Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi (5 page)

‘I suppose I should return the compliment.’

‘Please. Don't feel you have to.’

‘No. I want to. I really do.’

‘OK. Maybe the shirt.’ He held out his arms, a gesture that was part display and part shrug.

‘It
is
a nice shirt.’

‘Thank you. Look, I know I had to drag that out of you but, well, it's my favourite shirt. I feel it's so …’

‘Blue?’

‘No.’

‘Wrinkled?’

‘No. Though I admit I could have folded and packed it more carefully. No, the word I was looking for was “manly.” Sorry, I shouldn't have said it. You were right on the brink of getting it anyway’

‘Was I? I thought I was going to say “cheap-looking.” ’

‘A synonym of manly. Whereas your dress is expensive-looking.’

‘Which is a synonym of …?’

‘Exactly’ Wow, he was really in the swing of things now. There was no trace of that earlier paralysis. If anything, he was feeling too full of himself.

‘Fifty dollars from a thrift store,’ she said.

‘Really? It looks like it cost, I dunno, twice that.’ A waiter came by. ‘Would you like a bellini?’ Jeff asked, gallantly. They took one each, depositing their empty glasses on the waiting tray. These opening exchanges out of the way, they talked Biennale logistics, where they were staying, and for how long (she was leaving on Sunday). It gave Jeff the chance to look at her more closely, to note the mole high up on her cheek, her earrings (small, gold), her full lips. Frank and Laura's friend turned back towards them.

‘We're going over to see if Bruce Nauman will grant us an audience. Will you come too?’ Frank had addressed both of them. Under normal circumstances Jeff would have jumped at the chance to suck up to such a big-hitting artist
but now – even though he forced himself to say nothing – every molecule of his being was screaming
We'll stay here, Frank, thank you.

‘We'll stay here,’ said Laura.

‘See you back here,’ said her friend.

‘What was your friend's name?’ asked Jeff, watching her follow Frank.

‘Yvonne.’

‘Yvonne, that's right. Of course.’ He was so relieved to have gained this time alone with Laura that he was unsure what to say, eager to lure the conversation back in the direction of her dress and his shirt, metonyms – if that was the word – of manliness and womanliness. Instead, rather dully, he asked what she did.

‘I work in a gallery.’ The impulse he'd had earlier, to move to L.A., reasserted itself. What did this say about his life, his situation, that he could be so ready, at the drop of a hat, to chuck everything in? Probably that the ‘everything’ was in fact nothing.

‘What about you? What do you do?’

‘Journalist. I'm freelance. If it was a proper job, I'd pack it in and do something else, but freelancing
is
the something else that you do after you've packed in your job so my options are kind of limited. It's that or retirement – from which it is at times pretty much indistinguishable.’

‘Actually, I
am
quitting my job. Though the gallery doesn't know it yet.’

‘What happens then?’

‘I'm going travelling. I'm doing what kids do when they're twenty. It's just that I'll be doing it more than ten years too late.’ So, he'd been right, she was thirty-one or thirty-two maybe. Nothing was escaping him tonight. He hadn't been as sharp – as
un
vague – as this in years.

‘Where are you going?’

‘Oh, you know. The places everyone goes. South-East Asia. India.’

What was wrong with him? Minutes after contemplating moving to L.A. he was ready, now, to go backpacking through Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. Lacking any larger ambition or purpose meant that you clutched at whatever straws came your way. If she'd said she was thinking of moving to Romania, he'd have signed up for that too. Or Mars, even.

He said, ‘Have you been to India before?’

‘Once. To Goa and Kerala. This time I want to go to Rajasthan and Varanasi, Benares.’

‘They're the same place, right?’

‘Exactly’

‘From the Sanskrit, isn't it?
Nasi
, place.
Vara
, many. Place of many names.’

She laughed. She had perfect teeth, quite large: American teeth. ‘I have absolutely no idea whether that is extremely impressive or complete
Ben
as in bull,
Ares
as in shit. Which means it's probably both.’

They clinked glasses. He watched her lips touch the rim of her glass, watched her drink. No smudge of pink was left on the glass; she was not wearing lipstick. He took a gulp from his own glass. The act of drinking served as a reminder of the heat from which it was intended to bring relief.

‘My God,’ she said. ‘Is it ever hot!’ She pressed the glass to her head. He could see her armpit, shaved. The glass left a few beads of moisture on her forehead.

‘Tomorrow will be even hotter, apparently’ He had nothing particularly in mind by this meteorological observation, but it carried the vague suggestion of less clothes, shedding layers,
sweat. Underwear, nakedness. Heat. ‘Actually I got that wrong. The people at my hotel don't call it heat. It's eat. And tomorrow it's going to get otter.’

‘The eat will be otter?’

‘Exactly’

‘Really? I feel like the whole place could just, like, evaporate overnight.’ Such a thing seemed quite possible. It was easy to imagine waking up to find the once-watery city stranded and stilted in foul-smelling mud, the lagoon turned into an expanse of nothingness, a moist brown desert in which the last few fishes flapped and gasped. On the positive side it would be an opportunity to give the canals a scrub and do much-needed repair work on the foundations. Surprising, in a way, that something along those lines had not been proposed as an art project, like a Christo wrap. Assuming it was temporary and reversible, it would probably turn out to be a tourist attraction.

Laura was saying, ‘Nice to write, though …’

‘Oh, it's not proper writing. It's just …’ He shrugged, paused, wondering if, with all the words of the English language available, there was a way of completing the sentence without recourse to the one that sprang immediately to mind. But there wasn't.

‘Bollocks,’ he said at last. In the long interval of expectation the word doubled both as a description of his work and an exclamation of resignation to the fact that he had been unable to dredge up an alternative.

‘Ah, bollocks,’ she laughed. ‘The very essence of the English.’

‘You're right. You have freedom and the pursuit of happiness. We have … bollocks to it.’

‘You're writing about the Biennale?’

‘Yes. Plus, you know that singer Niki Morison?’

‘Steven Morison's daughter, the artist?’

‘And of Julia Berman, the mum, who is here at the moment.
I have to interview her and get her to hand over this picture of her by Morison. A drawing. The editor of the magazine I'm writing for is obsessed by this picture even though he hasn't seen it.’

‘What's so special about it?’

‘No idea.’ Jeff could think of nothing else to say. The absurdity of his job, of the stuff he wrote, extended its reach to taint any words he might use now. Again, she came to his rescue.

‘But you write mainly about art?’

‘Not really. I'm not a very visual person.’ That was it – his best shot. He'd come up with this line before coming to Venice, had decided it was going to be his big joke of the Biennale, to be repeated at every opportunity. What he hadn't counted on was being able to try it out, for the first time, in such perfect circumstances, to such devastating effect.

‘Me neither,’ she said. Oh, no. She was perfectly serious, she
meant
it, hadn't realized he was joking. She was an earnest Californian. His disappointment must have been obvious – maybe he had even been silently mouthing the words to himself – because she punched him on the arm.

‘Joking,’ she said. Shit! He'd been out-deadpanned. She'd taken his best shot, thrown it right back at him.

‘Sorry. Like I said, I only just got here. I'm a bit off the pace still.’

‘OK. Let's backtrack. You write about art?’

‘Sometimes. Celebrities. Interviews. Profiles. Features. The usual—’

‘Bollocks?’

‘Got it in one. Have you spent time in England?’

‘London. Stratford.
The Tempest.
Oxford. The Cotswolds. Portobello Road. Hoxton. I did it in a day and a half.’

‘Well, I guess you saw pretty well everything. It's a small country’

‘Difficult to get around, though.’

‘Foolish even to try. Especially on a Sunday. Did you come across the words “engineering works” and “bus replacement service”?’

‘I flew into Stansted from Pisa on a Sunday. They said we should take the Stansted Express train. They sold tickets on the plane – even though there was no train. The train was actually a bus. It cost a fortune—’

‘And took forever. Welcome to England.’

In terms of what had been said, nothing much had passed between them, but these few words had carried an enormous weight of expectation. It was just a fluke, just luck, but the air between them was charged. She was beautiful, anyone could see that, but perhaps he was the only person here who could have felt that beauty as
a force.
He desired her – not sexually, not yet; that was too specific, would have diminished the scale of his longing – and he would not have done so were the feeling not reciprocated at some level. He could take no credit for this. It just happened. They could have met anywhere, anywhere in Venice in the course of this weekend, or anywhere else in the world in the years to come, and the result would have been the same. They could have said anything and nothing would have changed. Everything would have turned out the same.

Frank and Yvonne came back over, accompanied by a guy called Louis something. They were all amped up from meeting Bruce Nauman but the party was winding down. There was talk about what to do next. Everyone was enthusiastic about going somewhere else. Except Laura. Jeff was surprised to hear her say that she was tired, was going back to her hotel. He wondered if this was a strategic move to get away from the group and back to her hotel – with him – but, evidently, she had nothing of the sort in mind. She wanted to go back
to her hotel. As they prepared to leave he was able to say, unheard by anyone else, ‘I'd love to see you again.’

‘Me too.’

‘Shall I phone you? At your hotel?’ She shook her head. Because of the pause in the middle of his question, he was not sure whether this shake of the head meant
No, not at the hotel, call me on my cellphone;
or
No, don't
phone
me at my hotel
(with the possible implication
Come visit me there instead);
or even – though this seemed a remote possibility –
Don't contact me in any way, ever.

‘Would you like to meet somewhere?’ he said. ‘Or perhaps I could call for you at your hotel? Where are you staying?’ These three questions came tumbling out one after another, but really they were all the same question. He hoped he didn't sound desperate, but such a possibility was not out of – in fact, was probably implicit in – the question.

‘None of the above.’

‘Really?’ So he'd got it completely wrong. There'd been no energy passing between them. It had all been coming from him, in such abundance that it bounced back and was now running down his face, like egg, or ego.

‘But I hope we do see each other again.’

‘OK, I admit it. I'm baffled.’

‘I hope we see each other again this week. In Venice. But it's nice, don't you think, to introduce an element of chance into things?’

‘That depends on whether I run into you again or not.’

‘Well, I think you will. There are lots of parties.’

‘So many that we might be going to different ones. Which ones are you thinking of going to? Just out of interest.’ She didn't say anything, but the way she looked at him meant that it was Jeff's turn to speak again. ‘I hope I do see you again.’

‘Me too,’ she said. Unsure what else to do, he just stood there. ‘You see,’ she continued, ‘if there's no chance, then there's no … Well, let's put it like this, if we meet again it will seem nice, romantic, even. Don't you think?’

‘Yes. But, you see, I'm English so I go into this with a different mindset. I assume that we'll miss each other – bollocks! – and I'll spend the rest of my life wondering what would have happened if we hadn't.’

‘That's even more romantic’

‘But a lot less fun. And at a certain point romance turns to tragedy’

‘How's your memory?’

‘Not that great, to be honest. Why?’

‘Because, earlier on, I did actually mention where I was staying.’

‘Did you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did I say “tragedy”? I meant farce.’ He racked his brains. ‘You know I've got absolutely no recollection of that.’ Had she really mentioned it? ‘Why don't you just whisper it again now, in passing? I'm almost certain to forget.’

‘If I tell you where I'm staying, you'll be hanging round there all the time.’

‘No, I won't.’

‘You will. I'll step out of reception and there you'll be: “What a coincidence, just passing by …” It's just that you'll have been passing by for the last two hours.’

‘You really think I'm that interested?’

‘I really think you're that kind of person.’

‘You're right. That's exactly the kind of person I am.’

‘Cunning?’

‘Desperate.’ A particularly clever remark that one; by saying the word he cleared himself of the charge.

She leaned forward, kissed him on the mouth. He could not remember the last time a simple kiss, in public, fully clothed, had been so saturated with longing. But whose? And for what? Impossible to say. He thought, for a moment, that she might change her mind and invite him back to her room after all, but the purpose of the kiss was to confirm that she was leaving.

‘And you're really not going to tell me where you're staying?’

She shrugged. There was nothing to do except watch her leave. Dark hair falling to her shoulders. Bare arms. Her back, her ass, her legs, her ankles, her cute white sandals.