Love Spirits: What Happens in Venice: Book One (What Happens in Venice: The Trinity Ghost Story 1)

by Diana Cachey

  She recalled that when she received the ghost card -- as she’d started to call the postcard signed by the Venetian ghosts -- a neighborhood cat cowered under her porch. His eyes had stayed peeled on the postcard she held in her hand until a strong wind blew it onto the sidewalk next to him. The dutiful predator pounced, paw outstretched, to block the card’s retreat from her.“Thanks, Marco,” she’d said to the cat in America, whom she’d nicknamed after the winged-lion of St. Mark, patron of Venice. When she reached for the card, Marco had lifted his paw but another gust blew it away. Quicker than the wind, Marco held it down with both paws this time until she retrieved it.“Strange, very strange,” she’d said to Marco the cat. He seemed to understand her for he’d nodded his head. She recalled her snowy American yard and the vast driveway leading to a garage that held two fast cars.

  Venice is slow, Venice has no cars, she had thought the day the ghost card arrived, and Marco the cat had nodded his head again in agreement.

  Outside Seattle where she lived in America, meeting places were found after long drives in traffic. In Venice, every place, every inch of every walk was a potential meet and greet. Louisa noted that the meeting spot of preference for pigeons of both varieties was right in Piazza San Marco, where she now sipped her expresso. Awestruck faces began to flood into the no longer quiet spot.

  She clutched the ghost card. Whoever sent it somehow knew that she’d go looking for him, her, them. No one, nothing, could keep her away from Venice this time. Truth be told, she’d fallen in. Again.

  Louisa left the cafe and began to negotiate the mazes towards Rialto. She tried hard to concentrate more on the beautiful art of her surroundings and less on the seductive art of Matteo.

  In the Venetian shadows, Matteo turned each corner behind her. Unnoticed.

  **

  I hate funerals, that’swhy I didn’t want one.

  It is why my romance with Venice would never end and why no words were spoken during my final night there.

  She took me out to the Grand Canal and the click of her heels competed only with the sound of water that sloshed on concrete foundations and the knock of oak poles that anchored the dock. The wide canal rose and fell, its dark drink swirled and caught reflections of light then cascaded down from buildings and sprinkled it around us in twinkling ripples.

  We weren’t there long.

  A distasteful sculpture -- that of a large glass-encrusted skull -- leered from across the canal. To me, the skull’s hollow eyes, clenched jaw and gnashing teeth presented an amusing backdrop, an appropriate set decoration. To her, the sculpture ruined the view and disturbed the reverence of our last moments together.

  She turned from the skull and tossed my ashes into the canal where I floated and scattered like dead leaves on water.

  William Shakespeare wrote that all the world is a stage but no stage compares to the beguiling city of Venice. With an open air theatre and constant flow of shows, Venetian dramas occur on canals, footpaths and bridges, or in bars, churches and public plazas. Life in Venice entertains and mesmerizes an interactive, impromptu audience. Scenes are acted out on water or next to it, like my farewell to life on the Grand Canal.

  She watched my floating cremains disperse and disappear. Some men nearby watched too. They pondered her while she pondered me. This tragedy, this scene on a boat dock stage, it changed her fate. A curtain seemed to fall. She wept.

  Although I yearned for one last stroke of her soft calves and tried to reach for her leg, she faded in the distance. Alone. I knew she would seek solace. Those men knew it too.

  She spread my ashes in the Grand Canal with great resistance and only with greater insistence by me. I didn’t tell her to stay in Venice but I hoped she would. Could she become part of the play, find those things she wanted,submerge into the city’s ever-changing lights and sets?

  I had plans for her. Venice had plans for her. She had other plans.

  Yet, Venice -- moldy, dusty, touristy, wet, serene, sensual, antique -- had cast its spell on her the moment she exited the train station and scanned the splendid playground before her, that of the infamous Grand Canal. My current resting place.

  Venice. Where the lines between old and new, east and west, life and death, humor and horror, sand and glass, water and land vanish, so did I.

  Until now . . .

  **

  Due (2) Her Sister’s Keeper

  Barbara trudged a peaceful path in the rough Seattle winter. Even with a blistered left instep incessantly rubbing against her shoe, she smiled at the scene. A rare snow surrounded her, filled parking spaces, blanketed yards with fluffy piles and lined the lonely lanes. Sparkling flakes fell among birch trees now barren of leaves that reached out their silhouetted branches coated with ice. Against the white backdrop, hundreds of Christmas bulbs not yet put away reflected brighter light.

  Ah fresh air, fresh snow, she thought, if only it would inspire fresh ideas.

  The canopies of trees and lovely breeze did not inspire ideas or answers. Damn that Louisa, why doesn’t she come home? For the first time in years, Louisa had left for Venice alone. When Louisa studied there in college, Barbara often visited, enjoying Carnival parties, famed regattas, spring breaks and summer beaches. Barbara wondered why her sister hadn’t invited her to visit this time.

  She thought for a moment. Louisa’s latest email said she’d found no respite within her apartment’s drafty, concrete walls:

  Dear Barbara, Lucky you’re not here. Venice is colder, windier, fiercer than usual. Brrrr. I’ve blocked all the windows with pillows and wear three layers inside my house. Four or five layers, if I go out, which I must do because it is Venice, right? Bundled up and useless as fashion goes. But look at the attached picture of a Venetian girl, all perfect in this weather! Fur hat, scarf, thigh high boots squeezed into tight jeans and jacket cinched at the waist by a leather belt to emphasize her hour-glass figure, which is totally uncalled for. She probably struts the campo like that to piss everyone off. It worked. I hate her.

  Nope, not an invitation. More a dissuader. Still, Louisa was feeling the strains of competition from Venetian beauties on their home turf. She was also freezing and miserable. Weather and perfectly dressed Italians aside, something else Louisa had mentioned kept Barbara awake at night:

  Don’t freak but Matteo could take me to the island of ghosts. Yes, I said Matteo.

  How could Barbara not freak out? Matteo, the wolf, that deviant disturbed her more than any haunted island. He’d ensnare Louisa in more of his drama. Barbara’s concern was not that Louisa couldn’t handle Matteo, it was that she would try.

  What is wrong with that girl? Normal women don’t leave home, move to Venice and hook up with hoodlums at the drop of a postcard, do they?

  Barbara knew from experiencethat an addiction to beguiling Venice was harmless compared to Louisa’s addiction to Matteo. Despite trying not to judge, judgments filled Barbara and she blamed all her frustration on Louisa, whose selfish actions--of going to Venice without her and staying too long -- were the cause of all this worry. Barbara began to mentally arrest, convict and sentence Louisa. Her crime? Having too much fun and time in Venice, with and without Matteo. Her sentence? To return from Venice immediately.

  What do I do? Barbara asked the cold air about her, or was it God from whom she sought guidance?

  From time to time, as she did now, she asked someone, something outside of her, for help. It seemed to answer when she needed it most. Although some called it intuition, others called it crazy. This time, the answer made her feel queasy for the air chanted a response. It made no sense:

  Clouds have passed, the leaves have turned, the passing stage, the turning world. May the thoughts fill you with the words to say and then shall you say them to those Venetian ghosts . . .

  Ghosts. When Louisa’s surprising and alluring job offer came from the Venice police commissario, Barbara thought it all too suspect. Then Louisa left in extreme haste after receiving a card allegedly
from Venetian ghosts.

  More likely from Matteo, noted Barbara.

  Louisa had told her of a small society of ghosts, which Venetians alleged would walk the alleys and ride in gondolas. They moved amongst the living and achieved more“form” everyday. The ghosts loved Venice, had been there a thousand years and considered themselves keepers of the city, watchdogs of a mysterious sort. The many mask shops offered them seclusion, a place where they could slip behind a mask or cloak and hide in plain sight. Empty, hollow apartments offered shelter or a place to host their haunted parties, in as grand a style as any Venetian was want to do. In traditional dress, the ghosts hid, watched people and found ways to protect them. These so-called ghosts had planted clues for Louisa, clues that were secretive or vague--a haunted Murano house, Nazi connections and a cursed palace that kills.

  Take charge of the situation? Do what I do best? Control things.

  Barbara needed to see, touch, feel what was going on there in Venice and then bring Louisa back. How? She’d already failed to influence Louisa many times, like when she tried to persuade Louisa not to got to Venice at all.

  She’d even taken Louisa for an alternative taste of Italy in a little bistro before she left. She’d thought the ploy was working when they spied two fashionably dressed, handsome men at the restaurant that day. One man wore a hooded soft wool sweatshirt adorned with the word Italia in navy letters. The other boasted his taut chest in a tight shiny black T-shirt. Barbara whispered to Louisa,“I think they’re Italian.”

  Together the sisters ogled the tallest of the two men, his spiked black hair held dutifully in place with gel, brown suede Gucci sneakers peaked out from under the hem of carefully torn jeans that rounded out his rump. They next surmised his friend, whose attire highlighted his fit anatomy with impeccable tailoring and whose white-soled black leather loafers finished off the polished look.

  “Gorgeous and dressed in designer threads,” said Louisa that day,“but not Italian and they like each other, not us.” Barbara turned to see that the man in the tight black tee had wrapped his hand around the thigh of the hooded one.

  This gesture, this touch of a man by another man, would mean nothing in Italy, where public affection between men was strangely commonplace in an otherwise machismo world. Italian men touched men. They were affectionate with cousins, soccer mates, neighbors and, with the proper introduction, other men they may have just met. All touching, even touching another man, is encouraged by men in Italy.

  Not so in Seattle. Here, this caressing of another man’s leg confirmed that their sexual orientation was the source of their fashionistaperfection, not an Italian heritage. Louisa had then toasted Barbara with a cock of the head and said,“Italian men are waiting for me out there,” and she pointed off, out into some faraway land.

  Barbara’s reply had been cocky too.“So that is your sexcusefor going to Venice,” she’d said.

  “My sexcuse?” said Louisa, head no longer cocked but twisted.“Is it a sexcuseor a dream assignment in our favorite place on earth?” She’d said it calmly but Barbara knew she had succeeded in baiting her sister.“Anyway, who cares? I may end up doing nothing but searching for ghosts and eating pasta, pizza and pastries,” Louisa added.

  “As well as also drinking copious amounts of espresso, wine and grappa,” Barbara said.

  “My trip will be more like a memoir called One Woman’s Loss of Her Virginity and Other Lies AboutItaly,” said Louisa. She also thought, you might want to miss this trip.

  They both laughed but Barbara wasn’t laughing anymore. Stuck here in Seattle, bemoaning Louisa’s fate, she didn’t want to miss this trip. She’d left her lagoon town, the place that stole her heart the minute she saw it. Long ago, or so it seemed, she’d vanished from Venice.

  She tried to focus on something else. She stopped and forced herself to look about, to breathe the air. She was back in the now and she saw branches thrusting onto roof edges, birds perched up on hedges and the sun shining on fresh snow. Across this pale expanse, students filed to school, seemingly full of wisdom with piles of books. She felt ambitious watching them and feelings began to violently dance around her, inside her. Then she heard it.

  Those poetic, haunting words, which of late had whispered to her during her walks:

  Calm in the evening, quick in the morn, days end here as they dawn. Curtains drop or raise, lovers come and go, within the master’s framework, the waters of life flow. Neglected at the onset, savored when it’s gone. Her knowledge grows thick and taut with every rook and pawn. In lures unknown to foreign shores, they frolic and jump. Sad eyes lost, tossed in nets, killing the smallest and the poor.

  What did they mean? These words? Words she’d first heard the day Louisa left for Venice. Although she’d traversed this lonely stretch many times before, she never heard voices. Let alone poetry. Since Louisa went to Venice this time, Barbara heard, or sensed, the same words every time she walked this part of her route.

  “In lures unknown to foreign shores. Sad eyes lost. In nets,” she repeated out loud.

  Nets? Fish or shrimp nets, she wondered as she pictured the vast wetlands surrounding the Venetian lagoon. Were these poems from beyond the grave? From a ghost?

  Interesting, she thought. Should I be writing these all down?

  As if it weren’t all silly enough--this talk of masked, caped or costumed ghosts and whispered poetry on her peaceful walk--Barbara also suspected a Venetian that Louisa said she recently met might not be a man, but a ghost.

  She had to get to Venice, to Louisa. In the meantime, something told her she should do what she always did when flustered or unsure--Barbara would sit on a cushion and meditate. She headed home with every intent to do so.

  **

  There, on the cushion, she relaxed, allowed her emotions to flow. Something didn’t click. Something was hidden. Not of this world or time?“Bring me to the answers,” she whispered. She concentrated on her breathing but bursts of thought peaked through cloudy breath.

  Showing Louisa books. Methods. Research. Increased abilities. Stay away from that stuff, they said.

  Barbara inhaled, exhaled and opened her eyes to return to the now with a soft gaze.

  A brass rocking horse, a candelabra, a Buddha. Silk oriental scarfs, Indian pillows, homemade quilts with scraps from clothes mom made me as a child, but mom didn’t make the quilt. She left. That’s why Louisa ...

  She closed her eyes but could still visualize her meditation room.

  Embroidered flowers from the garden museum in London, a woman and a unicorn tapestry, a sheer hand painted skirt made into a curtain, prayer flags, hispicture. Him. Could it be him? No, stop thinking of him. He left. Really left. Don’t go there now.

  Her eyes flew open again. She saw a Syrian drum, a steel drum, a chest painted with moon and stars. Zen tarot cards. She blinked her eyes and began breathing slow and deep.

  Tarot. Supernatural beings. Spirits. Magnetic fields of ghosts whom she began to see as a child.“That’s right, I see dead people,” she told people who asked.“I’ve seen them all of my life.”

  Barbara surrendered to this train of thought,she let her mind go there. One of those dead people haunted her childhood home. Terrified when she first saw the thin elderly man in the basement, she fled up the stairs. He didn’t follow her, never bothered her and seemed not to notice when she was present, so she got used to his shadowy presence. She decided that this ghost lived under the bench on the far wall because she mostly saw him near it. She also use to see him outside, just by the basement window near that space.

  The ghost was a distinguished-looking man who wore a neat grey suit and carried a leather folder tucked under his arm. He searched about for things and took a final look around before he rushed off somewhere, fast. Late, he always seemed late. Nervous. At the same time, he seemed confident, proud.

  Many days she saw him standing with his head held high facing the wall, lips moving. He seemed to punctuatedhis words with hand movement
s, pacing and changing his facial gestures into a scowl then a grimace or look of disgust. Then he’d start again, stopping at points to practice something over and over. He’d try it different ways and end with a pound of his fist on an imaginary table. He would hold his arms out as if talking to a group of people and it seemed he wanted them to agree with him because he scanned an imaginary group as if to make eye contact with individuals in rows then shook his head up and down slowly for each one. He would finally walk off, with a flourish. She saw him perform this routine several times. Seemingly the same speech or story to an imaginary panel. As if he needed to insure attention to his every word, silently he’d repeat and perfect as he went along. Big thoughts.

  She concentrated on her breath but her mind drifted further, straying from the cushion into a vivid picture of the spirit in her basement.

  After her father tore out the bench by the basement wall and installed a fireplace, she didn’t see the elderly man’s ghost again. When Barbara learned that a great trial lawyer once lived in the house, she felt sure it was his spirit who appeared there and the fireplace disturbed the energy and released him forever. Maybe the remodeled basement, now with a fireplace, became too hot for the attorney to bear?

  Let’s be clear here, I don’t usually see full out walking, talking versions of dead people like when I saw him. Mostly they are shadows. Or whispers, she told herself.

  A soft gong sounded, indicating her half hour meditation time was over. It hadn’t gone well. Whispers?

  Her mind was tired, her legs fell asleep, she was sick of thinking about stuff, stuff that wasn’t working in her life. Lately she’d thought about making a change but panicked and did nothing. With no lover, with a job she no longer loved, she didn’t exactly bounce out of bed ready to meet the day. Every new day was propelled by the tired inertia of the last.