Free What Casanova Told Me by Susan Swan

shoulders, nearly everything about Luce was shapely and soft. Yes, she was pleasing to look at and luminous with health, Lee decided grudgingly, from her full-lipped mouth with the striking white teeth to the long, milky white neck lightly ringed with lines like the markings on a statue. But it irritated her to see Luce avidly reading her family documents when, in the same breath, the girl dismissed the truth of her mother’s views. How often had Lee lectured her students not to trust the “I” narrator? And how often had she watched them ignore her cautionary advice? If the text said I, they embraced it unthinkingly. And why was Luce wearing that transparent blouse unbuttoned to the breastbone with nothing underneath? Didn’t she have the sense, in this very male culture, to bring a jacket?
    Luce had just opened the journal when she noticed Lee coming towards her across the square. How frustrating to have company at breakfast when she wanted to read. She was still tired from their flight and she felt slightly achy, as if she wascoming down with the flu. At least the regatta would relieve her of the burden of making conversation. Hundreds of boats were already jockeying for a starting place in the Basin of San Marco. The hotel clerk had told her the regatta was late this year, postponed because of high winds and unexpected cold weather.
    “Ah, you’re looking at the family documents. Is this one of Casanova’s letters?” Lee pointed at the journal as she sat down.
    “No. It’s my ancestor’s travel journal. I have to deliver it to the Sansovinian at noon, along with the other documents.”
    “May I see it?” Lee picked it up in her plump fingers and peered inside. “The writing’s so quaint.”
    “You shouldn’t touch it without gloves,” Luce said.
    “What’s that?”
    “I shouldn’t even be looking at it in the open air,” Luce said. She took the journal back and put it in her archival box, resting her hand possessively on its lid.
    “I wouldn’t worry about the journal—it’s Casanova’s letters everyone will be interested in. Too bad. He was a reflection of a patriarchal age.”
    “Casanova’s reputation is unfair. He wrote novels and operas and saw women as his equals.”
    “It sounds like you’ve been taken in by Flem and her defence of Casanova.”
    “You’ve read Lydia Flem?”
    “Only a review of her book in
The Times,”
Lee said, reaching for the menu. “Interesting idea, that Casanova saw desire as an expression of a mother’s omnipotence. But the man was a predator, who, even from his own account, deliberately misled women. I can tell by your frown that you don’t agree. Here—let me order for you. The menu is in Italian.”
    Ignoring Luce’s frown, Lee placed the order for their costly breakfast: eggs Benedict with Bellinis, the Venetian concoctionof champagne and peach juice served in a flute. When the food arrived, they ate in an uncomfortable silence. The only sound was the flapping of their tablecloth in the damp spring wind and the noise of the crowd, some in gaudy medieval costumes, gathering in the bleachers to watch the start of the thirty-kilometre Vogalonga. Out on the Basin of San Marco, thousands of boats with rowers the size of stick figures now swarmed across the milky green waters of the lagoon. Beyond the Basin glistened the domes and church spires of San Giorgio Maggiore and Il Redentore.
    “Luce, are you feeling all right? You’ve hardly touched your breakfast,” Lee asked.
    Luce nodded vaguely. A tourist at a nearby table was photographing a birchbark canoe gliding past a cluster of rowing skiffs. “I was just thinking about—about Casanova. His birthplace is somewhere near here, isn’t it?”
    “Maybe so,” Lee replied. “We could try to find it. After that we can drop off your family papers at the library and visit a museum.”
    “I guess.” Luce rose and followed Lee out of the café. It was warm now and she felt slightly light-headed in the