Permanence Read online

  The businessmen laugh loudly.

  “Nothing,” I lie. “There’s really nothing at all to tell you.”

  There is a pause while we hold our martinis above the table and Harry’s Bar becomes very quiet.

  “Well then,” says doctor. “Here’s to us.”

  “Here’s to us,” I say, taking my glass to my lips. “Here’s to all of us.”

  The creation of memory

  Doctor and I travel by rail to historic Florence. According to doctor, there is no better way to see the Italian countryside than by rail.

  “Riding the rails,” he insists, “is the next best thing to walking or driving, without all the effort or dangers of losing yourself.” And as a travel agent, I believe him.

  But the train, we discover, is less than comfortable. We do not enjoy the view from the comfortable bucket seats of the first-class compartment, such as that depicted on the “Rail Travel” brochure acquired by doctor and me at the Venice train station. Doctor and I are forced to ride in the enclosed area between the passenger cars, where they are connected at the coupling. Every seat of every coach is occupied by native commuters and tourists. Since we stand inside the compartment above the coupling, doctor and I do not sleep, although I have managed to create a seat out of my suitcases and travel bags, just out of the way of the automatic door that slides open when passengers want to travel from one car to the next.

  But it isn’t long before doctor and I discover that the coupling compartment is a wonderful way to watch the tiny Italian villages as we speed by them. Through the tall glass doors we see Monselice, Chioqqia, Ferrara, Padova, and Prato. We pass by each village and town in a matter of seconds. The homes that make up the villages consist of clay tiled roofs and stucco walls. Concrete apartment buildings contain balconies covered with laundry hanging from ropes to dry in the wind. The narrow roads are filled with small cars that seem no larger than motor scooters.

  I am tired, but somehow alive.

  I feel the motion of this train through my stomach. I feel the dips and the rises.

  Doctor remains silent throughout most of the trip, until he speaks up about the trees. The Italian plains are wide, dark brown, and considerably lifeless. Doctor explains that most of the trees have been cut down and stripped from the land for firewood and for building. The trees were never replaced. In my mind I picture the land with the trees and attempt to imagine how utterly different the landscape would appear. How utterly alive and fertile.

  We ride the rails across the plains, through the villages and valleys, over the mountain passages, through tunnels that cause our ears to plug as the train speeds through them. I feel the need to hold tightly to doctor while this train seems to sway as it moves along the edge of a cliff face. Doctor makes a small laugh. Apparently he feels immortal today. I look out through the glass doors and see the absence of land speeding past, as though we are flying. I see nothing but air.

  I do not feel immortal.

  I look away from the glass doors from fear of falling. Doctor holds me tightly. I smell his familiar smoky aroma. This is the aroma I will forever associate with doctor. I run my fingertips against his soft wool jacket and up into his beard. I feel protected. He is my doctor, after all. Doctor is my lover.

  We speak with a porter as he passes through the compartment. He is a very short man with light-colored hair. We ask him about available seating. He shakes his head and laughs.

  “Enjoy your seats here,” he says. “This season there are never any seats. This fall brings too many people. This fall the train is always packed up, full.”

  Florence

  The rail station in Florence is congested with newspaper vendors, flower shops, open bars, liquor stores, sweet shops, adventurers, students, travelers, and smoke. Baggage handlers wheel carts stacked high with luggage and goods. Maybe a dozen concrete ramps extend perpendicular from the main station platform and run parallel with the many tracks that begin and end with this station. The smell of the station is acrid, combusted fuel and sweetbread cooking in the bakeries. The smell of roasting peanuts, sausages, tobacco, and combusted fuel defines the air.

  Doctor and I lift our suitcases from the concrete platform. Together we make our way through the congestion of people and objects, through the din of voices and whistles.

  We walk through the station without stopping.

  Outside, I am immediately relieved by the fresh air.

  Doctor hails a cab.

  With the help of the driver, doctor loads our suitcases into the trunk of a white Peugeot. The driver is a small, gray-haired man with an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips. Doctor takes a seat in front while I take a seat in the rear.

  I am dead tired.

  We speed through the winding cobblestone roads of this city. Doctor shouts the name of our hotel above the noise of this Peugeot that is missing a muffler. The driver nods his head in the affirmative, his unlit cigarette still dangling precariously between his lips. He drives like a maniac through the narrow, twisting streets. He is a stranger. Our very lives are in his hands.

  I feel my stomach in my throat.

  But we make it in one piece to our hotel.

  This is a hotel that faces the River Arno. The river seems to split this city in two so that one half is plainly urban and flat and the other, suburban and hilly. The Arno is the slow-moving, dark river that runs far below street level. A series of arcing bridges span the river and it is the placement of these bridges every few hundred feet that creates the perspective of distance for doctor and me when we look out on the city from the fourth-floor balcony of our hotel room. Rowers from the university cut through the dark waters of the river beneath the bridges in pencil-thin sculls, one after the other in a pursuit race. Some of the sculls are single man, most of them four or eight man; once we see a twelve-man scull pass by.

  Doctor and I lean with our elbows against a metal railing that surrounds this balcony. We watch the fishermen dressed in black woolen coats and rubber boots, despite the heat of late October. They cast into the dark of the river with long black poles that seem to allow them the reach they need for fishing the river. Doctor and I watch them for quite some time, in silence. The fishermen rarely catch fish, I notice, but when they do, they make a wild back-swinging motion with the long black polls, lifting the orange, metallic-colored fish up to street level. Doctor and I watch the fish flutter against the pavement when the fishermen fall to their knees against the concrete sidewalks to remove the barbs from the fish’s mouth. From the distance of the balcony I watch what must be a grin on the fishermen’s faces when they lift their catch, never still, for the other fishermen to see.

  Doctor takes my hand into his.

  We can barely make out the rats that scurry across the rocks and rubble that serve as the banks for this river. Doctor counts them, one by one, as they appear from the crevices and caves created by the random placement of the rubble, rocks, and gravel. “One, two, three,” counts doctor. He laughs a small laugh, holding tightly to my hand. But doctor could be wrong. From this distance I can tell there are too many rats for counting.

  Doctor continues to count the rats and make comments about patients, past and present, that remind him of river rats.

  Doctor is in a rare joking mood.

  Itinerary: doctor explains that we will stay in Florence for five days and four nights before moving on to Rome, again by rail.

  “How many days?” I interrupt. “How many nights?”

  “Five days,” insists doctor, while lighting a cigarette. Clearly he is not amused.

  From a separate balcony accessible by a common sitting room inside the fourth floor of this hotel, doctor and I can look out onto the entire city of Florence. With the help of a tour guide pamphlet we locate the Uffizi and the smaller Academia that houses Michelangelo’s “David,” as well as the churches and towers glorified by the works of Renaissance artists—Donatello, Masaccio, Fra Angelico, Leonardo da Vinci. We will visit everything, doctor p
romises, now that he is finished with his conferences.

  Doctor tells me we will tour the city by bus.

  “The way these people drive,” I tell him, “we’ll be lucky to make it through the tour alive.”

  Doctor says nothing.

  “I was just thinking,” I say. “What about cocktails? What about food?”

  Doctor grins.

  “Okay,” he says. “Of course we’ll find a nice, out-of-the-way trattoria. We’ll find a comfortable bar.”

  “We’ll make the place our own,” I say. “Out-of-the way of the street and the crazy drivers.”

  “Remember what I told you,” says doctor. “Sometimes you have to place your trust in the hands of somebody else. Sometimes you have to throw fate to the wind. You’ve got to live a little.”

  “Living isn’t what worries me,” I say.

  Doctor nods his head. Smoke surrounds his forced smile like a fog.

  “You guessed it,” I say. “It’s dying.”

  Magic

  I sit at the dressing table and watch my image as it appears for me inside this mirror. This is long after doctor and I have shared a quiet dinner, long after we’ve shared a bottle of Chianti, long after we’ve walked along the darkened banks of the Arno.

  This is long after doctor has fallen fast asleep.

  I look into my eyes as though they are not my eyes at all. I bring my fingers to my hair. I feel my hair.

  My image appears for me—before me—like a total stranger.

  I bring my hands to my face, feel the skin that surrounds my checks as though my body does not belong to me. The skin is fleshy and dark below my eyes. These are not my eyes. These are my father’s eyes. I run my hands through my long, fine hair, the hair that was my mother’s hair.

  Doctor is silent, but awake now. He sits up and lights a cigarette in bed. I see his distant image beside my own, in the mirror. I bring my fingertips to the mirror and touch our images, as though reaching for our very souls.

  “Come to bed,” says doctor, stamping out his cigarette. “Don’t you want to come to bed’?”

  “Bed,” I say, through the mirror.

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “Bed,” I say, feeling separated from my body. “Bed is not a problem.” The problem is this: I am changing before my eyes, like magic. Like I am not me at all anymore.

  Hospital

  On the warm, brightly lit morning of our first full day in Florence, doctor secures a place for us on a bus tour of the city. I am still drinking coffee from a Styrofoam cup when we board the bus at seven in the morning. I slide into a window seat with doctor beside me, his seat beside the aisle. I am dressed in a short V-neck sweater and a cream-colored miniskirt. Doctor wears his usual gray jacket and pants. The bus fills with tourists and several tour guides—young Italian women with long, straggly hair, t-shirts, and blue jeans. The guides file past us, counting passengers with their fingertips, looking right through us.

  Doctor and I are just numbers to them.

  We travel the narrow road that runs parallel to the Arno, speed by street vendors preparing their space of sidewalk for the day. We stop for a traffic light. I see the street-corner artists painting riverbank landscapes. Tourists gather and contemplate the colorful paintings that lean on display silently against the buildings, while their partners stand silently by them, smoking cigarettes.

  The bus starts and stops again at a crossing.

  A man catches my attention outside my window. He is wearing a loose-fitting black suit and dark aviator sunglasses. He is drinking down a full glass of beer.

  It is seven-thirty in the morning.

  I listen to doctor’s deep, throaty breathing. He must have fallen asleep, I think. But when I look at him, I see that he is awake.

  The bus moves rapidly throughout the narrow city streets.

  So I am not braced when the truck rams into the side of our bus. The bus jerks and brakes. The passengers fall forward with the momentum. I slam my head against the plastic seat directly in front of me, but manage to stay conscious. Some of the passengers scream. The window next to me cracks, takes on the appearance of a spider’s web.

  Doctor docs not fare so well. His face has pounded against the seat before him. A gash has opened up at his lower lip.

  “My God,” he says, his voice groggy but shocked. “I’m bleeding.” Doctor spits a mouthful of blood and stringy saliva to the bus floor.

  “Oh, oh,” I say. I have spilled my coffee. There is a brown puddle on the floor that combines with doctor’s saliva and blood.

  “We have to get out,” I say. But doctor is not listening. His eyes are glazed. He tries to stand, but he quickly falls back to his seat.

  “Don’t try to stand,” I tell him. “Stay down until they tell us what to do.”

  Someone from the front of the bus is shouting, shrieking. People are beginning to stand. They are crowding the aisle. Doctor brings a handkerchief to his lip. The white cloth quickly absorbs his blood.

  There is much yelling and screaming.

  Someone is crying.

  From the cracked window I can see the driver of the tour bus and the driver of the truck that rammed into us. The two men stand face to face in the cobblestone street. And while the bus driver appears to be unharmed, the driver of the small truck has a gash that runs the length of his right check, from eye to chin. The two drivers scream at one another, nose to nose, tossing their arms violently.

  The passengers of the tour bus empty out at the discretion of the tour guides. From this cracked window I see the passengers disperse themselves amongst the crowd of onlookers.

  The passengers disappear and suddenly, the inside of the bus is deathly silent.

  I feel sharp pains in my stomach.

  Doctor sits, staring straight ahead, his forehead pressed against the seat-back before him. Now we are the lone occupants of the damaged bus. Doctor spits another mouthful of blood to the floor. A long strand of saliva and blood oozes down beyond his chin to his shirt.

  Doctor is silent.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask, stupidly. There is something seriously wrong with doctor. Something internal. “Tell me what’s wrong with you.” I am shouting.

  But doctor will say nothing. We are all alone on this tour bus. The strong, sour smell of gas fills the air. My head aches.

  “We have to move, doctor,” I say.

  No response.

  Doctor stares into an imaginary distance. He drops the blood-soaked handkerchief to the floor. Slowly, he turns and looks at me. He brings his bare hand to his mouth in slow motion.

  He takes his hand away and looks at the blood that has stained his skin. I try to stand, but remain crouched beneath the luggage rack. I try to lift doctor by his arm, but he will not budge. He is still staring into the plastic seat before him.

  “We have to leave,” I shout.

  There is silence for a few moments, other than the noise of the bus driver and the truck driver outside this cracked window, and the crowd that still surrounds them. Then doctor says this: “I…don’t…feel…quite…right.” Doctor is slurring his words, like a drunk. I stand straighter, taller, my back up against the cracked window. I feel the splitting pain shoot across the center of my forehead. I am off-balance. I hold to the seat in front of me. Police sirens can be heard now, coming toward us. The sounds become louder, closer. The police are coming for us. Doctor is not moving. The police arrive. The police are tall, heavyset men with black, knee-length boots, and brown riding pants. They break up the argument between the two drivers by physically pulling them away from one another. End of argument.

  I hold to doctor.

  “We must find a hospital,” I say. Doctor spits more blood and saliva to the floor. The floor beneath doctor and me is covered with blood, saliva, and spilled coffee. A bitter gas smell comes from the rear of the bus.

  I feel the sharp pains coming from inside my stomach.

  I am nauseous.

  Doctor t
urns to me. He nods his head as though in approval.

  “Hospital,” he says, before losing consciousness. “A hospital would be good.”

  Suddenly, I am an intruder

  Doctor and I are driven to the hospital in the rear of a police car. On the way, doctor leans his head against my shoulder and remains so still I must check to see that he is not sleeping. I must answer many questions about the accident. What I saw. Who was responsible. Am I hurt internally? Would I like to see a lawyer?

  I answer the questions vaguely.

  I now know the reason why the other passengers of the bus quickly lost themselves amongst the crowd.

  Once in the hospital, doctor is treated for a mild concussion. He receives eight stitches in the place where his lower lip split when he hit his face against the rigid plastic backing of the seat directly in front of him. Nurses repeatedly ask doctor to remain in the hospital overnight. Of course, doctor refuses. They cannot convince him to stay, nor can they force him to. He is a doctor, after all.

  I am given a mild sedative. The black and blue swelling at my forehead is rubbed clean with an alcohol rub and then bandaged.

  No one suspects my pregnancy.

  The attending physician is a good-looking man with short black hair that has grayed at the temples. Doctor and he confer about something of which I know nothing while I stand inside this doorway of the physician’s office. I stare at the walls in the hallways. The walls are hospital-white and the floors are battleship gray, with a wainscoting of ceramic tile. Bright overhead lights illuminate the hall while the occasional voice sounds tinny and distant over an invisible public address system. Nurses and workers move about, all dressed in white. On occasion a patient wearing paper shoes scrambles past, making a sandpaper noise with his feet against the floor. There is a familiar worm smell.

  I look at my watch: 10:30 A.M.

  I am dead tired.

  Doctor and the Swiss physician continue to confer about something I suspect is other than his tour bus accident. There must be a reason they will not allow me to listen. But I listen anyway. I listen as intently as all I can from the doorway. But all I can discern are the words “Venice” and “five days.” Still, there is no mistaking the physician’s question that follows: