“You want me to ring the bell for you?” There was a big old-fashioned bell and a knocker, but Serena was quick to shake her head. He held her arm to steady her as she stepped carefully onto the landing, and for an instant she looked up at the darkened windows, knowing only too well the tale they told.
She hesitated for an endless moment, and then quickly pulled the chain on the bell and closed her eyes as she waited, thinking back to all the other times her hand had touched that bell … waiting … counting the moments until one of the old familiar faces would appear, her grandmother just behind them, smiling, waiting to embrace Serena and run laughingly up the steps with her to the main salon … the tapestries, the rich brocades … the statues … the tiny miniatures of the exquisite golden copper horses of San Marco at the head of the stairs … and this time only silence and the sounds of the canal behind her. As she stood there Serena knew that there would be no answer to the bell.
“Non, c'è nessuno, signorina?” the gondolier inquired. But it was a useless question. No, of course there was no one home, and hadn't been in years. For a moment Serena's eyes rested on the knocker, wanting to try that too, to urge someone from the familiar depths within, to make them open the door, to make them roll back the clock for her.
“Eh! … Eh!” It was an insistent sound behind her, almost an aggressive one, and she turned to see a vegetable merchant drifting past in his boat, watching her suspiciously. “Can't you see there's no one there?”
“Do you know where they are?” Serena called across the other boats, relishing the sound of her own language again. It was as though she had never left. The four years in the States did not exist.
The vegetable man shrugged. “Who knows?” And then, philosophically, “The war … a lot of people moved away.”
“Do you know what happened to the woman who lived here?” An edge of franticness was moving back into Serena's voice and the gondolier watched her face, as a mailman on a barge came slowly by, looking at Serena with interest.
“The house was sold, signorina” The postman answered the question for her.
“To whom? When?” Serena looked suddenly shocked. Sold? The house had been sold? She had never contemplated that. But why would her grandmother have sold the house? Had she been short of money? It was a possibility that had never occurred to Serena before.
“It was sold last year, when the war was still on. Some people from Milano bought it. They said that when the war was over they would retire and move to Venice … fix up the house.…”He shrugged and Serena felt herself bridle. “Fix up the house.” What the hell did he mean? What did they mean? Fix what up? The bronzes? The priceless antiques, the marble floors? The impeccable gardens behind the house? What was there to fix? As he watched her the mailman understood her pain. He pulled his boat close to the landing and looked up into her face. “Was she a friend of yours … the old lady?” Serena nodded slowly, not daring to say more. “Ècco. Capisco allora.” He only thought he understood, but he didn't. “She died, you know. Two years ago. In the spring.”
“Of what?” Serena felt her whole body grow limp, as though suddenly someone had pulled all of the bones out of her. She thought for a moment that she might faint. They were the words she had expected, the words she had feared, but now she had heard them and they cut through her like a knife. She wanted him to be wrong, but as she looked at the kind old face she knew that he wasn't. Her grandmother was gone.
“She was very old, you know, signorina. Almost ninety.”
Serena shook her head almost absentmindedly and spoke softly. “No, she turned eighty that spring.”
“Ah.” He spoke gently, wanting to offer comfort but not sure how. “Her son came from Rome, but only for two days. He had everything sent to Rome, I heard later. Everything, all her things. But he put the house up for sale right away. Still, it took them a year to sell it.”
So it was Sergio again, Serena thought to herself as she stood there. Sergio. He had everything sent to Rome. “And