Item number four was the Marciana. Sam was ashamed of the way he'd been neglecting his duties. During the months of preparation for the conference and the exhibition, and then during the intense week of the conference itself, his ordinary work had fallen far behind. His boss, the director of the Marciana, had made a few gentle remarks, almost too courteous to be understood as complaints.
And Signora Pino kept looking at Sam in melancholy urgency with an important letter in her hand or a paper to sign or a contract for vastly expensive repairs that urgently needed his signature. This morning she reminded him of his meeting with the Piazza Council. "Oh, of course," said Sam. "Thank you. I had forgotten."
The Piazza Council was the new group of functionaries from all the major institutions in the neighborhoodthe Biblioteca Marciana, the Palazzo Ducale and the Museo Correr, the office of the Soprintendenza ai Beni Artistici e Storici di Venezia, the Procuratie di San Marco, and of course the Basilica di San Marco itself.
They had begun to meet regularly in the Ducal Palace in the Hall of the Council of Ten, a fabulous chamber with a melancholy history and a painted ceiling writhing with gold moldings. This morning the regular members of the Piazza Council were joined by the mayor of Venice, representing the Venice City Council, and by employees of AMAVthe Venetian Environmental Multiservices Corporationas well as by others from the Consorzio Venezia Nuova, a consortium of private contractors.
The deliberations of the Piazza Council were perhaps doomed from the start, because there was bad feeling between the city council and the rich and powerful Consorzio Venezia Nuova.
But the problem of high water in the piazza was a severe one, and it called for heroic efforts by somebody, somehow, and as soon as possible.
The mayor laid it out in plain words. "As you all know, the piazza is at the lowest point in Venice. It is also the busiest part of the city. The dangerous month of November is nearly here, and the lagoon is already spilling over the Molo twice a day, in spite of the fact that this is the time of neap tide. Let us not forget that the moon"the mayor lowered his voice to a deep throb and looked grimly around the table"the moon will be full again in only seven days."
They looked at each other solemnly, feeling the weight of the earth's dangerous satellite hovering over their heads. The mayor held up a calendar and tapped it with his finger. "This is the date of the highest autumn spring tide. The meteorologists are warning that the stormy forecast and the probability of high winds in the near future may create the worst problem in years."
"And we all know what that means," sighed Father Urbano. "Sixty centimeters of water in the piazza."
"The fact is," said the man from AMAV, looking dolefully at Father Urbano, "we're afraid of a return of the inundation of 1966."
At this gloomy prediction the director of the Correr started out of his chair. "Nineteen sixty-six! You can't mean it, not again! But the water was one hundred twenty-five centimeters deep in the piazza in 1966!"
The mayor seemed to take pleasure in apocalyptic pronouncements. His voice became even more sepulchral as he drew forth another chart showing the distribution of high water throughout the city. "This map has been provided by our friends in AMAV," he said, smiling at their representative. "These areas in yellow remain relatively dry, whereas these in light blue"he capped the chart"are inundated, and this one in dark blue" He pointed at the piazza and fell silent. There was no need to finish the sentence.
"If only," said the man from the Consorzio Venezia Nuova, "we had been permitted to install our floodgates at the three points of entry of the Adriatic into the lagoon, this problem would never again arise. As you are all well aware, our scale model has been working perfectly. We are ready to go."
It was a sore point. The mayor started to say something, then controlled himself.
Sam Bell looked up at the ceiling painting of two beautiful fat women by Veronese, Venice Receiving the Ducal Cap from Juno, and wished the gods and goddesses hovering over the city were interested in more important matters.
He spoke up. "Aren't we the lucky ones! It's our privilege to be flooded the deepest." He looked around the table. "But we've all been through it before. I think we've all learned how to protect our buildings from acqua alta. In the Marciana, per esempio, we have a system of four teams. They are trained to go to work at once in cases of flood emergency. But of course I'll talk to the director and see what else we can do. Thank you for the warning."
"As an acting procurator of San Marco," said a stranger in a loud voice, "I will also take whatever steps may be necessary."