Journey of Rick Heiden Ch. 20

Sincerely, E. M.

"Fascinating," I said. "Would you consider going?"

"I would like you to think on this note," he said, "do that thing you do, and you let me know if we should go because I honestly couldn't say. I'll go along with whatever you think. I trust you."

"Okay, I'll do my best." He kissed me and left for the shower.

I took a deep breath and began inspecting the note for any clue that it might give me. I first noticed that it had a faint, unusual odor, like herbs or spice, and maybe fruit. It smelled familiar, but I couldn't quite place it. The letter and the envelope matched, as they came from the same ivory linen stationery. I used a lamp to scrutinize it. The light revealed a watermark in the upper third of the sheet, the name of a hotel there in Venice: The Albergo del Ghetto.

I studied the writing itself. The cleanliness of the print appeared as though someone had computer-generated it, but too many telltale signs revealed it as handwriting. The series of meticulously crafted non-cursive letters had all the capitalized and lower-case letters precisely the same height, respectively. And they had printed them as a rigid horizontal line --on unlined paper no less. This person wrote a great deal on unlined paper, a scholar perhaps. As a left-hander myself, I couldn't write without leaving smudges. No smudges on this page told me they wrote with their right hand. The letters themselves also revealed that the author hadn't written it with a felt tip or ballpoint pen. Their edges had a distinctive clarity, and the instrument used characterized each letter with thick horizontal strokes and thin vertical strokes, causing me to surmise the author had written it with a kind of fountain pen. People still used fountain pens, but as an unusual item in the 21st century, I counted the clue as significant.

The author wanted to meet us in the ghetto and appeared to stay in a hotel there. The location seemed meaningful, or at least I got that impression from the missive. It led me to surmise that they most likely had Jewish origins. They worded the letter with a cordial familiarity, yet with a sense of urgency, and they used the magic word twice: please.

I might have seen the late hour of the meeting as a red flag if we stayed in virtually any other city, but I had visited Venice many times. I knew the rarity of violent crime in Venice, even throughout the night. One could walk about the city at 3:00 a.m. with nothing untoward happening to you.

I did wonder, though, why they would do it on Shabbat. I understood that Jews couldn't work on the Sabbath. It seemed uncharacteristic, or perhaps Jews made exceptions.

I knew little about Jewish people. However, I always felt more respect for them than other groups. Many open-minded Jews accepted gay people, and to me, they had earned a level of respect that many others had not. Also, I respected that they still struggled in many ways, and I knew what that felt like as a persecuted gay man.

David sat next to me, wearing one of the white robes. "What do you think?"

"Do you want to know the how or just the what?" I knew the answer; I think he didn't want to demystify what he referred to as that thing I do. For some strange reason I had yet to discover, he enjoyed the quaint notion that somehow, I had an almost unworldly talent that he couldn't comprehend.

"I only want to know the what," he said.

"Yes, we should go, and I know how to get there."

"You don't think it's a trap?"

"No, it's not a trap," I said, and then decided to go out on a limb and give him it all. "We will meet a Jewish man, definitely a scholar, and I think, a man of some distinction, and possibly a Rabbi."

"You're kidding," he said.

"I'm serious. We probably should leave at about 2:30 a.m., no make that 2:15. So, what shall we do in the meantime?"

We took a long four-and-a-half-hour nap. The bed felt warm and cozy, and I held David in our slumber. I slept off and on during that time. As I laid there embracing David, I delighted in the closeness of the skin-on-skin contact humans crave so much. I could think of nowhere else in the universe I wanted to be except right there. David could make my senses heighten, the smell of his hair, the sensation of his skin against mine, and the solid feel of his muscled torso against my chest. When I laid with David, I knew heaven existed.

I thought to set the alarm before we slept, and I had fallen asleep somewhere before 2:10 am. Whoever made our abominable bedside clock either did so for the hearing impaired or the sadistic so-and-so designed it to cause a nervous condition. The aptly named "alarm" sounded so suddenly with powerful blasts, destroying the serenity of our silent room, it gave us both a nasty shock. We jumped from the bed as if someone had attacked us, and it took several minutes to calm ourselves once I had stopped the din.

Many hotels lock their doors at some point in the night for security. As we descended the grand staircase, I wondered if exiting the building at 2:15 in the morning would cause difficulty. However, the door of the Hotel Didoni remained unlocked at all hours, and they continually occupied the front desk.

We stepped out into the starlit night. The vapor of our breath shone in the glow from the glass door and lingered with no wind to carry it away. I glanced left, then right. With the promenade empty, we had met soothing tranquility that couldn't exist during the day. We heard only water lapping stone walls, an occasional gondola bumping a dock and the patter of our boots on the stone blocks. We approached the usually bustling San Marco Square to find the place deserted, its beauty highlighted by the contrast from the floodlights.

David held my hand as we rushed through the square. We slowed once we reached the labyrinth of deeply shadowed alleyways, the darkness broken by the occasional streetlight or lit display window. I expected to see, or hear on the way, at least some indication of life in Venice besides ourselves. But we sensed nothing, not the tinkling of glasses in a distant bar, or even one of the numerous Venetian cats on its nightly mouse hunt. David and I were on Earth, strolling hand in hand, unimpeded by judging eyes, painful words, or the violence of fanatical hatred. It was a surreal experience for me like Venice existed that night solely for us.

"I'm just walking," he whispered. "I trust you would tell me if I headed the wrong way."

"You're doing fine." Our whispers carried through the silence bouncing off the stone surrounding us with a light echo.

I could tell David felt pensive and unsure about the meeting, but he trusted me; I honestly hadn't seen a problem.

"I would relax him," I thought to myself.

On the other side of the Rialto Bridge, near a church, the city had its fish market. It had quite a few dark places there, easy to hide in. I dragged David to one of those, and I kissed him.

"What are we doing?"

"Taking advantage of the late hour and the extra 15 minutes I gave us to get there." I unbuttoned his pants and pulled out my favorite piece of playground equipment. It hadn't taken long for him to get an erection again. I sucked his cock in the quiet calm of the columned shelter, almost spitting distance from the Grand Canal. He put his hands on my head and let me service him in the ancient city of Venice in the early hours of the morning. I tried not to wet his trousers and give him a clean blowjob. The head filled the front of my mouth, and unlike before he had it enlarged two inches, it could fit down into my throat. I repeatedly tapped my lips onto the base, using the back of my tongue to please him. We only had time for a few minutes of pleasure, but it meant the world to me, and I know he enjoyed it. He came into my mouth as quietly as he could manage, and I swallowed his cum as the most delicious thing I had ever tasted. I cleaned him up and tucked his dick into his pants. I stood up and kissed him while I buttoned his fly.

"I love you," he said.

"I want to give you every reason to." I grabbed his hand and got us back on the path.

When we finally crossed the Scalzi bridge, we turned to the right, and David spoke. "The ghetto's a name that doesn't sound promising," he whispered. "What is this place? It's not where the toughs live, is it?"

"This Ghetto is the first ghetto. Centuries ago, the Catholics allowed the Jews to live nowhere else in Venice before Napoleon came. It's an island that has three bridges to the rest of Venice that had gates used to keep them all in at night after curfew."

He gasped. "That's terrible."

"When Napoleon conquered Venice, he removed the gates, lifted the curfew, and told them they could live wherever they wanted. Overall, he treated the Jews in Europe as equals to everyone else."

"What did the gentile community think of that?"

"His emancipation of the Jews in Europe angered a lot of Christians."

"Of course, it did," he whispered. "Have we much farther to go?"

"Not much farther, we have to take the long route. I get lost when I go any route but the one that I know. The iron bridge is just ahead."

Venice had only one city square, San Marco's Square. Many others existed in the city that one might refer to as a square, but those smaller, cobblestone-covered "squares," once consisted of empty spaces with dirt and no cobblestone. In Venice, they referred to them as a campo, which meant field. The ghetto consisted of a large campo surrounded by buildings that demarcated the edge of the island.

When we arrived at the black iron bridge, a blown bulb left it in shadow, and we couldn't see much. We tread across to the campo, and to the far right, near the memorial, lit by a nearby streetlamp, sat a figure. As we approached, it rose from the bench and walked directly beneath the streetlight attached to the wall. We could then see one another's faces. The man put his hand beneath David's chin, tipping it back to illuminate it further.

"Yes," the man said, "yes, you look so like your father." He snatched his hand away. "I'm sorry, please forgive me. I haven't even introduced myself. I am Rabbi Eamon Mayer, and your parents were two of my best friends. Of course, you don't have to believe me, and I wouldn't blame you if you didn't, but it's true."

I introduced us appropriately, and we shook his hand. The Rabbi had an accent from the New York region of the Jewish community. Despite the shadows, he seemed maybe sixty-five years old, wore a dark coat and a kippah.

"I have a lot to tell you," he said, "but I have sat here for the last ten minutes with all my body heat draining into that half-frozen bench. May we please go back to my warm hotel room? It's nearby and has a comfortable seating area to talk."

David, who hadn't spoken a word, looked at me. I just shrugged.

"I have some nice hot English tea and two cups with your names on them. How does that sound?"

The Rabbi had merely attempted to entice us most blatantly. I laughed, but David didn't. I hadn't realized how stressed he would feel meeting someone connected to his birth parents. He rarely mentioned them, and he looked as if he didn't know what to do with himself.

"David," I said, putting my hand on his shoulder --he jerked his head in my direction-- "Take a deep breath and relax. It's okay." Then to the Rabbi, "some tea sounds lovely, thank you."

We followed the Rabbi to the Albergo del Ghetto, and in only a few minutes, we sat inside his room on the couch while he made tea.

"We have questions," I said.

"Oh, I know! I knew you would. Let me take a guess, and I'll do so by providing the answers outright. I'll start with the most obvious. Three o'clock in the morning, because I flew in from New York this afternoon when I learned you were coming to Venice, and unfortunately, I have both jet lag and insomnia if you can wrap your mind around that one." He smiled at us. "Also, I have heard the recording of you two that a friend brought to me. So, I know my minor six-hour jet lag is nothing compared to having your days shortened from twenty-nine and a half hours to twenty-four. Couple that with everything happening in your lives right now, and your sleeping pattern must be all over the place. Am I right?"

"It's true, we're sleeping when we can," I said, "and the portal lag is terrible."

"Portal lag." He laughed, shaking his head. "Okay, carrying on here."

"On Shabbat?" I asked.

"Ah, yes, today is Shabbat, but that's between G-d and me, however, and not you, so don't worry about that."

"You knew my parents?" David finally spoke, getting to the heart of his curiosity.

The Rabbi's face dropped the smile. "Hmm, past tense. That saddens me. I figured they were dead, but it's never good to have confirmation of the passing of friends. Yes, I knew your parents. When did they die?"

"Not long after they arrived on Jiyū," David said. "They arrived too old, horribly out of condition, and too ill to make the transition. That happened sometimes. We would have told them of the dangers. I can't imagine why they took the chance."

"Your parents loved you. They wanted you to have a better life than you would have here," the Rabbi said. "If I remember correctly, sixteen years have passed for me, but far more for you. I'm sorry." He gave us our tea and sat in the chair opposite us. "I must assume they took care of you, did the people there treat you well?"

"Yes, they did. I have only a few vague memories of my birth parents. How did you know them?"

He went to his suitcase to retrieve several photos and handed them to David. "We grew up together in New York. That's me to the left there with your parents. I don't know if you ever saw what they looked like."

"Yes, I still have the things they brought with them to Jiyū. They had a photo album," David said. He looked at me. "This is them. They didn't have a photo of him older, but I saw this young man in several of the photos in the album." David found a closer photograph of the young man and held it up to compare the face with that of the Rabbi. "What do you think, Rick?"

Though the photo was black and white, the eyes, nose, and lips had the unmistakable appearance of the Rabbi as a young man.

"I had known them from our time in Hebrew school. They ended up falling in love later, and they got married. Your mother had a job opportunity, so they moved to London, where they had you. One day they invited me to their home there. They said they were going away to a place called Jiyū. I didn't believe them at the time. So, they said that one of them would return in a year with evidence to prove it to me, but they never returned. They just vanished with you. Someone notified the police of their disappearance, but they left a note at their home with an emphatic declaration of their safety. They wrote that they left of their own accord and that they would eventually return one day. With no evidence of foul play, the police dropped it."

"What information did you say we would want to know?" I asked.

"Ah, yes," he said. "As a Rabbi, I have lots of friends. I know and hear things. I have Jewish friends in the American government that thankfully have more loyalty to the likes of David and me as Jews than to the people they work for. They know that I knew your parents, and they asked me to come. I had a lot of ambivalence about it, but they gave me an audio file, and when I saw your face in a still from a video, I recognized your father in you. I listened to the audio of a conversation you two had with a woman named Maggie on the flight over, so I know about the time- What did you call it? The differential. When I saw you sixteen years ago, you wore diapers, and now you're what, forty? I can't deny it, though; you are your father's son. You look so like him. I had to meet you in person. They told me where to find you, and they gave me a message to give to you. They're following you. The Americans know where you're going."

I glanced at David. "Did they know who is following us?" I asked the Rabbi.

"Unfortunately, no, but they told me that the American government planned to work with the British, and eventually take control of the portal near London. Now that they know you believe one exists in Japan, they sent someone to follow you and stop you before you can exit this world. They want you to have no option but to return to London if you want to go home."

"Why don't they want to control both portals?" David asked.

"They didn't say."

"They may have seen the portal in Japan as a liability," I said. "It's too close to China and North Korea.

"Did they say how they would stop us?" David asked.

"No," said the Rabbi. "I suspect they didn't know anything else, but keep in mind the Americans have troops on military installations in Japan right now."

"That's true," I said to David. "It's probably a hornet's nest of activity. It's frightening, what they may have waiting for us."

We didn't know what to do. Assimilating the latest information would take our ever-growing suspicions and increase them several orders of magnitude. We left at about half-past four. We thanked the Rabbi for the help, and David hugged him before we left.