When in Venice...

View from the Bridge of Sighs, on the way into one of Venice's old prisons

The things that stick in my mind about Venice have little to do with museums. However: the Bellinis in the Accademia Museum are amazing, many over ten feet tall and the same impressive width. The fact that one man could create so many works of art in his life amazes me.

What I remember best is that night. We spent the first night roaming the streets of Venice. We went out in search of a bar, exhausted but determined. Along the way, we met a South African soccer player who bought us a round of drinks (the second round, without asking if he could, but he seemed like a decent guy.) We wandered the curvy cobblestone streets, taking bridges over the green canals (which looked black in the night.) Around 3 am we found a Russian bartender who agreed to open his bar for us. The patrons had left, leaving only him and several of his friends. We started talking. I asked them if they had read Marcel Proust, they told us they knew Americans weren't responsible for all of President Bush's policies.

"I am an artist, a revolutionary," one of them kept saying. "We are all artistas." After an hour or so he asked us to accompany him to another bar he knew. "One of the worst places in Venice," he said in broken English, "you will love it. You will just love it." Along the way he said, "Americans are free, and this is the most beautiful thing in the world." I wasn't buying it, but the ground had started to move underneath my feet and I figured, I was better off sticking with the crew than striking off alone into the night, especially after so many shots of tequila.

We reached his bar. He needed a password to get in, and he passed the two of us off as his girlfriends. "Que belleza Oriental," one of the bouncers shouted after me. (Lit: What an Oriental beauty.) I felt weird about the comment but figured it didn't matter. When we entered, we realized we weren't in the best area of town, he hadn't been kidding. There were no other women there. The other girl I was with was loving it. I sat on the pool table, pulling on my drink and watching her flirt with the boys, wondering what I was doing there. A dim hour passed, a Moroccan came over to me. He sat down. " I love Indian women," he said, putting his hand on my leg. "You are so beautiful." I wasn't that drunk. "No, signore," I said. "What is this no, signore?" he demanded. I sighed, picked his hand up, and put it back in his lap. "No," I said again, got up and used the bathroom. When I came back he was gone, but two more guys were hanging out with the girl who had come in with me. She was loving it. "How do you say blonde hair?" She kept asking them in Italian (she's blonde.) I watched. One of the thugs cracked a joke, the artist (who was lingering nearby) caught it and frowned. "No con mi regazza, per favore," he said. (Trans: not with my girlfriend, please.) I wondered if my companion understood, but she wasn't ready to leave. I played musical tables, moving from seat to seat. The bartender (an enormous woman with dark skin and hair and a tattoo across one of her arms) kept assuring me the drinks she served were clean. I wasn't sure how to respond. My other friend was getting friendly with the South African on a nearby pool table. Finally, the artist sat down beside me.

"You know, you are so smart," he said to me. "So smart. American girls they are funny but they are not all smart. They do not all want to be so smart." He sighed and pulled out one of his pungent cigarettes. I had had enough for the night, I shook my head. "The thing is, in this country, we don't have competition in grade schools. Nothing like that we have. But you have. I have seen it in the movies. But I think you should not worry about being in the background. You are not like that. Perhaps it is because you are not originally American." I was uncomfortable with the quality of the patronage, but mostly I just couldn't handle the constant references to my ethnic heritage. Every man in the bar must have commented on it at least once. I don't think they were trying to be rude, but I've been on edge ever since graffiti swastikas started appearing on the stone walls of various Veronese buildings. The thing is: now more than ever, Italy has a huge problem with immigration. People from all over the Mediterranean arrive on the coast in boats, many illegally, many from Northern Africa. The swastikas are a reaction, a fleeting racism. When I asked the artist about it, point-blank, he looked me in the eye and said, "In Italy we don't have racism." And I thought: this middle-aged kid is either lying or totally clueless. And his nice words of earlier just seemed naive. I put my drink cup down and looked at him. He was fuzzy and obviously drunk and stoned, and I realized I didn't need any therapy from him, or any attention from the crack dealers, pimps and so-called revolutionaries he called his friends. "We're going," I told him. They all groaned as if, truly, this was the saddest thing they'd ever heard.

We left, and were shocked to realize it was already daylight again. The artist ran after us, as did the bartender and the soccer player. They insisted on buying us coffee to make up for the oddness of the night, so we sat in the breeze off the canal, took pictures and drank cappuccinos. By the time we returned to the hotel it was 8 am. I slept for an hour, got up, and went down to face the music. The program director called the three of us girls into the front room. "It's your first night in Venice and you don't come home all night?" he demanded in a fury. "What if your parents had called? What would I have told them?" He brandished an Italian newspaper. "A woman was raped in Italy last night, a tourist. They left her in a canal. Think about it." And he left us with the paper. The other two started crying, but I shrugged and went on to do the full day's program of touring and adventuring. Later I learned that a few of the other girls had come to him around 6 am, concerned about where the three of us were. He replied, "There's not much we can do about it until they turn up in the canal." Warm and fuzzy.

That night when we went out the ten of us stayed together, drinking wine and beer in the plaza, striking up conversations with wandering Americans, Italians and Englishmen. It was safe and comfortable, none of the edgy awkwardness of the night before. I sat on an old well cover and realized that I had never in my life been so exhausted before.

We saw more churches than I count, the Doge's Palace, and the shopping district. In addition to wandering around at night we went into the Dolce, the Gucci, the Zegna (none of which are cheaper here, by the way) and thumbed through the designer clothes. We visisted the Museum of Erotic Art (more of a shop, really) and bought suggestive playing cards. We sat behind at least five different stone\wood\lace altars and stared at life-size statues of a crucified Christ. I climbed to the top of a bell tower and saw all the islands around Venice, green flecks in the bright water.

Venice is cramped and hot, but beautiful beyond belief. When I try to imagine the city without tourists I see acres upon acres of carved marble and wooden pilings, sinking slowly back into the lagoon. Gold leaf and bright artwork growing green with alage, dark wooden gondolas growing soft with rot. The city is an experiment and it will be over. I know this won't happen for thousands of years, but I'm glad I saw it anyway.