“No,” he said, taking her hands. Overawed by her beauty, he gently pulled forward her auburn hair until it sat over her shoulders again.
Daniel walked over the threshold of the villa, breathed the late-summer air, and led her outside. Arm in arm, slowly, not speaking, they walked to the small modern promenade, past the restaurants, past the little hotels, then sat by the water’s edge.
The lagoon mirrored the gold of the sky. It was a perfect evening. The last of the season’s swallows darted above their heads. Families played on the narrow strip of beach. Couples walked hand in hand along the concrete path. In the distance stood the outline of the city, shimmering in the haze on the horizon.
Laura’s head fell on his shoulder. He felt the moist warmth of her lips on his skin.
“Who are we?” she asked.
“The blessed,” Daniel said, and knew at that moment that nothing, not even Hugo Massiter, would part them again.
65
Chance encounter
From the journal of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, April 1743
At last they do me justice. I travel now for a post of some rank, as Secretary to the French Ambassador in that den of sin, Venice. I cannot fault the work; only the location. I have not written much of the place in my other journals, though I spent a little time there a decade or so ago. There are sights aplenty and a smattering of artists too. Yet, though possessed of a memory which scarce lets slip a face or incident from years back, I must confess I recall nothing of moment during my interlude in La Serenissima. Nothing, that is, save the stink of the canals, which even an idiot is unlikely to forget.
Sometimes the oddities of fortune have a way of making up for these omissions. I travel to Venice from Geneva, where I saw my few remaining relatives. The call of business prevented my taking a direct route and instead demanded I visit the surly burghers of Zurich for three tedious days. Then I took the coach to Chur for the mountain pass to Milan, by Lugano and Como, a crossing so ancient I must be following in the footsteps of Caesar and his battalions with every mile.
This is a long and tiresome journey, and so, of necessity, I must break it into as many constituent parts as I find convenient, or sit day and night on the hard seat of some cold, drab carriage, listening to the coughs and wheezes of my fellow man. Chur is as pleasant a place as any to pause for breath. This is a curious spot, set in a deep valley carved by the Rhine. The natives, part of the canton we call Grisons and they Graubünden, claim descent from the Etruscans and speak a strange tongue known as Romansh. There is a handful of fetching buildings, some fine hotels and restaurants, and an ancient Kathedrale with one of those Gothic altars designed to make you dizzy if you stare at it too long.
With some money in my pocket for once and an urge for a decent meal and a soft bed, I took a room at the Drei Könige, a comfortable establishment not far from the carriage stop. There I dined marvellously on good Swiss boar, potatoes, red cabbage, and ale before retiring to the salon at the rear, attracted by the unexpected sound of a small ensemble. I pulled up a chair, joined the six or so other travellers in the room, and found myself lost in thought. The music was expertly played, though somewhat predictable in content— insipid dance tunes, the kind of fare one must expect from entertainers in an hotel. What caught my attention most, though, was the players: a woman of striking appearance, perhaps in her mid-thirties, with wayward dark hair and a scarlet dress, who worked at a large, sonorous fiddle as if she were born with the thing strapped to her arm; a furtive-looking man a little younger than his wife, playing the harpsichord with rather less skill than his partner; and a dark-haired, if overly serious, child — nine, no more — bowing away on a smaller fiddle alongside his mother, and very well too.
I recognised this couple instantly. Our meeting had been brief — in Venice, of all places — and at least one of them I believed dead, and after some villainous deeds at that. To see this pair, with their o fspring, stand in front of me, flesh and blood, was a curious and chilling experience, and one made all the more so by the way in which, after a while, both adults returned my inquisitive gaze. They performed another fifteen minutes more, then, after the merest round of applause, turned their backs on me and began to pack away their instruments. Emboldened by this rudeness, I decided to play them at their own game, and duly strode across to the tiny stage in order to strike up a conversation with these “strangers.”
The man regarded my outstretched hand as if it were leprous. “I congratulate your little band, sir,” I said with a smile. “I never expected to hear such musicianship in the provinces. Surely you must head for civilisation to reap the acclaim you deserve!”
The fellow gave me a filthy look, one that made my heart skip a beat. The exact circumstances of our acquaintance were still a blur to me at this point. The woman, I recall, was a musician. Yet I knew there were black rumours about his character later, though I had assumed him a gentleman when we first met, if a somewhat pompous one. It would be foolish to discount these tales of his disposition simply because half the intelligence about his fate proved misconstrued.
“Music is music, sir, wherever it is played,” he replied in a monotonous country brogue. “One does not need the city’s imprimatur to prove its value.”
“True, but what worth is a diamond set beneath the ground, dear fellow? Nothing. It is only when the miner brings it to the surface, the jeweller carves it, the lady wears it… then it becomes the most precious thing in all the world!”
His eyes, if I am not mistaken, glazed over at this metaphor. A strange symptom of fear, no doubt, for all three of us knew this was a charade.
The lady packed away that gigantic instrument, as ugly to behold as it was delightful to hear, and said with what passed for a smile, “We are mere country folk, sir. Content to earn a living and a bed for the night by our playing and our lessons, nothing more. The city would surely drown us in its tumult and expose our talents as the humble e forts which, in truth, they represent.”
She did herself a disservice and knew it. “Not so!” I insisted. “I listened most carefully, and you, madame, play like an angel. And originally, too, for I have not heard those tunes before and there’s many a hotel band I’ve been forced to listen to on my travels.”
She beamed at that. Quite rightly, for it was sincerely meant. She had acquired, I must record, a distinct limp; it spoiled somewhat her otherwise comely appearance. “Thank you, sir. It is a hobby of mine to write a little now and then.”
“Dance tunes,” the man interrupted. “Nothing that would fill a hall outside the inns.”
“And not all my own,” the woman added. “My brother recently found a position as a physician at the Russian court. We are fortunate in that he sends us some popular melodies from Moscow occasionally.”
She smiled, obviously proud of her sibling’s achievement, then her husband broke this pleasant turn in the conversation by observing sourly, “We know our métier, monsieur. We are travelling players, and it puts bread upon our table.”
Such false modesty! “Never underestimate the human spirit, my friend,” I answered. “Handel was the son of a barber, and a trainee lawyer to boot. If he can overcome those twin burdens, surely you might fight your way out of the taverns and reach a more appreciative audience?”
They looked at each other, and with my customary acuity, I was able to detect this was a subject of some tension. It would have been cruel to prolong this awkward moment, so I reached down, tousled the mop of dark hair on the young lad, and earned a grudging look for my pains.
“And you, my boy. What name do you answer to?”