‘That’s great, isn’t it?’
‘It is. But—’
‘But you’re scared.’
‘Yes. Of the new city. New language. New people.’
‘But you love Venice. It’s one of your lovely water cities.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘And I’ll be with you. Me and my cello. You love us both and we love you.’
That evening we stayed outside and sat quietly near the little creek that ran close to our dacha. It was a warm summer evening lit dimly by a reluctant moon. In the dense silence we heard the water whisper. Suddenly a pair of yellow wagtails appeared. They hopped around for a few moments and then flew off to land again on the rotting trunk of a tree lying in the creek.
‘Don’t be so sad,’ Anna said. She got up and walked towards the creek.
‘Aren’t you coming?’ I heard her call.
She took off her clothes, tossed them in my direction and stepped into the water.
I couldn’t move. I sat motionless as if tied to the yellow trail left in the air by the little wagtails. I saw Anna bend, kneel and lie down in the knee-deep water. And then she began to sing.
Please stop, I wanted to say, but couldn’t open my mouth, choked as if by the immaculate beauty of the moment.
‘I’m doomed,’ I thought then. ‘Doomed because I love her.’
Venice
Anna
‘You either come here to die or to kill someone,’ the man told me. He was drunk and as he spoke his body swayed. I was sure that he would slip off his chair and fall into the water. I had stopped for coffee at a bistro near a Venetian canal, after my morning walk.
‘You’ll love it, I promise,’ Vika had remarked in Moscow. But after the excitement of the first few weeks I had become almost indifferent to this beautiful city. Every now and then a strange feeling of panic would grip me, as if something untoward were just about to happen. I should just have ignored the drunken man. He wanted me to stay and talk, and I would have because he looked so forlorn. But I was frightened by his bloodshot eyes and the uncontrollable shaking of his hands.
I didn’t tell Vasu of this encounter, wary that he would refer me to Death in Venice. I didn’t want to read anything for a while. In fact I didn’t want to do anything except walk, look and feel.
I enjoyed the pure idleness of my days. I knew that it would have to stop soon, that I too would have to find a job. Vasu hadn’t rushed me. He had willingly adopted the role of responsible husband.
We had arrived in Venice by the back door, as they say. The railway station was surprisingly dull and dirty and the hotel we stayed in during our first week was shabby too, except for the white façade with patches of peeled-off plaster, and bright red tiles on the roof. The window of our room opened on to a large and ugly square, the Piazzale Roma, the city’s main road terminal, filled with cars and buses and smelling of diesel. The view from the windows of the dining room was just as uninspiring: a bridge and two flyovers. One brought the traffic from the mainland to the city and the other directed it to some warehouses. The bell tower of the little church next door to the hotel was the only beautiful thing and it brought us some joy.
Soon we found a place of our own in a block overlooking a park in the Campo San Giacomo dell’Orio. The architecture department of the university where Vasu was working was close by and so were the Rialto markets. For the first few weeks I went there every day, just to look at all the wonderful Italian fruits and vegetables: the shallots and onions, beans and aubergines and broccoli, bulbous pumpkins, chillies, grapes, fresh and dried figs, shapely pears, peaches, plums and most amazing of all, the fat orange mangoes.
The fish market too overflowed with plenty: branzoni, squid, red mullet, silver anchovies, eels, flatfish and crabs. Barges were loaded with lettuces, tomatoes and big bunches of bananas. One barge was piloted by a large woman always accompanied by a huge beast of a dog. But my favourite was the one moored under the San Barnaba Bridge. Because it was small, the fruit was piled right up to the roof of the stall.
A blind man would sit on a stool nearby and play his accordion. After a while I decided to bring my cello and play some tunes with him. ‘Bravo,’ he said after we had finished the first. He wanted more. I played some Russian songs and he responded with a version of Kalinka. That evening I earned my first Italian lire and an invitation to return whenever I liked.
I got to know Bella, the blind accordionist’s daughter. She managed the barge and the shop with her husband, a huge man of enormous strength who could pull the half-loaded vessel along the canal all on his own, like a horse. He had tattoos on his back, shoulders and arms and used to be a sailor on a merchant ship.
They were amused that I didn’t speak Italian and took it upon themselves to teach me the Venetian dialect. I didn’t know the difference until Sophia demonstrated to me the pronounced softness with which the Venetians spoke.
I met Sophia Serino through Vasu, who had seen her in the studio of a well-known Venetian architect. He noticed her violin and told her about me and my cello. She also found me a part-time, three-day-a-week job in a music shop on Riva degli Schiavoni, not far form La Pieta, the church where Vivaldi played music as a concertmaster.
I first met Marco at the shop where he had come looking for some music by Monteverdi. Like me he spoke a mixture of Italian and English. We started talking and he told me that he had to come to Venice to work on improving his harpsichord technique at the music school. His home was in Sydney.
He said that he often played at a bistro and invited me to join him. Soon the idea emerged of a trio with Sophia on the violin and we began rehearsing and playing together, both for fun and money.
I had never wanted to be a professional musician because I lack the necessary discipline. But I needed the money and I enjoyed playing. Besides, Vasu was more and more preoccupied with his job at the university.
Marco was a handsome man and, what’s more important, joyful. His happiness was infectious, his optimism glorious and his laughter warm and inviting. He wasn’t very tall but his long arms and hands were always ready to hug and touch, and he wasn’t shy about kissing or being kissed.
He was one of those men who when they take you out to dinner you know will choose the best wine and suggest the most delicious dish on the menu. But he wasn’t a very good musician. He played rather mechanically and lacked the confidence to improvise and invent.
Sophia and I agreed, however, that he was charming. In many ways he was the opposite of Vasu who, according to Sophia, carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. ‘Marco is a flirt,’ she told me. ‘You have to be careful with such men. They mess with your mind and heart and then leave you marooned.’
Of course Marco reminded me of Tonya’s Paolo. That I had suddenly started thinking about the son of the locksmith from the village near Turin troubled me. I was worried that one day I would wake up and rush down to the railway station to buy a ticket for Turin. Sophia told me it was very close to Venice.
‘I’ll come with you,’ she even said, although of course she didn’t know why I wanted to go there. I knew I wouldn’t do it, but the fact that I had to force myself to give up the idea of going to Turin surprised me.
Vasu
A few months after our arrival in Venice, Antonio, a fellow-researcher at the university, asked me to join him on a trip with his students to Pienza. For the first few days I couldn’t keep my eyes off the buildings. But I soon became bored by Alberti’s precise symmetry of shapes, colours and patterns.
In Venice I was confronted with the same tyranny of symmetry, accentuated by the presence of water everywhere, the upside-down images mimicking every structure. But the water also brought rhythm and smells and loaded the air with tiny globules of moisture creating colours. The city turned lilac in the winter mornings and rose and crimson when the sun went down.
The window of my office opened on to an expansive view of the Palazzo Vendramin-Calergi on the northern bank of the Canal Grande. A classi
cal cornice sits atop three Corinthian columns delicately fluted on the piano nobile. The arches of its large biforate windows are topped by oculi which gaze at you inviting you to look back. It’s the windows which make it appear unnaturally weightless, so light that I often felt it would rise on marble wings and float in the light air warmed by the soft moist sirocco. Then it would land with such immaculate precision that people would fail to notice that anything magical had happened.
My university class was small, with only five students, three young men and two slightly older women. It was touching for me that they were interested in my short course on Vastushastra, the ancient Hindu practices of architecture and urban planning. Simone, a woman from Nice, spoke Bengali. When she was young she had spent time with her parents in Auroville, the mission city established by Aurobindo Ghose in Pondicherry. She was disappointed that she couldn’t practise her Bengali with me, since I don’t speak it. There was also a couple from Sweden learning Sanskrit because they wanted to read the major text on Vastushastra in the original.
I would begin tutorials with a short introduction to a topic, then distribute the material and let them work on their own assignments. The room we used was big and dark and my favourite spot was a window leading to a tiny balcony.
One day I was standing near the window when I noticed how dark it was becoming outside. Just as I went to switch on the lights, there was a huge flash of lightning. Another ripped the sky in half. A crash of thunder followed. It rolled over the buildings, bringing a massive downpour. Drops as big as marbles rattled the roofs and hit the dense heavy surface of the canal water with such power that it seemed to warp. All water traffic stopped except for two motorboats speeding in opposite directions.
People ran inside. Only the foolhardy tried to brave it out in vaporetti and water-taxis. Suddenly lights in the windows of buildings across the canal began to splutter like splinters from sparklers. My heart trembled as I felt the tremors of still more rolling waves of thunder. The building literally shook, shuddering from right to left.
The storm was over in ten minutes. But overawed by its furious beauty we decided to end the class. ‘Let’s go to a café,’ suggested Simone. We found a table, removed the empty cups and plates and sat down to listen to a young woman singing Duke Ellington.
That evening I hurried home to see if Anna had been out in the storm. I wanted to share my experiences with her. But she wasn’t there. I found her note on our bed. ‘I’m with Sophia, rehearsing. Call if you need me. I may spend the night at her place. See you in the morning. Love you.’
I phoned and Sophia told me that she had just gone out with Marco and Isabella to get ice-creams.
I liked Isabella, Sophia’s six-year-old daughter. She was unusually perceptive for her age. I would look after her when Sophia and Anna were rehearsing or performing.
Sophia told me that Isabella liked my stories and the sketches I drew to illustrate them. Her favourite was about Misha, the clever monkey, and Gena, the stupid crocodile. She and I made drawings together as I spoke. Some of her drawings were fresh and creative and I encouraged her to work with different materials: pencils, crayons and even watercolours. Natasha would have been proud of what we produced.
Isabella and I fastened the drawings together to make a little booklet. There was Misha on a mango tree, Gena the crocodile in a lake, Misha riding on Gena’s back as he swam in the lake. The most beautiful drawing of all was a mango tree loaded with fruit.
‘It looks more like a Christmas tree to me,’ I told her.
‘It really does, Zio Vasu,’ she agreed, and laughed.
The faces of her monkeys resembled my face.
‘Why?’ I asked her.
‘Because I like you,’ she said.
‘And who is the crocodile?’ I asked.
‘Probably my Papa,’ she replied.
Sophia was impressed by Isabella’s booklet and agreed that she showed enough talent to enrol her for special art classes.
Anna
Isabella had grown very fond of Vasu and he adored her. Towards me she was either indifferent or formal. I didn’t mind, because, to be honest, I don’t know how to handle children. Vasu was a natural. All children loved him. And when he was with them all his inhibitions disappeared.
We went to the Lido to swim and Marco and Isabella came with us. The summer bathing season had almost ended so it wasn’t very crowded, although it was still hard to hire a bathing hut for the day. We had a long lunch at a beachside café, but Vasu didn’t have much time for us. Isabella had brought her Chinese kite and the two of them ran along the beach to test it. Then they sat on the beach drawing figures in the sand, chased one another and kicked and threw a soccer ball.
Only when Isabella was tired did Vasu find time to sit with us. Marco tried to engage him in conversation, but he didn’t respond. Even Sophia couldn’t persuade him to talk. As for me, I was used to these unexplained periods of silence. To change him would be impossible. Often the idea that I had to live with this for the whole of my life filled me with dread and even loathing.
‘You don’t like Marco, do you?’ I asked him that evening.
‘He’s very nice and handsome.’
‘But you don’t like him?’
‘I do. I just don’t know how to relate to him. He’s always so happy, so keen, so chatty.’
‘Is that bad?’
‘I just can’t keep up with him. He’s so quick at everything he does. Confident and arrogant. A go-getter.’
‘So you don’t like him. Does he intimidate you?’ He didn’t respond. I waited and asked him: ‘Do you want me to stop seeing him? I can, if that’s what you want.’
That was a tricky question for him. To say either ‘yes’ or ‘no’ would have been hard. Saying ‘no’ would have meant that he was lying and ‘yes’ would have proved that he was jealous, which was demeaning to him and to me.
So of course he didn’t say anything. I stopped probing. That evening we cooked a meal together. Nothing special: just nice pasta with a sauce that I had learnt from Sophia. We hadn’t done this for a very long time. He kindly let me do the cooking and helped to chop and slice the vegetables.
I opened the bottle of wine which the manager of the bistro had given me when we performed there. Vasu and I made love afterwards and we realised that we hadn’t done that for a very long time. ‘Just too busy, I suppose,’ I said, I with my music and wanderings about the city and he with his work.
Afterwards, around midnight, I went out on the balcony to smoke and he followed to sit with me. He shouldn’t have. Smoke is bad for his asthma. I was dreading that he would ask me to play. Luckily he didn’t and we returned to bed.
‘Did you notice that we’ve stopped sleeping naked?’ he asked. Of course I’d noticed, but this time I didn’t reply. Then after a few moments he opened up. He told me that he was worried about me and Marco. Rehearsing and playing music together would eventually draw us closer. He had, he said, observed something similar watching me and Vika play.
‘One day you’ll find that I’m superfluous and discard me,’ he said.
‘But I love you,’ I wanted to say. I didn’t. I knew what he would have answered: ‘So what? Love comes and goes.’
‘What about our marriage?’ I could have asked him. ‘Doesn’t that count any more?
‘Maybe it has turned into a piece of paper signed in a registry office,’ he could have replied.
Soon he was asleep, as always with his arm around me, holding me tight.
But he was right that I had been spending more and more time with Marco, not only at rehearsals with Sophia. Often we weren’t rehearsing, just flirting and daring each other to go a bit further. Some of my notes to Vasu about being with Sophia were lies.
With Marco I felt at ease, happy and adventurous.
The first big row between Vasu and me was not long in coming. I was expecting it, because a week before we had got into an argument about a university function he wanted me t
o attend. I told him that I was busy and could not cancel a performance. He reminded me that it wouldn’t look good if he went alone to a ceremony chaired by one of his professors. They were unveiling a significant monument created by Arbit Blatas, the well-known Lithuanian sculptor who had lost his mother in the Holocaust. He had installed seven bas-reliefs on the wall of the Jewish Ghetto in the Campo del Ghetto Nuovo. Only a few days earlier I had walked past the wall not far from Ponte dei Tre Archi and seen them being installed.
Vasu was visibly upset, rare for him. He reminded me of my Jewish grandfather, Tonya’s father. He told me that I had a moral obligation to attend. I was enraged and told him not to bully me by dragging my grandfather into the argument. I didn’t care if I was Jewish or not. The monument would still be there when I had time to go and see it. It was mean and unreasonable of him to force me to do something I didn’t want to do.
I stormed out and didn’t come home that night. I phoned to say that I was with Sophia. Luckily he didn’t come to check, because of course I wasn’t.
I blame Marco for the big row which followed that first argument. One evening Vasu had come back from work a little earlier than usual and I was sitting on the balcony smoking cigarette after cigarette. I knew that this was stupid, but only cigarettes helped alleviate the terrible bouts of weeping which occasionally overpowered me. Otherwise I would just cry and cry.
Vasu saw me on the balcony and said: ‘I hate your smoking.’
‘I don’t care. Just leave me alone.’
He came out on to the balcony and sat with me.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.
‘Nothing and everything.’
‘Please tell me.’
I told him that I had called Aunty Olga and that she hadn’t been in. I had so wanted to talk to her. I didn’t tell him that I had also tried Vika’s and even Sergei’s numbers.
He understood that there was something wrong but that by asking again and again he wouldn’t get anything out of me. So he finally left me sitting there, still smoking, and went back to the kitchen to cook.
After he had prepared the meal he came out again, and that’s when I told him that I had lost $2000 at the casino on the evening he had asked me to accompany him to the unveiling ceremony.
After Love Page 15