An Equal Music

by Vikram Seth

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  the canal pass by on either side. My eyes take in a casino, a sign to the Ghetto, a lovely garden with wistaria entwined over a trellis. A small working boat, with two young men in orange shirts, putters past the vaporetto. An elegant older woman, with fat pearls and a brooch, gets on at Ca' d'Oro, followed by a woman pushing a pram containing her shopping. The green scum at the edge of the water stretches up the stone steps, the striped mooring-poles.

  "What would Venice do without geraniums?" says Julia, looking upwards.

  I lean over and kiss her, and she kisses me back - not exactly passionately, but freely. I feel elated, and immediately begin chattering.

  "Where did you stay the last time you were here?"

  "Oh, in the youth hostel. I was with Maria, and we didn't have much money."

  "I hope your friend's caretaker understood me. After she picked up the phone, I simply read out what you wrote. But if there's no one to meet us at the Sant'Elena stop -"

  "Let's worry about that if it happens."

  "Is our luggage safe back there?" I ask. My violin case is resting under our bench, its strap entwined around my leg-

  "Where can anyone run off with it?"

  "Look - another gondola!" I say.

  "Yes," says Julia patiently, taking my hand. "We've seen dozens already."

  "We must go for a ride in a gondola."

  "Michael, I can't hear myself think."

  "Well, then, you don't have to look at me," I say, and immerse myself in the guidebook.

  The stone bridge at the Rialto, the wooden bridge at the Accademia, the great grey dome of the Salute, the

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  columns and bell-tower of San Marco, the pink-andwhite confection of the Doge's palace pass over us or by us one after the other; and all so luxuriously, so predictably, so languidly, so swiftly, so astonishingly that there is something about it that is disturbing, almost gluttonous. It is a relief to be in the open basin of the lagoon, unhemmed by gorgeousness.

  To our right is the islanded church of San Giorgio Maggiore. I look at it in amazed recognition. "But where is Sant'Elena?" I ask.

  "Just a few more stops."

  "When I told Helen, she looked shocked, as if I was banishing myself to Clapham."

  "Exiled to Saint Helena."

  "Exactly."

  "I like Sant'Elena," says Julia. "I wandered over there once by mistake. It's green, and suburban, and full of families and dogs. No cars, of course - and no tourists except the cartographically challenged, like Maria and me. But it's quite close to something I want to show you."

  "What's that?"

  "You'll see." ;

  "What is it - animal, vegetable or mineral?"

  Julia takes a second to understand this, then says: "Animal, but probably made of vegetable and mineral."

  "Well, so are we all."

  "So we are, that's true."

  "It might have been nice to stay at the palazzo, don't you think? I mean, when are we ever going to get the chance to stay in a palazzo again? If it wasn't for you, that's where I'd be: lying in a bathtub, being served champagne."

  "Prosecco, more likely."

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  "Whatever you say."

  "Where is it anyway, your palazzo?" asks Julia.

  "How should I know? I don't know Venice."

  Julia makes an impatient sound and reaches for the guidebook. "Ah, yes, Palazzo Tradonico. It's near San Polo."

  "Whatever that is."

  "It's the biggest campo in Venice, apart from San Marco - which is the only campo that's called a piazza."

  "That's far too lucid to make any sense."

  "You're just sleepy. You've been sleepy all day."

  "You were the one who slept through the most beautiful journey in the world."

  "I took a cat-nap. For twenty minutes."

  "I don't think I'll go anywhere without you. Venice is much too confusing."

  "Oh yes you will. I'm not coming along to all your rehearsals. Here's a tip, Michael. Call one side of the Grand Canal Marco and the other side Polo. Then remember if something's on the Marco side or the Polo sideband you'll know if you have to cross the canal to get to it."

  "But why won't you come to our rehearsals? We're just having a couple - well, only three or four."

  "After Vienna, you're much better off playing without me. And without me watching."

  I shake my head.

  "Do you know what that building is?" asks Julia, pointing. "That one with the white façade -"

  "I'm really not interested," I say almost violently.

  "It's Vivaldi's church," she says.

  "Oh," I say, regretting my outburst.

  "I shouldn't have mentioned Vienna," she says. "I'll try not to."

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  "You're the one with the real problem, and I'm the one who's whingeing."

  "What happened to you was real enough," says Julia.

  "You're not unhappy I've brought you here?" I ask.

  "It's good to be with you," she says. "And I've brought myself here." She looks into my eyes, and I suddenly feel so joyful, I could beat drums! Ten days with her - ten days - and that too, here.

  "Verdi. Wagner," she says after a while. It has become blue and expansive all around us, and green on shore. I follow her eyes to the antagonistic busts on their pillars in the park. A tree separates them; they look out over the water.

  "It's the next stop."

  We stand at the rail, looking at the grove of pine trees that fringe the waterfront, and I wonder what Sant'Elena will bring.

  6.2

  Signora Mariani greets us breathlessly, as if she had just spied the vaporetto and broken off in mid-sentence to run over to the metallic raft that acts as the stop. She is greyhaired and small and very friendly. She would, I think, be gossipy, if either of us were capable of gossiping with her. As we walk across the pine grove into Sant'Elena proper, she greets several curious people with bursts of explosive speech, of which I can make out no more than "amid della Signora Fortichiari". She nods at the greengrocer, moves me out of the path of a dog-turd, and offers, periodically and unconvincingly, to help us with our bags. She leads us up a fairly broad street to a small courtyard with wistaria wrapped over its wrought-iron gate. A complicated bunch of keys is withdrawn, and we are shown

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  how to use them at the entrance to the courtyard, at the entrance to the building, and (after a steep three-storey

  climb) at the entrance to the apartment. i

  It is a lovely, simple wooden-floored apartment with views of both the street and the courtyard where, high above a small magnolia tree, hang washing-lines laden with garments, outer and inner, of many colours including frilly maroon underwear, belonging, to judge from the source of the line, to the neighbour diagonally across and one storey down. Julia and I look at each other in delight. Signora Mariani looks at us and laughs i

  conspiratorially, then suddenly closes the shutters. She j

  points out the bedroom with its clean white sheets, the I

  telephone-and-answering-machine, the washing machine, t

  the fire extinguisher, the vase of yellow flowers, and next to it the letter on cream notepaper from Signora Fortichiari. Then, before we know it, she is gone. Shortly afterwards the downstairs door clangs loudly and an indignant voice crimes out from the stairwell.

  "Stop it, Michael," says Julia, laughing, as I draw her into the bedroom.

  I nibble her ear. "Mmm, fuzzy."

  "Don't, Michael. Let me read Jenny's note." .
  "Later."

  We are lying on the bed, side by side, still almost fully clothed. Whatever she wants in the style of our lovemaking is fine by me. Today she wants me to take things slowly, not to force the pace just because it's been so long since the last time. So much has happened in between, so much unexpected strain and hope, that to have her in
my ^

  arms again is something I too don't want to end. 1

  I am tempted to open the shutters, but she shakes her fl

  head when I suggest it. We make do with the light that ||

  filters in from the other rooms. I take off her blouse and ||

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  M

  press my face to her. I didn't have time to shave this morning and she complains a little.

  "Your lips might be a bit gentler," she says.

  It is all a one-way conversation since she cannot read

  my words. She senses my intentions by touch, but can

  v speak aloud what she feels and wants to do and have me

  •^ do. She seemed shy at first, but now she is far bolder than

  she has ever been before - it is as if this voyage by water

  and this unknown room have freed her from constraint.

  In the middle of it all, I have to get up to rummage around in my still unpacked bag, but even this doesn't break the flow of our excitement. She rests her head on her arm and looks at me, and when I return it is as if no doubt or thought had intervened to check our ecstasy.

  Afterwards, I fetch her the note. She sits at the side of the bed; I turn on the light. She looks serious. Apparently, her friend is more or less confined to her house, since her children have measles. She doesn't want anyone to go there, but wonders if Julia can have lunch with her the day after tomorrow at the Cipriani - with me if I wish to come along. She has been assured that she herself is not infectious.

  "Well, Michael, would you?" asks Julia a touch anxiously.

  "No, I'd rather not," I reply. "And you'd rather I didn't as well."

  I'm still thinking of our lovemaking, and measles is an odd intrusion.

  Julia nods. "She's a very good friend - from my schooldays. She married a Venetian about five years ago, and now she has two children, a girl and a boy."

  "'Jenny with the greasy black hair'?"

  "Yes, the one who turned into a beauty."

  "I'd better not meet her then," I say, stroking her neck with one hand and moving my fingers gently to her back.

  I

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  "... I wonder if the others have arrived. Their flight was due to land at six. How would they get in from the airport?"

  "By boat. I really hope, Michael, that you don't have any plans to meet this evening."

  "None. But I did say I'd call them. There's a rehearsal tomorrow afternoon."

  "What should we do?" >

  "I'm in your hands."

  "Arms."

  "To be exact. You look so gobblable." Julia looks displeased. "Why that grimace? What did you think I said?"

  "Copulable."

  "Gobblable. With a G."

  "That's not a word."

  "It is now . . . Well, what should we do this evening?"

  "We could just wander around," says Julia. "That's what I'd love to dp. And we have so much time."

  "Not enough. Not nearly enough."

  She turns and kisses my forehead. "You know," she says, "we've never danced together. Should we find a place where we can?"

  "Oh, no -" I say. "I don't know how to, you know that. I'm completely uncoordinated when it comes to dancing. I'd feel awkward, you'd feel awkward, and it would spoil our first evening. Let's just walk around, as you suggested."

  We shower, get dressed, and wander out. The dusk is clear. From far out on the Lido opposite, a huge neon Campari sign shines out towards us. The buoys on the water light up like candles. As it gets dark we fall silent. We walk along the waterfront for a while, then wait for the next yaporetto to come and take us where it wishes.

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  J.}

  6-3

  We get off a couple of stops before San Marco, and stand for a little while before the Pietà, Vivaldi's church - or, rather, the church that stands where his church stood. On this spot my violin must often have played. Out on the black water, the façade of San Giorgio Maggiore shines out, white-lit. On this spot our quartet was conceived.

  We agree to return here tomorrow, when the Pietà will, we hope, be open. Meanwhile, we stroll towards the huge square of San Marco, then through the small side-alleys. She tells me that when she was here last she never noticed that every alley has at least some light at night. It means that if there is something to say, I can always say it. But I am content to say very little.

  We wander back onto the broad riva abutting the basin. Voices in a score of languages surround us or, rather, me. At night, when sight diminishes, sound should take over. But of all this - the splashing of water against stone, the tweaking of a child's balloon, wheels bumping down the steps of a bridge, the flap of a pigeon's wing, high heels against the floor of the colonnade - what does she hear? Perhaps the deep thrum of the engine of a vaporetto; perhaps not even that.

  Yet here we walk, anonymous, hand in hand. That citron scent merges with the half-fresh, half-brackish odour of the city. I ask her if she is hungry, and she says no. How about a drink? Yes. A glass of prosecco at a bar. She is restless, and suggests a place on Giudecca. I am happy to be led on land, and even happier to be carried by water.

  The bar is brightly lit. The table next to ours is occupied by two young French businessmen with a pram containing a baby, a mobile phone, a packet of cigarettes and several magazines. An older American couple look at

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  them curiousi, then order double-decaf espressos. The grey-suited «nager zips around, supervising, helping out, whipmhis spectacles on and off, getting rid of a basket of bradsticks that offends him. Our prosecco comes, an(j,te si it and talk about nothing, about whether it js[,yy to rain, and what we will do if it does. My quartet a,d her family have never existed.

  A- mild-hobng woman, English by her accent seated at the table behind us, is talking to a friend: Its the Tradon,COCFvd you know . . ." she begins and, drawn by the namC)I a'ttend. "It's just what you'd expect of them. They--hey use women for the things they can do, the clothes tkT can design, the jewellery they can sell, they use wonen as background music ... As for the book, I'n tell you what I think: it's a newspaper article, but literature i js not .. I wasn't invited, but I wouldn't have gone even if I had been . . . They throw out a peanut, and the monkeys dance ... I despise them."

  Julia 1^ aj-.me with curiosity, but doesn't turn around. ;"

  !> "It's not worth it>" I say softly, startled by these poisonous remarks "She's saying something about the Tradon,cocruwd_ { suppose she means the people at the palazzo, ^ have we come here of all places?"

  "Maria and I came here once. I thought it very glamorous, and I just wondered if it had changed."

  We ask for the bill, ^d Pa?> or rather'she does before I can.

  "Y°U're yawning, Michael," says Julia while we're waiting for the vaporetto.

  "I must be more tired than I realised. Actually, what I

  am is hungry,"

  The rest 0£ the evening passes uneventfully and happily. a meal at a trattoria, a walk through small streets, a ]ate drink & a bar. She is the woman I love, and

  .0 VIKRAM SETH

  we are in Venice, so I presume this is joy. It is. We catch a late boat back to the apartment, and fall asleep almost chastely in each other's arms. : - f "

  6.4

  I forgot to close the shutters last night, and the light now pours into the room. She opens her eyes, as if sensing that I am watching her, then quickly closes them again, murmuring, "Let me sleep."

  I have not woken with her beside me for so many years. Even when we were students in Vienna, it was only on our trips to the countryside that we actually spent the whole night together.

  By the time I return from the bathroom she is in a white dressing gown.

  "Why do you always wear silk?"

  "Silk? Do I?" she exclaims. She claps her hands twice on each side of her head.

  "A good day?" I ask.

  "So-so." She smil
es, then shrugs.

  I explore the kitchen for breakfast food and report back that there's nothing except coffee. Should I go out and get something? Julia suggests I take my phrase-book along and point at the relevant words. I wander down to the shops and return with some bread and jam and milk. The coffee has percolated, and we sit and have some, a bit awkwardly. Sharing the morning seems more intimate, more deliciously awkward, than sharing the night.

  No, it was in Banff as well that we were together, day after day for weeks on end. She told me she remembered the long cries of the trains through the distance. But what now of the calls of the horns on the lagoon?

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  "Cotton this morning," says Julia as we prepare to go out.

  "And even a dab of lipstick!"

  "I'm on holiday."

  - "Have you brought a camera?" I ask.

  "Oh, we don't need photographs," says Julia quickly. "Anyway, Maria's taken some of the picnic . . . Shouldn't you give the others a call? You didn't last night."

  I phone the Palazzo Tradonico and get through to Piers. He tells me we're due to meet at eleven. From his tone I sense he is displeased about something, but whether it is his present accommodation or my forgetting to call them yesterday or what happened at the concert or his own ambivalent memories of Alex and Venice, I cannot tell.

  The three of them will naturally have been talking about me, and I wonder if they are going to present me with some sort of joint position. Julia tells me not to worry, and to be^calrri when I meet them next.

  We walk through the greenery of our island - a trafficless* small town, smelling of cut grass - to one of the bridges that leads us to Venice proper. To our left is a backwater, almost pastoral; to our right a working canal, with shiny ventilation pipes being unloaded from a barge, and three men yelling at each other from two feet away, exchanging information rather than anger. Washing is spread across the street along which we walk, and the inevitable geraniums bloom on in their plastic pots.

  We saunter along a white-gravelled walk bordered by tall lime trees with dark trunks and fresh leaves full of light. On either side of us lie unkempt gardens. At the end of the walk stands a statue - Garibaldi and a lion surrounded by pigeons, goldfish, turtles, dogs, children, babies in prams and chattering mothers: at least a