“Like The House of Levi,” I said, thinking to myself.

“What?” my mother said.

“It was The Last Supper. He changed the title because the pope didn’t like it.”

“The Inquisition didn’t like it,” Gianni said. “More Nazis. Torture. Burnings. Worse, sometimes. Castrating people. You learn how to bend with a history like ours.”

“But that was a question of belief.”

“You think Goebbels didn’t believe? Any of them? Right up to the end they believed in something. I don’t know what—their own hate, maybe. And when the Inquisition lit the fires under people, what did they believe? To save them. By killing them. Compared to the Church, the Nazis were amateurs. At least the Nazis didn’t ask you to think they were right to do it. They didn’t care what you thought.” He studied his wine. “Forgive me, no more speeches. But your painting—does it matter what it’s called? So long as it’s beautiful?”

“No.”

“You see, an Italian answer. And Veronese, you know he was also being a tiny bit naughty. Putting all that in, the dwarfs, the drinking. A sacred scene. He knew what they would think. But that’s Italian too, maybe, to tweak the nose—that’s right? tweak?—of the Church. You can do that if you bend. The Germans never understood that—they never bend and they destroy themselves. Why?” He shook his head. “Northern people. Sometimes they are all a mystery.”

“All of us?” my mother said, flirting.

“Oh, you, certainly. A great mystery. But that’s because you’re a woman. All women are mysteries.” A stage courtliness, the two of them practically winking at each other.

The polenta arrived, covered in tiny brown shrimp from the lagoon.

“Funny about Bertie knowing him,” my mother said. “He was careful with him, did you notice? I’ll bet it wasn’t half as easy as he makes out. During the war.”

“No, not for anyone,” Gianni said. “Of course, Bertie has many friends. I don’t think it was dangerous for him.”

“Irish, my foot,” my mother said, laughing to herself. She glanced over at Gianni, her face soft. Not just a dinner companion, someone to take charge of the wine list.

“In Germany, you were a soldier?” Gianni said, keeping the conversation going.

“G-2. Intelligence. We investigated Germans suspected of Nazi activity.”

“Ah, that explains your interest in Cavallini. One investigator to another, eh? You want to compare methods?” He was smiling.

“Ours was mostly pushing paper around.”

He laughed. “So was his, I think. But it must have been difficult, yes? Surely the real Nazis would lie. So how do you know?”

“We don’t always. That’s what makes it difficult.”

“Impossible, maybe.”

“Maybe. We still have to try.”

“But why? The war is over.”

“Their crimes aren’t.”

“Ah. A passion for justice,” he said, nodding, a paternal indulgence. “Maybe you’ll be a lawyer.”

“Maybe.”

“Oh darling, really?” my mother said. “I haven’t wanted to ask. You’ve seemed—at such loose ends.”

“Don’t rush,” Gianni said. “To be this age, it’s wonderful. You don’t have to decide anything. Not yet. Not like us, eh?” he said to my mother. “We have to hurry with everything now.”

“Speak for yourself.”

“Ah, you see,” he said, ostensibly to me, “how she makes fun of me.” His hand moved slightly toward hers and just grazed it.

I looked away. “Did you always want to be a doctor?” I said.

“Well, for me it was different. A family tradition. One of us was for medicine and one for—well, to carry the name. But he died, so it’s the end. I have only a daughter.”

“You’re married?” I said, not expecting this.

“I was. She died.”

“I’m sorry. Where is your daughter?”

“Bologna. At the university.”

“Medicine?”

He smiled. “No, an avvocato. Another one with a passion for justice. How did it happen?” he said to my mother. “To have such children?”

“Think of theirs.”

“Would you like to see the hospital?” Gianni said to me, not an offhand invitation, an obvious effort to get closer.

“The hospital?”

“For the architectural interest. It was once the Scuola di San Marco. Near Zanipolo. The library has the most beautiful ceiling in all of Venice.”

“Yes, I’d like that,” I said, the only possible answer.

“Even the hospitals,” my mother said, a little dreamy, finding romance in everything now.

“The joke is that you can see San Michele from the wards—the cemetery island. So they say the doctors finish you and the priests at San Lazzaro bless you and the boat outside takes you away. One operation, door to door.” He winked at my mother. “You see how practical we can be.”

And so it went, through the grilled branzino, the radicchio from Trevisio, the little cups of coffee and the shared plate of biscotti—light, aimless conversation meant to make us easy with one another, a kind of wooing. My mother was happy, enjoying herself, her eyes shiny, catching the light the way her earrings did, in tiny glints. She made jokes, laughed at his, until the table seemed as carefree as one of those afternoons at the Lido. Gianni looked at her with a fondness that surprised and then disconcerted me. And I, who was the object of the wooing, sat wondering why they were bothering. What did it matter what I thought, if they wanted to make eyes at each other and play at being twenty again? What could be nicer? A season in Venice with something to talk about later, over drinks at the Plaza. An old friend, not somebody she’d picked up in a hotel lounge. With a daughter at the university. That respectable. What business was it of mine? The truth was that I didn’t want to think about them at all. My mind was elsewhere, back at the station hotel, in that perfectly hermetic world of sex, where no one else existed. In the warm dining room, with my body loose and tired, all I wanted was my own life.

When we got up to go to the lounge for brandy, I took it as my cue to leave. Gianni would want to sit with my mother in the dim light and look across the water to Salute, letting the evening settle around them. I imagined a kiss tasting of cognac, a last cigarette, low voices—everything the lounge was meant for, what you paid for. But when I suggested going, he insisted I stay for a nightcap. For some reason it took a while to order—everything seemed to have slowed down, even the waiters—and then we drank without saying much. There were only a few other people and a piano near the door, played so softly it seemed the pianist too was logy with food and drink. Gianni fixed a time next week for me to go to the hospital. He sat back with a cigarette, looking contented. Outside the hotel, gondolas with different-colored tarps bobbed on the tide. I slouched, exhausted. There was nothing to do now but wait it out.

“Such a surprise, darling. A lawyer. So sensible.”

“It’s just an idea,” I said, but she waved her hand, brushing it away, and I saw that she hadn’t actually been talking to me but to some unseen audience.

I looked over, hearing the abstract, self-amused talk of drink. My mother, like all her friends, had a strong head, but it had been a long evening since the first Prosecco, through Gianni’s special bottle of Soave and the vin santo at table. Her words were still precise, but everything else about her seemed to have grown a little blurry. Even her lipstick was no longer fresh, faint at the lines. She was nestled into the corner of the settee, her fur draped around her, smiling, in love with the world.

“It’s late,” I said. “We should go.”

“Oh, Adam,” she said, teasing. “So sensible.”

“If you’re tired,” Gianni said to me. “Don’t worry, I will take her home. She’s happy here, you see.”

“Maybe too happy,” I said to him, not loud enough for her to hear.

“There is no such thing as too happy,” Gianni said mildly. “I will see that she gets home.” Firmly, a dismissal. “Can I call you a taxi?”