The next day was the same as every day. I looked after the animals, I wrote an article, I did the history tour and I met Juliana. The only thing that changed was the posters. I had grown weary of replacing them, but on this day I printed hundreds and I put them everywhere.
I carried his photograph with me. It was crumpled and a tear was worrying at the right hand corner. If the tear went further it would rip right through his head. I took a copy and left the original at home.
‘You seen this boy?’ I’d ask people in cafes, in restaurants, in bars. I’d ask tourists who stopped me for directions. ‘He’d be a man now,’ I’d say. ‘Imagine him in colour and not so pale. He’ll be tanned now. Swarthy after being a sailor for so long, probably a pirate. You seen this man?’
‘No,’ they’d say. ‘We’ve not seen him.’
‘He’s here for sure,’ I’d say. ‘I should have known it, you know? Of all the places. Where else would he settle? This fantastical realm made of water and glass and crumbling stone. Have you seen this man? Imagine him in colour.’
I put hundreds of missing posters all across Venice. They merged with the graffiti, fraying at the edges, spattered with paint. He had a moustache in one and in another a green penis grew out of his forehead, but mostly they were ignored; covered over, forgotten. Have you seen this man? In response I received smears of paint, tags, slogans: ‘Love the lost’.
My phone number was on the posters and in return I received calls from lonely people and old perverts. Love the lost, and I embraced them all. The police fined me for fly posting and graffiti but let me put the poster in their station and in ‘designated areas’. I’d go to the station every week to ask if anyone had seen him. The answer was always no, always ‘we’ll get in touch with you.’ They huffed when I walked through the door each week but they’d ask how I was, asked how many more dogs and cats and injured birds I had collected. I stayed for coffee and they asked if I had found a proper job yet, they asked if I’d settled down with a good man. They warned me not to put my number on the posters, not to answer calls from ‘perverts and crazies’.
‘“Stay away from my son, whore!”’
‘What? She said what?’
‘“Stay away from my son, whore!” That’s what she said. Her voice creaks, like old furniture. She sounds like she’s a hundredbillion years old.’
Juliana laughed.
‘The phone call after that, all I got was “Whore! Bitch! Who do you think you are?” That’s all. That was it. She hung up. It’s gone on like that for over a week now.’
Juliana raised her whisky, ‘To the old lady! May she forever be crazy! May she stalk you to your grave.’
‘To the old lady!’ I said, and we downed our drinks.
‘You need to find out who she is.’
‘I can’t get a word in.’
‘You’ll see, she’ll be lonely. Soon she’ll be your best friend. Soon she’ll be your grandmother, offering advice, telling you you’re all skin and bone and you need fattened up.’
‘I’ve never had a grandmother. I never knew her.’
‘Well, you have one now.’
‘She’ll stop calling. She’ll get bored of it and move on to someone else.’
‘I’m telling you,’ she raised her glass. ‘I’m telling you.’
She nodded and I shrugged.
‘We’ll see.’
I received a call every night from Maria. She told me her life story. She was rich, she said. Sure, I said. I live in a Palazzetto on the Grand Canal, she said. Sure, I said. Rattling around on my own, she said. Rattling, like my old bones. It’s hard to get around now, she said. And now my son is gone, I’m all alone. What’s your interest in him, whore? What’s your interest in him? Stay away from Antonio!
Next time she phoned she was polite, talking to me like we were old friends, like we were family, like she was some long-lost, concerned relative. Then she said to me, ‘If he wants to leave us, then let him, don’t go shaming my family name all over Venezia!’
She called every night. Some nights it was ‘Whore! Bitch! Who do you think you are?’ and other nights we’d talk for hours and she’d tell me about her family, about her friends, about her glamorous life before she got old and was forgotten. She was a socialite, she said. ‘All I did was go to parties, look pretty and slay the boys with my viperous tongue.’
‘I can believe that,’ I said, and she’d chuckle, a hoarse, dirty chuckle. ‘You should have seen me,’ she said. ‘You should have seen me back then.’ She’d grow maudlin. I heard the clink of ice in a glass, and she said to me, ‘Come visit. Come visit, it’s been so long. I miss you. I will show you all my photos from back in the day. I was beautiful then. I was everything then.’ I wanted to say, ‘You’re everything now,’ coming to realise that Juliana was right. Instead I said, ‘You don’t know me, Maria. I could be a serial killer. I could be in it to steal your fortune.’
‘In it? In what?’ she said, sharp, distinct. ‘In what?’
‘In this, our friendship.’
‘I call the shots,’ she said. ‘I called you and I call the shots. Now you come and visit me. Come round and I will fatten you up.’
‘How do you know I need fattened?’
‘Anyone who sits on the phone all night talking to some old woman doesn’t know how to cook themselves a proper meal.’
‘He really does look like David,’ I said, ‘but older, olive-skinned, and in colour.’
‘You can have the picture,’ she said. ‘Maybe you’ll have more luck finding him if you have a more up to date photograph.’
‘But it’s not him,’ I said. ‘It’s not up to date. It’s someone else.’
‘It could be him, and what does that matter? If it helps you find him?’
I posted photos of her son all across Venice: ‘Have you seen this man?’
When Antonio came home that summer, we got phonecall after phonecall. ‘I’ve seen this man, I’ve seen him.’
‘It’s not him,’ I’d have to say, ‘it’s not him.’
I took an even more up to date photo, but didn’t post it up, waiting patiently until Antonio left so we didn’t get pointless phone calls from people telling us they’d found the man sitting right next to us.
Antonio took us out in the evenings and Maria would say to everyone, ‘Have you seen this man? No, not him, not him exactly, stupid! Why would I be asking, when he’s right here? Someone like him. My son is just like him, you see, but more up to date.’
I sat across from Antonio, watching him eating and drinking and talking. He looked just like David. His skin, his hair, his cheekbones, the shape of his nose. Even the same brown eyes, so dark they looked black. But his manner was different and it shattered the illusion, it ruined his face. You’re not doing it right. You’re not moving your lips the way you should. You’re not smiling the way you should. You’re not raising your eyebrow and giving me that look the way you should. You used to touch your lips, when you were thinking. You’d rub your fingers across your lips but now you pull at your ear, or tap your fingers. You’ve changed too much. If this was you, would you have changed this much? When I find you will I not know you?
‘She really was beautiful.’
‘Who?’
‘Maria.’
Antonio didn’t respond. He poured himself more coffee, stood up and gestured at me, to stay, to wait. He came through with her photo album.
‘I’ve seen it so many times,’ I said. ‘She likes reliving her glory days.’
He opened the album and slid it over to me, pointing to a group photo. I’d seen this photo countless times, yet I still felt warmth when I saw her luminous smile, her delicate fingers curled round a glass, her husband’s arm around her shoulder. I smiled. ‘It’s a beautiful photograph.’