Four Letter Word

by Joshua Knelman

  see you soon

  Ian Bromley

  JEANETTE WINTERSON

  Dearest,

  Here are the photographs:

  1) Venice. The Lido. Hotel des Bains. March.

  Sun shining. Shoes and socks off. That’s me, walking through the shallows. Tiny see-through fishes were warming themselves between the surface of the water and the shelled and ribbed sea floor. I am such a fish when the sun comes out, taking my chance, nearly at the top, but put out your hand, and I’m gone.

  The Hotel des Bains, closed for renovation work, its clock stopped, its potted plants unwatered and brown. I like the seedy out-of-season feel of this photo.

  You lay down, your body like a sun-sponge, gradually darkening. I walked on, thinking of Thomas Mann, and a book about a woman with webbed feet. This is an invented city, mercurial, unlikely, desired because it does not exist – or that what exists can be reworked, rewritten, scored over, and no one has ever found what it really is, its absolute self. There is no such thing.

  Like love.

  I turned round; the Hotel had vanished. A fisherman raised his hand to me. You were gone. There is no photo.

  2) Venice. Dorsoduro.

  Here we are, searching for a café with an empty table in an empty square. We found it, didn’t we? Triumphant with ourselves. Here we are sitting down, sparrows coming to eat our bread, you pouring wine from a carafe cloudy with cold, the wine in it sparkling as the sun ran through it. These times hold my mind like a shell caught in a net.

  3) Venice. Fondamenta Nuova. Night.

  Here you are, in shadow, walking fast against the cold coming off the lagoon, cold forming into shapes like spirits. We came to a miniature osteria, just one room, serving purple wine from a vat, and tuna and onion on squares of bread. I gave some tuna to a cat slunk under a tarpaulin. I said to you, ‘Will you stay with me?’

  You didn’t answer. You never do.

  I took this photograph of you with your back turned.

  4) Pensione Seguso. Our room. Iron bedstead. Wardrobe. Basin. You were snoring in the iron bed while I lay awake watching the light from the boats bounce off the chrome taps in the washbasin. I got up, went down the corridor to the bathroom, big and old, iron radiators, iron bath. This place has never been refurbished. Everything is iron.

  I sat on the loo in the dark, and thought of taking a bag, disappearing, getting the boat to Athens, changing my name, never coming back. What would be the difference, after all, after the first surprise?

  In the bedroom you were asleep. I lay down and broached the boundary. You put out an arm, a peninsula from your island home to mine. I can sometimes believe that you are there, and that I am there with you, in the same place, but that is as tantalising and impossible as this city, which can be visited but not known, which is inhabited, but by others.

  5) The Zattere. Dawn.

  The city comes to life to the noise of outboard motors cutting out towards the jetties, and the voices of men unloading crates, and after that, sack truck wheels up and down the bridges, carrying aqua minerale and beer, pasta and tinned tomatoes.

  I took this photo – very Venice – thinking about love.

  If you loved me this moment wouldn’t look any different. If you didn’t love me, it would look the same, but I read the scene through your love of me or not, as though love were a translation of life.

  Maybe it is. How else to read it? How else to write it? We’re always reading what we see, and then rewriting it afterwards; perhaps it’s better to acknowledge our inventions than to pretend otherwise.

  Look, there’s Aschenbach following Tadzio, feeling for the first time in his life what he has never been able to express. Look, there’s a woman walking on water, which for her at least, is easier than being in love.

  6) Suitcases on the landing stage at the Ca’ Rezzonico.

  Two Bellinis – not the paintings – then a ride by boat to the airport. At the other end, we go our separate ways, we always do. I am here on a Visitor’s Visa.

  And yet, and yet and yet, we are good together in many ways. Impermanence is human, and however we screen it over, all of what we do is temporary, so why do the words for ever and ever mean so much? Why not accept that I am a visitor here and never seek right of residency?

  But I have to live somewhere.

  6b) Postcard of George Bush with an arrow through his head. Outside, the world I cannot control is writing a dark fairy tale of white superman heroes and dusky-faced fanatics, comicbook grotesques.

  This is the War on Terror, the battle for all that is fine and good, except that each believes in its own fine and good and will destroy everything else – everything, in its name.

  The planes come over – the TV news is all destruction. The Pentagon is spending $650 billion a year on the military. Its African aid budget is $4.5 billion.

  It’s a lot of money to blow up a lot of homes. Pretty soon we’ll all be homeless now.

  And so, while they tell me that the small and the particular does not matter, and that this is the world stage we are playing on, I want to know where I can call home, if not with you?

  I’m doing my best with the big questions, but I have a small one too:

  ‘Do you love me?’

  7) Near the Hotel Accademia. Evening. Our favourite bar. There’s the man who asked to marry you. At least he bought us both a prosecco. In the shop next door a woman is buying slices of prosciutto crudo and black olives. A boy with a dog is running after his sister on a bike.

  The lights come on, spilling yellow on to the canals and casting shadows on the pavements. People are walking arm in arm, arguing good-humouredly, stashing their supper into string bags, looking for a place to eat.

  We drink up, walk on, always through the backs, always away from the known. We find bars big enough for eight and squash in to make ten. We eat where there are no menus.

  8) Still life with sprouts.

  The woman in the cucina told us that we must have artichokes with raddichio. We did; it turned out to be brussel sprouts, cut in half and covered in Parmesan and olive oil.

  9) Vaporetto stop – Saluti.

  We are in our coats huddled in the middle, waiting for the lurch towards the stop, and the slide of the metal gate, and the rope flung over the bollard.

  You asked me to take this picture of the boatman because you said he looked like Jesus.

  Two Americans are videoing the scene so that they can show it to their friends at home. But there will be nothing to show. Once left behind, there is only Disney Venice, a fake, a pretend, a tourist attraction. Be here, and it’s still possible to find the city, but you can’t take it home with you. Venice is a quantum city, a Schrödinger’s cat of a map, simultaneously dead and alive, true and false, solid and watery, firm and disappeared.

  Like us.

  Like love.

  10) Fishmarket. Rialto. Night.

  Two boys beating drums with hands that move so fast they blur. A man sitting at a table selling tickets for a concert tonight. A mafioso on his mobile: camel-hair coat, straight Armani jeans, Berlutti shoes, shades. A water taxi purrs out of nowhere and collects him.

  You turn back towards me, smiling. I like this photo.

  11) The Frari. The night of the eclipse.

  Already the moon is half covered by the sun that tints her chalky surface to copper like an etching plate. Night sky. Copper moon.

  A Japanese person took this photo of us holding hands.

  Your fingers are strong. You are good at opening jam jars. The portcullis our fingers make together is the way in to a private castle, the fortress we sometimes share, when the world is outside. But for us both it is a second home.

  Look at the moon, serene and beautiful, untroubled by the flag planted on her surface. She will not be so easy to colonise, and I wonder why we are looking for new worlds to own when we have taken so little care of the one we have?

  Perhaps I should ask myself that, and you too. When we have s
poiled each other in each other’s eyes, will we just go elsewhere? It’s the fashion, it’s almost the rule. Why look after what you have, when you can damage it and buy a new one?

  But we can’t live on the moon, and we can live here on earth. I don’t want speculative space; I want to be with you.

  It’s late. Without speaking we get into bed and make love, deceiving ourselves that we are together – or do we deceive ourselves that we are apart?

  12) Venice. Various.

  This is an old city, built to last, not built to be endlessly torn down and redeveloped. I want to live in such a city, not too far from the forest and the sea, and I want to call it by your name.

  Here’s the cat we befriended – thin and sharp like a blade on four legs.

  Here’s you, standing outside Prada, looking pleased with yourself because you have bought a new skirt.

  Here’s the one of me buying prawns as long as my forearm.

  Here’s me again, wearing red. I look like a bottle of Campari Soda.

  Here are those old postcards you wanted. I packed them in my luggage by mistake. Venice – 1945. In the Second World War, it was agreed not to bomb Venice. It could not be replaced. Much else was bombed that could not be replaced, but we replaced it anyway. Since then, the preferred method, public and private, is bomb and replace.

  Like us

  Like love.

  13) The boat to Athens from our window.

  Here’s our view, across to the Giudecca where ships the size of cities sail past on their way to fabulous unknown ports – Atlantis, Byzantium, Calcis.

  Here’s the ship, blocking out everything. Everything! Do you remember how we woke in the middle of the night – I suppose it was just before dawn, the small hours?

  The room was shaking with vibration and noise, like under the footprint and bellow of some animal long extinct. I went to the window, and there was the ship slowly moving forward; deck lit, hull dark, blocking any sight except itself. It stopped on a slight turn, as it always does, to mark its farewell to the city.

  I went back to bed, couldn’t sleep, because all the sizeable ships that carry my nightmares trawl this channel, and stop for a moment so that the small figure in the small window can see them before they pass on, knowing that they will turn and return, some other small-hours night.

  14) The Guggenheim Museum.

  Our favourite museum. Photographs not allowed. I sneaked this from the garden, when you were standing in the long open windows, looking serious and happy. I wondered what I’d be thinking if I had seen you there, a stranger. This is a photograph of a stranger, taken unawares.

  15) You standing by the lion in the Arsenale. This is your impersonation of the lion, and it is surprisingly good. The mouth is right. After I had taken this photo, we sat down and ate pizza while you drew the lion on your paper napkin. We were happy that day, and close.

  And if I say to you that I am glad of everything we have done together, and sorry that we will not be here together in forty years, laughing at a faded photo of you impersonating a lion, it having weathered well, you less so, as we stand fabulously old, in a city that understands what spirit it takes to be old, to be beautiful, to be much looked at, to be itself, to be never quite caught, to have a past, to be content, to have seen much, to have remained, to have continued …

  Keep the photos.

  MICHEL FABER

  My most dear John,

  The joy is not easy, with my poor English, to describe when a letter with your American postage stamps comes into my slot. It is a most happy and satisfied slot, I can promise you! And on the last few occasions, the joy has been made more deep by my knowledge that the time for us to meet gets closer with each passing day.

  So many things I have told you about myself and so many things I have not! It is beyond conceiving how many mysteries remain even in the minds, souls and hearts of two persons who have tried with all effort to gain maximum intimacy. For example, you know already how I like a man to touch me, and on which pieces of my skin, and with what emphasis of pressure and softness, but do you know yet about my granny and grandpa? I believe not. They live in small village about ninety kilometres from Odessa. There I spent my childhood. Besides the village there is a forest with a great plenty of berries. We gather them and make jam and marinaded mushrooms. It’s very tasty. Tell me more about your family and job, John. Do you like it? When we are embraced together, I don’t wish to expend precious minutes on such ordinary things.

  We have waited so long and I cannot wait to see you and I am so worried about everything. But I trust you with all the faith placed in me by God and by your own sweet words. My dearheart, I have excellent news for you! The ticket for the aeroplane has now been purchased and is safe in my home. A hundred times per day I must touch it, stroke it, in case it suddenly is not real! Only when I am finally united with you, will I be able to show my thankfulness for your sending of the money and the possibilities that have been opened by this act. You will learn how powerful can be the love of a woman who has been pulled out of the deep water! Because, before I met you, I was drowning in my troubled life. But now I am ‘drowning’ in love for you!

  True to say, I have not been so healthy in the recent days. Weather here has been strongly freezing. I caught a fever and a grippe, and for some time I was weak and lacked mobility. But I am mending fast – because I am young, I guess! When I finish writing this letter I propose to have a hot bath containing medicinal salt. It will helps my health but also, as ‘side-effect’, it makes my skin very velvet and soft. Soft for you!

  Now that the time approaches for us to be together, I understand that there are many things still lacking arrangement. I possess many clothes which are purposely selected to envelop my form, the exact measures of my body. You have seen pictures of me inside them, I know. You asked me how is it possible for a girl in a poor country like Ukraine to buy such beautiful clothes, and I informed you that, in this way, we show our pride of ourselves, even as we suffer the lack of other necessary things. But I have realised suddenly, my dear John, that I have not suitcases for bringing these clothes to our new home in the USA! Because I have never travelled beyond the borders of my country! So I must implore you please, to make it again possible for us to have the union that is smooth and without ‘headaches’. Regrettably, you cannot, this time, use the bank account of my mother. She has become a little jealous of me, I think, for my good fortune in meeting a man as wonderful as you. A mother should wish the best outcomes always for her daughter, so this jealousness hurts me a small bit, but in defence of her I must say that it is difficult for a man from the West to imagine the burden upon females in countries such as ours. I recall that you discussed in one of your letters (please, PLEASE send me more letters, darling – they are to me like nectar in a dessert!), you said that it was remarkable that in our country it seems that all the young women are very shapely and beautiful, and all the middle-aged women are without shape and ugly. And you were confounded, when does it happen, this change? Because in America the women remain in good shape, and lose their beauty only slowly. Well, this is because life in our country is too bad. Only for a limited sum of years can a girl fight away the attacks of hard existence. It is like a siege that continues for ever. A time comes when the girl cannot fight longer and then the years of bad things fall upon her and she is destroyed. But I will not be destroyed, my darling, because you have come to my aid! Thank you, thank you, thank you, my most wonderful man! My hero!

  But I was saying about my mother. She says that I must travel only with the clothes on my back, and not cry and make big fuss about leaving all my beautiful dresses and underwears and shoes that I have collected with so much love and sacrifice. So I discussed it with my uncle, who understands better my heart. He has proposed me to use his bank account, for you to send me some money for suitcases and other baggage. I am sure that $500 should be enough. My uncle’s name is Dmitry Morozov. The bank details you require to use are these – BENEFIC
IARY: MOROZOV DMITRY GR 671134 ACCOUNT: 939011008837002 BANK OF BENEFICIARY: COMMERCIAL BANK ‘PRIVATBANK’9C, Serova-Naberezhnaya, 40907 Dnepropetrovsk, UKRAINE. All the other details will be the same as before.

  I thank you for your support and kind words – I thank you for being YOU! I know that when we are together we will always take care of each other and help each other with all the life trials. I’m so excited, nervous, happy, amazed and worried in the threshold of meeting … You see, my feelings are very controversial! But the foremost and strongest feeling is excitement!! Again I must stroke the ticket! And my passport, which I am sorry cost so much money for you. Alas, there is in Ukraine unlimited corruption. It will be a blessed relief for me to leave behind a country with so much deceitfulness and greed, and come to the USA. I still have difficulty to believe it is true, this future of ours … It is a miracle and you are a maker of miracles. Each time I desire you, a star falls from the sky. So, if you look up at the sky and find it dark with no stars, it is all your fault. You made me desire you too much!

  I had a wonderful dream about you last night, dearheart. We sat in front of a warm fireplace in a log cabin in the middle of a harsh snowfall. We had a sheep wool rug wrapped around us for the warmth. Your skin felt so tender and smelt so good, I looked into your eyes and saw Paradise within them. Then you fell asleep and I watched your sleeping, and I wrapped you very snug in the sheep wool and all night I sat by the fire, keeping its burning alive. My goal now is to transform that dream into a reality.