Day-trip to Venice - a true short story

I’d dreamt about strolling through Venice forever; its uniqueness intriguing me even from early childhood, 118 small islands interconnected by almost 400 ancient bridges. Unbelievable. In fact, I couldn’t help but think I ‘d been there already, my fixation so strong. But in some other lifetime, for certainly not this one; my first attempt at getting there failing miserably during a visit to Yugoslavia - as it was known then; flying across the country on a Sunday only to find that the ferries didn’t run on the Sabbath. Damn Travel Agents. Thank God we can book from our living rooms these days, our phones, our children's learning toys. But that mistake saw me spend a day in the city of Opatija instead - somewhere I’d never have seen otherwise, and so for an intrepid traveller like me, I didn’t really care; any place I’d never been not without its own intrigue, and at that time I hadn’t travelled much at all. But it must have meant, I was sure, that the universe was making me wait until I had someone special to share Venice with, no, that trip would be reserved for one of the most romantic experiences of my lifetime. Yeah right; I know now that to be a load of crap; the kind of nonsense that only youth and perhaps a large percentage of the fairer race indulge themselves with.

Twenty-five- years later, taking a year off my life, I woke up to find myself living in a tiny 11^th century village on Lake Garda, Italy, a place not too far from Venice, only a few hours away, and as a part of the job I somehow got, I found myself selling day trips there. Yes, still with a love for the City of the Water that I’d never actually been to yet, I sold it as if it was my home away from home; whatever past life holding my heart dear to the place, surfacing to describe the wonders and the beauty of la Serenissima - one name used to describe the Republic of Venice. But I’m good that way; bullshitting in the sincerest sense, reading up on something and actually owing it – comes from the days when I was highly pretentious, or what I like to call my ignorance in training. Sales were high, the highest from around the lake actually, and the tourists told me on their return that Venice was everything I’d said it would be. Secretly, of course, I was more than envious of them, green with jealousy actually, agreeing all the while with a knowing smile that it was indeed, for I couldn’t even white-lie that I’d never actually been; my second attempt at going also kyboshed. This time, by the actor Heath Ledger, strangely enough, or at least the film production company that’d hired San Marco Piazza to film the remake of Casanova (a wonderful scenic comedy by the way). Yes, the romanticism I’d harboured tried once again to reassure me that I was supposed to wait; that I would one day go with that someone special. But crap; in all those years, if there’s one thing I knew about myself was that I was never going to fall in love; the universe had made that abundantly clear, and if there was one thing Venice is not, is conducive to wheelchairs or walking frames. F**k it, I wasn’t going to wait another twenty-five f**king years, I was going to go; carpe diem, isn’t that what they say in Italy... or at least, they used to. No, I’d kick myself if I’d lived so close and didn’t go when I had the chance. Living in North America will do that to you.

So one week later I hopped on the coach, a bit annoyed though that a work colleague, affectionately known as fat Simon, a bisexual man who made no bones about telling me how much he fancied me in front of anybody at all, including his elderly parents now sitting with him - one of whom indeed did need a wheelchair - was beckoning me to come and sit beside them. No-o... this can’t be who I was meant to go with, surely to God, I thought not able to quite correlate waiting twenty-five-years to go to Venice and a family whose pastime obviously was eating all the pies, bless them. No, that just wasn’t how it was supposed to be.

Now I’m an honest person, genuine, sometimes to a fault, and Simon’s parents were sweet, accommodating; insisting that I shouldn’t have to be on my own, that I was to join them, no ifs and buts about it. But I didn’t want to, and neither did I want to hurt their feelings, so I spent most of the trip on the way out thinking up various cunning plots to escape them when we got there. And then I saw it, there, in the near distance, sprayed with a fine mist and looking ethereal from the dock on the boat we’d needed to transfer to for the final approach, all other thoughts leaving me. I had indeed been to Venice before; recognizing it immediately, flashbacks of myself and some good friends cavorting along La Dominante, the promenade, with a Don Juan mask on and a cloak flowing behind me (or was that a drunken weekend in London?) And then it made sense to me; it didn’t matter whom I was with, for I really wouldn’t be with them at all, no one on the boat in that moment either, not even the captain, the song of Venice calling out to me and me alone: ‘Justa one cornetto, geev eet to me... deleecious ice cream, of Ital..ee...” or some such tune.

But seriously, Ernest Hemingway and I had drunk many dry martinis together in Harry’s Bar in San Marco’s Piazza. Yes, it was all coming back to me as the mini orchestras situated outside the restaurants all around the square took turns to serenade us with evocative latter day compositions in the opulent presence of the magnificent Doges Palace. Nothing had changed a bit; symphonies unfinished still. A shame though; only the privileged sitting on their patios, for the everyday visitor would need to take a second mortgage to pay for dinner there even without a glass, let alone a bottle, of wine - scandalous in a country famous for its vineyards. It was always the same, I found, ordinary people deprived of the finer things in life, but in Venice they seemed content to be discontent somehow; milling around soaking in the ambience for free, gravitating to enjoy the music leaking into the square as the waters themselves often did, and their underprivileged vantage points not stopping them from being asked for money anyway; someone coming around with a large feathered hat to gesticulate in front of them. Hard to refuse really. I’d often dropped a few thousand liras in one of those hats; more, if I could’ve afforded it, had sold a book or two when Ernest did me a favour and had written the foreword. But as it was then, I couldn’t even afford to offer up even one euro – but I’ll get to that. Simon’s family didn’t want to take out a second mortgage; preferring to save it for off piazza where prices for a bowl of pasta and a glass of wine, or jug o' beer in their case, were infinitely more favourable and fair. Besides, who knew how much the knock-off soccer jerseys would be? But I needed to revisit Harry’s Bar for at least the expenditure of a penny; it’d been about eighty years.

It hadn’t changed since Ernest and I used to sit there arguing. I, always hating his short sentences – far too many all together in my opinion – whereas he hated my tendency for lengthy descriptiveness and nuance, accusing me of being the King of the run-on. Oh how we used to laugh at that; insisting the other’s style was a joke. I felt compelled to go into the place even though it was empty and all eyes would be on me, real estate agents waiting to pounce, but I had to relive its energy, and I did so casually, pretended I was a patron, well versed in sauntering through some of the finest establishments around the world as if I'm unimpressed. And even if I didn’t have any then, I could still look as if I had money, belonged, a not quite thin air about me that was well accustomed to such places even in this lifetime. A waiter bumped into me. A bottle of champagne expertly balanced on a silver tray. There were two crystal glasses. I looked at his trajectory. A very old man and a beautiful young girl. Apparently uncle and niece. Their sentences seemed laboured. Short. They must have nothing in common, I thought. The champagne would no doubt help. But, no, they only watched people watching them afford it all. (See what I mean about short sentences? Huh... Ernest never could.)

“Permisso,” I said with a sophisticated smile and a not half bad Italian accent I thought (which isn’t difficult when you’re only speaking one word) before making my way up to the bagno facilities (and thus far one of the words I’d heard being used frequently, not really knowing what it meant; understanding only that it was appropriate in that circumstance – a technique, I’ve decided, most effective in learning another language; don’t translate in your head).

Of course the waiter showed me the respect I was due, no doubt about to sit on the empty patio when I came back down to sign away mi casa in exchange for a club sandwich. But I didn’t feel guilty, I’d spent enough there in the past, me and Ernest, we could’ve bought the damn place.

Inside hadn’t changed since the early nineteenth century either. Not one bit. In fact a lick of paint wouldn’t have gone amiss. But I loved that about it. The staircase up to the water closets still wooden, impossibly narrow; one wouldn’t be able to pass anyone on those stairs without needing to marry them afterwards. And the washroom itself, antediluvian; giving the feel almost that a ghost would fly out of the toilet or something, that is, until I got my greatest authors of all time back into perspective. I couldn’t help but think it was a very lovely and deliberate touch though; retaining the old fashioned quality, not the ghost – although that would’ve been wonderfully apt too, but I digress – something Ernest also found intolerable about my writing; telling me that when one knows a lot, its all right to leave a lot out. But spectres aside, the presence of Ernest and other expatriate Americans who’d come from Paris to find inspiration in Italy, was everywhere. Their artistic spirit potent indeed, lingering, contributing to those aspiring to write today – or at least it was to me. I could still hear their fluidic verbal skill; even in slanging their friendly insults across the square at each other, artists versus writers, using words that had entirely different meanings today, viewed in poetry now as a skilled form of prose but the norm for the era, a long suffering wife berating her drunken husband back then would, by today’s standards, also sound poetic to us. And flitting in and out of realities, I wondered if the urinal was the same one as he’d used back then. It could’ve been, what with all the cracks in it, discolour of the porcelain. Oh how Ernest would laugh if he could see how this incarnate so easily put words like ‘urinal’ into a story about the beauty and mystique of Venice, how he would have found that so fittingly ironic, for that’s what he used to say the city smelled like, indeed, was what many writers turned out, in his opinion; a steady stream of pissy novels that were complete shit.

Having had my penny’s worth, I slowly descended the stairs, taking the time to remember how we stumbled down them in the old days; tripping over our cloaks, drunk and laughing behind our masks and I swanned out of the door not really caring that the waiter was waiting to nab me, a contract, by the looks of it in his hands. But I just ignored him - well save for another somewhat feigned look of sophistication that said he didn’t matter a bean to my class, and a look of self satisfaction - after all, it’d been a long road there from Toscalano-Maderno and I’d been dying to go to the loo for ages; not liking to walk the gauntlet on the coach to go to the cubicle at the back where everyone can hear you flush, many passengers of whom were my clients who looked up to me, didn’t expect someone in my position should need to go to the toilet. No, I didn’t care at all, he was just staff, hardly Harry himself, or more appropriately, Giuseppe Cipriani, the general founder to whom Harry had repaid a loan threefold in order that he could open a sophisticated bar outside the opulence of hotels. And even if it was either of them, they’d know who I was. And now I could continue my walk unimpeded by my earthly body, my only impediment now fat Simon’s family. Lovely people, but common types; 'no business at all', Ernest might have said, 'being here in the first place', and sure enough, it was obvious they weren’t seeing what I was, judging by the disgruntled gawp on their faces. No, I had to make my escape; I only had a few hours to consume copious amount of Venice.

It was easy enough though, well... after the amusement factor of dining at the MacDonald’s located in an ancient building which seemed to preoccupy their needs, it becoming obvious, as they lingered there, that they’d no intention of savouring anything else, just worrying about how far they’d have to walk for the soccer jerseys; the mother‘s ability impeded by her own immense weight meaning that she couldn’t leave the square, but a situation, nonetheless, that made it easy for me to make my excuses; citing quite honestly and politely in the end, that I’d meet up with them later, just needed to go explore, had always wanted to see Venice (again).

Having whizzed about all over the place though, satiating my hungry eyes with the treasures that the City of Bridges - another of Venice’s many names - served up on a veritable platter, my gluttonous nature finally consumed me myself; saw me lost. Now, being used to the grid road system of North America where one could back up and arrive at the place one started out from having taken parallel and adjacent roads, I thought I might be able to navigate my way easily enough across the bridges. Not so. I’d forgotten about that. But what a way to go; taking in the fine architecture, watching the Gondoliers, the crème de la crème of all men who apply for such a position, and who’ve worked almost their entire lives to fill them, passing intense exams to be able to – who knew it took more than just a strong voice and equally strong arm? Small boutique hotels were everywhere, and I could glance in some of their windows to see artistry at its ancient finest, intricate fixtures and fittings, chandeliers, nay...(nay?) ice structures poured from the heavens. I didn’t remember staying in any of them, chucked out of one or two perhaps... but maybe one day, I vowed, when I start writing again.

And as I started to panic, felt doomed to become an artefact myself in that glorious museum of charisma and affluence as I was, I came upon a bejewelled purse down yet another dead end back street canal where a bridge merely led to someone’s house, a humble place, the kind of which I did recognise, but meaning I had to walk back the way I’d come, the short streets starting to stretch endlessly, and thinking a wheelchair would be good about now. Time was running out in any century. I imagined the purse might’ve been dropped the night before by a fine lady dressed in sequins and feathers as she'd been whisked to the home of the masked lover she’d just met after one of the many masquerade balls that surely must be held every night there. And inside were the deeds to her house.

On arrival in Italy, I’d been humbled to have my wallet stolen. It contained thousands of Euros emptied from my bank account in Canada. All my cards were gone too, my ID, everything. The company I worked for hadn’t paid me any money all summer, not a bean; retaining it until such times as I could open a British bank account (a requirement being that it was a British Tour Operator that employed me – but not easy to open an account via the Internet when you haven’t lived in a country for nearly two decades). But through that, being poor, I’d found the joy in the simplicity of Italy all summer; sure, it meant no Italian fashions for me, no fancy nights out, no trips to more exciting attractions across the lake from the small hamlet where I lived that was surrounded by the alps which had once drawn the line between Austria and Italy - an area I arranged private excursions to, touting the hills as being the ones where Julie Andrews had twirled around on (they weren’t, but nonetheless it was a beautiful daytrip). A b**tard of a thing to happen, to lose all your money in another country, but an experience that’d been very good for me, been sent by the universe to steal my pretentious need for only expensive things, and one of the most valuable life lessons ever taught to me; reminding me that joy at its best cannot be purchased, that materialism was immaterial after all. Yes, it reminded me of my past, the one I’d survived, the one that the same universe had sent to try me with, so that trips to places like Italy seemed but dreams for an impoverished boy like me. But I’d faired well; found a quiet serene enjoyment without money, and the purse was Karma’s way of rewarding me. Even if I’d wanted to, been inclined to, there was no way to return it. And anyway, only rich bitches carried and lost bejewelled purses. I knew.

September is a beautiful time to be in Venice, but the evenings draw in fast, and acqua alta (high water) had already begun – which is why Heath Ledger’s movie Casanova had been rescheduled for filming the week before; electrical equipment more than slightly precarious when added to the mix, the proverbial toaster in the bath. It was getting dark, and yet I was still trapped amidst canals and houses that were beginning to look ominous now, paint scabs peeling from them but beautiful still in their devastated states, shades of watermarked lines ageing them, showing the rot they’d contended with, exposing the true nature of the city that most don’t see. But then, in the distance I saw it; Campanile di San Marco - the famous bell tower of St. Mark’s Basilica. Close, sure, but this wasn’t North America or even the UK for all its twists and turns that were still easy enough to navigate; if I didn’t choose the right bridges I could end up anywhere. Fat Simon wouldn’t be able to persuade the tour leader to wait, for she had no power over the ferries, and surely I wouldn’t have been the first idiot to be lost, trapped in time; they’d simply make a hand gesture more filthy than the word it was used to describe how stupid tourists were, as Italians are so skilled at, and leave me to my own devices.

As fun as it’d been to discover Venice in that way - together with the colourful information book I’d found on one of my returning coaches from weeks before in the pocket of the seat in front of me that I always told people to check but obviously didn’t, I started to feel slightly panicked for a person who never panics at all - which makes it worse actually. I’d always wanted to be trapped within a complex maze... well... outside of my actual life; felt sure I would saunter my way out easily enough for I am complicated myself. In fact I’ve laughed at people I’ve seen on TV not be able to escape. F**king Idiots, no cleverer than an experimental rat, I’ve been known to say, but easy, from my aerial vantage point while watching them I suppose. The feeling was like that, yes, but of course, surrounded by historical loveliness in every street and piazza I stumbled upon, poor and affluent, but it really doesn’t matter, if you’re poor you’re trapped wherever you are; you’ll sleep on the street, under a golden gilded bridge, maybe, but still the street. The deeds to the woman’s house in my bejewelled purse was a nice little find, but it wouldn’t get me a night in a Venetian B&B, if there was such a thing, even if it might pay for the journey back to Lago di Garda the next day if I were to miss my ride home, for the company I worked for only came here once a week, and by that time I’d be proficient in the art of begging in every language. But finally, I saw the tower loom closer and closer; my beacon home, just as it'd been during many a drunken night; lit up now, as dusk and the mist waltzed in the canal streets as they’d done back then, and I didn’t take my eyes off it for a second, acclimatizing to negotiating the streets and the bridges, remembering now if they were too narrow and not overly ornate, then they likely wouldn’t take me anywhere worth going at all - at least not in those panicky moments, leading to beautiful dead ends where many a murder had been committed under cloaks of darkness in centuries gone by, I imagined. And so I chose other larger, fancier bridges even though my traitorous sense of direction constantly tried to fool me in futile attempts to keep me engraved there. A maze indeed, delightfully sophisticated, presenting a challenge after all, but this rat would always find the cheese.

And then I heard them, the mini-orchestras, lamenting as if I’d been lost at sea, and in a sense I had been; spellbound by the Queen of the Adriatic, but sad melodies sent to guide me home, was that ethereal music that accompanied the waltz that breathed on my cheeks, on the back of my hands. And I knew I had arrived despite not seeing any way into the square, for sure, for I heard a drunken Ernest singing out my name; wondering where I was, in clever prose enhanced by drunkenness, demanding that I join him in yet another dry martini and complaining that the artists from the other side of the piazza were boring him dreadfully, his writing companions, simply weaklings; long since drank under the table, withered like their limited imaginations, diminished with each new glass passed over their lips and into the gullet that would be spewed back up again onto the floor. That was the Hemingway.

Heaven had dropped a piece of paradise onto the Earth, I saw, as I poked my involuntary smile and weary, weary feet through an intricately sculpted archway. I'd had no idea that it would've led back into the square, been fooled too many times to even hope for that, for the back of the piazza is not similar to the front in any way; out of sight out of mind. I’ll never forget that; it’d been like stepping through a portal into another world, my whole life in one instant even, emerged from a demure, dark silent still, into a vibrant, yet softly lit and sophisticated rapture; the sound of beauty from the Classical period clipping my ears for being gone so long. And such was the thrill that I stepped back into the shadows to recreate the sensation, absorb the juxtaposition of ambience and marvel at it, suspend that moment in time. But then I saw Ernest, waving at me through the throngs, and with him, two portly acquaintances who hadn’t yet met acquaintance with the floor. I waved back, eager, excited to see them. I needed company now, desperate to talk of the beauty of the day and the night… as we’d done so often before, dwell in moments of inspiration that had led to great works of art and the written word worthy of immortalisation, and... my gullet, demanding indeed. But then he faded from existence, and in his place, Fat Simon stood with his parents. It didn’t matter who then though, my spirit generous as I looked forward to his family joining me for a bottle of wine in Harry’s where I was only too happy to hand over my newly acquired deeds, the poncy purse long since chucked in the canal lest it be claimed by a femme fatale, and anyway, a tad too effeminate for my choice of clothing that day; caught without a mask as I was.

But Simon’s family had transformed during the course of that afternoon, it seemed. Despite the fact they’d barely left the square, their conversation now dwelled on the sheer quixotic magic of the city; the art, the Bridge of Sighs that led from the back of the palace to a prison without windows. Yes, they spoke of Ponte di Rialto with its stone arches, steps, and shops spanning the Grand Canal for more than 400 years and no, they weren’t talking about the soccer jerseys they’d bought there, discarded at their feet then as they feasted on a world that had been invisible to them by daylight. I was pleased that Venice had enchanted them; a working class family from Brighton or Bournemouth or Brixton, whose only talk of the morning had been about the World Cup, and now here they were; bewildered by the magnificence of a latter day world in all its finery, and happy to share their memory and impressions of that day with someone like me whose earlier impression of, I got, was nothing but a pretentious snob of the kind I actually used to be, but seeing me then for who I was. And vice versa, as I tried to use words that they would understand – such as I remember Ernest had done with me on occasion – excitedly sharing with them the wonders that they would never see for themselves.

And even in the final moments before departure from La Dominante, I remained enthralled; our lingering stroll back along the main promenade under the pink lights of the old fashioned street lamps blowing kisses of a soft and warm-hearted farewell as I clung on to every nuance, inhaled the smells of the sea,those familiar sensibilities of my youth being savoured in person one last time. And then the lagoon, in real life, transporting me into the reproduction oil painting that I’d then remembered I’d actually seen in someone’s living room when I’d been very young, a sentiment that brought back the memory of that dear old friend; a person who’d first recognized that somewhere within my otherwise ignorant susceptibility, there was a lover of culture, and one who encouraged me to develop my genuine appreciation of beauty; pointing out that the ugliness I had thus far been shown was not all that was to be had. And of all the countries I’d ever travelled to, I would’ve liked to share Venice in that moment with my mentor; the person I used to think was pretentious.

And so with my heart romanced after all, I stood on the deck of that boat as it sailed out of Canaletto’s painting. Its eerie dark waters and one small island immersed somewhere behind the dancing mist. How lucky to have seen it exactly like that; literally transporting me into the famous scene that’d distracted all other dreams for so long. And sailing beyond its gold-gilded frame past the other islands; the Jewish Ghetto that’d finally been opened by Napoleon to free Jews that'd lived there for two and a half centuries, according to my guide book, I realised that I might've been to me that day, but still, I hadn’t been to Venice at all.

The end

All pictures taken with a Sony Cybershot 5.0 pixels digital camera - imagine what you can do with the latest ones, something like 17 mega pixels?

Copyright © 2011 - S P Mount. Awesome Inc. template.