Page 19 of Enzo

I do a little commentary as I film.

“Look at this! How spectacular is this?”

I hope Miss T will appreciate these little vignettes. I turn around, to get another angle, and that’s when I see a man standing alone near the foot of an enormous gilded staircase.

Looking like he'd rather not be here.

I peer closer. I think it's him. The man wearing the mask that had tiny black beads. The one who smiled at me as he walked past.

Everyone else is laughing, drinking and talking. They're all caught up in the fantasy of the masked ball. But this guy is standing alone, watching everyone else.

I watch him closely. He's smartly dressed, but not in an opulent costume. He's in a tux, but there's something about him. In a place filled with sparkle and pomp, this man in his dark tux, wearing a beaded black face mask, looks alone.

Like me.

I'm happy to be here, even though I don't belong here.

But he looks like he belongs here yet doesn't want to be here.

I walk towards him.

“He looks sad,” I murmur as my camera pans to him.

He's watching everyone, just like I was. But I'm not sad. “Awww, look at this poor guy,” I comment. “He looks like he'd rather be marking homework. Okay, mysterious man. You look like you don’t bite. I shall approach you.”

As I get nearer, I sense something about him. Or maybe the champagne begins to cloud my judgment.

“I’ve found the saddest person in Venice,” I murmur, and look at him, not through the phone, but properly, feeling a sting of sadness.

Then I realize I've just recorded that, so I quickly stop filming.

Chapter 5

MOLLY

I make my way over to him. I’ve put my phone back in my clutch bag and I'm holding the mask up to my face as I approach Mysterious Sad Man.

He looks poised, with one hand in his pocket, as he stares at a painting on the wall. I walk up to him and give his arm a light poke.

He turns around, head cocked.

“You are alive.”

“Excuse me?”

My mouth falls open as I catch his eyes. The slits in his mask are bigger, so I can see his eyes better than he can probably see mine. And what I notice is something sad. I can't tell if it's exhaustion, or boredom, or loneliness. I'd need to read the rest of his features to get a gauge, but I sense that he's carrying something heavy.

I don't know what.

How would I?

But I notice it, nevertheless.

I nod to myself, feeling satisfied. “You're real.” This guy has done such a great impersonation of standing there like a waxwork dummy, he even had me fooled.

“Excuse me?”

He sounds irritated.