Venice

For more than a year, I had been working 18 or more hours a day, usually seven days a week, starting my own business and trying to keep making art at the same time. In my business, I worked with architects and interior designers, creating painted interiors—stage sets for real-life productions-- usually based to some extent on historic European and (what we rather generously referred to as) classical period styles. My fine art work was primarily drawing and painting in abstracted and geometric imagery exploring a fluid interplay of representation and symbol within a framework of architectural and landscape motives. I seemed to work all the time and my long hours were only possible because so much of both endeavors were accomplished in my studio in New York.

A scheduling delay on a large design project gave me the possibility of two very unexpected weeks off. I was exhausted and I was worried about money. But I knew that the balance due on this project would be paid, so I decided to take a recovery vacation and bought a last-minute discount ticket on Alitalia. My one splurge would be to make a reservation at the bespoke Pensione Academia in Venice. I had been working so much for so long (and, when on-site, at projects mostly in South Florida) that I didn’t stop to think that there must be a reason why I got the room on no notice and at a rate more reasonable than I had expected.

Only after the plane had landed in Milan- before dawn, of course- did I realize that it was November in Italy just as it was in New York and, though it certainly could have been warm, or at least mild, it wasn’t. Also, I had decided to go alone to a place inseparably aligned in world consciousness with romance- Casanova, Byron, sad Millie and even sadder Merton from Wings of the Dove- the practical equivalent of going out to dinner at the Rainbow Room by yourself on New Year’s Eve. I was simply too tired to care. I had decided to go to the only place I knew of where there were no cars, where life, if only for now this brief sojourn, could be lived slowly and on foot, neither in nor dodging the noisy machines that ruled the rest of the world.

I couldn’t sleep on the plane and hadn’t really slept properly in so long that I didn’t give my blurry vision, racing pulse and slow reactions any thought until I was entirely disoriented as everyone was directed, upon disembarking the aircraft, to walk across the tarmac to the terminal. I couldn't even see the building. Who knew Malpensa Airport was so small? Arctic-cold wind couldn’t budge the preposterously thick fog hulking at my feet like wads of cotton candy or a cheap special effect from a school play.

I do not remember how I got to Milan Central Station. At that point all I could feel beside the enormous burden of my own very generalized exhaustion was the precise fiery crust of the edges of my eyelids. My eyes felt like two blank targets stapled open at close range.

Someone had told me to hop on the first train- conveniently, if predictably, named after the 18th century painter, the Canaletto- to Santa Lucia Station, Venezia. Thoughtfully, since this was a spur of the moment trip, no one had bothered to suggest that it might help considerably if I learned a word or two of Italian, though I would have to negotiate at least a ticket before any train-hopping could occur.

Somehow, without uttering a single real word in any language (only a half-hearted attempt at some bad high school French that could not make it past the dryness of my lips), I managed to get on the right train with a bottle of water, 2 cappuccinos and 2 ham sandwiches. Little did I imagine that morning that I was establishing a pattern I would repeat at least 3 times a year for more than 2 decades. Nor did I realize for some time that I was beginning a relationship that would embody in every way the kind of knowing that moves through familiarity to infatuation, discovery and disappointment, resignation and gratitude, finally becoming something inseparable from self.

Even then, my guiding memory had been a dream of rest. As a teenager, my first trip to Europe had been a speed-dating package tour of capitals and intermittent rest-stops of cultural interest punctuated midway by two whole days in Venice. Of course, I remembered nothing that was not luminous-- intense, blinding white sparkles ricocheting off the hotel lobby mirrors from the sun-streaked canal beyond the terrace doors, the soft red glow of the endless gilded ceilings of the Doge’s Palace, the silly, thin arbitrary light from a spidery chandelier in my room. Also, how to forget the green glow and surprise of a single small tree, far-off to one side in the stony campo outside my bedroom window? Like a child left behind in an empty field when all the bigger boys have gone off to play or scheme, it was defiantly upright (thirty years later, though hardly any bigger, it still appears to be waiting.)

As the Canaletto sped through the slow morning light I began to recall these and other memories that had been lurking silently or sleeping somewhere just below consciousness for so many years. Going forward, I was also going back, as these almost forgotten recollections began to surface and reveal themselves as the outer planes of something more dimensional, its heart and contents yet unknown.

I sipped my coffee and nibbled at my sandwiches. Gradually, the outer darkness took on a pale and bluish tint in the far-off distance, lightening the slate-black sky in gentle gradations more subtle than the aqueous tones of a Japanese painting. I wasn’t so tired anymore and my eyes didn’t ache to close, though it was impossible to focus on the tiny print of the Blue Guide opened in my lap. So much information, and doubtless many thousands- millions- of people who had benefited enormously from all those words, clues and keys to the kingdom I would soon enter. The book seemed to close on its own, but remained in my lap like an old cat new to me, content merely to sit. I figured that I had planned a long stay in a place where tourists generally spent a day or two at most. I could get around to edification later in the week; for now, I would simply soak in the sights and sounds and rhythms.

Mestre, the Canaletto’s last mainland stop, was choked with people, cars, signs, cement, plastic, steel and glass and looks like the parking-lot ticket booth of a large amusement park or flea market, which, in a way, it was. Once the train entered the causeway crossing the lagoon it began to rock gently back and forth- perhaps just an effect of the angled light bouncing off the water on each side of the low bridge. Despite the cold, the sky was bright and clear, yet changing, quickly and often.

As the train progressed- there is no other word for this particular transition, no matter how many times I have made the trip- the hazy clump at the end of the rail in the middle of the water seemed both too small and too curious to be Venice itself. Small islands scattered along the way, just mounds of grass and debris in the shallow shoals, looked impossibly natural and casual. One or two had scraggly trees or low thickets of scrub brush clotted with trash. It was an unimaginable end to a ride through countryside so carefully and artfully cultivated over so many centuries.

Worse, there was nothing to see but the backs of low crumbling buildings next to an abandoned lot filled with weeds and waterfowl (over the years the crumbling buildings became first an Old People’s Home and then luxury condos.) A chunky multi-storied car park with a dead-end bridge of its own and a shipping container perch set the limit of view to the other side. Except for the dim outline of a crooked campanile here and there, nothing was impressive and nothing was tall enough to stand out. Could Venice really have been hidden behind that puny decoy wall?

Finally, the train rutted into the narrow closure of the terminal and simply gave out with something that resembled a mechanical burp. A few dark glass doors spotted an uninviting cement-colored wall; it could have been the entrance to an abandoned sports arena’s restrooms. Inside was as unattractive as expected, but clean and bright and full of people, like any busy suburban commuter stop with a gift shop specializing in moderne art-glass ashtrays, a newsstand and florist- perhaps there was a hospital nearby. I bought a map and moved toward the doors leading to the caffé where I intended to plot my way to the Pensione, fortified by several cups of strong Arabian coffee with steamed milk and sugar and at least a pair of crispy pastries shaped like molting castanets. Here, I was certain, they would not taste like the boxes they came in, as they did in New York.

The double doors revealed something I hadn’t expected. There was no waiter service section. The bar, where everyone was standing in one thick clutch, was crowded two deep with what must have been a convention of sign-language interpreters frantically decoding the incredible volume of noise. I could see that simply sidling up and coyly gesturing for this or that and then offering a banknote sufficiently large to cover the estimated cost was not going to work. Besides, there was no empty spot to insinuate myself into. My first reaction on seeing the Casse, the central cash register attended by a woman who has seen everything without ever having bothered to look up, was despair. In projected weariness I realized that every caffé would be the same- at least the kind I could afford to frequent. I was torn between the frustration of always having to state-- in advance-- what and how many of something I wanted, and a ridiculous embarrassment that the preferred transaction model for casual public imbibing in this last ruin of an ancient empire most resembled an American charity picnic or children’s dance where one first bought colored tickets to redeem at the buffet or bar. But, clearly, that was the only way I would eat or drink.

I was the only person convinced by my performance of casually strolling over to the bar to peruse the offerings. Desperately, I searched in vain, for some little identifying sign; the glass cases were loaded with trays and plates brimming with pastries and sandwiches-- what were they called? My hoped for sfogliatelle were the only thing I could pronounce and none were in sight. I dragged my way to the register and asked for the only things I could think of: un cappuccino, un croissant. She responded instantly with a number I knew I needn’t bother trying to decipher.

I laid down a 50,000 Lire note (about $25.00 at the time); coins jangled down into the metal bowl as I turned to the bar, forgetting-- though how can one forget something only suspected-- to take my change and the receipt, the carnival ticket to be redeemed at the counter. Whatever sound she made, I knew she was calling me back; and, though I had failed, there was no censure or coldness in her voice. I was just like all the others, Those Who Don’t Know.

I had not even sipped my first Venetian coffee and already I had begun the hard lesson of seeing myself in action. Not an idle reflection to check my jacket or collar, but a real rub against the grain of assumption and habit that would humiliate and amuse me in untold ways for years to come was my reward. That the stakes were so low- a cup of coffee I could easily afford- seemed to be an unexpected gift, balm for the wound: how else could I bear to see just how little, how poorly, I knew how to ask and to pay? I opened the map to check which boat line I would need.

Outside, a stretched-out asymmetrical tumble of spacious stairs lounged across the front of the station's canal-side smoked glass façade. The wide, open pavement was intended to accommodate the incomprehensible number of tourists who would spill in and out of the station all day long. Most puddled in groups, as I had done so many years before, behind polyglot trainers and embarrassing easy-to-identify colored banners, in tow like lines of ducklings. A couple of Venice’s rare trees were kept to one side of the station entrance like trained pets on pedestals, fed by the random generosity of passersby and advertising a zoo that was already long forgotten. But that day, there was no one around, or practically so. The meandering hordes of tourists I remembered or expected were not here, not out in this weather, this time of year, and the hotel hawkers were all inside the terminal, smoking.

The vast expanse of sky was instantly sliced down to storybook scale by the impossibly narrow canal (like everything in Venice, the Grand Canal opens up farther along), its opposite side bordered chock-a-block with short stage-front Palazzi. Directly across from the station, the marvelous stunt of a one-building Greeting Committee (a lanky and lumbering neo-classically straight-faced church, San Simeone Piccolo, with a ridiculously way-too-tall weathered green dome that looks like nothing so much as a Bank with a Hat) gleefully acknowledged my arrival: Benvenuto! I have arrived.

The sky rotates from calendar-blue to a brilliant colorless gray, mopped over with long careless dark streaks of heavy clouds. It is almost raining; the air is heavy with mist that rises up from the canal as much as down from the sky, eminating even from brick and plaster walls like legions of old, unhurried ghosts.

BIGLIETTI. Ahah: at the water’s edge, the silly little hut with the big red letters is the cash register for the vaporetto, the boat-bus, with a tarrif sign that someone must think is in English. A “Carnet” of 10 tickets is an effortless exchange. Gangplanks on either side of the ticket booth lead to large pontoon landing stages bobbing a yard or two out into the water; each has a flat metal roof, wide openings and a glassed-in waiting area off to one side.

The No. 82 glides up and nestles into the platform and I run onto the boat, setting aside one ticket in my top pocket. Having read no guide, I do not know that the ticket is not valid unless stamped. The map, however, has told me that there are three bridges across the Grand Canal: Ponte degli Scalzi, Rialto, Academia; my hotel is a short walk from the stop at the base of the last bridge.

At the prow of the vaporetto, in front of the captain’s small cabin, two benches face outward, forming an enclosed V that cradles a jumble of orange and white life preservers that are not sufficiently convincing in their suggestion of salvation. They are, however, very cheerful and that, perhaps, is more to the point. The low roof of the boat does not quite cover this forward section and the seats are damp. Of course, that is the only reason the best view is available. The vaporetto is otherwise packed. Where did they all come from? I foolishly assume that the station is the “start” of the run. In fact, it is pure chance that I am on the right boat, headed in the right direction.

The route zigzags a lazy touch-tag from one bank to the other as we inch our way along this watery Main Street toward “downtown”. Actually, the boat seems to be going every direction but forward, gently nodding up and down on the tide and curling left and right into the floating-platform stops at each side of the canal where passengers come and go in surprisingly agile and elegant choreography. Nothing, I imagine, could be more exquisite than this languorous glissando, bordered and cheered along by the exotic ruffle and rabble of carved stone and crumbling creamy stucco inset with deep-hued articulations of precious stones and glimmering glass.

Faces are everywhere. A bleacher of renaissance saints disguises the entrance to a church huddled cheek-by-jowl with small, self-conscious follies and grandiose preening palaces. Windows and arches are crested with startled youths, drowsy goddesses or the frozen leer of a craggy satyr. I am inordinately susceptible to the magic of art and craft, water and sky, the innuendos that whisper from alcoves or shout from projections, the maps that chart a path from foreground to background.

Suddenly, the utter utility and dowdy inelegance of the clunky wooden beams that sturdily compose the almost century-old “temporary” Ponte dell’Academia reminds me that beauty is, after all, only beauty, and that sometimes you just want to get to the other side. I am too green to all this to have any appreciation of what a miracle it is that I can find my hotel on the first try. There are no street addresses in Venice.

A charming courtyard with a few roses still in bloom and cascades of deep velvety green leaves sprinkled with ochre and crimson leads to the tiny lobby. In perfect English more elegant than I would have thought possible for such a simple phrase, I am welcomed and told that my room is not ready. However, it happens that the room only needs arranging. If it should please signor to retire to the dining room, they would be delighted to offer him coffee- breakfast, of course, is finished- and, after, it would be their sincere and profound pleasure to convey him above. My small bag is magically transported out of my hands and I am formally tendered into the loving care of an elderly gentleman with beautiful white hair and a supple maroon jacket to walk me the two or three steps to the dining room.

There, I am gently guided as if by a hypnotist into a filigreed chair of surprising comfort. The younger, black-vested waiter asks if monsieur prefers milk with his coffee. Oui, merci, I am so tired I respond without thinking in the international mode. Tilting his head, he looks at me and inquires, Perhaps, Jews? Speaking no Italian whatsoever, I cannot possibly afford to laugh at the delight of his pronunciation since I, at least, know what he means. Yes, thank you. He turns and walks to the kitchen, but stops midway and circles back, scanning me like a doctor who has known me since childhood. He taps his moustache delicately at one corner: Perhaps an egg, as well? It is his assessment, not really a question. Yes, thank you, that would be marvelous. Are we all trapped in a period farce? Now I begin to doubt, wondering what may actually happen once the next scene begins.

Thirty seconds later he carries a linen-covered tray with a small silvery pot of coffee, a steaming porcelain pitcher of milk and a tall glass of tomato juice. Oh. I had imagined orange or grapefruit, pink grapefruit even, I don’t know why. I do not like tomato juice, especially in the morning. Unbelievably, given all that has transpired, it is still morning. I decide to say nothing and drink the juice offered to me so graciously. I lift the glass to my lips and the taste is nothing I have ever known, or, frankly, will ever experience to the same degree again: my first, fresh Blood-Orange juice- impossibly thick, ambiguously sweet, truly voluptuous. I have barely drained the last drop from my glass when the “egg” arrives, a perfect glowing cosmos, wrapped in a tissue of prosciuto atop a sliver of crisp toast in a shallow lozenge shaped dish.

Thirty minutes later I am, indeed, conveyed above into the tiniest perfect room, paneled in dark gleaming wood and outfitted with the care and precision of a fine boat. My cocoon’s window faces out onto the garden below with the paler green band of the canal momentarily translucent in a spotlight of fleeting mid-day sun. I close the shutters, undress and sink into the thick linen and soft blanket-folds of my first adult daytime nap.

Alberti

The guidebooks call it a faded jewel, worth the little extra money (in its category) for the splendidly detailed, if now slightly shabby, ambiance. The third-floor two star pensione at Palazzo Alberti is owned by two ancient women and a man who seems to have been at one time, and perhaps still is, one of the women’s husband, or, maybe, they are all cousins. Once, they must all have been merely related, each with a life of their own; now, they seem to be literally inseparable, a single soft chatting pile of beige tweed, grey cashmere and comfortable calfskin shoes arrayed across three delicately carved armchairs lined up behind the flat walnut desk in the lobby. As far as I can tell they never get up, but simply disappear late in the afternoon to reappear early the next morning, each with a small cup of tisane from which they never drink.

I say hello and bow to the trio of good luck charms in their chairs as I pass down the hall, through the dark salon with its vague painted ceiling and step into the long, bright breakfast room. Apricot-colored walls and tablecloths are framed in the golden oak of the paneling, shutters and gleaming parquet floor. Opposite the double glass doors four enormous deep-set windows like balconied opera-house boxes peer down into the partially enclosed courtyard, a tentative orchestra with only a few stone benches; a string of chestnut trees draped in crimson and topaz autumn leaves forms the proscenium and curtain of this makeshift theater. An elegant middle-aged woman stands gazing out the window in the far end of the room, hands clasped together under the tip of her chin; cold morning light flickers in sharp colorless notes off the slim gold bracelets jumbled on one wrist and the well-tended cataract of silver-streaked hair hiding her face. She does not notice my entrance.

Trying to preserve the silence in the room, I tiptoe over to a small table under the nearest window. Before I sit down a large uniformed waitress appears, more sentry than serveuse, pointing to a different table. I look around, there is no one but we three-- surely, my gesture inquires, I can sit by the window? Her strong, crisp voice fits the room perfectly, like another chandelier, illuminating the quiet without disturbance. --Non; prego, signor. It is not a request. She points again to the table along the wall, smoothing her pale green linen apron with the back of her other hand. As if I cannot be trusted, and here she is correct, she walks to the table and waits-- glancing at the floor, the meter running-- until I relent and follow. As I sit down feeling the injustice of my circumstance and the probability that all Americans must feel that way any time the slightest freedom is curtailed, I notice a small dark handbag hanging from a chair at the neighboring table.

On her way to the kitchen for coffee and rolls, the waitress pauses, whispering something to the woman at the window, who turns and thanks her, Maria, by name. Gliding to her table, the one next to mine, the woman inclines her head to one side: --Bonjour, monsieur. --Bonjour, madame. -- Ah, you speak English; she cracks the spine of the napkin into her lap and snaps her head the other way, ready to spar. --Where are you from? I am from… Chile, my name is Clarice. I tell her my name and that I am from New York, which is accurate, for now.

The extent to which Clarice is rapidly calculating her moves and making allowances for much more than just my age shows only in the piercing sparkle of her eyes but does not alter her expression of her mouth, which is hard and beautiful; she is used to higher stakes and more refined circumstance. Smiling, she enunciates with razor clarity a long sentence in Italian that I cannot possibly comprehend, no matter how slowly she might speak. -- Sorry, I don’t speak Italian. -- Surely, some? Of course, we could just practice simple phrases? Her language skills are so refined that she can speak in English but use the Romance syntax to confirm her rights as the Lady of the house and imply that I am witholding something I posess. -- I’m terribly sorry, but I don’t know Italian at all. There is really so little I do know except that Clarice is looking more familiar and more American by the minute; she is accustomed to getting her way and I want to get away.

Clarice begins a sentence in French, with which she needs no practice, and I must again suggest that, if she wishes to speak with me, it must be-- je suis desolé, madame-- in English; my simple and fragmentary French will wear out long before the first cup of coffee is finished. I am as humiliated by this as is she. As if to the empty cup in her hand: --Ah, yes, American. But her voice no longer carries the electric shocks of challenge and disapproval by which she hoped to snap me to obedience, if not attention. She softens and an almost imperceptible sigh lingers in the curve of her lower lip. I wonder what on earth she is doing in this place.

To me she is already suspect because of the reference to Chile- I don’t know the details or what to think, and it will be years before I understand how the dictator she approves was first installed. For now, no matter what we each may think or want, Clarice and I are the only people in this room, about to break bread together. For what I suspect might be very different reasons, or not, we both relent: she will ask for less and I will offer more, each in our own way.

--As a girl, I would come here with my sister and mother, to buy clothes. I am even staying in the same room. Then, Maria’s mother oversaw the Dining Room and, sometimes, Maria and I would wander in the little garden there below while the grown-ups had tea and drinks; my sister was always ill and rarely left our room. My sister is still ill, and living in Rome where I must now go, too.