Deep and Silent Waters

Vittoria appeared just as a tall boy came out of the house facing her. The sun was in her eyes the first time she saw Domenico; like a halo, his black hair framed his face, which was so beautiful she couldn’t breathe, just stood and gaped at him.

‘What are you up to?’ he asked Olivia.

‘Why are you home so early?’ Olivia sounded edgy.

‘It’s her brother,’ Gina said softly. Vittoria had not even known that Olivia had a brother but, then, she was an outsider in Venice, she knew almost nothing about its society or the old families, and Olivia had always been careful not to mention hers.

That reticence betrayed something that Vittoria only then understood: that, however friendly she might be with them, Olivia did not think of her schoolmates as existing in the same world as herself. At school she was the Olivia they knew – but what was she at home?

One thing was immediately obvious: physically, she was very like her brother, tall, slim, with the same colouring, similar features. In the boy, though, they added up to a heart-stopping, angelic beauty, while Olivia was merely striking, not pretty so much as interesting.

‘How old is he?’ Vittoria whispered to Gina, thinking that it was typical of Gina to know so much about Olivia’s family. Signora Cavani loved to chat with anyone who came into their shop, lingered outside the church after Mass to exchange gossip with any woman she knew, read all the society pages in magazines and newspapers – avid to find out as much as possible about important Venetian families.

‘Sixteen,’ Gina said, without a second’s hesitation. ‘Mamma said the other day that

, by the end of the year, he will have to join the army. He’s still at school now. When he’s seventeen he’ll be called up like everyone else – their money doesn’t save them.’

‘I hate this war, I wish it would stop!’ Vittoria cried, close to tears.

Olivia and her brother heard this, and broke off their half-whispered conversation to join the other two girls.

‘Well, it’s a pity we ever got into it, I agree,’ Domenico d’Angeli said, looking down at her curiously. ‘But we’re in it now, and we can’t get out. We just have to take what comes and pray to God that it’s over soon.’

‘I don’t believe in God,’ Vittoria said fiercely.

‘Toria! That’s wicked!’ Olivia was very conventional, especially in her religious beliefs. The nuns had a responsive pupil for their teaching.

‘God killed my father!’

The other girls fell silent. Gina’s father, the grocer, was still alive, and Olivia’s father, Conte Niccolo d’Angeli, had been shot on his horse in the First World War. He had limped ever since so he had not been called up. He didn’t live at home, however, because he had accepted a post in Mussolini’s government, first as a diplomat and then, since the war began, based in Rome, dealing with foreign affairs.

‘He was in the army?’ Domenico asked quietly, watching her.

‘He was killed when the English bombed Milan.’

‘What was he doing in Milan?’

‘We live there. He ran our factory. I’ll never forgive God for letting him be killed. Our home isn’t there any more, either.’

‘God didn’t make this war,’ Domenico said. ‘Governments did. Men did.’

‘Then men are stupid and so are governments.’

‘You’re very violent in your opinions,’ he said, and laughed suddenly. ‘But I admit I don’t entirely disagree. What’s your name? And what are you doing in Venice if your family live in Milan?’

‘My mother sent me here to my aunt. She thought I’d be safer. My name is Vittoria Serrati.’

He frowned. ‘Serrati … That’s a familiar name, I’m sure I’ve heard it before.’

‘Her father makes pills,’ Gina said, with a sting of spite that made Vittoria flush. ‘Every chemist sells them.’

‘Oh, that Serrati. Of course!’ Domenico laughed again, then did a sort of double-take. He was staring at Gina, silently taking in the way she looked: her apricot skin, huge eyes, red-gold Titian hair. The other girls watched, recognising the effect thirteen-year-old Gina always had on men. She was precocious for her age: her mother had seen to that, dressing her in the latest fashions, teaching her how to pose, look through her eyelashes, smile invitingly. Signora Cavani wanted her to marry well, catch a man with money, and Gina was already an expert fisher of men. Men of eighteen or eighty-five who passed her in the street always turned to gape after her. Schoolboys followed her, making chicken noises and whistling, and even the priest, who came to hear their confessions and teach them their catechism, flushed when Gina bent over his desk to point out something in her exercise book, her hair straying against his cheek. And she knew what she was doing. Gina was already aware of her powers.

‘And you? Who are you?’ asked Domenico, at last.

‘My name is Gina Cavani.’ She did not smile. Her oval face was clear and cool, an exquisite cameo, her lashes flickering against that warm, smooth skin.

He went on staring, saying nothing. From the house someone called, ‘Domenico? Come in, you have a visitor!’