Venezia

Venice hunched before me, her shoulder turned away, but questioning if I was going to come along. Pushing my bike through the crowd, one of the Vaporetti water taxis pulled up and tourists flowed around me. Their chatter, their camera pointing urgency struck me as funny, but I couldn’t say why. I eased through, gained the bridge, shouldered my bike, and headed into the warren.
There was no mist in the crumbling stucco fjords of Venice; the late afternoon sun had driven it back. The walls of the buildings were painted in strong colors: yellows, blues, reds. Every bridge had a different wrought iron railing, the same smooth hollow stepped into the stairs. I paused on one bridge to photograph my bicycle, as I had been doing all along, this time with a gondola going by in the back ground.
Deeper and deeper I followed the haphazard signs toward San Marco. Sometimes the houses leaned toward each other in conspiracy, sometimes they had been built together, making a tunnel of the pathway. Always there were more bridges, more canals offering a glimpse that seemed to stretch a bit father, only to run up against yet another columned façade. Churches seemed to sprout like weeds here, and any time I stood in a small square I saw not only the tower of the church on the square, but at least two others. One-up-manship was an old game in these alleys and canals.
Finally, still rolling my trusty Peugeot alongside me, I strode through an archway, and stepped out onto San Marco. The square was bustling with tour groups, tourists, men hawking trinkets and roses, and of course pigeons. Languages of every variety tumbled together, I heard English from Texas, New Jersey, California and London, German from the far north, the sing song notes of Italian, the mercurial tones of French, the fullness of Russian, the smiling gurgle of a Scandinavian vocabulary. Above this crush of people towered the ancient cathedral, supposedly enclosing the bones of St. Mark in its eastern domes and rounded balanced arches and glinting mosaics. The mighty and precarious bell tower, a red arrow tipped in marble white, rose up above even the cathedral. And everywhere long arcades of pillars and the winged lion with his terrible book.
I encamped on the Piazza San Marco, sitting on my bike frame, leaning against the fence that kept people back from the construction to prop up the bell tower. The world wandered by. I hoped quietly that I might see my friend Nicole’s face amidst the crowd. The sun slipped down, the blue of the sky deepened and the crowd begans to slowly thin. The mist from the horizon blended slowly with the few clouds, and the sky faded away to grey, shadows lengthened and washed a cool blue onto the flagstones of the plaza. I had no real hope to find them here, and decided to search for an internet café.
The time for antipasta and dinner arrived, and restaurants were filling up behind warm barred windows. I finally found an internet café, Venice style. Books were propped up between the computer moniters, Charlie Parker solos bounced against the framed art in the window. The tables were antique, with claw feet and heavy, heart-dark surfaces. No email from Nicole. I got ahold of her mother via Skype, who said they hadn’t found their original hotel. She didn’t know where they were staying. I gave her my phone number, for Nicole to call. I wasn’t too hopeful.
Outside the bookshop, night was stealing up from the ground, in Venice like in everywhere else. The dark slowly emerged from the cracks in the flags, took to the alleys, swept out into the larger spaces. It climbed the walls and slowly drew a great canopy over the open sqares. An Italian man in a tweed jacket stopped me. “Scusi” he began, and rattled off some question with the word “Biciclette” in the middle. I automatically responded in German, “Ich kann nicht Italianisch” I don’t speak Italian. He touched his round wire rimmed glasses, “Wieso hast du ein Fahrrad?” What are you doing with a bicycle? I rode from Austria, from Brennero, I told him. He looked at me hard, to see if I was lying, or crazy. From Brennero, he said softly, like a wine taster trying to guess the good wine from the cheap. After another long look at me, I shrugged, “It took four days,” “Four days! Bravo, Bravissimo. “ He said, he clapped me on the shoulder, and shook my hand. We continued walking, the same direction. Why did you do this? I don’t know really, it seemed like a better way to travel. I could experience more. And what are you going to do tonight? I am hoping to find some friends… You should hope to find them! The hotels are full, you will have to sleep under a bridge, or in a gondola! I laughed, and the Italian eyes winked full of mirth and maybe even admiration. You have the first bicycle I have seen in Venice in years, he said. Good luck, with another strong handshake, he turned down an alley and vanished into the gloaming.
I began to prepare myself for a vigil on the streets of Venice. I unpacked my camera, began taking photos of the ever emptying streets, slowly filling with mist. One lone gondolier waited on a bridge, whistling a melancholy tune. A man in a suit passed the gondolier and I, and as he turned out of sight, I heard the echo of his whistling. The same tune. I sat for a cappuccino in a small café, off the beaten track. Posters boasting the wins of the Venice soccer team were framed on the walls. Four patrons gathered at one end, obviously joking with and pestering the matron. She gave as good as she got, at least measured in volume of laughter the two impartial cronies allowed. When I stepped outside, night had arrived.
I walked slowly down the edge of a large canal. A lone Vaporetti slid through the water, the interior lit and bare. Piles of refuse were tucked behind monuments, awaiting the invisible work of dawn. I was glad to be alone. I couldn’t have convinced anyone else to wander the streets of Venice all night, searching down the details and the night scenes that would reveal some unseen part of this overrun city. I saw before me the railstation bridge, that first bridge I had encountered eight hours earlier. Shouldering my bicycle for the umpteenth time, I trudged to the apex. The crowds had thinned, but I leaned on that high point and listened to the current of conversation. Most of the languages were unknown to me, but I could pick out the jokers and the complainers, the merry from the discontent. I could relax in my obvious unfittingness, turn into a piece of the fabulous scenery and melt away as an individual. I could observe. My cell phone rang.
I hurriedly picked up, and Nicole’s voice came from the other side. We excitedly said hello, she asked if I was at San Marco’s and I replied No, I am at the… I was talking into a dead cell phone. Out of battery. I headed back to San Marco’s on the slim but solitary chance that she would head there trying to find me. It was the only point we had, the only words she had been able to get to me. I was half disappointed that my adventure in the night had ended, mostly terribly relieved that I would have a place to stay. Five minutes after I had arrived, having been lost multiple times and run into my own trail at least once, up walked Nicole.
By the time we had walked back to the hotel she had explained some of her adventures, and I some of mine. We were both greedy to fill the others ears, and the conversation was as knotted and confused as the path we took. Arriving at the hotel, which breathed red and gold turn of the century tourism, I tried to convince the girls to get up early with me and see Venice in the empty dawn. I didn’t get any takers, although they agreed to set an alarm for 6:30. I woke up on my own at seven, stole out of the door, and headed for the Rialto Bridge.
Venice was empty. The store fronts were shuttered. The mist obscured the top of the bell tower, and silence lapped at the edges of the canals. The ghosts of the past centuries were there. They weren’t driven into hiding by the vicious consuming of “tourism”. On the white Rialto Bridge, a Vaporetti, bringing the days workers, parted the tomb-like dark of the canal. A barge tied up next to the pier was being uncovered, a floating fruit stand. I stood leaning on the rail, hoping that the Austrian girls would have to come this way, when I heard my name. Turning to look up at them, I forgot to say hello, “I was hoping I would find you.” They laughed. The world is so small, they twittered.
The rest of the day was spent marveling over mosaics in the cathedral, avoiding the swarms of tourists following odd things held up on sticks (a Norwegian flag, a stuffed elephant with streamers, and a bright pink umbrella stuck in my mind), and tracking down the myriad folktales that Betsy had learned on a tour a few weeks before. We saw stone lions that had come to life and mauled rivals to the owners, the sketches of a twelfth century insomniac stone carver in marble, and the tiny heart that reminds passersby of a sailors ill-advised affair with a mermaid. The day pulled on, and I was glad I had the day before to observe on my own. These sights were interesting, and most of them more or less off the beaten tourist path. It was a joy to be with the laid back Austrians, who didn’t have much use for the souvenir shops. They didn’t think to buy their trip, or give it back as anything besides a story to the folks back home.
Finally, it was time for me to catch my train. I rushed to the station, met the Americans again (we had seen each other on an off throughout the day) barely had time to buy my ticket and rushed to the platform. Most the passengers were already boarded. I rushed up to the first second class door, heaved it open and started to heft my bicycle. A conductor rushed up. “No!” he said.
“I have a ticket,” I said, waving my bicycle ticket.
“Ok then…Wagon six,”
Exasperated, I rushed halfway down the platform, found the sixth car, and again opened the door. Another, bigger, mustachioed conductor came puffing toward me, red in the face.
“No! Biciclette! Impossible!! No no no!”
I thought I had the trump card. “ I have a ticket!”
“No! Impossible”
I reached for my ticket, he reached for the door, “Treno regionale!! Biciclette Impossible!”
I was stunned. He stood in the doorway, pointed at another platform, looked to his colleague, gave a wave, and blew hard on his whistle. The door closed. The train left. I was almost to stunned to cuss. Almost. I suddenly understood the Italian temper, and I raged on the platform for a moment. There was nothing else to do.
Back at the ticket counter, the clerk had to find the man who had sold me the ticket, who then simply refunded my money and made me get in line again. The next train wasn’t until the next day. I decided on Padova, and on the train, gave Betsy and Claudia a call. They were happy to take me, but it seemed it was time for me to get out of Italy. My luck was running out.
The next day, from Padova to Verona, the train was completely full. The conversations bounced off the windows, the roar of the people outdid the din of the train. At each station, the train quieted. More people got off. By Bozen, near silence was the rule. The people left had whispers common in a library. Or a German train. Italian culture was fading into the distance. At the pass, getting out to change trains, we were just five passengers left.
In Brenner, in the train back to Innsbruck, I looked contentedly at my modest white Peugeot. No one in Innsbruck would ever guess that the old bike had made it to the Adriatic. I had done it. It was bittersweet, because it was over, but it I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Now I knew, anywhere with a road was a place I could travel. My freedom was confirmed.