The Disappearance of Grace Read online

  Directly before me: the front doors to the precinct.

  I turn away from the detective’s office, descend the small flight of stairs and head out into the night.

  Chapter 27

  STANDING OUT ON THE cobbled walk, I spot the No. 1 vaporetti water-bus just as it’s about to leave the bobbing dockside stop. I pay my five Euros at the window and hop on just as it’s pulling away, squeezing in amongst annoyed tourists and evening commuters. I try and balance myself in the never-ending wake of the Grand Canal while the boat heads deeper into the city. At the stop for Piazza San Marco, I get off, crossing over the very short but precarious steel-plated gangplank along with half the boat’s passengers. I follow the crowd through several passages and over two or three narrow pedestrian bridges that span thin feeder canals until I come to a large building that’s set on a foundation of arches and pillars.

  I make my through the open arch and enter into the piazza.

  This is the first time since I’ve been to Venice that I have actually laid functioning eyes on the ancient cathedral, its now lamp-lit Asian inspired stone exterior, tall arches and minarets. I’ve walked on the hard cobblestones, but never actually seen them. I’ve felt and rubbed up against the hordes of tourists, but I have never looked at them. Nor have I seen the pigeons that are so docile, they are not afraid to land on your shoulder if you allow them to.

  I don’t waste any seeing time.

  For now, my eyes function properly. But I have no idea how long the seeing is going to last. If I lose my sight here, I will have no way of getting home through the Venice maze of alleys and walkways in the dark.

  I head directly for the cathedral and the cafe located to my direct right alongside the basin. As always, the place is full. Every single one of the two dozen or so tables is occupied with patrons eating and drinking under the electric lights and the heat from the tall, gas-powered braziers set in between the tables.

  I have no idea what I’m looking for.

  The truth is that I’m living a fantasy. I half expect Grace to still be seated at the table we occupied this afternoon. I expect to see her face ignite with a relieved smile when she sees me. For her to stand up, hold out her open arms to me.

  “Where have you been, baby?” she’d say, as if I were the one who went missing. “I was worried sick…Worried. Sick.”

  But she’s not sitting at that table.

  Another couple is sitting there instead. A young, well-dressed couple. They speak English with an American accent. They sound like they’re from New York City. I imagine that they are enjoying their honeymoon.

  I move on past the tables, scanning the cobbles as if Grace left something behind for me to find later on. Something that would tell me that I’m not crazy in thinking she was abducted by a man in a long brown overcoat. I scan the ground, but I see nothing. Only cigarette butts, paper wrappers, discarded chewing gum, ticket stubs, bits of food that’s fallen from the tables, and the few pigeons who brave the stomping feet of many café patrons.

  When I raise my head, he’s standing at the far end of the outdoor café.

  The overcoated man. He’s standing under a black lamp, bathed in an inverted arc of white lamplight. He’s lost his sunglasses, so he stares at me with eyes that are glossy black, even from a distance of thirty feet. I feel my heart drop into my stomach and my temples begin to pound when I begin moving towards him. But from the moment I start walking, he takes a step back and disappears into the darkness, like he was never there in the first place.

  I run.

  I run in the direction of the lamp, and when an unknowing café patron pulls out his chair, I run directly into it, sending him and myself onto the pavement.

  The man lies quietly on the ground while I roll onto my knees, peering out in the direction of the lamp. The overcoat man is nowhere to be found now. The scattering of people who were sharing the table with the man I ran into are trying to help him back up onto his feet. They are speaking German or Swiss, I can’t really tell. They are shooting me angry looks.

  My eyes are beginning to lose their focus.

  My sight is beginning to fade in and out like it’s controlled not by my brain but by a pair of batteries that are rapidly losing their juice. I’ve caught the attention of the entire café now. Or so it seems. Some of the people have gotten up from their tables and are approaching me. Someone takes a picture of me, the flash blinding me more than I already am.

  My sight has disappeared entirely when I feel a pair of strong arms attempt to lift me up off the cobbles, as if to drag me away.

  Chapter 28

  “PLEASE,” HE SAYS, “JUST try to walk without running into something or scaring someone else away.”

  I know the voice.

  It’s the waiter who helped me out earlier this afternoon. Once more he’s leading me through the dining room of the quiet indoor café to the back, where the office is. He sets me down in a chair and gets me a drink of sherry, which he puts in front of me, placing my right hand around the stem. As if I need him to do this for me.

  “Drink,” he insists. “It will calm you down.”

  I do it.

  I allow the alcohol to settle in before saying anything.

  “What’s your name?” I ask after a time.

  “Giovanni,” he answers. “Why did you come back here?”

  “I saw him, Giovanni,” I say. “I saw the man who took my wife.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “He’s a tall man in a long brown overcoat. This afternoon he was wearing sunglasses. But tonight he was without them. He has black eyes. Striking black eyes, as if there is no retina. Do you know the man?”

  “I see lots of men come and go through this café every day. Inside and outside. He could be anyone.”

  “You would know him if you saw him. He is memorable. Like a dead man who is alive for only one purpose. To steal my Grace.”

  He pours me another sherry, tells me to drink.

  “And what is your name?” he poses.

  I tell him.

  “Nick,” he says. “It’s possible I know this man. I recall a man who matches that description standing around the café this morning, this afternoon and tonight. Never does he sit down to eat or drink. But always just standing. Like he is expecting someone.”

  “Like me, for instance, Giovanni.”

  “Yes, like you, Nick.”

  I drink the sherry, set down the now empty glass. Looking up into the light, I discover that my blindness is no longer absolute. I’m not enveloped in darkness like I was during the blind periods. Instead, I am seeing shapes and the blurry movement of those shapes. It’s as if every time I experience a bout of eyesight, a little bit of the blindness disappears.

  “I take it you have been talking with the police,” Giovanni adds. “They have been here off and on all afternoon. And someone from the US Embassy. A well-dressed American who was accompanied by the detective.”

  I recall Dave Graham. He never mentioned his visiting this café. Why would the distinguished diplomat keep that kind of information from me? And why would he come here at all if he was so convinced that Grace’s disappearance was simply a police matter?

  The calming effects of the sherry are kicking in enough to slow my beating heart to almost normal levels. That’s when something dawns on me.

  “Giovanni,” I say. “Why are you helping me like this? Why not just call the police and be done with me?”

  He goes silent for a moment. Through a hazy blur I see him fill the sherry glass once more. Only, instead of handing it to me, he drinks it down. Setting the empty glass onto the desk, he exhales.

  “Because I found something,” he says. “Something that must be very important to you. But before I show it to you, I suggest another sherry.”

  Chapter 29

  FIRST I DRINK DOWN another glass of sherry. Then, after setting the now empty glass back onto the desk, Giovanni asks me to hold out my hand. Palm up.

  I
do it.

  He sets something into my hand. It’s small and hard. A metal band topped with a stone. An engagement ring. Grace’s engagement band.

  My heart skips a beat.

  “Where did you find it?” I ask.

  “The question, Captain Angel, is why did I find it?”

  I grip the ring in the palm of my fisted hand, like it’s all that I have left of Grace.

  “What are you suggesting?” I say.

  “If your wife—”

  “—fiancée.”

  “Si, if your fiancée was taken from you by this man we have both seen, perhaps it is possible she slipped off her ring and dropped it, hoping that someone would find it and report it missing. It would be like her way of screaming for help. Like she was leaving you a marker. Like someone who is lost in the forest might leave behind a handkerchief or a piece of clothing. Something that tells you she’s become lost and wants to be found.”

  I squeeze the ring harder, if that’s at all possible. In my mind I see her being dragged away while she struggles to free the ring from her finger. I try and put out of my mind any thoughts that suggest Grace knew she was going to die, and that’s why she left the ring behind. For me to have something to remember her by.

  “Of course, there is another possibility,” Giovanni goes on.

  “What is it?”

  “If your fiancée wasn’t abducted…if she was merely leaving you…then perhaps she removed the ring from her finger and dropped it onto the cobblestones before walking away for good. A final, physical act that would represent the end.”

  I loosen my grip on the ring while my heart once more goes south. But I must admit, as painful as it is to hear what he’s suggesting, he still makes perfect sense. I recall just yesterday afternoon when the ring fell to the cobbles beside the table we occupied inside a different square further up the Grand Canal. I recall how I was able to recognize the sound of the metal smacking against the stone. That wasn’t the case in San Marco, which is always crowded, always loud, always confusing and distracting. Even for a blind man.

  “I refuse to believe that she dropped the relationship and the ring, Giovanni,” I say after a time. “If she dropped it, she did it because she wants to be found. Rescued.”

  “But no one saw her being taken. You must accept that as a possibility.”

  “I understand it as a possibility. But I don’t believe it as a reality.”

  We sit in silence for another few seconds, until Giovanni asks me if he can escort me home. “But first,” he adds, “should we not alert the detective to our discovery of the ring?”

  He’s right. We should alert the detective. But then, if the worst has happened and Grace has been abducted, the ring will be constituted as evidence. I feel it in my hand. It is all I have left of my love. I squeeze the ring hard again, as if it’s possible to impale it into my skin and flesh. Standing, I shove it down into my pants pocket.

  “For now I’ll keep the ring,” I insist. “Until we get to the bottom of what happened to my Grace.”

  I feel Giovanni lay his hand on my shoulder and squeeze.

  “You and I, Captain,” he says. “We are more alike than you know.”

  “How’s that?”

  “I do not trust the police either.”

  Chapter 30

  ONCE I EXPLAIN TO him where I live, Giovanni escorts me home. Not over the water but through the series of back alleys and stone walkways too impossibly connected to describe. He holds my hand the entire way, like I am a lost child trying to find my way back through a maze. Or maybe I’m just a blind mouse.

  When we come to my building, I fumble for my keys and manage to unlock the building’s front door on my own. Giovanni leaves me, but not without handing me a card with his cell number written on it.

  “If you need me,” he states, “please call me. I am not far away as you can see.”

  Then he excuses himself for his choice of words, and walks off.

  I climb the stairs to the empty apartment over the bookshop, let myself in, find my way to the couch, and collapse onto it. A lonely shepherd of my desperation and my grief.

  Chapter 31

  I’M NOT SURE EXACTLY when I fell to sleep. But when I wake up, the sun is emerging as a red orange haze over the distant basin. Not only can I see the sun, but I feel the warmth of its rays shining in through the open French doors on my face. I’ve slept all night, but not lying down. Fact is, I’m no longer lying on the couch. Instead I’m standing on the terrace that overlooks the feeder canal and the narrow alley that runs perpendicular to it, all the way to the Grand Canal.

  I’ve been sleepwalking again.

  It’s a little bit disconcerting to know that at any point, I could sleepwalk right off this terrace. But then, maybe if I haven’t already, it’s never going to happen.

  I’ve undressed during the night.

  I’m not naked. But I’m wearing only my pants and nothing else. The air is cool on my skin, but the sun warms it enough that I am not the least bit uncomfortable, even if I am surrounded by water and wind during the coolest part of the year.

  I stand facing the sun, until I sense something behind me.

  Turning, I peer into the apartment. Something has happened while I’ve been asleep. The couch has been moved, along with Grace’s painting. Stepping inside I can see that I’ve rearranged the studio living room so that the harvest table is now pressed up against the end of the couch to create one long continuous object. I’ve laid out the plates and bowls on the floor opposite the couch and harvest table so that at first glance, it gives the appearance of an S-shaped path.

  Like a child who’s occupied himself on a rainy day by using everyday household objects to create a small city on his bedroom floor, I find myself walking this little S-shaped path until I come to its end. On the floor, centered directly in between the plates to my right and the farthest edge of the couch to my left, is a card. A simple card containing a painting of a woman.

  Bending at the knees, I pick the card up from off the floor and discover that it’s not just a random card, but a mass card that must have come from one of Venice’s many churches. I peer down at the image of a young woman dressed in a Renaissance era gown. Her hair is pulled back into a kind of bun, and she’s staring up at the heavens, rays of light beaming into her eyes, which are no longer there. Rather, her eyes have been set on a round silver platter which she holds in her left hand. Below the image are the words, Santa Lucia.

  Santa Lucia.

  “Saint Lucy,” I whisper to myself.

  I try and recall if Grace and I visited a church dedicated to Saint Lucy during our first week together in Venice. For certain I know that we didn’t. We haven’t visited any churches or museums. Being blind as a bat most of the time, I’d remember something like that. So where did this card come from and why is it on the floor in the middle of a path I’ve created in my sleep out of couches, tables, silverware and plates?

  I stare down at the card, turn it over.

  There’s a short bio of Saint Lucy printed on the back. Having sworn her devotion to God, Lucy refused to give up her virginity to her pagan husband. In turn, the evil bastard had her eyes gouged out with a silver spoon. The Italian translation for Lucia means “light.” Lucy became patron saint to all those who could no longer see the light because of their blindness. I guess in a small way that makes her my patron saint, even if I’ve never heard of her until arriving in Venice. I wonder if that means I have to believe in God to believe in Saint Lucy.

  I slide the card into my pocket, and once more stare out the open doors into the light of the sun.

  I allow the rays to shine into my eyes.

  “Dear Saint Lucy,” I pray aloud, “help me find my Grace today.”

  My words sound empty inside an infinite and expanding universe. But I am not entirely without faith. As I begin to slip back into my clothes, I wait for an answer. A sign. A voice, a warm breeze, a tickling sensation inside my empty gut. Anythi
ng. But nothing happens.

  I wonder if the little boy who was killed by the airstrikes sees God.

  It’s then I decide to check the cell phone in the hope that today, I will finally see Grace.

  Chapter 32

  THERE ARE NO MESSAGES. Not from Grace. Not from the police. I check my email and my texts. Nothing. I try and call Grace’s phone. I get the same pre-recorded message telling me her mailbox is full.

  I slip the phone back into my pocket and think about my next move.

  I decide to start from the start. To when we first arrived in Venice seven days ago by train from Germany. My blindness at that point seemed total and irreparable, and it was placing more than a considerable strain on a relationship already tested by time, separation, distance, faded dreams, war and, yes, infidelity. Depression had sunk deep into my bones.But that’s not all. I felt I deserved to be blinded. I deserved to have my sight robbed from me for what I did to that little boy far up on a hill in a Tajik village in northern Afghanistan. If that small child had to lose his life, than it was only right that I lose my eyes. Maybe it’s even right that I lose my fiancée. Lose her back to her ex-husband.

  Grace didn’t see it that way.

  I was only doing what I was told and trained to do. Obeying orders. We’re at war. My calling in an airstrike on that village might have saved the lives of dozens or even hundreds of other soldiers and innocents alike. Grace insisted that I had to believe that or else I would never recover my eyesight. But as we rode the train through the Alps and later on as we walked the alleyways and passages of Venice during those first few quiet days, I sensed that what she was really saying was this: You have to believe in your innocence or you will lose me.

  * * *

  We didn’t talk much those first couple of days.

  Grace tried to paint and she tried to write some poetry, but in her words, “Nothing will come.” She encouraged me to try and write, but I told her I couldn’t see the words. She told me I didn’t have to see the words to write them down. I should be seeing them in my head. Writing should be a visual experience, internally. I explained that it just wasn’t the same for me. I didn’t want to write if I couldn’t see the words themselves, and I didn’t want to write if that little boy didn’t have a life.