her letters?” She sounded angry now, as though within her there was something slowly beginning to burn. “Where did her mail go? Was it sent to him?”
The mailman nodded. “Except the letters for the servants. He told me to send those back.”
Then, Sergio had got all of her letters. Why hadn't he told her? Why hadn't someone written to her to tell her? For more than two years she had gone crazy, waiting, wondering, asking questions that no one could answer. But he could have answered, the bastard.
“Signorina?” The mailman and the gondolier waited. “Va bene?” She nodded slowly.
“Sí … sí… grazie … I was just …” She had been about to offer an explanation but her eyes filled with tears instead. She turned away and the two men exchanged a glance.
“I'm sorry, signorina.” She nodded, her back still turned, and the mailman moved on. Only her gondolier waited.
In a moment, after a last look at the rusting hinges on the gate, she fingered the bellpull one last time, as though making contact with some piece of her, some tangible part of the past, as though by touching something that her grandmother had touched she could become part of her again, and then slowly she came back to the gondola, feeling as though some vital part of her had died. So Sergio finally had what he wanted now—the title. She hated him. She wanted him to choke on his title, to rot in his own blood, to die a far more horrible death than her father, to …
“Signorina?” The gondolier had watched her face contort with anger and anguish, and he wondered what agony had seized her soul to make someone so young look so tormented. “Where would you like to go now?”
She hesitated for a moment, not sure. Should she go back to the train station? She wasn't ready. Not yet. There was something she had to do first. She turned slowly to the gondolier, remembering the little church perfectly. It was exquisite, and perhaps someone there would know more. “Take me please to the Campo Santa Maria Nuova.”
“Maria dei Miracoli?” he asked her, naming the church where she wanted to go. She nodded, and he helped her back into the gondola and pushed slowly away from the landing, as her eyes held interminably to the facade she would always remember and never come back to see again. This would be her last journey to Venice. She knew that now. She had no reason to come back. Not anymore.
She found Santa Maria dei Miracoli as she remembered it, almost hidden by high walls, and as simple externally as she recalled. It was inside that Mary of the Miracles showed her wonders, inside that the marble inlays and delicate carvings startled the newcomer with its beauty and still entranced those who knew it well after seeing it for dozens of years. Serena stood there for a moment, feeling her grandmother beside her, as she had every Sunday when they had come to Mass. She stood silently for a few moments and then walked slowly toward the altar, kneeling there, and trying desperately not to think … of what to do now … of where to go.…
Dwelling on her loss wouldn't help her. But still, the reality of it was almost intolerable and two lone tears traveled down her cheeks to the delicately carved chin. She stood up a moment later and went into the office at the back of the church, to attempt to find the priest. There was an old man in a priest's robe sitting there when she entered. He sat at a simple desk, reading from a frayed leather book of prayer.
“Father?” He looked up slowly from what he was reading, gazing directly into Serena's green eyes. He was new to the parish, she suspected. She did not remember him from before she left. “I wonder if you could help me. I am looking for some information about my grandmother.”
The old man in the cassock sighed and stood up slowly. There had been so many inquiries like this since the end of the war. People had died, moved away, got lost. It was unlikely that he would be able to help her. “I don't know. I will check the records for you. Her name?”
“La Principessa Alicia di San Tibaldo.” She said it softly, not meaning to impress anyone, but nonetheless his manner changed. He became more alert, more interested, more helpful, and in spite of herself, Serena