And in that moment Alex had articulated all her worries, the core of her anxiety and trauma, in one perfect sentence. She nodded, and she finally allowed the tears brimming in her eyes to spill over. ‘I know. It’s torture.’
‘I got to suffer in private, though, Lucia. I am so sorry you had to suffer so publicly.’
With tears trickling down her cheeks, she took his hand. ‘I’m sorry for both of us.’
‘Lucia . . . The day after our dinner-breakfast . . . That’s when I realised it was you I had kissed the night of the ball. I heard you and Francesco talking on my stoop . . .’
Lucia’s eyes widened. ‘You heard that?’
He nodded. ‘I need to show you something. I hope it will help things make sense. Come.’ He pulled her gently back out the front door. ‘You need to see this.’
She locked the school behind them and they crossed thecalletogether. And for the first time, Alex opened the front door of La Commedia wide on its hinges. He reached inside and with the flick of a switch, the bottom floor of the building was gently illuminated.
Lucia’s eyes widened with shock. ‘Oh my God . . .’ She turned to face Alex, who walked over to stand by the large table in the middle of what she now saw was a studio.
Suddenly, all the pieces fell into place.
The walls and ceiling were covered almost entirely by suspended masks. Some were ornate, decorated with feathers and jewels, while others were simpler, featuring papier-mâché and bold colour blocking. Then, there were statement masks. Those brandished peacock feathers, decoupage and gold leaf embellishments. Some had handles for the wearer to hold them in place, others were suspended from clips caught in the eye sockets. Velvets of red and purple punctuated the low light, which caught on the natural nap of the fabric. It was magical. It was overwhelming. And it all made sense.
‘Mynonnowas a master mask maker,un mascarero. One of the last true bloodline artisans of the lagoon. He learned his craft from his father, who learned from his father. And so on for at least six generations. He taught me all I know.Thisis all I know.’
Lucia’s eyes came to rest on two identical black leather masks on the tabletop, right by where Alex was standing. She walked over and assessed them. They were identical to the one ‘Nicolò’ had left behind, and to the one Alex had worn during their kiss in the piazzetta.
‘You made these?’ she asked.
He nodded. ‘Yes.’
She took a closer look, but was unable to distinguish one from the other. Alex’s level of craftsmanship was far superior to anything Lucia had seen in Venice for a long time. Each fold and pleat of the leather was identical in both masks. To the naked eye, it seemed millimetre perfect. ‘Is one of them mine? The one I left behind after we . . .?’ she asked.
‘Yes. But can you guess which?’ He tilted his head and gave a gentle nod to welcome her to inspect them.
Lucia picked up the masks, one in each hand. She studied the fronts, but was unable to discern any difference. Then she turned the masks over, and saw it. The outline of the face pressed into the raw leather. ‘This one was mine,’ she said confidently.
His expression prompted her to double-check. ‘Are you sure?’
Moving closer to one of the lights, Lucia caught herself and drew her eyebrows together quizzically. ‘An A? Where’s the M?’
Alex’s eyes flicked to the other mask. ‘Look.’
Sure enough, the face imprinted on the second mask featured the M under the chin. ‘What do M and A stand for?’ she asked.
‘Alessandro and Massimiliano. Me and my brother. No one ever called us by those names back in Perth. We were always “Alex and Max”. Like two Italian-Australian superheroes.’ He bent down to retrieve two wooden-handled stamps from a drawer by his side and held them out so Lucia could see them. ‘A and M. Whenever I make a mask I always make two. Identical. I stamp one with A and it joins my permanent collection here, and on the other I stamp M, in my brother’s memory. And I send it out into the world, in place of him. This world is my work, andthisis why I was at the ball that night.’
Lucia’s eyes traced the hundreds of masks encircling them. There were so many that she couldn’t tell what colour the walls were underneath. ‘They are amazing, Alex.Bellissime, tutte!’
‘This is the A collection. Every single one of them is an A.’ He took the M mask from her hand. ‘There were less than twelve months between us, and many people said we looked like twins.’ His voice caught for a moment. ‘There’s something existential about seeing a dead face that looks exactly like your own,’ he went on. ‘Like watching your own death in slow motion. And there you are, lifeless. It’s like an out-of-body experience.’ Setting down the mask on the table, he sighed. ‘So much of me died that night.’
Lucia nodded. ‘Wealldied that night.’
‘It’s . . .nice. . . to be able to talk about it.’
‘I prefer to avoid it.’ Her lips drew into a contemplative straight line.
‘We all have our ways of coping.’
Lucia let out a stubborn little sigh. ‘Ornotcoping.’ She shook her head. ‘I’ve really struggled these past few months.’
‘Can I help?’ He came to her side, his magnetically understanding eyes catching hers. Her feet felt glued to the floorboards. If anyone could help her, she thought, it was Alex, with his entirely unique brand of empathy.
