The Lost Diary of Venice

  The Lost Diary of Venice is a work of historical fiction, using well-known historical and public figures. All incidents and dialogue are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life historical or public figures appear, the situation, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are entirely fictional and are not intended to change the entirely fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2020 by Margaux DeRoux

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  BALLANTINE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Hardback ISBN 9781984819482

  Ebook ISBN 9781984819499

  randomhousebooks.com

  Book design by Jo Anne Metsch, adapted for ebook

  Cover design: Victoria Allen

  Cover images: Jill Hyland/Arcangel (girl’s face), Malgorzata Maj/Arcangel (hand and fan), Kerstin Lakeberg/Plain Picture (roses), Shutterstock (view of Venice)

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  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  A Note to the Reader

  About the Author

  Prologue

  SHE COULD SMELL HIM, STANDING this close. A fresh-wet scent brought in from outside, where it’d just begun to rain. Warm earth cut by an edge of ozone: the tentative odor of spring. Rose concentrated on keeping her hands steady. Christ. Whoever tied these knots had really outdone themselves. Digging with her blunt nails, she finally pried the strings free. As she unwrapped the linen that swaddled the stack of papers, another scent blossomed—the familiar dry aroma of disintegrating vellum. She slid her fingers down the loops of stiff thread that held the stack together. The top page was blank, patinated by a layer of grime. She lifted one corner, felt the threads putting pressure on the already cracking parchment. He leaned in closer.

  “Tried to open it, but that paper looks ready to tear.” The remnants of a southern accent hung at the margins of his voice; she imagined woodsmoke and stars. “But I thought I saw a few drawings inside…”

  “Well, I think we should cut these pages loose. Do you mind?” She looked up. His eyes were dark, iris nearly indistinguishable from pupil.

  He shook his head. “Go on.”

  With small scissors retrieved from the top left desk drawer, Rose snipped the binding. A glint of silver, and the threads lay sprawled and severed on the tabletop. She removed the cover sheet and surveyed the title page. Italian calligraphy swirled across the parchment, ornate designs inked into each corner.

  “Trattato dell’arte della pittura, scultura, ed architettura. Di Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo.” She read the title out loud. “My Italian isn’t very good, but I think ‘pittura’ is ‘painting,’ so…treatise on the art of painting, sculpture, and architecture.”

  “It’s a book about art?” He glanced back down at the page.

  “That’s what the title says…”

  “Oh—but that’s what I do. I mean, I’m an artist.” He scraped his fingers through his hair, then crossed his arms tightly, as if he didn’t know what to do next with his hands.

  1

  TIME HAD BEGUN TO LOOP in on itself. Rose Newlin realized this one day, on her bike ride to work, when she looked up and noted with some surprise that the red maple trees had budded. Her routine had become so fixed, so circular, that only the seasons seemed to change. First, always, came a bike ride. The wind pinked her cheeks and tugged a few curls loose from under her helmet as she wound her way through the university campus to her bookshop. Then, a quick walk to the café on the corner, with its familiar scent of roasting coffee beans. The barista there wore button-up shirts and had small tattoos on each of his fingers: an arrow, a compass, the figure eight of eternity. Slender tips of more ink peeked out from under his cuffs.

  “Good morning, Rose.”

  “Good morning, Joel. Latte for me, thanks.” She always gave her order, even though they both knew what it’d be.

  Afterward, strolling back to the shop, she watched fragments of herself slip past in store windows: auburn hair twisted up in a knot, rangy frame she could never seem to add any muscle to. Faded jeans and her favorite knit sweater, a lightweight parka thrown on top. She reminded herself to work on her posture. Her eyes flashed back at her from the glare of glass, green flecked with gold. In certain lights their color seemed to change, tilting blue or nearly gray. Her father had called them “labradorite eyes,” after the gemstone.

  Rose focused on the cracks in the sidewalk. She didn’t need to think about him today.

  She reached the shop then and unlocked the door, flipped the sign to OPEN. Though she’d owned the place for two years, each time she stepped inside she still felt a swell of contentment, like a farmer taking in his crops at dusk. This parcel of life, this here, is mine and mine alone. She’d decorated the space carefully, filling each nook with well-padded reading chairs and antique lamps. A few months after she’d opened, a stray tomcat had arrived on the doorstep to complete the picture. Black and stocky with one eye gone, he’d claimed the burgundy chair by the front window as his own.

  “Wake up, Odin!”

  At his name, the cat jumped from his perch and padded over to rub a cheek against her calf. His empty socket was a tight-screwed slash of puckered fur, and when he closed his eyes it was hard to say which was missing. Rose bent to give him his morning scratches. She filled his food and water bowls, then took her seat at the register. Odin leapt to join her, circling several times in her lap before settling down, paws tucked under his chest. The hours passed in a sorting of bills and a shuffle of patrons, an occasional shift of position. Outside, it began to mist, draping a delicate silver beading over the windows, the cars parked outside. A hush settled through the shop. Rose’s bun slid loose; even the sturdiest elastic proved futile against her hair, thick and coarse as a horse’s mane.

  Then the clank of the heater, the creak of the door.

  Later, she’d research what had happened to her. She’d learn about the scientific intricacies of attraction, the complex chain of chemicals that flood the prefrontal cortex. She’d underline with blue ink a scholarly article on the way synapses and neurons firework the brain, inundating the mind with dopamine. How norepinephrine, a neurotransmitter, dries the mouth, shakes the hands, pumps the heart.
How the body experiences obsessional thought patterns and cravings.

  None of that could help her in the moment, though, as she floundered: half-standing then sitting again, frantically twisting her bun back in place as the man at the door made his way toward her. He wore a red flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a black quilted vest, droplets of water hovering in constellations across its surface. His dark hair was wet, threaded through at the temples with early gray, and a canvas bag hung from his shoulder. Rose noticed his left thumb was bandaged; when he opened that hand, she saw her name written across his palm in blue ink, a small drop of blood penetrating the gauze.

  He said her name out loud, then tucked his hand away in the pocket of his vest.

  “Do you know where I can find her?”

  “I’m Rose.” At her feet, Odin ventured around the corner of the desk to sniff at the stranger’s shoes.

  “My name’s William.” He put his other hand to his chest. “I called up to the university library about restoring a book and they said to swing by here. Told me you’re exceptional, as a matter of fact.” He paused politely for her to say something.

  Nothing came to mind.

  He cleared his throat. “Do you still do restorations?”

  She nodded, rubbing her suddenly damp palms on her thighs under the table, trying not to make any visible movements. It didn’t matter: he was too busy wrestling a stack of papers out of his bag to notice.

  “Great. I was hoping you might be able to take a look at this.” He set the stack down on the desk in front of her. It was wrapped in gray and white striped linen, and tied with twine. She’d known what to do then, at least. As she picked at the knots, he bent to scratch the cat. His disembodied voice floated up from behind the counter.

  “So, the story is that my great-grandmother passed away—”

  “I’m sorry.” A reflexive response. She could hear Odin’s guttural purr start up, a small motor.

  “Don’t be. She was ready to go—beyond ready: a hundred years old. I never really knew her. All the family’s moved away, and she was in a care facility with her stuff in storage. Anyway, it turned out I was the only one willing to fly over and go through her things. It was fascinating though, what she had.” He stood back up, cheeks flushed. “This seemed like it might be important. It was at the bottom of a trunk with family portraits, her wedding dress, things like that…Oh, sorry if I tied it up too tight.”

  “It’s okay.” Just as she said it, the twine yielded. After asking to use scissors, Rose carefully angled the blades between the brittle pages; he bent close to watch.

  She read the title out loud.

  “A book about art,” he repeated, gazing down at the calligraphy. “I can’t believe it. By Giovanni Lomazzo…That’s my last name, Lomazzo.”

  “Then this certainly belonged to your family.” Rose set the cover sheet to one side; beneath it was a full page of text.

  “Shouldn’t you be wearing gloves?” He was staring at her hands again.

  “No, that’s a misconception.”

  “Why?” He tilted his head, and she noticed he was a few days past needing a shave.

  “Well, a lot of glove fibers—like cotton, for example—have fats and alkanes in them.”

  His eyes widened, which she took as a sign to continue.

  “They insulate your hands, which can stimulate the sweat glands. Then, as you produce moisture, they’ll wick and transfer it to the vellum. So, it’s actually better to just handle the paper directly.”

  “Guess it makes you crazy to see people wearing gloves on TV shows, then.”

  “Mmm.” She squinted down at the second page, which looked like an author’s introduction. The ink had faded, but she was able to make out a notation at the bottom: Venezia 1571. She lifted the pages to see if the writing continued through to the end of the stack. It did.

  “It’s dated 1571 Venice. Where did your great-grandmother live?”

  “A town called Padua. Wow, is it really that old?”

  “I’d say so, judging by the vellum. I don’t think Padua is that far from Venice.” She bent to examine the writing. He leaned in too. She could smell his breath, tea tree and mint, like the flavored toothpicks sold at health food stores. “Oh! This is a palimpsest!”

  “A what-sest?”

  She couldn’t help but smile. “A palimpsest. It means there are actually two documents here.” She pointed down at the page, tracing her index finger along the lines for him to see. “The author wrote one text, scraped it away, turned the page, and wrote over the top again crosswise. It might not be the same author who wrote both, but based on the calligraphy I’d bet that it is. What’s interesting is how visible the undertext still is.” And it was, ghosting beneath the top layer of ink like a weak perpendicular shadow.

  “Is it possible to find out what they both say? Both the writings?” He glanced up from the page, eyebrows raised.

  “I think so, yes. It might’ve been an issue if the undertext had been completely scraped away…but in this condition? I should be able to render both.”

  “How does that work?”

  “Well, I’ll clean up the pages, then scan them. I use a software program to isolate the layers, so they’re legible enough to translate.” He was watching her lips as she spoke. “If it’s an original document and the content is meaningful, it could be valuable. But a full restoration will take time, and some cost.” She straightened her shoulders.

  He nodded, assessing the pages spread out between them. “Well, you obviously know what you’re doing.” He leaned in, putting the weight of his bandaged hand on the desk, as if he were sharing a secret. “It doesn’t matter to me if it’s worth anything, or what it costs to restore. I want to know what it says. I’d like to know—” He stopped, though there seemed to be more to his sentence.

  “I’d like to know too. I’ll give you an estimate.”

  “Time and cost?”

  “Yes. Time and cost.”

  His hand disappeared into the back pocket of his jeans and emerged holding a brown leather wallet worn pale at the corners. He flipped it open, took out a thick white business card, and handed it to her. William Lomazzo. Website and email, all done in letterpress, with a streak of indigo printed across the top. He shoved the wallet back into his pocket and offered his hand; she extended her own. For a single moment, her radial artery pushed flush to his. Pulse against pulse, between forefinger and thumb, heartbeats separated by paper-thin flesh.

  * * *

  Walking back to where his black Ford truck sat lonesome in the drugstore parking lot, William was oblivious to the rain. He fumbled to unlock the door. Inside, his heat coaxed a thin layer of fog out along the edges of the windows. Tilting his hips up toward the steering wheel, he rummaged around in the back pocket of his jeans with one hand. Rain was coming down in earnest now, playing a heavy staccato on the rooftop.

  He found it, fished it out.

  The silver band he wasn’t supposed to, shouldn’t have, taken off. He’d looked through the window of the shop, seen her sitting behind the desk, and suddenly it was in his pocket and he was opening the door. And now he couldn’t point to why in a way he’d feel comfortable saying out loud. He measured the weight of the ring in his palm, watched how it shone in the flat gray light. Swallowed. The metallic taste of blood; he must have bitten his cheek somewhere along the way. Sitting alone in the truck, William buried his face in his wide hands and spoke simple words to a God he’d long ago abandoned.

  2

  GIOVANNI STARED DOWN AT THE drawing he was working on—a study of dried roses he’d arranged on the table in front of him: crisp petals, wrinkled and withered but still red. He squinted to sharpen the lines. Spirals of shadow and, just below, points of thorn peeking out from under clusters of brittle leaves. He thought of them, not so long ago, blooming supp
le beneath a summer sun. What was it Petrarch called time? Our delight and our prison.

  Through the open studio window, the San Zanipolo tower rang, three bells in a major chord. Time to leave. Standing and shaking out his robes, Gio glanced around his studio at the scattered stools and velvet chaises, the delicate screen in one corner embroidered with birds in flight. He noted that the oiled paper tacked across the windows to diffuse the light needed changing. That morning, however, he’d been busy grinding pigment: madder and malachite, orpiment and ultramarine. Lapis lazuli from Far East traders and the unassuming yet crucial coal. Preparations for the work to come.

  The bells sounded again, jostling the weighty quiet of the room.

  “I hear you, I hear you.” With a sigh, Gio untied his glasses, which were fastened to his face with two loops of black ribbon. They pinched his nose, but their thick lenses worked well as magnifiers—certainly better than the bowl of water Seneca would have used. Even though his central vision was still adequate, nothing a squint here or there couldn’t fix, he wore the glasses daily. His hope had been they might hold at bay the blackness that hemmed in his field of vision and steadily gnawed away at it. Increasingly, that hope was fading. It’d been just over a year since he’d first noticed the signs, and already a permanent vignette had arrived to frame the world in a disheartening, advancing darkness. Using the lenses felt a bit like trying to clean up spilled wine while the whole house was flooding, but it was all he knew to do.

  Gio shook his head, as if that motion could dislodge his thoughts from the rutted path they tended down. Tucking the frames into the pouch that hung at his waist, he rubbed his eyes, then hitched his satchel of supplies up on one shoulder. As he stepped out into the street, the last bell toll sounded.