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

by Diana Cachey

  Walking into the coffee shop immediately relaxed her, not because of the relaxing environment there, but because her mood lifted whenever she entered a Venetian cafe. She ordered a double espresso with a shot of Zambucaon the side. The bartender didn’t balk. He noticed her flushed cheeks and figured they were from cold, rain or agitation and hurried to accommodate her. The pit of her stomach fluttered when she thought about coffee houses in America that never felt the same as a Venetian or even Parisian one. Any cafe anywhere in France or Italy for that matter. They gave her a sense of ease and comfort and the Zambuca would add to it.

  There at the bar, with her warm liquor and cappuccino, she began to daydream. She saw herself sitting outside in the sun at the Florian Cafe, classical music serenaded her, a handsome man asked her all about herself. He wore his beautiful Italian outfit and in his sexy Italian accent he asked for her phone number.

  Her phone rang. In the midst of the fabulous daydream. It was Matteo. She suspected that his sister Ana hadn’t wasted any time getting the Venetian telegram out to him to let him know Louisa was planning a stop at the hotel where she worked.

  “Pronto?”she said as if she didn’t know who was calling

  “You’re back in Venice,” he said and after a long pause he added“Again. Why?” Never one to avoid conflict or judgments, he made his points quick and blunt. It was Matteo’s best weapon. Mean and tactless, blunt discourse.

  Prepared by years of therapy, law school and Barbara’s training, she remained stoic.“Yes” was all she said, but she thought, You have the right to remain silent, Louisa. Anything you say, can and will, no, forget can, it just will be used against you by Matteo.

  “No work? You never work. Have fun.” Guilt, his next weapon.

  “Oh I will,” she said and nothing more. Don’t admit, admit, admit. Don’t explain, explain, explain, she told herself like she’d been taught to tell clients if accused of a crime.

  “Your sister? Barbara? Why she come here? Will be bad for her here.” Someone had spilled the beans about Barbara’s trip and those proverbial beans now lay scattered across the porcelain tile in front of Louisa in the quaint Venetian bar. He’d used the fear weapon. A powerful one. It often left Louisa defenseless. Match, game, set. He set up the chess pieces, slowed for the ambush. Once he had her sniveling, trembling, anxious and grieved, he’d surround her. He would move back in for the kill. Checkmate.

  No, not checkmate yet.Louisa paused then waived at the bartender for another drink. He rushed to get it, eavesdropping as they did in Venice and reading her reactions, he knew that an Italian man had called her in Venice and she was not pleased about it. Matteo was using the fear weapon and that one, the fear weapon, was a good one. Matteo would do a full court press with it if given the chance. But Louisa knew that Matteo feared something too and, although she wasn’t sure what it was, she was sure that the volatile Matteo could be pushed into surrender by pushing the right buttons.

  “Barbara will be fine,” she said. A little too much? Trying too hard to sound like everything was okay between Louisa and her sister being here in Venice. Some people would say that living in Italy while working as a lawyer was an exciting opportunity but to this Venetian, Matteo, firmly rooted into the fertile family soil, it signified pure reckless abandon.

  “Oh that is a stupid ting I hear. Idiota.Fool with law, drinking half the wine in the Veneto.” Louisa was indeed doing just that, this much she couldn’t deny. So she didn’t. She raised her new shot of Zambucato the bartender in defiance of Matteo’s accusation then gulped it down.

  “It’s my life,” she couldn’t believe she said. Stranger still, she meant it. It worked. What followed wasa long pause and much sighing from Matteo.“Anything else?” she asked to break the silence and not give him a moment to think of his next move. But the open-ended question could’ve invited more criticism. Yet, it felt right, something moved her to be bold, assertive. She waited for his response, Give me everything you’ve got, right here, right now, because I ain’tbudging off my position. It’s my life. Leave me alone, she thought. It was a huge bluff.

  He bought it.“I will have more to say, dopo(later). I go now,” he said. But he hadn’t hung up on her. He waited for her next move.

  Liar, she thought.I won round one. That’s why you‘go now.’ Then, from the depths of her newly accessed self-assured self, and aided by a third shot of Zambuca, Louisa added,“Can you believe how lucky we are?”

  She’d been taught to know the perfect final question for a cross-examination -- a question that didn’t require an answer to win, to pin the witness. It doesn’t require a response because no matter what the witness answers, the jury looks pitifully at them, knowing they’re sunk. With raised eyebrows, the questioner can simply give the jury the“I got‘em” look. Any answer -- yes, no, maybe -- it is all the same. The jury, unified with the questioner against the witness, waits. The lawyer always says,“No further questions. You may step down.”

  What was Matteo’s response? Yes, no, maybe?

  “Cazzo,” he swore at her and hung-up.

  “No further questions. You may step down,” Louisa said to her imaginary jury, knowing she’d won an important round with a hostile witness. Matteo.

  The bartender heard her and nodded in agreement. Italians must stick together in the fight against oppression from family or foe.“We love it, sio no?” she said to the bartender to confirm his allegiance.

  “Si,” said the bartender as he slammed down two shots, one for him and one for her.

  **

  Louisa had a slight problem. Barbara planned to stay with her while in Venice but perhaps Matteo would be hanging around. Louisa hoped to avoid his advances recalling Massimo’s warning again, yet her resolve began to wear off when the Zambuca did not.

  As her mind began to wander, she observed her friendly Italian bartender. She needed a bigger apartment to hold the egos of Barbara, Matteo and any new admirer she might want to invite over for, say, coffee or tea.

  Her imagination conjured up a likely scenario: Sexy Matteo wormed his way into her heart once he became charming again and he always did. Their fights would fuel lustful flames as they had always done in the past. Thus, the need for privacy. She would feel lonely in Venice at some point. She might need comforting. From a man. Matteo, the easy accessible choice, was also a familiar one. Barbara hated him.

  Still she felt those eerie feelings about yesterday’s encounter between Matteo and Massimo. Caution had stirred in her. The look of rage in Matteo’s face, when he capitulated to a richer man in front of her, was extremely disarming. His surrender to Massimo in her presence perplexed. Barbara’s visit could serve as a buffer, would perhaps keep Matteo away and Louisa safer?

  After that phone call and with too much Zambucain her body, she decided to postpone the trip to visit Matteo’s sister Ana, walk off the Zambuca and maybe take a nap.

  In her walk home, full of strong licorice liquor and preoccupied with Mattteo, Louisa tripped on steps at two bridges and almost toppled into canals.

  Not again, no more falling in canals, she thought.

  She tried to concentrate on steps, but the alternating wrath and charms of Matteo, which she knew would be forthcoming, continued to preoccupy her. Louisa fell in before, in a canal and in love with Matteo. She feared it would happen again.

  She peaked around each dark corner and surveyed the area around her doorstep. She hoped he wasn’t there waiting and then she wished he was there waiting. As usual, conflicted about Matteo, she knew her victory with him would be short-lived.

  **

  Sette (7) Rain

  In the quiet Dorsodoro sestiere, Louisa looked through the little round windows of her tiny apartment into Campo San Toma. The campo was empty and no laundry hung on clothes lines. No lingering tourists listened to the quartet that often played in the campo next to the cistern. By the time she woke from her short post-Zambucca snooze, the quartet was reduced to a trio because one musician had
already packed up to leave.

  Cello and violin cases sat open in front of the threesome waiting for an audience to toss coins into them. A single large instrument stood upright next to the now silent fourth musician and caused her to blink. It looked like either a fifth musician or their ghostly manager. Behind them, the doors of one of many churches-turned-museums were bolted shut. A picture of a clown was posted on a cafe window to advertise mobile phones, but it appeared to Louisa as another ghost, its reflection smiling grimly at the few souls who walked past it.

  Devoid of life, the campo’s eery scene was typical of a bad-weather day in Venice. In this fog, everything appeared somewhat less than real to Louisa. Soon the music stopped, another musician packed his violin into the awaiting felt-lined case. The mist became another obstacle to making a small salary for their priceless music.

  The prediction was for rain.

  Rain. A Venetian dilemma. Courtyard cisterns catch rain to provide for Venetian needs. Rain cleans concrete and sweeps pigeon droppings off the pavement. On the other hand, if Venetians must go out when it rains, they must walk through the storms since there are no cars or taxi cabs in which to ride it out. As a result, Venetians know the minute rain will come and they often stay home. Rain produces the water necessary to sustain the lagoon, but it also presents many obstacles, not to mention floods.

  Rain, an unwelcome necessity, felt like the favor she would soon need from Matteo. Her encounters with Matteo on this trip had been typical Louisa-Matteo dramas, the kind where, unquestionably drawn to one another, they fed off both love and hate.

  She recalled her seeming accidental meeting with him on the ferry. She could never be sure if he had been tipped off by God knows whom to where she was or what she was doing.

  That meeting fit perfectly with their tragicomicalromantic ways.“Wow. You look so beautiful,” he’d whispered in her ear, his Venetian accent sending shivers down her neck. After he focused his attention on getting her excited right there in the boat, he enticed her further with his simple half grin, a lowering of his eye lids and a sideways glance. The whisper felt warm and his breath travelled down her neck, rested on her throat -- she couldn’t swallow or speak. Without moving his lips from her ear, in the same soft whisper, he added“those jeans fit you wonderfully.” He murmured those words and his breath fell again onto her throat, this time practically choking her. His breath on her neck had said, I want to grab you right here, kiss you, and you will let me and you will not want to stop.

  Then the drama. The hate. He put her back into conflict when he pulled away a bit and her head unwittingly went with him, glued to his every word, breath and move. His eyes dropped to her formfitting pants and he said sweetly, but with words far from sweet and in his own quintessentially villainous way,“How do you stay fit, after all of these years? How old are you now? Thirty, forty?”

  Pow.The knockdown. Was that a loud drum that cracked in her ear? Whatever the age, Matteo rounded it to the higher number, the decade number, the one people celebrated, she knew not why, but the number at which women cringed, the rounded numbers of thirty, forty or fifty and beyond. She didn’t correct him to say she was twenty-something -- that would’ve fed into his game. To argue would’ve showed him it bothered her. Either way, he won. Forced to lose that round of their unceasing sparring, she’d had no choice but to let it sit. At thirty. Thirty or forty.

  She hated him right then just thinking about it.

  To shake off thoughts of Matteo, she focused on her view of the campo out her window. Two Venetians motioned frantically at each other. They looked up, first at the sky directly above them then all around. Not a cloud, but somehow it told Venetians that it would rain. She could tell they were talking about the forthcoming rain because she saw them motion some more at the sky. Louisa concluded that plans were being made to finish something before the inevitable storm.

  For a moment she considered canceling her appointment with Matteo's sister, Ana, on the opposite side of Venice in San Marco. There was no direct route to San Marco from San Toma and it was damp and getting colder.

  “Venetians are afraid of rain,” Louisa once told Barbara.

  Understandably so, with floods a looming concern and not all places accessible by boat, every journey involves walking in Venice even during storms. Thus, locals avoid going out when it rains. In a manner typical of Venetian ingenuity, when it rains, everything they need to get done is politely postponed or pawned off on someone who can’t say no.

  Excuses and lies are expected and told:

  Well, I can’t bring those carpet pieces over today, the supplier is late, you know, because of the rain. To which the reply might be,I see, of course, tomorrow then, if it’s clear. Cunning and guilt might be employed, I wish it would stop raining, I’m running out of things, I’ll be forced out with this arthritis that flares up in damp weather. A Venetian might offer help but only because it’s inevitable that someday they’ll need the favor returned. I must go out today, you went out last week for me, what can I bring you? Venetians keep track.

  They are like birds perched on a garden gate or tilted chair, a bit off balance but hanging on for so long as necessary. Safely sheltered indoors or under awnings, locals hunkered down until the rain stops.

  Many Venetians don’t even own rain boots. Most carry plastic bags with which to wrap over their fine Italian shoes. If the forecast calls for rain, it would be very inconvenient, cumbersome even, to carry boots around the mazes and up and down bridges.

  Louisa looked back. Her round window surrounded in wood and its glass divided in odd-shaped panes, it gave her a segmented view. She saw the steep roof covered in snow-like lace that hung on the edges of terra cotta arched roof shingles. Like the strands of her hair blown by the heat of her radiator and floated towards the window, the snow whipped in fragmented pieces in the wind and rested on a ledge besides the doors. The house nearest to hers, its roof speckled with white and displaying its dark moldy brick, contrasted with the sun’s haphazard rays. Fog drifted over, as it often did here, and created what appeared to be a dusty film on the ground. It blurred and covered dirty snow on her little windows.

  Louisa recalled a time when she and Barbara were dining outside with Venetian friends and clouds darkened the skies. Louisa and Barbara eagerly sought shelter but the Venetians refused to move, said,“aspetta” (wait) and continued to sip coffee or wine despite threatening skies. Although Louisa and Barbara sat back down, they continued to question whether they should go inside.

  The locals, unfazed by the dark sky, remained seated on the terrace and enjoyed their meals and drinks. They motioned for the sisters to stay outside with them. They waved off the rain clouds with calm hand flicks and shoulder shrugs. Then, at once and together, every Venetians on the terrace started to move fast. They rapidly pushed chairs and tables under the awnings. They removed plates, tossed bread into the lagoon, retrieved handbags and satchels in minutes. When the last item was securely covered, everyone stepped inside the cafe. The minute they did so, it poured.

  Louisa also knew clotheslines were effective weather vanes. If clothes are hanging, it won’t rain, no matter what the cloud coverage seems to say. Venetian mammas know best, better than any weather man. When a Venetian mother empties her clothes line, get out your wading boots, even on a sunny day. Or stay home, like the Venetians. Expect a downpour.

  Venetian at heart but a tourist in action, Louisa always went out despite the rain. In the worst of storms, motivated tourists wanted to see Venice, to view it in the rain, to experience high water, to watch people wade around in boots. Whenever San Marco Square floods, tourists do not stay stuck in their rooms, especially when on a mission and all tourists are on impossible missions to see all of Venice in a day. Even in the rain.

  Today Louisa was on a mission of a different sort. Soaked to the knees after trudging across Venice, she entered the Danieli. Originally part of the Doge’s royal palace, the Danieli luxury hotel faces the lagoon with a
striking view of San Giorgio Island and its bell tower. Danieli history is prestigious yet sordid, involving stories about Richard Wagner, Henry James, Casanova and other luminaries associated with her glorious past and present fame.

  Dutifully posed at the front desk, Matteo’s young sister, Ana, greeted Louisa the instant she walked through the revolving doors. Beaming, she said,“Ciao cara bella. Sono contento tu seiquoi,” (Hello dear beauty, I am happy you are here.)

  “Ciao mori, come stai, (Hello friend, how are you) said Louisa.

  “Bene, bene, et tu, come stai?” (Very well, and you?)

  “Bene, gracie.

  The formalities were ended with hugs, air kisses and giggles then Louisa decided to ask about a room for Barbara and forget this whole business of ghosts, Matteo and murder.

  “Okay, I wait for your sister,” said Ana. Without any prompting, she quickly added,“Is amazing. I want to know everything about your ghost. I’m interested. Hi hi hi hi.” Then with raised brows, she blinked her eyes and flapped her hands around like butterflies.

  Louisa had not told Ana, nor Matteo for that matter, about the ghosts, so who did? Nothing seemed a secret in this town.“If I reserve a room for my sister, can she have a canal view,” said Louisa, ignoring Ana’s reference to ghosts.“Let me see, which date?”

  “For the room is okay, okay by canal. And you know my sister sees ghosts, like your sister,” she said with a matter of fact tone as if she and Louisa had been discussing ghosts for hours. Not prying norknowingly superior like Matteo would say do it, she offered,“Maybe a discount for the room? I don’t know, I have to ask for the manager, she control price plan. Mmm ... ghosts? Mmm... anyway, for the room, soon as possible if you want it you can book just sending an email.”