“You’d be surprised.”
“May I offer a more plausible explanation for the delay?”
“By all means.”
“Amelia March, being an ambitious and enterprising reporter, is at this moment fleshing out her exclusive story by gathering additional background material on her subject.”
“A career retrospective?”
Gabriel nodded.
“What would be wrong with that?”
“I suppose that depends on which side of my career she chooses to explore.”
The basic contours of Gabriel’s professional and personal biography had already managed to find their way into the public domain—that he had been born on a kibbutz in the Jezreel Valley, that his mother had been one of early Israel’s most prominent painters, that he had studied briefly at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem before joining Israeli intelligence. Less well known was that he had abruptly abandoned his service after a bomb exploded beneath his car in Vienna, killing his young son and leaving his first wife with catastrophic burns and acute post-traumatic stress disorder. He had placed her in a private psychiatric hospital in Surrey and locked himself away in a cottage in remotest Cornwall. And there he would have remained, broken and grieving, had he not accepted a commission in Venice, where he fell in love with the beautiful, opinionated daughter of the city’s chief rabbi, not knowing that she was an operative of the very service he had forsaken. A twisted tale, surely, but hardly beyond the reach of a writer like Amelia March. She always struck Gabriel as the sort of reporter who had a novel hidden in the bottom drawer of her desk, something sparkling and witty and full of art world intrigue.
Chiara was frowning at her phone.
“Is it that bad?” asked Gabriel.
“It’s only my mother.”
“What’s the problem?”
“She’s concerned that Irene is developing an unhealthy obsession with global warming.”
“Your mother only noticed this now?”
Their daughter, at the tender age of eight, was a fully fledged climate radical. She had taken part in her first demonstration earlier that winter, in the Piazza San Marco. Gabriel feared the child was now on a slippery slope to militancy and would soon be adhering herself to irreplaceable works of art or splashing them with green paint. Her twin brother, Raphael, was interested only in mathematics, for which he possessed an unusual aptitude. It was Irene’s ambition that he use his gifts to save the planet from disaster. Gabriel, however, had not given up hope that the boy might take up a paintbrush instead.
“I suppose your mother thinks I’m to blame for our daughter’s climate obsession.”
“Evidently it’s all my fault.”
“A wise woman, your mother.”
“Usually,” remarked Chiara.
“Can she keep Irene out of jail while we’re away, or should we skip the unveiling and go home tonight?”
“Actually, she thinks we should stay in London for another day or two and enjoy ourselves.”
“A fine idea.”
“But quite impossible,” said Chiara. “You have an altarpiece to finish.”
It was Il Pordenone’s rather pedestrian depiction of the annunciation, which he had painted for the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Murano. Several other works in the church, all of lesser merit, were also in need of cleaning. The project was their first since assuming control of the Tiepolo Restoration Company, and already they were running several weeks behind schedule. It was essential the restoration of the church be completed on time, with no cost overruns. Still, another forty-eight hours in London might prove advantageous, as it would give Gabriel a chance to drum up a few lucrative private commissions, the kind that supported their comfortable lifestyle in Venice. Their enormous piano nobile della loggia overlooking the Grand Canal had diminished the small fortune he had accumulated during a lifetime of restoration work. And then, of course, there was his Bavaria C42 sailboat. The Allon family finances were sorely in need of replenishment.
He made this point to his wife, judiciously, as they turned into Mount Street.
“I’m sure you’ll have no shortage of work after Amelia’s article appears,” she replied.
“Unless her article is less than flattering. Then I’ll be forced to sell knockoff Canalettos to the tourists on the Riva degli Schiavoni to help make ends meet.”
“Why would Amelia March write a hit piece about you, of all people?”
“Perhaps she doesn’t like me.”
“That’s not possible. Everyone loves you, Gabriel.”
“Not everyone,” he replied.
“Name one person who doesn’t adore you.”
“The barman at Cupido.”
It was a café and pizzeria located on the Fondamente Nove in Cannaregio. Gabriel stopped there most mornings before boarding the Number 4.1 vaporetto bound for Murano. And the barman, without fail, slid his cappuccino onto the glass countertop with a sneer of polite disdain.
“Not Gennaro?” asked Chiara.
“Is that his name?”
“He’s quite lovely. He always adds little hearts to my foam.”
“I wonder why.”
Chiara accepted the compliment with a demure smile. It had been twenty years since their first encounter, and yet Gabriel remained hopelessly in the thrall of his wife’s astonishing beauty—her sculptural nose and jawline, her riotous dark hair with its highlights of auburn and chestnut, the caramel-colored eyes that he had never succeeded in rendering accurately on canvas. Her body was his favorite subject matter, and his sketchbook was filled with nudes, many executed without the consent of his slumbering model. He hoped to explore the material further before tonight’s gathering at the Courtauld. Chiara was amenable to the idea but had insisted on a long walk first, followed by a proper lunch.
