Passegiatta Pt. 13

"Alright, Tom."

"And I'm going to need to do something about the boat. It 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 dicey."

"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 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, and into the hills beyond.

_________________________________

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 said.

"What are you talking about?"

"These dolphins. 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 . . ."

"What did you mean by that? What's . . . 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 in 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 to simply tell you that Ludvico has talked to us about events in 1943. And there's a lot that's happened in the past month you 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 from what he had 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 world was a bleeding compound fracture compared to the old . . . old bones at odd angles screaming discontinuity . . . discontinuity . . . discontinuity . . .

__________________________________

He came back to that other world while sitting in the blue bus as it rolled and lumbered through the hills toward 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 winterbourne treescapes rolled by in silent, gray procession. An old woman by the window sat next to him.

"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, then talked to the old pilot. He talked of Tom Goodwin's journey from America, of meeting the dolphins off the coast of Connecticut, of Tom's arrival in Portofino, and his first union with Margherita, and lastly, and most importantly, he talked slowly of Vico's conversation with the group over dinner, telling them of Goodwin's arrival from the war 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 dark ever since.

Paul Goodwin wasn't relieved; rather, he felt an odd, dissociated sadness, as if truth was going to quietly slip from the deepest reaches of memory into the nothingness that waited just beyond words. Then, after all the concern for his son that had been so overwhelming the past week and a half, 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."

"Paulo?"

"Yes."

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

The old woman by his side turned. 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," the old woman said. "And yet, neither is it unreal. What you seek resides beneath even the unconscious. You seek the instinctive. The mystery of instinct that guides 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 your hearts."

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 isn't time to waste, Traveler, so do not waste any in doubt and sorrow. You must go now, and hurry, for you carry a heavy burden." She held out her hand, and Goodwin took it.

"Who are you?"

"You must listen. 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 yet smiles on you."

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 up an alley beside the chapel until she was gone.

He returned to his seat and sat. 'This is impossible,' he said to himself.

"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."

End Part XIII of XIV