Permanence Read online

  Doctor sits back in his chair. He raises a smile and crosses his arms.

  “Well, it’s about time,” he says.

  “For embarrassment?” I say, laughing now.

  “No,” says doctor. “Time for a smile.”

  Gondola

  The voice of the gondolier is soft and soothing. The wake from the other boats on the canal is gentle and calming.

  Doctor and I huddle together inside the gondola on the Grand Canal, beneath the woolen blanket the gondolier has given us to protect us from the mist-like rain that seems so appropriate for romantic Venice. The gondolier does not look at doctor and me. He stands atop the tall tail of this sleek wooden boat, and looks beyond doctor and me into the distance. He sings songs for us in Italian and propels the boat with a long, wooden pole.

  Doctor and I say nothing, but there does not seem a need to speak. We have been speaking for hours. Now is the time to reflect.

  As the crescent-shaped bridges pass overhead, doctor and I squeeze together, our laps hidden beneath the woolen blanket. I feel the warmth of our bodies against one another, my head against doctor’s shoulder. The gondola bounces and bobs in the wake created by the other boats that pass us by. I reach beneath the blanket and feel for doctor with my hand, slowly, cautiously. I place my hand on doctor, where I suspect he wants me to. Slowly, gracefully, I unzip doctor’s pants and pull him out. Looking straight ahead at the narrow canal and the buildings along the stone banks, I begin the slow, forward and backward motion with my hand. I move to the up and down motion of the gondola and make sure that the movement of my hand is not noticeable against the underside of the thick woolen blanket. I move my hand, never letting up until I sense a slight lurch from doctor and feel the warm, thick liquid leaking onto my hand.

  Doctor retrieves a handkerchief from his coat pocket and slides it beneath the woolen blanket. Then I turn my head, not noticeably, to face the gondolier. He looks straight ahead, never looking at me for a single instant. He is singing and moving the long black poll from side to side in order to propel the gondola through the waters of the Grand Canal. If he has discovered anything about doctor and me, he makes it none of his business.

  I place my lips near doctor’s ear. I place my hand through his arm and pull him closer. I whisper: “I do love you.” But I’m not sure I should say this. I’m not sure I mean it. Doctor turns to me and smiles.

  “I know,” he says, “about your love.”

  The love I will have for doctor

  Doctor and I take one last look at the Adriatic seascape from the floor-to-ceiling window in our room above the Grand Canal.

  “I know it sounds entirely sad,” says doctor, his tone defeated, his words lacking oxygen. Lacking life. “But I can’t help feeling I’m never going to see Venice again.” He turns and looks at me with his usual, indifferent expression.

  “Of course we’ll see Venice again,” I say, my eyes on the never too serene water of the canal.

  “Just a feeling,” says doctor.

  “Sometimes your feelings can mislead you,” I say. “I mean, if I listened to my feelings, I would have never stepped onto the jet plane that brought us here.”

  There is a knock at the door. It is the porter come to take our bags away.

  Doctor and I are not used to hangovers. We rarely drink, but since arriving in Venice we find ourselves drinking constantly—with every meal and before and after every meal. This morning we are recovering from one whole day spent beneath the canopy of an outdoor cafe, doctor drinking beer and me, Chianti. I spent the day drinking, despite the danger—despite the baby that is developing inside my stomach.

  But there are other dangers too: it was last night, when we were sharing a dinner of pan-fried fish, that I noticed just how badly doctor’s throat was getting. He made an effort to cut his food into tiny, child-sized bites. He chewed each piece of food far longer than a person of his age should be expected. When he drank, he took small sips and waited for the liquid to go down before he attempted another. Through it all, I never said a word about doctor’s behavior, never once pried. Doctor is my doctor, after all.

  I appear happy now, no matter what, in order to combat the worry I have for doctor.

  This morning, even the perpetual gray light that illuminates the stones of Venice seems too bright for my eyes. I am dead tired after a full night’s sleep. But I feel I have become a small part of Venice now, as doctor said I would. And I do not want to leave it, ever. Together we stare at the canal and the ever present, up-and-down bobbing of the black gondolas and their pilots—polers balanced perfectly on the stems, propelling the vessels by waving a single oar from side to side. How they manage to keep balance against the unsteady motion of the water and the boat is beyond me, but I assume they have a talent or a gift they are born with.

  The gondoliers are artists.

  Doctor has become unusually silent this morning. He is no more used to hangovers than I am. He seems to be deeply involved in thought. He is preoccupied. I say as little to him as possible so that he is not inclined to answer me. Perhaps his conferences have overwhelmed him. In the five days since we arrived in Venice, doctor has left the hotel room at seven in the morning, every morning. I would pretend to be asleep with only the water from the Grand Canal audible as it slapped against the stone docks and against the wooden boats. I would bury my head deep inside my down pillows while doctor quietly showered and dressed his slim body. When he returned to our room finally, just before lunchtime, I would wait for him with a cup of cappuccino in my hands or perhaps a glass of champagne delivered by the porter. Doctor would enter into the room in silence. No explanation, no nothing. Just a somber-looking doctor. Normal. But I knew better than to press doctor for information. So I would leave doctor alone in his world.

  Now that doctor’s conferences are finished, however, I feel relieved. But I am still worried about doctor and his throat.

  About the conferences, doctor curiously shrugs his shoulders and says only this: “Psychiatric banalities. Nothing you’d be interested in, Mary.”

  End of story.

  I have no choice but to believe doctor. I have no reason to delve into doctor’s life.

  I am doctor’s patient.

  But doctor is in love with me. I am in love with doctor too in a way that is utterly different from the love I had for baby and for Jamie. The love I will have for doctor will be forever unique to doctor. It will be all our own.

  My time is up

  As we leave the room we shared above the Grand Canal, I have the feeling that I will be seeing this room again. The effect of this gentle premonition is dizzying, but it serves to combat the feeling of loneliness that seems to accompany change, no matter how slight. I run my hands through my hair and hold to the wall for balance.

  “Are you okay?” doctor asks, taking my arm into his.

  “Hangover,” I say, but I am feeling my stomach.

  On my account, we will not take the elevator. We take the heavily carpeted stairs down to the lobby. The porter has already arrived with our luggage by the time we come to the front desk.

  He and the concierge are engaged in a frantic conversation in Italian. I don’t understand a word, but I sense they are talking about us. When the concierge spots doctor and me, he seems to close his conversation with the porter in midsentence. He greets us with a wide, false smile.

  “You are leaving us,” he says like a question. Doctor, in his gray suit, leans against the front desk. I stand straight, rigid, smoothing my travel dress nervously with my open hands.

  Doctor hands the key to the concierge.

  “My time is up,” says doctor.

  I look at doctor, his face pale, his gaunt body swimming in his baggy gray suit, the trim salt-and-pepper beard that stresses his cheek bones.

  The concierge says nothing for a time. He maintains an ear-to-ear smile that cannot possibly be natural. His way is strange, his movements suddenly halted, his expression one of shock.

&n
bsp; I place my open hand to my stomach.

  “You can leave if you want to,” says the concierge, finally.

  The porter begins to laugh. I laugh along with him, feeling the brunt of a bad joke. But doctor does not laugh. He seems preoccupied. He seems to be calculating.

  “It’s not that I want to leave,” he says. “It’s just that our time is up.”

  “Time?” asks the concierge, as though indicating a mistake.

  “Five days,” says doctor, somewhat apprehensively.

  Then it dawns on me: today will be our fifth day in Venice. But from what I remember, doctor said our stay was to last five nights, not five days. If I remember correctly, our itinerary stipulated five nights, six days, the sixth day being a travel day. We are leaving one day early.

  Doctor pulls the itinerary from his pocket. He runs his index finger down the list of arrival and departure dates. I see his eyes widen. The truth is suddenly revealed to doctor. He produces a dry frown behind his salt-and-pepper beard.

  “Oh,” he says. “I see.” Doctor is clearly embarrassed.

  The concierge begins to laugh.

  “You made the payment for a fifth night already, Signor Bridges,” he says.

  Doctor is unusually absentminded. Clearly, his mind is elsewhere. But he is a master of the mind. How the mind works is his job.

  “You and the signora may leave, if leaving is your desire,” adds the concierge.

  Of course doctor and I do not want to leave Venice, ever.

  Doctor lifts his head. He turns to me, the itinerary in his hand. “We’re staying,” he says. “One more night.”

  “In romantic Venice,” I say, not knowing whether to laugh or to cry. “I had a feeling.”

  But we all have a good laugh, suddenly—doctor, the concierge, the porter, and me.

  The porter is still laughing when he places our suitcases back into the brass and chrome elevator.

  “Just one more thing,” I say to the concierge, feeling the splitting pain of my hangover in my head.

  “Si?” he asks with customary smile.

  “Do you have any aspirin?”

  The concierge loses his grin. “I shall make amends for you, signora,” he says, stepping into the small, wood-paneled office behind the desk.

  I look at doctor, but he is looking at something that exists a thousand miles away. He seems affected by something. He is thoroughly engrossed. I feel like a stranger, like I don’t even know doctor.

  “No, signora,” says the concierge, emerging from his office. “I am afraid not to have the aspirin. Shall I retrieve a bottle for you?”

  “Don’t worry,” I say, with a fake laugh. “I don’t really need them.” But I am lying. My head is splitting.

  Again

  Doctor follows me into the room we supposedly left forever, only moments before.

  “I had this feeling we’d see this room again,” I say.

  “I should have trusted your intuition,” says doctor, staring into the bed.

  I collapse on the mattress and bring my face into the cool pillow.

  “What are you doing?” asks doctor. “We have a full day to spend in Venice.”

  I say nothing. I feel my body melt into the bed, my exhaustion and hangover overtaking me.

  “Okay,” says doctor. “I get the message.” I hear his shoes drop to the floor. I hear doctor pull a hanger from the closet and, without looking, I know he is hanging up his jacket. Then I feel him fall into bed with me.

  “So this is it, then?” he whispers, cuddling up beside me. “This is how we will spend our last day in Venice.”

  I smile and smell doctor’s familiar smoky aroma. But doctor cannot see my smile since I am turned the opposite way.

  “In bed,” doctor says. “Again.”

  In the twilight before the night

  Arm and arm, doctor and I dance in the middle of San Marco Square. Our feet shuffle against the cobblestones, our arms interlocked, stumbling wonderfully in the twilight before the night. The sun sets as a dark ball barely visible through the thick, gray cloud cover. The cloud cover moves swiftly across the open sky, like a river. The Italian brass band, set up four deep beneath the canvass canopy, plays American songs for us but threaten to play their last song of the evening until doctor and I beg them to play one more.

  “This is our last night,” I shout to the band.

  “Just one more,” doctor says, stuffing some lire into an empty glass at the feet of the old, overweight trombonist.

  I have been drinking in the face of my pregnancy. Perhaps it is the result of my decision to eliminate it. For now, I choose not to think about children, past or present. Not while doctor and I are so happy. And why should I always be so serious? But the happier I become with doctor, the more I want to tell him that I carry his baby. He has a right to know.

  I want to tell doctor the whole truth.

  He should know that I don’t want to bring this baby into the world. That I can’t bear the thought of this child taking the place of the baby Jamie and I lost together. I would tell him everything, if only I were brave enough.

  I am not brave, only drunk.

  And the more I drink, the more the cramping that accompanies this pregnancy disappears.

  I try to ignore serious thoughts, for now. I try to concentrate on my last evening in romantic Venice. Listen: the Venice doctor and I have for ourselves tonight seems like a beautiful photograph. The square is dark, mysterious, and romantic, like a travel poster. The square is empty, other than doctor and myself. We kiss and stumble while dancing as the sun sets beyond the walls of the square. We dance a twisting body dance and do not keep time to the music coming from the brass band. But we are no more dancers than we are drinkers. None of this matters. What matters is this: doctor and I have one more night together in romantic Venice. We make the most of our night, as if we will never see Venice again. We dance until the brass band will play no more. Until the light is completely gone from the square and the lamps arc lit beneath the long, narrow canopies. We feel slight raindrops against our faces. I close my eyes and open them. I kiss doctor, hard, on the mouth.

  “It’s true,” I say.

  “What’s true?”

  “I’m not dreaming.

  “But my dear, you are mistaken.”

  “How’s that?” I ask, pirouetting around the square, forgetting that I could have ever been serious about anything.

  “We never stop dreaming,” says doctor.

  There’s something I want to tell you

  Doctor takes me by the arm and leads me across the square, past the Basilica and out near the open port. We walk arm and arm along the stone walkway that parallels the Adriatic port. Doctor stops in front of Harry’s Bar.

  “Drink?” he asks.

  “Naturally,” I say.

  We enter Harry’s through the narrow, frosted, wood-and-glass doors. This is a small, dimly lit bar, consisting of one room with scattered tables on the right-hand side and small bar on the left. In the distance is an open space for coats and a staircase that leads to a second floor. We take a table for two beside another table occupied by a middle-aged woman dressed in a clean white dress, her hair powdery white and cut neatly just above her shoulders where it curves into her neck. A sparkling diamond necklace hangs against her chest. She touches her necklace and smiles at doctor and me.

  A group of Italian businessmen are seated at a table near the door. They hold their drinks overhead. A short mustached man in blue blazer makes a toast in a language doctor I cannot interpret, although I understand. Their happiness, I imagine, seems to be the result of a business success.

  Harry’s is a clean, dimly lit place.

  Doctor and I sit in satisfied silence, until doctor leans back in his chair and tries to force a smile. I sense he is about to say something to me. I sense he is building up the courage. But the waiter comes to our table. We order martinis.

  “Listen,” doctor says. “There’s something I want to s
ay.”

  “There’s something I should tell you too,” I interrupt anxiously, as though this would be the best time to tell doctor about the baby I am carrying.

  Doctor looks at me, stunned.

  “Go ahead,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

  But I say nothing. I have little courage.

  I wait for doctor to speak first.

  But there is only the silence of the bar, other than the businessmen laughing and the single woman beside us, dressed in white, taking slow, methodical sips of her drink.

  The waiter brings our drinks. He leaves us without saying anything. Doctor nervously makes a point of telling me a good waiter is not paid to talk but only to serve. Doctor takes a small, careful sip of his martini, but catches a bit on his lip. I am poised, ready to jump to his rescue should he choke. But he doesn’t choke. His expression has become horribly serious.

  “You go first,” I say. “Tell me what’s on your mind.”

  Doctor looks away. The lone woman in white finishes her drink and gradually stands up from her table. Awkwardly, she gathers her things and walks very slowly past the businessmen and the bar. She exchanges a few words with the bartender, who keeps his head down toward the bar, washing. Then the woman extends her hand, opens the glass door, and walks out of the bar.

  “Nothing,” says doctor, shaking his head and regaining a false smile. “You go first,” he says, raising his glass to make a toast.

  “No, I’m serious. You go first.”

  “No,” says doctor, “I don’t remember what it was I wanted to tell you. But what’s on your mind?”

  I feel my stomach, even though I have been drinking. But this is not from the child I am carrying. This is nerves, plain and simple. I must tell doctor, sooner or later, about his baby. Telling him is only fair. I stare at my drink, the smell of alcohol noticeable from where I sit above it. I smile a false smile. As false as doctor’s.

  Here’s what I do instead of revealing the truth: I raise my glass to doctor’s glass. The glasses clink. A small drop of clear liquid spills from the wide-brimmed, cone-shaped glasses. The liquid falls to the table top. Together, doctor and I stare at the drop of liquid as it spreads and takes on the form of a bubble on the table top.