Mariella took in a deep breath and nodded her agreement. ‘Allora, le lezioni?’
‘Sì,’ Lucia confirmed. ‘We have a school to run.’ She shook out her limbs and opened the door, and what met them on Calle del Leone was a sea of hugs and an abundance of cheek kisses from their enthusiastic learners.
As appearances went, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Lucia, flanked by her most trusted and beloved, smiled and greeted each of their thirty-odd students by name. No one could have known that their stomachs were churning and their chests laden with worry. For the future of the school. For their jobs. And, for Venice.
One by one the students piled in and made their way to their respective learning areas. They had been grouped by language skill level by Stefano, a long-term associate teacher who joined them on Mondays to organise the new arrivals, and who often covered classes last minute when needed. The beginners,Le Gondole, went slow and steady with Mariella downstairs.I Vaporetti, the intermediates, were most numerous, and were always upstairs with Lucia, requiring the entire second floor by virtue of their numbers. Meanwhile, the advanced students,I Motoscafi, a typically small and intimate group, flew through content at a purposefully quicker pace with Francesco by the arched canal-facing windows on the ground floor.
‘Will you be alright?’ Francesco caught Lucia’s arm as she walked past him, following the swarm of students heading to the staircase. ‘We can join your group upstairs if it’s all too much. A team-teaching session?’
‘Grazie, but I’ll be fine,’ she said, giving him a solemn yet steadfast smile. ‘And I’ll make sure you are too.’ Her eyes travelled to the framed photo of her parents hanging on the wall behind the mahogany welcome desk. Umberto and Elena had been captured arm in arm in front of the intense pink blossoms of the bougainvillea in full bloom creeping its way up the façade by the school’s front door, planted with Lucia’s help when she was a child. The plant in the picture was significantly smaller than its current size, decades on.
She turned to face the view of Calle del Leone, her lips pursed.
‘Cosa pensi?’ Francesco asked, sensing that Lucia had become tangled in an unhelpful web of memories.
‘Time is passing,’ she said. ‘I’ve never noticed how quickly.’
‘It does that,’ he said, collecting a pen from the welcome desk and tucking it behind his right ear.
‘No. I mean it’sreallypassing. Some things are changing. Other things are stuck—’
Casting his eye across to the group of students with Mariella, and those awaiting him by the windows, Francesco interjected, ‘What won’t change for now is the timetable.’ He flicked his chin in the direction of the clock on the wall. ‘And our lessons should have started two minutes ago. Philosophy and its cousin, Existential Crisis, will have to wait.’
Lucia couldn’t help but smile. She steeled herself, gathered Foscari in her arms, and recollected her focus. ‘You’re right. Onward.’
The students had long since left theaperitivogathering and Mariella had been shooed home to the Cannaregiosestiereat a reasonable hour, thankful for the ten-minute walk to clear her head.
This left Lucia and Francesco with the post-aperitivotidy-up.
Just as they were finishing, Lucia, whose final job was to draw the front window’s velvet curtains, paused, just as she had done that morning. She stepped outside and her eyes locked on La Commedia.
‘Do you remember thefritole?’ she asked Francesco over her shoulder as he joined her on thecalle. ‘They were . . .mmm. They were the best this side of Venice.’
‘Crunchy. Sweet.’
‘But soft in the middle.’
‘Lots of sugar.’
‘No one madefritolelike the ones at La Commedia.’ She sighed.
‘It was thecicchettiselection for me, but only when that chef – what was his name? The one with the big, round—’
‘Danilo?’
‘Danilo!’ Francesco wrapped an arm around her shoulder. ‘That man knew his way to mycicchettiheart.’
‘You never used to pay for them! You’d steal them from the platters on the counter when the bar staff were busy serving drinks.’
‘That may have been true then. I pay for my dependence now.’ He laughed. ‘Besides, I was a child! That’s what children do.’
Lucia’s mind wrapped around memories of her shared youth and decades of friendship with Francesco. ‘Seems like only yesterday.’
‘Were we ever only eight years old?’
‘Dio, where has my life gone?All’improvviso!’ Lucia could feel the tension in her shoulders.
Wanting to lighten the mood, Francesco said, ‘You’ve aged like the underbelly of a retired gondola. I, on the other hand . . .’ He pressed the back of his hand to his forehead melodramatically. ‘I haven’t aged a day.’
