Now I stepped into another painting. The flagged courtyard was a secret garden full of brilliantly colored flowers — magenta bougainvilla, scarlet geraniums, purple hibiscus. A man in a white shirt, the sleeves rolled up, was leaning against the marble basin of a fountain, smoking a cigarette. He looked handsome and boyish, his thick brown hair tousled, as if he’d been running his hands through it. He smiled when he saw Linda.

Le Grand Canal (Venise), 1905
(Oil on canvas, 73.5 × 92.1 cm)
BY Paul Signac
Toledo Museum of Art

“So there you are at last. This must be your niece.” He looked me over.

“I was expecting Anne of Green Gables but I think we’ve got Anne Boleyn.”

Linda laughed. “Anne, this is Jack Wilson. He’s a writer.”

I tried to look as if I knew all about him, but I’d never heard of Jack Wilson. I imagined his photo on the back cover of a best-selling novel.

“Can I come up, Linda? I need some lunch.”

“Sure, Jack,” she said. “Simone, take Anne up to your room. We’ll get Jack to bring the bag up. May as well put him to use.”

Jack grinned. Simone said nothing, but her hand tightened on my elbow. She led me silently up an outside staircase.

Over the next two weeks we settled into a routine. Linda worked on her article in the morning, and Simone and I wandered around Venice until lunch time, watching boats debark, feeding pigeons, petting sleeping cats, admiring the electric yo-yo salesmen who spun elaborate loops on bridges with their wares, eating gelato, twirling racks of postcards to see if there was anything we hadn’t seen, cooling off in old churches full of stale incense and dark pictures. After lunch I helped Simone with her exercises. There was a pulley attached to the door between the dining room and the long narrow kitchen, the only normal-sized door in the lofty apartment that was part of a palace. She had to lie on her back, her right foot in a harness, and lift iron rings, marked by weight, 1 lb, 2 lb, 3 lb, up and down for half an hour, gradually increasing the weight. After that, her doctor had ordered her to rest in bed. That’s when Linda visited museums, and sometimes she took me with her. Occasionally we’d run into Jack in a café or espresso bar, and he and Linda would laugh together about other writers they knew, and make plans for dinner. Sometimes he put his arm around her, and I’d feel a little jealous. Other times, especially if she were working in a library, she left me behind to read novels in the “salon,” the big room with tall windows where I’d move a couple of uncomfortable brocade chairs together so I could put my feet up.

That day when everything changed I was reading in the salon. It was hot and I was wearing shorts, something I would never have worn outside the house back in those days. The chairs were arranged so that I could get maximum light from the windows, which meant I was turned at an angle from the door to the hall. I didn’t hear anyone come in — I didn’t know anyone besides Linda and the maid, Rita, had a key — and I was deeply engrossed in my novel. Then I felt a hand run along my leg. I jumped, and drew my knees up.