“This much?” I pinched in some fabric at the back. “We can pin it. You’ll look wonderful.”

“Oh, wonderful,” she said, flouncing out her damp hair. “Everyone will see it’s old.”

“They’ll still be looking at you. That’s all we want.”

“Look at all this. Powder, everything. How can she have so much?”

I left her at the mirror, patting her face, and went to dress, hurrying, even managing my tie in a few minutes. Then I headed downstairs to check the water entrance, running a flashlight along the edge of the tarp. There were a few dark splotches of dampness on the stone floor, possibly from our dripping clothes, but nothing that looked like blood. One more check tomorrow in the daylight. What else? The ashtray in the hall. Not even a trace. When I got back to my mother’s room, Claudia was still at the dressing table, putting her hair up.

“We have to hurry.”

“There’s nothing else I can do with it,” she said, ignoring me. “This way it doesn’t matter if it’s wet.”

I saw the white back of her neck, like a girl’s, then looked into the mirror as she blotted her lipstick. The room was warm now, close with the smell of perfume and powder.

“You look beautiful.”

She met my eyes in the mirror, then looked down, suddenly upset.

“I can’t do this. All the time thinking—” She stopped, then reached for another tissue and raised her head to look at me again. “Where are the pins?”

It needed only two, which I covered in the back with the sash. The shoes were more difficult—we had to stuff wadded tissue into the toes to make them fit.

“So,” Claudia said, standing in front of the mirror, smoothing the skirt. “It’s okay?”

“Almost.”

I went into my mother’s closet and pulled out the false panel in the glove drawer that hid her jewel case. You had to lift the top tray of rings out to get to the bigger pieces. I took out a necklace.

“I can’t wear—”

“She’s not wearing it,” I said, fastening it behind her neck. “She won’t mind.”

She fingered the stones, just gazing into the mirror for a minute.

“My god. Are they rubies?”

“I don’t know. Garnets, maybe. Anyway, they suit you. Your coloring. Ready?”

But she stood there, still looking, then made a wry grimace. “All my life I wanted to go to those parties. In one of the palazzos. With jewels. And now—like this.”

Mimi’s ground-floor layout was similar to ours; a long hall stretching from the Grand Canal to a calle, flanked by old offices and storerooms converted tonight into cloakrooms and little parlors. As I’d expected, there was a crush at the water entrance, a swarm of flashbulbs and dripping umbrellas and harried maids running back and forth. Most of the maids were new, borrowed from friends or hired for the evening, and none of them recognized me. We were just part of the crowd in evening dress streaming in from all directions, handing over wet coats, adjusting hair in powder rooms, stamping our shoes dry on the marble floor. In the confusion of arrival, with everyone talking at once and music coming from upstairs, no one noticed us. We might have come in at any time. I glanced up to see if Mimi was on the stairs, receiving, but she had evidently already joined the party. Better still.

At the top of the stairs was a landing, an anteroom before the main sala, a place to catch your breath and gather your skirt, and for a moment we stood there, dazzled. Mimi’s ballroom was one of the grandest in Venice, as large as the Rezzonico’s, and tonight every inch of it seemed alive with light. The center chandeliers were electric, but the walls were lined with sconces holding real candles, hundreds of them, backed by mirrors, so that the effect was watery, constantly in motion, the nighttime equivalent of sunlight reflected off the canal. At the end of the room the high windows tapered to gothic points, but the walls themselves were rococo, paneled Arcadian scenes framed in gilt, moldings of swirling plaster. Waiters passed trays of champagne. Women glanced at themselves in mirrors. After the dark lagoon, the bulky tarp splashing over the side of the boat, I felt we had stepped into another world—not this one, maybe the one the room had been meant for, not real even then.

“Adam, you did come.” Mimi after all, standing guard at the door. Her hair, swept up, was sprinkled with jewels, not a tiara but tiny diamond pins, bits of starlight. Could she see it on my face? Washed now, but still somehow streaked with his blood? I felt my hands shaking and dug my nails into the palms. We could do this, had to.

“Hours ago,” I said, nodding toward the crowd below.

“And you’ve brought Miss—”

“Grassini,” Claudia said.

“Yes, I remember. So glad,” she said, shaking hands, her eyes sweeping down to take in Claudia’s dress. She turned to me. “How nice you look. Out of uniform.” A raised eyebrow. “I thought you didn’t have evening clothes. Grace said you couldn’t find—”

“And then I did. I hope it’s all right.”

“Darling, don’t be silly. I’m desperate for young people. Half the men here seem to have canes. When did we all get to be such an age?” She paused. “You’re supposed to say, You didn’t.”

I lifted my head, focusing, digging my nails in again. “You didn’t.”

“Charm itself, isn’t he?” she said to Claudia. “And so quick. I don’t suppose you’ve brought Gianni.”

“No. Isn’t he here?” I said, not looking at Claudia.

“Not yet. I don’t know how Grace puts up with it. I wouldn’t. He’d be late to his own funeral.”

Claudia moved involuntarily, catching Mimi’s eye. “Well, a doctor,” she said.

“Yes, but at this hour. Oh dear,” she said, looking over my shoulder toward the stairs. “Count Grillo. I never thought—the stairs.” I turned to see a white-haired man making his way up slowly, gripping an attendant with one arm and the banister with the other. “Maybe I should have him carried. But so embarrassing. My god, when I think how he used to—”

“An old flame?”

“How he used to dance. Don’t be fresh. Go and be conspicuous. Maybe you can get the orchestra to liven things up a bit.” She turned to Claudia. “We’ll talk later. I’m so glad you came. You look lovely.” She moved over to the head of the stairs. “Ernesto, how marvelous. No, don’t hurry. Oodles of time.”

A waiter came by with champagne.

“They’re going to start wondering where he is,” Claudia said, looking at her glass. She shuddered suddenly, like someone caught in a draft.

“Cold?”

She shook her head. “I’m nervous. I don’t know why. Not before, not even in the boat. And now here, a place like this.”

“Have some champagne.”

“Oh, just like that. Champagne—as if nothing’s happened.”

“I want people to see us having a good time,” I said, spreading my hand, steady now, toward the ballroom. “He won’t be missed for hours. He’s a doctor. They’re like that. Things come up.” I put down my glass on a little table. “So let’s be conspicuous. Dance?”

She looked up at me, biting her lip. “It’s my fault, all this.”

I held up my arms, ready to dance.

“And now for you, this trouble. What if you had never met me?”

I took the champagne glass out of her hand. “Yes, what if?” I said, then put my arm behind her back and moved her into the room.

The orchestra, in formal cutaways, was playing “Why Do I Love You?” but slightly off-rhythm, as if they were sight-reading, more familiar with Strauss than a twenties show tune. Not that it mattered. The dancers were moving at their own pace, peering over shoulders, the music just an excuse to look around at one another. Everything gleamed—jewels, the huge mirrors, even the long parquet floor, polished probably for days. I thought of Byron’s famous party, when they threw gold plates into the canal.

“So you can dance too,” Claudia said.

“Miss Hill’s dancing class. We all had to go. The boys hated it.”