Springtime in the Piazza
an excerpt from Losing Venice, a novel
Finally I started talking some sense into myself. I gave up on missing the girl. I missed the pursuit, missed the feeling of missing her, even. But knew that dreams of what might have been have a limited lifespan in man. I worked and wandered aimlessly. Even when I stared at the back of every red-headed crop of female hair in any crowd, I reminded myself that I was only wandering aimlessly.
One day the gravity of nice weather and Venice’s early springtime crowds drew me to the Piazza San Marco, Europe’s sitting room, as Napoleon had called it before he took it for himself and then traded it to the Austro-Hungarians as easily as you might trade Marvin Gardens for Park Place.
In Venice, if you didn’t know where you were going, you usually ended up in the Piazza and since that was always true, maybe it was always where you were going.
That was when I came across her sitting down on the stones in front of the Basilica San Marco, leaning against the brick foundation of the campanile. It was a Thursday, I think, it must have been the week before Easter.
