No Way Home

by M S James

  ‘We’re going to Padua!’ I exclaimed.

  ‘You don’t say,’ replied Philip. ‘Glad your map-reading is up to the challenge.’

  ‘No, I’ve just realised that we are going to Padua where Saint Anthony came from!’

  ‘And?’ replied my baffled husband.

  ‘Saint Anthony is the excellent Patron Saint of Lost Things who keeps finding my keys for me. And more. I ought to pop into his church and say thank you.’

  Philip looked sideways at me but said nothing.

  ‘It won’t take long,’ I assured him. ‘You don’t have to come.’

  ‘I shall take the alternative option of a cup of coffee and select an appetising lunch,’ decided my driver.

  We parked our Fiat near the city centre and made our way to the Piazza del Duomo, where the domed and minareted Basilica di Sant’Antonio towered over the surrounding buildings. At the café opposite, I asked Philip to order me a coffee and an insalata caprese then walked over to the cathedral entrance past a magnificent sculpture of a soldier mounted on a dynamic-looking horse. Subsequent investigation enlightened me that the sculpture was by Donatello and the rider was a mercenary with the improbable name of Gattamelata – ‘Honey Cat’! Underneath this statue were several barrows containing long candles for sale. This was unusual. Normally, votive candles look like tea-lights and are stacked beneath the candle-stands beside the statue of whatever saint one wished to beg for a favour. I had never seen so many and so long. This should have warned me what I was about to encounter.

  Just inside the main door there began a queue which stretched down the central aisle and then veered to the left. This ‘pop-in’ visit was going to take far longer than expected. I slowly moved forward with the other people, mainly women, who casually chatted to each other, firmly grasping their candles. I gradually became aware that somewhere ahead, somebody was in difficulty. I could hear crying but my neighbours seemed unconcerned and carried on talking quietly. As we approached a prominent side chapel on the left, the crying became louder and there was also wailing from another source. It became obvious that I was approaching the tomb of Saint Anthony and that the pilgrims were giving vent to their grief. The altar was placed at the top of a flight of stairs but the pilgrims slowly moved around the back of the raised area. The women in front of and to the side of me were now in an anguished state. There were small children’s shoes and gloves and articles of clothing propped up on the plinth, whilst below, bereft mothers pleaded to the saint to find their child or return them to good health, many of them pressing photographs to the wall of the back of the tomb. Initially, I felt completely out of my depth at this display of emotion. To thank Saint Anthony for finding my lost keys (and once a ’cello bow) seemed trite and flippant. Then I knew what to do. I pulled out my passport photo of Anna that I always carried with me, pressed it to the back of the tomb and whispered, ‘Dear Saint Anthony, please find Anna for me.’

  The current of grievers moved on and I rejoined them. The supplicants then went over to the vast array of lit candles, where I touched the tip of mine to another lit candle and placed it with the hundreds of others. Everyone slowly filed out through another entrance, gradually recovering their equilibrium. Thank goodness I had dark sunglasses with me and thank God Philip had opted for the coffee alternative. He couldn’t have coped with the unrestrained display of misery.

  ‘Hello,’ he said when I finally appeared at the café, ‘that took a long time.’ Looking at me carefully he said, ‘You OK?’

  ‘You’ll never believe what I’ve just witnessed.’ I described the whole amazing event and began to well up again when I got to the pressing-of-the photo part.

  ‘God, it sounds awful. Couldn’t you get away?’

  ‘I didn’t try. I asked Saint Anthony to find Anna. If anyone can, he can.’

  Philip held his counsel on the subject. We carried on with lunch and I ordered another coffee.

  Later, on our way to Vicenza, I brought up the subject again.

  ‘The thing is, with Saint Anthony, you can’t just hand your problem over to him and say, “Get on with it.” You have to keep looking. Keep searching. Don’t give up.’

  ‘So, you’re going on with your wanderings around London?’ asked Philip.

  ‘Yes, but wherever I go, I always hope she’ll be there. We might even find her in Vicenza!’

  Philip laughed. ‘That would be good.’

  Vicenza is a lovely old city. Bathed in afternoon light the ancient stone buildings, roofed in red terracotta tiles, represent quintessentially Veneto architecture. Not grandiose but dignified by its centuries of existence. However, the basilica displays a roof in a fetching shade of green. Surrounding the building is a magnificent covered walkway or loggia designed by the city’s most famous son, Andrea Palladio. He must have had a heavy workload. Not only are there beautiful villas all over the Veneto but there are also churches and even the oldest surviving indoor theatre, the Teatro Olimpico, in his home town.

  The theatre is closely influenced by the structure of the Odeon Jake and I had visited at the base of the Acropolis in Athens. Tiered seating, appearing to be made of stone is, in fact, made from wood. Since it is an enclosed theatre it has a ceiling but it is painted as if there is a blue sky above. It would have been marvellous to hear a concert there.

  On our way back to our car we called in at the Museo Civico in the Palazzo Chiericati, which has one of the most astonishing painted ceilings. It is yet another Palladio building although the ceiling fresco was painted by one of his many collaborators, Giulio Carpione. Across the ceiling is the underneath view of a passing chariot, just glimpsed as it tears across the sky. Most arresting is the depiction of the charioteer’s nether region, naked. The preliminary studies for this painting must have been interesting to witness…

  It was evening by the time we reached the avenue of trees approaching Mestre. There was a considerable number of young women standing casually in small clumps beneath the trees, dressed in Hollywood Hooker outfits – high heels, short skirts and plunging necklines. They mostly adorned themselves with extravagant bouffant hairstyles and lashings of make-up. I was surprised to see so many of them and astonished that numerous police cars were parked amongst them, with policemen propped up against their vehicles chatting with the ‘working girls’. They didn’t seem to be at all interested in moving them on. It would have been terribly off-putting to the punters to have to proposition the hookers with the police watching on. But perhaps the girls felt safer knowing that the police were keeping an eye on the transactions.

  The following day, we drove north from Venice to Treviso and then on to the fortified town of Castelfranco where we stopped for a coffee. We were heading for the nearby Villa Emo, which we didn’t think we would be able to visit since it was still the home of the Emo family. However, as we gazed up at the splendid entrance through the heavy iron gates, a minibus arrived with a party of American students. Their leader was an architectural historian who had been given permission to take his party around the villa. He was happy for us to tag along with his group so we surprisingly gained access to this stunning house. The wealth of the Emo family had derived from the fertile lands of the estate and its plentiful supply of water. This had led them to cultivate maize for which they could get a higher price than the sorghum previously grown. In acknowledgement of this source of their wealth, floral arrangements of corn cobs from the previous harvest welcomed visitors on the piano nobile, the raised main floor of the villa. We climbed the grand entrance steps, that were more like a ramp so shallow were the risers, to the porticoed entrance, and admired the surrounding parkland.

  Inside, the frescoed walls were wondrous to behold. People seemed to be toppling out of balconies to the salon below! It was difficult to tell what was real and what had been painted.

  Later, at the Villa Barbaro near Maser, we were similarly intrigued by the portraits
of the inhabitants who appeared to be coming through doors to greet us or were casually leaning over high balconies to see who had just arrived.

  I suddenly found my heart was racing and I came out in a cold sweat. Something had alarmed my senses but I couldn’t see what it could be. Philip was at the far end of the vast room which was otherwise empty. I slowly rotated to see what had triggered the sensation. I gasped to see a small girl looking very like Anna coming through a door. However, the door and the child had been painted several hundred years previously. I was rooted to the spot and stared at her until my brain assimilated that she was one of the many lifelike depictions. I was still acutely aware of small dark-haired girls, even though my own girl would have been a teenager by then.

  ‘Amazing paintings,’ said Philip as he joined me. He then noticed the child coming through the door and gasped, ‘My God, she looks just like Anna.’

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed, ‘I was taken aback for a moment or two.’ We both smiled affectionately at her and left. I hoped that this was an omen that Saint Anthony was on the case.

  The artist Paolo Veronese, who had collaborated with Palladio on the construction of the villa, had the ability to create trompe l’oeil down to a fine art. Trompe coeur as well.

  We finished our trip to Venice with two days of being regular tourists, soaking in the atmosphere and visiting a few galleries. On the first day the weather was cooler than it had been, so I wore my Jaeger coat and carried my new plaid Burberry bag, thinking I appeared an unusually stylish tourist. Nevertheless, I had an extraordinary encounter with an Italian gent. Philip and I were approaching the Rialto Bridge when Philip spotted a public convenience under a nearby portico.

  ‘I’ll just pop in there. Can you wait?’ Just for a change, I didn’t need to go so took myself to one side, out of the way of the stream of people climbing the steps to the bridge. He was away longer than I had anticipated so I propped myself against a column, folded my arms and surveyed the passing crowd. Yes, I was certainly better dressed than most. An Italian chap interrupted my thoughts by asking, ‘Quanto fa pagare?’ It took a moment or two to understand that he was asking, ‘How much do you charge?’

  I was indignantly affronted. ‘I’m English!’ I replied, not that my nationality had anything to do with his proposition, but it was the first thing that came to mind. He held up his hands saying, ‘Oh, scusi,’ then disappeared into the crowd. Philip came out of the toilet and noted my cross expression. ‘You OK?’ he asked.

  ‘Philip, do I look like a prostitute?’

  He appraised my appearance and replied, ‘Well, maybe an expensive one!’ and skipped sharpishly up the steps before I could handbag him.

  Although my head was spinning with having seen so many treasures of art and architecture, my mind often returned to my impromptu pilgrimage to Saint Anthony’s shrine. If he was to find my girl, then I was going to have to persevere in my searching. Whatever else the visit might achieve, it had put new vigour into my resolve to find her.

  The Foundling

  I would be about twenty-two by the time I started my postgraduate course and still had to be under the guardianship of a male relative. (My parents assumed that I was about three years old when they adopted me and that my birthday was the day that I arrived. No one knows my real birth date.) Being in England made this easier said than done. Ummi and Abi mulled over this problem at length. I kept out of their discussions waiting for them to arrive at the obvious conclusion. Eventually, my mother said, ‘What about Faisal?! Isn’t he in England now studying to be an eye surgeon in London? Opthalmolo-something or other. I can’t pronounce it.’

  ‘Ophthalmology. He is training to be an ophthalmologist,’ helped my father.

  ‘Yes, an eye surgeon. Such a clever boy, Alhamdulillah (Praise be to Allah).’

  ‘He might be too busy.’

  ‘You could ask him.’

  ‘I will write to him tomorrow,’ agreed my father. Nobody asked me, which was just as well. I kept my head down in my book so that they wouldn’t notice my flushed cheeks and wide smile.

  Faisal wrote back to Abi saying he was indeed busy but would be happy to be available to advise me and to keep a brotherly eye on me.

  I met Faisal briefly in the summer whilst Ummi and I were in Montreux. Strictly speaking, we shouldn’t have had contact with each other since we were both unmarried adults, but since he was going to be my guardian we had to renew our relationship. We were chaperoned by Ummi – she felt reassured that propriety was being observed even if we were going to be unchaperoned when in England. We just kept to the rules to keep her happy.

  Whilst Ummi was out of hearing Faisal said that he would be able to ‘keep a very close eye on me’ since he was going to be researching into infectious diseases at the hospital in Cambridge. He said this with a smile so I knew he was going to be supportive but undertake his guardian duties with a light rein.

  Cambridge was unbelievably green. The tree-lined roads that led to the college shaded pedestrians from the autumn sun. Girls wore shockingly few clothes – shorts or skimpy skirts and vest-like T-shirts. But they didn’t flaunt themselves – they just seemed to take it for granted that no one would find it remarkable. I got rid of my black outer clothing and wore lighter colours. I still covered my body and hair but tried to fit in. The other girls were friendly and showed me around the college. Whenever a group walked into the city centre they invited me with them but as weeks passed they acquired cycles and I had to walk alone or catch a bus. One fellow student, Rana, was from Bahrain, so we struck up a particular friendship. She had a bicycle and said she would teach me how to ride it. For quite a while I kept my distance from the young men at the college. It took me several weeks to conquer my shyness and talk to them as naturally as Rana did.

  My guardian rang me in my second week and suggested that we go for a walk on his day off. He lived with a fellow doctor in a flat near to the hospital and not far from my college. He met me by the college front gates and we headed down a tree-lined avenue until we came to a field with grazing cows which was nearly in the centre of the city! Extraordinary! We crossed the field, or fen, as I learned to call it, manoeuvred our way past the cows and avoiding the cowpats. People cycled past, ringing their bells at the cows and us, chatting away to each other as their hair and clothes billowed out behind them.

  ‘My friend Rana says she’ll teach me how to ride a cycle,’ I informed Faisal.

  ‘Without my permission?’ he replied.

  I shot him a startled look but he was laughing at my dismay.

  ‘I’m only joking. It’s a very good idea, especially in Cambridge. It’s flat so it is easy to get about. Where we are going this afternoon, they hire out cycles. Would you like to have a go?’ I was wearing trousers under a knee-length shift so my clothing wasn’t an impediment.

  Once I had been equipped with a cycle and helmet, we walked across the grass to a path and stuffed my bag and Faisal’s jacket into the basket ready for lift-off. Or wobble-off. It was hard work for Faisal to keep me upright and, eventually, to get me going by running along beside me holding onto the saddle.

  ‘Hannah, I need a rest!’ he gasped. I needed one too. We sat by a children’s paddling pool and ate ice creams. I watched the mothers and children splashing in the pool and men with their friends kicking a ball about. It was all so relaxed.

  ‘Different to home, hey?’ said Faisal.

  ‘I am not yet comfortable with seeing men and women mixing so freely.’

  ‘Yes, it is a bit of a shock at first. But you’ll get used to it.’

  We took the cycle back to the hire shop and set off on our walk to Grantchester which, over the coming weeks, became our favourite walk. Faisal was very easy to talk to. He told me of his plans to train as an eye surgeon so that when he returned to Saudi he could help the many people who were affected with eye problems. Apparently, many people in deser
t countries suffer from trachoma. This disease easily spreads in unhygienic conditions, not only from person to person but on flies that carry the infection from face to face. I was used to seeing the vans driving around Riyadh in the early morning spraying the air to kill flies that would otherwise make our lives a misery. Garbage collectors took rubbish from houses every morning to further prevent flies from breeding. Our government was taking measures to improve the people’s health.

  Faisal was actually in Cambridge to research Cytomegalovirus – CMV – which is an infectious disease which can affect eyesight in people whose immune system is suppressed. He was investigating how the immune system reacts to CMV. I could imagine that Amal would be enthralled with this piece of intelligence. He was to be awarded a Master of Philosophy degree from Cambridge University although I was baffled why a scientist would get a degree in Philosophy. I hoped my certificate would be in Education and not in Business Administration! Cambridge could be opaque at times.

  I talked with enthusiasm about my plans to be a teacher, how I wanted to have a role in the future of my country and to have some say in the way that I lived.

  ‘You are lucky you have supportive parents,’ remarked Faisal. Neither of us mentioned that, at some point in the future, I would need a supportive husband.

  My course kept me busy. Not only did we have seminars and workshops on how to teach, but teaching practice was integrated into the course throughout the year. At first, I found it nerve-wracking going into school, but the pupils were keen to learn and I think they liked being taught by young enthusiastic students. Some of the pupils could be disruptive and it took all my ingenuity to keep them interested in what I was teaching. I wasn’t used to dealing with teenage boys, in fact I had hardly ever met one outside of my family. I found the best way to keep the pupils engaged was to keep them busy and praise their efforts whenever I saw positive behaviour. Praise to a student is like water and sunshine on a plant.