The newcomer showed no interest in anyone else. Chiara, until now a strong presence, had already scurried out of the way. Michiel now followed his sister into the aisle and extended a hand,
unnecessarily helping Cornelia take the seat opposite Saskia. The two younger Venetians then just stood there observing, not quite anxious, but certainly alert.
Cornelia put one elbow on the table and cradled her impressive jawline on the heel of her hand, thrusting a couple of plum-colored fingernails up into jet-black hair streaked, just so, with gray. Bracelets cascaded down her forearm. She was looking directly at Saskia. Saskia looked right back at her and enjoyed doing so.
She’d had almost zero sexual interactions with women and had long ago written those off as the result of youthful “confusion.” But her daughter’s incessant demands had put her into a peculiar way of thinking. Every decade or so, some woman came along who seemed like a possible exception.
She wondered if others around them could sense that Saskia’s thoughts were headed that way. It seemed incredibly obvious to her. A faintly wry look on Cornelia’s face suggested that at least one person was having similar perceptions. But then Cornelia broke eye contact, sat back, and sighed. “The Netherlands knows what it is to be abandoned. To be hated by those who are jealous.”
“But doesn’t every country feel that way at one point or another?” Saskia asked. “It is how nations establish a sense of identity.”
“Sometimes it is actually true, though. Venice has been hated and suspected for a long time. Even by other Italians. Especially by them. We are our own country. It is the only thing that has ever worked.”
“If I may,” Willem said. “Oh, I’m nobody,” he added, when Cornelia’s eyes briefly flicked his way. He was bemused, not offended, by Cornelia’s utter lack of interest in niceties. “Just putting this all together: the whole city of Venice will certainly be underwater very soon. Perhaps no city in the world is as vulnerable. MOSE failed because of cumbersome European Union regulation and Italian corruption. Worse, it failed extremely slowly.”
The Venetians all laughed. It was the first time Cornelia had cracked a smile.
“If Venice were free to act in a decisive way, as it was famous for doing back in its golden age, it would just—”
“Solve the fucking problem, yes,” Cornelia said.
“But being part of Italy, which is in turn part of the EU, makes that completely impossible.”
“Completely. Good word.” Cornelia shook her head sadly. “Europe,” she said, in the tone of voice that might be used by the founder of a three-star Michelin restaurant talking about Velveeta.
“So, you are”—and here Willem looked also to Michiel and Chiara—“Venetian nationalists.”
“Did you suppose we were fascists?”
Michiel flinched.
“Don’t worry,” Cornelia went on, “we hate those idiots.”
Michiel smiled.
“We are more like oligarchs,” his aunt concluded. Michiel turned sideways to Chiara, who smiled and put a consoling hand on his arm.
“How many people like you are there?” Willem asked.
“It doesn’t take that many,” Cornelia returned.
“You’re not merely thinking about what I’ll call Vexit—to leave the EU—”
“We want out of Italy. To be like those guys,” Cornelia said, and turned to look back in the direction of the Tree Car.
“Singapore?”
“Yes. And Italy can serve as our Malaysia.”
The same words, uttered in a Venetian coffeehouse, might have seemed a little ridiculous. But on this train rattling across the darkling plains of Central Texas, all things seemed possible.
“Why isn’t she wearing a wedding ring?” Saskia asked, when she had a moment together with Willem, Amelia, and Fenna. They were in Saskia’s private chamber at the back of the Money Car. Fenna was putting on Face Three, more suitable for evening. So Saskia wasn’t free to look around—she had her eyes rolled up toward the ceiling so that Fenna could get at the lower lids—but even so she could sense Willem and Amelia exchanging a look.
“It’s a perfectly normal question,” Saskia insisted. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
Fenna snickered, and she knew she had protested a little too much.
“She is so fuckable. Definitely a top though,” Fenna observed. Saskia couldn’t roll her eyes without incurring Fenna’s wrath, but she did heave a sigh. But then Fenna’s phone buzzed and she actually stepped away to check it. Saskia was on her way to being shocked by this unprofessional behavior when she got a look at Fenna’s face and saw the love light in her eyes. Jules was sending her selfies.