Annie Ernaux, ‘In Venice’ 
(trans. Lyn Thomas)

Just as I was boarding the vaporetto, at San Marco, I noticed a young Italian wearing the white uniform of an officer of the Marines, who was gazing at me intensely. Despite my fatigue, and my shoes hurting, I remained standing, undecided, next to the barrier that the steward opens and closes at each stop. The Italian continued to stare at me. I lowered my eyes onto the Venice guide book I held in my hand. A few minutes later I heard a voice asking me in English whether I was German. It was the officer. I replied in French. He spoke that language too. Like me he got off at the stop for the Accademia, and as we stepped off the vaporetto, he invited me to have coffee in a café on the Zattere. His name was Lino.
I had been walking all morning, in the area of the Arsenale, visiting the naval museum and spending several hours in the Aperto exhibition, devoted to the work of young artists. There was a painting from New York of the pope surrounded by flyers violently attacking his opposition to the use of condoms, another called La Cicciolina on the night of her wedding, and above all, a whole room sponsored by Benetton, covered from top to bottom by photographs of penises and vaginas. I had planned to return to my hotel, near the Rio San Trovaso, to change my shoes. Nonetheless, I accepted the invitation to coffee on the Zattere with the Italian. I must have thought that I would have plenty of time to get rid of him.