Portrait of a Girl (36 page)

After an hour, they arrived at their goal. A horse-drawn omnibus was waiting at the Colico station to take those passengers who were continuing their travels to the dock where the ship was anchored.

Nika’s heart was in her throat. Before her was Lake Como with its steamboat, the engine already running. The travelers hurried across the landing stage, Nika among them, her bundle pressed to her chest, in one hand her ticket, a ticket to an unknown future.

And then finally, after she had found a seat on deck, spread the cloth in her lap, and put a piece of cheese into her mouth, the tears began to stream down her cheeks, unstoppable. The tailwind cooled her face, but more tears kept coming. They ran down her throat and dampened the locket with the emblem of the Damaskinos family; a few teardrops fell on the bread and cheese. And Nika, who kept wiping her wet face, couldn’t say what it was she was crying about most: the accident that had revealed the secret of her origins, her happiness at being on her way to find her family, or her unhappiness at having lost Segantini. She cried, remembering how Benedetta had taken care of her like a mother, she cried about everything, even about the farmer who’d taken her into service, and for Mulegns. She wept because she would be homesick for the Engadine and because she was afraid of the strange land she was about to set foot in.

Achille Robustelli’s dependable directions had taken Nika to the place where the Milano–Venezia train, on its narrow embankment, dove into the sparkling lagoon approaching the city of Venice. Nika was overwhelmed by her first view of the city.

Although they had been going across the water, the train station itself was on terra firma. Nika, bewildered, had taken a few steps as if to make sure that the ground would not give way. Ahead of her, there was more water. On the Grand Canal there were rowboats loaded with vegetables and potatoes. And all around her, people—old ones, young ones, women, children, elegant lady tourists with parasols accompanied by men in black suits—no different than in St. Moritz or at the Spa Hotel Maloja.

In a sudden panic, Nika clapped her hands over her ears. The place was noisy, crowded; the narrow streets lay in the shadows cast by the tall houses lining them—they would have resembled canyons in the mountains, if clotheslines had not been strung across them from one side to the other. There were tables set up outside the houses, loaded with food; the people seemed to live in the streets. Cats ran underfoot, dogs lifted their tired heads from their paws. Nika kept her hands over her ears because she didn’t want to close her eyes, so afraid was she of getting lost in this strange bustling activity. The warm, humid air smelled foul and sat heavily on her anxious heart.

“Signorina, watch your baggage!” an older woman called out to her as she walked by. “Don’t daydream, or you’ll get the shock of your life!” The woman laughed and already she was gone. Nika had scarcely understood the woman because her Italian was so different from Nika’s Bregaglia dialect and the Italian spoken by Segantini or Count Primoli.

Evening was falling over Venice. But it didn’t get quiet and the streets didn’t empty of people as would have been the case in the mountains. All Nika wanted to do was go and hide. A gaunt cat, with a fish head between its teeth, disappeared into a building entrance. Nika watched the cat. There was a pension in the building, and so she followed the cat and asked if they had a room available. They gave her a key and sent her up a dark, narrow staircase. The musty smell from the mildewed walls mixed with the smell of minestrone. “
Numero due
,” the man called after her.

The following day, still confused and tired, she tried to find the Chiesa dei Greci. She kept having to ask for directions. She crossed countless canals, then got lost in the narrow alleys of the Ghetto, but finally found her way back to Strada Nuova. She felt as if she’d been walking for hours. The heavy air made it hard to breathe, as did the barrage of sights. Live eels writhed in a vat on a flat barge gliding past. Children jumped into the opaque green canals to cool off. There was no way of knowing how deep the canals were; you could only guess. The light captured by the water was reflected on the flaking walls of the narrow houses. Exhausted, Nika sat down on the edge of a fountain in the middle of a small square. From a church façade, saints and angels looked down on her, white with golden halos. A young woman stopped in front of her and asked if she needed help.

“Yes,” Nika said weakly. “I was looking for the Piazza San Marco.”

“But that’s right around the corner there,” the young woman said, pointing. “You’ll be there in ten paces.”

And it was true. Nika stepped out of a narrow street into the light and found herself standing in the Piazza San Marco.

Finding the house itself had been easy. Everyone in the Calle Magazzin knew the palazzo of the Damaskinos family.

Nika lifted the door knocker to knock on the door. It was a heavy brass lion’s paw. She knocked once more, harder.

An elderly woman opened the door.

“Good day,” Nika said, “I’d like to speak with Signor Damaskinos or the signora.”

The woman asked, “Who may I say is calling?”

“Nika Damaskinos,” Nika said boldly.

The woman, whose face was not discernible in the dark of the hallway, was silent for a moment. Then she said, “Wait here, please,” in a voice that was as inscrutable as her face. “I’ll ask whether someone here will see you.” She closed the large door, and one could hear her steps receding.

Nika stood there in the afternoon heat. She touched the locket at her throat. So this was her family’s house, and this the city of her origin, her country.

The tall door had iron fittings; it opened again. “Come in,” the woman said, “I’ll take you to the master of the house. Signor Damaskinos doesn’t have much time and says he has never heard of you.” The servant, bent with age, led Nika up to the second floor.

A large room opened up before her. A splendid chandelier made of milky glass hung from the high wooden ceiling. Carpets covered the marble floor. The woman pointed to a sofa standing against the wall directly by the stairway. Then she disappeared through one of the doors leading to various other rooms. Nika sat there, a petitioner, a beggar in the house of her parents and grandparents. The coolness enveloped her.

An old man came through one of the doors, approached Nika, and looked her up and down with keen, penetrating eyes. She rose, but he had his arms crossed at his back and did not extend his hand to her.

“What can I do for you?” he asked icily and took a step back as if to observe her better that way.

“Good afternoon,” Nika said, and when he didn’t return her greeting, she continued. “My name is Nika. Twenty years ago, I was abandoned with this locket by a young woman and her companion—at a post coach station in the mountains in Switzerland. No one could tell me who my mother was or what family I belonged to. But Count Primoli recognized the heraldic emblem on this locket.” She gathered all her courage, looked straight at the man’s expressionless face, and said, “That’s why I’m here. My name is Nika Damaskinos.”

The man laughed out loud. “A lot of people would like to claim the name Damaskinos. It is an old and venerable name and smells of money.” The man laughed again, but by now his face had assumed a menacing expression. “My daughter is dead, and she had only two sons. Show me your locket!” He gestured for her to take off the piece of jewelry. But Nika only held the locket, still on its chain around her neck, out to him. The man bent down; the corners of his mouth twitched. Nika took heart. Yes, he did recognize the coat of arms; she was quite sure of that. Now the ghastly business would end, and he would look at her in a friendlier way.

But instead, he grabbed the chain as if he wanted to tear it off her neck. Instinctively Nika took a step backward.

“You little thief!” the man cried. “What an outrage! Back then, my daughter said that the locket had been stolen on the trip. And now, after all these years you want to profit from the theft—whoever may have been the actual thief at the tim
e . . .
” He reached for the bell to call the servants. But before he could grab Nika with his other hand, she ran down the palazzo stairway and out into the street. Turning into Calle Moruzzi, she disappeared into the crowd.

In no time, she had lost her sense of direction. She seemed to be going in circles, seemed to keep turning into the same campo, each time closer to exhaustion. When a little barking dog jumped toward her, Nika, already perplexed and confused, was scared out of her wits and began to tremble. She started to run, panic-stricken. Crossing the Grand Canal, she realized she had never been in this part of the city. But here, too, the labyrinth was endless, the light shimmered on the canals, one bridge followed another.

At last, she was in a square dominated by the brick façade of an enormous church. The wings of the church door were open. She entered the gentle dusk of the nave and sank down in one of the pews. At the front, at the altar, a priest was reading the evening Mass. Enveloped by the murmuring of the faithful, Nika’s head dropped forward in weariness.

The church eventually emptied; the last white-robed altar boy disappeared into the sacristy; only the faint aroma of incense wafted like a soft evening mist through the nave.

Nika dragged herself to one of the side chapels. Candles intended to carry the prayers of the faithful up to heaven threw their flickering light on a young Madonna looking down on her from the altarpiece. She had reddish-blonde hair, just like Nika.

The next morning Nika awoke with a start and jumped out of the pew when the sacristan opened the door of the Basilica dei Frari to let in the old, insomnia-plagued men and women for early Mass. It took her a while to realize where she was. The picture she had looked at the night before was now deep in the shadows.

Nika’s face glowed with fever, and she was tortured by thirst. She needed help, a doctor. She had to find Fabrizi
o . . .
Yes, she wanted to go to Fabrizio. When she left the pension that morning, she had taken his address along, as if to protect her in this strange city. Nika staggered toward the door. The daylight was dazzling; she closed her eyes and walked blindly a few steps onto the campo. Then she saw a young man coming toward her from the café across the way. She had seen that face before. It was a pleasant face, but now it looked surprised, shocked.

“Signorina,” the young man with the brown eyes called out, “what a surprise to see you again so soon!”

But Nika did not hear what he said. She had fainted.

Later, Nika remembered hardly anything of the two weeks that followed that morning. Only scraps of recognition penetrated her fever, a cup being held to her lips, cool sheets whenever the bed linens were changed. Again and again, she saw the face with the brown eyes, bending over her with concern. At some point, some words did get through to her: “I’m Fabrizi
o . . .
Fabrizi
o . . .
Do you remember me?”

It was many days before she nodded in answer to his question. “We met at the Spa Hotel Maloja,” he said. “I was there with Count Primol
i . . .
”

Then her mind cleared, and after a long time of accepting only fluids, she began to eat solid food again.

She didn’t see Fabrizio in the daytime. A servant named Paolina cared for her during those hours. But mostly Nika just lay there, her eyes closed.

Fabrizio came and went. And came again. That was good. She would smile when he sat down next to her bed, then close her eyes again. He read, filed papers, corrected texts, and would leave her bedside to sleep. Once she stretched her hand out for him just as he was about to quietly leave the room. He saw her gesture, came back, took the outstretched hand in his, and stroked her forehead with his other hand. She drew him closer, whispered, “Fabrizio?”

“Yes,” he said.

“It’s a beautiful name,” she murmured and contentedly turned her face away.

Another time she woke up and wished he were lying next to her. But how was she to tell him?

She didn’t even ask him about the pension where she had stayed. Only when she saw the bundle with her few things in a corner of the room did she remember that she had even been there. Now, gradually, she began to ask questions.

“The pensio
n . . .
”

“You had the address in your pocket. Probably because you were afraid of not finding it again. We had your things picked up from there.”

“W
e . . .
?”

Fabrizio laughed. “We, my parents and myself. You are in my home. You also had my address in your pocket, but I found you before you could come here.”

Nika shook her head, incredulous. “But I was in a churc
h . . .
”

He laughed again.

“The Chiesa dei Frari is just around the corner from here. I usually have breakfast at the bar across the way. And as I was leaving the bar that morning to go to work at the newspaper, you fell into my arms without even saying good morning.”

Nika did not remember.

Fabrizio was so glad she was feeling better that he couldn’t suppress teasing her gently. “Yes, that’s the way it goes. As soon as you see me, you simply fall into my arms. But from now on you won’t need to faint when you do it.”

“And so you ran out of the Palazzo Damaskinos?” Fabrizio asked. He’d looked at her with concern for the entire time she’d been recounting her story.

“Yes,” Nika replied.

“Your grandfather accused you of being a thief?”

Nika nodded.

“And that’s when you ran away.” She nodded again.

“You probably run away quite a lot. You also ran away from Mulegns.”

She tried to interrupt him.

“It’s all right. Don’t get upset.” He was gradually beginning make sense of Nika’s story.

“But now,” he said, “now you don’t need to run away anymore.”

“Oh yes!” she cried. “I told you what happened. They don’t want me here in this city.”

She was really from another world. “Venice isn’t Maloja, where one man believes he can decide whether you may stay there or not.” He didn’t mention Segantini by name, but added with satisfaction, “And even there he couldn’t have. Venice is a big city. The Damaskinos family doesn’t have the right to decide who may enter the city and who must leave.”