Venice Noir

by Maxim Jakubowski

  “Have you seen it too?” the elderly female asked her all of a sudden, making her jump.

  “You mean the light? Yes … the door’s slightly open … We can leave.”

  “Leave? How? And go where? Milly, it’s pointless.”

  “Hang on a minute, let me speak … I’ve got a plan.”

  “Let’s hear it,” Grazia said in a tired voice, still half-asleep. “You said they put her groceries in a basket that’s lowered from the window, didn’t you?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Good. Well … I’ve thought it over: one of us will go into her house and stay there until she opens the window to get her food supplies … then they’ll come and tell us and we’ll go up to the door—we’ll push it open and we’ll escape through the open window.”

  “But you realize that it’ll be chaos? Do you know how many of us there are? Over a thousand!”

  “It doesn’t matter what happens … and anyway I’ve given it some thought—nothing really bad can happen. People will scream, run away, feel sick, and throw up. And that’s all … We’ll dive into the canal and disappear. We’re fast … and no one is about to give birth—except me—and almost all the babies are weaned … We can do it … please …” She looked at Grazia with eyes full of hope and determination. “I’m going anyway, with or without you, and I’ll take along anyone who wants to come … with or without your permission …”

  “Oh my Lord!” Grazia exclaimed, shaking her head with an air of resignation. She stood for a while looking at Milly and understood that she would do things her own way regardless.

  “Okay, we’ll put it to a vote. If the majority agree with your idea, we’ll all go. If not, anyone who wants to can follow you … but the others will stay.”

  “That’s fine,” whispered Milly, hoping that every single one of the rats would raise their paw and vote yes, even if in her heart she didn’t believe it would happen.

  “General assembly! Wake up, lads,” Grazia said without needing to raise her voice. Lots of the rats moaned, turning over onto their other side, others got right up, and most opened their eyes slowly, stretched, and sat up, sniffing the air and directing their muzzles and ears toward Grazia, who had climbed up to the first level of the palace of life so she could be seen and heard by everyone.

  The large gray female slowly explained the plan, and when she had finished Milly sensed that the hundreds of eyes that had previously been fixed on Grazia were now resting on her, a few of which were hostile.

  “I’m going with her,” concluded the matriarch, “but you can all do what you want, according to your own conscience.”

  The voting was quick and the result unequivocal: 1,064 yes, 15 no, 35 abstentions.

  Milly was overjoyed and let out a squeak of exhilaration and delight that triggered a surge of excited applause.

  Pippo was chosen as the “lookout,” a young rat with dark brown fur, two lively winking eyes, and a pair of enormous ears that were never still, just like his nose, which was continuously sniffing the air. He was fast and quiet and had a nice, honest face. After having talked to Grazia, who gave him his instructions, he turned for a moment to Milly, wrinkled his nose, gave her a half smile, and tweaked her ear. Then he ran away quickly, scrambling up the wall and disappearing into the crack where the shaft of light was coming through.

  “We don’t know how long we’ll have to wait,” said Grazia to all the rats who stood motionless, watching Pippo as he climbed the redbrick wall and sneaked into Signora Adele’s house. “It could be just a few hours … perhaps even a day or two … but we should be ready to go at any time and the evacuation will have to be fast but, above all, orderly, otherwise there’s the risk that someone will get hurt … When we go into the house we’ll have to move right to the window, ignoring everything else, especially the woman who lives there. I don’t know how she’ll react … she’s old, and she might even have a heart attack.”

  They heard someone murmur: “I wish.” It was Milly. Someone giggled, others glanced at her, but most remained attentive, listening to Grazia.

  “I just hope she doesn’t hurt any of you … Once we’re outside, jump straight into the water, it’s the only escape route we have. Good luck, all of you.” She stood for a while on the palace of life, looking at the rats and smiling to reassure those who were the most frightened, then she climbed down and went back to crouch against the wooden base of the bookcase. The wait would be lengthy.

  Signora Adele had an urge for frittelle e chiacchiere—the fried pastries and donuts that were the only good thing left about the carnival. She had dreamed about them and woke up with an intense desire that made her get out of bed quickly and pick up the telephone directory to find the number of the pasticceria that delivered them to her every year.

  Pippo had hidden under the sideboard in the living room and had fallen asleep; the shuffling steps of the lady of the house woke him up and the young rat strained his ears and kept his eyes peeled. He could taste freedom in the air and couldn’t wait to go back to being a civilized rat, respectable, and not a murderer who ate humans. He was one of the rats most responsible for inflicting the coup de grâce on the tourists.

  After ordering the pastries and donuts, Signora Adele went into the kitchen to make coffee, licking her lips at the thought of the feast she was about to have.

  Pippo made the most of the opportunity, slipped out of his hiding place, and returned to the basement, passing through the crack left by the partly open door. He climbed halfway down the redbrick wall and stopped, searching for Grazia. She was in the midst of the hundreds of muzzles raised toward him, waiting. He could feel the tension in the huge cellar flowing like electricity, a current snaking through the bodies of all his companions, permeating the atmosphere.

  “She’s ordered sweets; they’ll be delivering them in a bit … Get ready. As soon as she opens the window I’ll whistle,” he said to the large gray female who had ascended to the third level of the palace of life. She nodded her head, and all the others did the same.

  “Good luck, everyone. We’ll see each other outside,” whispered Pippo as he retreated quickly back into the house.

  “In rows of five,” Grazia said. “We’ll leave in the same order that we set up for eating … Come on, start to get ready and climb.”

  The entry phone crackled after twenty minutes and Signora Adele, who was already getting annoyed by the wait, finally smiled at the thought of the sweet softness she was about to bite into.

  Pippo dashed out from under the sideboard, leaned through the crack of the door, and let out a long whistle. The pregnant females and the new mothers, with all the babies hanging onto the fur of their backs and their sides, started to cover the final yards that separated them from the door.

  Instead of going to answer, Signora Adele headed straight for the window, opened it, and looked down. The boy from the pasticceria was standing with his head tipped backward and his stare fixed on the shutters; in his hand was a packet wrapped in pink paper that made her mouth water just looking at it. “How much do I owe you?” the woman called down to him.

  The first row of rats pushed with their muzzles against the almost closed door; it creaked, but the roar of cheerful shouting from the people in masks and children’s toy trumpets covered the noise.

  “Eight euros seventy,” said the boy, edging closer to the wall of the building.

  The rats entered the house but then stopped. Pippo was signaling them to wait.

  “More expensive every year! All this money for a bit of flour and sugar. What crooks!” muttered Signora Adele as she moved away from the window to get her purse, which she had left on the round table in the living room.

  “Now!” squeaked Pippo.

  And a river of fur flooded into the room, running rapidly toward the open window and spilling outside like a waterfall. Signora Adele heard a strange noise, like hundreds of pins falling onto the floor; she turned around, frowning, and saw the surge of ears, paws,
and tails that was flowing through the room and plunging out of the window. The bloodcurdling scream that came from her gaping mouth, contorted in a grimace of pain, had a domino effect: it was echoed by another scream, then another, and yet another, until it became a terrifying collective wail.

  The rats ran; they were well organized, one row behind another, not glancing around, sniffing out only the water of the canal that awaited them with the promise of escape.

  The packet that the boy was holding had fallen to the ground and was crushed by hundreds of feet that were fleeing in a panic. The people in their masks were shouting hysterically; they were pushing, falling, trampling each other, crying, and swearing; they were kicking and punching, trying to escape from the enormous furry serpent that stretched from the window, along the alley, and all the way to the canal. People fainted, others were hurt, and one person died—out of fear, revulsion, or possibly crushed because of the fear and revulsion of others.

  Signora Adele held her hands over her heart, as if she feared it might break or leap out of her chest. She was crying and she kept on shouting: “NO, NO, NO, NOOO!”

  When the very last rat abandoned her home, she became quiet. She closed her mouth and stood in silence, leaning against the table, her purse at her feet and her eyes wild and full of tears. She turned her head toward the window, then toward the “guest room”; she walked to the door to the abyss and peered down. The silence that rose from the deserted basement and the sight of the motionless floor, no longer teeming with life, caused her unbearable pain. No more tourists to punish, no more cleansing, no more hope for Venice. She closed her eyes and threw herself into the dark chasm, without making a sound; she now felt empty, even the hate that had kept her alive had vanished. Her last thought was for Venice, her beautiful city.

  The dull thud made Milly jump. Her labor had started suddenly and she was the only one who hadn’t escaped. She had taken refuge on the third level of the palace of life and had given birth to seven beautiful babies while all the other animals were fleeing the cellar. She looked over the edge of the shelf and saw the large body in an unnatural and undignified position that dominated the middle of the mud-covered floor. She closed her eyes and went back to licking her babies, who had already started to suckle. She felt weak and strange, and she was hungry. She wouldn’t be able to move from there for another two weeks; she shuddered at the thought of the men who would come to see what had happened. The smell of the blood that had started to flow from the body of Signora Adele made her feel sick but also made her salivate. She knew she wouldn’t be able to resist, nor did she have much time; soon they would come to recover that horrible woman’s body. She shook her babies off her nipples and quickly climbed down from the palace of life; she moved close to Signora Adele and stood looking at her and sniffing the scent that came from the warm, succulent body.

  “We don’t eat people, we love them; they despise us and hate us but we love their singing and their high spirits.” She had said this only the day before to Grazia.

  “For my babies I’d eat anyone,” Ambra had said to her.

  You’re right, Ambra, thought Milly as she sank her teeth into the soft, juicy flesh of Signora Adele’s arm. For my babies I’d eat anyone. And anything.

  LAGUNA BLUES

  BY MICHAEL GREGORIO

  Porto Marghera

  1. Via Delle Macchine

  Think sludge.

  Try to imagine an ocean of it.

  It looks like wet cement, and is similar in color. A slick melding of light gray and sandy brown. My torchlight adds a yellow sheen that catches on kaleidoscopic rainbow traces of petroleum, oil, and other chemical waste.

  And lying in the middle of the sludge is a naked body.

  A man, I’m certain of it, ass pointing skyward, facedown. He might be skinny-dipping, right arm stretched far out ahead of him, left arm buried somewhere beneath his body. It could almost be a freestyle stroke, except that there is no physical tension in the buttocks, no sign of any muscular contraction in the back, no trace of any movement in his legs or his arms.

  “He’s never going to win a race,” says Marcello.

  Snapshot of a crime scene …

  But let’s hold on a second. Let’s go back a bit, and try to fill in the larger picture. We need to know the where and why of the industrial sludge, the when and how of the naked swimmer. Isn’t that what a murder investigation is all about? I’m filing my report now, so I can fill in some of those facts.

  That night, we were on the patch that the duty roster calls “three bridges.”

  I’m on permanent night patrol; the only way onto the day shift is promotion, and there is little hope of that. The way it goes is this: Every night at a quarter to ten I drive out to the police barracks and the high-security court complex in Carpenedo from my tiny two-room flat in Piazzetta della Pace. At the barracks gate, I clock in, pick up the squad car and my partner, Marcello Pigozzo, and we drive a slow triangle that takes in the three bridges. We do the round trip as many as eight times in a night. It all depends on what happens.

  So, first step, the three bridges.

  I live near the town center of Mestre, the modern abortion on the mainland where all of us Venetians live these days. Many of the inhabitants work in Toy Town, but they’re forced to live on the mainland, commuting there and back by bus. Venice was renamed Toy Town after the Stones bought a palazzo on the Canal Grande as an investment, and the price of housing rocketed into the stratosphere. Now, a cellar that gets flooded every time the tide comes in costs one hundred thousand euros minimum. A small apartment on the second floor of a decent building costs ten times as much. And if there’s a terrace and a view of the lagoon, the price doubles. If there’s a good, clear view, it triples. Nowadays, Venetians stroll around on Sunday, or on their day off work, just like the rich Americans and the Japanese tourists who stay at the five-star Hotel Daniele on Riva degli Schiavoni, which is only a “five-minute walk from magical Piazza San Marco.” My mother was born a five-minute walk from Piazza San Marco, but she swears it was a shithole.

  The three bridges. First step, second try.

  Bridge number one is the dividing line, the so-called Cavalcavia that arches over the railway lines, taking you out of Mestre and onto the main road that leads south to Piazzale Roma and the islands of Venice. It’s ten or fifteen minutes away, depending on how fast you are driving. And that is also bridge number two: Ponte della Libertà, the combined road and railway bridge that crosses the Venetian lagoon. The Austrians built the railway bridge back in the 1840s. They didn’t like the idea of having islands in their empire. Island people tend to be ungovernable. So, me and Marcello take a left toward Venice, then we turn off a mile or so down the road and enter Porto Marghera, the huge industrial zone on the northern edge of the lagoon that some government visionary dreamed up the day before tourism became the major industry in Italy. We take a slow run through the port, the factories, and the warehouses, hustling no one, checking that the business of the night is going ahead without undue disturbance. Sometimes, as many as two hundred girls are working the area, girls of every race and color, “girls” of every sex, Brazilian transsexuals for the most part. Romanian and African prostitutes outnumber the Brazilians, three to one. Then we double back, cross the traffic lights, check out Via delle Macchine and the heavy industrial plants down by the dark water’s edge, before getting back out onto the Libertà bridge and driving across the lagoon to Venice. There, we circle Piazzale Roma, stopping sometimes for a coffee and a smoke, then we drive back across the bridge and keep going, all the way out to the ring road and the third bridge just beyond the Malcontenta. The Malcontenta was a summer villa that an architect named Andrea Palladio built on the banks of the River Brenta way back in the sixteenth century. It was an odd name then, but it fits the bill perfectly nowadays. I’d be unhappy too, if I had to live out there and breathe the traffic fumes.

  Cavalcavia, Ponte della Libertà, Malcontenta: that’s the three bri
dges circuit.

  Last night we got as far as Via delle Macchine in Porto Marghera.

  That was where we found the dead man swimming in the sludge.

  Dead men are not at all unusual in Porto Marghera. Generally, they have been stabbed. As a rule, they are foreign sailors or randy widowers from Padova, a city thirty miles down the road to the west beyond the Malcontenta and the ring road. These characters pick up a girl, get wanked or blown, then they try to skip without paying, though they never get very far. The girl or her pimp will grab the offender, stick a stiletto in his guts, then empty his pockets of money, ID, credit card, house keys, car keys, whatever. It’s a thriving industry that feeds a lot of bank fraud, house-lifting, and automobile recycling. At other times, drunken foreign sailors turn on one other in the dingy bars of Porto Marghera with flick knives or broken beer bottles.