Chapter 21 #3
The gondola veers toward an ancient peach-colored building, the Ca’Sagredo Hotel.
As we pull up at the dock, immediately porters rush to help us disembark, a crowd in full costume lining up ahead.
Revelers are dressed in every conceivable color and shape — some outfits and masks are quite outrageous.
Jester hats in vivid hues with bells on the pointed tips, vast dresses in saturated jewel tones, wigs of every variety, and masks varying from the simple to giant, oversized, papier-maché heads.
All of them laughing, calling out greetings, jostling to get inside the venue.
Arm in arm, my husband and I are swept along with the guests and enter the grand lobby with its huge ceilings and curved staircase. Handing our tickets over to a man dressed like Rob, we are hustled into an incredible ballroom with elaborate wall paneling and oversized crystal chandeliers.
“So elegant,” a man comments behind us in a strong Italian accent. He’s in costume but with an inauthentic digital camera around his neck. “Your picture, I take it?”
“You want to?” asks Rob. I nod and he turns me around so our backs are against the paneled wall. The photographer positions us in a few poses while he snaps away and then hands over his card. “You email me, you buy pictures if you like, jpegs, si?”
“Sure. Thanks.” Rob hands me the card, which I put in my clutch.
As a server walks past with a tray of champagne, Rob grabs two glasses for us.
“Okay. Dramatic entrance made, official photos taken — time to switch masks.”
I remove the mask and replace it with the half-face lace number, Rob helping me tie the ribbon at the back, and tuck it under the wig.
“Man, that’s better.” I smile at him. “I can see you now, too. Those eye holes were a bit teeny.”
“That mask was amazing, but I like you better in this one. You look like my wife. There’s only so long you can wear a mask like that.” He hands me a glass and I take a sip.
“You have no idea.”
Rob scans the crowd, who are drinking and chatting, but not dancing yet. “So do we have to, like, waltz, or something?”
“I’m sure we can manage some approximation.” I sound more confident than I feel. But this event is beyond my dreams. “We’d better find some food first — this bubbly is going straight to my head.”
The evening from then on blurs into a delight of music and color.
We eventually find the buffet, with various delights on offer, but I don’t eat much between conversations with the other partygoers — mostly tourists from all over the world.
We meet a charming older French couple whom we talk to for a long time, and they ensure our glasses remain topped up.
For a while, after coming back from the bathroom, I lose Rob altogether.
All the men start to look the same, so many of them in three-cornered hats and hook-nose masks.
Having made a few circuits of the ballroom with no success, I take off my own lace mask for a clearer view.
I am immediately admonished by a dark-skinned man with a trimmed goatee beard, in a deep green costume and black mask that drips down one side of his face.
“Tsk, tsk.” But he is smiling. “We must wear our masks at all times.” He has a Middle Eastern accent.
“You’re right.” I tie the mask back on. “I lost my husband, and lots of men are dressed like him.”
“Well, now I’m hoping I look like your husband — perhaps I’ll be lucky enough for you to mistake me for him.” The man seems to wink his one visible eye. “Isn’t that what masks are for? We get to be someone else — and even be with someone else, even for one night?”
I laugh at his audacity and gaze out at the crowd, scanning for Rob. “I guess that’s the idea. But . . .”
“But what, my dear?”
I turn back to this stranger. “I guess I always feel like I’m someone else.”
The man seems surprised by my candor. “Well, my dear. That’s true for many of us. Aren’t we all . . . faking it? What’s the American expression — ‘fake it till you make it’?”
I smile. “Right. That seems to be my motto in life these days.”
The man gestures to the floor, where couples are beginning to dance, some in a real waltz, others swaying to the lilting music.
“Will you dance with me, madam?”
It seems rude to refuse, and there’s something appealing about dancing with a total stranger at a ball in Venice.
I take his proffered hand and step farther into the room with him, squeezing between couples, still scanning the room for Rob.
He could be any one of a dozen men talking to other people. Was his hat cream or beige?
The man puts his hand on my waist and leads me in a formal waltz, keeping it respectful.
My muscle memory from a short stint of ballroom dancing as a teenager kicks in, and the man is soon spinning me around the floor, weaving between the slower-moving dancers.
The ballroom becomes a whirl and I give into it — the moment, the room, this understanding, charming stranger.
I’m euphoric as music finishes and the whirling ceases, and the man before me bows and kisses my gloved hand. Another man, in a cream hat and embroidered coat, with a hooked nose, comes up behind my dance partner and taps him on the shoulder.
“Mind if I cut in and dance with my wife?”
The stranger turns to Rob. “Ah, the lost husband! Well returned, my friend. I was about to fall in love with your beautiful wife, and that would have been trouble for us all.”
Rob laughs. “Well, only trouble for you, I think. My wife and I are on our honeymoon, and I think it’s safe for her to dance with anyone she likes, without falling in love.”
“Indeed, my friend.” The stranger turns to me and raises my hand up to his lips again. “A delight, madam. I am very happy to have met you.