Bridge of Sighs

realization, the world, which had momentarily tilted, righted itself. “You’re home early,” he said, his voice little more than a croak.
    “Since yesterday,” Lichtner said. “I’ve been staying in a goddamn hotel in case you’re interested.”
    “Where were you before?”
    “Las Vegas.”
    Noonan smiled, the roll of coins making sense now. He’d been playing the quarter slots. How perfectly Lichtner.
    “I
knew
there was somebody. I
knew
it.” He was still standing over Noonan, his fists clenched.
    “If you punch me again, I’m going to throw you in the canal.”
    Lichtner took a step back. “Hey, I’m the one with the grievance here,” he said indignantly.
    “Nevertheless,” Noonan said, still massaging his breastbone, “fair warning.”
    To Lichtner, Noonan’s resolve not to be punched a second time seemed to limit the proceedings unfairly. Still, there could be little doubt that he’d carry out his threat, so he shrugged and said, “You all right?”
    “I guess,” Noonan said, though he wasn’t sure and remained seated for the moment. His breathing was returning to normal, but it felt like the other man’s fist was still inside his chest cavity, heaving and flexing. “That hurt, if it makes you feel better.”
    “Good,” Lichtner said, offering him a hand. “I’m glad.”
    Noonan allowed himself to be pulled to his feet. “What now?”
    Lichtner shrugged again, fully embarrassed now. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “This didn’t go the way I imagined. I guess I didn’t think much past punching you in the face.”
    “You punched me in the chest.”
    “You were on a step. My timing was off. I guess I was impatient.”
    Noonan went over to the water’s edge, raised some phlegm and spat into the canal.
    “I suppose we could go someplace and talk about it,” Lichtner said, his hands now at his sides. “The bars over in Campo Santa Margherita might still be open.”
    “That’s all students over there,” Noonan reminded him. “Kids.”
    “What the hell,” Lichtner said. “We’re behaving like children, we might as well drink with them.” He actually seemed disappointed that Noonan wasn’t more enthusiastic. “I probably shouldn’t go home yet. Not until I’ve calmed down.”
    To Noonan, he looked calm and then some, like a man more afraid of getting punched by his wife than of punching her. He seemed to comprehend utterly that he was good for about one punch a decade, and he’d thrown it not two minutes ago. “I thought you were staying in a hotel.”
    “Just the two nights. If I didn’t find out who it was tonight, I was just going to ask her.”
    The bar they found in Campo Santa Margherita was, as Noonan predicted, full of university students, several of whom—recognizable by their outlandish costumes—were celebrating the completion of their final exams. They took a table as far from them as possible, which wasn’t far enough.
“Dottore…dottore,”
they chanted while a boy dressed as a penis chugged from a pitcher. Noonan ordered a beer, Lichtner a Campari. By the time the drinks came, some of the latter’s indignation had returned. “I
knew
it had to be you,” he said. “I just knew it.”
    “How?” Noonan wondered, curious about his logic. Evangeline, he happened to know, had had several lovers before himself. How had they been ruled out?
    “You’re the only man I know who’d punch a woman. That’s repellent. I can’t forgive that,” Lichtner added, in case Noonan asked him to.
    “That was an accident, actually. Ask her, if you don’t believe me.”
    Clearly he did, though his resentment was such that he couldn’t admit to it. “How about fucking her? I suppose that was an accident, too.”
    “Well, there was an accidental quality to the whole thing, now that you mention it. It’s probably over, if that’s of any interest.”
    “It isn’t,” Lichtner said petulantly. “It isn’t of interest and it isn’t over, not for me. I’m the one who has to imagine the two of you going at it. How can I stay here in Venice knowing what I know?”
    Noonan was tempted to tell him this was just being silly, that if it wasn’t him in Venice it would be another man in Paris, or London, or Davenport, Iowa. Lichtner’s problem, or one of them, was that his wife was unhappy, a condition that, if not universal, was nearly so. She wanted more. More than Todd Lichtner, for one. More than Noonan, for another. Who the hell didn’t? “Maybe