Masquerade

 

But she was right here. Schuyler was certain. The woman she was chasing had disappeared through the door of the very same palazzo that Schuyler was now standing in, and yet the woman was nowhere to be found. Schuyler looked around. She was inside the lobby of a small, local inn. Many of the magnificent floating palaces of ancient Venice had been turned into tourist-friendly pensiones, shabby little hotels, where guests didn't mind the crumbling balustrades and peeling paint because their glossy brochures had promised them they were experiencing a slice of the "authentic" Italy.



An old woman with a black scarf around her head looked up curiously from the registration table. "Posso li aiuto?" Can I help you?



Schuyler was confused. There was no sign of the blond woman anywhere in the room. How could she have hidden herself so quickly? Schuyler had been right at her heels. The room was empty of closets or doors.



"Ci era una donna qui, si?" Schuyler said. A woman just came in here, yes? She was grateful that the Duchesne School made their students take not one but two foreign languages, and that Oliver had urged her to take Italian, "so we can order better at Mario Batali's restaurants."



The old lady frowned. "Una donna?" She shook her head. The conversation continued in rapid Italian. "There is no one here but me. No one came in but you."



"Are you certain?" Schuyler demanded.



She was still questioning the landlady when Oliver arrived. He pulled up to the side of the building in a sleek speedboat. He'd found that a water taxi was more suitable to his needs than the man-powered gondola.



"Did you find her?" he asked.



"She was just here. I swear. But this lady says no one came in." "No woman," the old lady said, shaking her head. "Only the Professore lives here."



"The Professore?" Schuyler asked, her ears keen. Her grandfather had been a professor of linguistics, according to the Repository of History, the Blue Blood archive that held all the knowledge and secrets of their race. "Where is he?"



"He has been gone many months now."



"When will he return?"



"Two days, two months, two years--it could be anytime. Tomorrow or never," the landlady sighed. "No one knows with the Professore. But I am lucky, he always pays his bills on time."



"Can we--can we see his room?" Schuyler asked. The landlady shrugged and pointed to the stairs. Her heart beating in her chest, Schuyler ascended the stairway, Oliver close behind.



"Wait," Oliver said as they reached a small wooden door at the front of the landing. He jiggled the knob. "It's locked." He tried again. "No dice."



"Damn," Schuyler said. "Are you sure?" She reached around him to try. She turned the knob and it clicked open. "How do you do that?" Oliver marveled.



"I didn't do anything."



"It was totally locked," he said.



Schuyler shrugged and pushed on the door gently. It led to a neat, spare room with a single bed, a worn wooden desk, and shelves of books stacked up to the ceiling.



Schuyler pulled a book from the lower shelves. "Death and Life in the Plymouth Colonies by Lawrence Winslow Van Alen." She opened to the first page. It was inscribed in elegant handwriting: "To my dear Cordelia." "This is it," Schuyler whispered. "He's here." She peered at several more books on the shelves and found that many of them bore spines that declared L. W. Van Alen as their author.



"Not right now, he is not," the landlady said from the doorway, making Schuyler and Oliver jump. "But the Biennale ends today, and the Professore has not missed one yet."



The Biennale, the biannual art exhibit in Venice, was one of the most definitive, influential, and exhaustive presen- tations of art and architecture in the world. For several months every other year, the entire city was taken over by an international collection of artists, art dealers, tourists, and students eager to partake of the historic art festival. It was an event Schuyler and Oliver had missed during the weekend, due to their fruitless search for her grandfather.



"If it's closing today," Schuyler said, "we've got to hurry."



The landlady nodded and left the room.



Schuyler wondered again about the woman who had looked so eerily like her mother. Had her mother led her to her grandfather? Was she helping Schuyler in some way? Was it just her spirit that Schuyler had seen?



They hurried down the stairs and found the landlady shuffling papers at the reception desk.



"Thank you for all your help," Schuyler said, bowing to the old woman.



"Eh? Excuse me. Posso li aiuto?" the old woman snapped. "The Professore, the Biennale, we are going to try and find him now."



"Professore? No, no. No Professore..." The old woman made the sign of the cross and began shaking her head.



Schuyler frowned. "No Professore? What do you think she means by that?" she asked Oliver.



"He leave...two year ago," the landlady said in halting English. "He no live here no more."



"But you just said..." Schuyler argued. "We were just talking, upstairs. We saw his room."



"I never see you in my life, his room is lock," the landlady said, looking shocked and sticking determinedly to her stilted English even though it was obvious Schuyler was fluent in Italian.



"Eravamo giusti qui," Schuyler argued. But we were just here.



The landlady balefully shook her head and muttered to herself.



"There's something different about her," Schuyler whis- pered to Oliver as they walked out of the inn.



"Yeah, she's even more cranky now," Oliver cracked.



Schuyler turned back to look at the cross old woman again, and noticed that she had a mole underneath her chin from which a few stray hairs had sprouted. And yet the old woman who had spoken to them earlier had not been afflicted with such a mole, Schuyler was sure of it.