Permanence by Vincent Zandri Page A

like,” comments doctor. “It rarely affects the brain.”
    We drink heavily, until doctor chokes.
    He places the wine glass back down on the metal table. He sits back in his chair and coughs, his face becoming bright red behind his beard.
    I stand up.
    “My God,” I say. “Are you all right?”
    But doctor waves me away as though nothing is wrong. He doubles over and brings his fisted hand up to his mouth. I am helpless while, across the width of this canal, the man in the white smock tosses more food scraps into the dark water.
    The waiter rushes to our table. He is a young, thin man with black hair pasted back on his head.
    “Okay?” he says, in forced English.” Signore , okay?” He gestures with open arms as if he wants to help doctor. But doctor’s face goes from red to white to blue, his horn-rimmed glasses sliding down his nose.
    Doctor is really choking.
    I move forward, lean myself against the table. My chair falls back and slams against the slate. The patrons of the trattoria stare at doctor and me, ignoring their food and drink.
    I reach around to loosen doctor’s tie, but as I reach him, he waves me away.
    I am helpless.
    “No,” says doctor, in a raw voice that comes from deep inside his throat. “I’m all right,” he whispers, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down inside his throat.
    “Okay?” repeats the waiter.
    “Yes, yes,” insists doctor. “I’m okay.”
    Doctor waves us all away and attempts a smile. But I know the smile is a fake. Listen: the smile is contrived and strained. Doctor’s eyes are filled with tears. He removes his glasses and sets them down, atop the table. I step back and retrieve my chair, setting it upright. I sit back down, apprehensively. I am ready to move if doctor begins to choke again.
    I look all around me.
    The patrons of the trattoria manage to pull their eyes away from doctor and me. They go back to their dinners and conversations. But I know this: doctor and I remain strangely out of place.
    Doctor brings his shaking, fisted hand to his mouth. Tears run the length of his bearded cheeks. I see the man appear from across the canal; he is standing beneath a light bulb that dangles by a wire above the doorway of the building. I watch the food scraps disappear when he dumps them into the canal.
    Doctor seems to be recovering. His color is returning.
    Of all things, doctor pulls a cigarette from his breast pocket and lights it while wiping away tears from his face and eyes.
    “I’m okay,” he insists. His voice is too painful to listen to without imagining the same pain in my own throat.
    “It’s only wine,” I say, lifting my glass. “It’s not even solid food.”
    “This is getting to be a habit with you and me,” says doctor, exhaling a stream of white smoke. His voice sounds so painful and strained.
    “Drink this,” I say, pouring him a glassful of the mineral water set on our table beside the pitcher of wine.
    Doctor lets the water sit on the table without drinking it. I am thinking about how unusual—how utterly frightening—it is for a doctor to be choking on liquid, not once but twice.
    I think about the weight doctor seems to be losing and the constant cigarette smoking. I see the reflection of the overhead lights in his glasses and his distant eyes. Clearly, something is happening with doctor—something he feels he cannot tell me.
    “I have to be careful not to drink too fast,” he says. “I have to make sure everything goes down the right pipe.” He is sucking on his cigarette, avoiding the stares of the people eating their evening meal in this trattoria in romantic Venice.
    “Life seems very delicate lately,” I add, reaching across the table for one of doctor’s cigarettes. I know I am pregnant and that smoking might affect the child. But I swear, I cannot allow this pregnancy to last.
    “Life…delicate…lately?” comments doctor with a hoarse laugh. “You must be joking.”
    In a place we’ve never been
    I hold to