by Diana Cachey
They all were wearing plenty of jewelry too. Bracelets, chains, rings, earrings, flashy belt buckles with those tight jeans.
To show off their genetically superior round little rumps, concluded Barbara. Magnifico.
Soon more man parades would appear for Carnival, a true spectacle not only of costumed revelers but also of interesting spectators, scores of gorgeous men from all over the world. It was like being backstage with male models during fashion week. Days before Carnival, Barbara noticed that where there was one, there were many as the men continued to travel in packs of at least two, usually three or more.
Barbara wondered what she would do first. Go to the next boat dock, get to the hotel room, paint the toes, then paint the town? she thought. Need to go into Venice. Immediamente.
Barely arrived on Lido and Venice called her. She was ready to answer, to go where the world wasn’t in transit. Strange how quickly Barbara tired of cars, trees, bicycles. She longed to go back in time, where nothing changed. Ah Venezia. Mi amore. Although happy to be near the beach, she nonetheless missed the bustle of San Marco, Dorsodoro, Santa Croce and the other of the six sestiere (sections) of Venice proper with a wider range of distractions than here on quiet Lido.
Okay then, refresh my Italian, pronto. Avvocato. Lawyer. Sorella, sister. Provare, to try. Trovare, to find. Barbara, who always confused those two words, practiced mentally.Should not‘provare’ be‘to prove’? I guess‘to try’ will prove whether its right or wrong. And trova? How to remember that one? Treasure trove?
She spied some locals who could’ve been her cousins, uncles, sisters, aunts. A tale of two cultures. She deliberated on how Italians remember loyalties, to their friends, to their family, to their cousins in America. She thought of how Paris was so different. Do the French remember? Do they not want to admit many of them have moved to America too? Or do they stifle it, stiffen and rebel? Barbara mulled it all over while riding the vaporetto to the other end of Lido, which was not really Lido at all but rather Mallamoco, a separate island connected by a bridge. Italians embrace, dance, sing, celebrate. French watch, listen. Strange, the difference in the two cultures, sharing a border, a Latin heritage, a romantic desire, but articulated in very distinct ways.
She identified a French couple in the boat by their guidebook and secretly praised them for maintaining their stubborn, authoritative difference while at the same time shaming them for frankly forgetting their francophile ways when they tried to be like the Italians whom, Barbara had observed, the French often venerated. Viva Italia! Which Latin culture seems more like us? Barbara wondered, although the answer was obvious to her for she had pigeonholed the French.
At the vaporetto stop, she saw a toddler in a stroller dressed in a cat costume and remembered her first Venice Carnival. Louisa had told her tales of it before she experienced it herself--of the extravagantly costumed marauders dressed such that one could not tell if they were man or woman. To be sure the already exquisite Italians needed no such enhancements. Bedecked in their satisfied selves and of course, black leather, they stood out as a parade to be as much reckoned with as did the masked merrymakers at Carnival.
Bacio. Give me a kiss. Kiss, kiss, cheek, cheek, hug, hug, European style, she recalled spending youthful time here. At the restaurants, whether it was lunch or dinner, are you kidding, it was dreamland. She never knew why she had to travel twelve hours by plane to experience such a feeling of radiance. Magnifico.
The sun warmed her and thawed her nose during the breezy boat ride. It is usually sunny in Italy too. Maybe the Italian sunshine explained the distraction, her need to be here. Maybe not. How could anything fully clarify her pure selfish joy to be a traveler, a wanderer, the watcher, the watched?
On the way to her hotel, she stopped to sit on small bench in the unreal setting. With the lagoon shore behind it, purple wisteria hung along a brick wall like delicate golden ringlets, locks donned with purple flowered bows. Barbara closed her eyes and listened. She heard someone singing a tune in a strong Italian accent:“All da lonely people where do dey all come from? All da lonely people, where do deyall belong, Ah look at all da lonely people.”
Did any of“da lonely people” came from Italy, Barbara wondered. It was hard for her to imagine that possibility. The Italians, they’re a happy people,” she remembered one of her Italian relatives told her. The German half of me, from an unhappy people?
She wondered if this odd combination made her crazy. Her German blood, the“dowhat you are told and do it efficiently” variety, mixed with Italian blood. The“do what you are told but only if you want to do it and maybe do it tomorrow and only if you do not find a reason to disagree with it” kind of blood.
I require strict guidance. With room to rebel. Happy, not lonely, in her family of hundreds of relatives. Coddled, confused, insisted, teased and tormented but never left alone.
“Died in da church, buried her long wit da name, nobody come,” the singer continued.
Be thankful for your relentlessly loving sister. Someone will come to the church, she reflected. I may be alone this minute, but someone will come along, my new best friend. Should be arriving any time now.
**
“Venice is dirty,” Barbara overheard an American tourist say to her companion as both looked around at the marvelous lagoon. Despite the overwhelming beauty that surrounded them here in Venice, some tourists noticed only the strewn trash on a windy day. Barbara knew they would return home and tell everyone that Venice is dirty.I heard it is dirty, isn’t Venice dirty?Everyone would repeat it, over and over, when they’d never even been to Venice.
It didn’t matter. Dirty or clean, smelly or not, people came from all over the globe for as long as this strange lagoon town has existed. If they cannot go to Venice, they fondly dream of it.
Barbara wanted to yell out to the two Americans: Every day they pick up your garbage, from you tourists, who arrived to see wind blown trash, your trash, strewn about, for Barbara was already thinking of herself as a local, not a tourist.
After she checked into her hotel and into a sexy shirt, tight jeans and high heels, she clicked along the cobblestones to find an Italian restaurant like the ones in the movies. With red checkered tablecloths, baskets of bread and carafes of wine.
Soon she spotted one of those restaurants and inside she also spotted a dark-haired, blue-eyed, fine jawed man across the room. Her eyes must have lingered on him for a split second longer than usual because when she looked again he stared intensely back into her eyes. Although she pretended indifference, he knew better. I saw you see me, his eyes said to Barbara, who loved this about Venetian men--admire them and they admire back without fail. It is all they want or ask in return. To be admired. It made them happy and her smile.
Her smile made him lean forward to insure eye contact was complete and effective. With eye contact confirmed, she continued with her meal as she conversed with an English-speaking couple at the adjoining table. People often asked how it was that she would be eating alone? Why did she travel alone and was she afraid of being pinched by the men? She laughed and told the young couple,“myfriends back home say I should have a golden trash can for the phone numbers of eligible foreign men that I throw away.”
As if by design, the waiter interrupted at that moment and said,“Signorita,two men there would like you have a drink with them?”
“Well,” she said to the couple,“looks like I’ve got some phone numbers to collect.”
The couple half-laughed in total amazement while Barbara asked for an espresso and waved thanks to both the men. By now her admirer’s companion had also turned to see her. The men responded to her wave with“tsk, tsk,” followed by a scolding index finger and an insistent motion for her to join them.
So she did. If you insist.
Giavanni (or Gianni, the architect) and Sebastiano, (or Seba, cafe owner) leaned towards her from opposite sides of the table. With her in the middle, each grinned and patted the top of her hand nearest
to them. Her heart skipped. She turned to each man, then back again to the English-speaking couple with a look of bafflement at the timing as well as at the difficulty in choosing between the two men.
While not as handsome as Gianni, cafe owner Seba sported wonderful piercings, a soccer body, a stylish crinkled white shirt, fitted vest, jeans that surely cost hundreds and a snake-skin belt hooked with a skeleton buckle prominently placed to draw attention to where he obviously knew all eyes should rightly be. She could see that money was no object when it came to clothes for this Italian.
Her attraction first gravitated to Seba, the shyer, less aggressive of the two, who appealed to her in a silent sweet way. But Gianni was tall, dark and like a photo-shopped, airbrushed movie-star. So she decided . . . to be undecided.
The evening progressed and like an observer at a tennis match, she continued to move her head back and forth to each man. She sat between them while they doted on her. No gorgeous Italian women could disturb their attention to Barbara. No hip-high boots, false eyelashes or tight skirts could match this intriguing, raven-haired American. Bar after bar they hopped, which produced the same result--their fixed concentration on Barbara regardless of the quality of the competition.
For some reason it surprised her when they asked her to be the judge of a kissing match. In hindsight, it seemed a likely move on their part. Seba kissed her first with soft demure. Gianni made her whimper with his passion. She declared Seba the narrow winner, which served only to incite Gianni to insist upon a rematch. No arm-twisting needed there, Barbara obliged it. This time, Sebalanded a close second when Gianni’s passionate kiss ended in soft touches on her lips. This prompted a‘two out of three’ with no end in sight.
Sometime during the evening, they made known that both men were available to her, in any way she required, and both at the same time, if preferred. Few American males she knew would consent to such a thing. If the threesome involved two women, they might be interested. The three-way offer reminded Barbara of the whole“Italian men want to be like women” thing. When Barbara said,“Italian men secretly want to be women,” Gianni replied,“no not secretly.”
Two men? Two quality ones at that? Offering themselves together for one woman, Barbara? How could this be? How could this be happening?
How can this be happening to me? How splendid, she thought with mental delight.
She asked Gianni why they would consent to having her together and he struggled for an English word to answer. He asked for her Italian-English dictionary then pointed to the word eccitante.It meant“exciting.”
Sebadidn’t speak a word of English and looked perplexed by her discourse with Gianni about this extraordinary offer to be three, as he called it. Seba watched and waited while Gianni refused to translate and courted her in broken English. Seba spoke to her without words.
Barbara realized a battle for her solo attention was on, just in case she didn’t go for the three-way. As if by magic, they transported her to Gianni’s nearby apartment. At the threshold, she could see that the tiny two room flat held an imposing bed that filled one room with small shower conveniently next to it. On the threshold began an innocent, sort of passionate, sort of thing. Nuzzling and kissing, not really fooling around, the men tried to persuade her to come inside. She tried to stop it.
Outside Gianni’s apartment, Barbara snuggled the two distinct but equally charming men. Clothes would not be removed. She would not go in his house. Yet, the night so far, and the thought of taking it further, awakened her inside as these two romantic strangers wooed her, pulled her in two directions.
She chose to claim her sexuality for herself. Her hot, newfound sexy, confident, self.
So Barbara eventually refused their tempting invitation to get naked with both of them.
Her decision to leave caused much heated persuasion from Gianni and sad puppy-dog glances from Seba. Flattered but cautious, she had to leave or else a Venetian orgy goddess might somehow be invoked, sweeping her into moments of lovemaking with two handsome and willing men. She might then forget any morals she once professed and go for it.
She headed for the vaporetto but Seba followed, leaving Gianni with the sad glances this time. She departed with the non-English speaking Seba, not a necessary word between them because the chemistry did the talking as he walked her to the boat. As her boat pushed off from the dock, Seba waved good-bye.
Poor Gianni, she thought.Yet, there’s always tomorrow.
For I will not throw the phone numbers of Gianni or Seba into the golden trash can.
**
Sei (6) Venetian Trudge
Upon awakening, Barbara heard the clatter of raindrops clang onto clay roof shingles. Shoot. Today I’ve got to move myself and drag two suitcases across the beach island, climb over several bridges and clippety-clop the cobblestones to the boat dock then ferry across the lagoon then up the Grand Canal and wrestle the suitcases out of the ferry through the maze over more bridges and cobblestones to Louisa’s apartment.
She could go back to sleep, wake before breakfast ended and if it was still raining after a breakfast of Nutella, yogurt, red orange juice and many cappuccinos, she could turn on the British news, open the shutters to fill the room with fresh damp air, repack the mess she made in one night on Lido and decide whether to go out.
As the coffees kicked in or the rain subsided, the sun might shine and she could strip down to a tank top for the arduous haul to Louisa’s flat in the city.
**
Like most mornings in Venice this February, Louisa woke to the sound of rushing water. Was it raining heavily? Was her apartment flooded? Were the gutters pouring out their overload? Were the rubbish collectors hosing down the pavement? Louisa never knew for sure what the rushing water was that she often heard outside her door until she peered outside. Even then what she saw was questionable given the usually foggy, shadowy Venetian light. Her morning stroll could mean trudging through flooded streets in pouring rain. Often meant carrying heavy packages over bridge upon bridge. Frequently it resulted in meeting someone for whom she wanted to be dressed impeccably, even in the rain. Looking good in an impossible situation was the norm.
Louisa had to get out of her apartment, not for coffee, but to visit one of Matteo’s sisters. If she went to the hotel where Ana worked, Louisa might extract a bit of information from her without running into Matteo. She remembered Massimo’s warning her about Matteo, that man is danger to you, every time she placed that warm, fine Prada hat on her head, which was all day, every day. Louisa struggled to shake off the memory of two men whose verbal tussling she had not imagined but had witnessed--that of her usually unflappable ex-boyfriend against a wealthy stranger. The rushing water outside her door soon became louder and she moved to the door to listen. This morning it turned out to be the garbage collectors cleaning the pavement and fortunately, no flooding.
Every day is garbage day in this remarkable town. Every evening Venetians carefully place recycled grocery bags full of trash outside, on the handles of their doors to avoid tampering by rats, cats or floods. Louisa smiled when she recalled the notice the owner of her rented apartment had posted on her kitchen wall:
GARBAGE--Due to the quite unusual disposition of Venice, disposing of garbage is more difficult than in normal city centers. So please put your garbage bags on the bridge facing the Palazzo (palace) 6 to 8 am; it will be cleaned up in the morning between 6 and 8. JUST FASTENED BAGS!!! Thank you
Today, as always, the corps of collectors spread out across the city to accomplish the“unusual disposition” of garbage. They removed plastic bags from door handles or bridges, built mounds of trash in barges waiting in the nearest canals and hosed cigarette butts and other debris off the pavement. Louisa could spend the better part of a morning observing the impressive details of this operation.
This quite unusual disposition of garbage was even more unusual this morning. The lively laughs and vulgar Venetian jokes of the street cleaners were suddenly interrupted by
the squeal of an unsuspecting passerby. The poor fellow had turned a corner directly into the street-cleaners’ hoses and his consequential response to getting soaked was equally Venetian, thus vulgar, as well.“Cazzo de merda,” swore the accidental victim. Louisa chuckled at hearing this early comedy and imagined one handsome Venetian dressed in work overalls pointing a hose at a fashionably dressed and equally handsome drenched man, while she slipped on her rain boots, just in case. She knew that such was the possible fate she faced on her early morning walks.
Trying to dress impeccably for a rainy day wasn’t easy but was essential because, as the Venetians say,“When you go out in Venice, it’s like visiting someone’s living room. Would you dress sloppy to visit someone’s home?” It was well-past ten by the time Louisa headed out. Once outside, she stepped lightly as she negotiated the slippery bridges on her way past the school she wasn’t attending today, although she was supposed to go into work. She didn’t want to get out of bed this morning because the moment she opened her eyes, she concerned herself with something more powerful than the Venetian rushing waters. Matteo.
That man is danger to you, she could hear Massimo say. Good luck with him for he does have information, she thought she heard him add before he left.
Be kind to your lovely sister, she then thought she heard Massimo say on her way to the Danielihotel today. That was impossible. Massimo wasn’t with her and he hadn’t met her sister who was back home in Seattle. Louisa stopped abruptly, looked around and saw nobody. She knew Venetians were clever at hiding, watching.
“Matteo spying on me. He thinks he can intimidate, stop me from doing what I want with my life,” she said out loud while walking past several Venetians who smiled with glee at the drama she created for them. Maybe she would chug a double cappuccino in front of them too and consciously violate their unwritten Italian rule of“no cappuccino after breakfast.” Violating any rule, especially an Italian one, was in order this morning. Perhaps a drink was in order too.
