The Chinese Mistress

Prologue-2

Passing through the glass door to perform the pre-shipment formalities, Ivo turned to look at her for the last time until his return, stipulated on an imprecise date but not less than six months. Federica's eyes were drawn to the side, no doubt trying to hide her tears. The irresistibly romantic scene produced a warm feeling inside Ivo.

When she saw that the last passengers, almost all Asian, disappeared behind the gates guarded by two policemen, Federica slowly started the return to the parking lot. She knew perfectly well that a part of her heart was going with the young man and anticipated that she would feel lonely again, something that terrified her. Federica had met Ivo immediately after a very complicated divorce and he had immediately filled her life with light. The woman had had two husbands and several lovers before, but she had only known romantic love with Ivo. Full of apprehension, she started the car.

In the two hours time before embarkation Ivo absent-mindedly walked by the free-shops, when suddenly a thought came to his mind. He pulled out his cell phone and looked for a number in its memory. After a few seconds he heard a feminine voice, somewhat childish and with a strong foreign accent.

“Hi, Meryam. It´s me, Ivo.” The young man explained the reasons for his call from the airport, including the details of his trip to China.

"And you call me all of a sudden; to tell me you're going to China for a long time?" The girl's tone showed real anger. Ivo had prepared a series of explanations that he knew beforehand would anyway sound empty. A little calmer, the girl replied resignedly.

“ Surely with your taste for exotic women in the East you will satisfy your appetites.”

"None of that, I will remain faithful to you and carry you into my memory.”

"What fidelity are you talking about, when you live with your Marquise or Countess?" The tone was again recriminatory and jealous.

"She has no title of nobility. Federica only belongs to an ancient family.”

"No older than mine, only I know nothing about it."

Already aboard the Lufthansa plane that would take him to Beijing after two stopovers and a little more than 17 hours, Ivo Bianchi allowed his nervous system to slacken, abandoning the attitude of permanent alert and the consequent anxiety that the international trips produced to him.

With a glass of red wine on the table in his seat his mind naturally returned to review the latest developments in his life and those in perspective. His relationship with Federica was already five years old, when she was fifty and he was twenty-three. The woman was an offspring of an old family of the Venetian patriciate, divorced twice and with a daughter of approximately the age of the young man whom she seldom saw.

After finishing his studies of history in the University Ivo had entered to work in a Foundation of historical and heraldic studies of the Veneto, for which he had to move of its native Milan. There he had met Federica who was divorcing her last husband and the infatuation had been mutual and instantaneous. The woman was a member of the Board of Directors of the Foundation and had a preponderant role in it, since the rest of the vowels were elderly people who lived scattered in the north of Italy.

Apart from romantic love and companionship, Federica and he had explored all the possibilities of eroticism and neither had s****l fantasies they had not satisfied. Ivo knew every intimate corner of her body as few men know their partners, and the woman could say the same.

Although Federica had remained faithful to him, she had tolerated the boy's escapades with Meryem, the young Moroccan with whom he had a sporadic but torrid relationship. For Ivo, the relationship with Federica was a placid brook that ran in the forest, while the one he had with Meryem resembled more a volcano.

When two months earlier the president of the Foundation had brought the proposal of his trip to the consideration of the Governing Board Federica had fervently supported it and finally had obtained its approval. It was the President, a knight of the Order of Malta who had promoted the appointment of Ivo to carry out the fieldwork in China, and Federica had supported it in the midst of sighs.

Her relationship with the Venetian nobility, according to the data that Federica had about her own origins, could be traced back to the most powerful families of the Republica Serenissima di Venezia since at least the 13th century when her ancestors had hobbled with the Dandolo and others Princes who handled the city and its naval traffic. Nevertheless, for many years the woman had been member of a militant group of the most radical left and participated openly in all kinds of public demonstrations. This apparent contradiction was among the details of her character that Ivo loved most, even though in his inmost heart he was convinced that they were poses adopted by his lover, incapable of living without being surrounded by comfort and a certain luxury.

While the boy was lost in those pleasant thoughts the memory of the questions with which he had awakened startled returned like a flash to his mind. He found that during the day elapsed he had unconsciously worked out the answer of at least the last one of them: Why do you abandon the comfort of Venice and the body of your loved one to undertake this trip? Ivo smiled as he became aware of the answer.

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Indeed, the desire to do something with his life before plunging into the tedium of a chair of Classical History or a function in a museum was the engine that drove him to accept the challenge of the unknown.

Finally the fatigue of the preparations for the trip overcame him and drowsiness undermined the resistances of the vigil.