The Pigeon Project (7 page)

“Sembut,” Jordan hailed him. “Just wanted to say hello.”

The glass store owner materialized from between two customers. “Tim, five minutes and I’ll be free.”

“No time today. Got to get to work. How’s everything?”

“Personally, fine. My brother, not so good. Come back for lunch when you can.”

Jordan nodded his promise and started away to retrace his steps to the Piazza San Marco.

It was a quarter to one when Jordan returned to the Piazza. He picked up the
International Herald Tribune
from Gino, the shabby vendor at the portable newsstand, then crossed into the sunlight, going past the outdoor Caffé Lavena, continuing onward to the next outdoor café, which was Quadri’s, nearer the center of the Piazza. About a third of the small circular gray tables were occupied by tourists, but the ones in the front row were empty.

Jordan pulled back a yellow wicker chair at the nearest table and sat down to enjoy the sun and some breakfast. A waiter in the aisle came over quickly and welcomed him with familiarity. “The same as usual, Signor Jordan?”

“The same, except today I’ll have some orange juice. Then the hot tea, no lemon, rolls and butter.”

With the waiter gone, Jordan settled back, crossed his legs, and unfolded his newspaper. The lead story on the front page announced that the Pope had elevated Cardinal Bacci to head a new council for the propagation of the faith that would police and oversee those elements of the clergy that were straying too far from the orthodox line. Bad news for the liberals. Cardinal Bacci was characterized as a flinty modern-day Savonarola, an extreme zealot. Jordan shifted his attention to a story at the bottom of the page. A Chicago White Sox pitcher, in his rookie year, had last night hurled a no-hitter against the New York Yankees.

Jordan heard his name and looked up. Approaching him was a lean, blond young man with sensitive, delicate features. He had the odd but not uncommon Venetian name of Memo—Oreste Memo—and he played the violin in the Quadri orchestra. He and Jordan had refreshments together about once a week. When the orchestra took its break, he would come down from the bandstand, remove his light summer jacket, and sit with Jordan. The last time they had been together, Jordan remembered, Memo had told him he was composing the score of a speculative musical on Eleonora Duse for which a friend of his in Milan had already written the book.

“Hi, Oreste,” Jordan called back. “Want to join me for some tea?”

“Wish I could,” said Memo breathlessly, “but I’m almost two hours late and I don’t want the boss to fire me. Heavy date last night, all night—one of your American college girls, very acrobatic. I was so exhausted I overslept. Supposed to begin fiddling away at eleven, you know, so this isn’t going to make the old man happy. Be seeing you.”

He hastened up the aisle toward the bandstand, where the other musicians were assembled.

The waiter was setting down Jordan’s breakfast. Jordan folded his newspaper, laid it on the next chair, and drank his orange juice.

Presently, he was buttering his rolls, and doing so transported him to another time and place. It was something Claire had always done for him at breakfast—buttered his rolls or toast as she chattered away. She had been doing that very thing the fateful morning that continually came to his mind. He could close his eyes and picture her unblurred: honey-colored hair, blue eyes, tilted nose, sweet lips, clever, insecure, filled with love and the need for love. And on that morning, three months pregnant. They had both been entertaining high hopes. They had plans to leave the rented apartment in Chicago and buy a house in the suburbs. They had a hundred dreams about the child, children. They had talked about Jordan’s doing what he wanted to do. He had been an engineer for a large Chicago firm, which bored him, and he had begun to write popular science articles on weekends, which did not bore him, and one day he would do full time what he enjoyed.

He had gone to work, and an hour later, had received the call from the police. Claire had been standing on a corner of Michigan Avenue waiting for the traffic light to change. A car had swerved out of control, jumped the curb, smashed into her, killed her instantly. Just like that. Pointless. Madness. Claire was dead.

For almost all purposes, he was dead too.

He sat here now, in the sun of the Piazza San Marco, absently staring at the pigeons, the tourists feeding them, munching at his rolls, drinking his tea, not wanting to remember the months of despair and mourning that had followed.

Still, his Claire-less life unreeled in memory. He had quit the engineering firm. He had moved to New York, not wanted to drink, did drink, not wanted to write, did write. His science articles had appeared, were liked, gave him an erratic livelihood. He had been half alive, without ambition or goal, when he had gone apathetically to a charity party on the mezzanine of The Plaza, accompanied some single woman as her escort, gone to the party sponsored by something called the Venice Must Live Committee. He had not been to Venice, or anywhere, had not known it was dying. He had been only partially attentive to the celebrity entertainers, and the committee director who had spoken about the beauties of Venice that might soon be lost to civilization, about how Venice was sinking into the sea even as its monuments were eroding. He had been introduced to someone, a Dr. Rinaldo, who had recognized his name from his published by-line and had been impressed. The man had asked him some probing questions about his career, and he had answered them unseriously, with self-deprecation and cynicism. Dr. Rinaldo had suddenly asked, “How would you like to come to Venice and work for us? We need a communications or press officer, and we have the funding for such a job. You seen to possess all the qualifications. Imagine being paid to live in Venice! Try it for three months. You’ll love it.”

He had tried it for three months, and now it was twenty-one months. He had loved it and not loved it. He could have loved it entirely, with passion, with Claire. But he could not love it entirely without her, because he no longer loved himself.

One bright spot, eleven months old. He had needed an assistant in the press office of the committee, located in the Procuratie Vecchie building right behind him looking down on the Piazza San Marco. Six young female applicants had been sent to him, and he had hardly looked at five of the women as he had interviewed them. But he had looked at Marisa Girardi—an absolutely stunning raven-haired, dark-eyed Venetian beauty. She was then twenty-six years old, educated in Padua, currently employed as publicity head for the local branch of an international fabric house. She had appeared bright, efficient, intent, and sexy, definitely sexy. He had hired her without a single misgiving.

After her first week on the job, he had invited Marisa out to dinner at Harry’s Bar. They had eaten sparingly—grilled scampi for her, veal scallops for him—had drunk straight Scotches before, during, and after dinner, and had got fantastically high and extremely personal and intimate.

Leaving through the swinging doors, they had stood in the street near the vaporetto station, both immobilized, uncertain as to what came next, he knowing how he felt but not knowing how to bring it up.

Marisa had said, “I would invite you to my apartment, but I live there with my mother and brother. Where do you live?”

“I have a permanent suite in the Hotel Danieli. I live alone.”

“Why don’t we go to your place?”

The moment they had entered the living room of his suite, and he had shut the door behind him, she had turned, put her arms around his neck, kissed him with her full crimson lips parted, her tongue teasing his as her large, firm breasts pressed against him. Her lips had moved to his ear. “I want you, Tim,” she had whispered.

Inside the bedroom, lit by one lamp, he had undressed with his back to her. As he removed his last garment, his jock shorts, he turned toward the bed. She was lying on it stark naked. The size of her distended brown nipples on her enormous breasts, the soft wideness of her hips, the prominence of her long vaginal mound affected him instantly. He had felt his penis grow, and rise, and swell. In several dozen previous sexual encounters in his Claire-less years, he had barely risen to each occasion, finding the bouts as exciting as jogging. But this night he had attained a total erection.

He had started to kiss her nipples. “Don’t waste time, darling,” she had whispered.

He had found her moist vaginal opening, and as his penis slowly slid inside, he groaned, “I’m not going to last long.”

Her hands were on his ribs, drawing him down. “Tomorrow night, it will be longer, and the night after even better. Oh, darling, good…”

Marisa had been right. It had been longer and better. It had been good. It had been daily for two weeks, and with familiarity it had settled into twice a week. He had not been in love with her, but had appreciated human warmth and companionship. How she truly felt about him he had not known for certain. She had been undemanding. Lately, he had seen her less and less during his after-work hours. The pointlessness of his existence had sucked him into some kind of emotional quagmire, where one wanted to be alone with a bottle of cognac until one felt senseless and buried in a blackness of sleep.

He opened his eyes to the sun of Venice and the unreal activity and babble in the Piazza San Marco.

He saw that he had finished his tea, and consumed his rolls except for the half of one he always automatically saved for the pigeons. They knew him as a friend, and they came to him after breakfast when he was ready.

Breaking up the roll, he dropped the pieces at his feet. Then he reached into his jacket pocket, took out the small bag of granola he had bought at the grocery near the Danieli yesterday, and scattered the mixed grain around the bread. With amusement, he watched the pigeons quickly gather, twelve or fourteen of them. They were mostly dark gray, speckled a lighter gray on their breasts and tails. Their heads dipped jerkily as they pecked at the bread or grain and gobbled it down.

The pigeons of Venice had fascinated Jordan from the very day of his arrival in the city. He had learned, mostly from Marisa’s younger brother, Bruno, several versions of how pigeons had first come to Venice. According to one account, in medieval times a Doge, on Palm Sunday, to celebrate the dove that had told Noah of the end of the Flood, released a number of pigeons that had been housed in the vestibule of the Basilica. According to another tradition, Venetians had decided to import pigeons to their city to celebrate that day in 1204 when a carrier pigeon had brought a message from the Orient describing the victories won by Doge Enrico Dandolo in the Fourth Crusade. In modern times, the 200,000 pigeons had been fed maize twice a day by the doorman of the insurance company, Assicurazioni Generali, that occupied the building on the clock-tower side of the Piazza. Then, in 1971, the frescoed ceiling of the Church of Angelo Raffelo had collapsed because of the pigeon droppings and nests that blocked the gutters of the church. In 1972, the mayor of Venice had decreed that 150,000 of the city’s 200,000 pigeons should be moved to other cities. Some were removed—bird lovers saw that their number was few, and even this loss was quickly replaced by the prolific reproduction of the birds.

And Jordan, for one, was glad of it. For him, the pigeons were synonymous with Venice and therefore a part of his love for the city.

He continued watching his birds eating the last of his bread and grain. Now they were done, and done with their benefactor, and moving away, spreading back out to the center of the Piazza in search of new benefactors. Three lingered behind at his feet, and then two of these flew off and there was one. That one stood wobbling, shaking, when suddenly, unexpectedly, it toppled over and lay on its side, still as death.

Jordan reacted with astonishment. He had never seen a sight like this before. He could not understand. He came forward in his wicker chair, then went down on one knee, grasped the pigeon under its fat belly, tried to right it, but it fell on its back. That moment, he realized two things—that the pigeon was dead, and that he had blood on his hand. He bent closer, inspecting the bird, and plainly saw what seemed to be a bullet wound on the side of its belly. And an instant later, he saw something else. Tied to one of the pigeon’s legs was a small folded strip of paper, held loosely in place by a rubber band.

Incredible. What kind of game was this? Or could this have been a carrier pigeon?

His hand went out to the pigeon’s inert leg, pulled off the rubber band, and caught the piece of paper. He brought the paper with him back to the chair, carefully unfolded and opened it, and flattened the miniature strip on his table. There was something in a tiny handwriting. He squinted more closely at it, and realized to his surprise that it was not in Italian but in English. Slowly, he read the message:

Am British scientist illegally imprisoned on San Lazzaro by Communists. Planning to send me to USSR in 2 days. Save me. Call Dr. Edwards Plaza Athénée Paris to tell world. Prof. Davis MacDonald. Aug. 18. Have discovered Ft. of Youth. Reds want it.

Jordan blinked, blinked again, and not knowing what to make of this melodramatic plea, he reread the message.

Written August 18. That was today, this very day.

By someone on San Lazzaro—he knew San Lazzaro, had seen the island hundreds of times on the way to the Lido beach—by a Professor Davis MacDonald, a name that had no meaning to him, although faintly familiar.

Who was this MacDonald? What was his so-called Fountain of Youth? What kind of Communists were trying to send him to Russia?

It made no sense, unless you took it literally. That some Communists would kidnap a British professor here in Venice, and hold him a prisoner on San Lazzaro, because he had found the place that gave eternal youth: that sounded absolutely impossible, surely less real than some concocted Hollywood script.

Then Jordan realized he had been taking the message literally, and that he was a fool. A thousand to one, a million to one, this was a practical joke conceived by some nut who had nothing better to do. It was a joke, a bit of fun, a hoax, and he felt embarrassed at having taken it seriously for even a minute.