Read The Planet on the Table for Free Online

“boatslip’ was empty. She was probably out checking pots.
    Or perhaps she hadn’t wanted to talk with him in the light of day.
    From the boathouse he could walk around to his craft, through water only knee-deep. He sat in the stern, reliving the previous afternoon, and grinned again at being alive.
    He took off the decking and bailed out the water on the keel with his bailing can, keeping an eye out for the old woman. Then he remembered the boat hook and went back upstairs for it. When he returned there was still no sight of her. He shrugged. He’d come back and say good-bye another time. He rowed around the campanile and off the Lido, pulled up the sail, and headed northwest, where he presumed Venice was.
    The Lagoon was as flat as a pond this morning, the sky cloudless, like the blue dome of a great basilica. It was amazing, but Carlo was not surprised. The weather was like that these days. Last night’s storm, however, had been something else. That was the mother of all squalls, those were the biggest waves in the Lagoon ever, without a doubt. He began rehearsing his tale in his mind, for wife and friends.
    Venice appeared over the horizon right off his bow, just where he thought it would be: first the great campanile, then San Marco and the other spires. The campanile… Thank God his ancestors had wanted to get up there so close to God—or so far off the water—the urge had saved his life. In the rain-washed air, the sea approach to the city was more beautiful than ever, and it didn’t even bother him as it usually did that no matter how close you got to it, it still seemed to be over the horizon. That was just the way it was, now. The Serenissima. He was happy to see it.
    He was hungry, and still very tired. When he pulled into the Grand Canal and took down the sail, he found he could barely row. The rain was pouring off the land into the Lagoon, and the Grand Canal was running like a mountain river, it was tough going. At the fire station where the canal bent back, some of his friends working on a new roof-house waved at him, looking surprised to see him going upstream so early in the day. “You’re going the wrong way!” one shouted.
    Carlo waved an oar weakly before plopping it back in. “Don’t I know it!” he replied.
    Over the Rialto, back into the little courtyard of San Giacometta. Onto the sturdy dock he and his neighbors had built, staggering a bit—careful there, Carlo.
    “Carlo!” his wife shrieked from above. “Carlo, Carlo, Carlo!” She flew down the ladder from the roof.
    He stood on the dock. He was home.
    “Carlo, Carlo, Carlo!” his wife cried as she ran onto the dock.
    “Jesus,” be pleaded. “shut up.” And pulled her into a rough hug.
    “Where have you been, I was so worried about you because of the storm, you said you’d be back yesterday, oh, Carlo. I’m so glad to see you…“ She tried to help him up the ladder. The baby was crying. Carlo sat down in the kitchen chair and looked around the little makeshift room with satisfaction. In between chewing down bites of a loaf of bread he told Luisa of his adventure: the two Japanese and their vandalism, the wild ride across the Lagoon, the madwoman on the campanile. When he had finished the story and the loaf of bread, he began to fall asleep.
    “But Carlo, you have to go back and pick up those Japanese.”
    “To hell with them,” he said slurrily. Creepy little bastards… They’re tearing the Madonna apart, didn’t I tell you? They’ll take everything in Venice, every last painting and statue and carving and mosaic and all… I can’t stand it.”
    “Oh. Carlo. It’s all right. They take those things all over the world and put them up and say this is from Venice, the greatest city in the world.”
    “They should be here.”
    “Here, here, come in and lie down for a few hours. I’ll go see if Giuseppe will go to Torcello with you to bring back those bricks.” She arranged him on their bed. “Let them have