John Barrett Lee

Masks Before the Storm

They sat outside Caffè Felice on the Zattere in late January 1959. Although the weather was mild, cold gusts whipped up the waters of the Canale della Giudecca and rattled the canopy of umbrellas. Carnevale was three weeks away, but already, a torn poster for a masked ball flapped on the wall behind them, its colours bled away by salt and rain. The canal bank was hushed and near deserted. Even the winter light seemed uncertain, caught between gold and ash, as if the city were holding its breath.

The man leaned back in his chair.

'This is where Francesco Maria Piave used to drink,' he said. 'What do you think about that?'

'I don't think I know him,' the woman said, glancing at the menu.

The man tutted. 'You do know.'

'I promise I don't.'

He took off his glasses and polished them with a corner of the tablecloth.

'You know Verdi. We went to see La Traviata last year, remember? Well, Piave wrote the words.'

'You do like to turn everything into a history lesson.'

He closed his eyes, then opened them. 'I just thought you'd be interested. I know you prefer a good chapel hymn to opera.'

'It's not that, exactly.'

'Hmm,' he said, putting his glasses back on.

She glanced over the top of her menu. 'Verdi is fine. But some things feel more urgent these days.'

He laughed, rubbing his brow.

'Okay, okay,' he said, raising his hands. 'You win. I am boring.'

'So, you admit it?'

'Coffee?' He looked for a waiter.

The outdoor area sat on a wooden platform supported by posts driven into the canal, giving the illusion that it was floating. The brackish, faintly sour smell of the water drifted up between the boards. The only other customers sat in the corner by the wrought-iron railings—two older Italian ladies, both lavishly dressed for the cold and wearing sunglasses. The man raised his hand. After a moment, the waiter appeared, dressed in a black bowtie and waistcoat. He was small and slight, but carried himself nobly, his greying hair slicked back.

'Si, signore?' he said.

'Ah,' the man said. 'Due caffè, per favore.'

'I'll have a cappuccino,' the woman said.

The waiter paused, pencil hovering.

'That's a breakfast drink,' the man said. 'Try an espresso.'

'I don't like strong coffee. You know that.'

The man shifted in his seat. 'Sorry,' he said. 'I forgot.'

'You forgot since yesterday?'

'Un caffè ed un cappuccino?' the waiter asked.

'Si,' the woman replied. 'Grazie.'

The waiter scribbled down the order and left.

The man frowned. 'Must you always be difficult when we're out?'

'No, not always. Only when you try to push your tastes on me.'

He sighed and gestured down the length of the Zattere toward the gondolas moored along the canal wall. 'Look where we are,' he said. 'Isn't it beautiful?'

They sat in silence for a while. The waves lapped against the posts beneath their feet, and the gondolas rocked, knocking like the soft notes of a xylophone. The only other sound was the incessant chatter of the two Italian ladies. Across the promenade, the crumbling plaster bore the ghosts of old graffiti—something political, long since forbidden, and half-covered now by tattered fly posters. Where the stucco had crumbled away, salt rimed the tide-marked brickwork like frost, and beneath the new paint, the ghosts of bullet holes lay like pockmarks beneath face powder.

'It is beautiful,' the woman said, 'but it's too quiet. A place like this needs people. Laughter. The sound of children.'

'It is January.'

'We should have come in February. For the masks.'

He ran his hand through his hair. 'I came here once before, you know. Only for a day. After the Germans surrendered, I was stationed in Padua, and we travelled up by jeep. I'd never seen anywhere so beautiful. It was quiet then, too.'

The woman smiled kindly but didn't reply. She smoothed a strand of hair and gazed across the pewter waves to the red-roofed church tower on the island of San Giorgio di Maggiore. It was almost lunchtime, and the scent of rosemary and grilling fish drifted from the café door.

The waiter returned with a silver tray holding a cappuccino, an espresso, a sugar bowl, a carafe of water, and two small tumblers. He carried the tray in one hand and set down the items with the other.

'These people know their coffee,' the man said once the waiter had left. 'I'll give them that.'

'I wish you wouldn't talk like that,' the woman said, spooning sugar into her cup.

'I think I have the right,' he said. 'Don't I have the right?'

'Perhaps. But you talk like that about the Welsh too, and you know I don't like it.'

'You're right. I'll try to watch myself.'

The man poured some water into a tumbler, and the woman sipped her coffee. 'This coffee's good,' she said. 'Better than at that place on the Piazza San Marco. What was it called?'

'Caffè Florian,' the man said. 'But it's not about the coffee there. It's about the location, but I didn't like it that much. This place is more like it. Fewer tourists.'

'But we are tourists.'

He sighed and reached for his cigarette case. 'You're picking a fight again. Please don't.'

He looked away, lit a cigarette, and tipped the ounce of coffee into his mouth.

The wind made the woman's hair flutter and dance. She brushed it from her face and ate a teaspoon of foam. 'I love cappuccino,' she said. 'It's like drinking a cloud.'

The man laughed out some smoke. 'You say the silliest things.'

'Do I?'

'Don't get me wrong, it's endearing, but you are silly. I mean, how can you drink a cloud?'

'You can't. That's why I said it was like drinking a cloud.'

He snorted softly. 'Well, at least we're laughing now.'

A pigeon landed by their table, flapped its wings twice, and pecked at a dropped crumb of pastry. The man shooed it away with his foot. 'Come on. We're supposed to be enjoying ourselves. We are on holiday.'

'Are we?'

'Of course we are.'

'You can't take a holiday from yourself.'

The man hesitated and played with his cigarette lighter, opening then closing it. 'What does that mean?'

'Nothing. Nothing at all. I'm just being silly.'

'You are silly. What with drinkable clouds and so on.'

He flicked his cigarette end into the canal and fished around in his overcoat pocket. 'Here,' he said, 'I bought you something. Just a little something to cheer you up a bit.' He pulled out a white and pink striped paper bag and gave it to the woman. 'It's Murano glass. I bought it from that shop by the Rialto Bridge while you were talking to those painters. It's pretty special.'

The woman opened the bag and pulled out a green teardrop-shaped pendant set in silver on a silver chain. She held it up to the light, and the glass seemed to glow. It swung gently from her fingers, catching the sun like a tiny pendulum. Inside it, the trapped light seemed to pulse.

'It's beautiful,' she sniffed, not meeting his eye. 'Like something you'd wear for a masquerade. I wanted to see the masks, you know. The white and gold ones with feathers. The real ones, like in the paintings.'

The man exhaled. 'You saw the prices in February.'

The woman held the pendant in her palm. 'It is lovely. Thank you.'

The man tilted his head to one side. 'What's the matter?'

'Nothing,' she said. 'Nothing's the matter at all.'

The man stretched out his arm and touched her hand. 'I know what the matter is. I know you too well.'

'It's not just that,' she said.

'These things take time. Just be patient. It'll happen.'

'It's not just that.'

'What then?' the man said, withdrawing his hand. 'Something I've done?'

The woman turned the pendant around in her hand. 'I'm not quite sure what it is. Maybe it's nothing. Maybe it's lots of things.'

The man stared into his empty coffee cup. 'Look. I know how we bicker. It's probably my fault, and I hate it too. You know how work's been since Suez, wearing me down. I take it out on you and that's not fair. Maybe I take you for granted sometimes, and I'm sorry.'

'I know,' she said. 'I'm not blaming you for anything.'

A young Italian couple walked along the canal side. The girl wore a light cotton dress in spite of the chill and was laughing at something the boy said. Her hair was dark as coal.

'I love you,' the man said.

'Do you?'

He looked at her. 'Of course I love you. And we still have time. It'll happen.'

The woman placed her hand on his. 'I'm thirty-five next month,' she said. 'How much time do we really have?'

'Thirty-five is nothing these days.'

'My aunt married late when her fiancé returned from Burma. They didn't have any either and it broke her heart.'

'You can't give up at the first hurdle. Perhaps we could see a doctor.'

'I really don't need to.'

'Maybe you do and maybe you don't. But you don't know yet.'

She kept hold of his hand, her fingers tightening. 'I do know.'

The man paused. 'How can you know?'

'You do love me, don't you?'

'I said so, didn't I? Come on, what's wrong?'

'And we are still happy, aren't we? Apart from this.'

The waiter appeared again. The woman hadn't finished her coffee, but with only four customers to look after, he had nothing but time. The man ordered a grappa, and when the waiter was gone, he spoke again.

'So?' he said. 'What's bothering you?'

'I should have told you before,' the woman said. 'And it's haunting me.'

'Told me what?'

'I don't know why I didn't. I thought you might hate me.'

'Christ,' the man said. 'What are you hiding?'

The woman twisted her wedding ring. She glanced up as a vaporetto chugged past, sending ripples across the water.

'You asked me why I don't think I need any… treatment.'

'How do you know? Until you find out for sure.'

The woman didn't look at him. 'I've already found out.'

'You're talking in riddles.'

The woman withdrew her hand and touched her stomach absently, as if memory itself had a body. She checked her watch, then looked away across the canal. A gull wheeled past the bell tower of San Giorgio Maggiore.

The man narrowed his eyes. 'Are you telling me that you've been pregnant before? Can you give me a straight answer for once?'

'Yes,' she said.

'Yes what?'

'Yes, I've been pregnant before.'

The man thought for a moment then took the woman's hand. 'Why didn't you tell me? You couldn't have been very far along, but you should have told me. You didn't want to worry me, I expect.'

'I didn't miscarry.'

The man pulled back from her. His mouth was slightly open.

'I don't... I don't understand.'

'I really should have told you before.'

'For God's sake.' He stood up and turned away. He clutched the iron railing with his left hand, and the back of his neck with the right. He closed his eyes, inhaling deeply.

'I was nineteen,' the woman said, her voice trembling a little. 'I was still in Wales. I didn't have it. I couldn't. I saw a doctor friend of my aunt's. It wasn't official. I should have told you and I didn't, but there you are.'

The man said nothing for a moment, then turned back to face her. His smile looked carved on, brittle as paint, as he lowered himself back into his chair.

'Might I ask who the father was?' he said slowly.

'He was an airman. American.'

The man twitched. 'Of course he was.'

'He was flying out of Pembroke Dock that summer. It was nothing really.'

The man pursed his lips and looked up then down. He closed his eyes and gripped the table edge until his knuckles blanched.

'Nothing worth telling your husband about. Did he have a name, this airman?'

'Enzo,' she breathed, as if she hadn't said it for a long time. 'I'm sorry.'

The man wore a thin, mirthless smile. 'Italian, then. Ironic, really. Venice, masks, secrets.' He picked at the tablecloth. 'At least one of us had a good war. What did he give you? Promises? Stockings for your sisters?'

The woman made a noise between a sob and a laugh. She shook her head. 'Stop it!'

'All the bloody same, those Yanks, especially the Italian ones. Flash, full of charm—and always some silly girl willing to fall for it.'

She flinched as if struck.

'I didn't mean it like that,' he said, quickly turning away. 'Christ, I didn't mean you.'

'It wasn't like that,' she said, a tear rolling down one cheek. 'We were barely children. Infatuated children. I know it's a shock and I'm sorry.'

'Did he know?'

A low boat horn sounded across the lagoon, long and mournful.

'I never saw him again. He was shot down over the Bay of Biscay in September of '43.'

For a moment, he seemed to soften. He might have taken her hand, but his fingers only touched the tablecloth before he recoiled. He looked at her for a long moment. His expression was unreadable—anger, maybe, or pain. Then it shifted.

'Well, I've solved our little problem,' he said quietly. 'It turns out I'm the defective one.'

'What do you mean?'

'Some Yankee flyboy can manage it, and I can't. That's right, isn't it?'

The woman was now very still.

'You don't know that,' she said. 'Maybe my age has something to do with it. Maybe we could see a doctor. Maybe—'

He shot to his feet. The chair scraped on the deck like an ugly chord. His face seemed to have turned the colour of the winter light. When his voice came, it seethed between clenched teeth. 'How could you do this to me?'

The woman winced and the two Italian ladies stopped talking.

'Please don't,' she said. 'Please don't. I'm sorry, OK? I said I was sorry.'

He opened his mouth as if to reply, then pressed it shut. His fingers twitched against the brim of his hat. For a moment, it looked as if he might stay; then he took a blue thousand-lira note from his wallet and slapped it down on the table without asking for the bill. Instinctively, she set the water glass on top to stop it blowing away. He hesitated, his eyes flicking to hers, then away. Straightening his back, he took up his hat and walked off along the Zattere toward the water-taxi stop.

Her coffee was cold, but she drank it anyway. Nearby, the gondolas still tapped their soft wooden notes, keeping time. The air had thickened now, the canal's sour breath rising again. She felt it in herself too—that same heaviness of what could not be unsaid, or undone. A moment later, the waiter returned with the grappa the man had ordered and set it down in front of her. He gave a slight nod, as if he understood, then moved away.

She downed it in one.

The wind picked up, filling the canopy until it billowed with a heavy whoomp, like canvas straining on a mast. The light on the water was jaundiced now, a winter gold that made everything look older. The two Italian ladies gathered their handbags and tottered away with heads bowed, heels clattering on the wooden boards.

The sky above the lagoon had turned a bruised yellow-grey. Far away, a growl of thunder answered the wind. A few fat raindrops struck the table, darkening the linen. One touched her cheek—cool and sudden. She didn’t move. With the pendant chain still wrapped around her fingers like a rosary, she prayed a silent prayer. Her fingers tightened, as if to reassure both herself and whatever listened within. Then, as the wind rose, she laid her hand, pale as carved wax, upon her stomach, steadying herself against the gathering storm.

END

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John Barrett Lee is a Welsh writer, teacher, and dad based in Vietnam. A graduate of the Creative Writing programme at the University of Glamorgan, his fiction has appeared on both sides of the Atlantic with Fairlight Books, Panorama Journal, Sheepshead Review, and others. His work has been recognised, including longlisting for the Historical Writers’ Association Short Story Prize and a finalist place in the MoonLit Getaway Contest.