by Laura Furman
“Let’s wait until I get back from Venice. It’s only a month.”
“What if you meet someone?”
“In Venice? I don’t know a soul. I’m just going for my health.”
Hugo talked to his brother. His brother was reluctant to lose him for a whole month, but in the end he said it was fine, if Hugo promised to work during Christmas. I knew nothing of all this. When Hugo announced that he was coming with me to Venice, I was flabbergasted.
“You know it’s a really small place,” I said.
“But you said there’s a king-sized bed, right?”
“Right,” I said. “I just don’t want you to be bored. I have to finish that paper for my incomplete.”
“Bored in Venice? Are you crazy? Anyway, I’m never bored. Have you ever seen me bored, Marie?”
Actually, I hadn’t. Hugo had more energy and wider interests than anybody I’d ever met, and when the shuttle company was shorthanded on drivers, he loved taking people to the airport and getting their stories. He was constantly calling me or texting me and when he came over to my apartment it was like having a party. He took up the space of three people—not just because he was tall but because he moved around so much. It was like living with a bear, and I didn’t think I could live like that for the rest of my life. Take his proposal of marriage. It wasn’t so much a proposal as an assumption. I’d assumed it, too, for a couple of months. But now it seemed impossible. Even though I loved him—he was a very loving person—and enjoyed the sex, we were just too different. He liked other people. I liked to be alone. Over my desk I’d thumbtacked a postcard with a quotation from Virginia Woolf: “I have three entire days alone—three pure and rounded pearls.”
Hugo had seemed a normal-sized tall man back in the Midwest, but here in Venice he seemed like a giant. He had to duck under doorways, and the beamed ceiling was only an inch from the top of his head. His sloppy can of shaving cream and his razor and dirty comb sat on top of the little washing machine in the bathroom, and his large boots and shoes dwarfed mine in the bedroom wardrobe. The cleaning lady had reported him immediately to the landlady, who was still trying to get me to pay extra for him.
I pulled the phone book out of the desk and rifled through the pages. I found something called Bagno di Camuffo and a couple of places that said accessory WC. I wrote the addresses into my notebook where I usually wrote the addresses of restaurants.
“Let’s go,” I said. “Grab your umbrella.”
“Naw,” he said. “It’s not going to rain.”
“Oh, right,” I said, sticking my umbrella into my back pocket.
Hugo was good with maps and had already internalized the maze of Venice. At the end of our narrow street we turned the corner and walked alongside the little canal until we came to an arcade that led to a campo. I was immediately lost, but Hugo strode ahead confidently. We passed a palazzo draped with banners, and he led me down a street as narrow as a tunnel that seemed to lead us around the back of a church. But finally I recognized the Fondamenta Nuove, where boats left for the islands. Waves were lapping against the stones. We were hit by a strong sea wind.
“Uh-oh,” I said. “Look at the sky. You were wrong.”
“There’s a storm in the offing. But it’s going to stay in the offing.”
“What’s the offing, anyway?”
“The near future.”
“No, what is it really? What does it mean—offing? Is it a nautical term?”
“Beats me,” Hugo said. He pointed at some dark clouds building on the horizon. “But there it is. The offing.”
The offing looked pretty scary.
We had to tuck our heads down against the wind, especially at the top of bridges. Finally we turned down a street away from the sea. We passed a funeral parlor and a florist selling funeral wreaths, and several shops selling Murano glass. Then we stopped in front of a dimly lit shop window.
“Doesn’t look promising, does it?” Hugo said.
We stared into the window at two marble sinks. It looked like the showroom for a contractor.
“It’s not even open,” I said, trying the door.
Hugo looked into the glass shop next door, where the window was filled with glass vases and glass tulips and glass horses’ heads.
“Too bad they don’t make glass toilet seats.”
I felt something cold on my forehead. “That’s a drop.”
More drops plopped from the sky. I opened my umbrella. Hugo stepped back under an awning.
“Shall we go home?” I asked. Hugo was too tall to walk under my little red umbrella. If he held it, then I’d get soaked.
“Naw, this is just a spit bath. The storm’s in the offing, like I said.” He reached into his pocket. “Want one?”
His palm was full of cellophane-wrapped candies. I shook my head. He opened a butterscotch and popped it into his mouth.
The rain stopped, but the sky above the funnel-shaped chimneys looked ominous and the air was full of drizzle or mist. I showed Hugo the next address in my notebook, and we walked on, me under my umbrella, Hugo’s thick hair glistening with drops. The place we wanted was on a busy shopping street, and its windows were brightly lit and full of towels.
We went inside. The tables were piled high with bath towels and hand towels in all colors and designs. A middle-aged man in a nice suit and a red tie came toward us.
“Buon giorno,” Hugo said in a loud voice. “Toilet seat? Have you a toilet seat?”
The shopkeeper looked puzzled. He swept his hand around to show us the towels.
“Toiletto—bagno?” Hugo asked.
The man pointed at some terry cloth bathrobes.
“No,” Hugo said. “WC.”
The man drew himself up. He looked offended. “WC, no!” he said. “Not for tourists.” He pointed out the door.
“What?” Hugo said. “No, you don’t understand. Toilet seat. WC.”
The man’s face grew red. “Eccolo, eccolo,” he said, still pointing.
“Signore,” I said, and then, as if I were playing charades, I made a lifting and falling motion with my hands, the toilet seat going up, coming down. Hugo got the idea right away, but Hugo-like, he took it even further. He squatted down, pointing at me. Then he pointed at himself. He spread his legs apart, and put his fist at his crotch.
The shopkeeper looked aghast, and I didn’t blame him. He stepped away from us.
Hugo frowned. “I don’t think he gets it. But there must be toilet seats in here.”
He walked to the back of the store. The shopkeeper’s face turned from red to purple. His hands twitched. He ran after Hugo and pulled at his arm. “Signore, no, no. No WC,” he shouted.
Then it hit me. “Hugo, he thinks we want to use the WC. Let’s get out of here. They only sell towels anyway.”
We fled to the street. Hugo was laughing. My face was hot with embarrassment.
“He must have thought we were crazy idiots.”
“He just thought we were cheap tourists who didn’t want to pay to pee.” Hugo laughed. “You know it costs almost two bucks to use the public toilets in this town.”
“What next?”
“We’ll try that hardware store near the Rialto Bridge.”
The drizzle had stopped, and the paving stones glistened as we walked along. We stopped for gelato, and I was still licking my cone when we reached a narrow street where an orange plastic fence surrounded a large muddy area of upturned paving stones. We stepped around the fence and came to a gloomy shop window full of tools and implements and electrical cables.
Hugo tried the door and it was open. A naked bulb burned above a wooden counter, but no one was around. I looked at a row of dusty blenders and mixers, models that looked years out of date. Hugo fingered some faucet heads. There were boxes of washers and bolts and clothespins and plugs.
“Shall I ring that bell?” Hugo asked, pointing to the counter.
But a bead curtain rustled just then. A bald head poked out. “Hel
lo, there,” the bald man said in American English. “I’m sorry, this place is closed. I forgot to lock the door.”
“We’re looking for a toilet seat,” Hugo said.
“A toilet seat?” The man stepped further out, the beads draping his shoulders. He had thick dark eyebrows and was wearing a bright Hawaiian shirt. “I don’t think we have any toilet seats. Anyway, this place is closed. Closed forever.”
“Forever?” I asked.
The man nodded. “My grandparents owned it. They’re dead now. I’m just cleaning things up.” He sighed. “But it’s going slowly.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Hugo said. “You’re from the States, right?”
“Chicago,” the man said. “But my pop came from here. And his parents never left. They lived over this shop for sixty-five years. Sixty-five years, the whole of their married life. And they died within five days of each other. She went first, and then he went. It was a real romance.”
Hugo whistled. “Sixty-five years! Wow!”
“Yeah, that doesn’t happen anymore, does it? You marry someone and then you get bored or you fight over money or you meet someone else and you both go your own way and you start over again. I’ve been divorced twice, myself. Hey, listen,” the man said. “You said you were looking for a toilet seat?”
Hugo nodded. “Our toilet seat broke. We’ve got to replace it so the landlady doesn’t get on our case. We’ve been looking all over Venice, but now we’ve run out of ideas.”
“Right, got you. Listen, you two look like a nice couple. Well, there’s a lot of junk back here. Maybe we can find you a toilet seat, who knows. I’m just throwing most of this stuff away, or giving it to charity. You two married?”
“Not yet.” Hugo grinned. “But soon. This is Marie, by the way. I’m Hugo.”
“Well, Hugo and Marie, stick together, that’s my advice. Keep on loving each other. Stay the nice couple you are. Most couples have an ex in their future. I should know. I’m Tony, by the way. You expected me to be called Tony, didn’t you?” He laughed. “Ah, don’t listen to me, really. I’m a cynic. Everyone tells me I’m a cynic.” He laughed again, heartily, and I could see the pink part of his throat surrounded by his strong-looking teeth. “Hey, I never actually met these famous grandparents of mine. I was too busy making money back home. But now I’ve made my pile, so when Nonna and Pappy finally bit the dust, I told my pop, who hates to fly, that I’d take care of business.” He stepped away from the door, and the last of the beads slithered over his shoulder and tinkled into place. “I must admit, I thought there might be a small real estate fortune over here. I thought I could sell this shop and the apartment upstairs. But it turns out that Nonna and Pappy were renters! Renters for sixty-five years, can you beat that? All they own is this stuff you see.” He swept his hands out like an orchestra conductor. “Come on back. There’s a lot more in here.”
We followed Tony through the bead curtain into a storeroom crammed with what seemed like everything in the world that newly weds might need to set up house: vacuum cleaners, pole lamps, toasters, seed packages, corkboards, dustpans, floor fans, bottle warmers, egg timers, rakes, plungers, and coffeepots. He began to rummage here and there, tossing out pillows and electrical cords that got in his way. He dug in this box and that box and upturned ironing boards and crates, but although he found a kitchen sink leaning against the wall in one corner, and a glass shower panel and some silver pipes in another, there was no sign of a toilet seat.
“Hey, listen,” he said. “I’ve got an idea. You need a toilet seat, I’ve got a toilet seat. Come on upstairs. There’s a toilet up here that nobody will ever use again. Once I get this junk out of here, the owner plans to renovate this place, make a fortune out of it. They don’t want Nonna and Pappy’s old toilet seat. You can have it.”
“Oh, no,” I started to say, “we couldn’t do that.”
But Hugo was already following him up a staircase. I hurried to catch up. The stairwell was damp, and there was a glass panel door at the top standing half-open that led into a dim room crowded with ancient furniture, overstuffed sofas and chairs with lace doilies on the armrests and bureaus crammed with knickknacks.
Tony led us into a bathroom that smelled of talcum powder and rot. The mosaic floor tiles were lined with black gunk, and the claw-foot tub was streaked orange and yellow. There were damp stains on the walls. A threadbare bath towel hung on a rack. You could almost see through it. Two toothbrushes with moldy roots were standing upright in a glass. I imagined the old couple leaning over the sink day after day, brushing their teeth, and I tried to think about something else.
“There you go, we can just unscrew it,” Tony said.
Hugo and I looked at the toilet seat. It was warped and yellowed with faint cracks in the lacquer. If it wasn’t sixty-five years old, then it was at least twenty years old. The idea of sitting on it made me cringe.
“I’ll get a screwdriver and some newspaper to wrap it up.”
“I don’t think—” I started to say, but Hugo nudged me.
“Great,” he said, lifting the seat. “This shouldn’t be hard to get off.”
“I’ll wait downstairs,” I said. I went down and paced around in the gloom. I picked up a yellow gardening glove and tried it on. I was going to have to tell Hugo soon, very soon, that we weren’t going to be getting married. The longer I waited the worse it would be.
I heard them coming down. Tony had found a ball of string. He tied the bundle neatly and handed it to Hugo. “There you go. All set. You want those gloves, Marie?”
“What? Oh, I forgot I had this on. No, I don’t.” I flung off the glove. “But thanks.”
“Yes, thanks a lot,” Hugo said. “We really appreciate your giving us this.”
“No problem. Glad to be of service.” Tony shook hands with both of us. “I’m glad I can pass on something useful from Nonna and Pappy.”
We waved good-bye to Tony. Once we turned the corner I looked at Hugo. “We can’t put this piece of crap on the toilet!”
“Hold on tight, Marie. I know that,” he said. “It’s the wrong shape, for one thing. This is a round one and we need an oval one. But I didn’t want to hurt the guy’s feelings.”
“Well, now we’re back to zero.” I shrugged.
“Look, Marie, I’m going to get you a toilet seat, I swear. At least I know the word in Italian now, Tony says it’s either il sedile del WC or WC sede. Why don’t we get a cappuccino somewhere and rest up a bit?”
We spotted a café and sat down outside, near the door and under the awning. Hugo put the newspaper bundle containing the toilet seat on an extra chair, and we ordered cappuccino. He went in to use the toilet.
He was grinning when he came back. “Boy, I wish I had Tony’s screwdriver. There’s a perfect seat in there, brand new, just the right size.”
“We can’t steal a toilet seat!”
“Hang on, Marie. I was just joking.”
“Maybe you were joking, maybe you weren’t. What about that bottle of steak sauce?”
“Oh, that.” He blushed. “I’d never seen that brand before.”
The waiter brought our cappuccino. Hugo sucked the foam off the top of his and acquired a white mustache. The café was filling up. Two older American couples were trying to settle at the next table, but there were only three chairs.
“Excuse me,” one of the men said. “Are you using that chair?”
“Oh, no, sorry,” Hugo said, removing the newspaper bundle. “We’re not. Please take it.”
The older man smiled. He put his hand on the back of the chair and looked at us. “Bet you two are on your honeymoon, aren’t you? That’s just great.” He nodded at one of the women behind him—either the one with the shiny cheeks and brassy hair or the one with gray bangs and a silk scarf; it was hard to tell. “Joyce and I came here on our honeymoon thirty years ago. And here we are now. It’s a lucky place, Venice.”
Hugo nodded. “It’s going to be lucky for us, too.
”
“Have a great life,” the man said as he scraped the chair back to join the others.
Hugo looked at me, grinning. “Hey,” he whispered, “what do you call this anyway, being in Venice before your wedding?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Why are you in such a bad mood, Marie?”
“I’m not in a bad mood.”
“Marie, Marie, hold on tight.”
“I wish you wouldn’t quote that all the time.”
“You started it. You quoted it to me.”
“Well, you can’t forget a line of poetry with your own name in it, especially when it’s The Waste Land.” I flipped open my notebook and showed him an address. “Here. We’ve got one more place to try. A plumbing supply store.”
We got up and were halfway across the square when the waiter called us back. We’d forgotten our package wrapped in newspaper. Hugo thanked him, and stuck it under his arm. We crossed the Accademia Bridge. Lots of people were hanging over the side looking at the view where the Grand Canal opens toward the Salute church. Clouds were piled up in the sky, but any storm was still in the offing.
A crowd of huge young men, men even bigger than Hugo, came striding toward us. They were giants with burly chests and seemed to be some kind of team because they were all wearing identical orange T-shirts with blue lanyards. We moved out of their way but one of them thrust a flyer into my hand. An unearthly hum began to rise up. They began to sing “Shenandoah.” It was a song that always made my neck prickle, although I had never seen the Shenandoah River or the Shenandoah Valley and had no idea why it should cause me so much emotion. The words of the song rose up loud and strong, filling the street, triggering astonished and joyful looks from passersby as the young men strode along like a company of angels. The crowd parted before them. People applauded. Hugo and I stood there listening until they had crossed the bridge.
“Wow!” Hugo said.
“That was beautiful.” I looked at the flyer. “The Indiana Wesleyan Men’s Choir. They’re singing tonight at seven p.m. at San Giobbe.”