ventotto
Morning must be the preferred time of day to connect with the dead, as a near-full vaporetto had docked at the fermata del cimitero . A mix of grieving loved ones and a handful of tourists wanting to explore another side of Venice disembarked. Lucia was careful to be among the final few to leave the vessel, watching Alex all the while.
Having rearranged the flowers a number of times, Alex stopped momentarily to adjust his flat cap. The wind off the open waters lashed at the fortress-style facade of the built-up, enclosed little island. The stubborn salty breeze whipped at his coat and the backs of his calves, as if pushing him along the landing and across to the cemetery complex. Alex entered under the iconic white marble archway and took to the gravel path, protected now by the high brick walls that bore most of the weather’s brunt.
Inside, the island’s trees formed a sheltering canopy, casting shadows across the tombstones and memorial plates that dotted the lush, tended grass. The quiet swishing of the foliage entwined with the sounds of the sea, the caw of birds big and small, and the crunch of the fine pearlescent gravel underfoot.
Lucia followed at a safe distance as Alex made his way to one of the closed mausoleum buildings, and at that exact moment, Lucia stopped dead in her tracks.
What are you doing here? What possessed you to think this was a good idea? ANY of it!
An eerie sense of foreboding wrapped itself around her. She felt like a criminal. But then she saw Alex through the foggy glass pane of the mausoleum door and she couldn’t look away.
Alex kneeled before a small wall-mounted cremation grave. He pressed his free hand to the brass name plate and gave it a caress. He then removed his flat cap and lowered his head reverently. His tousled mop of auburn waves was suddenly freed, and Lucia noted how his usually proud shoulders drooped. Eventually, wiping tears from his cheeks, he steeled himself and exchanged a bunch of pink paper flowers from the ornate glass holder with those he had brought. Setting the older flowers down on the floor, he ran his hand over the new bunch, counting the heads with his fingers. Then he turned on the spot, and his eyes traced over the paved flooring behind him. Alex looked towards the door, and his stare followed the path that he had taken inside. The missing flower head was nowhere to be seen.
Lucia had dipped from sight just in time, and when she felt the coast was clear she caught the tail end of his expression melting from sadness to disappointment. There was something about the flowers that tormented him.
Despite herself, and the general level of frustration Alex stirred in her, seeing him like this pulled at Lucia’s heartstrings. There was undeniable hurt there. It was written all over his face. The way the richness of his cinnamon eyes had darkened. The tension which had now set his chiselled chin a little tighter. He was nothing short of vulnerable; Lucia recognised it in the way his usually rigid stance lost its familiar strength. She wondered who he could have lost to alter his stoic, impenetrable facade beyond recognition.
This Alex was different.
Then, as quickly as he had arrived, Alex collected the older flowers from the floor and exited through a door on the other side of the building. He was gone, leaving a vacuum of intrigue in his wake.
Lucia waited a few minutes before entering the mausoleum and standing in front of the grave Alex had attended. The raised initials on the brass name plate read:
C. E. M.
She reached out and the sharpened edges of the script tickled the pads of her fingers. There was no date. No name. Nothing to identify the person whose earthly remains were kept secure within.
The delicate white flowers now caught her eye. There were thirteen, and a paper-wrapped length of wire formed the stem which drew attention to the lack of the fourteenth. Lucia plucked the fallen head from her pocket, suddenly tempted to return it to the tip of the stem.
But something stopped her. Surely Alex would notice its return next week, if this visit were truly his routine. Lucia stowed it in her pocket again and gave it a gentle pat.
Something impressed a message upon her heart: Keep it safe for Alex .
Lucia had stopped to visit her parents’ grave on her walk back to the cemetery entrance. Wanting to avoid Alex, she took her time. She usually visited every few weeks, bringing a fresh posy of pink flowers, or clippings of the school’s bougainvillea when it was in bloom. But given the unexpected visit, she had come empty-handed.
Eventually she made her way back to the fermata to leave and was glad that Alex was nowhere in sight. Off in the distance she could see a vaporetto chugging away from the island, and assumed he was aboard.
Lucia sighed and looked back across the emerald stretch to San Marco. The waters of the lagoon began their transition back to calm, brandishing the now diminishing pull line of the vaporetto ’s departure. Her heart felt weighed down by the turn of events. She hadn’t thought that Alex’s mystery Thursday outings would be something like this.
She had seen Alex in a light she hadn’t expected. He had seemed sensitive and vulnerable there by the grave. Softer. More mellow. It had made her want to reach for him and offer comfort. A hand. A smile.
Then, there was the second unsettling realisation; what she had felt for Alex in that quiet, humbling moment was empathy.
As she remembered the moment tears had rolled down his cheeks, she closed her eyes and felt a mix of shame and embarrassment.
You shouldn’t have come here, Lucia. You’ve gone too far.