“Do you want to go to the piazza, signorina?”

“No.” She shook her head slowly. Not to the piazza. She had finished what she had to do in Venice. Three hours after she'd got there, it was time to move on. “No, grazie. Not the piazza. Take me back to Santa Lucia.”

They glided slowly under the Ponte dei Sospiri, the Bridge of Sighs, and she closed her eyes. Almost instinctively, the gondolier began to sing; it was a sad, plaintive song, and he sang it well. A moment later they were back in the bright sunshine and the song went on as they rounded the bend of the Grand Canal and passed in front of the splendor of the Piazza San Marco, the Campanile, the Doges' Palace, and back down the canal, past all the miracles of Venice. But this time Serena did not cry. She watched all of it, as though drinking it in this one last time so that she could remember, as though she knew that she would never come back again.

When they reached the station, she paid him, including a handsome tip, for which he thanked her profusely, and his eyes sought hers.

“Where are you going now, signorina?”

“To Rome.”

He nodded slowly. “You haven't been back since the war?” She shook her head. “You will find it very different.” But it couldn't be any more different from what she had found here. For her everything was changed, everywhere. “You have relatives in Roma?”

“No … I … all I had was my grandmother. Here.”

“That was her house this morning?” Serena nodded and he shook his head.

“I'm sorry.”

“So am I.” She smiled softly at him then and reached out to shake his hand. He took her delicate white hand in his rough brown one, and then patted her on the shoulder as he helped her out and handed her her bag.

“Come back to Venice, signorina.” He smiled at her, and she promised that she would, and then solemnly picked up her little suitcase and began to walk back in the direction of the train.





3

She was lost in another world, as they rolled along on the edge of the city, and suddenly she felt a longing well up in her that she had not allowed herself to feel in years. It was a longing for familiar places, an ache for her parents, a hunger to come home. She could barely wait for the train to stop in the station. As it lurched the last few feet forward she stood up and pulled her suitcase out of the overhead rack, and then with rapid strides she threaded her way to the end of the car and waited, like a horse anxious to return to its stable. The moment the train stopped and the doors opened, she leaped down and began to run. It was like a wild, instinctive gesture, this mad pounding of the pavement, as she ran past women and children and soldiers, heedless of everything except this wild, mingled feeling. She wanted to shout “Here I am everybody! I'm home!” But beneath the excitement was still the tremor … of what she would find here in Rome … and of the terrible memories of her parents' last day alive. Her emotions were wild—was coming here a betrayal? Was there reason to be scared?—oh, God, she was glad to be home. She had had to see it. Just once more. Or had she come in search of her uncle? Of an explanation? Of apologies or solace … ?