After eating lunch at a restaurant by the water, he walked slowly back to the car, and drove back over the bridge. This had just been opened when he and Effi last visited, and he remembered hoardings hung with photos of the Duce doing the honours. Mussolini had only been dead three years, Russell realised. It seemed a lot longer.
Escaping the city’s mainland suburbs, he drove north along mostly empty roads, the mountains drawing ever closer. The Aviano airbase might belong to the Italians, but as far as Russell could see the only planes they possessed were a couple of old trainers from the 1920s. The modern planes parked by the perimeter had USAF markings, and their presence suggested a somewhat less than wholehearted commitment to leave. Then again, compared to buying a national election, a couple of planes didn’t seem that much of an intrusion.
Russell watched the DC-3 taxi to a halt some distance from the airbase buildings, then drove towards it across the expanse of tarmac and grass. He got there just as the door was opened to lower the steps, and there was Effi, framed in the doorway like visiting royalty, holding Rosa’s hand. Both faces lit up when they saw him, which almost brought a tear to his eye. He’d been away too long.
Rosa ran up to hug him with Effi close behind, and they enfolded each other in a three-way embrace.
No one else had got off.
‘Were you the only passengers?’ Russell asked.
‘We were,’ Effi told him. ‘Even the pilot was surprised.’
Either the Americans had forgotten the meaning of economy, or he was more important than he realised, Russell thought. Which was worth remembering.
Effi was taking in the air. ‘Even the airports smell good down here,’ she said. ‘And it’s so beautifully warm.’
‘Is this our car now?’ Rosa wanted to know.
‘Only for the next few days.’
‘But I thought everyone in Venice went everywhere by boat.’
‘They do. Well, they walk, too. The car’s to get us there and back.’ He suggested they all squeeze into the front, but Rosa insisted on sitting in the middle of the back seat, where she had had uninterrupted view of the countryside on either side of the road.
The roads were still virtually empty, and they reached Venice with an hour of daylight to spare. After leaving their bags at the hotel, they took a water taxi down to San Marco, and found that the restaurant behind the basilica which Russell and Effi had patronised on their previous visit was still there. More astonishing, the proprietor recognised them, and insisted on serving them all champagne.
Sailing back up the Grand Canal with a moon rising over the roofs, Russell silently thanked whatever god had brought them there to see it. Once Rosa was in bed, the two of them sat for a while by the open balcony doorway, watching the moon’s reflection in the windows across the canal, before finally sharing a look that had them walking hand in hand to their enormous bed. After making love the first time, they lay naked in each other’s arms, feeling the warm breeze on their skin, savouring that sense of intimacy that both had sorely missed.
‘So tell me your news,’ Russell said, after several minutes had passed.
‘Where to begin?’ she asked rhetorically, before taking him through Thomas’s political travails, Strohm’s and Annaliese’s impending marriage and parenthood, Lisa Sundgren’s arrival in search of her daughter, and the questions Eva Kempka had raised about Sonja Strehl’s suicide. And then were the problems the Soviets were causing, both for her and Berlin.
‘You have been through it.’
‘And that’s not all. Two of them turned up at the flat, and tried to take me away for questioning. I thought I was being abducted, so I saw them off with the gun you got me.’
‘You what?!?’
‘I know, but I was right. Your friend Shchepkin came to see me the next day, and apologised for his countrymen. They wanted to ask me some questions about Sonja Strehl, but now they’ve been told to leave me alone-you’re too important to annoy, apparently.’
‘I’m glad to hear it.’ He was shocked, but knew he shouldn’t be-it wasn’t the first time she’d proved she could look after herself. ‘So what did you think of Shchepkin?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. He seemed so wan and sad, but I don’t imagine he takes many prisoners.’
‘No, probably not.’
‘But the really big news,’ Effi said, sitting up against the headboard and pulling the sheet across her lower body, ‘is Zarah.’
‘She’s going to marry Bill and live in America,’ Russell suggested.
‘How did you guess?’
‘I saw it coming months ago. I’ve just been hoping you wouldn’t be too upset.’
‘Well of course I’m upset! But then I know I mustn’t be, because he’s just what Zarah needs.’
‘He is, isn’t he? You know I’ve got to like your sister, after all those years of just putting up with her.’
‘I think she’s almost grown fond of you,’ Effi said.
He smiled. ‘And how’s Rosa?’
‘You can see for yourself.’ She had decided not to tell Russell about the picture just yet-she wanted to see if he noticed anything different about his adopted daughter over the next couple of days. ‘But what about you? You seemed to like Trieste for the first few weeks, but lately …’
‘There’s nothing wrong with Trieste. It’s the people I deal with.’ He described his work as an interpreter, recounted the fun and games in Belgrade, but spared her the details of Palychko’s demise.
‘But you’re writing, too?’
‘Oh, yes. But the story I’m on is hardly uplifting.’
‘But the fact that you’re writing it may be.’
He grinned. ‘That’s one of the reasons I love you. One of many.’
She slid back down to snuggle up against him. ‘Tell me some of the others.’
They spent the weekend roaming the island, only venturing off it once to visit nearby Tocello and its 7th-century cathedral. Otherwise they punctuated gondola rides and rambles through the narrow streets with long rests in coffee shops and restaurants. Their favourite haunt was a cafe in the Piazza San Marco, where they could simply sit and soak it all in-the beautiful buildings, the music from cafe phonographs, the square full of people and pigeons. Rosa sat with her sketchpad whenever they gave her the chance, drawing many a compliment from passers-by. But the views that had inspired Canaletto didn’t call to her; she drew people against barely realised backgrounds, which could have been anywhere. Or indeed nowhere.
‘So how have you found her?’ Effi asked Russell on their last night.
He considered. ‘More grown-up,’ he decided. ‘I’ve only been away for three months, but she seems to have aged more than that. Not physically. Emotionally, I suppose.’
Effi told him about the drawing and her subsequent conversation with Rosa.
His instinct told him there was nothing to worry about, but he trusted hers more. ‘Have you stopped her seeing those children?’ he asked.
‘How can I? She spent three years hidden away with her mother-I can’t keep her locked up in the flat. And there’s nothing wrong with the children she plays with-I’ve talked to them-they’re just normal kids who don’t have the sort of home life that we took for granted. Zarah thinks they’re actually more resilient.’
‘She might be right,’ Russell said. ‘I never thought your sister was the brightest spark in the universe, but she’s done a great job with Lothar.’
‘She has, hasn’t she? So you don’t think there’s any reason to worry?’
He grunted. ‘There’s always that. But if you hadn’t said anything, well, she seems fine to me. And frankly, given her history, I expected a lot more problems than those we’ve actually had.’
‘You never said that before.’
‘Why tempt fate?’
‘Why indeed? Speaking of which, there’s another secret I’ve been keeping. The day before we left I had a visitor from Hollywood-or to be precise, from a Hollywood company that’s making a film in Berlin. The director wants me in his next movie.’