The Disappearance of Grace

by Vincent Zandri

  So it went for a couple days more until the day before yesterday when finally, we had it out at a local café. If I was going to be blind, then Grace was going to try and work with the darkness. She tried to make me see things with my hands, my ears, my five senses. While a strange black-eyed man in a long brown overcoat stared at us from a distance, she placed her engagement ring into the palm of my hand and she asked me to tell her what I felt. I told her I felt our ring and it made me angry that she assumed I was blind to something so simple and plainly obvious as a wedding band. But the ring, I later came to realize, had nothing to do with what she was asking me.

  She was asking me if I felt her love.

  * * *

  As the dusk approached, we made love in this apartment. It was the first time in over a year that we’d been together physically. Grace also started painting again. That moonlit night I experienced my first bout of sleepwalking. During the experience, my blindness disappeared and I was able to see again, even if the dream state led me up onto the roof of our building and my near death. But regardless of the danger, I was beginning to make progress. I was beginning to see. Grace and I both were making progress. As lovers, as people, as fiancé and fiancée.

  Then, later that morning, we got the first call over the apartment’s land line.

  It was a bad connection. But it didn’t prevent Grace from making out a man’s voice when he said “I. See.” into the receiver. Later he would call again, and say just the same two words.

  When the early afternoon arrived and Grace and I decided to splurge on an expensive lunch at the café just outside the cathedral in San Marco, she spotted that same strange man wearing the long brown overcoat. He wore sunglasses masking his eyes, and his black beard was trimmed. He stared at her from a distance of maybe thirty feet. He stared at her enough to make her nervous. Until he approached the table and then, just like that, Grace was gone.

  In the aftermath, no one saw Grace being taken.

  No one saw her at all.

  The café was simply too crowded with tourists and patrons for anyone to take notice of any one person. Not to mention a woman who didn’t scream or appear to make a fuss when she was removed from her chair.

  What all this led up to was the police believing Grace might have simply left of her own accord. Witnesses saw us arguing the day before. Grace appeared to be very unhappy. Seemingly happy couples find themselves splitting up in Venice, as if the most romantic destination on God’s earth could also cast an evil spell on your relationship. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.

  It’s the same with Venice.

  * * *

  The buzzer goes off, and I nearly jump out of my skin.

  I go to the door, depress the intercom mounted to the plaster wall beside it.

  “Pronto.”

  “Scuse, Captain Angel. It is the police. May we come up?”

  It’s the voice of the detective. My stomach drops. If he has news of Grace, why couldn’t he just tell me about it over the phone? Why make the trip all the way over here?

  “Come up, Detective,” I say into the intercom, while pushing the door release.

  It dawns on me then that I can see. But my gut is telling me not to let the detective know that I can see. I’m not sure why it’s telling me that. Maybe it has something to with my waiter friend, Giovanni. Like him, I’m not so sure I trust the police. As I hear the flat soles of the shoes of more than one Venice cop stomping up the marble stair treads, I commit myself to acting the part of the blind man, at least while the police are in my home.

  Scurrying to the bed, I find my backpack. Inside it I find my sunglasses. As I slide them on, I hear the police arrive on the landing outside my door.

  Chapter 33

  A KNOCK ON THE DOOR.

  “Captain Angel,” barks the detective.

  “Coming,” I say.

  I open the door, try not to look the stout, bearded man in the eye, nor the uniformed cop who accompanies him.

  I tell them both to come in and step aside.

  The door shuts behind them.

  “You have been doing some redecorating I see,” the detective comments.

  My stomach drops for the second time in as many minutes.

  “Tell me, Captain Angel,” he says. “How do you manage such maneuvers in the dark?”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, as if I don’t understand his question.

  “Isn’t it a dangerous proposition to be moving heavy furniture when you are blind?”

  I laugh. But nothing’s funny.

  “Now I understand, Detective,” I say, pushing the sunglasses farther up on the crown of my nose. “I’ve been trying to work with my blindness. Testing my skills without the use of my eyes. It’s a way for me to try and train myself for a life of no sight, should it come to that.”

  I’m not looking directly at him. But out the corner of my eye, I catch the detective nodding as he shoots a glare at the uniformed cop. The cop returns the glare. The tight expressions on both their faces scream of suspicion.

  “Do you mind if we sit down?” poses the detective.

  “Of course,” I say. “I’m sorry I don’t have any coffee brewing. I can try and make some.”

  “No, grazie. We’ve already had ours.”

  I move myself slowly, guiding myself with the fingers on my right hand, even if I can see. Until I pretend to locate the couch’s armrest, where I perch myself instead of sitting beside the detective. Behind me, the uniformed cop remains standing at the apartment door, as though guarding it.

  “Who is the painter?” the detective asks after a weighted silence.

  “Grace is the painter,” I answer. “And the poet. You should know that by now.”

  “Who is the model for the woman with child?” he asks.

  I think about Grace, kidnapped, stranded.

  “Grace is her own model.”

  “Then she is pregnant, Captain?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “But I suppose it’s possible.”

  “Whatever the case,” he says, “she wears many hats, including that of your wife- to-be.”

  “Yes, she does. It’s all a part of what makes her beautiful.”

  “Endearing, Captain. How interesting that she should fall in love with a soldier.”

  “I don’t see your point, Detective?”

  “I’m having trouble picturing an artist as accomplished as Grace falling in love with a military man. Usually artists seem to attract artists. They tend to shun the military type.”

  He smiles, but I pretend that I can’t see him smiling. I know he’s trying to bait me. But I’m not sure why he’s doing it.

  “You might recall that I’m a writer,” I say. “I might not be a visual artist. But there’s definitely art to what I do.”

  “You’ll have to excuse me, Captain. I forgot all about your book writing. All I remember is this ungodly war in Afghanistan which has dragged on now for ten years. Of course you are an artist. Now it all makes sense.”

  Sliding off the armrest, I face the detective without actually looking at his face.

  “Please tell me. Do you have news?”

  “Yes,” he says, half under his breath. “I’m afraid I do.”

  I begin to feel my limbs tremble. Even with the sunglasses on I try not to look directly at him when he reaches into his pocket, pulls out a passport.

  “Hold out your hand, Captain Angel,” he says.

  I do it.

  He sets the passport into my hand. I feel the familiar, flexible plastic-coated cover. I don’t need to look directly at it to know that it’s wet. That it’s been dunked in water, or left out in the rain, or both.

  “Do you know what you are holding?” the detective begs.

  “A passport,” I swallow.

  “That’s correct. Your fiancée’s passport.”

  “Where…where did you find it, Detective?”

  He stands.

  “It was fished out of the Grand Canal
by a couple of tourists during their gondola ride.”

  “What does this mean?” I beg.

  “It means that we know for certain now Grace is not leaving the country. We also know it’s possible that harm has come to her.”

  I try to avoid looking directly at Grace’s picture when I open it, and pretend to scan the pages with my fingers.

  “I’ll need that back, of course,” the detective adds.

  Before handing it back to him, I thumb back to the first page and run my fingers over Grace’s face. My eyes fill, and I find it hard to swallow. With a trembling right hand, I return the passport to him.

  He pockets it and stands in silence for a moment. The silence makes me feel uncomfortable. Exposed. Like I’m standing inside a fishbowl.

  “Detective,” I say, “what are you going to do to find Grace?”

  I see and hear him reach into his pocket for his cigarettes. He holds them up to me, as though asking me if he has permission to light up.

  “It’s okay,” I assure him. “You can smoke.”

  He lights up with his flip-top Zippo, returns the lighter to his jacket pocket. I tell him there’s an ashtray on the counter at the kitchenette. Slipping past me, he locates the astray and hovers over it while he smokes.

  He says, “With your permission, I’d like to list Grace as officially missing earlier before the required forty-eight hours have passed. Now that we have evidence of possible foul play.”

  “Please,” I beg. “What can I do to help?”

  I see him glancing at the uniformed cop, then to me, and back to the cop.

  “I’d like you to come in for more questioning. Say later today. If that’s okay with you.” Smoking, laughing wryly. “I can’t imagine that in your condition, you have much in the way of plans, Captain Angel.”

  He once more glances at the cop standing by the door, who is also smiling wryly now.

  “No,” I confirm. “I don’t have much in the way of plans.”

  He stamps out the cigarette.

  “I’ll have someone pick you up. Say about fifteen-hundred?”

  “Three o’clock. That’s fine.”

  “Yes, you would be used to European time since it is the same as military time.” He begins making his way to the cop and the door. “Oh, and one more thing, Captain. When you and Grace argued in the café the other day—”

  “We weren’t arguing, Detective.”

  He smiles.

  “Of course not. Allow me to rephrase. During the course of your, uh, discussion, Grace didn’t happen to mention if she might have been seeing anyone else while you were away at the war? Seeing someone romantically? Something more long term and aside from a…how you say in the United States…a one-night stand with her ex-husband?”

  My heart, dropping, along with my stomach.

  “We were…are…committed to one another. Grace wouldn’t do a thing like that without telling me.”

  “But the one-night stand with Andrew. She kept that a secret for a time. Such things might cause an old soldier to become angry. To lash out, perhaps.”

  “Need I remind you again, Detective, that she called me in tears and confessed to it right away. Immediately. And I am in total control of my anger.”

  “Ah, yes,” he says, biting down on his bottom lip. “You did tell me that, didn’t you. The mind is not as sharp as it once was.” Then, “And you have not received any more strange phone calls over the land line? Anything my people might have missed?”

  I tell him I haven’t.

  He nods, and I pretend not to see it.

  The uniformed cop opens the door, steps on out. The detective follows. Until he stops and turns once more.

  “Captain,” he says, “I never actually asked you if I could smoke.”

  I feel my heartbeat pick up at the comment.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “I merely pulled out the pack of cigarettes and gestured to you like I wanted to smoke. I never actually asked.”

  Heartbeat speeds up now. Pounds.

  “Since I’ve lost my eyesight, Detective,” I say, “I’ve learned to recognize the sounds of things. I know you are a smoker, and I heard you go into your pocket for your pack of cigarettes. I heard you pull out your lighter.”

  He nods, once more shoots a glance at his colleague.

  “Of course,” he sighs. “How silly of me.”

  He steps out and shuts the door behind him.

  Chapter 34

  PULSE POUNDS IN MY head, temples flare. I retrieve my cell, try and call Grace yet again. But it’s useless. Still the same old message. I walk to the open doors and stand out on the terrace, my eyes focused on the new day and the few people crossing over the pedestrian bridge that spans the feeder canal.

  I wonder how long my vision will last. Is the blindness finally disappearing for good? Will it ever disappear for good like the doctors predict? Did the detective see through my blind act? Almost certainly he did, and if that’s the case, it’s possible he believes I have been faking my blindness all along, regardless of what the US Army states about me in their reports. If he believes I am faking my condition, he will consider me a suspect in Grace’s disappearance. No two ways about it.

  I pull out the card with the painting of Santa Lucia on it. I also pull out the card with Giovanni’s cell number. The police will be here to collect me at three o’clock. That gives me seven hours to try and find out what might have happened to my fiancée before I drown in this shit storm and something horrible happens to Grace. That is, if something horrible hasn’t happened already.

  I punch Giovanni’s number into my cell, wait for him to pick up.

  * * *

  When he does, he tells me he’s not expected to show up for work until that evening, which gives him much of the day to spend with me, should I require his assistance. If it weren’t for the very real possibility of my blindness returning when I least expect it, I might not need him at all. But for now, it is far safer to go out in the world with someone who can look after me when and if the lights go out.

  * * *

  In the half hour it takes him to get here, I shower and change my clothes. I meet Giovanni down in the street and together we share a coffee before heading out towards the Ponte Rialto where we’ll cross over onto the opposite side of the Grand Canal into what used to be the Jewish ghetto.

  “Let me get this straight,” the tall, black-haired Giovanni says as he sips his café macchiato. “The police have located Grace’s passport, and now they believe she was indeed kidnapped. But they still have no witnesses to the event.”

  “Other than me,” I confirm, taking a careful sip of my cafe Americana.

  “But you were blind at the time. So you are, how you say in English…an unreliable witness?”

  I nod. “That about sums it up.”

  “And now you see again.”

  “But I don’t know for how long.”

  “And why do we want to visit the church where the blind Santa Lucia rests in her peace?”

  “Because that’s what I told myself to do in my sleep.”

  He nearly chokes on his coffee.

  “Scuse?” he poses, wiping coffee from his lips with the back of his hand.

  I drink some more coffee, explain to him in as few words as possible, about my recent bouts of sleepwalking. About the plates and food boxes. About the knives and forks. About the couch and harvest table. All of it reassembled in a way to recreate a city. Or a model of a city, anyway. Buildings, rivers, roads and all. And how, at the end of that road, I found the card depicting Santa Lucia. I tell him that I’ve experienced three separate bouts of sleepwalking during the past three nights. During the first night, I made my way out onto the terrace where I climbed onto the roof where I could look out onto the Grand Canal in the distance. But on the second night, when Grace was gone, I began to build a city inside the apartment. A city out of boxes, spoons, knives, forks and dishes. I didn’t kn
ow what city I was building until the third night when I completed it and it most definitely became a model of Venice, complete with the Grand Canal in its center. And at the very head of the canal was placed a mass card depicting the eyeless face of Santa Lucia. It’s as if my subconscious has been trying to give me directions.

  “Are you suggesting, Captain Angel,” he says as he finishes off his coffee in one swift pull, “that you can see things in your head before they happen?”

  I shake my head.

  “Not exactly,” I explain. “But what if it’s possible that Grace is trying to communicate with me? Like two people who are so connected they anticipate one another’s phone calls before they happen. They call one another at the exact same time. So exact that the phone doesn’t even ring. Suddenly that person is there, on the line.”

  “You and Grace are that close.”

  I down the rest of my coffee.

  “Soul mates,” I say. “I can’t read her mind exactly, but I believe it’s possible to somehow feel her trying to communicate with me.”

  “But you might be all wrong in your beliefs. It’s also possible that Grace doesn’t want to communicate with you.”

  He’s right of course, and it’s a possibility that I must accept. My sleepwalking could be just that: Sleepwalking and nothing more. The city I’ve built from those boxes and plates could simply be the work of an anxiety-ridden solider trying to cope with the dreadful effects of PTSD and nothing more. Maybe I placed the mass card of Santa Lucia on the floor or maybe there’s some other explanation of how it got there. The apartment is rented to lots of military men and women on leave. Many of them visit the church of Santa Lucia. It is a Venetian landmark. Maybe the last occupants of the studio prior to Grace and me paid a visit to the blind Saint and carried home with them the mass card.