Reflections on Venice

Venice is different. Different in so many ways I cannot begin to enumerate them. Strange that such a city can even exist.

From the window of our hotel room, I watch a garbage scow docked in the canal. A worker pulls a two-wheeled garbage cart to the scow and tosses the overflow into the hold. Then a crane on the scow lifts the cart, positions it over the hold and releases the bottom of the cart to dump its contents. More workers bring more carts and the process is repeated over and over.

Throughout the city men pull two-wheeled carts loaded with food or goods. How else could anything be delivered? Want some furniture? A piano? Expect it to arrive on a two-wheeled cart.

We wander through the Jewish section. People eating outside next to a canal, many wearing yarmulkes. Small alleys with small shops. Jewish restaurants. Shops offering Jewish art. Jewish education. Jewish travel. We notice a small tent at the edge of a square: several rabbis, lay people, religious documents. A sacred ceremony, we pass quietly.

A small shop on a busy walking street, operated by one old man. “I have a question”, she said. “Well, ask your question and I will do my best to give you an answer.” “No”, she said, “I have a question about your prints.” “Oh, well, that is different.” So he closed the door at the entrance to his shop and turned the sign. After some discussion, he showed her an old book from which some of his prints had been copied. He stopped her hand from touching the book. “I show, you look.” This book has no price. No book, no business. In the back of his tiny shop, he has a tiny office: a chair in a corner facing a tiny desk piled high with books. He has been doing this for a long, long time.

Old tourists hauling their luggage. An old man struggles to haul huge pieces of luggage up the steps and over a bridge, his wife carrying a couple small bags. I hope he doesn't die. He goes into a shop, comes out, then hauls the luggage back over the bridge, retracing his steps. She follows. I hope he doesn't die.

Venice is a quiet city. Airplanes seem to stay away. There are no cars or trucks. Certainly there are vendors and tourists and the sounds of motorized boats and the sounds of water slapping against boats and buildings. But step away from the canals and even those sounds are gone. The voices take over. Voices from apartments above. Voices walking past. Footsteps. Echoes of footsteps. And silence.