Picture: Campo Santa Maria Formosa, Venice by Maurice Prendergast
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He played and barked and played. Nothing else could have pleased the hare more. “Woof, woof, woof,” and he strummed a G minor, “Woo-oo-oof,” he added dramatically on a C major chord. She squealed and hissed and smiled. A gondoliere, gliding placidly along the canal, waiting for customers, was staring at them. He stared so hard that his gondola boat went crashing into a wooden door right above the edge of the water. His body was then hurtled inside the aquamarine-plastered palazzo, with a fair dose of splinters piercing his limbs. A young woman in her summer dress, who was reluctantly mopping the floor, screamed. Deprived of breath, he gestured a sort of apology with his hands. She cried even more strongly and dashed toward him, brandishing her wet, dirty mop. His eyes, closed fast and sheltered behind splintered hands, awaited the inevitable. A second later, he dared to peer through his fingers. The woman was paralyzed, gawking at the scene outside the remnants of her door: “Woof, woo-oo-oof-oof!” She then turned her gaze back to the hapless gondolier as if to ask what was going on there by the railing; he just shook his head. The dog kept strumming for the hare, unaware, or maybe unconcerned, about the incident on the other side of the canal.
Venice was gleaming on that October day. Very few tourists around; the locals sauntered and went on errands – and of course a dog sang a serenade to a hare by the side of the Grand Canal. The young woman, after her steam had blown off, helped the gondolier up. She led him to the kitchen and removed most of the bloody splinters, one by one. After the ordeal was over, she pointed at the moca – the beloved Italian coffee maker – and the gondolier nodded, his face still throbbing in a painful grimace. The smell of home-brewed coffee matched with the woofing serenata coming through the caved-in door. While sipping their coffee, they were suddenly so attentive to the music, they could somehow, somewhat – maybe? – understand the depth of that song. At the apex of their concentration, the music stopped. The sound of a motorboat droned by, and a seagull laughed out loud, above the spacious silence of an exceptionally quiet Venice. The woman and the gondolier turned their gaze to the kitchen doorstep and, in the blink of an eye, they appeared: “W-hoof.”
So the dog and the hare, the politest of all guests, sat with them. The woman made coffee once more and produced a pack of fresh pasticcini – Aunt Irma was already overweight, she could do without dessert today. They all enjoyed their pastry: the dog had an egg custard cannoncino, the hare a fresh fruit tart, the woman a dark chocolate-coated bignè, whereas the gondolier delved his fingers into a big, green-glazed pistachio bombolone.
Paws-washed, the dog picked up his acoustic guitar and barked invitingly to the woman. She pointed her fingers at her own round face, with a big question mark above her head. The dog barked; the hare squealed and smiled. Choiceless, the Venetian girl uttered a comfortable note in her best contralto voice, yet the note broke down behind a cough. She blushed, so the gondolier gave her a friendly nudge. She tried again, whereas the dog began plucking a soft arpeggio in A major. Her opera-style voice fluttered like coloured smoke, as red as her summer dress. The hare, the dog, and the gondolier could almost see it oozing in the air. Utmost delight. The song ended on a jazzy D major7.
And silence ruled once more.
Naturally.
Soft and spacious, like the blue skies above.
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Herons