The Venice Stories

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Copyright © 2001 by Randolph W.B. Becker

Electronic compilation copyright © 2013 by Whiz Bang LLC.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. While the author has made every effort to provide accurate information at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their contents.

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ISBN: 0988707888

ISBN: 978-0-9887078-8-7

The Venice Stories

CONTENTS:

FORWARD

THE UMBRELLA

THE TREE

THE SUNSET

THE SEASONS

THE ROOM

THE LOVERS

THE JOURNEY

THE HAND

THE GIFT

THE FIGHT

THE CITY

THE CHURCH

FORWARD

These stories combine three of my favorite things . . . people, storytelling, and Venezia. However, if you asked me in what priority I would rank the three, I would place surprises as number one – the surprises I find in people, stories, and Venice.

These stories would have been functionally impossible without some very important people: my wife, Elissa, who offered me the time to write; my daughters Suki, Lee, Lizzie, and Ericka, who are constant sources of inspiration; the congregation of the Williamsburg Unitarian Universalists who allowed me my sabbatical; and the folks at the Eli Lilly Foundation who made this time of Clergy Renewal financially possible. I offer my humblest thanks to all of them.

These stories would have been essentially impossible without the people and stories of Venice: Mrs. Cervellii, my Venetian landlady; the two barbers at their shop at Guglie; the grocer who sold me all my Pejo bottled water, my wine-merchant who refilled the emptied Pejo bottles with good wine; Rosella, the Venetian shop-keeper I met on my plane ride; all of my friends at Iguana and Fontana and Antico Mola and Pizzeria Tre Archi who kept me fed on those days when I did not want to cook or when I wanted to observe people, tell stories, or live like a Venetian; and even the civil servants, the boat men and women, the postal clerks, and the police (Civile and Questura) who always treated me, the foreigner, professionally, kindly, and warmly. I offer my warmest thanks to all of them.

But most of all, these stories would have been thematically impossible without Venezia, Queen of the Adriatic. I offer profound thanks that such a place exists.

THE UMBRELLA

He first saw the umbrella as it was being placed into the luggage bin of his flight to Venice. It was that distinctive.

True, it was rolled up, and all he could see was its color.

He could not tell who put it into the bin - was it a man, a woman, someone helping someone else?

But, there it was, a yellow which seared the eyeball with a laser-like precision. He had never seen anything that radiantly yellow.

≈≈≈

But, then it was gone, in the flurry of closed overhead bins.

Travel is, even in its most luxurious modes, a dislocation. On the average trans-Atlantic flight endured in economy, dislocation often refers not only to own’s spiritual experience but also to one’s spinal experience. He felt out of time, out of place, out of himself. By the time the plane landed, his focus was thoroughly on his creaking frame. When the bins were opened he missed a chance to see whose hand reached for the umbrella.

But he found himself musing about why the umbrella had captured his imagination. He had even dreamed about it during his restless sleep on the plane, with a Busby Berkeley style musical piece of beauties surrounding an umbrella of the same hue, the centerpiece of an amazingly symmetrical circle of human flesh.

≈≈≈

Ah, Venice ... Venezia ... city of continuities, city of history, city of mysteries. As he aged, he found the more recent trips had become not just times of new experiences but also times of review of past experiences. He was becoming a walking equivalent of the omnipresent guidebooks. Here, on my right, I will see the place where I first glimpsed San Marco, In the next block is the remnant of my favorite osteria, On the Ponte delle Guglie, I once saw Sophia Loren.

When these thoughts came to his mind this time, he wondered to himself if his days of new experiences were coming to an end. Was it all memories from here on? Is that what all those old people did, who sat somewhere, and sat, and sat — stop having current experiences?

The busyness of arrival, immigration, transfers, check-in, and acclimation all took their time and their toll. His senses were dull, his mind distant, his memories clouded. He knew the antidote to all of the jet-lag and foreign-presence was a walk, even in the light rain, and so he headed toward San Marco. Suddenly he saw, moving around the corner ahead of him, the umbrella! It blazed into his reality like a lightning bolt, energizing his step as he tried to catch up to his query. Yet, as he knew, the passage narrows at this point, slowing the crowd, and then disperses into a number of optional routes to San Marco. His pace could not become quick enough. Found, and then lost – the opposite of the usual fate of an umbrella.

But that sighting of the umbrella, even as it faded into the distance, had created a wave of excitement in him. The encyclopedia of memories was suddenly shelved and all of his senses became present. He felt alive, really alive. He felt young. He felt vital.

≈≈≈

As energized as he felt, he found that his energy did not last long. By the time of an early dinner, he felt more exhausted than he had ever felt on a first night in this city. He even passed up his usual option of staying in San Marco as the predicted full moon should have been rising above the Basilica.

Again, his sleep was filled with images of the umbrella. This time he witnessed a long progression of London-looking businessmen, each with black overcoat, black bowler, black attaché, and one of the electric yellow umbrellas, neatly rolled, in one hand. Periodically, but in unison, each man on the street would stop, and swap the attaché and the umbrella from hand to hand.

In the morning he felt more rested, but not really rested.

His stamina seemed to be failing, and he wondered if maybe some flu was the culprit. Yet, he did not ache, he was not feverish. His appetite seemed constant, which pleased him in this city of seafood delights. Maybe, with age, he thought, travel is that much harder.

≈≈≈

Later, while cutting through Dorsoduro toward the Rialto to avoid the crowds of Sestier San Marco, he saw the umbrella again. This time it was open, even though it was only a cloudy day, with no rain at all.

Aha, he realized, a tour guide’s umbrella, the beacon for travelers in the guide’s charge. And what a great beacon it was. Now he could see it in all of its brilliance. Yellow, with a small, repeating pattern of blue cats, but these were not house cats. These were regal lions, the lions of Saint Mark. Fierce, strong, sacred.

His eye then traveled down the shaft of the umbrella to the hand holding it. It was a feminine hand which beckoned his eye further to behold the whole person.

What he saw was a woman not that much younger than he, but what a woman. She was as electric as her yellow umbrella. And she looked like those lions — fierce, strong — and in her beauty, sacred. If the umbrella had penetrated his fascination, she penetrated his soul.

But, before he knew what was happening, she was leading the group away and a mass of others had swarmed between him and her. His feet seemed to be glued to the spot even if the way had been clear. Nothing this new, nothing this powerful, nothing this memorable had happened to him in ... well, he could not remember when.

That night he dreamt again of the umbrella, but this time it had become a giant beach umbrella, shading him and her on an idyllic tropical beach all their own. Magically, while their faces looked as now, their naked bodies were those of young people. They glistened and gleamed in the sweaty heat of the circle of shade. They talked and touched. And into the interior of the dream he sank further and further, leaving him at last more soundly asleep than he had known for days.

In the morning, he could think of little other than finding the umbrella and more so the umbrella’s holder. His mind began to calculate where he thought he might see her. Was she conducting a tour for a single group, so she was unlikely to be seen again in the same place? Or was she conducting tours for new groups each day, so she was likely to be seen again in the same place?

Should he begin his own tours of the city’s most famous sights, hoping his path would cross hers? Should he choose one place of prominence, assuming that she would eventually pass him?

After over an hour of such musings, he realized that she was unlikely to stop by his hotel’s breakfast room. So, he hastily retreated to his room to prepare for his day, HIS day, HER day.

≈≈≈

He finally chose an end row table outside at Café Florian, reasoning that she and her charges would eventually pass through the grand plaza at the heart of the city. So, for hours, he sat facing into the passing crowd. He enjoyed the passing parade of people, of young women whose charm once would have caught his fancy, young men trying to catch the eye of those young women, young men trying to catch the eye of other young men, older people worrying their purses and wallets through the square, tourists wearing more cameras than clothes, haltering steps with canes of Venetians of a certain age. Each person a delight, but not the delight he sought.

A salad and two coffees later, just as midday was becoming afternoon, as Venezianos reappeared to un-shutter closed shops, he thought he caught a glimpse of yellow at the far end, coming from the direction of the Rialto. Was it the umbrella? He stood suddenly, almost spilling his coffee. Was it?

The thickening crowd blocked his view for a moment, but then, like the Red Sea before Moses, it opened the whole length of the square and there it was, the umbrella, and there she was, the woman.

Should he move, try to get closer? Should he wait to see where they were headed? Il conto, per favore, he called to the waiter, trying to prepare to leave. He hastily over-tipped, but did not even notice. When he turned back from the transaction, he looked back to where the umbrella had been, and it was gone.

He was desolate. What had he done? He could have just thrown the money down and left. He could have paid attention to his query, sitting patiently to see what was unfolding. He could have ... he could have seen her up close, maybe make eye contact, maybe ....

He scanned the far corners of the Piazza. Under the arcades. Toward the Campanile. Nothing yellow! Nothing!

He sat down, tired, sad, empty.

≈≈≈

Then he realized that he was in shade, and looking up to see what cloud had robbed him of the sun, all he could see was yellow, a yellow more brilliant than the sun itself.

She was standing right there, in front of him, having come from behind him, to lecture her assembled tour. She was speaking in English with that almost erotic overtone of native Italian.

He did not hear the words she was saying, only the rhythm of her voice, washing over