Rabbi Jacob Zolli and his wife, Alessia, lived around the corner from the Levantine Synagogue, in a narrow little house overlooking a secluded corte. The Allon family dined there on Monday evening, a few hours after their arrival in Venice. Gabriel managed to check his phone only four times.

“I hope there isn’t a problem,” said Rabbi Zolli.

“The usual,” murmured Gabriel.

“I’m relieved.”

“Don’t be.”

The rabbi laughed quietly. His gaze moved approvingly around the table, settling briefly on his two grandchildren, his wife, and finally his daughter. Candlelight shone in her eyes. They were the color of caramel and flecked with gold.

“Chiara has never looked more radiant. You’ve obviously made her very happy.”

“Have I really?”

“There were definitely bumps along the road.” The rabbi’s tone was admonitory. “But I assure you, she thinks she’s the luckiest person in the world.”

“I’m afraid that honor belongs to me.”

“Rumor has it she deceived you about your travel plans.”

Gabriel frowned. “Surely there’s a prohibition against that sort of thing in the Torah.”

“I can’t think of one.”

“It was probably for the best,” admitted Gabriel. “I doubt I would have agreed otherwise.”

“I’m pleased you were finally able to bring the children to Venice. But I’m afraid you’ve come at a difficult time.” Rabbi Zolli lowered his voice. “Saviano and his friends on the far right have awakened dark forces in Europe.”

Giuseppe Saviano was Italy’s new prime minister. He was xenophobic, intolerant, distrustful of the free press, and had little patience for niceties such as parliamentary democracy or the rule of law. Neither did his close friend Jörg Kaufmann, the fledgling neofascist who now served as chancellor of Austria. In France it was widely assumed that Cécile Leclerc, leader of the Popular Front, would be the next occupant of the Élysée Palace. Germany’s National Democrats, led by a former neo-Nazi skinhead named Axel Brünner, were expected to finish second in January’s general election. Everywhere, it seemed, the extreme right was ascendant.

Its rise in Western Europe had been fueled by globalization, economic uncertainty, and the continent’s rapidly changing demographics. Muslims now accounted for five percent of Europe’s population. A growing number of native Europeans regarded Islam as an existential threat to their religious and cultural identity. Their anger and resentment, once restrained or hidden from public view, now coursed through the veins of the Internet like a virus. Attacks on Muslims had risen sharply. So, too, had physical assaults and acts of vandalism directed against Jews. Indeed, anti-Semitism in Europe had reached a level not seen since World War II.

“Our cemetery on the Lido was vandalized again last week,” said Rabbi Zolli. “Gravestones overturned, swastikas … the usual. My congregants are frightened. I try to comfort them, but I’m frightened, too. Anti-immigrant politicians like Saviano have shaken the bottle and removed the cork. Their adherents complain about the refugees from the Middle East and Africa, but we are the ones they despise the most. It is the longest hatred. Here in Italy it is no longer frowned upon to be an anti-Semite. One can wear one’s contempt for us quite openly now. And the results have been entirely predictable.”

“The storm will pass,” said Gabriel with little conviction.

“Your grandparents probably said the same thing. So did the Jews of Venice. Your mother managed to walk out of Auschwitz alive. The Jews of Venice weren’t so fortunate.” Rabbi Zolli shook his head. “I’ve seen this movie before, Gabriel. I know how it ends. Never forget, the unimaginable can happen. But let’s not spoil the evening with unpleasant talk. I want to enjoy the company of my grandchildren.”

Next morning Gabriel woke early and spent a few hours beneath the shelter of the chuppah talking to his senior staff at King Saul Boulevard. Afterward, he hired a motorboat and took Chiara and the children on a tour of the city and the lagoon islands. It was far too cold to swim on the Lido, but the children removed their shoes and chased gulls and terns along the beach. On the way back to Cannaregio, they stopped at the church of San Sebastiano in Dorsoduro to see Veronese’s Virgin and Child in Glory with Saints, which Gabriel had restored during Chiara’s pregnancy. Later, as the autumn light faded in the Campo di Ghetto Nuovo, the children joined in a noisy game of tag while Gabriel and Chiara looked on from a wooden bench outside the Casa Israelitica di Riposo.

“This might be my favorite bench in the world,” said Chiara. “It’s where you were sitting the day you came to your senses and begged me to take you back. Do you remember, Gabriel? It was after the attack on the Vatican.”

“I’m not sure which was worse. The rocket-propelled grenades and the suicide bombers or the way you treated me.”

“You deserved it, you dolt. I should have never agreed to see you again.”

“And now our children are playing in the campo,” said Gabriel.

Chiara glanced at the carabinieri post. “Watched over by men with guns.”

The next day, Wednesday, Gabriel slipped from the apartment after his morning phone calls and with a varnished wooden case beneath his arm walked to the church of the Madonna dell’Orto. The nave was in semidarkness, and scaffolding concealed the double-framed pointed arches of the side aisles. The church had no transept, but in the rear was a five-sided apse that contained the grave of Jacopo Robusti, better known as Tintoretto. It was there that Gabriel found Francesco Tiepolo. He was an enormous, bearlike man with a tangled gray-and-black beard. As usual, he was dressed in a flowing white tunic with a scarf knotted rakishly around his neck.

He embraced Gabriel tightly. “I always knew you would come back.”

“I’m on holiday, Francesco. Let’s not get carried away.”

Tiepolo waved his hand as though he were trying to scare away the pigeons in the Piazza di San Marco. “Today you’re on holiday, but one day you’ll die in Venice.” He looked down at the grave. “I suppose we’ll have to bury you somewhere other than a church, won’t we?”

Tintoretto produced ten paintings for the church between 1552 and 1569, including Presentation of the Virgin Mary in the Temple, which hung on the right side of the nave. A massive canvas measuring 480 by 429 centimeters, it was among his masterworks. The first phase of the restoration, the removal of the discolored varnish, had been completed. All that remained was the inpainting, the retouching of those portions of the canvas lost to time and stress. It would be a monumental task. Gabriel reckoned it would take a single restorer a year, if not longer.

“What poor soul removed the varnish? Antonio Politi, I hope.”

“It was Paulina, the new girl. She was hoping to observe you while you worked.”

“I assume you disabused her of that notion.”

“In no uncertain terms. She said you could have any part of the painting you wanted, except for the Virgin.”

Gabriel lifted his gaze toward the upper reaches of the towering canvas. Miriam, the three-year-old daughter of Joachim and Anne, Jews from Nazareth, was hesitantly climbing the fifteen steps of the Temple of Jerusalem toward the high priest. A few steps below reclined a woman robed in brown silk. She was holding a young child, a boy or girl, it was impossible to tell.