And so they came to Venice in October. Their water taxi carried them from the airport on the mainland straight across the lagoon and around the east end of the city to the Riva degli Schiavoni on the south. There in the dazzling light they gaped across the water at a temple rising out of the sea, and disembarked.
Their bags had little wheels. The wheels bumped and zigzagged as Mary and Homer dragged them away from the bright spectacle of the lagoon into a dark passage called Calle del Dose. At once they had to dodge around a black-and-white cat. It was crouched over a plate eating a little silver fish. Then, in exhausted single file, with the rest of their baggage hanging from their shoulders, they made their way across a square. Turning right into the Salizada del Pignater, they passed a little fat girl with a heavy backpack.
She caught up with them as they stood bewildered outside Sam Bell's door. The house bore the correct number in the sestiere of Castello, but no one answered Homer's loud knock.
The little girl had a key. Dumbly she inserted it in the lock, opened the door, and looked up at them.
"Possiamo entrare anche noi, per favore?" said Mary, who had been working on her Italian.
Without speaking, the child held open the door and they all went in.
In the Treasury of the Basilica of Saint Mark bronze figures support a rock thrown at Christ during the Flagellation.
*4*
On this day in early October, Doctor Richard Henchard knew nothing of the arrival in Venice of Mary and Homer Kelly. His entanglement with the Kellys, especially with Mary Kelly, still lay in the future.
Doctor Henchard spoke faultless Italian, although his parents were English. He had been brought up in Plymouth and educated at the University of London, and then he had studied medicine at the ancient University of Bologna and completed his residency in Venice at the Ospedale Civile.
There was a prim Victorian saying, An Englishman Italianate is a devil incarnate. It made Henchard laugh. At home in Plymouth he had been humble Rickie Henchard, the son of a butcher. In Venice he was Dottore Primario Richard Henchard, a rich and respected oncological surgeon, and his Italian wife was related to a principessa. Henchard's medical colleagues had trouble with the initial H of his name, and they often called him Riccardo 'Enciard. Even so it was a name to be reckoned with. He was qualcuno, a somebody, a person of significance, with or without the H.
As the Kellys walked in the door of Sam Bell's house in the sestiere of Castello, Doctor Henchard sat in a realtor's office in Cannaregio. He was looking for an apartment.
"It's for a friend," he told the agente. "Cheap. It must be cheap. My friend isn't rich."
Signorina Pastora looked at him shrewdly. He had said amico, meaning a male friend, but she strongly suspected his friend was a woman, un'amica. She took out her list, thinking with amusement that she wouldn't mind moving into the doctor's little place herself, he was so good-looking.
Her suspicions were correct. Doctor Henchard's friend was a woman, all right, but Giovanna was a tiresome old girl, a pain in the ass, always threatening to call his wife.
"There's a place just around the corner," said Signorina Pastora, getting up. "We'll start with that."
They walked to the Fondamenta dei Mori, across a bridge over the Rio della Sensa. At the moment the canal was a muddy gulf in which a couple of men in rubber boots were shoveling out a channel. "This ugly view is of course only temporary," explained the signorina hastily. "This sort of dredging goes on all the time, as you know, all over the city." Stopping in front of a doorway, she produced a key and added learnedly, "To keep the water moving as a preventive measure against high water."
"Of course," said Henchard, who didn't give a damn what sort of view Giovanna would have.
"Tintoretto lived a few doors down," said Signorina Pastora. "You know, the great painter. Did you see the plaque on the wall?"
Doctor Henchard didn't care about Tintoretto either. He followed her upstairs and watched her unlock another door. "How much? " he said, looking around at the small room.
She named the price. It was extremely low. She explained. "The Nettezza Urbana rents out the space below the apartment for the storage of carts. So the place is cheap. Your friend is lucky. The spazzini will not interfere withhim at all. They merely pick up their carts here and push them around the neighborhood to collect everybody's trash."
Henchard made a cursory examination of the bathroom, which was minimal, and glanced at the excuse for a kitchen. "What's that door?"
Signorina Pastora frowned at it. "A closet, I think."
"A closet?" Henchard opened the door and looked at the narrow space within. "Strange."