by Diana Cachey
When Louisa opened her mouth to speak, the woman stopped her, this time pleading,“They are filth. You have no idea the filth they spread. Do not go back to the Murano house. Ever.”
All this questioning, travel to Paris and a 200 euro piece of Tiffany glass, for that information, thought Louisa. It was the cheapest piece of Tiffany glass she could find. All of it to find out she couldn’t go back to the haunted Murano house.
The woman laid her hand on Louisa’s hand and tapped it hard. It hurt.
“Yes. You are very cheap,” she said.“200 Euro? I make that in fifteen minutes with the right Nazi,” and this time it was final. She would never utter the word again in her lifetime.
Then she curled her lip again at the Tiffany box Louisa had set on the table.
“I will tell you this -- the people you mess with there are murderers. Greedy monsters. Let me finish talking, do not interrupt, like you seem to have occasion to do at your whim, Ms. Mangotti.” she said. Then, nodding again at the air, added,“Don’t worry. Despite how I may react to you, I love everything about your brazenness and courage,” she waived at the waiter to refill both their glasses. At the thought of a ghost following her from Venice to Paris, which might now be sitting next to her, Louisa had emptied her glass as well.
The Parisien woman continued her diatribe waiving the empty flute.
“For she was like a virus, could be blown in the wind, and she, like a victim, would be punished if she sinned.”
For a second, Louisa’s thoughts drifted to Matteo, but when the woman instantly sensed it and scolded Louisa with her eyes. Louisa came back to the present. The woman emphasized the first word of the next sentence as if to say, listen close.
“Her eyes revealing, he had slowly touched, as though he were peeling off a shell so slim. He thought her appealing, plenty forceful not too much.”
She gave Louisa another look of don’t let your mind drift away from my words.
“She seemed a bit freewheeling, so he told her not enough, challenging adventure was not his gameand so he idly waited for a lion more easily tamed. Although she was exciting, she was boring, not too intense. For him. She was sexy, she was fun, not too demanding for him.”
What is all of this about, Louisa wondered, but only for a brief moment. Her mind went to Matteo. This sounded like her relationship with him, but the odd Parisian woman would not allow drifting thoughts for too long. It must be a coincidence, the similarity of this woman’s rantings to her experiences with Matteo.
“Not a coincidence and not rantings. The truth,” the women said and answered Louisa’s thoughts.“I assume you were chosen for this reason: because he loves you, both Venetians love you. Perhaps you too will choose, one of them, someday. Not this trip,” she said. First confiding then predicting, as an aside.
Louisa shifted nervously.
“As for my odd manner that you just reflected upon, you are odd too, Louisa. The na,” she started to say something. Then she remembered her vow to herself to never say that word again. In her lifetime.“They didn’t defile you, and then your sister, and then kill her. Like she was nothing more than a pesky insect.”
Louisa knew not to say one word to that, so she rested her head back on the high cushion of red velvet and held her gaze straight ahead, in sympathy.
“Maybe now you don’t feel so bad giving me this cheap piece of Tiffany for the priceless clue I am giving you.” Before Louisa could say it, the woman said,“I know you don’t understand my words. Yet.” Next speaking directly to Louisa, not as a riddled toast, but as one confident and strong woman to another, she explained,
“The victims of the sorted crimes you ask about? They are like my sister. Helpless. You are not like her. You are not caged. You can find them. Help the caged ones. Please go now,all this talk has exhausted me.” She waived at the waiter to give the check to Louisa, which he did.
Then the woman left the restaurant to“meet an old friend.”
Louisa did not feel disappointment. What little she had learned was valuable. She now knew there were victims of crimes, plural. They were caged, docile and shy, like the woman’s sister. The perpetrators were either Nazis or people associated with them. Louisa had written down as much of the woman’s words as she could. The Parisienhad encouraged her to write it down but also had not slowed down for it either. Her eyes had followed Louisa’s note-taking and sped up in sync, her voice seeming to manage the note-taking so scribbles had resulted and only Louisa could decipher them. Later.
When Louisa got up to leave the restaurant, the waiter blocked her path. He pointed to the receipt for the drinks. She had paid the bill but had left the receipt. She shook her head to indicate that she didn’t need the receipt.
“Madame?” He handed it to her.
“Your ghost said to read it,” she thought she heard him say as she walked out the brass framed door.
In the quaint Parisian alley next to the cafe, she stopped to look at the receipt. A strange wind blew past her. It was pink, not foggy, but a very bright pink, like the Kir Royal cocktails.
“Help them,” the wind seemed to whisper. On the receipt, a drawing of a Greek symbol topped the page and it also included directions for Louisa.
It directed her to Accademia museum and one of the most famous pieces of Venetian art.
**
Dieci (10) Malfeasance of Matteo
Water is precious everywhere but in Venice, where it is the only thing that’s free. Too free. Very unruly, Venetian water is not collected drop by drop like in Tuscan towns or Umbrian hillsides nor sacrificed unwittingly as on suburban golf courses or slope-side ski resorts. Neither is it hoarded, courted, siphoned nor saved. In Venice, water is wasted, wadded in, wished away then washed down countless drains. The lagoon that surrounds and supports the Venetians is muddled in a myriad of marshes. Tons of water tumbles today towards their homes and is tossed out tomorrow. Yet Venice thrives in it. How?
Hardly a soul could argue against the advantages of extra water: it clears the sinuses, refreshes the air, cleans the hair, presses wrinkles, fills the belly. But water in Venice is not benign. It can be vile, a cesspool. And why? Too much water.
Water, water, everywhere, and no drops to drink,thought Matteo. It made him sick. Matteo despised the lagoon as much as he loved it. His home, his prison. A proud Venetian sailor, Matteo grew up on and lived many lives on the water. Won rowing competitions, skillfully raced speed boats, found hidden places the lagoon offered like run-down abandoned buildings where he and his troupe could“make a party.” He strolled its shores, played with its finest playmates. Even lived in his boat every time his father kicked him out of the house. Matteo needed the lagoon.
That’s why he despised it. He hated needing it. He hated needing anything.
After his father, Guiseppe, threw him out a final time, he tried to force Matteo to work for a living and find a real home of his own. Papa took his boat, sold it to some scum. So Matteo ran away, no problem for him to run, to move to England, liveon the streets for a time. Couldn’t live on the streets in Venice or any other lagoon island without a boat.
He had moved to London, learned English and continued hustling. Why should he work in a factory or at a winery? He didn’t need a job.
He had a job, a very lucrative one. He needed a boat. And he got one,he always got what he wanted. Now back in Venice, he worked the streets and that job gave him freedom. It gave him glamour, girls, supplies and no tax bill to force him to send money to the powerful Vatican. The Vatican had enough money and he had had enough of the Vatican. He had enough of those factory jobs. Matteo didn’t need any grueling winemaker or glassmaker job. Long hours standing near ovens hotter than a desert tarmac, around the intense fire all day. For what? A paycheck? His pockets were always full of cash and that was good enough for him.
What did he want for? Nothing. Except for this fucking lagoon. The lagoon was like a woman, the worst kind. The kind he couldn’t live with or without. One he n
eeded. Like water, he both despised and loved women. In Matteo’s heart, he didn’t want an American girl nor did he yearn for a Venetian woman. He wanted a hostage. No, he didn’t want a hostage, he needed one. Needed. Pttt-tzoo, he mockingly spit whenever he thought it.
He remembered meeting Louisa many years ago, right after he got out of rehab, his third time at age twenty. She was a little older, a brilliant student, a sexy young girl, full of energy, enthusiasm, electricity. He ruined her. He intended to ruin her. That’s what he did, who he was, he didn’t mean anything personal by it.
At first, he thought it could work, he could love her, he could stay clean. That part he was sincere about. He was forever sincere about that part. For a day, maybe a week. Maybe once or twice, at the longest, for a month. Usually it was a facade. The love, the attempts to stay clean, stay sober. He knew it was a facade. A sincere facade.
He became addicted to relapse. To playing the relapse game, short term sobriety with a stint in rehab every year to keep them all off his ass.
He played it very well during the three years he and Louisa were together, on and off, back and forth she went. That girl made him so miserable. She thought she was clever coming and going like she did. Playing her ownlittle relapse game. It didn’t work. Her game. How many girls came and went between her moves, her game? Many. Very many. It was easy. Sometimes too easy. It was a buffet. Venice is a buffet.
One time when he left rehab--one of several releases he orchestrated just when she thought it was safe to visit Venice again--he cried to her“I love you I need you I can’t live without you.”
It was true or it was false. Nothing was real to him during his time with her, and without her, when she went back home to America, as she always did, vanishing from him like a ghost. To him, she melted then formed again into another piece of work, a piece of art, like glass art.
Matteo perpetually knew she could leave him again. He trusted her to do that much. Free him for a while. Chain him with her absence,hold him in her own freedom, his jail. She wouldn’t commit to him. Ever. He needed that commitment, the hostage to stay. He must move on with his life and have her with him here too. While he moved, she should stay. That was the plan.
“Ma va fa culo,” (fuck you). He screamed to the lagoon, partly to Louisa who sat behind him in the boat. Mostly he cursed himself because, ti volio bene, Louisa (I care for Louisa). He yelled out to the lagoon but inside his head he yelled at all the reasons she still penetrated his heart.
His boat bounced and bounced over waves, which made him smile at the memory of Louisa with him years ago, pregnant. He didn’t want the baby for the same reason he didn’t want her here now -- she couldn’t commit. What would she have done if that baby had been born? Taken it to America? He did not let that happen. He sped the boat up that day and it bounced over the waves. He drove faster, as fast as he could over wakes from passing boats. He remembered how the water slammed against the boat against her growing uterus, up and down with it, years ago.
Louisa remembered it too. She cringed. She had lost the baby. The lagoon took it.
Aborta, aborta, aborta, abortiamo, he had yelled to her when she told him she was pregnant. As if it was his baby, his choice. He knew it wasn’t his choice. It was her womb. Her egg. Her child. Maybe his sperm. He didn’t mean any of it. Sad when she miscarried back then, he frowned at the memory.
Today Louisa knew better than to tell him to slow down as they road together to Verde Island. It would only incite him. Yet Louisa’s not telling him to“slow down” had the same effect. He wanted to see how fast he needed to go to make her say it, to make him slow down.
Just like your drinking, she thought. Go as fast as you think you can until I break.
He slowed down and pointed to an old Venetian palace on a tiny island. A palace from their past. There were many palaces and other buildings from which to choose out in the lagoon, but the structure they loved the most was partially flooded when she saw it back then and she wanted to make it new again. The day they found it, he went to the top, stood on the terrace and started doing karate moves. In between moves, he would stop,motion dramatically across the terrace and pronounce“We will make a party here.”
Waste. What a waste, she opined to herself. But she couldn’t feel sorry for him anymore.
Graceful and sleek, Matteo was a gifted athlete. Whatever sport he tried, he excelled at it. Rowing with first-rate skill and strength, he led his crew to national championship. His skiing was fluid, his form in tune with the hill. Karate done with effortless expertise. Between the parties he made.
Today they traveled between Burano and Torcello, far across the Venetian lagoon. For most of this afternoon, they had circled many small islands because Matteo, lost and confused, wasn’t willing to admit it. She didn’t know where they were headed, only Matteo knew for sure, knew at least where he wanted to go.
In his mind they were traveling to Isla Verde, Green Island, and from his lengthy perusal of these far reaches of the lagoon, there were many that fit the name but none were Verde. He couldn’t fucking find it. Finally he stopped at a picturesque spot where they could relax in the sun and he could think about finding the course to Verde.
Louisa tried to relax, sun herself, jump out for swims while Matteo passed out, swimming in the ecstasy of his only true loves -- alcohol, drugs and control. He could do anything drunk. Row, ski, make glass, make love, make a party. Anything.
Louisa had no idea back then that Matteo was high most of the time. She didn’t know it now either.
Stupid girl, concluded Matteo, relieved.
Yesterday when Louisa asked him to take her to Verde Island, and to introduce her to the Verdenesecouple making the cantina, he’d asked,“what you want with them?”
He knew her answer was a lie and he wanted to slap her. He was in trouble. She offered to pay him. He needed the money. He took her to Verde because he needed her. He felt trapped. He hated her. God, she was beautiful.
Pttt-tzoo, he spit.
Louisa regretted needing him to take her out to Verde Island, where ever in the world it was, but she wanted to ask the two Verdenesisome questions. The ghost expert suggested she tell Matteo that she found out about the island from ghost research she’d done. She and Matteo both pretended he believed her.
With Matteo being his usual uncooperative self, tension hung in the air. Why was he taking so long to get there? Why had he stopped to sun himself? In the middle of the lagoon, somewhere between Murano and Burano? Somewhere, but where?
Louisa tried to enjoy it, the sun, the sea air, the boat rocking on gentle waves. She tried to be“in the moment.” It truly was extraordinary out here, somewhere. Way out in the lagoon, alone with birds resting on canal markers, enjoying nature and sea breezes.
During the stop, he briefly woke from his dazed existence, leaned on one elbow and saw the most incredible beauty before him, sunning topless, hair blowing in the wind, smile across her face, sunglasses pressing down on her pleasantly tan cheeks. He wanted to take her. He had to have her. He was so hard. Alcohol, pot, things, did that to him.
She’d let him hold her, kiss her, everything, back then.
Today he knew she wouldn’t let him do nothing. She’d claim it was their past or his drinking. It was only their past that stopped her from loving him, he knew.
Pttt-tzoo, he fake spit again.
He disgusted her sometimes. He knew he was disgusting. The nausea was coming. The rush was ending. The rush. The nausea always followed the rush. Sometimes both at the same time. If you move you could vomit. So he couldn’t move. He lay there as still as possible, one elbow propped up to take in her beauty and her naked breasts.
“You never move,” he used to tell her when he wanted her to run with him and she refused. He called her names, lazy, a sloth. He chuckled at the irony.“You sleep like a cat,” he would say.
It was true. Louisa couldn’t and wouldn’t deny it. It hurt anyway. His insults.
Slowly
she turned toward him and saw him lying motionless in the boat, sadly knowing something was wrong with him.“God please, no, not again” she almost cried out.
Instead of begging the universe to make him better, not drunk and sick, she went to him. She moved to his side of the boat, careful not to rock it. She laid her hands on his chest and her body down beside him, held him, cradledhim. He was sick, that’s all. Sick. She prayed. Although she wasn’t aware of it, she prayed with him.
“God please help this man,” she prayed with tears forming in her eyes as he too asked the universe for help.
“How can I help you baby?” she said quietly feeling his hardness on her everywhere.
“Help me?” he said surprised, not in a mean tone, more pathetically.“You can’t even help yourself.” He knew he needed help and that she could do everything for him.
She ignored his words and experienced the warmth of his body. They lay there together. Still. His hard body and penis pressed against her.
It didn’t take long for Matteo to become overwhelmed by Louisa’s kindness, her sweetness.
What a wonderful woman, why I do this to her?
Louisa too became overwhelmed by the strong passion she felt. Immediately it thrust upon her, him. She tried but failed to stop him from tearing her apart with his body. He kissed every part of her, her head, neck, navel. He breathed into her navel and ran his lips over her belly then went below it. Passion was as strong as the fear.
Fear.
Suddenly he stopped. He got up and vomited. Then threw her blouse at her and she put it back on. It was over. He wouldn’t penetrate her. He did not want her to take their baby, his baby, to America. Louisa was his baby.
Fear. Louisa couldn’t think straight. Aroused by him and the scenery, she’d ignored her own good sense and almost went too far with him. He had stopped it and that made her want him more. Nothing could turn her off. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.