Number 7, Rue Jacob

by Wendy Hornsby

  The book I bought was written by a favorite author. But I reread a passage I had already read at least twice, and closed it. My mind was elsewhere. Jean-Paul had given me all sorts of instructions, and a ticket to Venice, but he hadn’t given me a contact number or said that he would be at the airport to meet me. If he wasn’t there, where the hell was I supposed to find him?

  The flight was over almost before it began, ninety minutes between takeoff and landing. Eager to deplane, I was stuck behind the slow shuffle of people collecting their gear before I could shoulder my backpack and stream out with the mob. I looked over feathered hats and long-nosed Carnevale masks for Jean-Paul as we approached baggage claim and the exits beyond. Air travel within the European Union is very like travel within the United States. Passengers get “sterilized” before they board their planes, so no one bothers with them when they disembark at their destination. No customs to go through, only a passport check.

  “Quick flight, yes?” My fair-haired buddy elbowed his way through the crowd to walk beside me. “I think water taxi is the fastest way in. Shall we share the ride?”

  “Thank you, but no,” I said. “I’m being met.”

  At least, I hoped I was. Instead of finding Jean-Paul, though, I spotted a wiry little man among the water taxi pilots holding a card with m duchamps printed in thick black letters. Margot Duchamps is the name on my birth certificate, the American version, and Marguerite on the original French, a tidbit that Jean-Paul, but not many strangers, would know. I caught the taxi man’s eye, pointed at myself and walked toward him.

  “M. Duchamps? Not a monsieur, eh!” he said, gesturing for me to follow him to the baggage conveyer. “Your luggage?”

  “I don’t have bags to claim.”

  “Then we go.”

  “Where do we go?” I asked, falling into step close beside him.

  With a shrug, he said, “Ca’Giuliano,” as if everyone would know that we were going to Giuliano’s house. But who was Giuliano?

  We walked out of the airport, past rows of bright posters and costumed vendors hawking tickets for expensive Carnevale events, and into a cold, foggy afternoon. An icy wind blowing straight down the Adriatic from the Alps hit me in the face as I followed the man I assumed had been sent by Jean-Paul—would anyone else know I was arriving?—down a long lagoon-side walkway toward the ranks of water taxis parked along the quay. I was handed into a beautiful teak craft and offered a seat in the low, open-front cabin behind the pilot wheel, out of the wind if not out of the chill. I had many questions, but my driver wasn’t a chatty sort. How far? Not far. Who arranged for you to pick me up? My dispatcher.

  I gave up and stayed inside the relative shelter of the cabin, watching our progress through the side windows. The boat sat low in the water as we crossed the white-capped lagoon, moving with traffic along the inbound lane of the dredged boat channel. On either side of the channel the water was so shallow that we could look wading birds right in the eye as we passed them, a strange sensation. The birds paid no attention to us.

  Suddenly, like Camelot rising from the mist, the domes and towers of Venice began to appear along the gray horizon. As always, it was magic. Soon, on our left, the many-domed Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute loomed out of the fog and we turned, heading into the Grand Canal. Along both sides, colorful Carnevale crowds paraded into and out of shops and cafés, around kiosks and pavilions set up on open piazzas and on the steps of magnificent churches that were offering musical performances. Gondoliers ferrying tourists glided into and out of side canals, calling, “Oi!” to warn of their approach. It was all a grand circus and the more I saw of it the edgier I became. I needed to find Jean-Paul. Now.

  After we passed the modern white shell of the Guggenheim Museum, I leaned out of the cabin and asked again, “How far?”

  “Not far.”

  A few minutes later, as we approached Accademia Bridge, the driver cut his engine. Silently, we glided under the bridge and then, immediately and skillfully, he maneuvered the boat into a short and narrow inlet between massive palazzos on the left and a small grassy park on the right. Beyond the strip of grass there was an open piazza filled with revelers visiting commercially sponsored covered pavilions. Improbably for this automobile-free city, a new-model Fiat was being craned off a barge and onto a platform in front of one of the pavilions. My driver threw out a line and on his first try snagged an iron cleat bolted into the stone seawall, pulled us in and tied up the boat. He hopped out and offered his hand to me. I was hardly back on terra firma before he began releasing his line.

  “Where am I going?” I asked, baffled, feeling a bit forlorn, as I looked at the collection of buildings rising around me.

  The driver was already backing out toward the canal. He tipped his head toward the tall palazzo built tight against the canal, and called out, “Ca’Giuliano,” and was gone.

  A small tile plaque affixed high on the front corner of the massive peach-colored house reassured me that this was, indeed, Ca’Giuliano. I looked along the side wall, saw no door, but started walking, hoping to find a way in. About thirty feet down I came to a filigreed gate that led to a dark and narrow walkway between two tall houses. Ahead, on the left side of the walkway, there was an arched opening. I pushed through the gate and ventured in. Behind me, I could hear rock music coming from the piazza, but everything immediately around me seemed eerily quiet, except for the echo of my own footsteps on the stone walkway. Twice I looked around to see if someone else was there. But I was alone.

  Through the arch there was an elevator, secured by a digicode lock. And no intercom, no tenant directory. I sighed: Now what?

  Jean-Paul’s email message said, “Always aim for the moon, and remember how far it is to China.” When people spend a lot of time together, they develop their own private little codes, a sort of language of their own. When Christopher Columbus set out from Spain in 1492, he believed that China was less than 3000 miles due west from Europe. He was wrong, and because of that error he collided with America and changed the world in unexpected ways—some good, some horrific—and destroyed his own life. When either Jean-Paul or I have a big decision to make, the other will pose the question, “Have you measured the distance?” Meaning, have you considered all the possibilities?

  I punched in 1492, the year of Columbus’s monumental blunder, and the elevator doors slid open. Inside there were four buttons to choose from. Because the fourth floor was as close to the moon as I was likely to get at that moment, I hit number four. At the top, the elevator opened into a small, frigid atrium. I stepped out and knocked on the only door. I waited. And knocked again. When no one came, I was ready to turn and leave. To do what? Go to every door in the building to see if Jean-Paul might be there, or go on a treasure hunt for yet more inscrutable clues? Instead, I tried the handle. The door swung open.

  Not knowing what to expect, I worked up a lame excuse in case I hadn’t cleverly figured out Jean-Paul’s coded instructions after all and was instead intruding on strangers: Stupid tourist, lost, wrong address, hand over all your cash and no one gets hurt. But no one seemed to be there at all.

  The apartment was silent except for the muffled racket from the piazza below. I looked around: The space had once been the attic of a very large house. Open-beamed ceilings sloped down on two sides from a high central peak. A kitchen was on my right in the near end of the long central space, a plank dining table sat in the middle, and a well-appointed stanza—living room—at the far end looked out onto the Grand Canal through tall casement windows. Built into the eaves on both sides were, I suspected, bedrooms and bathrooms. The door on my left was ajar. Hanging onto the straps of my backpack in case I needed to flee, I pushed the door open enough to peer through.

  Closed shades left the room, a bedroom, nearly dark. A crack of light from the partly open door of the en suite bathroom threw a silver line across the end of an unmade bed and a tangle of soiled clothing heaped onto a chair. Someone in the next room turned on
water. As quietly as I could, almost afraid to breathe, I began to back out, ready to run for the front door. But then I heard a cough and knew who was on the other side of the bathroom door. I knocked once before pushing it open.

  Startled, Jean-Paul spun around from adjusting bathtub taps. The love of my life stood there wearing nothing except a three-day beard and a dirty sling that immobilized his left arm against his chest. Intricate black stitchery closed twin gashes on his handsome face, one above his left eye, the other on the cheekbone below. His body was so covered with bruises and abrasions that he looked as if he had been tied to the bumper of a pickup and dragged along a country road. Something very bad had happened to him, but here he was, mostly intact. Mostly. And smiling his sweet, self-effacing upside-down French smile, as if he needed to apologize for the sorry state of the corpus he presented to me. I fought back tears as relief, shock, over-active imagination worked through what might have been. He responded to my look of horror by reaching for me with his free arm.

  “It isn’t as bad as it appears, ma chère,” he said as I hesitated before moving into his embrace, afraid I would cause pain. “It only hurts when I laugh.”

  “Says you.” I laid a hand along his injured cheek when we kissed. “You have a fever.”

  He nodded, a single backward bob of his head, acknowledging an unfortunate truth. “I present to you a pathetic wreck. A stinky one, too. I had intended to get myself cleaned up before you arrived, but I’m afraid I fell asleep, and— What time is it?”

  “About three-thirty.” He leaned on my shoulder getting into the tub. The edge of the sling gaped a bit as he bent forward, giving me a view of a large, oozing dressing over his left chest and shoulder. “What the hell happened to you, Jean-Paul?”

  “It’s a long story,” he said with a deep sigh as he sank into the warm water.

  “I have nothing but time.” I found a bar of soap, a face cloth, and a towel in a linen cupboard at the end of the vanity. While he washed himself, I shrugged off my coat and knelt beside the tub to get a better look at his injuries. There was no cast or splint on the arm immobilized by the sling. “Broken shoulder?”

  “Fractured clavicle.”

  “And what’s under the dressing?”

  “A gash.”

  “A gash?” I repeated. “A little swordplay, and you lost?”

  “If it were, at least I might have had a chance to fight back.” He looked up at me. “Maggie, I was hit by shrapnel.”

  “Dear God.” I fell back on my haunches. “Where were you?”

  With a little laugh, he settled further down into the water. “Apparently, in the wrong place, yes?”

  “Apparently.” I unzipped my backpack and took out the pharmacy bag. “Émile sent you a care package. Let me get you a glass, and then you damn well better tell me the whole story. From the beginning.”

  The kitchen was well stocked with dishes and equipment, but there was nothing in it to eat except some condiments at the back of the refrigerator. I filled a glass at the sink and took it back to the bathroom.

  “How long have you been here?” I asked as I tapped a pill out of each of the vials and handed them to him.

  “Since early this morning.” He shrugged, and the movement made him wince. “Around four.”

  “When did you eat last?”

  “Yesterday.” He swallowed both pills with a single gulp of water. “Sardines out of a can, which is ironic.”

  “Why ironic?”

  “I was brought here on a fishing boat.”

  “That explains why that filthy sling smells like dead fish. You might as well soak it because we’ll have to change it, if I can figure out how it’s constructed. Interesting engineering. And that’s very nice embroidery work on your face. Who put you back together?”

  “A Belgian plastic surgeon and a Japanese orthopedist.”

  “I’m guessing they weren’t on the fishing boat with you.”

  “Non.” Quickly, he dunked his head under water and came up slicking his streaming hair away from his forehead. In his lightly accented, genteel English, he said, “Just me, the fish, and two smelly Greeks. Good men, both of them. They got me here safely and only asked for most of my money and my watch in exchange. No, the doctors who patched me up were on staff at a Médicins Sans Frontières hospital in a refugee camp on an island off the coast of Greece. You know the MSF?”

  “Doctors Without Borders,” I said. Years ago, I worked on a documentary about the MSF. To me, the doctors, nurses, and technicians who volunteered with the international organization were true heroes. With no compensation and no fanfare, and sometimes at great personal risk, they go into the most benighted, besieged places in the world, set up state-of-the-art medical facilities, and do battle with whatever plagues present themselves, sometimes as bombs fall around them. Miracle workers, often. Everything they have in their medical arsenal comes from donations. And as no good deed ever quite goes unpunished, what they offer—modern medicine—and who they are—outsiders—aren’t always without controversy. Like the rich uncle who swoops in at Christmas bringing gifts to his poor relatives, their presence can breed resentment among the local powers that be. Sometimes to the peril of both doctor and patient.

  “Were you in Greece with the MSF?” Prodding him to continue as I picked at the tape holding the shoulder dressing in place, trying to figure out how to get it off without ripping out strips of his dark chest hair.

  “We did visit the MSF hospital, yes.” He leaned forward so I could soap his back, what I could see of it. The sling was encased in a second sling that tied around his torso to both support the arm and keep the shoulder stable. “Do you remember Eduardo Suarez?”

  “A polo player friend?”

  He nodded. “He’s also one of the top research chemists in Spain. A Eurozone consortium on refugees sent Eduardo and me into one of the larger refugee camps—a miserable hellhole—as observers. The hospital was the one bright spot in the place, and even it is woefully understaffed and undersupplied relative to the need for medical care there. We spent two days speaking with people, taking photos, recording what we saw, making notes for a report to the consortium.”

  “Someone in the camp attacked you?”

  “Non.” As he leaned back again, he took my soapy hand, pressed it against his hard belly and held it there. His voice was full of emotion, sometimes anger, sometimes pain. His grip on my hand tightened as he spoke. “Eduardo and I had just driven out of the camp. We wanted to catch the afternoon flight out of the little regional airport near the fishing village where we had been staying. We were talking about our report, or maybe the topic was women’s legs, but we heard a buzzing, saw something in the sky coming toward us from over a little rise; we were no more than three hundred meters from the camp gates. The object was right on us before we understood it was a drone; not very big, the ordinary sort you can buy in an electronics store. For a moment, it hovered over the road ahead of us, and then ka-boom!”

  “Ka-boom?”

  “Exactement. The drone dropped a payload on the road directly in front of us. It doesn’t take much explosive to wipe out a crappy little rental car and leave a crater in the road.”

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Jean-Paul.”

  “Oui.” Again, a slight shrug, as if resigned to the vagaries of life.

  “Was the bomb intended as an attack on the refugee camp or the MSF hospital? By terrorists? Anti-immigration wackos?”

  “Reasonable targets for those, yes?” He waited for me to agree. “But, sorry, no, I’m afraid that the target was none other than Jean-Paul Bernard.”

  “You?” I sat straight up.

  “I know, eh?” That sweet little smile again, meant to reassure me. “I have come to conclude that this was a very personal event. The question is, who would want to kill me? I mean, I think I’m a fairly lovable guy, d’accord?”

  “Oui, d’accord. I think you’re entirely lovable. Not very huggable at the moment, but lovable.
So, who have you pissed off?”

  “I hope you can help me figure that out.” He trained his big brown eyes on me, and yawned. “The pain med is kicking in.”

  “Good.”

  I helped him out of the tub and gingerly wrapped him in the towel. He rested his head against me as I dried his wet hair. For a moment, we were quiet. If one can have nightmares while awake, I was having a doozy as I imagined possibilities for things that could have, but did not, happen to Jean-Paul. Hadn’t happened yet, maybe.

  We shared a lovely, reassuring kiss. We were together again, and for the moment, we were safe.

  I found a clean white sheet in the cupboard and then rummaged through vanity drawers until I found a pair of nail scissors before following him into the bedroom. He sat patiently on the edge of the unmade bed, supporting his left elbow with his right hand, while, first, I deconstructed the soiled sling, and then as I snipped away the hair stuck to the surgical tape holding the gauze dressing to his wound. By the time I finished removing the tape, the top of his chest looked like it had been mowed by a tiny drunk. He took a deep breath and the old dressing fell onto his lap. When I saw the mincemeat underneath, I started to cry.

  “It isn’t as bad as it looks,” he said, reaching for my hand.

  “Says you. What monster did this to you?”

  He laughed. “That is the question, yes?”

  “Damn them, Jean-Paul.” I took out some of my angst on the sheet, tearing it into wide strips to make two new slings, one for now and one in case we needed it later. “Let me guess: the MSF doctors told you to avoid doing anything that would put stress on the wound. To just go to bed until the bone and the flesh had some time to heal, right?”