The Venice Sketchbook(32)
Caroline took them back. It seemed hopeless. In her room she turned the keys over in her own hand. What did Aunt Lettie want her to do with them? Find out which door the big key would fit, when it might belong to any house in the city? Did it actually come from Venice? Why would Aunt Lettie have needed to open any door apart from the pensione where she stayed? And why was Venice so special to her?
“You are so annoying, Aunt Lettie,” Caroline said out loud. “If you wanted me to do something here, why didn’t you just write me a note? But if these things weren’t special to you, why keep them in their own little box?”
None of it made sense. But she realized one thing: at least she had not been eaten up with worry about Teddy for a little while. Maybe that was what her great-aunt wanted.
CHAPTER 12
Caroline, Venice, October 9, 2001
The next morning dawned clear and bright, and bells awoke Caroline at first light. She opened the shutters and stood at the window, taking in the traffic on the Grand Canal, the pigeons strutting importantly across the garden. A gardener was raking the gravel into neat circles. Across the small side canal, someone was putting out bedding to air on a windowsill. Caroline gave a sigh of contentment, feeling the weeks of pent-up tension easing away. She showered and went down to breakfast.
“I should serve in the garden, signora?” the waiter asked. “It is maybe too cold?”
But Caroline chose to sit outside, enjoying a buffet of fresh fruits, cheeses, hard-boiled eggs, meats, yoghurt and freshly baked brioche. Then she put the two sketchbooks into her tote, along with the box of keys and a map of the city she had picked up at the tourist office, and set out, not exactly sure where she should be going. Clearly most of the important monuments were on the other side of the canal, and she crossed the Accademia Bridge, finding herself a little breathless by the time she negotiated all the steps up and then down. When she reached a piazza on the other side, she gave a little gasp of delight. Here was one of the first sketches, exactly as Aunt Lettie had drawn it in 1928. She continued, hoping she was making for St Mark’s Square. From the map, she saw there was no direct route. She studied the front doors, then gave up, realizing that almost every house had an imposing door knocker and a lock that her key might well fit. I can hardly go up and try all the doors I pass, she thought, and besides, how could Aunt Lettie have needed the key to one of these houses?
When she spotted a used-book store, she went in and after much digging managed to find a guidebook from 1930. Yes, it listed the Pensione Regina. She bought the book and, after a bit of Italian language struggle, accompanied by much hand waving, asked the store clerk where the address might be. He sent her back to the Grand Canal, where she found that the Regina was now a private residence with a large padlock on the gate. What’s more, it had been completely remodelled with sleek modern lines and big windows. None of her keys would fit that new white front door. A newspaper vendor in a nearby booth pointed at the villa. “Russians,” he said with a sniff. “Rich Russians. Never here.”
She came away, disappointed, then struck out for St Mark’s again.
Along the way she recognized more sketches: a little side canal where gondolas were tied to poles, an interesting rooftop, a disused water pump. It made her feel warm inside to know that Aunt Lettie had come this way when she was a girl—and that so little had changed. A strange thought was growing in Caroline’s head: Maybe I should get a book and start sketching? Was that what her great-aunt wanted from her—to become the artist that Aunt Lettie had never become? Did she not approve of fashion design? It was so hard to know.
She reached the waterfront and stood staring out across the lagoon to the island with a tall church tower on it. The beauty took her breath away as she walked past gardens towards the campanile of St Mark’s. This time of year there were few tourists, and she examined the souvenir booths, wondering if any of them sold keys like the one she owned. But they didn’t. The souvenirs were all cheap plastic Chinese monstrosities: snow globes, baseball caps, pens, fake daggers. The last time she had seen St Mark’s Square, it was packed with tourists. Now it was almost empty, and Caroline treated herself to a coffee in one of the outdoor cafés. She sat staring at the improbable rooftop domes of the basilica, smiling as she examined eighteen-year-old Lettie’s attempts and then the improvement ten years later. She had talent, Caroline thought. Why did she not pursue it? Had the war drained all of her creativity? She could see the parallel in her own life, that a time of stress and tragedy takes away all but the will to survive. She finished her coffee, went to pay and was horrified to learn the price. The waiter shrugged. She was paying for the experience, not the coffee.
She decided to leave the interior of St Mark’s for another time. She wasn’t in the mood for anything religious. Granny was quite religious, but Aunt Lettie had never been. Caroline herself had found it impossible to pray after the recent events in her life and the horror of 9/11. So she went behind the basilica to where she could get a view of the Bridge of Sighs. After standing on the little bridge looking down the canal, she decided to head for the Rialto Bridge. Aunt Lettie had sketched that area several times. After a few wrong turns, she reached the Rialto, stopping along the way to look in the enticing little shops. There was a shop that just sold pens. And one that just sold marbled paper, or masks. How could they keep going? She wondered. Did lots of people in Venice buy marbled paper? Or puppets? What a fascinating place, she thought. I’d like to get to know it better.