-room not from upstairs. ‘I told them we were going for a drink,’ he said. ‘They’ll join us in a moment. You all right, old girl?’

He was smoking a cigarette and, like her, he had gone to his room for his overcoat. On the Zattere he put his hat on at a jaunty angle. There was a smell of creosote because they’d been repainting the rafts that afternoon. Sheets of newspaper were suspended from strings that were looped along the quayside to draw attention to the newly treated timbers. A terrier settled down for the night among the rubble on a builder’s barge. Cats crept about. It was extraordinary, she suddenly thought, that just because she’d given up her flat she should find herself in Venice with this old man.

‘Nice here, eh?’ he said in the cafe, surveying the amber-coloured cloths on the tables, the busyness behind the bar. He took his hat and overcoat off, and sat down. He stubbed his cigarette out and lit a fresh one. ‘Mandarinetto,’ he said to the waiter who came up. ‘Due.’

‘Si, signore. Subito.’

She lit a cigarette herself, caressing her lighter with her fingers, then feeling angry and ashamed that she had done so.

‘Ah, here they are!’ Her father was on his feet, exclaiming like a schoolboy, waving his hat at the German girls. He shouted after the waiter, ordering two more mandarinettos. ‘I really recommend it here,’ he informed the German girls, flashing his tobacco-stained smile about and offering them cigarettes. He went on talking, telling them about the Allemagna Express. He mentioned the Stazione Marittima and asked them if they had noticed the biscuit horsemen and the cotognata. ‘By the weekend the Votive Bridge will be complete,’ he said. ‘A temporary timber bridge, you know, erected as a token of thanksgiving. Every year, for three days, Venetians celebrate the passing of the Plague by making a pilgrimage across it, their children waving balloons about. Then it’s taken down again.’

Verity smiled at the fatter German, who was receiving less attention than her friend. And a bridge of boats, her father continued, was temporarily established every summer. ‘Again to give thanks. Another tradition since the Plague.’

The Americans who had been in the pensione came in and sat not far away. They ordered ice-creams, taking a long time about it, questioning the waiter in English as to whether they would come with added cream.

‘Oh, I remember Venice forty years ago,’ Mr Unwill said. ‘Of course, it’s greatly changed. The Yugoslavs come now, you know, in busloads.’ He issued a polite little laugh. ‘Not to mention the natives of your own fair land.’

‘Too many, I think,’ the prettier girl responded, grimacing.

‘Ah, ja, too many,’ agreed her companion.

‘No, no, no. You Germans travel well, I always say. Besides, to the Venetian a tourist’s a tourist, and tourists mean money. The trouble with the Yugoslavs, they apparently won’t be parted from it.’

It wasn’t usually his opinion that Germans travelled well; rather the opposite. He told the girls that at one time the Venetians had been capable of building a warship in a day. He explained about ghettoes, and said that in Venice it was the cats who feared the pigeons. He laughed in his genial way. He said:

‘That was a very clever remark you made last night, Ingrid. About waiters.’

‘It was Brigitta who said it first, I think.’

‘Oh, was it? Well, it’s quite amusing anyway. Now, what we really want to know is how long you’re staying at