Passeggiata (complete 2016)

"Uh-huh. What vector?"

"Man, you're sure a talkative son of a bitch today."

"Yep."

"Hand me a towel, would you?"

"You feeling light headed?"

"Yes, Jon, and I'm feeling cold. I need a towel, and I need someone to turn up the heat in this mausoleum. Geesh, how old is this building, anyway?"

"Have you felt your carotids?"

"No. Have you?"

"Yeah, and we did a transthoracic echocardiogram last night. Had to put you out for a while."

"Really? And?"

"You're right, as always. Endocarditis, probably nosocomial, at least using the Duke Criteria, and there's some growth on the right side valve."

"Streptococcus viridans?"

"Uh-huh."

"That's great. Just great. Add Penicillin yet?"

"In your last bag."

"No wonder I feel like crap. What about the...?"

"It's not responding well, either."

"Did you talk to Margherita?"

"Yes. But I think she already knows."

"So that's it. Wow...help me back to the bed, will you?"

Tom looked at Margherita as he shuffled back into the room; he could see she'd had a tough night. Her eyes were puffy and red and the smile she faced him with seemed forced. He sat down on the edge of the bed and took a deep breath.

"I'm glad you're here. Both of you," he managed to say as he lay back on the bed. The back of his head seemed to be on-fire, and as he leaned back and felt the cool sheets touch his neck his back arched; he looked up at the ceiling for a while, then out the window. "Is it snowing?"

"Yes," Margherita said. "It has been since the middle of the night."

"Jon, we've got some work to do. Do you want me to go in and do the valve?"

"Let's give the meds a chance to work. That's my first choice. And start another round of Vancomycin. Let's give it a week and see."

"Alright. Margherita? What about you?"

"What?"

"Do you want to sit here while I do this?"

She looked away, suddenly unsure of herself, afraid she was about to be sent away again. "I don't want to leave, Tom. Not ever."

"Jon, would you ask again, see if we can't get a rollaway in here. She can't sleep in a chair forever."

"Alright, Tom."

"And I'm going to need to do something about the boat. She can't stay in that marina all winter. Margherita, talk to Malcolm and Dad about moving her back to the village. Maybe -- what was her name -- Trudi? -- maybe she can help sail her back. See if Vico can arrange to have her hauled if the weather looks colder."

"Sure, Tom, but you want me to help sail her?"

"You'd better get used to it. You might end up living there for a while, you know? And did I hear correctly? -- did someone say Dad was going to sleep out there last night?"

"Yes."

"Geesh! What about Trudi? Wasn't she still staying there? With the pup?"

"I don't know, Tom, but I think so."

"Now wouldn't that make a fine kettle of fish!"

"What?" Margherita didn't understand, couldn't see the implications he was laying out.

"Tom," Santoni said, "I'm thinking maybe we ought to limit the number of people coming in here. You know, something just short of full quarantine. Give these meds a chance to do their thing."

"Your call, Jon, but I'll need to talk to Dad sometime today."

"Gloves and masks ought to do for now," he replied. "And Margherita, you better mask up when you two rub noses for the next couple of weeks."

"Sounds fun." She turned and looked out the window, south, to the hills beyond the city -- and beyond, to the sea.

+++++

Paul Goodwin climbed back into the cockpit and jumped when he saw Trudi standing by the companionway. She had a little Leica in her hands, and had apparently been taking photographs while he met with the dolphins. Now he scowled when he saw her standing there; it was as if the woman was trying to feign nonchalance, and it pissed him off.

"Are you a part of this, too?" she asked.

"What are you talking about?"

"These dolphins. This thing between Tom and Margherita?"

These words slammed into Goodwin and knocked him off his feet. He reached back as he staggered onto the cockpit seat beside him: "What did you say?"

"I'm sorry, but I thought you...?"

"What did you mean by that? What...is there something going on with Tom and this dolphin?"

"Oh! Really, I'm sorry, but perhaps I spoke out of turn. Perhaps you should speak to your..."

"I can fill you in, Mr. Goodwin," Malcolm Doncaster said as he came up into his boat's cockpit, "while we ride into town."

"No, Goddamn it! Tell me now! What's going on?"

"Perhaps," Doncaster said easily, too easily, "it would simplify things if you knew that Ludvico has talked to us about events in 1943. And there's a lot that's happened in the past month you don't know yet, and may find disturbing."

Paul Goodwin held onto the lifelines -- it was as if the boat was caught out at sea in a raging storm, not tied off in a marina -- and his every instinct screamed that nothing was as it appeared any longer. Now, everywhere he looked, things felt out of place, disjointed, almost as if fractured away from that thing he once called reality. The boat felt oddly tilted -- as if the stupid thing had reoriented to itself another plane -- and even these people appeared ragged and unsettled, like they were of another world -- and trying unsuccessfully to fit in this new one.

This new reality was a bleeding compound fracture: old bones set at odd angles screaming discontinuity alert!...discontinuity alert!...discontinuity alert! Now, if he could get this screaming wreck under control, just one more time...

+++++

He came back to that other world while sitting in the red bus as it wallowed and lumbered through those rough hills back to Genoa; Malcolm Doncaster sat across the aisle from him, reading a well worn paperback, rubbing his eyes from time to time and looking out frosted windows as winter's trees rolled by in a silent, gray procession. An old woman by the window sat next to him, regarding him easily.

"You say you spoke to Vico?" were his first words in over an hour.

"Yes. About a month ago, after the first encounter."

"What happened. I mean, with Tom."

And Doncaster took a deep breath, decided the old pilot might indeed listen this time. He talked of Tom Goodwin's journey from America, of meeting the dolphins off the coast somewhere, in the Gulfstream, and then of Tom's arrival in Portofino, his first union with Margherita, and lastly, he talked of Vico's conversation with the group over dinner, telling them of Goodwin's arrival in 1943 -- on flaming wings and a dolphin's back. Doncaster told Goodwin everything he knew, everything Vico had told them, and yet Doncaster could see that the pilot didn't know a thing. He'd left in '43 and been flying in the blind ever since.

Paul Goodwin wasn't relieved by all he heard; rather, he felt an odd, dissociated sadness. It looked as if truth was going to slip quietly from deepest reaches of memory, and into a nothingness that waited beyond words. And then, only then and after all his recent concern for Tom, suddenly -- after hearing about Vico's involvement in the telling of his tale -- he thought of Maria Theresa.

"How is she?" he said a million years later.

"What's that? Who?"

"Maria. How is she?"

"We can drop in on her, if you like. She's back in the apartment. Her boys are taking care of her."

"Boys?"

"Yes. Two boys; Paulo and Toni."

"Toni?"

"Yes."

Goodwin's hands started shaking, his eyes filled and he turned away.

The old woman by his side turned and looked into his eyes. She had been dozing a little; her head had once settled on Goodwin's shoulder when the bus bit a bump in the road, and she had woken for a moment and excused herself, then promptly fallen asleep again. Now she was awake and looking a Goodwin in his grief, and she handed him some tissue for his eyes.

"Thanks . . . grazie."

She nodded, then put her hand on his. "What you are seeking is not real, you know?" the old woman said. "And yet, neither is it unreal. What you seek resides somewhere else. You seek the mystery of instinct, and that alone must guide you."

"What?"

"You must turn away from certainty now, as my sweet Odysseus was once compelled to, and you must turn and face the end of one journey, even as you begin the next. And remember this one simple thing about mystery, as you begin this journey. Your first destination is doubt. Always doubt. Doubt is written in our hearts, but never in the stars."

Goodwin sat in appalled silence as the bus began slowing inside a little mountaintop village. The woman began to stand as the bus rolled to a stop beside a tiny chapel. Goodwin stood as well and cleared the way for her, helped her with a heavy parcel down the narrow aisle. He went down the steps and helped her down with one hand, and he looked at her breath in the cold snowy air; he saw there was something pale and tremulous in her breath, something insubstantial, and yet he felt small when he looked at her. She was looking into his eyes when she began speaking again.

"There is no time to waste, Traveler, so do not waste any more of yours in doubt and regret. You must go now, and hurry, for the burden grows heavier by the moment." She held out her hand, and Goodwin took it.

"Who are you?"

"You must listen well now. There is a debt. You must not turn away. And you must listen with your heart." She squeezed his hand, and there were tears in her eyes now as well. "Now go, Traveler, while time smiles on you yet."

Goodwin backed up into the bus while he continued looking into the woman's eyes. They were fierce -- yet gentle, like the woman had known man and accepted his sorrow and joy in equal grace. As the bus lurched into gear and moved away, Goodwin stooped and watched her turn and walk into the little chapel -- and then, she was gone.

He returned to his seat and held on as the little bus rounded a sharp bend in the road. 'This is impossible,' he said to himself. 'This can't be real...?'

"What was that all about?" Doncaster said.

"I haven't the slightest fucking idea."

"My God man, are you crying? What on earth happened just now?"

"I'm not sure, but I think I just spoke with God."

"Bah! That's what all women would have us think! Here, have a scone."

+++++

(excerpt from Malcolm Doncaster's journal)
Aboard Diogenes, Portofino Harbor
Christmas Eve

I have often felt that without some meaningful context, the symbols that define the most important passages of our lives -- indeed, the most vital passages -- are rendered incomprehensible without the addition of meaningful context. So it has been with all I have studied the past four decades of my life, and as such, this contextual rendering of life is what I have come to know. A certain worldview has been fixed in my mind, and I find it inconceivable to consider any reduction to another, and not just (perhaps) because I find it uncomfortable to do so. No, rather I think it has always been fixed in my mind because the facts of our existence have always seemed to point to this conclusion. Symbols take on significance, therefore, only in terms of time and place. The power a symbol manifests may accrue and pass down through the ages, true enough, but without its original rendering in our midst, symbols too often devolve into gibberish. The crucifix, without an understanding of Rome and the teachings of a Jewish carpenter, would become little more than a passing curiosity; the swastika, without an understanding of Hitler's impact on Germany and Europe, would remain a footnote in studies of comparative Eurasian religions.

I point this out to whoever might take the time to muddle through these ramblings, simply to make one point before venturing onward: what has happened in and around Portofino the past seven weeks is, to me at least, without intellectual precedent. Much of what occurred did so in terms I would hazard to guess were on a purely symbolic levels, and as such I can offer no reasonable context to frame these events. So, given what I have said above, it would seem fair to conclude that -- on a symbolic level -- much if not all of what has transpired can only be rendered in unambiguous shades of the incomprehensible.

Sorry, but there you have it.

As I relayed in my entry re: 14 December, we (this being Paul Goodwin and myself) rented a beastly Fiat and brought Paul's son Tom back to Portofino and to his yacht 'Springer'. After several weeks hospitalization, and with scant improvement or progress noted by medical staff in Genoa, Tom decided to return to his vessel. No one has said as much, but all of us have considered, at least privately, that he has done so in order to pass in comfortable surroundings. Tom is indeed now a very ill man, and his father has been much preoccupied with this unfolding tragedy.

Our poor Elsie remains unashamedly attached to Tom, yet unnaturally so, I might add. She will scarcely leave his side now, and remains below with him constantly. Like Tom, she barely eats, and comes ashore but once or twice a day. Needless to say, Mary Ann has been completely knocked for a loop by this development.

Both Goodwins, however, manage to get out for Passeggiata most afternoons, and yet, as far as I know, there has not yet been a meeting between Paul and Maria Theresa Morretti. There seems to be some force holding them apart. They are like two magnets. The closer they come to one another the more some invisible force causes them to repel one another. Only Vico seems to hold the faintest lines of communication open between them, and so of course what passes between them remains unknown to me.

Anyway, about these strolls. We managed to get a wheelchair for Tom yesterday, as he's struggled the past two evenings to finish a walk around even the piazzeta, and as he seems unwilling to concede this simple ritual all of are ready to help him as best we can. He's a fighter; at least I know that much is true, and there seems to be little else I can be sure of these days. All of our lives seem to have become bound-up in this developing mystery, but I can fathom no purpose.

Yet.

And poor Margherita! Though she has yet to show, she is desperately pregnant and violently ill most mornings. I do not know her history, but still waters run deep. There is a story to be told, I am sure, so no doubt Mary Ann will attach herself to the poor girl. Poor Tom seems beside himself with grief for this child it seems he'll never know.

Ah, wretched love! We hurry through life, buffeted constantly between misfortune and exhilaration, the known and the unknowable, yet even so it seems we are always caught off guard by love. In this confusion, our hearts are torn apart, left wide open, and yet it is within this tormented wreckage we find love. Love commands us, love guides us, and in the end, I suspect, it is love that consumes us, yet her fires light the way, don't they?

So. Tonight our dear Ludvico has invited us all the ristorante. For, one supposes, Christmas Eve and all that humbug, yet Tom has insisted on going. My God! I think back to just a few weeks ago and I see a man so much larger than life. Today he is withered and weak, his skin mottled yellow from damage to his liver done by the deadly barrage of antibiotics he has endured. And I have watched Paul and Margherita wither by his side as the inevitable comes stealing through our wilting twilight. Death is to be lurking in the shadows even now, and this beautiful harbor of ours seems aware of the coming darkness.

I long for the lingering warmth of October, before all this madness came for us on winter-borne wings.

+++++

It was dark when Paul Goodwin began pushing his son across the piazzeta; the cold stones were black and wet from a light rain, yet a dazzle of holiday lights sprinkled the luminous stone with reflections of jeweled light. And yet the air was faintly still; the harbor an inky reflection of the brooding sky. A star could just be seen peeking between retreating clouds beyond the hills to the east, and Paul knew the night would soon grow cold.

"Not exactly how I pictured Christmas on the Riviera," a father said to his son.

"Would you stop here please, Dad? I want to look at the water for a moment." Paul turned the chair to face the water, and to the gulf beyond the cape. Tom closed his eyes and took a deep breath, imagined he was free once again, sailing, slipping through sun-drenched waves on his way to wherever his heart felt like taking him. He wanted to find a cloud and chase it's shadow across the sea, turn and listen to hopeful gulls trailing in his wake, feel the sun on his neck and the cares of this life peeling away like dolphins surfing a wave. But above all else, he wanted to hold the life growing in Margherita's womb, he wanted to hold this life in his hands and know, really know, that he would leave something of himself to this world.

He opened his moist eyes and looked out over the water at fading lights and faraway dreams.

"So much to do," he said. "So much time wasted."

"Yes," his father said.

Tom looked at the cape, at the rocks, and he wondered where they were. Were they out there even now -- waiting? He looked at the water, into the blackness, and beyond -- into the hall of mirrors that had been his life -- and he found himself alone on a sunless sea, drifting, waiting for the inevitable. A solitary star shone down on him, fleeting photons tickled his mind's eye, and he found himself thinking of another shining star, on another "Christmas Eve". He shivered once as the thought rolled past like coming thunder -- even as he felt the chair turn and rumble across the piazzeta, and he pulled himself back from the edge as warm light approached.

He opened his eyes and looked up. Margherita was waiting by the door, and he could see Paulo and Toni walking along slowly, a stooped woman by their side.

"Oh God, no," he heard his father say. "No, not tonight."

"Dad?"

"Yeah, Tom?"

"I love you, Dad." He heard his father take in a deep breath, heard him clearing his throat, then:

"And I've always loved you, Son. Always."

"Lean on me tonight, Dad. Whatever it is, we'll get through it together."

"Yeah? Think so? I'm not sure yet what this night has in store for us."

"It doesn't matter, Dad. Come on, they're waiting for us."

They came in from the cold and the darkness, came into the glowing warmth of this other world. Within this honeyed labyrinth of friends and family, deep inside this most special night of birth. This night was to be a coming together, and -- perhaps -- a casting aside.

But it was not lost on Tom Goodwin that they had all come to celebrate a death, as well.

+++++

'Is it time?'

'The moon is not ready. We must wait.'

'I can wait no longer.'

'You will wait.'

'Yes. I will wait. But I am ready.'

'They are not ready. He is not ready. Patience.'

'I will wait.'

'Yes. Watch the rocks grow. Listen to the stars. You have waited this long.'

+++++

The ristorante was not quite empty; a few lonely tourists sat by windows looking out over the harbor, but they were well away from the table Vico had prepared for his special friends. He had even put up a few holiday decorations, nothing ostentatious yet in keeping with the rather upscale atmosphere of his place, and Handel played quietly up among the exposed beams overhead. Smoke from a wood fire lightly perfumed the air, while garlands of pine and chestnut left trace enough to stir even the most hardened soul's ease.

Paul sat between Tom and Maria Theresa at the round table; he sat in resolute silence, looked down at his hands constantly. Oddly enough, he was thinking about an ancient woman on a bus to Genoa three weeks ago, reliving the moment again and again.