The breeze took her hair and blew a few strands across her face. She brushed it away with her left hand. It was absent the diamond engagement ring Gabriel had given her. There were other rings on her fingers now and a new gold watch on her wrist. Gabriel wondered if they were gifts from someone else.

“I haven’t heard from you since I left Jerusalem,” Chiara said in the deliberately even tone she used whenever she was trying to keep her emotions in check. “It’s been months. Now you show up here without warning and expect me to greet you with my arms open and a smile on my face?”

“Without warning? I came here because you asked me to come.”

“Me? What on earth are you talking about?”

Gabriel searched her eyes. He could tell she was not dissembling. “Forgive me,” he said. “It seems I was brought here under false pretenses.”

She toyed with the ends of her scarf, clearly enjoying his discomfort. “Brought here by whom?”

Donati and Tiepolo, reckoned Gabriel. Maybe even His Holiness himself. He stood abruptly. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I’m sorry, Chiara. It was nice to see you again.”

He turned and started to walk away, but she seized his arm.

“Wait,” she said. “Stay for a moment.”

“Are you going to be civil?”

“Civility is for divorced couples with children.”

Gabriel sat down again, but Chiara remained standing. A man in dark glasses and a tan blazer emerged from the sottoportego. He looked admiringly at Chiara, then crossed the campo and disappeared over the bridge that led to the pair of old Sephardic synagogues at the southern end of the ghetto. Chiara watched the man go, then tilted her head and scrutinized Gabriel’s appearance.

“Has anyone ever told you that you bear more than a passing resemblance to the man who saved the Pope?”

“He’s an Italian,” Gabriel said. “Didn’t you read about him in the newspapers?”

She ignored him. “When I saw the footage on television, I thought I was hallucinating. I knew it was you. That night, after things calmed down, I checked in with Rome. Shimon told me you’d been at the Vatican.”

A sudden movement in the campo caused her to turn her head. She watched as a man with a salt-and-pepper beard and a fedora hurried toward the entrance of the community center. It was her father, the chief rabbi of Venice. She raised the toe of her right boot and balanced her weight on the heel. Gabriel knew the gesture well. It meant something provocative was coming.

“Why are you here, Gabriel Allon?”

“I was told you wanted to see me.”

“And so you came? Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

The corners of her lips started to curl into a smile.

“What’s so funny?” he asked.

“Poor Gabriel. You’re still in love with me, aren’t you?”

“I always was.”