Once upon a time in Venice, an American writer falls in love with a seemingly unattainable Chinese movie star. To his shock, his love is reciprocated.
A starkly romantic, searingly erotic and poignant 12,000 word "cell phone novella" that has been acclaimed by the most renowned writers of cell phone fiction in America.
A stage. In
darkness.
Then the lights come up.
Dazzling.
You’re sitting on a simple red lacquered
wooden chair. Your face is uplifted.
You’re wearing a white blouse,
dark trousers,
sandals.
The lights make your silk blouse shimmer and dazzle
like sunlit water.
Your diamond earrings, too, dazzle,
shooting light.
And your smile --
that too is dazzling, that too exults,
that too,
here and now,
always,
into infinity,
Oh the infinite sky --
floating clouds
in the dragon sky.
China.
You are from China.
From a famous ancient town
in China
known for the beautiful
stone bridges
arcing over a shining river,
dark little canals.
The Venice of China,
some call it --
a city of canals,
tangled alleys,
parapets, towers,
rooftops, bells,
wood burning stoves,
ancient houses, temples.
A city of lute-playing poets
of the Ming Dynasty,
of snow falling in mist, clouds shimmering
in the river, rainbows in the sky,
market boats loaded with vegetables
pushing up green wakes,
passenger boats covered by blue awnings
plying the crowded waterways.
Tea houses,
charcoal fires in the streets,
dumplings, rice, cold air,
bright sky --
nobody and nothing.
Who cared and who knew,
who lived here once?
it was all gone, they all suffered for nothing.
They lived and died
here and in a thousand other places,
but it was here that you were born, that you grew up:
a dark eyed little girl, brilliant laugh,
singing in the narrow streets,
I see you dashing down a stone street
swinging your bookbag,
chasing other children through the narrow alleys,
riding in a sleek river boat
covered with a blue awning --
You are in movies.
Everywhere you go, recognized,
applauded,
dazzling --
your naked earlobes,
your smooth skin,
your glossy black hair,
your cheek-dimples,
your delicate hands and feet,
your agile hips,
your breasts standing out
like proud and wonderful boasts.
In movies, I have seen
your breasts, naked or moving inside cloth,
your legs, lithe and smooth,
your bottom, your elegant bottom,
your smile, your quicksilver smile,
your eyes, dark yet brilliant --
your smooth hands,
your thin panties,
your leather jacket,
your fake fur collar,
your fishnet stockings,
your red veil,
your empty night,
your dead lamplight,
your stone bridges,
your steaming breath,
your hot tears,
your gentle frown,
your endless agony,
your furious dust,
your empty flowers,
your crazed sex,
your blazing black hair,
your deranged spite,
your infinite sadness,
your cold melancholy,
your ancient suffering,
your infinite China.
Is there no one,
is there nothing,
is the sky empty,
is the night clear
are we rowing
on a dark river
is it silent
are we awake
are you alone
is this a dream, is it reality
am I myself, am I you --
or am I someone else:
someone I can't possibly imagine?
Here, in Venice, Italy --
it's dawn.
I drink mouthfuls
of foggy, freezing air
that stinks of seaweed,
woodsmoke,
sea salt.
Sweating, I cross the stone bridges.
I stop
to lean over a railing
and look down
into dark water
where I am reflected,
in the play of ripples
left in the wake
of a clattering motorboat.
You.
Alone
on a dark stage,
your face uplifted
to blazing lights.
Your mouth smiles,
your eyes are glamorous;
your body, sublime:
even fully clothed
you stun us, your audience
like pure nakedness.
It's your new movie.
Long-awaited,
set in ancient china --
it's full of sword duels,
great battles,
floating clouds,
dream dragons,
cold air,
river boats,
endless rain,
soft snow,
red deserts,
tents,
camels,
songs,
houses,
rivers,
sorcery.
You introduce it --
the new film.
Your husband,
its illustrious director,
sits in the audience,
wearing his sunglasses as always,
clapping softly after you speak.
In the raging applause,
you smile. Bow your glossy head.
Then you go to a seat,
you sit down
calmly, next to your husband.
He clasps the nape of your neck.
I'm in the back
with other film critics,
writers,
journalists.
Sweating.
Stunned by you,
overcome by awe, by desire.
By despair.
I suffer.
Wanting you, I suffer.
There's no help for it.
I know I'm doomed.
I know I'll love you forever,
now and all my life.
It’s after the end
of the Venice Film Festival.
The Golden Lion has been given out
and the last banquet devoured,
its crumbs swept up and tossed away --
most of the white tuxedo-ed waiters gone
back to the mainland.
The stars,
directors,
paparazzi,
press
are all gone too,
bouncing in varnished motorboats
in the predawn chill,
across the lagoon to Marco Polo Airport
leaving cold stones,
vacant alleys,
moored gondolas,
and the thick chilled air --
furious with shadows.
You’re gone in the brilliance
back to Shanghai,
or London,
or maybe Hong Kong.
That final morning
with death in my heart
I saw you walking
regally
across the Piazza,
your husband right behind you
in a dark suit
and his trademark sunglasses,
nodding to paparazzi .
You were glorious:
smiling,
a little shy
in the white flicker of flashbulbs --
pulling on your dark gloves,
swiping a strand of hair from your eyes,
pale, fresh, cool as Venice's dawn itself.
I watched you step
into the rocking motorboat.
Your husband jumped in,
lightly,
after you.
The driver gunned his engine,
boiling the cold green water,
and you were off.
Soaring above Venice,
out into the wide wide world
where how can I possibly ever find you?
Whomp whomp whomp across the lagoon
into a golden sunrise.
Vast.
Clear.
Dazzling.
I don't know what now.
Venice has emptied:
it’s a vast tomb wreathed in mist and autumn rain.
A tomb of hope,
of joy,
of the most
infuriating
delicate passion.
Nothing matters to me anymore
but how I met you that day
laughing,
striding across the glassy stones
of the Riva degli Schiavoni.
Click. Click. Click.
I remember your silk jacket
embroidered with Chinese dragons,
your Hermes scarf,
the blood-color in your soft cheeks,
the dark hair blowing about your face --
as cold rain spattered you
and the wind tried to rip us both from our feet.
Also, how you kept laughing,
a little wildly,
tilting your head back to gaze at the dark sky,
then shutting your eyes to let rainwater gleam on the lids.
I sat alone all day
at a metal table outside
the Caffe Florian
on the vast,
silent,empty Piazza San Marco,
drinking grappa
and tossing dry bread crumbs
to the hungry pigeons.
I miss you.
All the four hundred of Venice's stone bridges,
the step-echoing black walled little alleys,
are murmuring your Chinese name
muted by
fog,
time,
winter,
Italy --
sheer endlessness.
At the next day's cocktail party, you appear
on your husband's arm
in a glittering gold lame top,
your breasts unbound
and moving freely under the cloth,
your hair electric black,
your warm flesh ravishing --
turning, laughing, shaking hands,
all alert and passionate
as in a dream.
I love you. Do I say it? I don’t.
I shake your hand.
Your hand is in mine, cool. I am shaking it.
Hello.
Your dark eyes, spirit eyes,
solemn and full of life's sad brilliance,
on mine --
steady and clear.
My heart stops.
Hello.
Hello.
I give you my name. You know it.
You know it!
You say you know that name,
and repeat it softly.
I watch your beautiful mouth.
In movies, I have seen you
bite, chew, smile, frown,
weep, shout, whisper --
I have seen you kiss with that wounded mouth,
that living mouth, that mouth of total splendor.
And now it is saying
my name.
I shiver
at the knees
to hear your musical voice
saying my name.
A thrill goes up
my arms
into my hair.
Oh glory.
I say Hello. Hello.
I say that I love your acting, love your movies,
love your vivid spirit, love the blazing life in you.
You shake my hand,
you smile, you laugh,
your eyes creasing a little at the corners,
your body moving subtly,
never still,
just alert and wild.
How can I help but imagine kissing you?
Your voice is vibrant,
elusive,
clear as a bell.
I am stunned to silence.
I watch you,
I let you take over my mind,
sear yourself into my heart.
You say
that you read my article about you
in your last film.
It was translated into Chinese
and published
in China.
You liked it very much.
You felt that I was one of the few writers
to understand the story's meaning,
to sympathize with the emotions,
and its painful depths --
to act that part was so trying,
so difficult for you because
it was really so personal.
I say, Yes,
that's how it felt.
I saw it just like that
and I was touched.
I admired you
for your restraint,
for not forcing a performance,
but just letting the emotions develop
slowly, like layers of paint on a canvas,
out of scattered scenes
each of which, taken alone,
might seem undistinguished,
even a little dull.
In the end,
the effect was shattering.
Yes, you say,
shattering.
You say:
I was shattered by acting it.
I couldn't do anything else
for six months.
So I went out to our villa
to get some strength back.
All I did all that time was walk
and read books,
and that's when someone sent me
the magazine with your essay in it.
Reading what you wrote about me,
I was moved.
I mean, it made me happy
to think there was someone like you
who got it.
So. thank you.
I am doomed by you,
I am at your mercy, and if you want me to
I will suffer for the rest of my life.
For you.
But I don’t say any of this.
My face is burning.
But I utter not a word,
not a word
of how I feel.
Not with your husband
laughing, drinking cognac
so near us
in his dark glasses
and square dark suit.
He's twenty years older than you,
with a rough voice
and the casual manners
of an alcoholic --
beloved by all
as a genius,
a great auteur.
I, too, admire or love some of his films.
Especially those
starring you.
Do you like Venice? I ask.
You say:
No, I don’t like it --
I love it.
There is such intense,
such unbelievable
magic here
that it’s painful.
(Yes, I want to reply.
Especially during winter,
when fog fills the streets
and hovers over the canals
that stink of sewage
and frozen seaweed.
Venice stirs the passion in you,
but it is a passion cleansed of hope.
A passion of deranged melancholy --
a glimpse of the hopeless life
we’re all plunged into,
the wound life opens in us at birth
when we awake
to our first earth shattering cry.)
I nod, agreeing with my whole body.
But then I ask:
Why
do you think that is?
You laugh.
If you want, you reply,
(those dark eyes now looking at me clearly
from only an arm’s length away -- )
I’ll show you.
I can't speak.
I must look startled.
My hand even shakes a little,
the white wine sloshing
inside my glass.
You've just said you can't tell me
what the magic of Venice is --
the substance of this magic eludes words.
But if I want you to,
you can show it to me.
Do I want you to? Would I like that?
I am silent.
My heart is throbbing
like a terrible old wound.
It’s mortal.
I will suffer from it
to the end of my days.
To the last breath
of my solitary nights.
You’re laughing now.
Perhaps at the bewilderment
stamped on my face,
the ancient suffering.
Could it be that I remind you
of China?
Or maybe of fear itself?
All the anguish of your China
seems to have fallen on me in one drumbeat.
And not just the anguish,
but the secret joy.
The nights of fresh hot nudity,
under a patched quilt --
all the senses strained
to such intensity,
in the fragrance of lovemaking
that the whole world seems to collapse
into dead rubble.
Who am I now?
I am windswept dust,
a rain blurred window in a tea house
stinking of coal smoke;
a bundle of ancient paper.
In the end I stammer:
Oh, yes.
in a dream of Luzhang I watch,
quivering with awareness,
as a river boat with a blue awning
glides under an elegant stone bridge,
spreading V shaped ripples
spattered with cold rain.
The sky is cold and vast.
Clouds sink into the remote mountains.
Mist rises from the river
and spreads out into the smoky alleys and streets,
blurring the lighted windows.
At night, lanterns glow
along the river
and you hear the creak of oars.
Just like in the Ming and Qing Dynasties --
you hear a fisherman singing
in a parched voice.
Everything is worn out
and in tatters -- so much rain
so many rivers
what torrents of life,
what dust, what anguish.
After your sad and radiant exit
from the crushingly hot rooms of Ca Fonsari,
walking out ahead of your husband
to the water landing
where, at the base of algae covered steps,
a varnished motorboat was waiting
to bounce and crash you over to the Lido --
Good night goodnight, thank you,
you're all such darlings --
that glossy head turning smoothly as an otter's
as you smiled and blew rapid kisses
to the urgent paparazzi
in a white rain of camera flashes
I drink two or three more glasses of cold wine
and walk through the deserted streets to my hotel,
my footsteps ringing between high stone walls --
really more echoes than footsteps.
I strip down and get into bed,
switching off the light
by a cord that hangs over the headboard.
My mind is brilliant,
and I can’t sleep.
I seem to float up and down.
Then, falling asleep all at once,
I am in China,
on a boat
with a blue awning,
surging down a river,
between the sooty stone houses,
with deep eaves
and blue tiled roofs --
breathing in the mingled haunting odors
of woodsmoke, charcoal fire,
peanuts, soup, garlic.
Luzhang.
It reeks here
of rain,
of emptiness,
of cold.
It is eternal,
this China.
It has never left.
It was always suffered.
I see a bundle of newspapers,
an old suitcase floating in clear water,
a peony in a bamboo vase,
a muddy straw mat,
a red veil,
a sword,
an alcove,
a Taoist temple,
a green mythical lion.
This dream is a gateway
to all that is cold,
serene,
majestically empty.
Mountains sinking into mist,
cranes calling for each other
in the ragged and desolate marshes.
An old and tired woman starts a fire
with twigs and a torn political poster.
Soon, it's crackling.
A little girl sitting on her heels
puts down the book she's reading for school
shuts her eyes and rocks,
her parched lips moving silently.
A poem by Chairman Mao
in classical Chinese.
It's you.
You.
Sitting barefoot on your heels
on a little cushion
with a slightly soiled red cover
and a musty smell --
turning the pages softly
as your lips move
and you swallow saliva.
Your mother pours oil
into the tin wok, and it rattles.
Nothing matters,
but everything survives
in the mind anyway.
Here, there, everywhere, like clouds in the vast cold sky.
In a darkness beyond darkness,
Luzhang grows in layers out of nothing --
like a straw doll bobbing in a bright river,
a lonely flute in the wet mountains,
a drumbeat lost in the searing winter fog.
A boat glides under an arched stone bridge
shining upside down in greenish water.
then breaking up its own image into wild shimmers.
And now the sky, that ironlike Luzhang sky
is suddenly alive with downrushing snow.
Catch a snowflake on your pointed tongue --
it's gone before one can even taste it.
Isn't that something close to the ultimate truth in life?
If so, what do we need Zen for?
Lighting joss sticks in a temple
before a stone buddha,
a brass buddha --
I wonder: who are you? how far can you go in this world?
A black eyed, fast witted child --
wild and and morose,
your fingers smudged with ink,
your white teeth ravishing in a burst of laughter.
Everybody's getting old
but only the very young know what grief is.
How will I find you
in the sordid alleys of Luzhang?
Or will you be one of those girls in baggy trousers
loading vegetables into a wide market boat?
Is that grim-mouthed old man your father --
sitting crosslegged,
in faded blue trousers
and an undershirt,
smoking a porcelain pipe?
Just looking at the details of your life
gives me such heartache.
It's the cinema of the smallest things,
of desires that never saw the light,
gradually forgotten, faded away like mist.
One day a little
yellow leaf fell onto your hair.
It was an autumn afternoon,
mysteriously rich in time
and pure.
The leaf was smooth and cold
when you touched it to your lips,
and it rustled like old silk.
You taped it into your diary
and wrote above it:
Future.
I want to hold you so tight you shudder
and keep anything else from ever happening.
Anything in the world, except us.
Do you know what we are?
We're Luzhang itself,
we're the wordless aching heart of China
as it was before there were televisions
and people just listened to the rain drumming on their rooftiles
and crashing from the eaves --
your mother is sewing a shirt,
your father smoking in the corner,
while your elder brother moans with boredom.
Did you realize, growing up in Luzhang,
what a beauty you'd become?
Did you ever imagine going to Venice?
Did you daydream of loving a man
who would fall starkly,
even terribly,
in love with everything about you?
I imagine those Luzhang dawns
deep in your incredible childhood.
All sounds turning pure and distinct --
even the hoarse voices from the courtyard
ring like small bronze bells.
in darkness you wake to bitter tobacco smoke
wafting through the chilled rooms,
and your mother singing
as she steams dumplings.
It's time to wash up,
shivering at the bite of cold water
from a rusted, screeching tap --
Here, in Venice
as the dawn rises
sordid and bleak,
shivering like the mouth
of an iron bell
I walk through the narrow alleys
gulping cold air,
shocked by life,
incapable of forgetting you.
