8. Venice: How I met my U.K. writer's group Chairman

The Stones of Venice

For the entire day I had been tramping up and down, in, on and under the bridges, steps and canals of Venice with the Architect I work for, taking photos, notes, and numbers that deal with surveys of historical buildings- in spite of the fact that everything is done on disks and computers nowadays- like modern surgery where the surgeon could well be in Cleveland and you are dissipating in some forsaken operating table in a remote country village in Northern Italy- nevertheless it does no harm to actually see the building itself and do an on the spot inspection. However, the height of the day for me was not that at all, but the fact that we had arranged to meet the chairman of my writers’ group in Britain and his partner. Yes, I write too.

It was rather strange the way we met. He was phoning me from his British mobile, that is, with the international code, in order to connect to my Italian mobile and saying that he was there on the steps of Santa Lucia train station looking down into the canals below, possibly getting a little sea-sick and not being Jesus Christ, wondering where he could rest his feet upon. It wasn’t difficult to spot the Chairman of my U.K. Writers’ Group and his partner, let’s call her Zeta, since the light of day had long been draped by the folds of darkness; there was hardly a soul about and they were the only two standing beneath a Venetian lamp-post looking at the buildings across, flickering their lights into the canal.

As I came tripping out from behind the pillars of the station still holding the mobile in my hands I saw the tall man coming forward with outstretched arms- “You must be…” we both said, and that’s how I met M. B. the real one, as there seems to be more than one about. I then introduced the Architect as Perry Mason in order to establish the Della Street and Perry Mason relationship between us. I think Zeta was taken aback a little but eventually she was satisfied in defining him as a family friend, nevertheless still wondering if we were real or not as I spoke English like a normal person in England would. Anyway, in order to be on the safe side she spoke slowly, deliberately, stressing each syllable until I put her out of her misery and said I was brought up in England. Immediately we started talking, properly, about Lichfield, Walsall, Bedford and all those familiar sounding names that I had not heard for decades.

Of prime importance, above all other priorities was food- they were starving. Looking at their trolleys, which carting round, I imagined would shatter the suggestive atmosphere one builds up on one’s first night dinner under Venetian auspices; I suggested we would go to the hotel first and deposit the encumbrances especially as it is not all that simple to tug around something on wheels up and down bridges, steps and stones- the stones of Venice. We got the tickets and still standing on the pavement Zeta looked a little beyond the pavement and noticed some people entering the bus shelter in front- only the bus shelter was swaying, and bouncing and moving- pointing to it and maybe with a touch of apprehension as if one is about to go into the operating theatre said, ‘Is that where we have to go?’ Once overcome the initial impact with the water, it was fun all the way- twisting one way and that to see Saints tombs buried on walls, lace-like marble decorated balconies and something familiar- the Casinò- a posh name for a betting house. We stopped at the Rialto Bridge and Zeta wanted to know why it was called that- of course having no idea of an answer I turned to the Architect who explained it was once the first and only bridge in Venice.

A Gondola Station

Now, one would think, having got off at the right stop, we had reached our destination, nothing could be further from the truth. Armed with strength and courage we sent the Architect in front to lead the way as there are so many alleys, bridges and by-ways that it’s impossible to know where one is. I smiled, ‘You can’t possibly get lost, it’s only a tiny island, at the most you can go round in circles,’ I said reassuringly. Looking at the names of the streets which seemed to be unreasonably long, I explained that the top part was in Italian and in Venetian below- the yellow signs were in English for tourists. “Who was Mazzini?” Zeta pipes up looking at one street sign. “A writer,” says I. “A patriot,” says the voice of authority. “You can’t blame her,” Zeta said to the Architect, “she did British history.” I felt relieved, in a man dominated world, I had an alley! “It’s like asking an American who George Washington was!” the Architect said ironically, “if it wasn’t for Mazzini, Italy would still be a group of piddling states and not a state at all,” he added. Incidentally, it may not have gone without notice that our dear Chairman of my U.K. Writers’ group had made little if any contribution to the conversation in spite of the fact that he is known to be one never to be at a loss for words. The reason is quite simple, with two women around- which mortal man would dare intervene?

As the trolley tugging proceeded not without a sigh or two of exasperation we came to a square which was quite level unlike the paths which all seemed quite lopsided, with a statue of a man on a marble pedestal, who looked to be dressed in Shakespearean clothing. Nobody would catch me out on that this time, I thought, when the inevitable question of his identity was made as that very morning, playing guessing games I guessed right he was the one and only Venetian dramatist, Goldoni, dressed in apparent Shakespearean clothing but who breathed the Venetian air in the last but one century. It was at this point I thought it timely they should be informed I did drama at college and Zeta thought it no less timely to inform me that she did all her education after fifteen, when she had left school.

After a few more scrambling of ups and downs over bridges and steps we got to a tiny little corner, with a tiny little door into the tiny entrance of their hotel. As they packed themselves into the hardly bigger than two feet square lift I consoled them that Wagner spent some of his happiest days in this same hotel and that the little tub beside the hotel was the theatre where he conducted his orchestra. After they sprouted out from the microscopic elevator minus jackets and trolleys I led the way to the tiny restaurant with tiny chairs and tables all close together. We were lucky they had a table for the four of us in the corner where at least we knocked against the partition of a wall instead of another guest’s backside. And here it was that the conversation really began and where on more than one occasion the Chairman of a well known writers’ group in the U.K. was intimated to silence.

It is a universal fact, as Jane Austen would say, that writers write but when two or more are gathered together, as the bible would say, they do nothing but natter- (talk- for those not accostumed to U.K. slang). The conversation went from food to taking vows to the priesthood. Indeed, since the Chairman’s e-mail circulars are, more often than not, of a religious flavour, I asked him if he was a priest, a preacher man… a monk… a friar… or whatever- which he assured me he was not. So, the obvious question next had to be, why did I become a nun? That was more complicated to explain over a meal of ravioli and carbonara which they were tucking into. And what did I believe in? “Money!” the Architect promptly answered- I could have kicked him in the shins. Fortunately I was saved by the waiter coming to take the order for deserts. Never make the same mistake as I did by ordering strawberries and ice-cream in January. Whilst their meringue pie was served mine was long in coming. As they were finishing their desert I was still beating the spoon against my palm. When I queried about the delay (and it was quite diplomatically as I am used to querying agents, so I’ve learnt that to a fine art), the waiter nonchalantly answered, “why, have you been a naughty girl?” I could have kicked him in the shins too. When I told the Chairman what the waiter had said, M.B. said it was so as to make it less dramatic, Zeta said he showed little regard, the Architect said they had to either pick or defrost the strawberries, whatever the case, it was my fault for ordering strawberries and ice-cream out of season… being January the coldest month of winter. By the time they came I had unfolded to my writers’ group Chairman all my perplexities in writing a true-to-life-fiction-history-novel- if such a category even exists, of Gogunda Palace in Rajasthan, the Royal Palace that the Architect had restored in 2002.

Since all of them had their mouths full I was quite at liberty to express emphatically that what I was risking of doing was something analogous to what the authors who sued he who wrote the De Vinci Code did. I would work my posterior to the bone in unearthing the facts and since facts are not copyrighted somebody can just come out of the blue and build a fiction out of it. At this point to figure it out better my Chairman said, “it’s like this Eva, you write Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1461 and discovered America….. Someone else comes along and says Columbus sails the ocean blue in 1461, discovers America and helps to stir the cannibals soup… and there’s nothing you can do about it because that’s fiction.” At this point, I wanted to kick him in the shins too… “Yes, Chairman but my problem is I did all the work, because it was I who found out Columbus discovered America in 1461,” in my mind I was of course paralleling it all the history of Gogunda Palace. Zeta immediately saw the unfairness of it all. “But,” the Chairman added, “just as you found out the facts, some one else can too.” Not likely, I thought to myself because I knew with the facts all ready laid out before them no-one in their right mind would go roaming round India talking to locals rummaging through heaps of earth and unearthing centuries of dust from tombstones… I would bet anything that someone else will simply state that Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1461, because I said it and since there is no past or future in Indian ‘history’, they wouldn’t even start to check the facts even if they could. By the way Columbus did not discover America in 1461, he was only ten years old then.

At this point, my memory became quite obfuscated not because of the bottle of fine quality Cabernet of which us girls being teetotallers had the goodness to abstain from but because my brain was scheming ways of protecting myself from a potential author raking in the money on my discoveries- Just as I said Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1461 I can also say Raja so and so sat on the throne of Gogunda in 1949 and watch such potential authors using my facts to make silly turkeys of themselves- by 1949 there was no throne to be sat on in any part of Rajasthan or India for that matter.

However, due to all the excitement, weariness had set in and with some regret the time came for me to catch the last train to my Venetian Hills and say goodbye- but with the hope to meet again- upon this earth, it is well intended, of course. And in writing this, I hope, not only to do credit to my U.K.’s Writer’s Group Chairman, but my status of member become less virtual than it was and lastly, to give a taste of what I mean when I describe my work as true-to-life-fiction which my Chairman can verify as correct since he was there when it was first enacted in my brain. And to think, I never took a photo in spite that I was carrying my camera in my bag- so were we enthralled!