THE VAPORETTO IS almost empty, and as the man seats himself, he leaves the aisle between him and Jessica. Sitting side by side would have felt awkward. “Colombano,” he blurts out, then wipes a bead of sweat from his temple.
“Excuse me?”
“That is my name.” He extends a hand.
Jessica glances at the cracked skin on the knuckles, the letters tattooed on them. She accepts his large hand and pronounces her name the English way, the way she learned to say it when she was little.
“Zesika. That is a beautiful name.”
“Thank you.”
“Is this your first time in Venice?”
Jessica nods and turns her gaze from the window to the sea. For some reason Colombano’s presence is making her shy. His entire demeanor is wholly unlike that of the insecure, overgrown adolescents she usually meets on summer nights on the terrace at Kaivohuone.
There they sit, two adults, still strangers, one of whom appears impossibly more mature than the other. And is. Colombano must be ten years older than she is, maybe more.
Colombano breaks the silence. “Are you traveling alone?”
“No,” Jessica says, and the lie gives her goose bumps. “My friends are back in Murano. They were too tired . . .”
“To go to a cemetery with you? You young people sure are strange these days.” Colombano flashes a dazzling smile, and Jessica instantly regrets not telling the truth. Then she sees an emptiness creep into his face, not because of Jessica’s answer, surely, but because the roller coaster of his emotions has plunged him back into a dark tunnel.
Who are you mourning, Colombano? Jessica thinks as the spray from the open window splashes against her face. She unzips her shoulder bag, pulls out her pocket-sized city guide, and turns through the pages to give Colombano space to collect his thoughts.
When she stepped out of her hotel in Murano an hour earlier, she had been planning to see all the main sights: the Doge’s Palace and the Basilica San Marco, as well as the Canal Grande and the Rialto Bridge crossing it. But the spontaneous visit to San Michele has thrown her plans into chaos.
Eventually Jessica can tell from the way her bench is shaking that the captain is easing off the gas. She closes her guidebook and puts it back in her bag.
“Your stop?” Colombano asks.
“Yes. I guess,” Jessica says, then bites her lip.
“You guess?”
“I mean . . . I don’t know the city that well. . . .”
“I understand. I know it extremely well, and still I am not sure.”
“About what?”
“If this is my stop.” Colombano laughs and sighs deeply.
“Well,” Jessica says. The soles of her feet are tingling. She slips her bag over her shoulder and stands: “Is it?”
It’s hard to say what’s happening. The question sounded like an attempt at flirtation, even though she didn’t mean it to. Or did she? Jessica hopes that the heat suddenly spreading across her face hasn’t turned her cheeks red.
“No,” Colombano finally says, almost coldly. “I am going to continue.”
Jessica feels her throat constrict. It feels as if someone just pulled the rug out from under her feet. She looks at Colombano, not sure how to bring the conversation to an end. The dock appears outside the windows. The engine rumbles again, and the vaporetto lurches as it thuds against the pier.
“Arrivederci, allora,” Jessica says with a smile, and turns toward the stairs leading up to the deck. What was she thinking? The man is either married or just barely widowed. What the hell is she . . .
“Zesika?”
She hears the voice behind her and stops. Colombano has followed her, and when she turns around, Jessica catches a whiff of strong aftershave.
“I don’t know if maybe you and your friends like classical music.” Colombano hands her a flyer. “Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. I am performing tonight.”
Jessica looks at the flyer in surprise. A picture of a string quintet. In the middle stands a handsome man, a violin resting in his powerful arms. “I . . . I’ll ask my friends.”
“I can arrange two free tickets. The others have to pay.”
“Thank you.” Jessica smiles and folds the flyer twice. Then she spins on her heels and steps ashore. The air is humid, oppressively so, and the fabric of her T-shirt is clinging to her perspiring back.
Even so, she feels lighter than she has in ages.