Venetian Masks (4 page)

He got lost twice on the way, ending up first in a dead-end alley and then at an especially wide expanse of water he guessed might be the Grand Canal. But he found his bearings and, ultimately, the store.

At first he thought the Billa was tiny. Then he realized that it twisted and turned for quite a distance. There were small shopping carts, but he chose a handbasket instead. He hadn’t thought to bring the wheeled cart from the apartment, so he could only buy a limited amount anyway.

He began with the produce section, which looked reassuringly familiar. There were no weird fruits or unidentifiable vegetables. It did take some close observation of other customers to figure out the pricing system, however. Apparently, you took your apples over to a set of scales, used a keypad to punch in a number that corresponded to the tag over the apple bin, and when the machine spat out a sticker, affixed it to one of the fruits. All right. He could do that.

The next step was a little more intimidating. He could recognize basic items from the pictures on the packages but wasn’t sure if he was picking out bizarre flavors. Once in a while, at least, a word looked like something he’d seen on Italian restaurant menus. After finding some soups and condiments, he chose several packages of sliced meat—there was a bewildering variety of prosciutto-type stuff—and some cheese and yogurt. The bakery counter was easy. All he had to do was point at rolls that looked tasty and hold up a finger to indicate he wanted one. A stout woman packaged them up for him and slapped on more stickers.

He was faced with an assortment of beers. He didn’t know anything about Italian beer. Didn’t people here drink mainly wine? In the end, he chose a midpriced option and hoped for the best.

He could read the total charge on the cash register screen, but the lady at the checkout counter gave him the evil eye when he didn’t give her exact change. There was no way he was going to stand there trying to figure out which coins were which with the impatient line behind him. She threw some coins back at him and then glared some more as he stood there, looking helplessly around for bags. Finally, the young woman behind him tapped his shoulder and said to him in very good English, “You take your food over there now.” She pointed at a table near the door where, sure enough, there were thin plastic bags.

Blushing a little at being so easily identified as a tourist, Jeff mumbled a “thanks” and piled his purchases back into the basket before taking them over for bagging.

He got home with only one wrong turn, which actually brought him to his own
campo
anyway, so it didn’t really count. The guy at the counter nodded and grunted something vaguely friendly. And then Jeff was back in his apartment. He resisted the urge to lean back against the closed door in relief.

It didn’t take him long to put away the groceries and throw together a sandwich. He sat at the table to eat and look through the pile of brochures. The sandwich turned out to be tastier than he expected. The roll was salty, crunchy on the outside but chewy inside, and studded with black olives. The meat was delicious too. He washed it down with a glass of tap water. His guidebooks said the water was perfectly safe to drink, but still he worried a little about exotic bacteria. Well, he had Pepto-Bismol if he needed it.

After he ate the food and read the brochures, he remained at the table with his head in his hands. Grocery shopping was something he did all the time back home, something he barely gave any thought to. Here it had been an ordeal. God, what had he gotten himself into? He should have stayed in Sacramento.

“Oh, goddammit!” he said out loud. His voice echoed a little against the kitchen’s hard surfaces. He needed to stop being such a wimpy asshole. Lots of people traveled—people did it all the time, and sometimes to places even farther from home. It wasn’t as if he was trying to raft the Amazon or scale mountains in Nepal. Yes, it would have been a lot more comforting to have Kyle at his side. Kyle was pretty intrepid. He was the kind of guy who never felt out of place for very long and didn’t much care what people thought of him. Kyle would have picked out some of the most obscure foods he could find at the Billa, struck up a hand-gesture conversation with the bakery lady, and laughed about the self-bagging table. But Kyle was back in California, probably snuggled up in bed with his lawyer at this very minute. Jeff was fully capable of handling a fucking vacation by himself.

He slammed his palm on the table, grabbed his map, and headed for the door.

M
ITA
had been right: you really couldn’t get too lost in Venice. It wasn’t that large a city, and it was, after all, mostly a bunch of islands. There were also signs painted on walls with arrows pointing to major tourist destinations like Piazza San Marco. If you knew where those landmarks were in relation to whatever you were looking for, you could find your way relatively easily.

Jeff wandered for a long time with no particular destination in mind. He saw the gondoliers in their striped shirts hawking for customers, and North African men selling souvenirs and scarves from sidewalk stands. He crossed dozens of little bridges and one really big one covered in graffiti—the Rialto, which had shops running along its length. He found a fish market, which smelled as stinky as he might have imagined but where the tuna steaks looked wonderful. There was octopus too, and fresh sardines, and lots of other things with fins and scales. He didn’t explore the busy greenmarket that adjoined the fish stalls, but vowed to return on another day. He watched the boat traffic in the Grand Canal and laughed at the penis-shaped pasta sold in some of the little shops, and he saw lots and lots of Murano glass earrings but didn’t buy any. He remembered the guidebooks’ warnings to make sure glassware was really made locally and not in China.

When he crossed back over the Rialto, the restaurants along the canal reminded him it was past lunchtime. He chose one of the places more or less at random and was relieved to discover that the menu was in English. After a brief consideration, he decided to find out what real Italian pizza tasted like. The other diners seemed to be enjoying theirs and were using knives and forks to eat it. Weird, but hygienic.

His pizza took up an entire large plate. It had a thin, crispy crust and less gooey cheese than he was used to. But the tomato sauce tasted fresh and not too sweet, and the spices were just right. He decided he approved of Italian pizza, and he ended up eating the entire pie. Then, because the waitress didn’t seem in any hurry to kick him out, he ordered an espresso and leaned back in his chair and just observed.

He hadn’t really noticed while he was walking, but now he saw that the majority of people around him were also tourists. They spoke in a cacophony of languages—English, German, Spanish, Japanese, Russian, French, as well as others he didn’t recognize—and for a while he amused himself by trying to guess what country people were from. He watched them snap pictures and pore over maps and guidebooks, and for the first time, he felt slightly caught up in the adventure of his journey. He was sitting at a sidewalk café in fucking
Venice
, for Christ’s sake! How many people around the world dreamed of doing just that, would give their eyeteeth to be where he was right now?

And, he reminded himself slightly smugly, he wasn’t in Sacramento. He wasn’t tossing and turning in his lonely bed, waiting for the alarm to buzz all too early so he could put on his khakis and button-down shirt and spend the day amongst cubicles, with the smell of toner cartridges and bad coffee permeating the air.

He was, in fact, comfortable. And he had quite a view, not only of the tourists and the canal and the picturesque bridge, all of which were very pleasant, but also of the really hot guy a few tables over. He looked to be a couple years younger than Jeff. His hair was a little shaggy, but sleek and with a bit of a wave to it, and some color that was a little too red to be dark brown. Auburn, maybe. His jacket was draped over the back of his chair so that he sat there in a tight, silky-looking shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His forearms were fascinating: sinewy and strong-looking and covered in intricate sleeve tattoos. Jeff realized abruptly that he might have sort of an arm kink.

But the rest of the man was interesting as well. His face was squarish, with a strong chin and generous lips, and his eyes appeared to be a deep brown beneath expressive brows. He was seated a little too far away for Jeff to make out what the guy was saying, or even in which language, but the man was obviously deep in a serious conversation with his dining partner. Jeff could see only the back of that man, and all he could make out was graying hair and stiffly set shoulders.

Then the younger man looked slightly to the side and caught Jeff staring. Jeff blushed and looked away, but not quickly enough to miss the way those lips quirked into a half smile.

Jeff abruptly stood and—having already paid the shockingly high bill—left the café. But he couldn’t resist a glance over his shoulder, and when he looked back, he discovered that the tattooed guy was watching him leave.

Chapter 3

J
EFF
felt as though he should do something more organized than just wandering, so he consulted his guidebook, made his way to Piazza San Marco, and got in line to tour the Doge’s Palace. He paid for an audio guide, which turned out to be a good choice. The British lady on the recording had lots to say about Venetian government and history and about the meaning of the over-the-top murals, frescoes, and paintings. By the time he left the palace, he couldn’t quite have written a thesis on the city, but he definitely appreciated the fact that the Venetians were a very enterprising lot who liked to chase a buck.

He sat in an overpriced café in the square, watching the swarming tourists and pondering which was more admirable: pillage and autocracy in the name of religion, or pillage and autocracy in the name of profit. He drank a Bellini because he figured he ought to, but it wasn’t fourteen euros’ worth of great, he decided. Then he flipped through his guidebook and made a list of things to do the following day. He would have stayed longer at the café, but the evening was growing chill, and besides, he was feeling a little depressed as he watched everyone passing by in pairs and groups. He hadn’t spoken to anyone all day aside from a few muttered exchanges with waiters and ticket-takers. It was time to check in at home.

He was really proud of himself—he didn’t get lost even once on the way back to his apartment.

“Buona sera!” Mita chirped when he entered the building. He wasn’t positive, but her hair might have been different colors than the night before. “Are you in love yet?”

“Uh… what?” Was this some weird Italian way of flirting? And if so, how did you say “gay” in the local lingo?

“With Venezia. Has she seduced you yet?”

He scratched his head. “Well, she’s pretty cute, but I’m not sure if she’s my type.”

Mita laughed. “You will see. My city is special and she will claim your heart.”

Jeff pictured his heart, dried and cracked into pieces like a dirt clod. Who’d want to claim that? He decided on a change of subject. “What’s with the masks?”

“The masks?”

“Yeah. I passed about a hundred shops that sell them.” He’d passed lots of glass shops as well, but at least he could understand the reason for that—glassware was always useful, and the jewelry was nice.

“It is a tradition. We wear them for Carnevale, of course, but for hundreds of years, Venetians wore them at other times as well.” She grinned. “It is said that the masks helped disguise those who were sneaking about, having secret love affairs.”

“Oh. How come a lot of them are bird masks?”

“Ah, that was the mask worn by the
medico della peste
—the plague doctor. He would place, ah, smelly things in the beak. To protect him from illness, yes?”

“And how’d that work out for him?”

She shrugged. “Probably not well.”

“It’s kind of a creepy souvenir.”

“Perhaps. But I like the adventure of masks. You never know what is behind them.”

Jeff said good night and went to his apartment. He was hungry again and his feet hurt, and he decided on soup and bread and cheese for dinner. Luckily, he was able to figure out the stove without resorting to the instructions. It occurred to him, however, that in the unlikely event he decided to bake something, he was going to have to convert Fahrenheit to Celsius.

As he ate, he booted up his laptop and linked in to the building’s Wi-Fi network. He clicked on the Skype icon, and within seconds he was hearing his mother’s delighted voice. “Jeffy! How’s Venice?”

“It’s nice, Mom.”

“Just nice? Have you ridden a gondola yet?”

He couldn’t help but smile over her enthusiasm. “No. That’s kinda touristy.”

“Perfect. You’re a tourist, aren’t you?”

“I guess so. Did you sell my house for a zillion bucks yet?”

“Not yet. But Leora helped me stage it, and you know how good she is at that. I’m having an open house tomorrow.”