Destiny

It was destiny, Fernando thought to himself as he lifted his paddle and found the silver necklace dangling from it. It flickered in the moonlight for a moment, then its lustre was engulfed by the shadows of the buildings he passed by. 

He recalled seeing it for the first time hanging from her elegant neck as she sat next to her twin brother on his gondola. It was nothing extraordinary, but it was certainly not common. Intertwined strands of silver holding a precious locket in their fragile embrace. Perhaps it was a family heirloom, the gift of a dying grandparent or of an infatuated suitor. 

That day, she was happy. As bright as the sun, laughing, holding her brother’s hand, touching him with the curiosity of someone reaching through a mirror. She caressed his hair, his cheeks, his lips. They were identical, the same short dark hair, the same smiles and blue eyes. Their names, he learnt during that hour long ride along the Canal, were Gino and Alessandra. She, a coquettish child of the Jazz Age, had been studying in America, while, he, fervent political debater and theoretician, was being educated in Rome. It had been the first time they had seen each other in one year. No wonder they were so playful and overjoyed. He never caught their last name, but by the sumptuous palazzo in front of which they asked him to stop, he assumed their family was one of some prestige and wealth. 

Fernando could not forget her smile for days on end. He woke up in the morning with the memory of it and could not help but smile himself because of it. 

The second time Alessandra boarded Fernando’s gondola, she was restless. Tossing and turning like a person desperate to escape a living nightmare. Her bobbed hair had gone wild and the lacquer on her nails was chipped. Her eyes were red and her face swollen. From crying, Fernando supposed. He wanted to reach out a loving hand to her and tell her everything would be all right. He knew he could not. It was not his place to impose on someone else’s grief. She kept reaching for her locket as if it contained something precious – like a promise – that would soothe her anguish. 

“I know you, don’t I?” she asked turning her eyes toward him at one point.

“You’ve been with my gondola before,” he admitted and tried to sound as natural as possible.

She seemed like a cornered deer and he felt that any sudden movement might scare her away, send her flying over the edge of the gondola and into the endless depths of the Canal.

“I see,” she muttered, then nervously squeezed the locket in her hand. “Do you remember my brother?”

“Yes, I do. A very decent young man. He looked just like you,” he said with a kind smile. 

Fernando heard whispers of anarchists and assassination plots against Il Duce sweeping across the Canal. How foolish, he had said to himself then, to think such things could reach even Venice. The eyes of the world had been cast away from its tranquil existence since it had given up on its independence. It was now a floating city of dreams and he, a wilful slave to its capricious nature. It had not occurred to him then that the young political zealots of the day were carved in Gino’s image. Reckless, passionate and devoted. 

The third time Alessandra was in his gondola, she was distant and lost, watching the horizon, as if awaiting a sign. Her hair had grown and it was now neatly tied in a small ponytail at the base of her neck. Her clothes were dark and she had an air of sternness about her, a far cry from the childish girl that had first appeared before him. She felt unreal, like a statue. She held the locket in her hands now, never letting it go and Fernando thought to himself that, given how distracted she was, she might lose it if she was not careful. 

A few days later, there were black flags fluttering above their palazzo. Gino was dead. There was talk of treason and political beliefs and soldiers were ransacking their beautiful palazzo as curious bystanders looked on. Alessandra was no where in sight. 

The last time he had seen her, she was running down the street from her home, looking for her locket.

“Have you seen it?” she kept asking anyone who would stop to listen. “A silver necklace! 

Beautiful and old, with a locket like a full moon!” No one could help her. Many days afterward he saw her wandering the streets, looking more and more defeated, searching in vain for the precious necklace she had lost. 

Fernando didn’t know when his feelings had gained the intensity they had. Had it been when he had seen her so open in her happiness? Or the way his heart had skipped a beat when she had recognized him? Or her air of detachment and longing? Her suffering? He had never dared speak a word of it to her because he did not think himself worthy of her attention, but now, he had received a sign. Her locket was in his hands. 

He loved her even more the moment he saw her perched up on the roof of her family’s palazzo. As wild and beautiful as Venice herself. She was the dream of its tumultuous past, the sleeping despair of the sinking city. 

He held up the necklace and yelled her name;

“Alessandra!”

She didn’t respond so he dropped his paddle and held the precious locket up with both his hands, as if it was trophy.

“I found it! I found your necklace!” 

She finally noticed him. 

“My necklace,” her lips moved, but no sound came out. She smiled at him, not as brightly as the sun or as loving as a spring morning, but an honest smile of relief. 

It was destiny, Fernando knew and Alessandra jumped off the roof of the palazzo to meet it. In the locket there were two portraits one of a girl, one of a boy. Identical in their features, staring at each other as if through a mirror, the two sides of the same coin. 

There was blood in the water that night and Fernando felt like Charon, ferrying souls across its tainted expanses, in the darkness, in its shadows, between life and death and into the bleak future to the sound of military marches.

- THE END -