The Disappearance of Grace

by Vincent Zandri

  “I believe he planted a picture of Santa Lucia on my floor. And, yes, I now also believe he hit me over the head yesterday afternoon.”

  “Have you reported this to the police? The detective?”

  “I’ve done my best to convince them of everything. But still they suspect me of foul play. If I were to tell them about the attack, they might detain me at the police station for my own protection. I cannot allow that. Not with Grace being gone.”

  “They have Grace’s passport.” Another question.

  “Yes. They found it floating in the canal. So they tell me. And I have this.” Reaching into my pocket, pulling out Grace’s diamond. “Giovanni located it stuck in between the cobblestones under the chair she sat in before she was taken.”

  “May I?” she offers.

  “Please,” I say. She takes the ring in her hand, examines it. Then, “Captain, do you trust me?”

  Her question takes me by surprise. Why shouldn’t I trust her? She came here of her own accord directly from Paris. It’s obvious to me that she is more than just interested in filling in the missing pieces of yesterday’s article. She sees something else going on with Grace’s disappearance. Something larger. Deeper.

  “Sure,” I say. “I trust you. Why do you ask, Alessandra?”

  She stands, returns her notebook to her bag.

  “Because I’d like to take the ring, have it tested for prints.”

  I feel my tired eyes go wide.

  “What about the police? If they know I have the ring, it might make me look—”

  She shakes her head.

  “Please don’t worry about that. I have friends on the inside, as they say, who can test the ring for prints tonight when things are not so busy. I can have it back to you in the morning with my findings.”

  “What are you trying to prove?”

  “Perhaps there are more sets of prints on the band than yours and Grace’s. Perhaps there is a set of prints that match those of a man who wears a brown overcoat.” Cocking her head. “It’s a long shot, but if it’s possible to uncover the print of a third party and then cross-reference it on the Interpol database, you might have a solid ID on the man who stole your Grace. The investigation would be over before it begins and you would no longer be a suspect in the eyes of the police. You might even be able to locate Grace before any further harm comes to her.”

  My stomach goes tight, breathing shallow.

  I hand over the ring to her.

  “I will take good care of it, Captain,” she assures me, storing the ring in a pocket on her jacket. She goes for the door. “I promise you that come morning, I will have some answers for you. One way or another.”

  “Thank you,” I say, looking her in the eyes. “I can’t thank you enough.”

  “I understand your frustration over the Italian police,” she offers. “And I cannot begin to fathom your fear.”

  “Neither can I,” I say, opening the door for her. “Neither. Can. I.”

  Chapter 46

  THE JOURNALIST IS NOT gone for more than thirty minutes before my blindness returns. I’m convinced now that if I can force myself to sleep, I will regain my eyesight far quicker than if I were to remain awake. Inside my dopp kit in the bathroom, I find the bottle of sleeping pills that I use on transatlantic flights to knock myself out. I take a pill with a shot of whiskey. Then I shuffle the twelve steps across the studio floor to the bed, and lie down on it. In no time at all, sleep takes over and I find myself in a different country altogether.

  * * *

  Climbing a gravel and sand-covered mountain, the dust flying into my mouth, through my scarf, my booted feet following a narrow path, I am alone, my troops having abandoned me. Off in the distance, across the wide valley, come the echoes of cannon and mortar fires. Overhead the sun shines brightly, just as it did for the Russians before us and the British before them and Napolean’s French before them. So bright and brilliant it stings my retinas even through the polarized sunglasses that wrap around my head. With each step I take, I hear the whispers and words of a million ancient souls buried in this Godforsaken, barren earth. The souls call out my name.

  I climb, my M4 carbine strapped to my shoulder, pack on my back, a trickle of cold sweat sliding down my spine. When I come to the top of the hill, I can barely catch my breath. I’m getting too old for this war. I’m getting too old for war. With each step up the mountain, I get a little bit older and more fragile. Looking down at my hands, I’m surprised to see that my black gloves are missing. My hands have turned wrinkly and old, the muscle having deteriorated, the skin gray and covered in age spots. I really am old.

  I struggle to walk. But the voices are speaking to me. The voices of a thousand battles fought before my birth. I am afraid of them and I need to escape them. So I walk.

  Then I see him. A little boy of no more than two. He’s got short black hair, perhaps shorn with scissors, and green eyes that look a lot like small stones of backlit jade. He’s wearing blood red cloth shorts and he’s holding a rose in one hand and a heart in the other. A heart that is still pumping and bleeding. The more I struggle to climb and the closer I come to him, the more I can make out the smile planted on his pale face.

  When he holds out his hands for me, the rose petals shivering, the heart pumping, dripping, I lose all my strength and drop to my knees. It’s then I fall to my knees and place my hand to my chest, feeling the gaping hole. The little boy is holding my heart. My ancient heart. Coming close, he shoves the heart back into the hole. Then he places the stem of the rose into the barrel of the M4. Now that his hands are empty, he sets them upon my face and wipes away my tears.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, the words coming out as a hoarse whisper. The words of an old, dying man. A dead man.

  “I know,” he says.

  And then he disappears. Disappears into the sun, and the wind, and the barren earth.

  * * *

  I open my eyes. I can see. I’m staring up at the ceiling.

  I can see but I cannot move.

  It’s as if I am glued to the mattress, my limbs, head and torso impossibly paralyzed. I can breathe, swallow and I can feel my heart drumming against my ribs. But I can’t lift a finger any more than I can speak or shout. My voice, my ability to make any kind of sound whatsoever, has vanished.

  I’m not alone.

  There’s someone in the room. I can’t see him, or feel him, or speak with him. But I know he’s there, the same way a bird will sense the onset of an earthquake minutes before the ground opens up. At first, I believe I can see. But then it dawns on me that I am not staring at the plaster ceiling. I am staring at the inside of my eyelids.

  The sound of breathing.

  Then I hear, “I. See.” He pronounces the word “See” like, “Seeeezzz.”

  I hear the words coming from the end of the bed. The smell coming from that direction is wormy and moldy. His presence is overwhelming. Like meeting my maker. Or in this case, my destroyer. My and Grace’s destroyer. I want to jump up, grab him, throw him down onto the floor. I want to slam his head on the floorboards, until he gives up the location of my Grace. Then I want to choke him until his heart and lungs stop.

  I want to kill him.

  Kill. Him.

  But then, I feel myself drifting.

  Falling and drifting.

  Until I am once more unconscious.

  Chapter 47

  WHEN I OPEN MY eyes again, I can still see. And daylight is pouring in through the French doors. I slide out of bed, look for any signs of an intruder. There are none. And something else. Judging by the position of the furniture, I didn’t sleepwalk last night. At least, there doesn’t seem to be any evidence that I did. Not the least of which is waking up in my own bed. Mine and Grace’s. Everything seems to be in its proper place.

  I check the door.

  It’s locked, the bolt engaged. I check the French doors. They are closed and locked, just like I left them last night. Standing in the studio by th
e couch, I recall the presence of a man standing at my bed in the middle of the night. I recall the smell of body odor and must. I recall the words he spoke.

  “I. See.”

  I recall not being able to move a muscle. Not being able to utter a sound. I recall being entirely paralyzed, as if I’d been injected with a drug that can render me immobile, but somehow allow my senses to thrive.

  Of course, it’s entirely possible I was dreaming yet another one of my crazy dreams. I’m no stranger to vivid dreams. Soldiers who spend enough time in the field will eventually experience one or two of them. Dreams in which the line between reality and the dream world becomes confused and undefined. Exhaustion and stress will do that to a man. You find yourself standing guard in the middle of the night, then suddenly you see eyes looking back at you in the darkness and the movement of a figure. Maybe several figures. The figure is carrying a weapon and he’s about to ambush you.

  You don’t think twice.

  You empty an entire clip into the darkness. When the morning comes, you see that the eyes you swear you saw in the dark were nothing more than the white flowers on a bush reflecting the moonlight. The movement was nothing more than the wind on the willows.

  Fear cripples.

  Loneliness kills.

  Sanity is fleeting when you’ve experienced enough battlefields.

  Dreams will tear you apart…

  …But only if you let them.

  As usual, I check my cell phone.

  Nothing.

  I call Grace’s number.

  Now I don’t even get a computer voice telling me her mailbox is full. I get only an American computer voice that tells me the number I’ve reached is out of service or temporarily disconnected. So please check the number and try calling again, or check with an operator for assistance.

  Screw you and the digital line you rode in on.

  I decide to calm down, before I become so frustrated and angry I do something stupid, like toss my cell phone through the French doors and into the feeder canal below. I wash my face, brush my teeth, make the coffee. While the espresso is cooking on the stove, my eye catches my laptop. I go to it and refresh the page. It’s still open to CNN and the short side-bar article about Grace’s disappearance. I peer down at it, not sure what to expect. The article is still the same article. But something is different. I see my comment, and I see the comment that the reporter, Alessandra Betti, made in response to it. But there’s a third comment.

  It says, “I was there at the café. I saw what happened.”

  It’s signed simply, “Geoff.”

  An email follows. GeoffM@gmail.com

  I feel my pulse pick up. I copy the email and paste it to the address line in the place for composing email in my AOL account. I write:

  Dear Geoff,

  I am Grace’s fiancé. What did you see?

  Please write or call or both…Please!!!

  Nick Angel

  (01-518-565-4999)

  I click Send and I wait for an immediate answer. Knowing that I won’t get one, I decide to drink my coffee and try to calm down. But it’s no use. I think about what day it is. It’s Wednesday. I recall when I was a child in grade school, how I would come home off the yellow school bus and watch ancient reruns of the Mickey Mouse Club. Wednesday was “Anything Can Happen Day.”

  Today is Wednesday.

  Soon, Alessandra will be here with the results of the print tests on Grace’s diamond. That is, if the reporter is true to her word. Perhaps at the same time, I will hear from the man who saw Grace being taken away. Maybe I’ll also hear the progress of the police investigation. My God, maybe it’s possible I’ll also hear from Grace.

  Wednesday.

  Today, anything can happen. Today my life will never be the same.

  Chapter 48

  I’M NOT HALFWAY FINISHED with my coffee when my cell phone rings.

  I nearly spill what’s left trying to answer it.

  “Hello!”

  “Mister Angel?”

  “Yes. It’s me. Yes. You saw what happened?”

  “I did. But I’m not comfortable talking about it over the phone.”

  “Why? What difference does it make? What? Difference?”

  “They’re listening.”

  “Who? Who’s listening?”

  “Meet me at the Ponte Rialto. Fifteen minutes. I can’t stay long. The missus and I are leaving on the noon train. She won’t know I’m meeting you.”

  “How will I know you?”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll know you.”

  He hangs up.

  Chapter 49

  AS ALWAYS, WHEN I step out into the daylight of Venice all alone, I never know when my blindness is going to return. I’m taking no chances this time. I call Giovanni and ask him if he has some time to accompany me this morning to the Rialto. He tells me he does. Fifteen minutes later he meets me outside the door of my building, a smile beaming in his round, young face. I sense that all this is an adventure for him.

  “Finally, you have a witness,” the wiry leather-jacketed young man says while lighting a cigarette. “I knew it. Only matter of time, Captain.”

  But I don’t share his optimism.

  They are watching…

  The man I communicated with over the phone sounded nervous and unsure. Like he was being watched, or worse, warned against talking with me. Or maybe my imagination is playing tricks on me again. When you spend more than half your time without the use of your eyes, you learn to see things in your head. But the things you see are not real. They are a collage of what you remember and what you believe to be true. More often they are a cob-job of fact, fantasy, and paranoia. Things happen. Events pile up, one on top of another, like a cairn of rocks, all of them of differing shapes and sizes, weights, and colors. There’s just no pattern or predictability to anything. No logic. A woman goes missing, and you—her man—is half blinded. Rather, blind for more than half the time. You sleepwalk now. Something you have never done before. But then you’ve never been blind before either. But you sleepwalk and dream vivid dreams, and when you walk in your sleep you can see without the threat of blindness. And it’s quite possible you make things in your sleep. Possible you’ve built a replica of Venice out of boxes, spoons and plates. When you find a card with a picture of Santa Lucia placed at the very end of what’s supposed to be the Grand Canal, you become convinced that you are somehow communicating with your missing fiancée.

  Or maybe something else is going on.

  Maybe you are being set up by the overcoated man who stole Grace in the first place. Maybe the overcoated man has a key to the apartment. Maybe the overcoated man built the replica of Venice and placed the card of Santa Lucia there so that you couldn’t help but find it once you woke up without blindness.

  Or what the hell, maybe you are just plain crazy and delusional. A casualty of war. A malady. Maybe Grace was beginning to see the madness in you, and she had no choice but to leave you for good. But then, what choice do you have other than to keep on looking for her? Looking for the truth?

  “We should go,” I say, already pointing in the direction of the Rialto.

  “It’s your dime, Captain.”

  I walk.

  Chapter 50

  OTHER THAN THE BRIDGE of Sighs, the Rialto is the most famous bridge in all of Venice. Therefore it is constantly occupied by lovers and tourists, their cameras and video cams. Giovanni tells me he’ll wait for me at the bottom of the bone-colored, marble steps while, “You do what you have to do.” He won’t be far should the darkness suddenly return to my eyes.

  I begin to climb the steps, my eyes scanning the many men and women I pass by, none of them paying me any particular attention. Until I spot a man standing at the top of the stairs. He’s a short man. Pudgy. Stocky. His head is naturally bald and his blue eyes lock onto mine the closer I come to the top.

  I stop on the stair tread just below his, making us the same height.

  “Captain Angel?”
he poses. A question for which he already knows the answer. “My name is Geoff Miles, from Cleveland. My wife and I are here on vacation. A second honeymoon really.” Smiling. “You can call me Miles. All my friends do.”

  “What do you know about my fiancée?” I ask. “Who stole her away?”

  I feel a near panic in my voice. It increases with intensity with every word I speak. I want to grab hold of this little man, shake him, scream at him, demand for him to tell me what he knows. But that’s the last thing I should do.

  He steps up onto the landing, approaches the marble banister. I follow, and together we stand at the top of the Rialto looking out onto the Grand Canal and the near chaotic boat traffic that approaches and disappears beneath our feet.

  “I was having lunch with my wife,” the man begins, in a soft, calm voice. “We were seated a couple of tables away from yours. Forgive me for saying this, but I couldn’t help staring at you. Truth be told, you were…are…a handsome couple. But it was the way you spoke to one another that captured my attention.”

  “My blindness.”

  He nods, and turns to me. He peers into my eyes as though distrusting them more than myself.

  “You’re not blind right now, are you?” he asks.

  “It comes and goes,” I say. “The condition is not physical. Only the result of the condition is physical.”

  He shakes his head. “I don’t understand.”

  “I was in the war in Afghanistan,” I explain. “Things happened.”

  Now instead of shaking his head, he begins to nod.

  “I’m sorry,” he offers. “I was deployed with the Marines in Viet Nam. I was at Tet in the summer of ’68. Just in time for my eighteenth birthday. I saw some things too, just like you. Things I’d rather forget. But I tend to forget my anniversary more than the human beings I killed. Their faces. Their eyes.”

  “It’s not your fault. You didn’t start the war. You did what you were told. Now tell me, what did you see, Miles?”