The Planet on the Table (4 page)

On the other hand, the Lido had become a sort of reef, in most places, and waves of this size would break over it, capsizing him for sure. And, to be realistic, the top of the Adriatic was wide. Just one mistake on the top of these waves (and he couldn’t go on forever) and he would be broached, capsized, and rolled down to join all the other Venetians who had ended up on the bottom of the Adriatic. And all because of that damn Madonna. Carlo sat crouched in the stern, adjusting the tiller for the particulars of each wave, ignoring all else in the howling, black, horizonless chaos of water and air around him, pleased in a grim way that he was sailing to his death with such perfect seamanship. But he kept the Lido out of mind.

And so he sailed on, losing track of time as one does when there is no spatial referent. Wave after wave after wave. A little water collected at the bottom of his boat, and his spirits sank. That was no way to go, to have the boat sink by degrees under him...

Then the high-pitched, airy howl of the wind was joined by a low booming, a bass roar. He looked over his shoulder in the direction he was being driven and saw a white line, stretching from left to right; his heart jumped, fear exploded through him. This was it. The Lido, now a barrier reef tripping the waves. They were smashing down on it, he could see white sheets bouncing skyward and blowing to nothing. He was terrifically frightened. It would have been so much easier to founder at sea.

But there—among the white breakers, off to the right—a gray finger pointing up at the black—

A campanile. Carlo was forced to look back at the wave he was under, to straighten the boat, but when he looked back it was still there. A campanile, standing there like a dead lighthouse. “Jesus!” he said aloud. It looked as if the waves were pushing him a couple hundred meters to the north of it. As each wave lifted him he had a moment when the boat was sliding down the face of the wave as fast as it was moving under him; during these moments he shifted the tiller a bit and the boat turned and surfed across the face, to the south, until the wave rose up under him to the crest, and he had to straighten it out. He repeated the delicate operation time after time, sometimes nearly broaching the boat in his impatience. But that wouldn’t do—just take as much from each wave as it will give you, he thought. And pray it will add up to enough.

The Lido got closer, and it looked as if he was directly upwind of the campanile. It was the one at the Lido channel entrance, or perhaps the one at Pellestrina, farther south; he had no way of knowing, and at the moment didn’t care. He was just happy that his ancestors had seen fit to construct such solid bell towers. In between waves he reached under the decking and by touch found his boat hook and the length of rope he carried. It was going to be a problem, actually, when he got to the campanile—it would not do to pass it helplessly by a few meters. On the other hand he couldn’t smash into it and expect to survive either, not in these waves. In fact the more he considered it, the more exact and difficult he realized the approach would have to be, and fearfully he stopped thinking about it and concentrated on the waves.

The last one was the biggest. As the boat slid down its face, the face got steeper, until it seemed they would be swept on by this wave forever. The campanile loomed ahead, big and black. Around it waves pitched over and broke with sharp, deadly booms; from behind Carlo could see the water sucked over the breaks, as if over short but infinitely broad waterfalls. The noise was tremendous. At the top of the wave it appeared he could jump in the campanile’s top windows—he got out the boat hook, shifted the tiller a touch, took a deep breath. Amid the roaring, the wave swept him just past the stone tower, smacking against it and splashing him; he pulled the tiller over hard, the boat shot into the wake of the campanile—he stood and swung the boat hook over a window casement above him. It caught, and he held on hard.

He was in the lee of the tower. Broken water rose and dropped under the boat, hissing, but without violence, and he held. One-handed, he wrapped the end of his rope around the sail-cord bolt in the stern, tied the other end to the boat hook. The hook held pretty well. He took a risk and reached down to tie the rope firmly to the bolt. Then another risk: when the boiling soupy water of another broken wave raised the boat, he leaped off his seat, grabbed the stone windowsill, which was too thick to get his fingers over—for a moment he hung by his fingertips. With desperate strength he pulled himself up, reached in with one hand and got a grasp on the inside of the sill, and pulled himself in and over. The stone floor was about four feet below the window. Quickly he pulled the boat hook in, put it on the floor, and took up the slack in the rope.

He looked out the window. His boat rose and fell, rose and fell. Well, it would sink or it wouldn’t. Meanwhile, he was safe. Realizing this, he breathed deeply, let out a shout. He remembered shooting past the side of the tower, face no more than two meters from it—getting drenched by the wave slapping the front of it—why, he had done it perfectly! He couldn’t do it again like that in a million tries. Triumphant laughs burst out of him, short and sharp: “Ha! Ha! Ha! Jesus Christ! Wow!”

“Whoooo’s theeeerre?” called a high scratchy voice, floating down the staircase from the floor above. “Whooooooooo’s there?...”

Carlo froze. He stepped lightly to the base of the stone staircase and peered up. Through the hole to the next floor flickered a faint light. To put it better, it was less dark up there than anywhere else. More surprised than fearful (though he was afraid), Carlo opened his eyes as wide as he could—

“Whooooo’s theeeeeerrrrrrrre?...“

Quickly he went to the boat hook, untied the rope, felt around on the wet floor until he found a block of stone that would serve as anchor for his boat. He looked out the window: boat still there; on both sides, white breakers crashing over the Lido. Taking up the boat hook, Carlo stepped slowly up the stairs, feeling that after what he had been through he could slash any ghost in the ether to ribbons.

It was a candle lantern, flickering in the disturbed air—a room filled with junk—

“Eeek! Eeek!”

“Jesus!”

“Devil! Death, away!” A small black shape rushed at him, brandishing sharp metal points.

“Jesus!” Carlo repeated, holding the boat hook out to defend himself. The figure stopped.

“Death comes for me at last,” it said. It was in old woman, he saw, holding lace needles in each hand.

“Not at all,” Carlo said, feeling his pulse slow back down. “Swear to God, Grandmother, I’m just a sailor, blown here by the storm.”

The woman pulled back the hood of her black cape, revealing braided white hair, and squinted at him.

“You’ve got the scythe,” she said suspiciously. A few wrinkles left her face as she unfocused her gaze.

“A boat book only,” Carlo said, holding it out for her inspection. She stepped back and raised the lace needles threateningly. “Just a boat hook, I swear to God. To God and Mary and Jesus and all the saints. Grandmother. I’m just a sailor, blown here by the storm from Venice.” Part of him felt like laughing.

“Aye?” she said. “Aye, well then, you’ve found shelter. I don’t see so well anymore, you know. Come in, sit down, then.” She turned around and led him into the room. “I was just doing some lace for penance, you see… though there’s scarcely enough light.” She lifted a tomboli with the lace pinned to it. Carlo noticed big gaps in the pattern, as in the webs of an injured spider. “A little more light,” she said and, picking up a candle, held it to the lit one. When it was fired, she carried it around the chamber and lit three more candles in lanterns that stood on tables, boxes, a wardrobe. She motioned for him to sit in a heavy chair by her table, and he did so.

As she sat down across from him, he looked around the chamber. A bed piled high with blankets, boxes and tables covered with objects… the stone walls around, and another staircase leading up to the next floor of the campanile. There was a draft. “Take off your coat,” the woman said. She arranged the little pillow on the arm of her chair and began to poke a needle in and out of it, pulling the thread slowly.

Carlo sat back and watched her. “Do you live here alone?”

“Always alone,” she replied. “I don’t want it otherwise.” With the candle before her face, she resembled Carlo’s mother or someone else he knew. It seemed very peaceful in the room after the storm. The old woman bent in her chair until her face was just above her tomboli; still, Carlo couldn’t help noticing that her needle hit far outside the apparent pattern of lace, striking here and there randomly. She might as well have been blind. At regular intervals Carlo shuddered with excitement and tension. It was hard to believe he was out of danger. More infrequently they broke the silence with a short burst of conversation, then sat in the candlelight absorbed in their own thoughts, as if they were old friends.

“How do you get food?” Carlo asked, after one of these silences had stretched out. ‘Or candles?”

“I trap lobsters down below, And fishermen come by and trade food for lace. They get a good bargain, never fear. I’ve never given less, despite what he said—” Anguish twisted her face as the squinting had, and she stopped. She needled furiously, and Carlo looked away. Despite the draft, he was warming up (he hadn’t removed his coat, which was wool, after all), and he was beginning to feel drowsy…

“He was my spirit’s mate, do you comprehend me?”

Carlo jerked upright. The old woman still looked at her tomboli.

“And—and he left me here, here in this desolation when the floods began, with words that I’ll remember forever and ever and ever. Until death comes… I wish you had been death!” she cried. “I wish you had.”

Carlo remembered her brandishing the needles. “What is this place?” he asked gently.

“What?”

“Is this Pellestrina? San Servolo?”

“This is Venice,” she said.

Carlo shivered convulsively, stood up.

“I’m the last one of them,” the woman said. “The waters rise, the heavens howl, love’s pledges crack and lead to misery. I—I live to show what a person can bear and not die. I’ll live till the deluge drowns the world as Venice is drowned; I’ll live till all else living is dead; I’ll live…“ Her voice trailed off; she looked up at Carlo curiously. “Who are you, really? Oh. I know. I know. A sailor.”

“Are there floors above?” he asked, to change the subject.

She squinted at him. Finally she spoke. “Words are vain, I thought I’d never speak again, not even to my own heart, and here I am, doing it again. Yes, there’s a floor above intact; but above that, ruins. Lightning blasted the bell chamber apart, while I lay in that very bed.” She stood up. “Come on, I’ll show you.” Under her cape she was tiny.

She picked up the candle lantern beside her, and Carlo followed her up the stairs, stepping carefully in the shifting shadows.

On the floor above, the wind swirled, and through the stairway to the floor above that, he could distinguish black clouds. The woman put the lantern on the floor, started up the stairs. “Come.”

Once through the hole they were in the wind, out under the sky. The rain had stopped. Great blocks of stone lay about the floor, and the walls broke off unevenly.

“I thought the whole campanile would fall,” she shouted at him over the whistle of the wind. He nodded, and walked over to the west wall, which stood chest high. Looking over it, he could see the waves approaching, rising up, smashing against the stone below, spraying back and up at him. He could feel the blows in his feet. Their force frightened him; it was hard to believe he had survived them and was now out of danger. He shook his head violently. To his right and left the white lines of crumbled waves marked the Lido, a broad swath of them against the black. The old woman was speaking, he saw; he walked back to her side and listened.

“The waters yet rise,” she shouted. “See? And the lightning… you can see the lightning breaking the Alps to dust. It’s the end, child. Every island fled away, and the mountains were not found… the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea, and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living thing died in the sea.” On and on she spoke, her voice mingling with the sound of the gale and the boom of the waves, just carrying over it all… until Carlo, cold and tired, filled with pity and a black anguish like the clouds rolling over them, put his arm around her thin shoulders and turned her around. They descended to the floor below, picked up the extinguished lantern, and descended to her chamber, which was still lit. It seemed warm, a refuge. He could hear her still speaking. He was shivering without pause.

“You must be cold,” she said in a practical tone. She pulled a few blankets from her bed. “Here, take these.” He sat down in the big heavy chair, put the blankets around his legs, put his head back. He was tired. The old woman sat in her chair and wound thread onto a spool. After a few minutes of silence she began talking again, and as Carlo dozed and shifted position and nodded off again, she talked and talked, of storms, and drownings, and the world’s end, and lost love…

In the morning when he woke up, she was gone. Her room stood revealed in the dim morning light: shabby, the furniture battered, the blankets worn, the knickknacks of Venetian glass ugly, as Venetian glass always was… but it was clean. Carlo got up and stretched his stiff muscles. He went up to the roof; she wasn’t there. It was a sunny morning. Over the east wait he saw that his boat was still there, still floating. He grinned—the first one in a few days; he could feel that in his face.

The woman was not on the floors below, either. The lowest one served as her boathouse, he could see. In it were a pair of decrepit rowboats and some lobster pots. The biggest “boatslip’ was empty. She was probably out checking pots.

Or perhaps she hadn’t wanted to talk with him in the light of day.

From the boathouse he could walk around to his craft, through water only knee-deep. He sat in the stern, reliving the previous afternoon, and grinned again at being alive.

He took off the decking and bailed out the water on the keel with his bailing can, keeping an eye out for the old woman. Then he remembered the boat hook and went back upstairs for it. When he returned there was still no sight of her. He shrugged. He’d come back and say good-bye another time. He rowed around the campanile and off the Lido, pulled up the sail, and headed northwest, where he presumed Venice was.