Venice> Books > A Thousand Days in Venice > Excerpt 1

A Thousand Days in Venice

Excerpt:
The first encounter with Fernando

"I sit down next to the sweet face with the beautful voice, and we drink some wine. We talk very little; something about the rain, I think, and why I didn't come to lunch that day. He tells me that he is the manager of a nearby branch of Banca Commerciale Italiana, that it's late, and he has the only set of keys to reopen the safe for the afternoon's business. I notice the sweet face with the beautiful voice has wonderful hands. His hands tremble as he gathers his things to leave. We agree to met at six-thirty that evening, right there, in the same place. 'Proprio qui, Right here,' he repeats again and again.

[Later that evening] "'It's only that I never saw you until December. Last December. December 11, 1992,' he says, as though eyeing the dossier more closely.... 'And then, as I was sitting there at Vino Vino the other day and you angled your body so that your profile was just visible under all that hair, I realized it was you. The woman in the white coat. And so you see, I've been waiting for you. Somehow I've been loving you, loving you since that afternoon in the piazza."

A Thousand Days in Venice
Copyright © 2002 by Marlena de Blasi

Excerpt 2: The Rialto markets