intimately, seemed to rise lightly up to meet his touch, revealing to him its true identity. Towards the end of each week Luca would pitch up, set a couple of sacks of mixed sawdust down in the bottom of his boat, and chug the short distance up San Trovaso to Casa Luca, the floor of which would subsequently boast the most upmarket sawdust in all the downmarket restaurants in Venice. After a few weeks, Antonio decided his apprentice could be permitted to touch the virgin wood, lifting it off the delivery barge with the nervous anticipation of a husband carrying his new bride across the threshold, stacking it in long racks and piles against the walls of the cavernous shed. In quieter moments, Aldo tried out the lathes, planes, chisels and saws that hung in orderly rows along the tar-stained wooden walls, cutting and scraping the scraps and offcuts that were kept in a pile by the quay. Soon he was allowed to repair small faults on the older gondolas, worn-out ladies of the canals who were brought into dry dock for new coats of black paint in a vain attempt to make them beautiful again. Finally, just a month before, with no explanation other than a grunt and a wink, Antonio had taken Aldo out in one of the older craft. They had been drifting in and out of side-canals for the best part of an hour when Antonio beckoned Aldo back towards the stern.
âCome on, then, letâs see how you get on.â
Aldo clambered up from the bench in the middle of the boat and stumbled around on the rear platform, wielding the long oar to little effect, sending the boat around in slow circles as he maintained his precarious position upon the slippery deck. Since that first nervous attempt, Aldo had been out in the gondolas regularly and now considered himself sufficiently competent to risk an attempt at waterborne seduction. Of course, Antonio had not the slightest idea of Aldoâs plans. When he had noticed before locking up for the night that the spare key to the yard was missing from its usual place, he neverimagined that Aldo could have had the nerve to hatch such a plot. He was a spirited and determined youth, but he would certainly know the consequences of such an escapade if it ever came to Antonioâs attention. And very little that happened in and around the boatyard ever went unnoticed by those steel-grey eyes, hard as the Dolomite hills in which their owner had been raised.
But Aldo wasnât thinking of Antonio now, he was thinking of Isabella. He crossed the little hump-backed bridge, next to Casa Luca, that led over the canal and past the church of San Trovaso. Just across the square from the church lay the boatyard. The mist had come down again in rapidly thickening drapes, stilling the night to silence. A solitary sound came to Aldo through the fog â a door slamming some way off in the night â and the square lay deserted but for figures that formed, morphed and disappeared as the denser patches of mist alternately communed and dispersed. The church bell sounded out, muffled by the fog. He could hear footsteps somewhere behind him, fading across the bridge on the other side of the square. He thought of Isabella waiting for him out there in the darkness and he took the key, turned the handle, and shoved the door of the boatyard open. Inside, all was quiet, the only living thing the tree that stood in the corner furthest from the canal, dripping autumn damp from black branches. The wooden buildings away to the left, fashioned in the alpine style with balconies running their full length, lay in darkness. Aldo knew which gondola he would take, one of the older ones that would forgive his amateurish technique. He swiftly found the boat in the darkness, lying on her side at the end of the row of upturned craft that lined the slipway. He struggled to right her, then dragged the heavy vessel to the lip of the canal, the gentle waves slapping her belly as he took an oar, and a couple of cushions for the bench, and
âCome on, then, letâs see how you get on.â
Aldo clambered up from the bench in the middle of the boat and stumbled around on the rear platform, wielding the long oar to little effect, sending the boat around in slow circles as he maintained his precarious position upon the slippery deck. Since that first nervous attempt, Aldo had been out in the gondolas regularly and now considered himself sufficiently competent to risk an attempt at waterborne seduction. Of course, Antonio had not the slightest idea of Aldoâs plans. When he had noticed before locking up for the night that the spare key to the yard was missing from its usual place, he neverimagined that Aldo could have had the nerve to hatch such a plot. He was a spirited and determined youth, but he would certainly know the consequences of such an escapade if it ever came to Antonioâs attention. And very little that happened in and around the boatyard ever went unnoticed by those steel-grey eyes, hard as the Dolomite hills in which their owner had been raised.
But Aldo wasnât thinking of Antonio now, he was thinking of Isabella. He crossed the little hump-backed bridge, next to Casa Luca, that led over the canal and past the church of San Trovaso. Just across the square from the church lay the boatyard. The mist had come down again in rapidly thickening drapes, stilling the night to silence. A solitary sound came to Aldo through the fog â a door slamming some way off in the night â and the square lay deserted but for figures that formed, morphed and disappeared as the denser patches of mist alternately communed and dispersed. The church bell sounded out, muffled by the fog. He could hear footsteps somewhere behind him, fading across the bridge on the other side of the square. He thought of Isabella waiting for him out there in the darkness and he took the key, turned the handle, and shoved the door of the boatyard open. Inside, all was quiet, the only living thing the tree that stood in the corner furthest from the canal, dripping autumn damp from black branches. The wooden buildings away to the left, fashioned in the alpine style with balconies running their full length, lay in darkness. Aldo knew which gondola he would take, one of the older ones that would forgive his amateurish technique. He swiftly found the boat in the darkness, lying on her side at the end of the row of upturned craft that lined the slipway. He struggled to right her, then dragged the heavy vessel to the lip of the canal, the gentle waves slapping her belly as he took an oar, and a couple of cushions for the bench, and
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