by Diana Cachey
Don’t worry, she thought she heard him say.
Once off the boat, she stood for a moment on the shore of the canal between Venice and Murano where they were to catch the boat to the cemetery.
Soon the tall man in the overcoat returned and silently stood beside her. He leaned down and tilted his face towards her. She could see clear brown eyes, long thick lashes and two large dimples framing his wide smile.
He began to sing to her in English but with a distinct Venetian accent.
“Don’t worry. Be happy,” he sang with eyes dancing and dimples deepening.
Are they everywhere? Barbara wondered. The men, the ghosts? Whomever or whatever was talking to her?
They seemed to be crawling out of the walls, out of boats and buildings like bugs. Then flittering over to her like airy butterflies. These men. These phantoms. These strange coincidences.
“Is no coincidence, lady, lady, me next to you, carina, bella,” said the handsome stranger.
Her mouth dropped open when he spoke this time.
Had he read her mind? She couldn’t be sure of anything when it came to these men, these phantoms. All she knew was her body, it had a fever. Her usually shy self was overcome with desire for him. She pondered why that might be happening.
Salt water, it must make me horny. The lagoon makes me horny, that’s it.
“Me too,” he whispered.
Its lapping water, the moss on its shores. The distant island views. The bell towers. The history. The smells of fresh Italian meals and the sounds of clinking china. It all turns me on?
In her mind, she saw herself throw him down, jump on his lap, stick her tongue into each of his amazing dimples. What had gotten into her? What was this power he held over her, that the lagoon held over her? The power of attraction.
Could Venice be a vortex for sex?
He nodded his head up and down then took his index finger, gently placed it under her chin and closed her mouth. He stared at her lips and said, “We go?”
She was speechless. Trembling. Quivering with soothing warmth.
“I, I,” she finally stuttered, “wait for boat.” She could hardly get the words out or hold back the urges within her. For him.
“I wait for boat to cimitero. Cimitero, San Michele, I go too with you?”
“I, I.”
“Wait, cara?”
She heard him, barely. She could barely wait. She wanted him too much. This had never happened to her before, except with Massimo, and with him she was able to contain herself.
“I don’t even know your name,” she rasped.
“My name is Gianni.”
It was not her first Gianni.
It was not the Gianni she met with Seba that first night in Venice this trip. It was not the one whose kisses stole her lips and won every other rematch. But another stunningly attractive Gianni. Was he even there? Was she hallucinating? What was going on with her mind? Where was Louisa?
She looked around and panicked when she didn’t see her.
“I’m right behind you,” said Louisa. “I saw you bolting off the boat to chase that guy and I came over quick.”
“Yes. To chase another Gianni,” the man chimed in with a pout. He looked at Louisa’s curvaceous body. He licked his lips.
“You saw him? Can see him?” Barbara shoulders relaxed.
“I saw many,” Louisa replied, grinning.
“I saw you, you see me, oh how happy we can be,” sang Gianni.
Gianni, the one with the sweet accent, sang to them. It was all so crazy. How did he know there was another Gianni?
“Do you have a cigarette?” Barbara blurted out to the handsome new Gianni.
She hadn’t smoked in years. He had merely touched her chin with one finger and it felt like she needed an after-sex smoke.
“Si, si. Per te. For you, I have any-ting you need,” he said.
Louisa smiled. Barbara sighed.
“Any-ting you want, any-ting you need,” he sang it all. “Let me knows,” he said with incorrect English and handed her a cigarette with his business card. Avvocato Giavanni Sorretti, said the card. A Venetian lawyer.
“Jeez, you are some card collector, Barbara,” said Louisa.
“Apparently so,” she said and took a deep drag of a cigarette, the smoothest puff Louisa had ever seen, except for those of Matteo. He could smoke like no one else, in many ways.
“Barr-barr-ahhh,” said Gianni, repeating her name. He articulated each syllable and rolled the Rs with much emphasis. He held out his hand for her to shake.“Bella nome,” (beautiful name).
Barb took his hand and felt an instant jolt of electricity. A jolt that didn’t hurt. It was warm, pleasant, erotic even.
“Nice, eh?” he said while he continued to hold her hand. He gently placed his other hand on top of hers, too.
He was pure fire. The energy from his hands as they surrounded hers began to pulsate up her arms. It rushed over her body. She was instantly aroused.
“Nice, yes,” he said. “You are very nice too. Mi piace moltissimo.” (I like you very, very much.)
“Come,” commanded Louisa. She pulled her sister away from this new Gianni. She led Barbara in the direction of another bridge by the boat dock to catch their ferry to San Michele.
“Come, come, come,” his whisper echoed.
Gianni had begun to move away. He seemed to float off, in the opposite direction. Soon he would be three bridges from them.
Barbara turned a complete circle to find him. She saw a group of people laughing together. All of them seemed to be staring at her.
Leave her alone, boomed a voice.
When she heard it, the group immediately stopped laughing. They stopped staring. Everything seemed to go back to normal. By her side was Louisa, who looked out at the lagoon, unfazed. Like she’d heard nothing and hadn’t seen a thing unusual.
“What is it?” Louisa said when she turned and saw her sister’s pale face. She followed Barbara’s blank stare down the fondamenta. “Finish your cigarette. You look like you need it.”
Barbara gave a weak shake of the head. She took a strong drag of the cigarette, which was now only an amber of a nub.
“Maybe we should buy you a pack,” said Louisa, nodding towards a nearby kiosk. “Too late the boat is here.”
“Moo-rrano,” announced the boat’s first mate to the people waiting on the dock.
When Barbara stepped onto the boat ramp, a short woman wearing a fur coat and fur-trimmed hat handed her some cigarettes.
“Here. Cigarettes,” said the woman. “For you, Barr-barr-ahh,”
Barbara took the cigarettes. She stared down at them in her hand.
“Don’t go to cimitero today. Skip stop,” the woman instructed.
“Skip stop? Why?”
“Danger for you. Go to Murano instead.”
Then the strange woman in fur hat and coat ran off.
She vanished. In the same direction and manner as had the new Gianni.
Before I expired, I told her not to take me to a cemetery. No funeral, no burial, no plot. That’s what I said. Oh, to be simple ashes. Floating.
I thought returning to dust would end my suffering.
It did, in a way. Yet by some trick of nature, a bad joke or misfortune, a sentence for my earthly crime of hating myself, I resurfaced. Came back in a bright pink yet hazy hue. A cloud of will and spirit. With no bones, head, limbs, skin, hair or face. Floating, yes, but . . .I’m faceless. That’s the worst part.
Oh but I have been working on my whisper. I know she hears me, even when she ignores it or she shakes her body and flips her hair to rattle around the sound between her ears.
I’m ruthless, that I am.
Gliding, coasting, flittering about, amongst canals, palaces, restaurants and bars, over and under bridges, through the many tight spots in the narrowest of misses with crowds. Some see, some don’t. Most are too distracted. Missing an impossible glimpse or even a smatter of my image, let alone not
icing the boundless beauty above them. On the walls of this timeless city.
All the good stuff is up.
They don’t look up.
She does. She loves it. I can feel she loves him too. I am losing her again -- to Venice, to a Venetian. To another ghost of a man.
I am not sure that he is worthy. Something must be done. Be gone. Be done.
When he senses my song, he fears my silken haze, my dust. He runs.
I scurry through the hallways and fade into the walls. Because the show must go on. It holds my heart. I peak through the curtains, I languish on the sidelines, backstage.
Because I know the show must go on.
Without me.
Despite the expertise of its captain, their vaporetto slammed against the boat dock. Boat pilots of Venice train for years -on their own boats, their fathers’ boats, the smaller town ferries or the yachts of friends and friends of friends -- but the lagoon currents run hard and usurp their adept steers. No series of moves, grinding of gears or rhythmic progressions both forward and back can stop the common collisions that regularly jar the many passengers, who rarely notice it.
After the hard landing at San Michele dock, a deckhand laced frayed yellow ropes around the tie off cleat, which waited to do its passive job of securing boats and greeting visitors. A few riders stepped off the boat at the cemetery, where a unique tour could be had if ever there were enough time. On this peculiar port of its own island, the cemetery housed a lovely church, elaborate headstones, mausoleums and graves of famous poets, novelists, composers, royalty and celebrities.
The two recently dead glassmakers, whose mysterious deaths had initiated Louisa’s frenzied search for clues, were not buried there. They had neither the money nor prestige to warrant a plot in such luxurious surroundings. The cemetery was also running out of space. Venetians with considerable assets couldn’t even get their coffins under this cemetery’s earth. Mostly, this cemetery was now a place to visit, not to be buried.
Edgar Allen Poe? Is he buried here? Louisa wondered and she moved to port side.
She had brought along her guidebook and planned to see some of the famous graves. A local man living near San Martino had also invited her on a private excursion, to “the real cemetery,” that he promised was hidden behind pillars, trees and brick ruins where a small vineyard stood, wine was distilled and vegetables cultivated. Louisa missed her appointment with him due to rain but she hoped they could find him there today.
When she turned to exit the boat at the cemetery stop, she saw Barbara standing inside the vaporetto gates with another frozen stare.
“Come on, what’s your deal?” said Louisa. “You aren’t afraid of ghosts are you?”
Barbara nodded her head up and down.
“Since when?”
Since about one minute ago, Barbara wanted to say. She stood silent and did not move her body towards the exit. She knew if she stalled, the crew would pull back the ropes, leave the embankment with the majority of its passengers, and head to Murano.
A perfunctory stop, the San Michele cemetery was sometimes ignored by the boat, which often slowed but neglected to stop there. Most, if not all, the passengers on this boat were going to Murano anyway. Tourists went there in droves to watch glassmakers blow glass and twist melted goo inside factory furnaces. They also wanted to buy glass. Loads of glass. If a boat did stop for cemetery visitors to disembark, the captain didn’t dawdle at the San Michele dock.
Louisa had missed this stop before due to her delay in exiting, so she yanked Barbara’s arm to move her out. She gestured for the rope handler to wait. Barbara still didn’t budge.
“Have you seen a ghost, my dear?” Impatiently, Louisa pulled hard on her sister’s arm.
Yes, I have, thought Barbara.
“No, I want to go to Murano,” Barbara said.
“Why?” said Louisa. The annoyed boat crew continued to glare at her while the two sisters stood at opposite sites of the gate.
Barbara waved at the first mate for him to move the boat on. He grinned and released the rope. Louisa jumped back aboard while the captain, who was already beginning to move the boat away, geared it up the minute the rope left the pier.
It was as if the boat crew hated that cemetery. At the moment, Barbara hated it too.
“We haven’t gone to Murano on this trip,” she said to Louisa. The boat moved through the short canal between the two islands.
“Why would we go there now?”
“Don’t we need to ask about the haunted houses that Ana told you about?”
“What haunted houses?”
“The locations she discussed with you and I.”
“You and I?”
This was the first time Louisa had heard about any discussion Barbara had had with Matteo’s sister, Ana, about haunted spots in Murano. Barbara had likely talked to Matteo’s sister when she booked her room at the Danieli where Ana worked as a desk clerk. Although she didn’t have proof, Louisa correctly surmised that Barbara decided to go to a hotel, and not move into her apartment, because Matteo had been hanging around again. Barbara hated Matteo.
Barbara had simply told Louisa that her apartment was too small “for all of them.”
It was true. Barbara was staying at the Danieli because, to her dismay, Matteo had emerged as Louisa’s ally in her hunt for information about the dead glassmakers. Despite suspicions regarding his possible involvement in their deaths, Louisa had nonetheless asked Matteo for help. Apparently, Louisa was keeping her friends close and enemies closer? Louisa and Matteo. Enemies yesterday, lovers tomorrow. The saga continued.
“What exactly did Ana tell you, Barbara?”
“We need to get off the boat soon,” she said. She looked out towards the approaching stop and ignored Louisa’s question as they neared Murano Island.
“We can ride this further,” said Louisa, “and get off at the lighthouse. It’s more central.”
“Shouldn’t we visit the ghost expert and check the municipal office records to find out about the house Ana and Matteo lived in when they were young?”
“How do you know about all of that?” Louisa had not told Barbara that she already visited the ghost expert, twice. And during the second visit, he told her never to return.
“Let’s get off here,” Barbara insisted. “We can visit another place Ana told me about.”
“Where exactly might that be?” Her sister was a horrible liar and she was doing a terrible job of it now.
“Maybe we can find an elderly man, one that Ana said knows about a Nazi who lived on Murano during the war.”
“And,” Louisa said, “Barbara?”
“His former house is said to be haunted,” Barbara said quickly. With little more information than that to offer Louisa, she stuttered for something to say.
“What else?” Louisa knew her sister was lying through her teeth because she was talking way too fast.
“The Nazi whose real name either no one remembers,” Barbara continued, “or they don’t want to utter it out loud.”
Barbara wanted to continue her fake story and hoped she’d think of something better once they disembarked. She knew the mention of the Nazi would initiate keen cross-examination by Louisa.
“I know all about that Nazi house,” Louisa said.
Barbara struggled to distract Louisa further. She wanted to keep Louisa from asking questions about either the tall male stranger, who seemed to read Barbara’s mind, or the tiny woman dressed in fur, who’d given her cigarettes at Fondamenta Nove.
“I said, I know about the Nazis. However, I don’t believe you do, do you?”
Thus, the cross examination had begun. The question propelled Barbara towards the exit. She pushed through throngs disembarking and hurried off the boat at the first Murano stop. Louisa had no choice but to be in tow.
Barbara rushed to the nearest cafe, sat at a table outside, waived for the waiter to bring two espressos then grabbed one of the cigarettes from her pocket, a b
old indication of a longer tale ahead. “Let’s talk,” she said to Louisa.
Louisa pulled out one of the black metal chairs from underneath the red-and-white checkered cloth covered table, her curiosity about what Barbara knew of the haunted Murano house having won out. She also wanted the play by play of her sister’s conversations with those two strangers from their boat crossing but she said nothing, as she pulled the chair closer to her sister, sat down, propped her elbows up on the table, put her head into her hands and waited.
“I need a smoke,” Barbara said.
Louisa continued her questioning stare. A waiter placed two tiny cups of espresso on their metal table. The sun glared on the water and reflected its warmth. Patio propane heaters burned above and next to them.
If it’s possible to sit outside in the winter, Venetians do it. Tan the face, wear the best sunglasses, drink coffee, smoke cigarettes. That was the plan and Louisa and Barbara had dressed warm enough to enjoy it.
Distracted by sunshine and the inevitable beautiful people watching, Louisa seemed to momentarily forget haunted houses. She also didn’t say a word about their missed cemetery stop. For a moment it seemed that the entire reason for this journey to the lagoon islands had faded as she fell into beach-mode. At a sunny outdoor table, one with the locals, she pretended to forget the search for clues as well as Barbara’s silly falsified tales. Her face to the sun, Louisa pulled off her scarf, leaned into the chair and tilted her head back to soak up some rays. She waited for Barbara to light a second cigarette.
“Since when do you smoke,” she said without moving from her head an inch from its San Tropez beach position, facing the sun.
“Since now.”
“Oh you mean since you are also afraid of ghosts?” She laughed.
“I’m not afraid of ghosts and you know it.” Barbara took a drag off the cigarette then exhaled the smoke straight up into the air.
“The jig is up, Barrrr-barrrrr-aaaah.”
