“Claudia, I’m not going anywhere.”

She looked down. “So we can watch each other.”

“No,” I said.

She raised her head, waiting.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I said again.

She looked at me, then nodded, a kind of concession, her eyes moist again. “No, we can’t. Not now. It doesn’t matter why, does it? It’s the only way we’re safe.”

“That’s not—” I said, but she was leaning into me, away from the wind off the Zattere.

“I know. It’s all right,” she said, her voice muffled. “So come home.” She turned, crooking her arm through mine, something she’d done a hundred times before, and suddenly I felt as if we had been snapped together. I looked down at the arm, curved around mine like a link in a chain. Tied now.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Claudia and I were married at a magistrate’s office in a ceremony that lasted less than fifteen minutes. Mimi and Bertie were the witnesses, and because there was no party, no real wedding, they insisted on taking us to lunch afterward at the Gritti. I had called my mother and told her not to come, and after a squeal of protest I think she was relieved not to have to make the trip. We’d have a proper celebration later, she finally agreed, but why the rush? Claudia wore an off-white silk dress with a coral belt that we bought in the Calle Frazzaria, off San Marco, and Bertie somehow miraculously found a corsage of hothouse flowers that set it off like a giant tropical brooch. A man took souvenir pictures after we signed the registry, and we are all smiling in them. It was not the wedding any of us would have imagined, but Venice made up for the missing bridesmaids. The weather was beautiful, warm enough to eat outside on the Gritti’s floating dock, with all the canal traffic going by. We joked that Salute, gleaming across the water with its marble icing, was our wedding cake.

“And you’re already here for your honeymoon,” Bertie said. “Think of them all, pouring out of the station. All swozzled and cranky before they even begin. Well, cheers.” He lifted his champagne glass. “Auguri.”

“What do you suppose they do?” Mimi said.

Bertie sputtered, smiling. “Mimi, dear—”

“During the day. I mean, you don’t want to look at Tintorettos on your honeymoon, do you?”

“Gondola rides,” I said. “With accordions.”

“What does Signora Miller want to do?” Bertie said, tipping his glass to Claudia.

“Signora Miller,” she said, trying it out. “It is, now, isn’t it?”

“Mm,” Bertie said. “I’m a witness.”

“It started with you, you know,” I said. “Your party. You introduced us.”

“I wish you’d introduce someone to me,” Mimi said.

“Oh no,” Bertie said, holding up his hands. “Anyway, as I recall, Adam, you introduced yourself. Bold as brass. And now look.”

“Yes,” I said, looking at Claudia, pretty with her flowers, the bright sky behind her.

“Signora Miller doesn’t want to do anything,” she said, as if Bertie had been waiting for an answer. “She’s happy to sit right here.” She looked over the blue midday water to the palazzos on the other side. One of the traghetto gondolas was weaving its way across, graceful as a dancer on point. “I could sit here forever.”

“Yes,” Bertie said, following her gaze. “Wouldn’t it be nice?”

We finished the wine, talking idly, then Bertie excused himself, and a few minutes later I followed. In the men’s room he was leaning on the marble counter, dabbing his face with a cold towel.

“Everything all right?”

“Yes, certainly. Why wouldn’t it be?” He looked at me in the mirror, then blotted his face again.

“I mean, are you in pain?”

A longer stare now in the mirror, then a resigned look away. “Somebody’s been reading medical reports.” He wiped his hands on the towel. “It’s all right now. It won’t be soon. Does that answer it?”

“No. Talk to me.”

He shook his head. “There’s no point. If you’ve read my file, then you know everything I know.”

“I don’t know what it means.”

“It means enjoy the beautiful day outside. I intend to. And that doesn’t mean going on about things that can’t be helped. Or things that—well, things. So let me enjoy it, please. I mean it, Adam. And not a word to Grace, either. Rushing back on trains and making me a cause. I know just what she’s like.”

“Bertie—”

“No,” he said, putting his hand on my arm. “Now let’s not ruin the day. It’s supposed to be the happiest day of your life.” He looked up at me. “Hers, anyway.”

“Did you get another opinion?”

“Yes, I’ve been through all that. Gianni was a perfectly competent doctor, you know, whatever else you may think he was. If he was.” He turned away. “Find anything else in his files?”

I shook my head. “Just you.”

“Serves you right. Snoop.” He threw the towel in the wicker hamper underneath the sink. “Better go before Mimi comes in after us. Don’t think she wouldn’t.” He started for the door, then stopped. “I almost forgot. Here.” He took an envelope out of his breast pocket and handed it to me. “For the happy couple.”

“Bertie.”

“I know, I shouldn’t have, but I did. Now put it away before you-know-who sees it.”

I stepped closer and put my arms around him, surprised a little when he hugged back.

“All right, all right,” he said, breaking away, touched. “It’s not a funeral, it’s a wedding. Such as it is. So let’s have a drink, and if you’re good, I’ll get Mimi away and you can have the day to yourselves.”

It took two drinks but then they were gone, taking their conversation with them. We sat quietly for a while in the sun, rocking on the wakes of the passing boats. The waiters, paid by Bertie, had disappeared inside.

“Is there anything you’d like to do?” I said. “See Tintorettos?”

She kept facing the water, squinting a little against the sunlight.

“I’d like to see my father,” she said finally. “Would you mind?”

I shook my head, waiting, not knowing what she meant.

“But it’s so far to walk. These shoes. Do you have money for a taxi?”

I patted my jacket pocket. “We’re rich. Bertie gave me a check. Where?”

But she was already getting up and walking over to the landing platform. A bellman helped her into the motorboat, then I followed, both of us sitting back against the cushions as the boat headed up the canal. The motor was too loud to talk over, so we watched the city go by, under the Accademia bridge, past the turn where Ca’ Maglione stood, brightened now with pots of geraniums on the balconies, then up the busy stretch to the Rialto, the water crowded with delivery boats. The view from Bertie’s window. What would happen to the house? I wondered. One of the assistants, perhaps, unseen but devoted, there in the end while the rest of us were kept away. Bertie’s real life, whirling in its own mystery.

We got out at San Marcuola and walked the rest of the way to the ghetto, Claudia’s high heels clicking loudly on the pavement. Away from the canal the streets became somber and dingy, and people stared openly at our clothes, the corsage almost startling here. Then up the narrow calle where her aunt used to gossip window to window, and over the bridge, ducking our heads in the low sottopasso to the open campo, as stark as before, the trees just beginning to bud. She stood for a minute, looking. No one passed us, the only campo in Venice that seemed lifeless, left behind.

“I always say I’ll never come here again, and then I come back,” she said.

We went over to a bench in front of what had been the old people’s home. She sat for a minute with her back against the wall, then leaned forward and took off her shoes.

“Mama mia, these shoes. What?”

“Mama mia,” I said, grinning. “A real Italian.”

“Ha, like the others,” she said, rubbing her foot. “At Signor Howard’s, speaking English. You don’t know real Italians.”