JESSICA STRIDES BRISKLY through the gate and toward the dock. She has noticed the masses of dark clouds approaching from the south and shoves her camera in her shoulder bag as she walks. She sees the vaporetto splitting the waves in the distance, forming white crests off Murano, and slows her footsteps. The warm breeze sets her hair dancing in her eyes. She brushes it away and simultaneously feels her stomach drop curiously. A man is standing under the shelter at the vaporetto stop. Alone. The beautiful profile she had already banished from her mind is there before her once again. A titillating anticipation and excitement wash over her. She is not the type to fall for anyone easily, but there’s something compelling about this man, perhaps a sensitivity born of sorrow.
The man turns and for the first time reveals the square jaw and the brown eyes, bloodshot from crying. They are precisely as sympathetic and melancholy as Jessica imagined.
“Buona sera,” he says after looking at Jessica for a moment, then wipes his eyes as if to make sure he hasn’t left any tears on his face. The voice is surprisingly youthful but pleasantly low.
Jessica answers his greeting with a cautious smile and steps under the shelter. The man turns back to the sea, hands on his waist. For a moment they stand there near each other without saying a word. Jessica is ashamed that she has come to the cemetery out of sheer curiosity, to find something to paste in her photo album, while this man has come to visit a person he once loved and lost. Luckily she put the camera away, she thinks and, out of the corner of her eye, spies the ring on the man’s left ring finger.
The vaporetto on the horizon is making its approach to San Michele. The man turns back to Jessica. “Sta per piovere,” he says with a slight smile. It looks like rain. There’s an empathy in the way he looks at her, as if they are in the same boat. A moment later they will be, literally. Jessica adjusts her shoulder bag.
“Sì, purtroppo,” she replies, and knows her accent has given her away. Jessica’s southern European style and dark features, black hair, and bright green eyes could easily be those of a local. And while the love of the language she developed in high school has made her Italian fluent, it is by no means flawless. The man looks momentarily taken aback before nodding, and this time the gaze does not turn back to the sea. He eyes her from head to toe as if searching for the answers to questions he hasn’t asked yet. But the cautious assessment conducted by the sad eyes doesn’t feel intrusive to Jessica. Instead, she feels like she has been noticed.
“This is a beautiful place,” Jessica continues in Italian to break the silence.
The man nods again and rakes back his hair with both hands. Sinews and thick veins bulge against the browned backs of his hands. His biceps tense against the fabric of the white T-shirt; as the sleeves hike up, more ink etched into skin is revealed.
“It is,” he answers, lowering his gaze to the tips of his shoes. The ball is in his court; it’s the only way the encounter will continue naturally. But the man doesn’t say anything. His face is still marked by grief, and he appears to have to wrestle with it, over and over again.
During the silence, Jessica watches the vaporetto come in; its arrival is both irritating and liberating. The captain puts it into reverse to slow the vessel, and the rumble of the engine buries the next clap of thunder. The sides of the vaporetto bump against the pier as the vessel clumsily docks. The boat hand, a young woman in a turquoise polo shirt, lassos a rope to the piling and tugs the water-bus up to the dock. Benvenuto. The idling vessel’s engines burble like a pot of porridge; the heavy reek of diesel fills the air.
The man’s fingertips have stealthily crept up to Jessica’s shoulder and now they gently nudge her onto the deck of the vaporetto.
“After you,” he says in English. And as she steps onto the boat, Jessica feels butterflies in her stomach, the Virgin Mary’s white knuckles on her skin, and the electrified air all around them.