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interrogation.”
    “Who was it?” she asked again.
    Gabriel held up his right hand and then lowered two of the fingers.
    “General Ferrari?”
    Gabriel nodded. Chiara stared at her desk as if searching for something out of place.
    “How are you feeling?” asked Gabriel quietly.
    “I’m fine,” she replied without looking up. “But if you ask me that question one more time . . .”

    It was true that Gabriel and Chiara did not actually live in the ancient ghetto of Venice. Their rented apartment was on the second floor of a faded old palazzo, in a quiet quarter of Cannaregio where Jews never had been forbidden to enter. On one side was a quiet square; on the other was a canal where King Saul Boulevard kept a small, fast boat, lest Gabriel had need to flee Venice for the second time in his storied career. Tel Aviv had good reason to be mindful of his security; after many years of resistance, he had agreed to become the next chief of the Office. A year remained until his term was to begin. After that, his every waking moment would be devoted to protecting the State of Israel from those who wished to destroy it. There would be no more restorations or extended stays in Venice with his beautiful young wife—at least, not without an army of bodyguards watching over them.
    The apartment had been fitted with a sophisticated security system, which chirped benignly when Gabriel pushed open the door. Entering, he removed the cork from a bottle of Bardolino and sat at the kitchen counter, listening to the news on the BBC, while Chiara prepared a platter of bruschetta. A UN panel had predicted an apocalyptic warming of the global climate, a car bomb had killed forty in a Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad, and the Syrian president, the butcher of Damascus, had once again used chemical weapons against his own people. Chiara frowned and switched off the radio. Then she looked longingly at the open bottle of wine. Gabriel was sorry for her. Chiara had always loved to drink Bardolino in the springtime.
    “It won’t harm them if you take just a sip,” he said.
    “My mother never touched wine when she was pregnant with me.”
    “And look how you turned out.”
    “Perfect in every way.”
    She smiled and then placed the bruschetta in front of Gabriel. He selected two slices—one with chopped olives, the other with white beans and rosemary—and poured some of the Bardolino. Chiara peeled the skin from an onion and with a few quick thrusts of her knife turned it into a pile of perfect white cubes.
    “You’d better be careful,” said Gabriel, watching her, “or you’ll end up looking like the general.”
    “Don’t give me any ideas.”
    “What was I supposed to say to him, Chiara?”
    “You might have told him the truth.”
    “Which version of the truth?”
    “You have one year until you take your oath, darling. After that, you’ll be at the prime minister’s beck and call, and the security of the state will be your responsibility. Your life will be one long meeting interspersed with the occasional crisis.”
    “Which is why I turned down the job several times before finally accepting it.”
    “But now it’s yours. And this is your last chance to take some well-deserved time off before we go back to Israel.”
    “I tried to explain that to the general without going into all the sordid details. That’s when he threatened to leave Julian rotting in an Italian jail cell.”
    “He had nothing on Julian. He was bluffing.”
    “He might have been,” Gabriel conceded. “But what if some enterprising British reporter decided to do a little digging into Julian’s background? And what if the same enterprising reporter somehow discovered he was an asset of the Office? I would have never forgiven myself if I’d allowed him to be dragged through the mud. He’s always been there when I needed him.”
    “Do you remember the time you asked him to take care of that Russian defector’s cat?”
    “How could I forget? I never