It seems that Aunt Lettie left me some property here, she wrote. I am going to enjoy making it habitable again and look forward to bringing Teddy here next Easter. There is a lovely sandy beach, and he’ll be fascinated by the gondolas. She did not ask about Desiree.

As she finished, the proprietress invited her to a glass of limoncello, clearly curious to find out what Caroline had discovered.

She expressed amazed delight at everything Caroline told her. “An apartment on the Zattere! Dio mio, that is worth having these days. So many foreigners are buying here. Lots of Germans. We’re not too happy about that. The older generation still remembers the way they treated us during the war.”

“The German army was here?” Caroline asked. “I thought Italy was on the same side as the Germans.”

“To start with. Then we changed sides. And the Germans were angry. They occupied the city. They were brutal, too. Lots of arrests and killing and people being shipped off to camps. They tried to starve us. Two long years they were here, until the Allies saved us. Your British army, you know.”

It was amazing how long the shadow of the war had cast a pall over Europe, Caroline thought. But her aunt had escaped to Switzerland and not had to endure the German occupation—escaped in a hurry, judging by the things she left behind. The question was why she chose to stay on in Venice after war was declared and didn’t return to her family in England.

The next morning Caroline set out with her list. She found a big supermarket, further down the Zattere, and was able to get sheets, a pillow and a duvet, as well as her food requirements, plus a bottle of wine. She only realized she had purchased with too much enthusiasm when she had to stagger back the whole length of the waterfront with so many bags. Gasping for air, she dropped everything on the floor inside the door, then made herself a cup of tea before anything else. It felt good to sit, sipping tea, in her own living room, watching the water traffic up and down the canal, including some big cruise ships and freighters. By afternoon the bed was made, and she had found a clean towel and washed the inside of the windows, letting in the rosy light of the setting sun. She poured herself a glass of wine—no refrigerator, she had noted—snacked on some bread and olives and felt remarkably at peace.