“Ah. A practical young woman.” She paused. “I admire you. I was not so noble in my youth. I was much younger than you when I found myself pregnant, unable to support a child, and instead had an abortion. Not a thing I would recommend. It was certainly taboo. I had it done in a back room, no sterilization. I nearly died. But in my day it was not possible to raise a child as an unmarried mother.” She reached out and gripped my hand with that birdlike claw of hers. “You can always come and live with me, you know. I take in strays. I enjoy your company.”

I felt tears welling up. “That’s so kind of you, and I have to admit it’s tempting, but I have a nice little flat of my own now in Dorsoduro. It’s close to my art classes.”

“Pity. I could have used your help with the planning for the Biennale. It opens in May, you know.”

“It’s going to go ahead, in spite of the war?”

She chuckled. “We in Venice do not let a small thing like a war get in the way of art. Of course, the number of countries will be limited: the Germans, the Russians have both already committed to their pavilions. The Americans, too. I’m afraid the art will reek heavily of propaganda this year, but it gives our Italian artists a chance to display their work—and our Jewish artists-in-exile, too.”

In the new year I received a frosty letter from my mother, thanking me for the Christmas gifts and saying she was glad I enjoyed the food and the scarf. I appreciate your concern for us, she wrote, and the desire to keep providing financially, but all sorts of jobs are now opening up for women in war work—factories and even the armed forces. I read on. Aunt Hortensia says that if you really do not intend to return until the end of your year abroad, we should offer your room to evacuees from London. So many people are leaving the city with the threat of bombing looming in the future.

So now it appeared that if I decided to come home, I wouldn’t have a place to stay, even if I wanted one.

Carnevale was going ahead in spite of the war. It seemed the whole city dressed up and celebrated in the days leading up to Shrove Tuesday, the day before Lent started. There were masks for sale on every street corner, costumes in every shop. I didn’t plan to participate, but Henry persuaded me to buy a mask and a long cape and go out amongst the crowds. It was exciting and a little alarming to see the strange figures, some with beaks, some dressed as Pierrots and Columbines, but all anonymous beneath their masks.