over. She pulled up a seat between me and Francesca and kissed her cheek.
We were introduced all around.
“But, of course, I know him ,” she said, waving dismissively at her brother.
Francesca said to me, “I told her about the missing bassoon…”
I smiled to show it would be best not to get into that discussion immediately, and asked Roberta where she’d studied.
At the Conservatory of Music, she told me. “Along with Marco. But now I work in a music shop, and he is an errand boy for my father.”
She seemed to be deliberately taunting him. He said something in dialect I couldn’t quite catch, and she answered him just as rapidly with a rude gesture in the direction of Andrew, who had an arm draped over the back of Marco’s chair.
Marco jumped up. Roberta jumped up. Francesca looked proud but alarmed, Andrew confused, Bitten preoccupied. Only Albert thought to intervene. Holding out a black-gloved hand like a policeman, he blew on an imaginary whistle. He followed this by a short, graceful speech in Italian about there being a time and a place for everything.
Roberta turned her back on us and walked up to her place by the piano, and Marco sat down dejected, but not before I’d had a chance to see the expression of fury distorting his handsome face. He rather violently pushed away Andrew’s consoling hand on his shoulder.
Our drinks arrived, and Andrew insisted on paying. “We’re in Venice,” he said, with an imploring look at Marco. “On a beautiful night.”
That probably made about as much sense to Marco as it would saying to someone from Winnipeg, “We’re in Winnipeg, let’s enjoy ourselves!”
But it was a gorgeous night, and the piazza was magic, and Roberta wasn’t glaring at me as I edged my chair slightly closer to Francesca’s; she was launching into something wild that had more klezmer in it than Benny Goodman.
Bitten said, “Do you hear a siren?”
A police boat was speeding across the water in the direction of the Pietà.
Six
I DIDN’T SEE Anna de Hoog at first. She was surrounded by Italian police, gondoliers and porters from the Danieli Hotel. But the big, blond body that had been dragged from the canal was clearly recognizable. We didn’t need Bitten’s scream to tell us it was Gunther.
The narrow canal that runs by the hotel is one of the busier waterways in Venice. In addition to gondolas, private cruisers and barges loaded with goods, water taxis were constantly arriving and departing from the small dock next to the hotel. From where we stood, on the stone bridge over the canal, the dock was inaccessible. You would have to go through the hotel to get to it, which Bitten did. The rest of us remained on the bridge.
Andrew looked pale. He leaned over the bridge and was sick over the side. Marco patted his shoulder distractedly and went over to the group down on the short strip of quay opposite the hotel, a group I could now see included Signore Sandretti. Across the canal, on the hotel’s landing dock, the unremarkable Anna, still in her formal black dress, was in the center, apparently explaining who Gunther was. Bitten knocked her aside in her haste to get at the corpse of her lover.
Francesca and Roberta came racing up to me on the bridge and gasped when they saw Gunther’s body laid out on the dock.
“Who is he?”
“The German bassoonist,” I said. “I wonder if it was the oboist, Anna de Hoog, who discovered him.”
Signore Sandretti glanced up and noticed us standing on the bridge above. A look of distaste, even rage, crossed his face when he saw his daughter with Francesca. It reminded me of Marco’s expression just a short while earlier, when handsome turned to horrifying for a split second. Roberta returned his glare with vigor, but I felt Francesca tremble slightly beside me.
It soon became obvious that we could do nothing. Marco returned from a conversation with the police and said we should all go home; the inspector would let us know in the
We were introduced all around.
“But, of course, I know him ,” she said, waving dismissively at her brother.
Francesca said to me, “I told her about the missing bassoon…”
I smiled to show it would be best not to get into that discussion immediately, and asked Roberta where she’d studied.
At the Conservatory of Music, she told me. “Along with Marco. But now I work in a music shop, and he is an errand boy for my father.”
She seemed to be deliberately taunting him. He said something in dialect I couldn’t quite catch, and she answered him just as rapidly with a rude gesture in the direction of Andrew, who had an arm draped over the back of Marco’s chair.
Marco jumped up. Roberta jumped up. Francesca looked proud but alarmed, Andrew confused, Bitten preoccupied. Only Albert thought to intervene. Holding out a black-gloved hand like a policeman, he blew on an imaginary whistle. He followed this by a short, graceful speech in Italian about there being a time and a place for everything.
Roberta turned her back on us and walked up to her place by the piano, and Marco sat down dejected, but not before I’d had a chance to see the expression of fury distorting his handsome face. He rather violently pushed away Andrew’s consoling hand on his shoulder.
Our drinks arrived, and Andrew insisted on paying. “We’re in Venice,” he said, with an imploring look at Marco. “On a beautiful night.”
That probably made about as much sense to Marco as it would saying to someone from Winnipeg, “We’re in Winnipeg, let’s enjoy ourselves!”
But it was a gorgeous night, and the piazza was magic, and Roberta wasn’t glaring at me as I edged my chair slightly closer to Francesca’s; she was launching into something wild that had more klezmer in it than Benny Goodman.
Bitten said, “Do you hear a siren?”
A police boat was speeding across the water in the direction of the Pietà.
Six
I DIDN’T SEE Anna de Hoog at first. She was surrounded by Italian police, gondoliers and porters from the Danieli Hotel. But the big, blond body that had been dragged from the canal was clearly recognizable. We didn’t need Bitten’s scream to tell us it was Gunther.
The narrow canal that runs by the hotel is one of the busier waterways in Venice. In addition to gondolas, private cruisers and barges loaded with goods, water taxis were constantly arriving and departing from the small dock next to the hotel. From where we stood, on the stone bridge over the canal, the dock was inaccessible. You would have to go through the hotel to get to it, which Bitten did. The rest of us remained on the bridge.
Andrew looked pale. He leaned over the bridge and was sick over the side. Marco patted his shoulder distractedly and went over to the group down on the short strip of quay opposite the hotel, a group I could now see included Signore Sandretti. Across the canal, on the hotel’s landing dock, the unremarkable Anna, still in her formal black dress, was in the center, apparently explaining who Gunther was. Bitten knocked her aside in her haste to get at the corpse of her lover.
Francesca and Roberta came racing up to me on the bridge and gasped when they saw Gunther’s body laid out on the dock.
“Who is he?”
“The German bassoonist,” I said. “I wonder if it was the oboist, Anna de Hoog, who discovered him.”
Signore Sandretti glanced up and noticed us standing on the bridge above. A look of distaste, even rage, crossed his face when he saw his daughter with Francesca. It reminded me of Marco’s expression just a short while earlier, when handsome turned to horrifying for a split second. Roberta returned his glare with vigor, but I felt Francesca tremble slightly beside me.
It soon became obvious that we could do nothing. Marco returned from a conversation with the police and said we should all go home; the inspector would let us know in the
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