Chris Abani - The Secret History of Las Vegas

What about our fucking phone call, Fire yelled.

I miss my mother terribly, Sunil thought as the gondola sailed under the fake bridge. In truth, Dorothy had died many years — when her mind folded in on itself and opened along the crease — before her body gave up the struggle. It had been a lonely and difficult time for Sunil and he would most certainly not have made it without White Alice.

A drizzle of crumbs from a bag of chips that a fat Midwestern family were stuffing into their faces on the concrete arch above brought him back to the gondola and the chlorine smell of water and the blue sky that was so blue it couldn’t be real. He watched the family with a mixture of envy and disgust. To be part of a group so oblivious seemed attractive. The gondola turned a bend and his thoughts returned to his mother.

I miss my mother, he said aloud to the gondolier. Is that a childish thing to admit?

The gondolier shrugged.

Sunil was twenty-three when Dorothy died. He was far away in Europe, in Venice, that city she had loved but had never visited. Dorothy was locked up in the Soweto mental hospital for blacks. It was housed in the barracks of an abandoned mine workers’ camp. The barracks consisted of one long bungalow built to house five hundred men and sat in the middle of half an acre of dirt and bush scrub, with broken windows and walls that had not seen paint since it was built. The air of abandonment around it was real.

In Dorothy’s room, pictures of Venice cut out of magazines were pasted across the walls. Other than those colorful walls, the room was bare except for a bed and an altar. On the altar were a single candle, a small statue of the Jesus of the Sacred Heart, and a statue of Mary with a half-melted face, probably from being too close to the candle flame. The altar also held, in a glass jar, a coiled piece of string stained dirt-brown from dried blood. It took all of Sunil’s willpower not to look at the string — it represented everything that had driven his mother here.

On one visit to see Dorothy, Sunil brought a large detailed map of Venice stolen from the library. They spread it out on the floor and she touched each of the sites she loved: the Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, which held Titan’s Assumption of the Virgin , a painting she loved because the model for the Virgin was a famous courtesan; the Piazza San Marco, with the dual columns crested by Saint Mark’s winged lion and Saint Theodore standing on a crocodile, tiles laid out like a flat labyrinth; the Doge’s Palace; the path of the Grand Canal; the Rialto Bridge; and even the brown patch that was the beach at the Lido. Omar Sharif used to holiday there, Dorothy said. Even then Sunil knew she would die in those barracks.

As soon as he left South Africa to study in Europe, Sunil went to Venice and crisscrossed the canals, touching walls, gazing at paintings in churches and galleries and museums, even approaching the statutes that terrified him but held such grace and awe for her. That was when the telegram had arrived announcing her death. He took a ferry to Isola di San Michele and wandered around the graves, watching a bulldozer push the headstones of funeral-plot debtors into a pile for trash against a far wall. Picking a spot by a tree, far away from the giant statue of the angel in the middle of the cemetery, he laid a single rose under it and said the Lord’s Prayer. On the ride back, he tore the telegram into many pieces and watched them flutter into the oily water. Then, and for a long time, he felt nothing more than an overwhelming sense of relief. Years went by before the grief arrived, the way it often does, unannounced, as quiet as the morning when you break down into your cup of coffee, crying.

After Dorothy died, Sunil couldn’t bring himself to return to Venice, the real one, but when he came to Las Vegas and discovered the Strip, he began to come to the Venetian. And there he would ride a gondola for hours lost in this private rosary, this ritual of faith and grief.

The ride has ended, sir, the gondolier said, interrupting Sunil’s thoughts. Do you want to go again?

Sunil had been around twelve times already in two hours.

No, thank you, he said, getting out.

He tipped the gondolier and walked into the hotel lobby. After checking in, he went up to the room to wait for Asia. She’d finally called back and agreed to meet him there. While Sunil waited, nursing a scotch from the minibar, he became aware how sad it was for a forty-four-year-old to have had only two serious relationships, both plagued by gulfs of impossibility. Asia’s arrival brought him back to the present, and with it an animal hunger.

Later, Sunil traced the tattoo on her shoulder. Trae Dah it said in cursive made from the winding stem of a rose. It took him back to the first night they’d spent together. He’d found her online, on Craigslist, and she came over in less than thirty minutes, like her ad promised. That night she’d worn a tank top and he’d noticed the tattoo on her shoulder.

She’d stood at the door for a long time before saying, Aren’t you going to ask me in? Of course, he said, stepping back to let her through. He peered out of the door, down the corridor. It’s okay, she said, I’m alone. Of course, he said, and shut the door. She sat on the couch and looked around. Nice place you have, she said. How old are you, he asked, thinking she didn’t look a day over sixteen. Twenty-two, she said. Then: But I can be younger if you are into that. No, he said, not sure exactly what he was into. What does your tattoo mean, he asked. An ex-boyfriend, she said, and her voice was sad. You can have it removed, he said. I don’t want to, she said. Silence. So, can I get you a drink, he asked. No, thank you, she said, but you are welcome to have one if it helps you relax. She got up and walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window and looked out at the city. It looks so beautiful from up here, she said, a wistful tone in her voice. Is your name really Asia, he asked. She turned and smiled. Yes, she said, taking off her tank top. She had a pretty bra on. Do you want to do it here or in the bedroom, she asked. Here, he said, not sure why. She came over to the couch and, sitting down, she took a Bible out of her bag and placed it on the coffee table. The donation. Please put it inside the Bible, she said. There is a bookmark, she added. He opened it at the bookmark, to the book of John, and his eye was drawn to an underlined passage. He slipped the crisp dollar bills between the onionskin and shut the book. He never asked her about this ritual. Not then and not since.

She rubbed her hand over the cushion next to her and patted it. Lie down, she said. He lay. Take your clothes off, she said. As he struggled with his pants, she said, Have you never done this before? What, he asked. This. No, he said, no. What made you call? I was lonely, he said, almost defensively. I know, she said, me too, and there was a sincerity in her voice. Lie back, she said, and he did. You can touch my breasts, she said. Thank you, he said, touching them tentatively. She smiled and bent to wrap him in her mouth, but then winced. What is it, he asked. Do I smell? No, no, she said hurriedly. I just had an abortion, she said. Oh, he said, suddenly uncomfortable, but not wanting to talk about her abortion. He no longer wanted to ask her anything, didn’t want her to speak. He only wanted sex. And she obliged. Later she held him and the move surprised him. Can I stay tonight, she asked. Please. Just tonight. Sure, he said, holding her firmly but gently. When he woke up she was gone. That had been three years ago and he had seen her regularly at least once a week since then.

Why do you keep this thing, he asked, still tracing the tattoo. Do you still love him?