Daniel Silva - The defector

“I thought the mayor drove the birdseed vendors out of business.”

“The tourists feed them anyway. If they love the pigeons so much, maybe they should take them home as souvenirs. Do you know how many tourists came to Venice this year?”

“Twenty million.”

“That’s right. If each person took just one of those filthy birds, the problem would be solved within a few months.”

It was odd to hear Chiara speak so harshly of Venice. Indeed, there was a time, not so long ago, when she would have never imagined a life outside the picturesque canals and narrow alleyways of her native city. The daughter of the city’s chief rabbi, she had spent her childhood in the insular world of the ancient ghetto, leaving just long enough to earn a master’s degree in history from the University of Padua. She returned to Venice after graduation and took a job at the small Jewish museum in the Campo del Ghetto Nuovo, and there she might have remained forever had she not been noticed by an Office talent spotter during a visit to Israel. The talent spotter introduced himself in a Tel Aviv coffeehouse and asked Chiara whether she was interested in doing more for the Jewish people than working in a museum in a dying ghetto. Chiara said she was and vanished into the secretive training program of the Office.

A year later she resumed her old life, this time as an undercover agent of Israeli intelligence. Among her first assignments was to covertly watch the back of a wayward Office assassin named Gabriel Allon, who had come to Venice to restore Bellini’s San Zaccaria altarpiece. She revealed herself to him a short time later in Rome, after an incident involving gunplay and the Italian police. Trapped alone with Chiara in a safe flat, Gabriel had wanted desperately to touch her. He had waited until the case was resolved and they had returned to Venice. There, in a canal house in Cannaregio, they made love for the first time, in a bed prepared with fresh linen. It was like making love to a figure painted by the hand of Veronese. Now that same figure frowned as he removed his leather jacket and tossed it over the back of a chair. She made a vast show of hanging it in the closet, then unzipped her overnight bag and began removing the contents. All the clothing was clean and painstakingly folded.

“My mother insisted on doing my laundry before I left.”

“She doesn’t think we have a washing machine?”

“She’s a Venetian, Gabriel. She doesn’t believe it’s proper for a girl to live on a farm. Pastures and livestock make her nervous.” Chiara began placing the clean clothing in her dresser drawers. “So why weren’t you here when I arrived?”

“I had a meeting.”

“A meeting ? In Amelia? With whom?”

Gabriel told her.

“I thought you two weren’t speaking.”

“We’ve agreed to let bygones be bygones.”

“How lovely,” Chiara said coldly. “Did my name come up?”

“Uzi’s miffed at you for failing to tell the desk that you were going to Venice.”

“It was private.”

“You know there’s no such thing as private when you work for the Office.”

“Why are you taking his side?”

“I’m not taking anyone’s side. It was a simple statement of fact.”

“Since when have you ever given a damn about Office rules and regulations? You do whatever you want, whenever you want, and no one dares to lay a finger on you.”

“And Uzi gives you plenty of preferential treatment because you’re married to me.”

“I’m still angry with him for leaving you behind in Moscow.”

“It wasn’t Uzi’s fault, Chiara. He tried to make me leave, but I wouldn’t listen.”

“And you almost got yourself killed as a result. You would have been killed if it wasn’t for Grigori.” She lapsed into silence for a moment while she refolded two items of clothing. “Did you two have something to eat?”

“Uzi devoured about a hundred pastries at Massimo. I had coffee.”

“How’s his weight?”

“He seems to be carrying some postnuptial happy pounds.”

“You never gained any weight after we were married.”

“I suppose that means I’m deeply unhappy.”

“Are you?”

“Don’t be silly, Chiara.”

She slipped a thumb inside the waistband of her blue jeans. “I think I’m gaining weight.”

“You look beautiful.”

She frowned. “You’re not supposed to say I look beautiful . You’re supposed to reassure me that I’m not gaining weight.”

“Your shirt is fitting you a little more tightly than normal.”

“It’s Anna’s cooking. If I keep eating like this, I’m going to look like one of those old ladies in town. Maybe I should just buy a black frock now and get it over with.”

“I gave her the night off. I thought it might be nice to be alone for a change.”

“Thank God. I’ll make you something to eat. You’re too thin.” Chiara closed the dresser drawer. “So what brought Uzi to town?”

“He’s making his semiannual tour of European assets. Patting backs. Showing the flag.”

“Do I detect a slight bit of resentment in your voice?”

“Why on earth would I be resentful?”

“Because you should be the one making the grand tour of our European assets instead of Uzi.”

“Traveling isn’t what it once was, Chiara. Besides, I didn’t want the job.”

“But you’ve never been comfortable with the fact that they gave it to Uzi when you turned it down. You don’t think he has the intellect or the creativity for it.”

“Shamron and his acolytes at King Saul Boulevard disagree. And if I were you, Chiara, I’d stay on Uzi’s good side. He’s likely to be the director one day.”

“Not after Moscow. According to the rumor mill, Uzi was lucky to keep his job.” She sat at the edge of the bed and made a halfhearted effort to remove her right boot. “Help me,” she said, extending her foot toward Gabriel. “It won’t budge.”

Gabriel took hold of the boot by the toe and the heel and it slid easily off her foot. “Maybe you should try pulling on it next time.”

“You’re much stronger than I am.” She raised her other leg. “So how long are you planning to make me wait this time, Gabriel?”

“Before what?”

“Before telling me why Uzi came all the way to Umbria to see you. And why two Office bodyguards followed you home.”

“I thought you didn’t hear me arrive.”

“I was lying.”

Gabriel slipped off Chiara’s second boot.

“Don’t ever lie to me, Chiara. Bad things happen when lovers tell lies.”

MAY BE THE British are right. Maybe Grigori did redefect.”

“And maybe Guido Reni will show up here later tonight to help me finish his altarpiece.”

Chiara plucked an egg from its carton and expertly broke it one-handed into a glass mixing bowl. She was standing at an island in the center of the villa’s rustic kitchen. Gabriel was opposite, perched atop a wooden stool, a glass of Umbrian merlot in his hand.

“You’re going to kill me with those eggs, Chiara.”

“Drink your wine. If you drink wine, you can eat as many as you like.”

“That’s nonsense.”

“It’s true. Why do you think we Italians live forever?”

Gabriel did as she suggested and drank some of his wine. Chiara cracked another egg against the side of the bowl, but this time a fragment of shell lodged in the yoke. Annoyed, she delicately removed it with the tip of her fingernail and flicked it into the rubbish bin.

“What are you making, anyway?”

“Frittata with potato and onion and spaghetti alla carbonara di zucchine.”

She turned her attention to the trio of pots and pans spattering and bubbling on the antiquated range. Blessed with a Venetian’s natural sense of aesthetics, she brought artistry to all things, especially food. Her meals, like her beds, seemed too perfect to disturb. Gabriel often wondered why she had ever been attracted to a scarred and broken relic like him. Perhaps she viewed him as a tired room in need of redecoration.