piece being conveyed from square to square. My real life began to leak away.
“Beautiful morning,” I said.
“Mm.” He stopped abruptly at the corner as a crowd of slow tourists in red T-shirts blocked the narrow street. “Come on,” he said, plunging into the stream of them, shouldering through.
“Are we late?”
No answer.
“Bernard?”
A large woman with a face as red as her T-shirt stopped to adjust her shoe, blocking our way. Bernard groaned audibly. I stumbled on the uneven pavement and he yanked me upright. “Careful,” he warned.
After that, I concentrated on keeping up.
In the water taxi, he stood with one hand on his head to keep his hat on, the other braced against the boat for balance, his gaze directed toward the smoky line of the horizon. I thought of what I might have been doing in Venice, the pavilions and auxiliary shows and spin-offs I’d made lists of. I stood up from the seat where he had placed me and edged my way to his side. “Are we taking the water taxi all the way to Padua?” I called over the buzzing motor.
He blinked at me. “What?” he said. “Padua’s not on the water.” Then he turned away. And so we rode on through the brightening morning. The canal opened up into the Venetian Lagoon and the sun blazed golden, its reflection glittering and sparkling, a million brilliant shards on a mirror of water. Gulls soared and dove, squawking their shrill laments. Did Italian gulls speak a different language from American ones? They looked the same as the birds I’d seen at Coney Island, the same as the flocks on the shore all those summers we’d rented the cabin in Door County. I shut my eyes, the spray cooling my face, and felt the unsettling slippage of time: the cold, deep blue, white-capped waters of the inland sea that was Lake Michigan, where great clipper ships had once sunk in sudden storms, and the brilliant sapphire tongue of the Mediterranean licking since the beginning of time at the stone body of the city. Worlds apart, separated by every facet of culture, language, and tradition, yet both beribboned in the sharp, aching cry of the birds that, like ghosts, seemed at home everywhere and nowhere. One of the gulls flapped down and perched on the rail of the boat. Bernard took off his hat and shook it. “Scat!” he cried. The boat man began to scold in Italian. The gull, squawking, fluttered away, caught the breeze, circled back and settled again, and again Bernard chased it away.
“What do you have against the poor bird?” I cried.
He turned slowly toward me and lowered his sunglasses. “They’re filthy,” he said. “Garbage eaters. Corpse pickers.”
“Corpse
what
?”
He straightened, his joints moving stiffly, clumsily. “They’re like vultures or rats. Eating carrion, pecking at the dead.”
“There aren’t any corpses here.” I gestured at the blue waves with their clean caps of foam, risking a little impatience with him. Risking the reference to drowning.
Bernard pushed his sunglasses back up his flared nose and looked skyward. “They found a body in the canal this morning,” he said. Behind his head the sky seemed to pulse, shimmering around the edges. My heart felt odd and heavy, waterlogged.
“Whose?”
“A woman’s. A prostitute’s, probably. They haven’t identified her yet.” His lips pressed together, the color going out of them. I could feel him watching me from behind the smoky glass. “A city built on water,” he said, his voice tight and cracked, a thin vessel crazed with fault lines. “It’s lucky they found her at all! She might easily have drifted out to sea and disappeared.”
I stared at him, cold in the hot sun. Was he thinking of Alena washed out to sea? Imagining her body desecrated by gulls? I stepped toward him and reached for his hand. He was trembling.
Alena
, I thought.
Alena—
afraid of accidentally saying the name aloud. I had never heard Bernard say it, but I began to understand that he never stopped
“Beautiful morning,” I said.
“Mm.” He stopped abruptly at the corner as a crowd of slow tourists in red T-shirts blocked the narrow street. “Come on,” he said, plunging into the stream of them, shouldering through.
“Are we late?”
No answer.
“Bernard?”
A large woman with a face as red as her T-shirt stopped to adjust her shoe, blocking our way. Bernard groaned audibly. I stumbled on the uneven pavement and he yanked me upright. “Careful,” he warned.
After that, I concentrated on keeping up.
In the water taxi, he stood with one hand on his head to keep his hat on, the other braced against the boat for balance, his gaze directed toward the smoky line of the horizon. I thought of what I might have been doing in Venice, the pavilions and auxiliary shows and spin-offs I’d made lists of. I stood up from the seat where he had placed me and edged my way to his side. “Are we taking the water taxi all the way to Padua?” I called over the buzzing motor.
He blinked at me. “What?” he said. “Padua’s not on the water.” Then he turned away. And so we rode on through the brightening morning. The canal opened up into the Venetian Lagoon and the sun blazed golden, its reflection glittering and sparkling, a million brilliant shards on a mirror of water. Gulls soared and dove, squawking their shrill laments. Did Italian gulls speak a different language from American ones? They looked the same as the birds I’d seen at Coney Island, the same as the flocks on the shore all those summers we’d rented the cabin in Door County. I shut my eyes, the spray cooling my face, and felt the unsettling slippage of time: the cold, deep blue, white-capped waters of the inland sea that was Lake Michigan, where great clipper ships had once sunk in sudden storms, and the brilliant sapphire tongue of the Mediterranean licking since the beginning of time at the stone body of the city. Worlds apart, separated by every facet of culture, language, and tradition, yet both beribboned in the sharp, aching cry of the birds that, like ghosts, seemed at home everywhere and nowhere. One of the gulls flapped down and perched on the rail of the boat. Bernard took off his hat and shook it. “Scat!” he cried. The boat man began to scold in Italian. The gull, squawking, fluttered away, caught the breeze, circled back and settled again, and again Bernard chased it away.
“What do you have against the poor bird?” I cried.
He turned slowly toward me and lowered his sunglasses. “They’re filthy,” he said. “Garbage eaters. Corpse pickers.”
“Corpse
what
?”
He straightened, his joints moving stiffly, clumsily. “They’re like vultures or rats. Eating carrion, pecking at the dead.”
“There aren’t any corpses here.” I gestured at the blue waves with their clean caps of foam, risking a little impatience with him. Risking the reference to drowning.
Bernard pushed his sunglasses back up his flared nose and looked skyward. “They found a body in the canal this morning,” he said. Behind his head the sky seemed to pulse, shimmering around the edges. My heart felt odd and heavy, waterlogged.
“Whose?”
“A woman’s. A prostitute’s, probably. They haven’t identified her yet.” His lips pressed together, the color going out of them. I could feel him watching me from behind the smoky glass. “A city built on water,” he said, his voice tight and cracked, a thin vessel crazed with fault lines. “It’s lucky they found her at all! She might easily have drifted out to sea and disappeared.”
I stared at him, cold in the hot sun. Was he thinking of Alena washed out to sea? Imagining her body desecrated by gulls? I stepped toward him and reached for his hand. He was trembling.
Alena
, I thought.
Alena—
afraid of accidentally saying the name aloud. I had never heard Bernard say it, but I began to understand that he never stopped
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