Sisterchicks in Gondolas!

by Robin Jones Gunn

  Sue felt hungry for good coffee. Or so she told me when she found me alone in the sitting room, deep in my morning meditations.

  “I was looking for Netareena,” I said.

  “I have her.”

  “You do? Where?”

  Sue held up one of the cloth shopping bags we had bought the first day at the grocery store.

  “You didn’t put her in the bag, did you? Say you didn’t.”

  “Don’t worry. It’s not like I’m going to try to get her to produce eggs for me so I can sell them on the street. She was on the kitchen counter, and the bag was the best way to scoop her up.”

  “So what are you going to do with her?”

  “I don’t know. I was thinking of taking her with us.”

  “Back to Dallas?”

  “No, to San Marco Square. I thought I’d let her go there with all the other birds so she wouldn’t feel alone.”

  We stood in the sitting room and argued. It would have been a much friendlier argument if we had at least sat in the sitting room and discussed the options calmly.

  With each reason I presented on the side of leaving Netareena as she was, alone in the apartment, Sue became more passionate about taking the timid bird out of there.

  “She needs to get out of these familiar surroundings,” Sue said. “She has to go be with other birds so she can remember who she was before she had a major setback.”

  I gave up. It didn’t matter, really. Sue was talking about Netareena as if she were a person and not a little fallen sparrow. I knew our argument would matter even less after we had some coffee and one of Lucia’s breakfast rolls.

  Thus began our final full day as guests of Mama Venezia. With Sue’s “bird in the hand,” or should I say, “bird in the bag,” we made our sweetly familiar trek to Lucia’s.

  She was surprised to see us. I think because we walked through her door nearly three hours later than our usual visit. Most of her morning offerings already had been snatched up. However, two fresh baci were waiting for Sue and me. Lucia presented them to us with a glimmer in her amber-flecked eyes.

  The night before, while Steph had joined us for after-tobogganing gelato, I had asked her to write a note to Lucia in Italian for me. The sentiment was a simple thank-you for her kindness, along with my address, “Just in case you ever come to Dallas and want to stay with someone who speaks about six words of Italian.”

  Steph thought the note was “gracious” and “sweet.” Although she didn’t know Lucia and had never been to that panetteria, she was sure Lucia would appreciate the gesture.

  Steph was right. When Lucia read the note, she got teary-eyed and came around the counter to give Sue and me big Italian mama hugs. Both of us wore a dusting of pastry flour on the front of us the rest of the day.

  Paolo wasn’t quite as mushy when we showed up at one of his outdoor tables and ordered cappuccinos like pros. He flirted with us and brought us extra sugar cubes. At least we think his string of Italian was flirting. He could have been chewing us out for bringing our own breakfast rolls.

  We had gone for the same table where we had sat almost a week ago on that first Sunday morning in Venice. We even sat in our same chairs. The same violinist was standing in the same pocket of shade and playing the same Vivaldi tune.

  “He’s gotten even better,” Sue said as she sipped her cappuccino.

  “I’m not surprised, if he’s been playing it every day.”

  Sue looked across at him with a look of admiration. “I don’t think he’s been playing that piece every day. I think he’s been honoring that piece of music every day. He embraces it; he loves it. That’s why he’s gotten better.”

  I would have brushed off Sue’s philosophizing that morning, but her own words made her cry. Her tears were silent and ceaseless. Those are the deepest kind. I know because I had cried tears like that over my frozen milk when we ordered our first breakfast gelato here. My tears were incited by something simple—the look. That kind and encompassing way that Sue looks at me to let me know she accepts me just the way I am.

  I felt much more whole this morning than I had that morning. So much had happened in such a short time.

  I longed to know what was causing Sue’s tears now. What had changed in her this week? What was it about the Vivaldi music that got to her the way it did?

  “What piece is that he’s playing?” I asked.

  Sue spoke through her tears. “Four Seasons. He’s playing ‘Spring’ right now.”

  “A time of new beginnings,” I said more to myself than to Sue.

  She nodded and added, “A season of refreshment.” The tears kept coming; she didn’t try to stop them.

  One of the parts of our ebb and flow that had worked so well during the week was that Sue and I let each other just “be.” I’d made an effort to stop being bossy and to honor what she had asked earlier. I didn’t “diagnose” her, and I had put aside my great ambition to fix her. But seeing her pouring out so much now in deep tears, I didn’t feel that I could stand back and just let her be. I needed to coax the truth out of her heart.

  “Sue, what is it?”

  “The music. The bird. God sending goodness and mercy out to follow me. All of it.”

  I didn’t understand. Why would any of those things make her cry?

  She reached into her bag and pulled out her notebook where she had been listing the gelato ratings. “Read this.” She opened to a page where she had written a single verse.

  “Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.”

  The first part seemed rather harsh. I wasn’t sure why Sue would have written down a verse about repenting and sins being blotted out. I looked at her for an explanation.

  “That verse was on Malachi’s list,” she said. “It was one of the passages he read yesterday morning. I saw the reference when you showed me the list that fell out of his Bible.”

  “You glanced at the list one time and remembered that reference?” I knew I shouldn’t be surprised. To Sue, it must have been a piece of the puzzle to help decode her life map.

  “I looked it up last night,” she said.

  “When?”

  “After midnight. I couldn’t sleep. I’m glad you didn’t hear me get up. I went into the sitting room and took your Bible and my flashlight and notebook. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Of course not.” I smiled to myself. Every worthwhile woman’s retreat I’d ever attended listed on the brochure that we were to bring our Bible, notebook, pen, and flashlight. I always thought it odd to list those along with sunscreen, bath towel, and spending money. As if we weren’t old enough or responsible enough to think to bring those things.

  Listening to Sue, I knew why women needed to have those tools at hand whenever they went on a retreat. In the same way that I’d written down the message “You’re not done yet” so many months ago, Sue had written down this verse.

  I felt as if I were just beginning to see what it meant for me not to be done yet. I was ready for what was to come next. After all that had happened this week, I could see I had entered a new season. A springtime of beginnings.

  Now Sue was seeing something clearly. Something about this verse had sliced into her heart like a two-edged sword during her midnight encounter with the Spirit of God.

  Understanding now the source of her stream of tears, I leaned forward. “Tell me, Sue. I want to hear. What is it?”

  Her words came out low and lean. “I need to turn back to God. I need to trust Him the way I did before Jack’s accident.”

  I nodded. I knew such trust was a process that involved a lot of forgiveness. I’d gone down those steps before. I’d gone through years of processing. I probably could have “tobogganed” down those steps a lot faster if I had been willing to jump into the process of forgiveness as easily as I’d jumped on the mattress last night. But for the most part, I took one step at a time, carrying all the we
ight of my anger and disappointment with me.

  Sue, it seemed, was ready to jump. She had solved the biggest piece of the puzzle. Turning back to God all the way, trusting Him no matter what. I understood those steps better than Sue realized.

  “I’ve seen it this week in your life, Jenna. It doesn’t matter what goes wrong with the plan for life, does it? We still can start over. We can go back to God anytime.”

  I nodded, even though she didn’t need my affirmation. She had grasped onto truth and wasn’t about to let go.

  “It’s all so obvious to me now. God is great at visual aids, isn’t He?”

  I wasn’t sure what she meant.

  Sue gave a little sniff and turned her eyes toward the violin player. “Four seasons? Spring? Beginnings? It’s like God knew that if I didn’t catch what He was trying to tell me in the verse, then He knew I’d hear it in the music. He’s inviting me to enter a new season. A season of refreshing.”

  I smiled as the high violin notes rose on the morning breeze and came washing over us.

  “But first,” Sue said, the tears beginning to flow once more, “I have to turn back to God. All the way.”

  I reached over and gave her hand a squeeze, conveying the deep-hearted understanding I had for her and for what she was saying.

  “Go ahead, Sis. Jump into the deep end.”

  Twenty-One

  I’m not sure Paolo knew what to do with the two crying, praying, laughing women who occupied the corner table that morning. He brought us a second round of cappuccinos at no charge and left a stack of square cocktail napkins for us to sop up our tears.

  The violinist kept playing, as if mysteriously motivated by our emotions. Sue explained to me why she thought of the musician as honoring the music, embracing it, and loving it. She told me that echoed what she wanted to do when she returned home to her husband.

  “I want to honor him, embrace him, and love him—and get better at it every day,” she said.

  With awkward words I told Sue that I believed it could be well with our souls even when it might never be well with our circumstances.

  She nodded, and that’s when I knew that, for both of us, a season of refreshing definitely had come. And it came, as Sue’s verse said, from being in the Lord’s presence.

  By the time we had pulled ourselves together and were ready to take our swishy, sightseeing skirts to San Marco Square, the morning was almost passed. Sue had been checking periodically on Netareena in her protected sack and periodically fed the bird crumbs from her baci, making sure the bag stayed in the shade.

  “It’s time to let her go,” Sue said, as we rose from the café table, leaving behind a pile of used cocktail napkins.

  “Do you still want to take her to San Marco Square?”

  Sue paused. Her argument earlier that morning had been that Netareena needed to be around other birds. She needed to get out of her familiar surroundings and remember who she had been before the trauma hit her. I hadn’t understood at the time, but now I could see that Sue was projecting her own experience on this little wounded bird.

  I think Sue saw it, too. Whether her initial aspirations for Netareena had been subconscious or deliberate, Sue now seemed to have a different view of what needed to be done for her small charge.

  Bending down and opening the mouth of the shopping bag, Sue gently shook it. “Come on. It’s okay. You can come out now. This is a good place to start over.”

  Netareena emerged from the sack with a string of little hops. She paused in the brightness of the full sun for only a moment before flapping her wings and taking off.

  “Fly! Be free!” I called out as she flew to the top of the lone tree in the middle of Campo Apostoli.

  “Now I’m really ready,” Sue said. “Really, really ready for anything.”

  We hiked across footbridges and down narrow alleyways, caught up in a crush of sightseers all the way to the Piazza San Marco. Even so, our first impression, as we stepped into what Napoleon had dubbed “the most beautiful living room in Europe,” was how stunning the square was. The arched-front buildings on either side lined the huge plaza in perfect symmetry.

  Sue and I stopped to take it all in. I wasted no time in pulling out the camera and attempting to capture the magnificence. Ahead of us was the rocket ship bell tower that Sam said had once been a lighthouse guarding the opening of the Grand Canal. Directly behind us was the clock tower. A huge white statue of a winged lion with his paw on an open book stood on a wide ledge atop the fourth floor. Above the lion on the clock tower’s roof was a gigantic bell. Two grand statues of bronze men stood on either side of the bell. Both of them held long-handled anvils poised to strike the bell on the hour.

  To our right stretched the long, open piazza. Two outdoor cafés looked like they were doing a brisk business. The one on the right had yellow chairs at the small tables. The other café, across from us on the left side of the piazza, had tan, wicker-backed chairs.

  Being in such proximity, I guessed the competition between the two rivals had continued for many years. Each had its own “colors” and distinct clientele.

  “That café on the left,” Sue told me, as she consulted her tour book, “is the Caffe Florian. Hemmingway used to go there. So did Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Lord Byron, Henry James and—”

  As soon as I stopped recognizing the names of the famous people on Sue’s list, I interrupted her. “Would you mind if we just have a look around and do some of our own discovering?”

  She didn’t mind my suggestion. The tour book went back in her bag, and we spent the next four and a half hours being swept along into the nucleus of Venezia with thousands of other tourists. We saw it all. The view from the top of the crowded, claustrophobia-inducing bell tower, the tour of San Marco Basilica’s interior, and a shortened, self-guided tour of the Doge’s palace.

  My general impression of it all was, “so much.” There was so much gold. So much art. So much detail in the mosaic tiles, and so much history. We were surrounded by people, by many languages, by more odors and sounds than I could take in.

  I was on overload—sensory, emotional, and mental overload.

  Sue took it all in. When we returned to Dallas and started to tell our stories, Sue remembered everything about the hours we spent at San Marco Square. I think her heart and mind were so wide open that she had all kinds of space to take in every drop of the experience. I was open but already full of the stuff that had made the trip most memorable to me.

  The parts of that day that I do remember are the simple moments. One of them happened inside the basilica. When we first entered, everything in the cross-shaped church appeared dark since it had been so bright outside. Slowly, as our eyes adjusted and the filtered light changed, we saw the details in the tiled mosaics. The atmosphere was different from any church I’d ever been in. It felt mystical. The Eastern-Byzantine influence was like nothing I’d seen in other European churches.

  Inside the huge dome was a breathtaking tile mosaic that filled the dome in separate frames, like a movie. The pictures told the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. In one of the arches next to the dome was another picture story. This one was of Noah and the Great Flood. The frames were all worked in bright-colored tiles that could have come from Murano.

  Two features of that mural captured my attention. One was the image of Noah letting the dove out to see if the land was dry. The releasing of small birds was memorable for obvious reasons.

  I pointed it out to Sue, and she nodded and smiled.

  The other detail in the portrayal that caught our attention was that the first two animals in line to board Noah’s ark were none other than lions. Lions, lions everywhere.

  The actual burial place of St. Mark was difficult to see due to the swarms of visitors crowded around guides explaining in several languages what the tourists were viewing. A marble canopy with carved columns and an incredible altarpiece in thick gold detailed intricate scenes from the New Testament. That part of
the tour was just too much for me. I quietly shuffled out and found an open pew where I could sit and reflect.

  Sue wasn’t ready to stop until I convinced her we should find some much needed food. We hadn’t eaten anything since our morning baci.

  “I don’t want to miss anything,” she said.

  To solve that problem, we sat at one of the outdoor tables at the Florian Café so we could watch all the action around the piazza. The big attraction was the unceasing feeding of the pigeons.

  Vendors at carts sold small bags of corn for one euro. People of all sizes, shapes, colors, and ages poured the corn into their hands and held them out for the tame pigeons, which perched on the open palms and pecked away as if the birds hadn’t seen food for a month.

  “You would think those birds would be overfed,” Sue commented, as we finished our ham and cheese pannini.

  “They keep coming out of nowhere.” I watched a little boy timidly hold out his handful of corn. He quickly pulled away when the first bird tried to peck a kernel.

  “Are you going to make fun of me if I buy some corn to feed the pigeons?” Sue asked.

  “No, of course not. I’m going to take your picture!”

  After we paid for our late lunch, we strolled across the plaza to where it seemed less congested. Sue bought a bag of corn, and I readied the camera. She sedately poured five or six kernels in her hand and held it out, waiting for a taker. No pigeons came her way.

  Two teen boys were standing nearby. In broken English one of them said, “You want birds to come?”

  “Yes, do y’all have a secret to get them to come?”

  The boys exchanged glances that we should have interpreted as far too mischievous. But Sue was intent on attracting the birds, and I was concentrating on being ready to snap pictures. Neither Sue nor I saw what happened next.