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By Root 307 0

choked on her Peroni. She was daily surprised by the forthrightness of the Venetians. She expected them to be as winding and circumspect as the secret alleyways of their city, or as circuitous as their bureaucracy. But they were neither. Only this morning the lady serving her in the cafe where she took breakfast had asked her whether she had a special amore back home. The receptionist at her hotel, that avuncular, kindly gentleman, had already identified her marital status and her lack of children. And now, here was this unfathomable man asking her the most personal of questions. It seemed that Venetians had an ability to cleave to the point as cleanly as the prow of a boat slicing the waters of the canal. She played for time, holding the glass heart at her throat to steady herself.

`How do you know he left me?'

Alessandro sat back in his chair. `You have a tan line where your wedding band once was. And your finger has changed shape somewhat, receding towards the knuckle, which means you were wearing the ring for some years, not just a short engagement. And you are sad. And you are here - I think if you had left him you would have stayed at home?'

Leonora looked up from her hand and saw a sympathy in the intelligent dark eyes which twisted her gut. Stung to a crushing retort, her own reply surprised her.

`He chose a golden casket.!

'How come?'

`Merchant of Venice? Portia's suitors had to choose between three caskets of silver lead and gold. Happiness lay in the lead casket, not the gold'

Alessandro smiled, `I know. I live here. D'you think you can grow up in this city without knowing the story? What I meant was, in what sense did he choose gold?'

'I think he fell for the packaging. Such as it was.!

'Don't do that:

`What??

"`Such as it was." You're very beautiful.' He stated it baldly, not as a compliment but as a matter of empirical fact.

She twisted a golden rope of hair around her hand. `Once, perhaps. But misery and loss seem to drain it all. I feel black and white now, not colour.' She dropped the skein of hair. `I was an artist then, a creative, a bundle of emotions, rather than the ...' she searched for a phrase, `synaptic circuit of chemical reactions which made Stephen. I think he fell for the opposites in us. But once he opened the casket he realized that what he really wanted was something practical and scientific, exactly like himself.'

`And did he find it?'

`Yes. It's called Carol.!

'Ah!

Leonora took another slug of beer, and it began to warm her. At that moment she knew that she wouldn't mention her infertility to Alessandro. Some small primal voice prevented her - she didn't want this man to know that she was not complete.

At length he spoke, but not of her. From now on it was clearly quid pro quo. `But you know, it's possible to be too alike. I had a girlfriend till last year who was pretty much my twin. We grew up together, we liked all the same things, we were both ambitious, we even supported the same football team. But then she was offered a promotion based in Rome. She took it. Left. Finito. Her ambition separated us in the end.' He drank.

Leonora was stumped. She didn't see this man as vulnerable - but he too had been left. She said gently, `Was she in the police too?'

`No. A journalist' He seemed reluctant to say more, and Leonora let their personal silence fall amid the universal chatter. At length, though, he continued.

`Until then we were happy. There didn't seem to be any problems. No ... bones of contention:

Leonora was struck at once by both the story and his articulation, and saw a way to divert the course of their conversation.

`Where did you learn such good English?'

`London. I went there for two years after my military service, while I was deciding what to do with my life. I worked in a restaurant - with Niccolo, another cousin. I spent my time between a Soho kitchen and the London Hippodrome, picking up terrible women.' He grinned. `I learned the swearwords first!

`Where?'

'Both places. Then I came back to the Police Academy in Milan, and then home to Venice when