| Author: |
Ruthven Patrick |
| Dated: |
Tuesday, February 01 2005 @ 07:12 PM EST |
| Viewed: |
1850 times |
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Wait! Rachel wanted to scream. This is a big mistake. Turn back!
Right now they were in one of the tamer canals, surrounded by stone bridges and storybook houses rising straight out of the water, as if Atlantis had come up for air. There were daffodils in all the windows. Doves and seagulls fluttered by, thick as snowflakes. To the average tourist, it was all very romantic, picturesque even. But Rachel had seen the map in her mother’s guidebook, and she knew what lay beyond the daffodils.
All those innocent little canals led sooner or later into the great big, river-wide, boat-tossing, gut-wrenching Grand Canal, and that led into the Venice Lagoon, and that led out to the Adriatic Sea. At this very moment, the choppy waters of the Adriatic were already slapping against their gondola like thousands of greedy hands trying to tip it over.
Couldn’t Mom and Dad see what they were heading into? She glared at them, snuggling in the back seat of the boat. How could they see anything when they were crazy-glued together? What was it about this town that had the power to transform an accountant and a businessman into a pair of mushy lovebirds? Last night it was a strolling minstrel and a lady in a black shawl selling roses. Today it was the gondolier rowing their boat, singing some sappy love song in Italian.
About half-a-mile further than she was able to swim, she could just make out the Doge’s palace, tiny now in the distance, and the even tinier canals winding through town the way paved streets would have, had she been anywhere normal.
But she wasn’t. She was—
Oh great. Thunder. She looked up at the darkening sky. Black clouds smeared the horizon. The wind had picked up. It was whipping her hair around her face, slapping the boat angrily against the waves. And her parents were practically passed out in each other’s arms. “Mom, Dad,” she said, trying to be patient with them. “Have you seen those clouds?”
Her mother’s eyes still had that maddening, faraway look in them. “In a minute, dear.”
Just at that moment, Rachel hated being nine years old. If she were eighteen, her parents would have listened. “The ones up there,” Rachel continued, jabbing her finger at the horizon. “You know, the ones that turn into tornadoes and things?”
Her dad turned to the gondolier, who was still singing in Italian. He pointed towards the sky, opened his hands, and raised his eyebrows, doing everything in slow motion, even the “Scusi-Excuse-me-what-do-you-think?” part.
The gondolier shrugged, went on singing as if it were a picture-postcard kind of day.
Rachel shook her head. She didn’t care what the gondolier said. She was positive they were going to be swept away, sucked into the sky like Dorothy and Toto. Only instead of traveling by house, she and her parents would get blown away in this flimsy gondola.
And still her dad had no idea. “You see, princess?” he said. “A few clouds, a little wind. This is nothing. Like falling off a log.”
“Don’t say that!” Rachel gripped the sides of the boat as it hammered the waves. “Can’t we go back now? Please?”
“Mm.” Her mom nodded dreamily. “We will, dear, after this next song or two. It wouldn’t be a trip to Venice without a gondola ride, would it? Now be a good girl and listen.”
“And enjoy the view. Look, honey,” said her dad, pointing behind her. “The Bridge of Sighs.”
Even though Rachel was up at the front of the boat, she was turned around, facing her parents and the gondolier further back. Holding on tight, she risked a glance over her shoulder.
Up ahead, she saw a narrow cement footbridge that stretched over the canal and connected two ancient, stone buildings. Faces were carved on the side of the bridge, stony masks that seemed to be watching her approach. Rachel was going to pass right under them. It was dark underneath, full of shadows and choppy waves. She closed her eyes and held on.
They were almost directly under the bridge when she heard the cries—so shrill, so faint that at first she thought it was only a cloud of mosquitoes overhead. But there was nothing there. Just the moldy cement arching over her and the eerie sound of what seemed like insect voices crying out for help. “Aiyee! Ai! Ai!” they seemed to wail.
“Mom, Dad!” she hissed. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” said her dad, flicking the air above his head absent-mindedly.
“Imagine,” said her mother, looking amused. “Mosquitoes in Venice. This wasn’t in the brochure.”
“But they’re not mosquitoes!” she cried.
Finally her parents pried themselves loose from each other and turned their full attention on her. “Well then,” said her mom, “what are they, dear?”
“They’re, they’re—uh—I think it was somebody calling for help.” Somehow that sounded better than tiny bug-children.
Her mom and dad looked at each other. Then her dad turned to the gondolier. “Scusi,” he said.
The gondolier broke off grumpily—-he was just reaching the big finish of “O sole mio.”
“Scusi, scusi,” said her dad, apologizing, “but did you hear anything?” He tugged at his ear and pointed towards the bridge.
“No problem.” The gondolier nodded as if nothing could be more natural. He pointed towards the end of the bridge where it connected with one of the stone buildings.
“See there? The old prison? Is empty now. But the bridge, she still goes to the prison. And we say in our city we still hear the voices, the voices of men who became prisoners, men who pass over the bridge and say good-bye to their freedom.”
Her dad laughed. “I guess that’s what you heard, Rache. The ghosts of old prisoners. And I thought they were flies.”
“Oh yes,” said her mom. “I remember reading that story in my guidebook. I still think they were flies. But there’s Venice for you. Even mosquitoes get turned into something romantic. Imagine. Ghost voices.”
No, Rachel wanted to say. You’re all wrong. It wasn’t flies. And it wasn’t some old ghost story from a travel guide. But neither could she tell them what she really thought it was. They already thought she was a few toys short in the cupboard.
Some people were born with too much hair. Others had ears out to here or feet out to there. With Rachel it was an overgrown imagination. It made her the school’s best artist. It also kept her awake at night, waiting for everyone from her seven-foot, twitchy-eyed math teacher to the cat-lady at the local park to break in her window and carry her off. And it gave her the world’s scariest dreams, conjured in living Technicolor, down to the swamp moss dripping from the pointy-headed alien’s black and jagged fangs. Now her imagination seemed to be suggesting there was a boatload of bug children trying to get her attention.
Right.
She hugged herself, shivering in spite of the hot sun, as her parents went back to being lost in each other and in the gondolier’s song. She kept peering into the shadows, as the gondola slowly emerged from under the bridge. But the creatures, the voices that had cried out were gone.
Maybe she had just imagined them. With the wind moaning, the waves snapping around them, the gondoliers in other boats near them crooning, the canals were alive with sounds anyway. What was one more?
But this was more than one. Many more. Crying. In terrible distress. And what did she do?
Swatted them away like flies.
The bridge grew smaller as the gondolier pushed them further and further away. She pictured children the size of insects trapped in a silken web while some hairy, monstrous spider-witch crept towards them with Rachel their only hope of salvation.
Mortified, she turned away and realized they were heading towards the Grand Canal, the widest, longest canal in Venice, the one that led to the open sea. Lightning flashed in the distance, the forked hands of it clawing the horizon. It was so humid that little beads of sweat broke out on her forehead. She wiped them away briskly and turned her attention towards the gondolier.
He’d stopped singing. His mouth gaped open, and his eyes were riveted on the most threatening rain cloud Rachel had ever seen. It was the same one she’d seen earlier, only black and a hundred times larger, like the hull of the Titanic bearing down on them.
“No problem, no problem,” the gondolier muttered. But his face was grim and even her parents looked worried as he turned his back on them and bent over the oar, pumping it furiously in and out of the water.
The first fat drops of rain splattered on Rachel’s bare arms and legs. Soon her shirt was drenched. Then the cloud burst wide open and dumped everything it had on them. Rain pounded their faces, their clothes, the bottom of the gondola. A swell six feet high rose up like a sea monster ready to swallow them whole. It rolled under their boat, tipping it straight up in the air, throwing Rachel onto the floor.
“Daddy!” she cried, afraid to move, afraid to stay where she was.
“Hold onto the sides!” he yelled. He swiveled around to face the gondolier. “Get us back in!”
“Si,si!” The gondolier, so solid and steady before, was now struggling to stay on his feet. The oar swung crazily in the air, missing the water altogether.
Rachel dug her fingers into the sides of the boat as it bucked and shook, stumbling over the crest of one wave, smashing into the next. The mooring rope flew up, whipping against her face, and she cried out in pain. Another wave washed over the bow and flooded her. Salt water stung her eyes and the fresh cut on her cheek. Her wet clothes, plastered against her, made her shake uncontrollably. It was getting harder to hold on.
“Rachel!” her mother screamed, rising out of her seat.
“Serena, stay down!” Her dad bent forward to grab her mother, but she was already out of reach, crawling towards Rachel.
Rachel rose to meet her halfway. She stretched out her hand to meet her mother’s. Just as their fingers touched, a wave crashed into Rachel, a wall of water so high she couldn’t see the other side of it. It scooped her up and swept her out into the open water. She screamed as the sea pounded over her head.
The gondolier held out the oar to her, jabbering in Italian. She grabbed for it, missed, reached again, caught the end of it, choking on seawater.
“Hold onto it, Rachel! Hold on!” Her dad crawled beside the gondolier and steadied him, as he pulled her in close to the side of the boat.
All she was aware of now was the gondola sea-sawing towards her as she held onto the oar. The black belly of it was bearing down on her. She was going to be smashed against it.
“Hold on, Rachel! Hold on!”
She heard her dad’s voice calling her, commanding her. But the water was dark and so cold she felt it seeping into her bones. Her fingers scarcely seemed part of her. They were like sticks. She could hardly make them close over the oar. Everything around her was black now—the water, the boat, the sky…
“Don’t let go, Rachel!”
She couldn’t answer him. It was all she could do to hold on. She made her fingers, stiff as twigs, keep hold of the oar, until at last, she felt herself being lifted out of the waves. Her legs scraped and banged against the side of the boat. And still she held on, even after she felt her mother’s arms tighten around her.
“Okay,” her mother was saying. “You can let go now, sweetheart. Let go.” But her fingers wouldn’t stop clutching the oar. Her dad had to pry them off.
“Rachel, Rachel,” her mother cried, cradling her in her arms. “I was so afraid we’d lost you.”
“Hold onto the boat!” Her dad’s voice floated eerily towards her from far, far away. “Both of you—or you’ll be swept over again!”
They clung to each other and to the boat as it climbed each massive wave, the bow at times sticking nearly straight up in the air. Rachel knew that if she let go for even a moment, she’d fall out of the boat—and for good this time, because anyone who tried to rescue her would fall out too. All she could do was hang on until the storm died down enough that they could make their way towards shore. She huddled on the floor of the gondola and pulled her knees in tight to her chest, trying to make herself as small as possible, hoping the storm would tire of their tiny boat and move on to something bigger.
She stayed, frozen in that position, until at last they reached the harbor. As the gondolier tied up the boat, Rachel noticed his hands were trembling so much he could hardly fasten the rope. His olive skin had gone gray, and he looked like he might never sing again.
Her dad helped her out of the boat, but as soon as her feet touched the dock, Rachel stumbled and fell. Tears slid down her face, not from the fall but from everything that had gone before it. Her dad seemed to understand. “Sit for a minute, sweetheart,” he told her gently, “until you’ve got your land legs back.”
She nodded helplessly, doing her best to ignore that sea-sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. It was like she was still at sea—only now the land was churning beneath her. And her cheek was stinging. It felt swollen, like a balloon ready to burst.
Her mother knelt in front of her and gently touched the side of her face. “Does it hurt much?”
Rachel nodded, unable to speak, as her mother wrapped her in a fierce hug, murmuring, “But it could have been worse, it could have been so much worse.”
Rachel watched her dad reach into his dripping pockets in a half-hearted gesture to tip the gondolier.
He shook his head. “No problem. No necessary,” he said. “No this time. We have acqua alta—what you call high water—many time in Venice. But I never seen storm like this in all my day.”
“That makes four of us,” her father said. He leaned over Rachel and her mom, sliding his arms around them both. “Rachel,” he said, “where’d you learn to predict weather like that?”
Rachel gave him a weak smile. “Just a feeling I got.”
She couldn’t quite bring herself to tell him it was a feeling she got often. A hazy, “off” feeling deep in her stomach. It didn’t make sense and she usually pushed the feeling away, or ate too much chocolate to cover it up, but today it had become too strong to ignore. It had started when they first arrived in Italy. And so far, the airline had lost her suitcase, the funny smell under the hotel room bed had turned out to be a dead rat, and now this. There wasn’t enough chocolate in the world to cover all this up.
But bad things happen in threes, her mother had once told her. There was some small comfort in that. She’d had her three. Nothing else could possibly go wrong. She bit her lip, found herself reaching into her pocket for what was left of her soggy chocolate bar. There it was again...
The feeling.
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