It is the busiest time of the day for the gondoliers in their most mundane functions. Who could know that by night each man -- each father and son and brother and the descendants of warlocks past -- converge to work beneath the light of the moon, to save their City from the encroaching waters of the sea.
     Their work has become more difficult as there are fewer of them every year, and it is made more difficult by the arrival of The Tourists. From March through November the city is invaded, crammed full like with the acqua alta. When they recede it is like the Death of the Sea, the lowest tides that dry the canals, all but the Grande.
     But it is good for commerce, and commerce is as needed as magic when you have two wives and families to see to...
     It was not as Paolo planned it...
     He stands taller than the rest. In his broad striped shirt (black and white), forgoing the coat today (the heat! already!), brimmed hat and black trousers, he cuts an imposing figure as his black swan vessel is poled to the fondamenta. Water taxis, gondolas create a constant to and fro as tourists continue to This or That destination.
     "Pardone signore," Paolo waves off a gentleman wanting to board. He refuses other passengers. He needs a drink. Others, also taking a break, turn and salute him. "Hallo, Paolo," they say, some of them grinning, but tiredly. Those gondola on break are moored, even as Paolo is getting out of his vessel and completing its own mooring. "Paolo, la mia figlia ha fatto il suo lemonata," one of his fellows says, an older man, one of the seniors still plying the Old Trade. And the Old Magic.
     Paolo is weary, he is tired of being in the sun. He removes his hat with a tired almost-smile, wiping his brow with his own sleeve as he turns to his old friend. "Siete un buon uomo, Giovan, un buon uomo con una figlia grande. lei pero come il suo marito?"
     Giovan laughs, as do the others around him: "Non avete gia abbastanza mogli?" Do you not have enough wives already? That's a hell of a question.
     With a roll of his eyes, a shake of his head, but with a face that recognizes the truth of that statement, Paolo takes the glass and props himself up against the pier. "Look at them," he continues in Venetian. "So many people. More it seems each year. But ... I am not going to complain. It is food on the table."
     "Food on two tables, in your case..."
     "Si, Giovan..." Paolo says with arched eyebrows, an exhale and a look to the water that flows beneath his gondola, lifting it and lowering it with the breath of the sea. Two wives. Too fortunate. If you can call it fortune...

     There is a shadow that falls from slightly above, slightly behind, though whether it is respite from the sun is debatable indeed. It is a moving shadow; the shadow of someone standing, someone approaching who has halted. And it is in the water, that which approaches.
     Not in the water, but the reflection thereupon rests, floating, rippled by currents as heavy and as humid as the sun-heated air. Darkness of shadows made flesh - her hair is as black as the dreams of nighttime's passing, a troubadour might say, spiraling curls that are pulled back from features that should have been placed on a statue, or on the stage - crooked beauty, perhaps, curious beauty, of the earth and of the night. She has done nothing with that beauty, or so whisper some of the women.
     Nothing, but edged into a marriage another woman's husband...
     "A busy day, and a busy night to follow." Cosimina says it without a greeting to preclude it, a hand on the hip as she looks down at you where you sit. "Paolo."
     The dark eyes are hooded by their black fringe, the lips owing none of their plumpness to cosmetics. Her skirt is long, the colour of rust and trimmed in midnight blue, paired with a thin white blouse. A basket is over one arm, covered with a white cloth. "Prosperity is not flowing well enough to your tables, gondolier?"

     Pulled to you, and by you, but always in the minor key, the notes you make together. You and he, as helpless in marriage as Venice and the Adriatic. You love, you hate. You fight, you make love. You tear and are torn, bear and are born the one in the other. There are so many threads of Fate between you both and attached to nearly every post and palazzo, you are indivisible.
     Not even Rosalie can make a perfume or potion to extract it...
     You come with your shadows, your dark, curly hair and like the moon you pull his gaze to you. His hair, dark like yours, his eyes dark as the waters of the canals at night. He peers to you, both glad and not glad to see you. Always it is that way. He loves you. Despite himself. "I do not know, you tell me," he says. "How do you find your table laid? How are the pantries looking?" Have your other lovers eaten more of the food I bring home? He finishes his drinks and hands his glass back to Giovan, who comes to retrieve it before anything can get broken. "Where do you want to go? I will take you, Cosimina..."
     Paolo stands, and turns toward his mooring. "You sound like you have plans for me, should I start to worry now? You want me tonight?" Sometimes he trades off monthly, spending time with you and his daughter and then with Rosalie and his son and daughter. Sometimes it is weekly. Sometimes, nightly. It makes for busy nights. He has an eternity in Moments.
     His gondola bobs with his weight as he steps in, balances easily as if he were born there (there are some who say he was) and he puts his hat back on, lifting his head to peer up at you from beneath the brim. He offers his hand to you. "You've seen my night. Tell me my fortune..."

     It is a frustration for her, perhaps, that she has bound you to her, and herself to you, and that the one must in turn be the other. Too many threads, created not only by her but - who knows?
     A shoulder lifts in careless shrug. "The table is adequate, though it needs a new cloth. I will be commissioning one later this week. The pantries are in their in-between state - neither bursting nor time yet to go and seek more."
     Of her other lovers she speaks not; there is only the faintest hint of a curve to her lips to suggest that she knows where your thoughts go. But that is the way of it, isn't it? She will not give up her other men, any more than you will give up your other wife. And that is undoubtedly a thorn which pierces both you and she, even if she would not admit it while clothed in such respectability as she imagines now.
     "Take me to the Doge's Palace. Since you offer before I can demand - how unfair of you, Paolo, to take away an aging woman's only joy, the imperious command." Cosimina moves forward to the end of the pier, to the edge where your gondola is moored. She does not surrender her basket to you. Was she joking, when she said that? She could as easily have been serious - surely she has no sense of humour about herself. The dark eyes flash, and it remains a mystery. "Not tonight. Tonight you will be busy. Tomorrow night, you will come to me. But that is not your fortune, Paolo, and you are fond of saying that it is not."
     She takes your hand, then, allowing you to help her down. Her balance is more upon the land, and it is a reluctant thing for her, every time she must step down to your level, to your vessel. Perhaps even to being your vessel. "You know that your fortune might as easily be your misfortune. It's for you to decide which it is going to be, Paolo. However, I've decided it's time. Tomorrow night, hm? And you decide if you should worry, why should I put your mind at ease?"

     The black gondola has two red leather seats. You are rocked as he moves back and then to the general traffic of the Grand Canal. You can see that he bristles at what you say. There are as many thorns as there are threads. You torment one another. Neither of you can precisely blame Love, though he does love you.
     Odi et amo, I hate and I love. An Italian wrote it. An Italian lives it.
     "I will come tonight, after the ritual," he says away from the crowds. He cannot face you when he steers you. You get to look at the machinery of his form in the concert of well-practiced motion. The waters move so easily for him, so gently for him, the Guardian of Venice.
     "Tell... whomever might be there...to leave after midnight. I want to see my daughter when she wakes. She misses me, even if you do not." You and he move as gracefully as two swans within the body of this swan-necked vessel. Away from the Rialto Bridge and to the thickening traffic.
     "Everyone is going to the Doge's Palace today, it is high season. Why are you going to such a trap as the Piazza? Are you going to read cards for the American girls?" Paolo glances over his shoulder to you. His looks are more layered than the beds of the Lagoon, emotions so varied, as varied as the threads that bind him to you and to this city.

     Eyes as dark as yours look down to the water flowing past as you steer her away from the docking. She settles her basket more securely in her lap, both hands still upon it. "Tonight is not good, Paolo. You cannot come tonight. Will it make you feel better if I tell you that there will be noone there tonight?" She has not said there will not; merely inquired if it would put you at ease.
     Torment ...
     She must love you, else why would she need to see you bleed...
     Or perhaps she just hates you that much, hates whatever it is she has seen that has led to her binding you to her, her to you...
     "My daughter will be there tomorrow night as much as tonight. You cannot always have your own way. Stop being greedy." Such accusations, and all offered in such dispassionate, cool tone of voice. However, there is tension charged beneath the surface of that coldness. It is not a cold day. It will warm up further.
     Cosimina lifts her face to meet your glance with a direct challenge. "I am going to the Piazza. Does it matter why? Do you need to ask me about everything that I do, Paolo? Should I try to trap you with words as you try me, to make you reveal everything? It is not your business where I am going or who I am meeting. I leave that for you to wonder." Because you will. You do.
     You care that there are other men who visit her bed, and that is her power over you. Just as she cares more than she ought, but does her best not to tell you about what - one day it is one thing. Another it is as if that one thing never existed, and she looks at you as if you were crazy. Why is it that you love her, again?

     Because Man always loves what he should not...
     Cannot...
     He hates that which he cannot control, and you are definitely something that Paolo cannot control. Perhaps it is easier with Rosalie because she is ...easier. Not simpler. But ... less ...this. But you, the Moon, and he, the Water, cannot help yourselves with one another...
     "Can a husband not ask his wife how she will spend her day? Must you always make it like the Inquisition? And she is our daughter," he says with strength, with conviction, and with passion. Oh! You have the surest way to him! You know all of his buttons, and he hates you for that too. "I will come tomorrow night," he gesticulates with his hand in a moment when he does not need to guide the waters with the pole. He lets the tide carry you for a moment before moving again. Such motion! His passion is in that, too.
     Paolo sighs, for many moments there is nothing said between you. Ahead, the Maria Della Salute, the large basilica cathedral. "It's been a month. Always you are too busy... I am too busy." He won't admit to needing you. He will admit to needing to see his daughter. Beautiful, as you are. With your dark hair, his dark eyes. "You will tell her I will be there to see her? You tell her that I love her...?" He looks back to you.
     I love you...
     Even if at first I did not want to... I lusted... you tied me...you won me... now we must worth this through...
     Why do you have to make it so difficult?

     "You do not ask, Paolo. You investigate. And you complain. You do not like what you hear, and then it descends. As to our daughter, of course she is ours." The dark eyes look scornfully at you. "But you call her your daughter, and I must remind you that she is mine as well. I bore her under my heart for long enough. I will not have you take that from me."
     It is not that you could, but perhaps you need the reminding. Or she believes that you do. And perhaps she resents that you will admit the one and not the other.
     "Tomorrow night." Cosimina nods, satisfied with getting her way. "The house will be prepared for you then. We will need a bigger place in a year."
     Where is her passion? She does not let you see it here, upon the water. She does not tell you what she feels, though she tells you what she thinks. Always, there is something held apart under the sun. Why? She will not tell you that, either, not here. Perhaps nowhere.
     But you would have to ask to find out...
     And asking would be an admission of sorts... wouldn't it?
     "It has been a month. You are busy, and our daughter continues to grow. Soon she will be old enough for the boys to begin running after her. Soon she will be a woman with needs of her own. And you will be there to see only a little of it." She is angry now, for some reason, and tying her anger inwards, but using the trailing edges of that anger as a goad, to whip you onwards. The unpainted lips turns downwards at the corners where you cannot see, and then she looks away, once again that broken statue. "I will tell her. But it would be best if you showed her before she escapes you forever."
     She does not see your look, nor read your eyes, looking proudly off to one side with her hands smoothing the cloth over her basket. "You may come tonight if you wish." It is a concession. But her voice says it so indifferently that it steals in, trying to rob you of your victory.
     Difficult...

     "I am doing the best that I can," he protests it quickly. Always, the arguments. "Do you think that it is easy for me? I should be twice the man that I am, just to get around." He sighs. "And I feel that with everything and the sea, I am less than half of what I should be." There is frustration there. With this, with Rosalie, with Venice.
     He bites off other matters. He chews on it awhile as he leads you along the bend of the great snake, the canale grande.
     "I am sorry, bella," he murmurs. "Of course, she is our daughter. She ... has more of you than of me. I have only myself to blame." And sometimes the man can melt your heart, when his stubbornness gives way to something else. "I am... " Paolo sighs and he pivots to look at you. He nods to you. I am sorry.
     "I will come tonight, and I will make it up to you. You will smile for me... maybe a little bit? Every time I see you, it is a war on your face. May I remind you that you were the one who bound me to you. Not the other way around. I was sitting there playing canasta with Cesare...minding my own business..."
     That's the way he likes to tell it.
     He smirks at you. Come on, Cosimina. That was funny. Laugh! "Ah, Cosimina... what a funny pair we make. How is it we do not laugh more often?"

     "Money is always money. It is not wealth. Do you really want more wealth, Paolo?" Such a bland voice, such a bland expression, such a threat. However, she relents. "The sea is always a problem. But it is one we work together to try and solve."
     It is the melting that damns her more than her formidable resolve. She does not want to melt. She did not wish for those bonds to go both ways - those strands which bind you. And yet you can. Your nod is met with a grudging nod of her own. Apology accepted.
     "I will make dinner. Try not to let it get too cold. I do not like it when you allow my cooking to get cold." There is no smile, there is no laugh; instead, her lips purse slightly forward, perhaps biting back a smile, perhaps not. "There can be no peace between us, Paolo, as long as our requirements of each other are larger than what we are willing to give. And so we are adversaries as much as we are partners, Paolo. And I will not give you the words you wish to hear."
     She does not stand up in your gondola. She is not a young, foolish romantic to hurl herself at you as you work your pole. "Come tonight when you are done. I will have a new fate for you then. Do you wish since you speak of binding, for me to bind you anew?"
     She must be joking, surely. But it is not paired with the former sharp tone; instead, it is said in a low voice, paired with a dark-eyed, intent stare, unblinking. "Cesare has not been by for some time. I should invite him for dinner."

     "I am sure he would accept, were he not in France," the clipping tone says the things he does not give voice to. Ahead, the spectacle of the Gateway of Venice looms. Thousands of tourists there, the shores all crowded. The cafe, crowded. The teaming shore. He sighs at that and he sighs at you.
     Always a love-hate relationship with the world, this one. With tourists and with you. Perhaps it is his tidal nature, the water warlock. Back and forth like the unrelenting waves of the sea.
     Paolo straightens. "You wanted me in your bed, you have me. You wanted me to be the father of your children, we have a child. I would like a son, you need daughters. I suppose we will never see eye-to-eye. You wanted my love... my heart was elsewhere. You did not care... you saw that together... together we were bound to Venice. That I should be moved... by that greater love. And I am. Why do you make it out to be my fault and my doing? Because I did not leave Rosalie and my other children? You knew they were there before you plucked the string. I cannot help it, musician, if you do not like the chord. Why must you take it out on me... constantly. Why, Cosimina, why... why can we not have some peace?"
     The fondamenta nears. It is a welcomed sight. Are you as relieved and as simultaneously sorry as he? Paolo's expression is serious (as ever) as he guides you to your destination. The Doge's Palace stands there, with it the rebuilt Campanile, the Cafe Quadri, the Basilica of St. Mark's. All of that beauty. In a few years, it could all be swallowed by the sea, they say.
     Not if he can help it...
     But he is just one man...

     "You would not find me half so attractive if I were like your Other." She says it as if it is true and not only true, but that it should be obvious to you. "You do not need two placid wives, Paolo. That would drive you to distraction."
     Cosimina leans forward over her basket, allowing the dark curls to fall against her cheeks as she regards you. "You need something to push against," she informs you, looking away again, "and I provide that. That is why you agreed, is it not? That and because working together, we could achieve perhaps what you cannot, alone. And that is why you agreed - isn't it? Not for any other reason. As you have said, your heart is elsewhere."
     There is that small, ironic smile, half-hidden from you by a wing of curling locks. "We are bound, Paolo. Does it matter? If it does not matter, then why is it that you place the blame on me for wanting your love? I do not act alone in this. You want more of me than you speak of. Eloquently put. But insufficiently put; I do not accept it."
     The fondamenta nears, and there's a faint exhalation from the woman as she braces herself, as if your stop will be too rough for her. "Rather than asking me why I do what I do, rather than assuming what I feel, gondolier, when you ask me why we cannot have some peace, why not ask why it is that you clench your teeth when you think on the other men who visit me? I am not your dove, no. And I do know that you compare us - when we are not in bed, at least."
     Cosimina lifts her head again, setting the basket aside on the seat. "There will be no peace until the skein has finished unwinding its current knot. I could hasten it, perhaps, but not without cutting the threads. I cannot attach a thread to the sea so easily, Paolo."

     The stop is smooth, easy, even as this between you never is. Only occasionally in bed, but there have been arguments there, too. Shirts put on hastily, pots thrown -- well, before the daughter came. Now you argue with nails and teeth and hard looks...
     But sometimes it is right between you. Sometimes in those late nights there have been miracles. Before either of you realize that he is pulled in two. There is nothing he can do about the other half of his heart. There is nothing he can do about the half you hold either.
     "I don't want to think about them, no more than you want to think about her," he says simply, guiding you gently to the stoned shore. He waves at the tourists approaching. "Un altro avranno luogo qui in un momento, in un momento..."
     Paolo turns toward you, offering you his hand. "I will be at your window at midnight," he says quietly to you, evenly with that even look. "You will hear me ... singing... throw down a rope. Do not make it easy on me by opening your door. I will climb to you... and... maybe...when I do... you will have cause to be glad to see me. No poison tonight. Tonight... I need you..." He pauses for a moment, but can't let that hang out there. "I need you... to... read the cards for me..." I need you. That is the truth of it. It doesn't matter what words come after that.
     "Signora," he says, his hand there to help you disembark. "...enjoy your day with the Americans. Kick those other men out before I get there or I will drown them like cats..." Always, the last word with this one. He steels himself after his partial revelation and gestures to you with his fingers. Come. St. Mark's is waiting.

     There is the faintest quirk of her lips, again, and then she is rising, accepting your hand up. The basket, however, the basket is left behind on the seat, ignored - forgotten? "I will not make it easy on you. You will have to fight your way to me, gondolier. As much as you already do. Would it please you if I let you go?"
     If I were as indifferent to you as I sometimes pretend, if I cared not as much as I do care, if I ... cut the threads ...
     She does not await your answer, however, moving to disembark with the curling locks of her hair, scented with almond oil, brushing her shoulders. Brushing yours, for that matter, as she moves past. "Your luncheon is under the cloth. Bring the flask with you when you come tonight; it is not disposable. I will read the cards for you tonight, sometime after you have arrived."
     Before or after you have come to her flesh, perhaps...
     She is wearing surprisingly dainty shoes, that you can see as she climbs and begins to walk away. They are white, clean of dirt, as if dust is afraid to land on the patent leather of them. And they have octagonal silver buckles, engraved with curlicues. A gift from some lover, perhaps. Or perhaps she bought them with your money. "In a year, we will need a larger place. Remember that, Paolo. And think to ask why. Buon giorno, gondolier. Enjoy your day with the ... Americans."
     Cosimina glances back over her shoulder, and now there is the faint twitch of a smile offered to you, small, like the crescent moon. Her hand brushes against her stomach on its way to her hip, and then she turns away, sauntering off with that unique roll of hips that makes watching women walk away such bittersweet pleasure. "The cards and I will be waiting. Buon giorno."
     St. Mark's is waiting, and the rising waters of Venice are patient, even if Venice itself is helpless before them...

Posted by rowan at January 16, 2005 06:34 PM