Chapter 28 Sophie
S OPHIE
Rocco’s leaning on the reception desk, chatting to Marina, when Sophie comes down the stairs.
He turns when she approaches and opens his arms wide to profess how lovely she looks. All she’s done is throw on a coat and scarf. She loves a man who’s this easy to delight.
‘Marina!’ he shouts. ‘I’m taking this very beautiful guest on a tour. Can you believe Sophie has not seen any of the sights, not even one, since she arrived?’
‘When has poor Sophie had time to go sightseeing? We have been working her like a slave from the minute she walked in. I am so sorry.’ Marina gives a genuine smile and Sophie instantly forgives her all her standoffishness. We’re friends now!
‘No need to be sorry.’ Sophie beams at her. ‘I’ve loved every minute with you guys.’
Marina doesn’t reply. She’s staring at the computer again. Maybe ‘friends’ is a tad premature.
‘Eh, Marina.’ Rocco taps the desk. ‘He came looking for you today.’
The blood drains from Marina’s face. ‘When?’
‘Before. Where were you?’
Marina’s eyes dart to Sophie and back to Rocco again. ‘Nowhere. What did he say?’
‘He asked about you, how you are, asked if you are happy,’ Rocco says.
‘And? What did you say?’ Marina looks as if she wants to reach across the desk and shake the words out of him.
Whatever this is, it’s clearly very juicy. Sophie’s going to implode if one of them doesn’t break this down for her right now, piece by piece, until she knows every last salacious detail about this mystery man of Marina’s.
‘I told him you were fine,’ Rocco says. ‘I only saw him for a minute. He pretended he came to check on Papà’s health. He gave him a blessing.’
Gave him a blessing? WTF?
‘Why are you saying he came looking for me, then? He obviously came to see Papà.’ Marina’s voice is quivering.
Rocco lets out a short sharp laugh. ‘Andiamo, Sophie.’
No! She doesn’t want to andiamo anywhere. She wants to stay right where she is until she finds out who they’re talking about. But Rocco cocks his arm and leads her to the front door with her none the wiser.
Just before they walk out, he turns to look back at Marina. ‘Mamma invited him to breakfast tomorrow with his parents, by the way,’ he calls over his shoulder, escalating Sophie’s curiosity.
She’s busting to ask Rocco to dish, but she also wants him to think she’s nonchalant, which is a whole lot more attractive than exposing how chalant as hell she actually is. So she acts as if the weird inuendo-filled conversation with Marina didn’t just happen.
It’s icy cold outside, but the sun’s out and the sky is a brilliant blue. Venice is shining.
They walk at a slow pace, much more to her liking than the hotfooting they’ve been doing to the market the last two mornings. As she walks along the ancient Venetian streets on the arm of this gorgeous Italian, an afternoon of exploring the city ahead of her, she feels like the luckiest girl in the world.
‘So where are you taking me, Signore Bianchi?’
‘Where better to start my tour with a writer than to take her to a bookshop? But this is not a bookshop like you will find anywhere else in the world. Wait until you see. It is a long walk, eh? We walk and we talk.’
‘Sounds perfect.’
‘After that, I will show you some of my favourite places. You will see Rocco’s Venezia.’
‘Exciting!’
‘Exciting for me too. This is like a vacation for me.’
‘A vacation?’ She laughs. ‘That’s a bit sad. Don’t you ever take actual holidays?’
‘Rarely. Where would I go?’
‘You could come and visit me in Melbourne.’ She keeps her eyes forward.
‘You want me to come and visit you? Really?’
‘I very much want you to.’
‘In this case, how can I say no? I will come to visit you, Sophie. Because already I miss you when you are leaving.’
She turns to look at him and he holds her eye. He strokes the back of her hand with his thumb. Her skin comes alive under his touch.
They continue walking until, after a while, he stops. ‘We are here. This is Libreria Acqua Alta.’
‘Oh my!’ She’s never seen anything like it. There are books littered everywhere – in baskets, along the walls from floor to ceiling, piled high on tables and, most amazingly, in full-size gondolas! The shop is packed with tourists, it’s messy and chaotic and there are cats strolling around among the shoppers and lounging on the books. Out the back of the store, a facade of leather-bound books is actually a set of stairs that overlooks a small canal.
‘I am going to leave you to look in peace.’ Rocco wanders off to a corner of the shop.
A cool wind whistles through the store. Sophie buttons up her coat and slowly makes her way around. All the titles are Italian. She hunts for the cookbook section and picks up a copy of an Antonio Carluccio hardcover, which she buys.
Only a few minutes after they leave the shop, she regrets choosing a book that heavy. As soon as she whines about it, Rocco takes it from her.
‘Time for a gelato?’ he asks.
‘Ooh, yes please.’
‘Great, come and meet Nunzio. He is an old friend of the family. When you taste his gelato, you will only want to eat gelato from his shop for the rest of your life.’
Old Nunzio limps out from behind the counter to embrace Rocco. He offers them samples on teeny wooden spoons. The dilemma of which flavour to choose among the rows of gelati in big steel tubs is very real and it takes Sophie an age to settle on mango, then immediately wish she’d chosen lemon instead. Nunzio waves away their offers of money.
Rocco finds them a bench to sit on in a small public garden tucked away at the end of a narrow lane. She’d never have guessed there’d be a leafy park here. The mango gelato puts to shame any she’s ever had before, and she no longer regrets her choice – until Rocco offers her his cone for a lick and she tastes the Baci one.
Never in Melbourne would she think to go out and buy an ice cream and sit outside to eat it when it’s ten degrees, but here it doesn’t feel wrong to be doing so, rugged up in coats and scarves. It’s a happy, wonderful strangeness. She licks her lips, savouring the last tastes of mango.
Next, Rocco takes her to a hole-in-the-wall shop, nestled between a beautician and a post office, that sells Murano glass jewellery. The shopkeeper, a woman with a glamorous updo and dripping in more jewels than you’d find at the Tower of London, greets them warmly. She stands behind a waist-high display cabinet, where sparkling beaded necklaces, earrings, brooches, rings and bracelets of every colour dazzle under fluorescent lights.
‘Sophie, meet my friend Allegra,’ Rocco says. ‘Allegra was at school with Marina and me. She designs the most beautiful jewellery in all of San Marco.’
Sophie’s drawn to a multicoloured beaded necklace, but Allegra insists she try on one that’s made of only dark blue glass. ‘This will make your green eyes look even prettier,’ she says as she puts it around her neck.
‘What do you think?’ Sophie asks Rocco.
He pushes his glasses up his nose and looks at her for long enough to turn her beetroot red. When he speaks his voice is hoarse. ‘I think you are perfection.’
Christ on a bike!
The necklace costs more than a day’s wage, but Rocco called her perfection, so of course she buys it.
They stroll through the back streets of the city, arm in arm again, until they come to a tower in a hidden-away palazzo.
‘Many tourists don’t know about this place,’ Rocco tells her.
‘How would they? It’s a maze to get here. Like the gelati shop and the jewellery shop and the bookshop. Everything you’ve shown me is hidden away.’
‘I told you, this is my Venezia.’ He points at the palazzo. ‘See how the shape of the stairs is like a snail?’
He’s right, the staircase snaking up the side of the tower looks just like a snail shell.
‘It is called Scala Contarini del Bovolo,’ he says. ‘The spiral staircase of the snail. Shall we climb it? The view from the top is incredible.’
‘I’ll give it a go. Can’t guarantee you I’ll make it to the top, though.’
Rocco tells her to go first so she can set the pace. They stop intermittently and look out at the ever-increasing views of the city. When they reach the top, Sophie takes photos of the kaleidoscope of canals and red and cream buildings and church spires of San Marco.
Rocco asks for her phone. When she hands it to him, he drapes his arm around her, pulling her close, and takes selfies of the two of them with their heads together.
‘So you don’t forget me when you return to Australia, eh?’
‘There’s no chance I’ll forget you.’
He gives her another one of his looks that makes her crazy with want.
Once they’re back on solid ground, she stares up at the tower; it’s as if it reaches the sky. Climbing it isn’t something she would have attempted if he hadn’t encouraged her. She promises herself that when she gets home she’s going to go out for ice cream on winter days and try new things that push her outside her comfort zone.
Next they walk to Piazza San Marco and Sophie lays eyes on the majestic basilica for the first time. Even with all the scaffolding around it as repairs take place after last month’s flooding, its sheer size and gothic beauty leave her awestruck.
The square itself is humming with activity. A small group of men dressed in tuxedos play classical music for the diners seated on red cane chairs outside the famous Caffè Florian. Other tourists browse the shops interspersed between the eateries that line the piazza. There are pop-up stalls in the middle of the square selling everything Venice themed from umbrellas to T-shirts to teddy bears. Flocks of pigeons hop around among the crowds of people, unintimidated in their search for snacks on the stone pavers.
Sophie pulls her water bottle out of her handbag, but Rocco stops her.
‘It’s against the law to drink in the piazza unless you are seated at a restaurant. The police will fine you.’ He indicates two uniformed policemen standing nearby. ‘They don’t even let a baby drink from a bottle here.’
She realises he’s serious, so she stifles her laugh and slips the bottle back into her bag.
‘Come, I want to show you something.’ He leads her a little further to the clock tower. ‘Watch what will happen when it is five o’clock.’
A small crowd waits at the bottom of the tower. A minute later, at precisely five, the bells chime and sculptures of the three wise men pop out from the top of the tower, presided over by an angel as they twirl in time to the ringing bells.
‘This happens every hour but only for the twelve days before the Epiphany,’ Rocco explains.
It’s magical. Everything about Venice is magical.
They walk a short way along the lagoon, where rows of empty gondolas rock in the water. The gondoliers, in their striped sweaters, stand in small groups on wooden decks, laughing together and smoking. The sun is lower in the sky now, sitting above the white domes of the cathedral on the other side of the water. Sophie takes out her camera to capture the hues of red and orange glowing in the clouds.
‘Come and look at this sculpture for the Venice Rising exhibition,’ Rocco says.
They approach a giant metal artwork of Venetians being stampeded by tourists. The sculpture makes Sophie want to cry. Rocco looks at it without expression. He’s lost the smile he’s had all afternoon.
‘Is this true? Is this what it’s like for you?’ she asks.
He nods.
‘I thought tourists were what kept Venice afloat.’
He lets out a small laugh; it’s not a happy sound. ‘Afloat? No. Three quarters of the tourists only visit San Marco for a few hours. They make us drown faster.’
‘You’re the person being trampled on, and I’m the person doing the trampling. This is awful.’
‘No. You are not these people, you are better.’
‘Not really.’ She’s ashamed by how ignorant she is about this city. She knows nothing about the whole Venice sinking situation beyond the fact that water levels are rising and the city’s at risk.
‘Let’s go back, eh?’ he says. ‘Mamma will be waiting for us.’
‘Thank you for making time to show me around when you’re so busy.’
‘Never too busy for you.’
His smile is so inherently kind. And he’s now standing so close to her that he just needs to lean a tiny bit forward and their lips would touch. But he doesn’t and the moment passes.
As they walk back through the piazza, there’s a large crowd gathered at the opposite end to the basilica. They get closer and Sophie sees what the people are all looking at. Standing in a tank of muddy water is a woman in a white dress, with white hair that reaches her hips.
The gathered tourists stare at the woman with morbid fascination. Most have their phones out.
‘I wonder how long she stands there for?’ Sophie says.
‘Seven hours every day. They give her water to drink but that is all. I hope her suffering is not for nothing.’
‘It’s not for nothing. Look at all the crowd.’
‘Attention alone will not help us. We need action.’ He turns away from the artist. ‘You know, I was excited about Venice Rising before but now I feel depressed. This problem is too big for one woman standing in a tank to fix.’ He sighs. ‘Let’s go.’
The orchestra gathered under the awning outside Florian continues to play, and the mournful sounds of violins follow them up the lane towards the hotel. Their bodies cast long shadows on the cobblestones in the fading afternoon light.
Rocco doesn’t talk on the way back and neither does she.