Sisterchicks in Gondolas! by Robin Jones Gunn

Author:Robin Jones Gunn [Gunn, Robin Jones]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-56258-6
Publisher: The Doubleday Religious Publishing Group
Published: 2006-08-16T04:00:00+00:00

Thirteen

“Look at that! Just look at that!” Sue said, expressing the admiration I was feeling as we gazed upon Piazza San Marco at sunset. “I have to start taking pictures.” She reached into her shoulder bag for her camera while I stared, trying to sear the image on my memory.

I doubted any camera in the world could capture the way the evening light shrouded Venezia’s face in beguiling mystery.

“That must be the bell tower.” Sue pointed her camera at a terra-cotta-colored structure that rose from the open square on our right. The narrow building was topped with what looked like a triangular-shaped hat that gave it the appearance of being ready to make a rocket shot to the moon.

“I read about the bell tower in the tour book,” Sue said. “It collapsed a hundred years ago, but they rebuilt it.”

From the boat we could just catch a side view of the entrance to San Marco Basilica. The great rounded domes of the eight-hundred-year-old church caught the evening light like a cluster of low, rising moons.

Sam leaned over and pointed out the partial view of the basilica to Sue and me. “San Marco is the best example of Byzantine architecture you’ll see this side of Istanbul. Are you planning to take a tour?”

“Definitely!” Sue answered for both of us.

“What church is that?” I pointed to a huge, white-domed church rising from a peninsula to the left at the opening of the Grand Canal.

Sam didn’t know, so he called on Marcos to fill us in. We were motoring slowly in this high-traffic area, which made it easier to hear Marcos and easier for Sue to snap dozens of pictures.

“La Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute,” Marcos said, the words rolling off his tongue. “This one is only four hundred years old. It was built in thanks to God after the plague came on Venezia. Not so many of the Venetians died as in other parts of Europe. To offer thanks to God for so many survivors, they built this church.”

“Is it the church that’s built on a million petrified logs?” Sue asked.

Marcos looked at Sue with admiration. “Si. Very good. Yes, a million. Maybe a million and one. They say the builder drank too much vino, and he lost count. Could be a million and two.”

I was the first to smile at Marcos in acknowledgement of his joke. He turned to me with a chin-up sort of grin and gave me an appreciative wink. I smiled, thinking how adept every Venetian man was at flirting, regardless of the woman’s age who received the benefit of his charms.

Without warning, a pervasive sadness came over me. The sharp sting of this melancholy was familiar, but I hadn’t felt its forceful pull in a long time. Yet it didn’t matter that I had put those emotions far away from me. The feelings were elemental. The longings were easily recognizable.

I wanted to be loved. I wanted to be married. I wanted to be married to a man who loved me and wouldn’t leave me.

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