Jeff in Venice, death in Varanasi Page 3

  ‘I'm ready to go now.’

  ‘C'mon then.’

  They stood up, left their bottles on the steps and began walking. He put his arm around her shoulders. Her arm went around his waist. They walked through the cat-deserted alleys and lanes, along canals, through waiting piazzas.

  ‘What do you think the chances are of finding your hotel?’ said Laura.

  ‘I'm not sure. But the incentive for doing so is considerable.’ They consulted the map frequently – torn now from careless folding. They sought guidance from a patient man out walking his dog.

  ‘Sempre dritto!’he replied unwaveringly, ‘Straight ahead!’

  Within a hundred yards it became impossible to continue straight ahead. A turn had to be made and that turn must have been a wrong turn. Further mistakes were made. Deadends loomed without warning. Bridges that were supposed to serve as short cuts failed to appear, but after twenty minutes of zigzagging and backtracking they came to the hotel. The night porter handed over the key. No eyebrow was raised.

  The room, when they entered, was cool. Laura went straight into the bathroom. The white door closed behind her. Jeff heard water running, the sound of the toilet flushing. He took off his Birks, looked at the closed white door, saw it open again.

  ‘Can I use this?’ She was holding up the little toothbrush provided by the hotel.

  ‘Of course.’ The door shut again and he stared at it again. When it opened and she came out he went in and brushed his teeth with his own brush. He came out. She was not lying or sitting on the bed. She was standing by the desk, leaning against it, looking through the book of Turner's paintings of water-coloured Venice. She closed the book, put it down on the desk. He moved towards her and they were kissing. It was like a kiss from hundreds of years ago, when people had no hope of experiencing such a thing until their wedding night. Everything that came after was implied by these first moments of their kiss. He touched her face, her hair fell over his hands, over his face. As they kissed he pulled her dress up around her thighs. Her hands were on his back, beneath his shirt. She eased forward so that he could pull her dress up over her hips then leant back again on the desk. Looking down he could see, plainly now, the white underwear he had glimpsed earlier. His hands moved up the unbelievable softness of her legs, the inside of her thighs. He touched the cotton between her legs, pressed it against her. She had unbuttoned his shirt. Her fingers, as they moved up his ribs, sent charges down his spine. He reached behind her back, tugged down the zip of her dress, slipped it off her shoulders. He undid her bra and bent to kiss her breasts. One of her nipples was pierced with a silver ring. The sight of that sent his blood surging. His hands were on her nipples, both growing hard, flicking the nipple ring very slightly. He bent his head and took her nipple in his mouth, the silver ring clacking loud against his teeth. They were kissing again. He pulled her underwear aside and slipped his fingers inside her. He stepped back and knelt in front of her, kissing her stomach. Her hands were by her sides, on the desk. He licked down her stomach and then moved lower so that he could smell and see her. She reached down to hold her underwear aside. He stayed there motionless, inhaling deeply through his nose, exhaling through his open mouth. Only his breath touched her. Neither of them moved. He tilted his head and she moved from the edge of the desk, bending her legs slightly until she was almost touching his tongue and then was. She kissed his face with her cunt, moving over his mouth, moving in synch with him. He moved his thumb inside her, inside and out, then his fingers. She pressed down harder against his face, then reached back and pulled her dress over her head, tossed it onto the bed. He stood up and they kissed again, the smell of her on both their faces. She was naked except for her white underwear. She began unzipping his trousers, reached inside his underpants. They shuffled towards the bed. He took off his trousers and underpants and she bent down to remove her knickers. As she did so he saw, just below her hipbone, a small tattoo of what he thought, at first blush, was a shark. But it was a dolphin, of course, leaping bluely out of a line of saw-tooth surf.

  They were both naked now, sitting on the bed. Her pubic hair was thick, very dark, soft, trimmed into a narrow strip. She was kissing his stomach and he was licking her stomach until his face was between her legs and her mouth was around him. He moved his left arm between her legs, using it to ease her legs open and bury his face in her. He saw, for the first time, her asshole. She had taken him more deeply into her mouth, wet as her cunt in his face. They stayed like that, moving easily in rhythm until she was coming, coming on his face, as his come washed into her mouth.

  They disentangled their legs and arms, feeling, he suspected, a little self-conscious now about how their faces had ended up in each other's genitals. Intimacy is not consistent or uniform; it has its own delays and lags. He was also wondering, slightly, about the etiquette of what had just happened. Were they supposed to have fucked? Laura, evidently, was thinking along the same lines.

  ‘So, are you going to fuck me now?’

  ‘Maybe notright now,’ he said. She was smiling and then they were kissing.

  ‘Your face smells of pussy.’

  ‘Your face smells of come.’

  ‘Shouldn't that have gone, “Your face smells of come,bitch”?’

  ‘You're right. But I've got that whole post-coital tenderness thing going on at the moment.’

  ‘Me too. I love the way you licked me.’

  ‘I love the way you sucked me. And I love this,’ he said, touching her nipple ring. He meant it, of course, but what he really meant was that there was so much to love.

  They lay side by side, took it in turns to drink, awkwardly, from one of the big bottles of water he'd bought earlier. Jeff said, ‘You know, it's amazing, isn't it? You meet a woman and you talk to her and then she lets you do thisstuff to her, stuff you've basically been interested in since you were about thirteen. And she doesn't justlet you do this stuff. Shewants you to do this stuff. And she wants todo stuff to you. It's just great.’

  ‘Why are you telling me this? Of all people.’

  ‘I had to share it withsomeone. And you were the only person here.’

  She handed Jeff the water and rolled over, onto her stomach. He saw again the tattoo of the dolphin he had glimpsed earlier. His hand followed the notches of her spine down the length of her tanned back.

  ‘When did you have the shark done?’

  ‘It's a dolphin, idiot!’

  ‘I told you, I'm not a very visual person.’

  ‘Five years ago. In San Francisco. Do you like dolphins?’

  ‘In some ways I envy them.’ He put the water on the bedside table, touched the dolphin and then stroked her legs and ass. Slid his fingers between her legs. He was feeling turned on again.

  She said, ‘Are we still talking about stuff?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘So, what stuff are we talking about now?’

  ‘We're talking about how lovely it feels, having my fingers in your cunt.’

  ‘It does feel lovely,’ she said. ‘Yes, do that.’ Her legs opened more. He could see what his hand was doing.

  ‘Like that?’

  ‘Hmm. Do you have condoms?’

  ‘Yes.’ She turned over, onto her back. They kissed.

  * * *

  In the morning they ate breakfast – orange juice (great), coffee (perfect), cornetti (tolerable) – in the same place he'd gone to the day before. They were sitting in the shade, on gleaming silver chairs, wearing sunglasses, looking down the tree-adorned street with its glimpse of the Giudecca Canal. This was it: happiness. The same happiness experienced many times before and not just in Venice: by people in other cities, on other mornings like this. To look at her long, tanned legs was to feel their smoothness against his hands, his lips. Jeff asked, ‘What would you be having for breakfast if you were at home?’

  ‘A full English. Eggs. Bacon. Beans. Black pudding.’

  ‘Do you know what that is?’

  ‘Isn't
it shit fried in sheep's blood or something?’

  ‘Other way round.’

  ‘Actually, I'd be having orange juice, coffee and croissants.’

  ‘You can get all this in L.A.? Must be quite a city.’

  ‘The orange would be decaf.’

  Jeff was looking through the newspaper, which confirmed what they – what everyone – had suspected: today was going to be even hotter than yesterday.

  ‘There's an article here,’ he said, glancing up. ‘It says that men are biologically programmed to read the newspaper at breakfast. What d'you think? Any truth in that?’

  Laura was dipping the last of her cornetto into her coffee, brushing her hair behind her ear with her other hand. He folded the newspaper away – a manly, breakfastly gesture. She said, ‘You're in a good mood.’

  ‘I'll give you one guess why.’

  ‘Because you're not sleeping outside the station?’

  Little birds kept landing on their table, pecking at crumbs. Laura shooed them away. They were a nuisance and possibly a health hazard too. Laura rummaged in her bag, the same bag she'd rummaged through the previous night, before they'd slept together. Eventually she produced a much-amended printout of her schedule.

  ‘What day is it today?’

  ‘Friday.’

  ‘Shoot.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I have to meet my boss for lunch. Which means I should be going. I have to go to my hotel and change.’

  ‘Change? Into an even nicer dress?’

  ‘Maybe not. Unfortunately, this one has come spots on it.’

  ‘Sorry. That's so rude of me.’

  ‘I forgive you. Also, I need new underwear. Look.’ She nodded her head, cast her eyes down and opened her legs slightly. She was naked beneath her dress. ‘Isn't it terrible, though? As a culturally aware person, that gesture has been sort of ruined by Sharon Stone.’

  ‘I still enjoyed it,’ he said. ‘But what a difference ten hours makes. Last night you were accusing me of looking up your dress and now you're asking me to.’

  ‘It's a privilege, not a right.’

  ‘Last night you said I owned you.’

  ‘I said, “Would youlike to?”’

  It happened that, as they were having this conversation, Jeff was also spooning honey from his cornetto.

  ‘The freaking honey trap,’ he said, holding up the spoon.

  ‘What are you going to do with that?’

  ‘I suppose, at the risk of appearing vulgar, I should lick it off. But I hate honey. That's why I've hooked it out.’ He lay the honey-sticky spoon on the plate.

  ‘What about you?’ Laura said. ‘What do you have to do?’

  ‘I don't need to change. I'm happy with what I'm wearing, thanks.’ Another instance of shyness, modesty: at the hotel, as they were dressing, he had opted, in spite of the heat, for trousers instead of shorts. ‘I just have to go to the Arsenale. Can we meet there later?’

  ‘I'm not sure what time I'll be able to get there. Maybe two? If I can't make it by then, I'll phone.’

  ‘I don't have a phone.’

  ‘You don't have a phone?’

  ‘No, but I could call you.’

  ‘I don't have one either.’

  ‘Now, that really is a coincidence.’

  ‘Don't you need a phone in your line of work?’

  ‘Probably Don't you need a phone in your line of work?’

  ‘Definitely’

  ‘We must be the last two people in the world not to have a phone. Castaways.’

  ‘Not a problem, though. If I'm not at the Arsenale, at the ticket desk, by two, assume I'm not coming. In which case I'll meet you at Accademia, on the bridge. At four.’

  ‘Perfect. Shall we get more coffee?’

  They ordered two more cappuccinos, two more juices, two more cornetti. In addition to the birds a wasp was buzzing around the table, attracted, bee-like, by the honey. Fiona Banner, the artist, walked briskly past. With her jet-black hair and big-framed glasses, she looked like she was in disguise – as herself. Jeff waved, but she didn't see him.

  He would have been happy to sit here for the rest of the day, the rest of his life. Laura said she had to get going. He paid the bill and they kissed goodbye.

  ‘I'm tired,’ she said.

  ‘So am I.’

  ‘I wish we could take a nap.’

  ‘Well, I'm free.’ Her arms were around his neck.

  ‘I'll see you later. Arsenale at two—’

  ‘Or Accademia at four.’

  He watched her go, her hair shadow-dark in the sun, her feet moving lightly.

  Relieved that he didn't need to repeat the previous morning's post-breakfast dash, Jeff decided to walk to the Arsenale, through Campo Santo Stefano and San Marco. To say he had a spring in his stride would be an understatement. He swaggered through Venice as if he owned the place, as if it had been created entirely for his benefit. Life! So full of inconvenience, irritation, boredom and annoyance and yet, at the same time, so utterly fantastic. What an absolutely, sensationally brilliant planet it was! Wobbly with fat, a woman in a white T-shirt looked at him uncertainly. He must have been doing that thing again, mouthing out his thoughts. But who cared when they were thoughts like these, thoughts that actually contributed, in their small way, to making the world the excellent, happy place that it was?

  It took a while to get to Piazza San Marco, so lovely in photographs or at dawn, so pigeon-congested once the day got going. It was especially crowded in the south-west corner. Especially aroundJeff. He was being barged from the side, from the left. A young guy – handsome, in his late teens, possibly east European – was speaking, in such heavily accented Italian that Jeff couldn't understand what he was saying. He was wearing sunglasses. He bumped into Jeff again, was still speaking. But what was he saying? It made no sense. Maybe it wasn't even Italian he was speaking. Jeff felt something bump against his right hip, on the other side from the guy to his left, who was still talking in this confusing language that may or may not have been Italian. What…? Shit, he was being pick-pocketed. That's what was happening. He yelled,‘Ladro !’ and pushed through the crowd, clearing some space. All eyes turned, first on him and then on the guy who had been speaking to him and then on his accomplice, both of whom were moving quickly out of the way. Jeff felt in his pockets. Money, vaporetto pass, press pass … Everything was where it was meant to be. The two would-be thieves were still in view, conscious of the accusing stares of the crowd. Jeff was suddenly exultant. They had tried to rob him and had failed. Feeling invincible he called out, in English, in the direction of the two Albanians – or Serbs or whatever they were.

  ‘Call yourself pick-pockets? You couldn't steal the piss from your mother's cunt.’ As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he felt suddenly un-invincible, frightened that this was an insult so grave it would have to be avenged immediately, that their honour demanded they come back and stab the person who had uttered it. Fortunately, it seemed their English wasn't good enough to understand what had been said. Not so the elderly Italian next to Jeff, evidently a connoisseur of invective, who clapped him on the shoulder and said,‘Bravissimo! Bravissimo!’ Looking bewildered and fearful – their fear of getting lynched was greater than Jeff's of getting stabbed – the two culprits slunk off, looking harmless, poor, foreign and hopelessly outnumbered. Some tall Africans were nearby, selling knock-off Prada bags. From their long-limbed, indifferent demeanour it was impossible to tell where their allegiances lay. Did they feel solidarity with their poor Slavic brothers, on whom the fury of the mob could so easily have been unleashed? Or were they enjoying the opportunity to affirm, however passively, their own relative law-abidingness, to show that while it may not have been strictly legal to be flogging leather goods that no one wanted they were, in the larger scheme of things, honest tradesmen, starting out on the road to what might turn out to be a legitimate career in retailing?

  Jeff emerged onto the Riva degli Schiavo
ni – or the promenade, as he seasidely thought of it. It was still crowded, with tourists and the stalls catering for them, but after a hundred yards it became pleasantly quiet. The view of the sea or the canal – he wasn't sure at what point the one turned into the other – was obstructed by huge yachts: theEcstasea , theNeptune , theSea Breeze , a name that alerted everyone to the fact that there was none, that the baking city was becalmed in windless heat.

  Along with the national pavilions at the Giardini, the Arsenale was the other key component of the Biennale: a selection of work by artists from around the world, chosen or commissioned by the director of the Biennale and united (allegedly) by some kind of theme. That this theme was impossible to discern from the apparently random array of art on display did not diminish the experience – or not Jeff's experience, at any rate. There was a ton of stuff to see: paintings, installations, photographs, video streams, sculpture (sort of), even, quaintly, the odd drawing. He breezed through it all, taking it all in, even if, much of the time, he took nothing in. He'd been watching a video loop of a kid playing keepy-uppy in the bombed-out ruins of a city – Belgrade, it turned out – for five minutes before he noticed that it wasn't a football he was dribbling around: it was a human skull.