by Marlene Hill
“Although it happened long before he met you, Chuck still felt threatened.” Nonna turned to face her and said, “And surely you’ve noticed that men often think with their penis before their brain?”
Again Giulia was surprised—pleasantly so—to hear her nonna talk plainly, woman to woman. “I have noticed,” she said on a breathy laugh.
“Do you think he’s come to terms with the idea now?” Nonna asked.
“Yes. Oh yes. I know so. The last time we spoke about it, I was foolish and tested him one more time about his trust in me.”
“What happened?”
“He was furious that I still doubted him and turned it right back on me. He said maybe I did have something to hide and stormed out. Oh Nonna, I almost lost him.”
“What did you do?” Nonna placed buttered toast in front of Giulia.
“I ran after him and begged.”
“Good.”
“Good? It was awful.”
“But there was fire, right?”
“Yesss,” Giulia dragged out the word.
“And later you made up and it was better than before.”
Giulia got up went around to hug her. “Nonna, you do understand.”
“I do. Now eat up, you’ll need strength to guide me over to Redentore.”
* * *
As they stepped off the vaporetto in front of the church, Nonna said, “It’s funny, Tony still doesn’t like it that I was invited to the Festa by another young man. And that was before we began to see each other!”
“The fragile thing, huh?”
“Guess so,” Nonna said, laughing and put her arm around Giulia’s waist.
It was one of those dazzling mornings in Venice that come when the sun lights up every surface. The ruffled water sparkled and sent glittery shards of crystal into their eyes. The gleaming white facade of Redentore looked like a temple out of old Rome, or, more appropriately, old Greece.
Nonna said, “The door’s open, we ought to go in before they close it. You never know when those sacristans will decide to lock up.”
“That’s for sure,” Giulia said. They hustled up the steps and inside.
“What a huge space,” Nonna said in a hushed voice.
Giulia spoke in a soft voice, too. No one else was there but the white stucco and grey stone walls seemed to require hushed tones. “I read that Palladio designed this for crowds of pilgrims who’d come for the celebration. I want to attend the event this summer. Want to come with me?”
“Maybe I could. And maybe it’s time for Tony to accept my past as well as Chuck has accepted yours.”
“Yes.” Giulia said, and for the first time, she saw her grandparents as real people with real relationship problems. “I can’t imagine a pontoon bridge all the way across the wide Giudecca. It must be a sight,” Giulia said.
“I suppose it was amazing back then, but I was so enchanted with the young man who took me in his boat, I don’t remember much else,” Nonna said with a dreamy look on her face.
“That’s the way it should be, right?”
“Right, but don’t tell Tony I said that. Now what shall I look for?”
“In my opinion, the artwork isn’t as spectacular in here as in other Venetian churches.”
They strolled around in the vast empty space. Giulia let Nonna take the lead.
“Finished? Giulia said.
“Yes, I expect so.”
“Before we leave, I want to show you something strange in the sacristy.”
“Va bene. Let’s find it.”
No one was in the large room either. Giulia followed along waiting for Nonna to stop in her tracks. When Nonna did, she gasped.
Eleven life-sized wax heads of brothers of the Order of Capuchins were arranged on the top of a large cabinet that ran along two sides of the room. The individual faces had realistic, glass eyes and thin beards that looked like real hair. Each one—encased in a glass capsule like a bell jar—had a title card attached.
Even though she’d known what to expect, Giulia still shivered, seeing the strange heads. She remembered the crypt of a Capuchin church in Rome decorated with skulls and bones from thousands of dead monks.
“Mio Dio!” Nonna stopped when she came upon a head of a woman, Santa Veronica di Giuliani. “She must have been outstanding to be honored here among all these ‘worthy’ men,” and Nonna made quotation marks in the air. “Her title card reads,” and she spelled out the letters Ord. Capuccinarum abbatissa. “An abbess?” Nonna asked, turning to Giulia.
Giulia nodded. “After seeing all this, I read up on her. She was an abbess of her convent. You know about Saint Francis’s sister order?”
Nonna nodded. “The Poor Clares.”
“Veronica joined the Poor Clares at a very young age and was about seventeen when she suffered stigmata. The wounds were almost exactly the same that Francis had, except hers appeared five hundred years after he died.”
“Enough,” Nonna said and shivered.
“What do you say, we find a steaming cup of cappuccino in honor of the Capuchins and this macabre place? I know a little bar here on Giudecca. From there we can sit and look at the fantastic skyline of Venice.”
“Excellent idea,” Nonna said.
* * *
Monday morning, Nonna’s train was scheduled to leave twelve minutes before Giulia’s. They hugged one more time.
“Thank you for coming. Will you thank Nonno Tony again for me?”
“Of course.”
Giulia pulled back to look into Nonna’s eyes and said, “Thank you most of all for listening. I’m sorry I dumped on you like that.”
“Dump? No, child. We all need someone to share heavy times—happy times, too. For years, I’ve had my friend, Angelina.” She looked straight into Giulia’s eyes, “And you can rest easy, your story stays with me.”
“Thanks, Nonna. I’ve needed to tell someone for so long. Even with special friends, I resisted letting my barriers down.”
“You’ve told Chuck and now me, those walls may keep tumbling down.”
Giulia nodded slowly. “Old habits are hard to break. But maybe.”
“Best I get on board. Call me the minute you hear about that wonderful man in your life.”
* * *
As soon as her classes were finished, Giulia hurried toward the bus for Vicenza to catch the next train to Venice. Her head was down, and she didn’t hear her name before she ran right into Officer Ryland.
“Sorry to block your path, but it seemed the only way.”
“Oh, excuse me, Colonel Ryland.”
“Rob, remember?”
“Yes, Rob. I was hoping to catch the 12:12 for Venice.”
“How about I drive you all the way? I’ve got some news.”
“About Chuck? Is he safe? Is he alive?” She barely stopped herself from grabbing Ryland by the collar. “Where is he?”
“He’s in a rehab center in Venice.”
“Rehab? What for?” She was gasping for breath. “Is he okay?”
“I - don’t - really - know,” he said spacing his words. “But I’d think so if he’s in a rehab.”
“Why not a military hospital? How can that be? What does that mean? Is the military giving up on him?”
“No. God no. It wouldn’t mean that. There’s got to be a good reason why he’s in a private facility. I’ll take you there. Let’s get to the parking lot and be on our way. I’ll answer what I can. You want to see him, don’t you?”
“Oh yes. Yes, of course.”
He led her to a dark-green Fiat Punto like Chuck’s. In spite of her worry, she smiled at how Chuck looked whenever he crawled into his canary-sized car.
“So?” She said as Ryan pulled onto the highway for Venice.
“This morning the base commander received a call from Landstuhl saying that Karl Frederick Novak was being transported from their trauma center to the Elena Cornaro Recovery Center in Venice.” He handed her a copy of the message. “It’s my understanding
that this rehab is in Campo San Zaccaria. Do you know it?”
“I know San Zaccaria, but the only place I’ve seen that could be anything like that is a casa di cura, a nursing home.”
“I sure don’t know. Someone dragged me to Zaccaria once but don’t remember much about the campo.”
“Strange.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Wait a minute. There’s a facility for the Italian Military Police in that campo.”
“Yes, the Carabinieri. I’ve always thought it ironic that when Napoleon suppressed the San Zaccaria nunnery, their quarters went straight from being female religious cells to male military ones.”
“Hunh! I’ll bet a lot of snide jokes still make the rounds about that,” Ryland said. “We’ll know more soon. I have a permit to go check on him, and I’m taking you in on my permit.”
“Thanks, Rob. Thanks for thinking of me.”
“I’m sure Chuck would rather see your pretty face than my mug.” He fished a card out of his shirt pocket and handed it to her. “Take a look and see if you can make out exactly where it is.”
She studied it as they drove. It gave the name and address of the facility with a little map sketched on the back.
“It looks like the place I thought was a nursing home.” She sat back and stared at the card.
“He means a lot, huh?”
She nodded. Her voice was raspy. “We’ve had ups and downs lately but now this . . .” and her voice trailed off.
“Hang in there, hon. It won’t be long now.”
She looked at him and smiled, but her eyes were filling. She blinked hard and turned to the window, straightened her spine and took a deep breath.
“What’s Landstuhl? A German hospital?”
“No, American. In the city of Landstuhl, Germany. The biggest military hospital outside the States. Has a great reputation for trauma cases, coming from the Middle East mostly.”
“Was he in Afghanistan? Iraq?” she asked.
“Honestly, no clue. Maybe neither. Sorry, I still don’t know.”
“So the hospital on our base isn’t much, huh?”
“Nah. It’s little more than an infirmary. Maybe you’ve noticed earth movers tearing up the ground beside it. A bigger, better one’s scheduled to open in 2006. Not likely they’ll make that date, three years isn’t much time for the government. Hey!” He struck his forehead with his palm. “That might be why Chuck’s being sent to the rehab.”
* * *
When Giulia entered Chuck’s room, she sucked in a breath and almost staggered backward. He was so thin and ashen with IVs attached to his hand and arm and a monitor blinking beside his bed. She felt relieved he couldn’t see her shocked face. He looked wasted. Would she lose him now that they’d found each other? She pulled up a chair and sat beside his bed, taking his hand and began to squeeze his fingers.
Chuck’s eyes fluttered when she squeezed them. “That’s good,” the nurse said as she came in on silent rubber soles. “Keep doing that and talk to him. He’s not in a deep coma.”
She talked about his score on something called a Glasgow Scale. Giulia had been squeezing different fingers off and on since she’d come in at one o’clock. It was four-thirty now. She hadn’t noticed when Ryland had left. She should have let him know how grateful she was. She’d be sure to call him; he’d want to know Chuck’s progress. Or lack of it. Oh no! Can’t think that way.
There didn’t seem to be a hard rule about “family only” here. There’d certainly been no problem with Chuck going into Nonno’s hospital room. I should call them. Marc and Marlowe, too. She hated to leave his side for a minute but slipped out to make quick calls. She didn’t want to miss the doctor who was expected around five.
Giulia grabbed a cup of coffee and went straight back to the room. She held the cup close to his nose, hoping the aroma might stimulate him. So far, nothing. He remained quiet. She talked to him, telling about Ryland bringing her here and about Nonna and Nonno Tony staying at the apartment. But no response. A different nurse shooed her out to take his vital signs and test him again on that scale. She heard violent coughing from his room and started to go back in. The nurse was firm and said, “No, no, signorina, non ancora. Not yet.”
Finally, his coughing subsided and the nurse came out carrying one of those small metal pans used for people to spit or vomit in. Giulia followed her down the hall and asked about the coughing.
“He’s been in an explosion,” the nurse said. “Suffered from smoke inhalation with possible damage to his bronchial tubes. Every couple of hours, we try to aspirate porcheria, gunk, out of his system.”
“So that’s what made him cough?”
“Yes.”
Giulia’s face crumpled.
“It’s going to be all right, signorina, coughing is good even if it sounds horrible. His points on the Glasgow are pretty good, and the doctor thinks the lingering coma is more about the smoke damage than the head injury. He’s probably not getting enough oxygen.”
That was scary. Giulia knew the brain needed oxygen. When she’d first arrived, he hadn’t had oxygen cannulas in his nose, but now he did. Was that a bad sign? She felt frantic and couldn’t leave his side. Finally, the doctor came in to check him and sat with Giulia.
She introduced herself as Dr. Cornaro. Tiny, not five-feet tall, with short blond hair and dark brown eyes. She didn’t look much older than Giulia, maybe in her late thirties. Energy radiated from her wiry body.
“He’s had a head injury but the results of a CT indicated no bleeding in the brain. The swelling has gone down and his Glasgow scores are improving.” She frowned a little. “Of course, we can’t ever know for sure, but things look good for your husband.”
“He’s not my husband, but… I care for him.”
“I can tell.” She put her hand on Giulia’s shoulder. “And from my nurses’ reports, you’ve been diligently squeezing his hands and talking to him. Smart to change his hands from time to time. Those are important stimulations for him right now. We all try to do that for our patients but with your perseverance, well, I can’t tell you the good you are doing.”
“What else can I do?”
“You can get a bite to eat and take a walk. Then come back and start all over again.”
“Please. Can you tell me what this scale is, and what’s a CT?”
“CT merely means Computerized Tomography. As I said, it’s a test to measure bleeding in the skull. And the Glasgow Coma Scale is a very useful tool. If used correctly, it’s an excellent way to assess the level of a coma. Even better, it’s non invasive. For example, when you squeeze his hand and his eyes flutter, he gets two points. If his eyes open or move to a loud voice, he gets three, and if he does it spontaneously he gets four. There are points for various verbal and motor responses. When you squeeze each finger separately, as I saw you do, I’d say he gets four more points when he reacts to the pain—no matter how slight. And his toes. Clever! “
“How many points does he need to be awake and oriented?”
“A fully awake person has a score of fifteen.”
Giulia stood up and looked down at him. She heaved a big sigh. “He’s a long way from fifteen isn’t he?”
“Right now, yes, but occasionally patients wake up all of a sudden and we can stop counting. I’ve used this scale for many years. You might say it’s my specialty.” Her brown eyes shone with what Giulia thought of as a dedicated light. She moved closer to Giulia and touched her shoulder again. “Go now. Eat and walk. We need to aspirate him.”
Giulia started to rise but stopped and said, “He didn’t have oxygen going into his nose when I got here at one. Later, when I came back in, he did. What does that mean?”
“That you’re too observant for your own good.” She smiled. “It means that we use oxygen for a time, then take it away, then bring it back. That way we can assess his situation and also stimulate his bronchial tubes to function better on their own.”
“I see.”
Dr. Cornaro smiled. “No, you probably don’t, but it is standard procedure. Now go. Come back in an hour. We’ll take care of him.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
“Marlowe! Thank you for coming.” They hugged outside the front door of the rehab.
“How is he?”
“About the same. They asked me to leave for a while and assured me he’s moving in the right direction, but I hate not being beside him every minute.”
“I can imagine. Come on let’s walk, you look pale,” Marlowe said. When they sat on a bench along the Riva overlooking the basin, Marlowe handed her a package. “I brought you the latest Donna Leon to read while you’re with him.”
“Oh thanks, Marlowe.” Giulia hugged her again. She appreciated Marlowe’s gift but couldn’t focus on anything but Chuck’s situation. “Chuck’s doctor measures his progress with something called the Glasgow Coma Scale.” She explained what she knew about it.
“Marlowe, when you get time, would you find out more about his doctor, Luisa Cornaro? Does she know what she’s talking about? When I get home, I can’t seem to concentrate on the computer.”
“I’ll get on it right away.”
“Maybe more about the coma scale too?”
Marlowe nodded. “Glasgow, right? Scotland?”
Giulia just shook her head. “I’m going back. It’s been almost an hour, I doubt they need an hour. The doctor probably thought I did.”
“Shall I come sit with you?”
“Yes… No… I don’t know, Marlowe. All I want to do is talk to him, pinch him, squeeze his hands… maybe later, okay?”
“Sure. Marc will want to come, too. He’s in Germany working on a construction-equipment deal, but he’ll be back tonight. He’ll be thrilled to hear Chuck’s good news. It sounds encouraging.”
“Maybe.”
“I’ll print out whatever I find about his doctor. Surely she knows what she’s doing or the military wouldn’t have sent him to her.”
“I hope so,” Giulia said, but her shoulders drooped.
“Hang in there. Tomorrow, I’ll drop by as soon as I finish classes. Agree?”
Giulia nodded and watched her leave, but felt alone and helpless. No, not alone. Her grandparents would be with her in a minute, and Marlowe and Marc, were “with her” too. But squeezing fingers didn’t seem enough. What else could she do? She stayed beside his bed until the doctor woke her out of a doze at nine and insisted she go home.
