Free Death in a Serene City by Edward Sklepowich

before:
    â€œâ€˜Venice, like love, is much described and little understood. Venice, like life, is both a reality and a dream passing away. Venice, like the only beauty to be truly valued, was born to die and in that dying and death to become, if possible, even more beautiful. I look from my windows at a romantic little canal, the kind that Sargent loved to paint, and sounding in my ears like some inner echo I hear that lovely aria from I Due Foscari: “Ecco la mia Venezia, ecco il suo mare. ” Someday may she rest in peace beneath the waves of time and tide like all past dreams and forgotten or abandoned loves. Someday—but let it be a long, long day from this one—let her rest in peace, this serene dream upon the water.’”
    Voyd paused after finishing, bowing his head for what seemed much longer than necessary. Then, slowly putting away his glasses and the paper, he looked out over the heads of the small gathering to the back of the church where Maria was standing and said in a stage whisper, “And let us all say, let her rest in peace, this woman who brought us all such light and joy, this woman who had the soul to perceive beauty and the talent to create it herself. Amen.”
    Urbino had the impression that Voyd, as he stepped gravely down from the pulpit, considered the rest of the service nothing but anticlimax.
    He wondered what the Contessa felt about the writer’s performance. A quick glance at her face showed that it was—if possible—even more expressionless than it had been before.

13
    FOR most tourists the cemetery island is only a stop on the way from Venice proper to Murano but for Urbino it was someplace special, its tombs and graves more curious and interesting than anything on the glass island could ever be.
    â€œWould you think me strange, Barbara, if I told you that I find this part of San Michele among the loveliest places in all of Venice?”
    He knew he was being perverse, for the Protestant graveyard was overgrown with unkempt grass beaten down by the rain that had only recently let up. The older grave markers, most crowded beneath massive trees that themselves looked half dead at this time of year, were eaten away by time and weather, their surfaces sometimes as smooth as the wall that set the area off from the lagoon and the rest of the cemetery. Where letters and dates could be traced, they frequently spelled out the melancholy story of those foreigners who had probably been surprised to meet their deaths in Venice so far from home.
    â€œSince I thought you strange, caro , from the first time I laid eyes on you admiring that abominable painting at the Biennale, I’ve grown accustomed to such things.”
    She looked around them. The graveyard was empty of everyone else except two attendants filling in the grave. Even fewer people had come to the burial than to the church service. The American consul and his wife had hurried from the church to their waiting boat and Maria and Sister Veronica had gone about their duties. The Contessa’s boat had dropped Stefano and Angela off in the Cannaregio before continuing across the lagoon to San Michele.
    There had been one graveside mourner, however, who hadn’t been at St. George’s. This was Kobke, Voyd’s young friend. Urbino had noticed him idling on the other side of the Campo San Vio when they came out of the church. Kobke had joined Voyd, Adele Carstairs, and the nurse in the same funeral boat to San Michele.
    â€œYou know,” the Contessa said as they walked down one of the leaf-strewn paths to the gate that led into the rest of the cemetery, “I’ve never been able to decide if this is a good city to die in since we must all die somewhere in the end or if it might not be a bit—oh, I don’t know—redundant. But obviously Clifford Voyd thinks it a marvelous place for dying, considering the lineage he gave.”
    â€œSuch melancholy thoughts, Barbara.