Permanence

by Vincent Zandri

  But one thing is for sure, as we bob in the Grand Canal toward an approaching stone embankment: doctor is not in a laughing mood.

  Once on the other side of the canal, doctor gathers our suitcases and we begin walking away from the gondolier, who is still laughing.

  I am dead tired from carrying this luggage around in the unusual (according to doctor) Venetian heat.

  “I don’t understand it,” doctor repeats over and over. “Venice is only so large.”

  Hopelessly lost

  We are hopelessly lost in romantic Venice.

  Doctor and I have nowhere to turn for help in this, the lovely ancient city of dark canals, brown and gray stucco buildings, and clay-tiled roofs.

  I remember the placards from my travel office—VENICE, they read, THE ADRIATIC CITY OF ROMANCE AND MYSTERY.

  We’ve crossed an endless array of pedestrian bridges and walked for miles, or so it seems, along cobbled roads and alleyways in search of our hotel, but have managed only to become more lost.

  This city certainly is a mystery.

  Now I am sitting on top of my luggage at the entrance to an open bar along a Venetian side street. Doctor has gone inside in the chance that someone in there might know of our hotel. This is a bar that does not have a front door but a barricade made from chain link that, I assume, is pulled up when open and down when closed.

  The unusual Venetian heat is exhausting; I need water.

  Hordes of tourists stream by, along with the native Venetians. You can tell the natives apart from tourists by the way they push tourists aside as they move through the crowd. The native expression in general seems angered and impatient. Tourists move at a snail’s pace. I sit in the heat of the afternoon and stare at these people. I check the time. Two-thirty, Italian time. I have not slept properly in nearly thirty hours. I have not brushed my teeth or changed my clothing. My hair is in tangles. I’m hungry.

  I sit atop my luggage and, for the very first time since we left America, begin to doubt my decision about coming to Venice with doctor. The questions that flash through my mind are crucial and will remain unanswered: did I come to Venice because I love doctor or simply because I need him? Is there a difference between love and need? Did I come to Venice with doctor because I am carrying his baby? One thing is for certain: I am not doubting my decision simply because of a plane that blew an engine or because we have become hopelessly lost. I do not blame doctor for something that is beyond his control.

  I blame myself for being so dependent.

  But right now, I am angry.

  I am angry because I need doctor. The thought of being without him for even one week makes me shudder. Doctor has been my lover and my confidant for seven months now. I do not need to see him every day. I just need to know he is there for me. I depend on the power of resolve and healing that he sends though my body whenever I am with him. Doctor is helping me get over the guilt that comes naturally with the death of baby. Doctor is my only hope. Perhaps that is the real reason why I have accompanied him to Venice.

  But Venice is not the city of hope. Venice is the city of romance and mystery.

  I wonder sometimes about what I am capable of if ever I lost doctor. Lately, I cannot control the voices that speak inside my head—the demons—that threaten to take doctor away from me. I tell myself, I am never going to lose doctor. I am carrying his baby, but in a way, doctor carries me.

  Is this love or is this obsession?

  I’ll never know the answer.

  There is no chance of losing doctor so long as he loves me, which I am sure of now. But listen to this: I do not want to hear that he loves me. Not now, not ever. Not after Jamie and baby. How can I ever allow myself to fall in love again? Maybe I am already in love, but do not want to admit it.

  Do something

  I stop my tears as quickly as I can.

  Doctor does not need to see me crying. I think he would rather see me smile. Maybe I should take him into my arms and tell him I need him.

  With the loss of baby and Jamie I need doctor more than anything else.

  For now, doctor is desperately trying to reacquire some familiarity with Venice. This is, he insists, not his first time in the city.

  Doctor is dressed in his usual baggy gray trousers, gray woolen vest, and crumpled jacket. His beard is gray-black and very closely cropped and his horn-rimmed glasses are always sliding down the length of his nose. He is wearing a bow tie and (perhaps this is a result of my exhaustion) he seems to fade into the walls and cobblestones of this city like so much vapor.

  And this: doctor seems to be losing weight, although he can ill afford to. His suit seems baggier than I remember, looser around the hips. Doctor coughs heavy lung coughs and smokes far too much. But I say nothing about his habits or their affect upon his body. I may sleep with doctor, but I refuse to pry.

  Doctor stands in the middle of this Venetian way. He is checking and rechecking the folded map he holds in his hands. I watch the people shuffle around him as if he is just another sculpture that dots the Italian landscape. What I want to say to doctor is this: do something. But I don’t. Because doctor is doing something, in a way. He is, I think, confirming the fact that we are hopelessly lost.

  Here is what doctor does: he walks inside the open bar. He walks away from me without looking or speaking. I sense he knows I have been crying. I am beginning to feel like excess baggage.

  I turn away from the steady stream of nameless, faceless tourists. I see doctor lifting the itinerary into his hands like a prayer book. He is showing the itinerary to the barman—a heavyset, balding man with a white apron wrapped about his waist. Doctor stands at the middle of the long wooden bar, between stacks of pastries and sandwiches on one end and the bottles of water and wine on the other. He spreads the itinerary open for the barman to sec.

  “Hotel…Europe…Regina,” shouts doctor in slow staccato voice, as though his abrupt pronunciation will automatically break the language barrier.

  The barman twists his head from side to side. He raises his hands in the air and shrugs his shoulders. Clearly, he does not understand a single word doctor has uttered.

  “No, meaning you do not follow me?” asks doctor. “Or no, meaning you don’t know where the place is?”

  Some of the Italian patrons begin to laugh. They are sitting at the bar drinking espresso and beer. But doctor is not laughing. He is making a spectacle of himself—a spectacle I can no longer stand to see.

  I stand up from where I sit atop the luggage and walk away from the bar. There is a small stand in the distance covered with colorful, glossy magazines and stacks of newspapers. I walk to the stand. Headlines spring out at me in black ink from the foreign newspapers. I cannot read them, of course, but I feel their urgency. The American addition of USA Today, however, is easily readable: RUSSIAN NUCLEAR TRAGEDY!

  I read no further. But I can see the photograph.

  This is a black and white photo of the gray-black Siberian countryside, laden with small, scattered bundles. The bundles are dead bodies. Then I read the caption beneath the photograph. The bodies are children who have suffocated in the spoiled air.

  “Signora,” says the proprietor, lifting the newspaper for me to purchase. He is ready to place the newspaper in my hand. He is a small, red-faced man. Very pleasant. He smiles a wide, friendly smile.

  “No,” I say. “Acqua.”

  The man nods his head in the affirmative and replaces the paper to beneath the stack. He produces a bottle of cold water from beneath the wooden stand. We are communicating. I hand him one of the numerous sheets of paper money doctor gave me when we arrived in Venice by cab and take the water in my hand, the condensate that bleeds from the plastic bottle wetting my palm. I hand the man a 500 lire note and wait for change. The man produces the change finally, reluctantly. He loses his friendly smile. But here’s what I do to make him smile again: I wave the change away. I let him keep it. We are communicating. And he is such a likable, friendly man.
r />   A life saver

  Back at the open bar I see doctor lifting our suitcases into his arms for what promises to be another futile hike into the jungles of Venice. Then a young man wearing a dark brown fedora speaks up from behind his glass of beer. He is standing at the far end of the bar and leaning against a tall table. He is alone.

  “Wait,” he says. “I know your hotel Europe Regina.” I recognize his accent as Australian. The undeniably dry, subtle, low voice that, unlike doctor’s and mine, is completely devoid of panic. Listen: the man might be Australian but his English is a lifesaver.

  “You speak English,” doctor says, visibly relieved.

  “What you want to do, mate,” says the Aussie, pointing with his index finger extended, “is follow this alley outside the bar for as far as you can go. Then cross the little bridge and cut into the small square that you’ll notice on your right-hand side. There’ll be an opening between the buildings and a small sign with the words, ‘Europe Regina.’ You go too far, you go swimming in the Grand Canal and trust me, you don’t want that.”

  There is a moment of silent relief inside the bar. The patrons stare at us with strange concern. Even the barman seems relieved to know that the two strangers have been rescued. Doctor stares intently at this Australian man. He smiles a small, corner of the mouth smile and, at the same time, seems to regain his confidence. He replaces the now dog-eared itinerary into the pocket of his gray woolen blazer. He straightens his bow tie and runs his open hands through his disheveled hair.

  “Let me buy you another drink,” he offers. But the Aussie shakes his head and lifts his still full beer up to his face. “The least I can do, mate,” he says, “for a couple of newlyweds.” He looks directly at me and smiles. He tips the rim of his fedora with his fingertips. A real hero. Doctor turns to me. He looks at me with his usual indifferent frown. But the blushing in his cheeks suggests anything but indifference.

  Here’s what I do: I turn away from the open bar and pretend to disappear—to make myself invisible amongst the scenery of romantic, mysterious, Venice, Italy.

  Why I am here

  I wait for doctor outside the bar. I lift two suitcases into my hands and look out onto the cobblestone road of this narrow alley. The afternoon is now fading into gray with cloud cover. I cannot help but force a smile. Do I really look like a newlywed?

  I cannot help but laugh. I could never marry doctor.

  Listen: doctor loves me and I need him in order to destroy the guilt that comes with losing baby. Doctor is the reason I have come to Venice. I depend upon doctor for my sanity. I don’t know what I would do without him. Doctor is the reason for everything I do now. But I would never marry him. I could never marry anyone.

  We’ll laugh about this later

  We are no longer lost in romantic Venice. We walk with renewed confidence along the route our Australian Samaritan has suggested. I carry two suitcases, one in each hand, while doctor manages the other four bags. We walk a short distance along the dark, gray cobblestone alley and over a narrow, half-moon shaped pedestrian bridge. Here’s the killer: our hotel is located only about one hundred feet away from the open bar. This is the kind of bad joke that can relegate a weary traveler to the brink of suicide. But what you want to say is this: we’ll laugh about this later. Presently, I am too annoyed and too tired to laugh or cry. Technically, we should be dead. There was the failed, flame-shooting engine, thirty-five thousand feet above the Atlantic Ocean. But we are suddenly amongst the found. For now, we are amongst the living.

  You must not enter through the kitchen

  Doctor and I enter the hotel through a narrow wooden door. This is the door with the small placard above it with the name “Hotel Europe Regina,” as described so clearly by the Aussie from the open bar. This is the door that is located just beyond the small pedestrian bridge and along the alley that ends, eventually, at the Grand Canal. We step on through the set of double doors. To our right is an empty corridor that leads into a large, open room. Without a word, doctor and I release our luggage and allow it to slap against the tiled floor. A man steps through one of two swinging doors, intercepting doctor and me. Maybe, I think, he has seen us coming. He stands poised, staring at doctor and me as though we do not belong. And we don’t. Not having slept in nearly thirty hours, we are a disheveled sight to behold.

  There is the rich, delicious aroma of food simmering. This man that stands before us silently is a chef. Apparently, doctor and I have entered this hotel through the kitchen entrance. The chef is a tall, bulky man wearing a stove-pipe hat and heavy white smocks, splotched with food stains. He speaks to us in Italian. But we do not understand. I look at doctor. I see his face turning a slight shade of red and his mouth opening and closing. I sense he is trying to communicate, but failing miserably.

  “We’re…staying…in…this…hotel,” doctor says.

  “He doesn’t know what you’re saying,” I say. This, I know, is no revelation to doctor. So he ignores me.

  We continue staring at this chef until another man enters the small vestibule. He is a handsome, distinguished man dressed in black trousers and tuxedo tails with his hair neatly groomed and slicked back deftly. I feel a warm, almost anxious sensation come over me. Listen: this man is very good looking. His manner of greeting doctor and me is stoic and defined. He seems a proud man. Very European and full of protocol. He takes my hand into his, holding it with his fingertips. He bends at the waist, while keeping his legs perfectly straight and stiff. “I am the concierge for the Hotel Europe Regina,” he declares.

  The man speaks English.

  “We are guests of this hotel,” explains doctor.

  The concierge loses his smile. He exchanges several quick glances with the chef. The chef disappears through the double doors and into the kitchen.

  “No, no,” says the concierge, as if directing school children. “You must not enter through the kitchen.”

  “We were lost,” I say. “We took a water bus.”

  “We had a taxi waiting for you at the docks hours ago. The excursion would have cost you nothing.”

  I look at doctor with a smile that says, You must be joking.

  “I assumed we could find our way,” doctor lies. “For the adventure.”

  The concierge gives doctor a look and regains his smile. “The important thing,” he says, leading us away from the kitchen and into the lobby of this hotel, “is that you are here now.”

  “Yes,” I say, listening to the sound of my shoes dragging against the marble-tiled floor. “The important thing is that we are here now.”

  “The important thing,” says doctor, grunting with the weight of the luggage, “is that someone found us.”

  “Is this the doctor’s wife?”

  Doctor drops the luggage at the front desk. This makes a loud noise the concierge seems to ignore. We are his guests, after all. And he is a professional.

  Then something unusual happens.

  Doctor begins to laugh. Softly at first, but growing in intensity all the time. This is the kind of laugh I have never heard coming from doctor. He laughs so hard he must lean against the front desk for balance. He is laughing so hard, his thin face turns beet-red beneath his salt-and-pepper beard.

  I begin to laugh as well.

  Laughing is something doctor does not do, usually. But I’ve discovered this: when doctor does laugh, his laughter becomes contagious.

  The concierge is not laughing.

  The concierge seems perplexed. He forces a smile that says, Okay, enough already.

  After a few moments, doctor collects himself. I can’t imagine what has come over him.

  As the concierge begins to check us in, I step away from the desk and doctor. I go to the front entrance. I look through the double doors that make up the entrance to this hotel and onto the square. This is the square the Aussie described for us earlier, but that we missed altogether when we entered the hotel through the kitchen. The square is defined by the two-story stucco bui
ldings with balconies attached at the comers, forming right angles with their facades—four ninety-degree angles making a literal square with a cobblestone courtyard and an empty marble fountain. Cats huddle together and sleep in the pockets formed by the corners of the buildings and atop the cool cobblestones.

  I go back to doctor and the concierge.

  “We expected you this morning, Doctor Bridges,” says the concierge as he confirms our reservation with his computer registry.

  “We almost crashed,” says doctor.

  “Excuse me?” asks the concierge, lifting his head from the computer screen.

  “Our plane,” I say, “had engine trouble. But I don’t think we were ever in any danger of crashing.”

  “We lost an engine,” says doctor, visibly withholding more of the laughter that is so unlike him. “Flew in…on a wing…and a prayer.” Doctor can barely get his words out without laughing. He explodes in laughter once more and buries his head inside his arms against the concierge’s desk.

  “Doctor,” I say rigidly, as though I can make him stop.

  “Must be something very funny,” says the concierge, very stoic and very defined.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “It’s just that we’re very tired.” I take hold of doctor’s hand and squeeze.

  “I see,” says the concierge. He is wearing a confused expression as he ignores doctor’s laughter and reads his registry. “I have you down for one room. Perhaps there is some mistake, or is this the doctor’s wife?” he asks.

  Doctor quickly refrains from laughing.

  “Forgive me,” he says, his grin giving way to his usual indifference. He looks at me. I feel suddenly conspicuous. “This is Mary Kismet.”

  There is a calm silence coming from the concierge, as if he is not approving. Perhaps he isn’t. He looks first at doctor and then at me, and back to doctor again. His concern seems obvious. I am years younger than doctor, but not that young.

  Without another word, the porter takes our luggage away.