The Girl Behind the Mask by Stella Knightley Page B

of the Adriatic. I ran my fingers along the sharp edge of a box leaf. There was even a flower: a single winter rose, proud and beautiful and brave. I don’t know what possessed me in that moment, but suddenly, without thinking about the consequences – like Beauty’s father in ‘Beauty and the Beast’, always my favourite fairytale – I reached out and plucked the trembling white flower from its stem. I was immediately ashamed. Hiding it inside my cupped hand, I quickly headed for the door the old man had pointed out to me, my heart quickening from the excitement of my petty theft. Nobody stopped me of course but, just as when I first crossed the courtyard, I had the distinct impression that I was being watched.
     
    Back at the university I drafted an email to Donato, thanking him for allowing me to use his library. However, I suddenly decided that it was important to make a better impression. An email would have been easy but I had actually started our correspondence with a proper, handwritten letter and perhaps that was what had made the difference. So I got out the fountain pen that my grandfather had given me on my eighteenth birthday. My lucky pen. I hardly ever used it, not least because after years of working on keyboards, I found it difficult to write more than a few paragraphs without getting cramp. But when I wanted to make a real impression, to convey to the person receiving my words that they were truly heartfelt, I brought out the pen.
     
    Dear Mr Donato,
    I want to thank you for your kindness in allowing me to visit your library this morning. I cannot tell you how much it meant to me to be able to see Luciana Giordano’s correspondence. Reading her letters, holding them in my hands, made me feel as though Luciana and I were actually talking to one another across the centuries. How wonderful it was to read a page from her diary, so vibrant and funny. It was as though she had written it yesterday. I can’t thank you enough for that experience.
    I know it was no small matter for you to let a stranger into your house and for that reason I hesitate to beg your further indulgence, but I must tell you that Luciana’s writings are extremely important to my research and possibly to the wider academic community. If you were to see your way to allowing me access to those letters even one more time, it would make an enormous difference.
     
    Though I wrote the letter in English, I signed off with a florid Italian turn of phrase, courtesy of Bea. At five o’clock, the post-boy popped his head round the office door to see if anyone had any mail to send. I picked up my letter and almost handed it over, but then decided against it. Donato’s house was just a twenty-minute walk away, assuming I didn’t get lost. It seemed ridiculous to let the post-boy take it only for it to travel to the outskirts of town to the sorting office and perhaps spend three or four days languishing there before it reached its target.
    So I delivered the letter on my walk home that evening. Though I was starting to be able to orient myself I still managed to take a couple of wrong turns. Not that wrong turns in Venice are ever such a disaster, since they almost always turn up something beautiful or interesting. I felt I could wander the calli of Venice for a thousand years and never get bored. Eventually, however, I came to the street entrance of the palazzo – the one through which I had left at midday. There was no letterbox that I could see, so I rang the bell. It was at least five minutes before the old retainer appeared. He didn’t exactly exude warmth as I greeted him and showed him the letter.
    ‘It’s important he gets it quickly,’ I tried to explain in my faulty Italian. ‘Is he here in Venice at the moment? Because if he isn’t, then I’ll email him too. I don’t want him to think I’m not grateful for being allowed in the library this morning.’
    ‘He’s here,’ the old man said, nodding. ‘He is always